Category: Federal Politics

The Hair is playing the revenge card. The Prime Minister is appealing to that basic human desire to get even. He is recognizing that primal instinct to lock up evil doers and throw away the key. He knows that bringing back hanging might just please some of his base vote so there is no need to go that far.

Both the Hair and his nemesis Justin Trudeau know that this coming election is about a narrow spectrum of maybe five per cent of the Canadian population who can flip flop between the Conservatives and the Liberals. These people have voted for the Hair in the past but no longer trust him. The Hair has to get at them on the gut level. He has to either get them back or get them neutralized so that they will not vote.

To neutralize these voters, the Hair has to destroy Justin Trudeau’s credibility. The current radio commercials are working on that credibility. One of them is based on the sound clip of Trudeau saying “The deficit will look after itself.” The sound clip is, of course, completely out of context but this is a soft style of commercial that over time can convince people that it is reality. There will be more of these credibility attacks as the election gets closer.

What the Hair keeps proving, campaign after campaign, is that he has no respect for the voters. Nothing is directed north of the nipples. He does not like women but he has to tolerate his wife. She and the kids are part of the image. That is why she cropped up in another radio commercial a while ago.

And you have to pay attention to the commercials. There is a test later. The Hair has to harvest the reactions and then determine how best to manipulate the voters through the post-writ stage. Ladies and gentlemen you are all part of a living laboratory of loathing.

It is a serious problem in politics. No matter how decent your candidate might be, you have to inure him or her to the dirty tricks that are possible. Political wannabes need to recognize and handle what the opponent will try to use against them. And you have to remember that anything you want to try will be met with the same. It comes down to a nuclear standoff.

What the Hair fails to understand in his hang-em high, law and order campaign style he is manipulating the less intelligent voter. This voter is not a regular at the polls. To expect this voter to remember why he was going to vote for you in March in October is wishful thinking. It is also a waste of money.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

It is sad to report that we only read the Barrie Sun Media newspaper when it is free. Mind you reading it only takes a few minutes. It strikes us that the two pages or so of actual news of this part of Simcoe County are not worth the price of a subscription. What is even worse is the editorial page that seems to forget that there are many Liberals in this town and runs material mainly by Libertarians, Greens and Conservatives—though mostly Conservatives.

The most amusing opinion pieces are by our local Libertarian. Having first met him some five years ago, he appeared pleasant and very interested in local politics. He is a baker by trade and he probably knows more about flour than the Libertarian movement. Judging by what we have found occasionally in his column that he calls “Liberty Rules” he seems to like Conservative MP Patrick Brown, the local Liberal Mayor Jeff Lehman (who has forgotten to pay his party membership lately) and the mainly Conservative members of city council.

Frankly, this friendly columnist does not seem to have the DNA of a Libertarian. Most American Libertarians make their home in the Tea Party Movement. The best known Libertarians south of the border today are Republican Ron Paul, his son Kentucky Governor Rand Paul and former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

The best known closet Libertarian in Canada is Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Most of his writing during the time he headed the National Citizens Coalition was straight forward Libertarian propaganda. It called for small government and unfettered freedom for business and the individual. Most of the problems now facing Canadians are based on Harper’s attempts to force smaller government and unfettered business on Canadians.

The local Libertarian seems to prefer to use his free space in the local Sun media paper as a sort of potpourri of semi-political social notes. This is in direct contrast to the local Greenie who lectures us on maintaining a green lifestyle. An occasional column by someone signing as MP Patrick Brown reads more like the weekly handout from the Prime Minister’s office.

Luckily Barrie has two local papers. The competition is from a local Toronto Star grocery ad wrap that gets to our door twice a week. There is no apparent excuse we can see for that publication’s editorial efforts either.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

What is this silly business of Conservatives thinking that Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau cannot handle a debate with Conservative Leader Stephen Harper? Surprise, surprise, the truth is that Trudeau would not have to come out ahead in points to win the election. Debating skills are not the issue.

The laughable part of this entire discussion is that the Conservatives are trying to tie the Liberals down to a proposed five regional debates across the country. Since at least highlights of the debates would be heard across the country, the point of trying to deal with regional issues becomes somewhat mute.

And winning is just a perception. Anyone who has watched either of the two leaders (or three for that matter) already knows how they will be perceived. Stephen Harper does not want to answer questions he does not like. And if you force him, he will not be friendly in his answer. The perception will be of a stuffy, pigheaded guy who has been in the Prime Minister’s bully pulpit for too long. He can only harm himself.

Trudeau, on the other hand, can be guileless, naïve and immature and the voters will fall in love with him. And he does not even have to know what he is talking about. The voters are just as vague as he is on the issues.

The more Harper or Mulcair attack Trudeau, the more voters they will be driving into Liberal arms. The only way they could do any harm to Trudeau is to ignore him. And just how are they going to do that? Exposing his lack of knowledge of the issues might work depending on how much inside information you have on his briefings.

And New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair is going to come across as a fussy little man, too involved in the minutia of politics to care about people. He is the direct opposite of the late Jack Layton. The more that is pointed out in the coming election, the fewer seats the New Democrats are going to win.

We will always remember the English-language debate in 2008 with the crashing of the world economy as the 600 pound gorilla at that debating table. We watched that debate in horror as Elizabeth May was the only person in the room who seemed to know what was going on in the real world. It was Harper’s ability to ignore her that won the election for him. He cannot do that to Justin Trudeau.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Congratulations to Conservative MP Michael Chong. He actually got his reform bill passed by the House of Commons. Too bad it passed because he watered it down to almost nothing. Voters are unlikely to ever see the effects of his changes. The original bill was designed to take some of the power away from the party leaders and give it to their party caucuses. It would have been better if the bill had redistributed political power to where it really belongs.

First of all, we have to recognize that the party leader has to have the ability to maintain a reasonable level of control over the party’s parliamentary wing without them having to enter the PMO or Leader’s office on their knees. The party leader therefore has to have enough leverage to get the elected members attention. This can be through some of the appointments that the current leaders have been abusing. It can be a simple as the seating plan for the party in the House.

What Chong’s bill has ended up doing is returning the power to the caucus members to elect caucus chairs, expel or readmit caucus members and choose interim leaders. In addition to these traditional powers, the bill allows caucus to trigger leadership reviews and remove a leader.

Since leadership reviews and a removal are traditionally a political party’s responsibility in Canada, these items are in serious conflict with what the party views as its power. A political party would lose its final role beyond being election-time grunts if it agreed to those changes.

A caucus member who can no longer support the leader always has the option of resigning or “crossing the floor.”

Back in the 1960s in Canada it was both the Conservatives of the time and the Liberal Party that addressed the need for the party to review party leadership. The reasoning was that as long as the party was responsible for choosing the leader, it should be able to periodically review that leadership. Both parties established party control of leadership at that time. (Who can forget the claim by Conservative Leader Joe Clark in 1983 that “66.9 per cent was not enough”? It cost him the subsequent leadership convention.)

Sure Chong’s bill passed with the support of both Liberal and New Democrat MPs. Only the Green’s Elizabeth May saw it as a sop to foolish backbenchers. She will wait for something worth voting for.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Obviously the Prime Minister is not a fatalist. He has been low key in response to the Supreme Court giving his government a year to do something about the current legal position of medical specialists assisting terminally ill patients to die. The time has come to take a stand on the issue and it is just not in his playbook. It looks like the Supreme Court judges will be asked for a stay of execution.

But bear in mind, the only thing the Hair has said on the issue is that Canadians have strong opinions on both sides of the question. Unlike his Justice Minister Peter MacKay who said that the government was unlikely to use the notwithstanding clause to continue to prohibit medically assisted death, he has said nothing substantive.

While the Hair has dithered, an emboldened Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau pushed the issue forward. He wanted the House to vote on an order paper request to have a vote on getting a committee established to examine the issue. This is the normal procedure other than the government party usually puts such motions forward. It was one of the Hair’s back bench flunkies who responded with the notion of asking for a six month delay—until after the coming election.

And while the New Democrats are likely to back the Liberals on the issue, they have also been strangely silent. This is surprising as the Quebec government has used its responsibility for health care to get ahead of the Supreme Court and pass an assisted suicide bill that will come into effect at the end of 2015 in Quebec. The question is whether a Conservative federal government would go as far in relaxing the restrictions as the Quebec bill has done.

In any event, New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair will not have his English-French schizophrenia to contend with on this issue. This is an issue where some of his MPs would normally want to be in the vanguard.

But it is a Liberal issue. The right to die at a time of your choosing is an individual right. It is not something you really want the state to decide. In Canada the state is out of the business of capital punishment. While the occasional cantankerous bugger wants to restore the death penalty, it is hard to imagine Canadians returning to retribution.

And what the Hair knows—and keeps him awake nights—is that Canada is a basically liberal country. This country is not only live and let live but it also recognizes the right of a terminally ill person to end their suffering.

But the question has come down to convenience for the Hair. If he had turned loose the social conservative portion of his party in the past four years he would not run in the coming election because his party’s chances would already be toast. Will Justin Trudeau be able to back him into a corner on this issue? Methinks the Hair wants to pass.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

You can see the Hair savouring the thought. Sitting quietly in the Prime Minister’s Office, he is exhorting, “Terrorists unite, you can only save my job for me.” He is hardly the first imperialist who tried to use the bogeyman enemy to cling to office.

And yet the discomfort grows daily with the Conservative anti-terrorism Bill C-51. Does this flawed legislation have the staying power to influence an October election? Why is the Hair so adamant that no amendments will be made? It is hardly the first bad legislation to be brought before Canada’s Parliament. Citizens will hardly stay awake for a clause by clause discussion and analysis of what the bill contains and, more important, what the bill does not contain.

Is the Hair counting on the world’s terrorist community to keep a regular series of atrocities in the news into the spring and summer? He should realize that these are not the most reliable people. Even if the Boko Haram bunch were plotting another attack on a Nigerian girls’ school today, it would just take a couple of the guys shooting some wild boar yesterday and they will put the raid off to have a pig roast. And the New Caliphate guys in the Levant with their black masks are quickly running out of people to murder on the Internet.

The Hair has to realize that even home-grown crazies are doubly unreliable. You can hardly count on the R.C.M. Police breaking up suspected cells of potential terrorists with anything like the fine timing you need to influence an election.

And who is going to pay for the additional police and CSIS boys and girls to search out and arrest these crazed conservationists who want to block pipelines and save the planet from tar sands exploitation. Paying for the police and government spies is just something else you forgot to include in your fine anti-terrorism bill. Is it like everything else you advertise incessantly on television that you have never done? How about the money you took from the police so that they have a huge backlog of child pornography cases to follow up?

Unless the Hair thinks he can ram this bill through the House and just as quickly through what is left of his Senate, he needs time to bring this bill to fruition. Mind you, just the arguing that is going on now might accomplish his objectives. Maybe he is checking the polls every other day and as soon as it is warm enough in April or May and the polls are positive for him, we can have a federal election then.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

There are lots of questions about the coming national election but very few answers. That means speculation is a waste of time. That is not to say that speculation cannot be fun. The only problem is that the list of what we do know is too short for a good blog and the list of what we do not know is far too long.

One of the questions that puzzle people is the wonderment about what is going on in the mind of the Prime Minister. If that man had a friend, he or she would be just as lost as the rest of us about what Harper is thinking. Thinking is not something that he does out loud.

It is best to imagine Harper’s mind as kind of a vacant wasteland with little signs scattered here and there. The signs are just simple reminders. They would say things like “Putin bad – Ukraine good” or “See Obama – talk XL pipeline.”

Thomas Mulcair on the other hand has a head totally stuffed with Post-It notes. Whenever he sneezes, he loses a couple days’ worth of briefings. His main problem is schizophrenia in that the ones in French say one thing and the ones in English say something completely different. He still cannot comprehend the accident of the Orange Wave nor can he realistically expect to hold many of those Quebec seats.

Justin Trudeau is more of a stuffed shirt than a stuffed head. All he has going for him at the moment is the exhaustion the voters are feeling with Harper, the lack of a strong image for Mulcair and the Trudeau name. Sure, he is a fresh face but voters are starting to wonder about his ‘best before’ date. He has to do something more than run around taking selfies with Canadians.

The most fun political apparatchiks are having is with the bit players. Why did Foreign Minister John Baird take a walk in the snow and then visit with the Queen in London? Is Jason Kenney ready for the big step up to the Prime Minister’s Office? What will come out at the Senator Mike Duffy trial? Will he really tell all? Are we going to the polls in May instead of October? Will Stephen Harper want to stay on as party leader after he loses the election? Will MP Eve Adams set her sights higher in the bedroom stakes? Will Justice Minister Peter MacKay find something more interesting to do in Nova Scotia?

It helps to remember the old adage your mother used to quote: something about the devil finding things for idle hands to do.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

The Conservative’s Bill C-51 anti-terrorism act has us worried. Pass it as it is and this blogger will always be wondering when the R.C.M. Police will be breaking down the door. Can we live in limbo?

It is just not fair. The Mounties have already determined that those of us who oppose the exploitation of tar sands are a danger to the country. We are obviously terrorists for opposing the oil economy. Why should we be allowed to object to the destruction of our environment and the melting of the polar icecaps? In fact, we are doubly dangerous as we also oppose the one per cent and income splitting for the rich. This is a definitely dangerous liberal.

While we are at it, we should admit that we have been behind the scenes supporting the concept of a guaranteed national income for many years. That goes hand in glove with a national drug plan, a national dental plan and a national chiropractic plan.

And imagine the treason involved in disparaging the Conservatives’ Bill C-51. We tell people that it is a bill that begs for abuse. We call it ill-conceived and ill-defined. It is written for reactionaries and better serves lynch mobs than courts.

Bill C-51 is a stupid bill. It deals in fear, not in reason. It tells you what you should not think, say or write. It is oppressive. It is not the answer to the fear of inciting mayhem. It is written by people who do not want to admit the failures of our society. Ours is a society that wants to walk out on the edge. We do not want to encourage too much discipline or conformity.

And rather than appear soft on terrorism, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are supporting the Conservative Bill C-51 while promising to fix it later. Mind you, to fix it later they would need to be in power to do so. Does that seem to make young Trudeau more of an opportunist or an optimist?

At least the New Democrats have weighed the positives and negatives and decided not to be hypocrites. They will oppose the bill.

What a lucky day for Stephen Harper when the more mayhem committed around the world, the easier it is to get re-elected.

Bill C-51 is bad legislation. To propose it is foolish. To support it is a disgrace. No fair-minded Member of Parliament can honestly support it.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

The articles and commentaries of Chantal Hébert in the Toronto Star are always a delight to read. In the same way it would be a shame to miss one of her At Issue dialogues on CBC television with Peter Mansbridge, Andrew Coyne and Bruce Anderson. She delivers her unique perspective on Canadian politics in a blunt and unequivocal style. In her commentaries, it is a wonderful writing trick she uses to spread bread crumbs of possibilities to see which little birds go after them.

The lady also has a whimsical sense of humour. In a recent commentary in the Toronto Star, she actually said that Liberal Party insiders believe that Justin Trudeau’s advisers are seasoned, battle-hardened political strategists. And if you believe that you also believe that former Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird is doing an Eve Adams number and running for the Liberal Party in the coming election.

The problem she has probably observed is that the palace guard around the Liberal Party Dauphin are a well-meaning collection of misfits without a collective knowledge of politics in this country. The oldest of the insiders, grey-beard(!) Dan Gagnier, is national campaign co-chair and his experience is as a civil servant. These are insiders’ insiders. Justin Trudeau might find they make him feel good but that feeling will likely be all he gets from them.

Collectively, Trudeau’s insiders do not have a tenth of the experience of former Senator David Smith who was cast aside as national campaign co-chair. David was trained by the late Keith Davey and while he is not good at picking leaders, he does know Canada’s political levers.

But the main contention of the recent commentary was the question Chantal Hébert raised about Dimitri Soudas’ value in regards to Liberal concerns about Conservative attack ads. Because frankly real Liberal Party insiders have more intimate knowledge of political dirty tricks than the Conservative Party apparatchiks have ever conceived. And if you have not figured out yet how to crash the other parties’ voter databases just before election day, you are not even thinking dirty tricks.

And the only way that Soudas is going to tell all to the Liberals is if they use a CIA debriefing team that is experienced in water-boarding techniques. The problem is that he has no idea of what they do or do not know about the Conservative plans. Nor is he likely to know what they really need to know.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

The more we learn about Justin Trudeau’s new politics, the more we yearn for that old time politics. Before the 1990s, candidates were nominated by their local riding association and there was nothing the party leader could do about who the party chose. We ended up getting some mavericks back then. We got the odd Member of Parliament chosen by a single ethnic group. We got a few anti-abortionists. In fact, all parties got some dingbats who marched to their own drummer. And others of whom we were proud.

And we were proud as hell to be liberals. In the 1960s, the Liberal Party thrived on discussion of ideas. We even argued about marijuana back then. We fought for a woman’s rights to her own body. We brought in the concept of the leader being responsible to the party and of periodic revue. We were reformers. We were progressives.

And we were leaving the New Democrats back in the battles of the 1930s. We were relevant. We fought harder in our own party to get Medicare for Canadians. Many of us flocked to Pierre Trudeau’s banner only to lose ground in 1970 with the October Crisis of the FLQ. It was only when Trudeau almost lost the 1972 election that he realized he needed our help.

What people do not seem to realize is that there needs to be a tension between the party and the parliamentary wing. Maybe Stephen Harper can spend the time micromanaging the Conservative Party along with the government but he drops much through the cracks in his planning. The failures become more and more obvious with time.

Harper has his social conservatives seething with discontent after a full term in majority government and no succour to their mores. The nebbishes that he roped into backbench servitude for so long are restless and concerned about the intentions of the voters.

But what is young Justin Trudeau offering? Is this the new type of politics or just a return to the bad old days? He interferes in riding nominations. He entices the rejects from other parties to run as Liberals. He ignores the party’s direction on policies.

The conundrum we Liberals face is what choice do we have? Harper is on his way out the door. Thomas Mulcair of the New Democrats is fighting a rearguard action in Quebec. He and his party are toast. The only party that can win the election is the Liberal Party. And anything but a Liberal majority will be a quagmire.

So let us raise our voices in the choir: Gimme that old time politics.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]