Category: Federal Politics

It appears that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is winning. Opposition Leader New Democrat Thomas Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau are giving him a free pass. By default, Harper is locking Canada into an economy based on Alberta bitumen and we will rue the day.

We were reminded of it the other day when the local drone of an MP put his name on an editorial page screed in the local Sun Media rag. It was full of misleading information about the agreement to negotiate a free trade deal with the European Union but it implied that Canada’s trade with the Europeans will be largely based on the resource sector and specifically energy—which is bitumen from the Alberta tar sands.

What the MP’s editorial failed to mention is that there is an ongoing problem with the Europeans being opposed to the pollution involved in refining bitumen. Despite Brit Prime Minister David Cameron trying to sell bitumen to the Europeans for Stephen Harper, nobody who understands the problems wants or needs bitumen.

The MP even says that Canadian refineries will want to refine the Canadian product. To-date, no Canadian refinery has been the least bit interested in refining bitumen. The Michigan refinery of Marathon Oil that has refined Alberta bitumen has Windsor, Ontario residents up in arms about the pollution coming from the Detroit side of the river.

But it is the  hypocrisy of the opposition side of our federal parliament that is the most worrisome in regard to this bitumen economy. Thomas Mulcair is your typical lawyer, talking out of both sides of his mouth on the subject. He has damned the Keystone XL pipeline in the American Midwest because he has no union workers to support there. He has questioned the Northern Gateway pipeline in British Columbia but approves of the two West to East pipelines because he thinks they mean jobs.

Justin Trudeau is the guy in the middle of this question because he has tried to skate on all of the pipelines without considering the damage to our climate. If he thinks he can favour these pipelines and keep faith with the younger voters he has been gathering, he is kidding himself. While polls are showing that Canadians are recognizing the economic importance of the pipelines, they have not connected the dots yet to the horror of pollution that is involved.

Canada desperately needs a proper debate on this issue and it has to be sooner than later.

-30-

Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

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

Monday is by-election day. In four federal ridings scattered across Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba, voters will be having their say. It will be a test of their resolve for change and their direction for change. New Democrat leader Thomas Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau will be tested and judged and critiqued according to the showings of their respective party candidates.

The Bourassa electoral district in Montreal is the one under the closest scrutiny. It is a long-time Liberal seat that was held by Denis Coddere until he resigned to run for and win the mayoralty in Montreal. The seat is under attack from the nascent New Democrats. The NDP wants to win to prove the party is not a one-time wonder in Quebec and is pulling out all stops. The Liberals are reasonably confident here but will not uncross their fingers until Monday night.

Toronto-Centre in Ontario is the heart of the Liberal Party strength in Ontario. If Liberal candidate Chrystia Freeland does not win here in former Interim Leader Bob Rae’s riding, there will be problems. Chrystia is up against the darling of the New Democrats, Linda McQuaig, and it has been an intense campaign. If Linda upsets things, it will be Justin who will be criticized for his ill-considered off the cuff remarks that speak of his lack of experience as leader. Again, the Liberals look safe but we will all feel more comfortable after Monday night.

Manitoba has not been a happy hunting ground for Liberals in recent years but there is a statistical chance of a Liberal win in Brandon-Souris due to some infighting among the Conservatives in the riding. Many Liberals thought our best bet in Brandon-Souris was to move from fourth place to second. If we can win it with the work Trudeau has done in the riding, there will be Liberals dancing in the streets.

But we hardly expect a similar situation in the Manitoba riding of Provencher. When you consider that Conservative Vic Toews won this riding with 70 per cent of the vote in 2011, you wonder about the intellectual capacity of the voters. (Just Google the name and you will see what we mean.) If the Liberals can even keep the Conservative vote under 45 per cent, you will know that Harper is toast in the next election.

Of course, Mr. Harper will have his prepared texts ready on Monday evening to slam Trudeau as best he can. Hopefully Justin will be less off the cuff than usual. If Liberals win three out of four, he is in good shape. If we only win two, we might take comfort in closer votes in the Manitoba ridings.

-30-

Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

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

It is the week before election day in the federal riding of Toronto-Centre and it is when the campaigns go into the transition for election day. And no matter what your pollsters tell you, it all comes down to getting out your vote. Intentions are worthless unless you get them on ballots.

And the people who have lied to canvassers from multiple parties had better barricade their doors. The campaign organizations you said you will favour have you on their list. They will not be satisfied until you get out and vote.

If there is one thing that a long-time politico can add to the hubbub, do not trust the polls. Polls are nothing more than an indication of possible. They are neither sacrosanct nor honest. The interactive voice response calls on landlines in an electoral district such as Toronto-Centre are nothing more than an interesting guess. What you have to evaluate are the competing organizations.

There are only two candidates in this Toronto race. They are Chrystia Freeland, Liberal and Linda McQuaig, New Democrat. The others are irrelevant. Both the Liberal and New Democrat camps in Toronto will be turning out more workers on election day than they can use. The new Democrat workers will be more experienced and the Liberals will be younger and more energetic.

If the central organizations do the job right there will be nobody in those offices on election day other than a few people to answer telephones. Toronto Centre needs a minimum of ten district operations geared to different communities. It would be faster covering those communities by skateboard or bicycle if it is just decent weather. And it is not as much the 100 people you get to the polls early in the day that count but those last one or two stragglers just before the polls close.

We expect that Chrystia Freeland will be the winner in Toronto. She will attract the broad range of voters from the top to the bottom of the riding. She has the not so secret weapon, Justin Trudeau, working for her. Linda McQuaig might have done better without Tom Mulcair. Both candidates are outstanding. Either can make a significant contribution in parliament for us.

Liberals need to remember on November 25 that Toronto-Centre and Bourassa ridings are essential. We also need to win at least one of the two Manitoba ridings that are up for grabs. If Justin Trudeau and his team can win all four of the by-elections, Stephen Harper, Tom Mulcair and their teams will be scrambling to rethink what they have to do over the next two years.

-30-

Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

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

At a time when most wage earners are retiring Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall is still waiting to do the job he was supposedly born to. He and his lovely wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, celebrated his birthday number 65 this week in Sri Lanka. Charles was in Sri Lanka to represent mommy at the Commonwealth Conference.

It should be mentioned that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was not there. He figured he could pass up this conference as a protest for the way the Sri Lankan Sinhalese government treated the rebellious Tamils. British Prime Minister David Cameron said something at the conference to the effect that you can better address human rights questions at the commonwealth conference by being there and discussing them. He even flew up to the Tamil part of the country to see for himself. Mr. Harper has never seen the Tamil problems first hand and was not there to hear Cameron’s report.

But Prince Charles is constrained in appearing on behalf of a figurehead from talking about meaningful things such as human rights. He wants to be a figurehead for all of Britain’s colonies. He can barely wait to be King of England and all its territories. He has to wait until mommy is dead. It is an archaic and quite cruel custom but monarchists think it should be done that way.

What is puzzling about this is that Charles really wants the job. When he was younger, he had to marry this very attractive young lady who looked like a princess and produced two nice-looking young heirs with her. While he was married to her, he was carrying on his extramarital affair with the lovely Camilla. That annoyed the princess and she ran off to have her own fun. That somehow got her dead.

Mr. Harper thinks that Canadians should be happy with this arrangement for Canada’s head of state. Here we have this nice old lady in Buckingham Palace as our Queen. We know she is because her face is on our $20-bill and our coins. Other than that, we do not seem to have much use for her. When she goes off to her reward, we will have King Charles III as our head of state.

King Charles III should be well aware that his ancestor, the Tudor Charles II was a bit of a swinger with lots of mistresses and reigned for about 15 years, it was Charles I, the father, who had his head chopped off. That is one of the disadvantages of being a figurehead. If people do not like the arrangement, they might decide that chopping off Charles’ head is one of the alternatives.

-30-

Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

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

It was in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Halloween convention speech and we failed to recognize it. It is there in his disdain for Ottawa and its elites. It is there in his lack of a forecast for the future. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has just two years left in Ottawa and he is going to leave nothing but the political version of scorched earth.

Scorched earth is a basic principle of warfare. When you have to withdraw, you leave nothing for your enemies. You burn the crops and the shelter. You remove or kill all humans and animals and leave the corpses to rot and spread pestilence. It is considered an exigency of war.

It was left to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to  lay out the plan for all to see in his fall financial update. The Minister took his pitch to Edmonton to further disrespect our national capitol. Flaherty proudly told his western audience how he would defeat the deficit and even produce a supposed surplus. He told them that, given his druthers, he would prefer to use that surplus to pay down debt.

But he knows that surplus is false. It will be from the further gutting of approved government programs. It will be gained by not spending approved funding that is needed to run the country. It will be gained from the illusion of delayed payments. It will be there for the federal election in 2015. It is a surplus that does not exist.

What might have been a surplus will have been swallowed by the three “P’s” of the Conservative plan: Previously Promised Programs. Remember the much touted plan to double the tax free savings allowance for Canadians. Remember the promise of family income splitting in our taxes. And the surplus will vanish. All is illusion.

And the reality is that Stephen Harper expects his government will be replaced after the 2015 election. He cannot win because his centre cannot hold. His party cannot gain a foothold in Quebec and Ontario’s economy is struggling because he failed to protect it. He did not mind the store. Harper was too busy flying around the world in his personal Airbus A310 with his personal hairdresser. He found no votes in Kuala Lumpur.

Our crops must grow again and our hopes rest with Harper’s successor. There is going to be a reality check and no ideology can solve the financial mess left by the Conservatives. Canada’s taxation system will have to be stood on its head and shaken. We need the nickels and dimes that fall from the inverted pockets of the nation. We need new thinking. We need decency and resolve. It will not be solutions of elites from east or west. It has to be a peoples’ solution.

-30-

Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

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

It will be former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s legacy. Forget free trade with Europe. Forget the adulation and fawning over him by the G8. Stephen Harper will be remembered for causing the greatest economic crash in Canadian history. Canada’s economy started to crumble when the Chinese state oil company CNOOC announced in early 2016 that it is dumping its investment in Canadian tar sands oil.

And there is nothing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can do about it. Since China agreed to the proposed Pan-Asiatic environmental restrictions in the 2015 Asian Accord, it has been cleaning house and eliminating pollution. From being one of the most polluting countries, it has set anti-pollution standards that are the envy of the rest of the world. The announcement of the pull-out from the tar sands also happens to follow the proving of the vast oil reserves under the Gobi Desert in Mongolia that can easily be retrieved with environmentally safe fracking.

In the United States, the Keystone XL pipeline is under court order not to ship any bitumen or bitumen-based products. While former President Barack Obama had permitted the pipeline to be completed through the American Midwest, the new Republican President is sticking by his environmental promises to ‘Let no pollution on U.S. soil.’ This will curtail shipments through the Texas Gulf ports to certain non-environmentalist African countries.

Since an emboldened eco-terrorist group set fire to the Irving Oil tanker loading docks at Saint John, New Brunswick, there have been no East Coast shipments of bitumen. Whether Irving Oil will even consider rebuilding the docks depends on negotiations with insurance companies on the potential for future environmentalist action?

Since the shut down of tar sands operations in Alberta has thrown tens of thousands out of work in that province, layoffs and business bankruptcies have been reverberating across Canada. And with the loss of the huge oil tankers coming into Kitimat and Vancouver, the Northern Gateway and dual Kinder Morgan pipelines have been forced to shut down and business layoffs have become a daily routine throughout British Columbia.

A sign of the times are the newspaper advertisements in Eastern Canada for skilled workers to work on temporary visas at U.S. and Mexican plants. The employers like the Canadian work ethic and skills but the Canadians hired must be willing to work for 15 per cent less than local workers in those right-to-work jurisdictions.

All in all, it is a fitting tribute to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

-30-

Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

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

How about giving your leader some help here Chrystia Freeland? As Liberal Candidate for the November 25 by-election in Toronto-Centre, you should not leave all the heavy lifting to Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. As a politician who wants to make a major contribution in Ottawa, you need to assert yourself.

First of all, you need to cut the distractions. Maybe it is inconvenient that the New York City election took place in the middle of your by-election but your piece on November 3 in the New York Times should have been spiked. Sure, you probably wrote that analysis a while ago—and it shows that you are a very insightful and talented writer—but it is a distraction you do not need in your campaign for Toronto-Centre. And if you wrote it before becoming the Liberal candidate for the by-election, just say so and move on.

And surely you have as good a news sense as your opponent in Toronto-Centre, Linda McQuaig. You can hardly let her have all the local ink. So far what she has been able to get is just sour-grapes attacks on you but you need to look like you know more than why Bill de Blasio won the mayoralty in New York City. You are there in the middle of the Toronto mayoralty problems and Torontonians are desperate for politicians who at least seem to know what they are doing.

It must be fun getting into the political whirlwind holding Justin’s coattails but it is your name on the ballot not Justin’s. And he needed you to stand up for him against that blond Conservative MP Michelle Rempel when she accused him of being behind an event in Toronto that she said was degrading and patronizing to women. That was your opportunity to make like a tiger and roar.

Maybe this might go down in the annals as the cheap shot by-election. So far Linda has told everyone that you are a writer and Rempel must have helped sell out that fluffy feminist event. It all helps but there are issues you can address. A critical issue is that pipeline that is going to be pumping heavy volumes of Alberta bitumen through Toronto. It is a danger to Torontonians and to people across Southern Ontario. And the National Energy Board is going to rule on it in a few weeks. You have to be ready to take the issue to Ottawa.

The local Liberals picked you as their candidate and you have to show voters that you can go to Ottawa and work for them. There are many issues of concern to Toronto-Centre.

The riding is as rich in diversity as a true liberal can ever wish for. It is yours to win. Justin will certainly help but you have to get to work also. You are a communicator: get at communicating.

-30-

Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

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

If you think the fight for the Toronto-Centre by-election on November 25 is between two outstanding candidates—Linda McQuaig and Chrystia Freeland—you are wrong. The real battle is between their party leaders. Liberal Justin Trudeau is in a rough and tumble fight with New Democrat Thomas Mulcair. And it looks like they have chosen to squabble over an issue that neither side can win. They are fighting over a pipeline that will have its future decided in Washington.

It has always been easy for Tommy Mulcair to oppose the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline. There are no Canadian jobs involved in building or maintaining it in the American Midwest. President Obama is under constant pressure from American environmental groups to shut it down but, as yet, he has announced no decision.

Justin Trudeau thought he could take a pass on commenting on the pipeline and even in a meeting recently with a major American environmental lobby, he tried to skate on the issue. Like a kid caught raiding the cookie jar, his solution was to talk fast and hope for the best. His penance for that is going to have to be at least a lot of skating lessons.

The basic problem is that the high level of investment and activity in Alberta’s tar sands region has to find an outlet for product or the economy of Canada will take a hit that will make 2008 seem like a walk in the park. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has deliberately put Canadians in the box of a tar sands based economy. Whoever takes over from Stephen Harper in two years will be caught in the same box. If we kill all the pipelines, Canadians will end up getting care packages from the Greeks!

But you do not confuse a good political fight with common sense. What some stupid Liberal organizers in Bob Rae’s former Liberal seat of Toronto-Centre, failed to understand was that Torontonians are now sensitized to the pipeline issue. And this is not an issue with a lot of middle ground. When you consider the massive destruction possible down Yonge Street from a bitumen slurry leak into the Toronto subway terminus at Finch, the issue is frightening.

While some of us were fighting against the Enbridge pipeline through Toronto over the last few months, Mulcair and Trudeau had business elsewhere. Why should they take a stand if they do not have to?

And now Mulcair has brought it all up, thinking he only has to deal with the American pipeline. Sorry Tommy, you have opened a can of worms.

-30-

Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

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