Category: Federal Politics

The objective of foreign relations is not to pander for votes at home. And it is conducted with diplomacy, not a baseball bat. Those are just two of the lessons that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his eager understudy John Baird have yet to learn. What they are doing is destroying the work of many years by competent foreign affairs personnel on behalf of all Canadians. A century of hard work has been lost in just a few years.

But they are not just incompetent, they are deliberate. They neither understand the tradecraft involved nor do they care. They neither have to keep world peace, act as an honest broker, nor involve themselves in anything that does not gain them something from the voters.

The sham of the recent pilgrimage to Israel shamed them and also shamed the Canadian Jewish community. It was a crass scratching for votes that belittled our country and our peoples. The juvenile antics of Foreign Minister Baird during and after his melodramatic and useless trek to Ukraine are a serious embarrassment to more than a million Canadians who share Ukrainian roots.

Canada served as a respected member on the United Nations Security Council many times. It was only after Harper showed his lack of understanding of foreign affairs that the elected seats on the council went to other countries that cared. The respect that Canada had worked so hard to gain over many years was dashed by people who neither understood nor wanted to.

After all, it is something of a bad joke to send a person such as John Baird to face down the Russian Bear. It is like the British sending someone such as nineteenth-century playwright Oscar Wilde to Balaclava to lead the Charge of the Light Brigade.

What Russian President Vladimir Putin knows is that Russia lost the Crimean War despite the incompetence of the British and their French and Ottoman Turkish allies. Maybe he hopes that we will only remember the poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson about the event during the Battle of Balaclava and not the Treaty of Paris that ended the carnage and forced then Tsar Alexander II to make concessions.

Mr. Putin has no concessions in mind for Ukraine and will have carved out the part of the country he intends to keep before the pressure from the European Union, NATO and the United Nations becomes too serious. Foreign relations is a rough, tough business and neither Prime Minister Harper nor John Baird is particularly good at it.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

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

It is Justin Trudeau’s political instincts that never cease to amaze the older apparatchiks in the Liberal Party. It is remembering a long argument with the late Senator Keith Davey some 30 years ago over Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau just mentioning his family in a speech. If you had sweated as hard on that speech as this writer, you hardly want to see it spiked because you have ignored some damn taboo of an up-tight prime minister.

But Keith won (it was his job). And the PM gave a bloody lecture on economics to a bored Canadian electorate. It was the beginning of the end for Pierre Trudeau.

It is watching Pierre’s eldest son at work that is a joy. He brings his lovely and very pregnant wife and their darling kids on screen and with him in spirit at the Montreal convention. He is hardly using them. They are a fact of his life and part of him. They are integral to the package. They belong.

Maybe it is his mother’s influence on Justin. Pierre Trudeau could never control her the way he controlled others around him. Those he could not control had to deal with him on an intellectual level. And on that level, Pierre had few equals. Margaret obviously made the effort to work with him but she must have been shut out too often.

Justin grew up seeing that emotional upheaval. It made him his own man. It makes him a better husband, a loving father. And created a strong-willed political leader who knows where he is going and how to get there.

His political instincts are a joy to watch. The Liberal Party has been arguing about legalizing marijuana for the past 50 years. Justin brought it forward and let it sit there. Some might have gulped but his instinct was absolutely right. His support for Keystone XL pipeline is wrong environmentally but that case has still to be made. Justin can accept it either way. It is Harper who is hung by it.

And Justin is the leader that Canada needs at this time in its history. He can restore our nation’s prestige on the world stage. He can take the bold steps into the future. These steps still need to be studied and better defined but it will take his leadership to bring them to being.

What Justin’s father never understood was the emotion of politics. Pierre Trudeau left that to others. Justin understands it. It is what makes him a strong leader.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

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

As you recall the Supreme Court decided that the Conservatives need sex education. Long overdue, you might add. The only problem was that nobody could agree on who should teach sex education to the Conservative caucus. We are not sure but we think it was Peter Mackay who solved it by suggesting that they would all sit quietly and listen to Laureen Harper, the leader’s wife. They would have no choice.

Laureen was, as you would expect, quite reluctant but is believed to have agreed to it on the condition that her husband does not attend. The caucus seemed to be pleased with Laureen’s instruction and many probably learned things in the process. The only problem left was a teacher for the Leader.

The Cabinet is believed to have turned to Peter Mackay and told to fix that too. That was also easy. It is reported that he got the leader a hooker. It was as though he believed that the Leader needed some first-hand experience, so to speak. You can just imagine the confrontation in that Ottawa hotel room:

The first thing that must have startled the lady was the guys in cheap suits who came in, checked the closet, under the bed and talked up their sleeves. A fair amount of money had to change hands before the gal decided to stick around.

Since she had been paid, she got right down to business, so to speak. “So, how do you want it?” was the obvious question.

The Leader was a bit nonplussed. “Can we just talk about it?” he asked.

“Damn, another Canadian,” she complained. “It’s all talk and no performance. You Canadians are so oppressed by women that you never get a chance to talk dirty.”

“No, no,” the Leader replied, “I just want to talk about being a prostitute.”

She looked at him in amazement. “You’ll never make it,” she told him. “You’re too old and that hairpiece is ridiculous. Besides, to make it as a gigolo, you would need to be 20 and able to satisfy a woman at least ten times a night.”

Somewhat taken back, he weakly explained: “I only need to know something about why you are a prostitute and how this business works?”

“Okay,” she said. “Since you’ve already paid, I’ll explain.

“First of all, I’m a service worker. I perform a service for society. You might not agree but it has panache as the world’s oldest profession. And it is a profession. I bring comfort and relief to people in need.

“The only problem is that for too long, prostitution has been run by the less desirable elements of society. Criminalizing bawdy houses or arresting customers is just another way of driving us into the hands of criminals. These people abuse us, encourage us to use drugs and put us in danger,” she said.

“You must be a politician,” she concluded. “In my business, I do my best work one customer at a time. In your business, you try to screw everybody at once.”

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

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

 

One of the very first lessons of politics is to understand that the average voter does not relate to discussions involving millions of dollars. What people relate to is coffee money. If Torontonians, for example, could just think of the billions their city needs for an upgraded transit system in terms of the daily cost of their Tim Horton’s coffee, it would all make sense.

And in dealing with national policies at the Liberal Party conference this weekend, we have to know that if we cannot relate costs to coffee money we will only confuse Canadians. That is the challenge we face. We have to put a positive positioning on policy while keeping it simple.

That will not be easy when the party brass is trying to push policy discussions into a straightjacket of centering on the economy. That is akin to determining how many economists can dance on the head of a pin.

But liberals are up to dealing in big solutions. We can start a dialogue on a guaranteed wage for all Canadians. We can have new and better travel options for people and goods to reach all corners of our vast country—from east to west and north to south. And we have to reach out to the world with understanding and concern and a new attitude in foreign relations. We have to bring our own people to a better understanding of each other. We have to be honest with each other about the environment. We have to take Canada and the world’s environmental needs seriously.

That means we cannot just ship tar sands bitumen to countries that do not care about the environment. Nor can we allow any province to pollute for profit. This country belongs to all of us and that is something every province has to recognize. We have to care.

And for those who want to change how our country is governed or how we vote or what to do with unelected Senators, we have to make the big plans. We can elect a constitutional congress and let those matters be debated, resolved and then brought back to the citizens for judgement in a referendum. Canada must be a major world player in the 21^st Century but first we need to be proud of how our own house functions.

To run a beautiful and as complex a country as Canada, being a liberal only helps. You need more than being a liberal. You need caring. You have to care about the land and the people and their future. For the future is the country.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

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

It should be the first order of business at the Liberal Party Convention February 20 to 23. How else can we be having a policy convention if we do not know what it really means to be a liberal? We need to define who we are and where we want to go.

It is hardly enough to damn the Conservatives for their ideology bound direction. At least they know where they are going. Too many Liberal Party members think they can support a vaguely right-wing party that has something of a social conscience. Hell, Paul Martin Junior proved that the Liberal Party he tried to lead had no conscience. Maybe liberalism is not a rigid ideology but it has to have an ongoing dialogue to be meaningful.

Pierre Trudeau said that “Canada must be a just society” and the job to make that happen starts on Parliament Hill. Our Members of Parliament have to work to build this country. They have to be Members who represent all Canadians of their electoral district. They work for them. They are there in parliament to put responsibility ahead of ideology. They are there to challenge the status quo not to be the status quo.

If there is one person in their riding who needs a job, the MP needs to ensure they have an opportunity for one before going to bed that night. If one person is hungry, the MP has to ask herself or himself what has s/he done to help? If a person is waiting for proper health care, what has the MP done to correct the problem? Which of our present MPs can we point to and say “These MPs are doing their job”?

And what are we as members of this party contributing? We call ourselves liberal. Do we really understand what that means? Are we engaged now in finding the best possible representative for our party in our riding next year? Are we helping create the policies that will engage Canadians? Are we building our party and paying what we can to support it? And are we speaking out for real liberalism in our riding?

Thankfully the Liberal Party of Canada has a young, strong and exciting leader. As leader, he has a responsibility to lead the party where it wants to go. We have to help him. We have to help Justin Trudeau define what liberalism means today and where it wants to lead Canada.

At the biennial conference, we must stress captivating solutions for our economy. We have to demonstrate a strong environmental concern. We have to be pro-active in binding our country in a stronger union. We have to ensure our country’s world-wide reputation is restored. We must offer all Canadians a better future.

To do it all, we will have to think as liberals.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

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

If Conservative Immigration Minister Chris Alexander does not like this blog, why does he not say so? Here we always thought it was just fair political comment. Given time though, Alexander hopes he can strip people such as the writer of their Canadian citizenship. Despite being born here, sworn allegiance to the Queen of Canada, served in the Canadian forces and lived here all our life, Alexander and the Tories want to pass a law that could take our Canadian citizenship from us.

It is unbelievable! The Conservative government wants to pass a new citizenship act that can take Canadian citizenship away from native-born Canadians. The fact that one of your parents was still a foreign national when you were born here often allows you dual citizenship. Whether you opt to move to that other country should be your choice, not the option of the Canadian government.

(The option of citizenship is interesting. Being one of six children of an American mother and a Canadian father, two brothers chose to be American citizens. They have made substantial contributions to that country in computer science and academia. Another brother was actually living in the Los Angeles area when he died suddenly and his Oscar—for technical contributions—had to be awarded posthumously. He was a proud Canadian.)

What annoys us about Chris Alexander is that we knew a good deal about him before he became a Conservative Member of Parliament and a junior Minister. When he came back from his posting in Afghanistan for the United Nations, he shopped both the Conservative and Liberal parties to see what they would offer him. The top brass of the Liberal Party thought he might be a good fit for the riding here in Babel as his mother had retired in the area and Babel had yet to hold a nomination meeting.

But Alexander never did talk to the Babel riding people. We did our due diligence in checking him out as best we could but he was not eager to meet. It became obvious that he was getting a better offer. The better offer was from the Conservatives.

Having vetted and encouraged many potential candidates over the years, you really have little time for candidates with no political principles or scruples. If we had talked to Alexander, our conversation would have included some political philosophy. We would have made sure that he had liberal instincts. Obviously he does not.

Knowing the feelings of many voters in Ajax-Pickering, just outside Toronto, we can forecast that Chris Alexander will not be in politics for the long haul.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

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

The Hair and hairdresser are heading for Mexico next. It will be a meeting of the three heads of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Prime Minister Stephen Harper will hardly feel the love that he did in Israel. President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico has every reason to be angry with Harper. And American President Obama also has good reason to be leery of him. There are no more three amigos at this meeting.

Someone was explaining yesterday the idiom that “Pigs get fat; hogs get slaughtered.” It simply means that it is okay to be a little bit greedy but if you go too far there are consequences. The Hair is going to get some of his consequences.

Mexican politicians and diplomats are particularly displeased with Canada demanding a visa requirement on their citizens visiting Canada. If you want to slap down a country, visas are one of the measures you can use. You hardly want to impose visa restrictions on a major trading partner. And to make matters worse, Canada put the restriction on the Czech Republic at the same time. Canada later lifted the restriction from the Czech Republic but not Mexico.

President Obama has his own beefs with Canada and not the least among them is the steady yapping about the Keystone XL pipeline. Harper has as much as said, he will out wait Obama’s term of office and then get Keystone approved. Somebody has probably mentioned to Obama that Canada gets to vote on Harper and his Conservatives in 2015 and Obama is safe until his replacement is chosen in 2016. If Obama had a vote in the Canadian election, it would sure not be for Stephen!

The Hair’s major problem in Mexico—other than the picture with the obligatory sombrero—is that he will get no quarter from the other two participants. The Americans and the Mexicans are going to be all buddy-buddy and leave Canada out in the cold. That can have an effect of billions in trade between the three countries. Even in just the auto sector, there is more than $3 billion in investment from two companies that can end up in Mexico with American support.

And that is our cautionary tale about the Hair and the hog. Harper’s foreign relations are erratic and unorganized because it has more to do with votes at home than Canada’s traditional honest broker and peacekeeper approach. The Hair needs to pay closer attention to what happens to the hog.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

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

The arrogance of the Harper Conservatives knows no bounds. Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty delivered a budget with such a thin veneer of civility yesterday that he could do nothing more afterwards but say wait until next year. This 2014 budget was cynical, shallow, untruthful and an insult to the Canadian people.

If you want whistles, bells and hope with your budget, you have to wait until the budget running up to the election next year. And what was really disgusting was that Flaherty did not bother to sugar-coat the lies.

It was obvious to anyone who can add two plus two successfully that there is no deficit in current government accounts. Flaherty admitted that but said the claim of a surplus will be more substantial just before the election. There are too many promises connected to that surplus to waste them a full year before the election.

But the tissue of lies of the current budget says much about the lack of morals of Stephen Harper and his ideologues.

A $2 billion allocation for aboriginal schooling would sound good if it was not being held back for two years and then to be paid out over the following three years. Remember, this is the government that killed the $5 billion Kelowna Accord that would have been a substantial boost for aboriginals.

It is both fascinating and frightening to see how this government has managed to transfer government debt. The figures are available for all to see. As the government lowers its debt in recent years, the amount of personal debt owed by Canadians is growing. It means that people are going deeper in debt because of higher unemployment and job-seekers who have given up.

In 2015 Canadians will have to have a national awards program for cynicism. Who will be Cynic of the Year? Stephen Harper won that award in the 2008 election as the world’s economy was crashing. He refused to admit it and enough Canadians kept him in office for another try in 2011.

Flaherty’s budget had no answers for our high jobless rate, for our country’s economic doldrums, for the imbalance of investment in tar sands that most civilized countries do not want and the lack of investment in jobs for other provinces.

With Harper, it is all about getting elected. Give him four more years in office and he will change Canada forever. And you will not like the country he wants to create.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

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

It is law that you cannot be a registered charity and indulge in strictly political activities. Back when that law was passed by a Liberal government, it was met with laughter in some quarters and the charities just carried on as before. With most health charities, it was easy to show that the political activities undertaken were part of your patient services and health research objectives. It comes as a shock today to hear that the Canada Revenue Agency is auditing environmental charities that are fighting tar sands pollution.

And what is even more shocking is that a non-profit organization called Ethical Oil is lodging the complaints about environmental organizations. We will wait for an audit before making any accusations but we can only assume that this organization is heavily funded by tar sands exploitation companies.

But the frightening news is that the Conservative government gave Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) $8 million last year to go after charities engaged in excessive political activities. (And bear in mind that they only investigate when somebody makes a complaint.) This money was buried in one of those omnibus budget bills and is putting the impartiality of the CRA in a bad light. There is a chicken and egg problem here. Did the government provide the funds first or did the Ethical Oil Organization make the complaints first. Since the actions are on top of each other, the conclusion is obvious.

At a time when every other aspect of CRA’s work for Canadians was being short changed, the government gave the agency these investigative funds. You hardly need to be suspicious to connect the dots in this situation.

Many of the major environmental agencies have been concerned about the exploitation of Canada’s Athabasca tar sands region. People are absolutely dumfounded by the range of pollutants, gasses and heavy metals washed out of tar sands bitumen. These are left in huge open tailings ponds in the tar sands area to gradually evaporate and pollute the air and soil. Bitumen itself is a soup of chemicals bound in a viscous tar. To move it requires dilution with a polymer or light oil. That enables it to be poured into a rail car or fed through a pipeline. When it is refined to create synthetic oil, it sends tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere as well as leaving tonnes of bitumen coke to be burned or buried.

The charities being investigated have been drawing attention to this pollution.

Charitable organizations work on trust. When you are being audited, donations tend to wane. A lot of charges are being made against them and if you tie up the resources of the charity while they fight these allegations, you have effectively put them out of business.

Now, who would want to do that?

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

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