Category: Federal Politics

Thank goodness, Stephen is back from China.

by Peter Lowry

Prime Minister Stephen Harper might not have ever heard the old adage about when the cat is away. It might be a good idea if someone explains it to him. It is not that he cannot take the occasional fun trip to exotic lands but he has to get the mice to behave while he is out of town. He needs a deputy cat.

He has been resting up from his and Laureen’s long flight. (Not that they were flying steerage in that VIP personal A310, he buzzes around in.) He can now go read the riot act to the kids in the cabinet. After all, he goes out to eat a little Chinese and there is mayhem in the House of Commons.

We will not get into names here. They are not important and neither are the people involved. The thing is, you can hardly have a cabinet minister thumbing his nose at the Opposition in the House over torturing people. This is definitely not very classy. If the guy cannot keep a state secret, Harper will have to give him the old heave ho. There are lots more cannon fodder on the back benches just begging for a chance at getting the perks of a cabinet minister.

And there is the sad-sack back-bencher from Kitchener, Ontario who brings up the whole abortion thing as soon as Stephen leaves town. Where does he get off? He thinks that there should be a House committee to determine when life begins. All he is doing is trying a back door approach to a debate on abortion. This guy must have some cabinet support to try to pull a stunt like that. And why would they choose a man to bring this up? This guy looks like he posed for American Gothic. Stephen should stomp on him, quick.

And then there is that fat ex-cop Stephen put in charge of the F-35 fighter plane purchase. (Maybe that defence guy, Peter what’s his name, found that file was interfering with his honeymoon.) The ex-cop gets an easy lob type question in the House about delays in the U.S. F-35 development program. The ex-cop was obviously not paying attention. He stands up in the House and said everything is going along swimmingly. Obviously nobody had told him that the Americans had already announced that the program is being delayed because the new planes cannot survive endurance testing. The Pentagon is delaying the program and nobody tells the Canadians?

But Stephen is back. The visit to China obviously went swimmingly. Harper solved a a major problem in diplomacy—all you need to do is discuss human rights with the business people and business with the politicians and everyone is happy. Stephen’s advance people did a wonderful job whipping up enthusiasm and the Chinese looked very puzzled about that.

But we bet it was the Chinese who thought to dress Laureen in the plastic dress so she could hold the panda cub. They would lose face if that bear peed on her. Just think, for a million bucks a year plus special food, your zoo too can have a couple pandas on loan.

-30-

Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

Reading the bones in la belle Province.

by Peter Lowry

Some thoughts while watching a few of the regular ‘talking heads’ being interviewed on recent events in Quebec: These so-called experts treat their voters as specimens—spread-eagled, pinned and dissected on a board. They ignore the impact of those allophones who steadfastly remain Quebeckers. And they think the rest of Canada ignores Quebec. What they need to overcome is their own biases that they bring to their analyses.

Politics is a fluid process and attitudes change.Quebec’s angst has its roots in history but real change for Quebec started in the 1960s and was called the quiet revolution. For lack of a turning point, we can use Expo ’67. It had challenge, umbrage, rebirth and confidence. It led to the excesses of the October Crisis. It made René Lévesque an unlikely revolutionary and by 1976, he was Premier of Quebec and vowing separation. He was a professional communicator and there was little to decipher in his threats to our country and his plans for Quebec.

But his referendum lost and he never recovered. His party lost its balance and appeal and never recovered. Separatism became a platform for demagogues who had lost touch with the people. Voting in Quebec became a tidal event. Each new wave is followed by dangerous undertows. You can only determineQuebec’s choices if you know how to throw and read the bones.

The reason is that Quebec voting has become increasingly volatile. A strange hybrid party has emerged that is the rump of the now defunct right-wing Action démocratique du Québec and deserters from the left-wing parti Québécois who formed the Coalition Avenir Québec. If you think that is a strange combination, consider this: Pollsters are telling us that if an election was held tomorrow and if this party had the candidates ready, it could win a provincial election.

And why was anyone surprised last year that the New Democrats won so many Quebec seats in the federal election? The voters no longer trusted Gilles Duceppes’ Bloc Québécois. That party had nothing to offer. Michael Ignatieff was old guard to them and they were not getting on the Liberal train. And they had an understandable fear of the right-wing agenda of Stephen Harper. Why not vote for that guy Jack’s New Democrats?

The NDP benefited from René Lévesque’s legacy of social democratic rule in the 1970’s and 80s.Quebec voters like those politics. It is too bad the Quebec federal Liberals had never thought to present a more social democratic program.

-30-

Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

Only the prurient.

by Peter Lowry

Federal Heritage Minister James Moore obviously has different community standards than the Internet audiences of tou.tv.  He has taken umbrage to a program called Hard on the French language tou.tv website platform. The ‘made in France’ program is provided by Radio-Canada’s radio wing in cooperation with a group of French-language television channels. Mr. Moore says the program is pornographic. He also says, for some reason, that it is directed to children. All he will probably do by saying that is send a lot of youngsters to the website to find out what the fuss is about.

What the youngsters will find out is that the program can be quite boring.  The actors deal with adult subjects. Sex is also an adult subject. Regrettably, Mr. Moore might not understand that. It is quite possible that somebody showed him an out-of-context clip from one of the episodes and he thought he was watching something that was pornographic.

But the Minister might not be aware of the considerable expertise and thought that the Supreme Court has given to the question of community standards. What it really boils down to is that there is nothing wrong with sex between consenting adults. Sex that includes brutality is wrong. The court also believes showing sex that degrades women is wrong. We expect that showing sex that degrades men would be equally wrong. The problem therefore is with the Minister.  If Mr. Moore has a problem or did not understand a sex act that was shown or simulated, he should say so.

It hardly needs to be said that one couple’s pleasant dalliance can be a prurient person’s pornography.

What is also interesting about this business is that the Minister’s statement and a supporting release from the Prime Minister’s Office were distributed by Sun Media. Few people in the news business in Canada could be unaware that Pierre Karl Péladeau’s Sun Media wishes nothing more than to destroy Radio-Canada. Sun Media does not like the competition from the public network.

Sun Media’s owner also owns ATV the largest French-language television network in Canada as well as the struggling Sun TV. Sun TV is the network that recently wanted to show a citizenship ceremony and snapped its fingers and the Conservatives had a group of federal employees perform for the cameras. It should also be noted that M. Péladeau also owns newspapers across Canada including our Babel Examiner and the blatantly separatist Le Journal de Montréal. His English language media are very supportive of Prime Minister Harper’s Conservatives. He is a businessman. He covers all the angles.

The Heritage Minister is probably annoyed that he does not have control of the CBC.  He would probably like the CBC to be as friendly to his government as the English-language Sun Media outlets.  We can only hope that is never going to happen.

-30-

Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

Promoting mediocre leadership for Canada’s NDP.

by Peter Lowry

Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP) must revel in its mediocrity.  It enjoys it. It continues to promote it. Nothing will help it preserve its mediocrity more that the way it is choosing its new leader. By using preferential voting, the party is attempting to ensure that no candidate can use charisma or rhetoric to win over the other candidates.

When the convention meets at Exhibition Park in Toronto in March, they hope most of the party members across Canada will have already voted. The party members will have indicated their first, second and maybe third or even fourth choice for party leader. They also have the right to vote for just one candidate but why not indicate more?

Even with six weeks to go before the convention, we know that it is unlikely for anyone to have a first ballot victory. The facts are that there are five of the candidates in the race sharing the bulk of the votes. All guesses, whether by the seat of the pants or scientific research, tell us that nobody seems to have more than about 25 per cent of the support. That means that second choice support is critical to winning. Only if the convention goes beyond three votes will the people at the convention and those voting on-line by Internet, at each ballot, make the final decision.

Looking at the leading candidates’ ability to round up secondary support on the pre-convention ballots can give us some of the possible answers.

Many people expect Brian Topp to get the most first ballot support.  He has the party leadership support because this is the level in which he works. He has some union support but the union he heads, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Actors (ACTRA) is not widely known and it is hardly a pick and shovel union. He has little chance of heavy second preference support.

Thomas Mulcair comes on as the challenger but the party has no huge base of supporters in Quebec and he is not well known outside that province. His best bet is if it goes to a third ballot and the people voting that day come to understand what drives him. He will pick up votes from the convention and on-line but he will be weak in second preferences from the early voters.

In the same way, British Columbia’s Nathan Cullen will have to make his effort on the first ballot. He would have to come very close to Brian Topp in the first ballot to remain in the race for long.  His base in B.C. is not big enough, though he appeals to the younger delegates because of his ideas. He has little potential for secondary votes.

Paul Dewar is going to get some support fromEastern Ontario but no degree of secondary support could take him beyond 15 per cent of the vote.

The one person who can really benefit from the secondary votes is MP Peggy Nash.  She walks away with the feminist vote and shares a sizeable part of the Ontario base of the party. Because of her comeback last year against Liberal star Gerard Kennedy, she will be very strong in the second vote showing. She also shows very solid union support and that all comes to growth in the second ballot. She might not have the pizzazz to win through a fourth ballot but we will see what she can do in three.

With almost six weeks to go, there is opportunity for a breakthrough but nobody expects it in a convention geared to mediocrity. Heavy pre-convention balloting will be what to watch for. A large advance vote will ensure a mediocre choice. If advance voting is light, all bets are off.  In that case it will be the convention attendees along with the Internet voters who make the final decision.

-30-

Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

Who speaks for the oil-sands compromise?

by Peter Lowry

No doubt the point has been made often enough now that shipping crude oil from Alberta’s tar-sands through a long pipeline presents some serious ecological concerns. The environmentalists are aghast. They are bristling for a fight. They are determined to lay their bodies across the path of pipelines to the refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast or across the Rockies to the ocean port at Kitimat, B.C. The heavy crude the oil industry hopes to send through those pipelines contains serious carcinogens, pollutants and sure environmental destruction.

On the other side of the equation is the determination of Prime Minister Harper and his Cabinet sycophants. They are not particularly concerned about the ravings of environmentalists or the aboriginals’ concern for the land. They see the revenues for crude oil only and seem to salivate over it. They are not going to allow anything to block their commitments to the oil-sands producers.

Neither side is allowing for a middle ground. The facts are that crude oil, particularly the heavy sulphuric crude from the Athabasca oil-sands, could cause catastrophic damage in ecologically sensitive land. And pipelines, working under constant pressure with heavy crude, can have failures. When there are breaks, it takes time to stop the flow. Clean-ups can become an impossible task.

But refined products from oil-sands crude are much easier to clean up. Partial or wholly refined oil can remove the carcinogens. Gasoline and diesel fuels will not mix with water. They can be separated. They will not easily leach into the water table. The risk factor to the environment is changed dramatically.

Not only is the risk factor changed but the pipeline specifications also change. Instead of a dual pipeline over the Rockies, a smaller diameter single pipeline can earn more money, carrying just half the volume with refined product.

While the oil industry has a long way to go to improve the processes for extracting oil from the tar sands, there are certainly less concerns about the environmental damage attributed to refineries. It would be most interesting to hear why the oil industry would want to resist this compromise. There has to be a point in the refining processes when the processed oil no longer presents the same environmental threat. That, we will leave to the people in the white lab coats. And just think, we could keep some skilled refinery jobs in Canada instead of exporting them.

-30-

Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

Why Canadians love the monarchy.

by Peter Lowry

George Orwell explained it best in the end of his novel Nineteen Eighty-four when his character Winston Smith declares his love for Big Brother. It is the same with whatever Canadian love there supposedly is for the British monarchy. We know it is fiction but in that fiction, people find stability. They believe.

And it is unwise to challenge beliefs of that nature without offering an exchange. It would be like denying a person their strong religious beliefs without offering an alternative. If you deny them that cross, you had better offer another crutch. While Orwell was hardly the first to claim you needed to demolish someone’s beliefs to replace them, the mistake would be to not replace them.

And here we are celebrating 60 years of supposed Canadian servility to a now 85-year old Queen Elizabeth II. Her mother lived to be over 100 so we do not anticipate having to replace her right away.

And nobody wants to rush replacing her with Charlie and his lovely wife Camilla. The idea that Special Branch (the people charged with protecting the royals) has some bloke ready to pop old Charlie if anything happens to the Queen is so much balderdash. And the fiction that Billie and Kate will follow rapidly into the monarchial role is strictly that, fiction and fairy tales.

What Canadians need to realize is that the monarchy in Canada is about 100 years past its ‘best before’ date. It has become a noose around the neck of reform. We can hardly consider guillotining the monarchy without knowing what will replace it. It is not a band-aid to reform. It is a major step to a better future.

Step one has to be a decision to have a constitutional assembly. This has to have representatives from every part of the country.  They should be elected. They should be allowed the time for deliberations, consultation with their area, access to expertise and at all times they should be free to review any and all aspects of our nationhood.

But it cannot be open-ended. A reasonable time limit needs to be set. At that time, their decisions can be subject to a vote by the Canadian people. Options should require a majority vote. If at that time, people choose the monarchy, it is their free choice. It will not be something that Big Brother decrees.

-30-

Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

“Then they came for the trade unionists.”

by Peter Lowry

And why should you worry about a bunch of union people? Is anyone looking after your interests? The German people did not seem to care before the Second World War but a pastor, Martin Niemöller, wrote, after the Allies released him from imprisonment in Dachau: “Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

And that is the most basic reason why Canadians have to speak out about incidents such as the Caterpillar scam in London, Ontario and the Rob Ford attack on city unions in Toronto. These should be a matter of deep concern to everybody.

The General Motors diesel engine works in London, Ontario were acquired by American venture capital firms in a fire sale when GM was on the ropes. The Canadian government gave the new company a $5 million incentive to keep Canadians working at the London works just five years ago.  Today, owned by the giant Caterpillar Inc., with US$42 billion in annual sales, the plant is being moved to Indiana where the state government has passed ‘Right to Work’ laws and Caterpillar can pay a barely living wage.

The Rob Ford Versus the Unions scenario is a little different.  The city of Toronto can hardly move city jobs to a less union-friendly environment. They have to create one.  And they are hardly talking about a small adjustment to keep city taxes down.  When was the last time you had someone say to you:”Just give up all your rights and we will look after you”?

If you think that is a good deal, you better settle in for a long strike and some very smelly garbage—in half the city—as the weather warms up. Just by prolonging the strike for two months with the savings in salaries, Ford will have reduced city expenses to his budget.

Torontonians are in trouble.  If they let Ford win against the city workers, they had better wonder who is next.  We will believe that this fiasco is over when we see Rob Ford wearing a button saying: “Have you hugged a union member today?”

The London Caterpillar situation is far more serious. This is not just giving the finger to trade unionists but is also saying ‘screw you’ to the Canadian government. Maybe Prime Minister Stephen Harper could care less but Dalton McGuinty and that bunch of Whig wusses at Queen’s Park had bloody well better do something.

If nothing else, McGuinty could wear the crown a little easier if he sat down with Andrea Horwath, Leader of the Ontario New Democrats. Mrs. Horwath has a vested interest in aiding the unionists in London. Deb Matthews, one of Dalton’s key Cabinet colleagues, has a legislative seat at risk if there is no support for London area jobs.

Just think. Premier McGuinty could have a win-win situation, if he just got off his ass.

-30-

Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

Harper’s henchmen harry the unwary

by Peter Lowry

It is always informative to catch Tom Clark’s weekly show, The West Block, on Global Television. It would be even more informative if  Tom could get Harper’s Cabinet colleagues to answer some of the questions he asks. They seem to have all been taking uniform attack training in how to stick to their own agenda. There was a good example of that supplied by Harper’s Government House Leader MP Peter Van Loan today. Tom was asking for more depth on questions about the Conservative government’s agenda for the session of Parliament starting this week.

Not only did the questions not get answered but Van Loan seemed stuck in an audio track based only on history, not the future. Maybe the fault was Tom’s. Maybe he was trying to cram too much into a half hour program. If he had taken more time and shown more patience, it is possible he could have got Van Loan past the statement that he wanted to make and take him into uncharted political waters. It might have been embarrassing for Tom though if Van Loan really had nothing else to say.

It is more likely that all Harper’s Cabinet people are required to take specific training in how to handle interviews and ways to turn the tables on interviewers. This is standard training that savvy public relations firms give to clients that are often in the public eye. One of the ways the firms give authenticity to the training is to hire tough minded television interviewers to do sample interviews. It is most likely that Harper’s people would be sure to use Conservative-leaning news people.

On Sunday, Tom seemed a bit disconcerted that the MP from York Simcoe was stone-walling him. It looked as though Van Loan had said one thing before the show and then reneged once he was on air. Tom should be used to that by now.

It is probably a good thing that Tom left CTV after Lisa LaFlamme was selected to replace Lloyd Robertson as the late night anchor for that network.  Tom had certainly earned the job but the choice would have hardly been based on who was the best reporter. There are serious political considerations in that choice and Tom would never have been given free-rein in handling interviews with Harper. CTV is very tuned in to the Harper Conservatives and balanced reporting at that level could hardly be the plan.

Tom’s problem with CTV was likely his fair-minded approach to the political scene.  He has an excellent understanding of what is behind the news. And he certainly knew why Peter Van Loan would not answer his question on Harper’s agenda.

-30-

Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

‘Eye of Newt, toe of Mitt’ in Florida’s cauldron.

by Peter Lowry

When Canada’s Liberal Party opted for a primary-type system of choosing leaders at its recent conference, it was not thinking of the American primaries.  Nor did party members envisage a witches’ cauldron from Shakespeare’s MacBeth to which the current Republican primary has descended. Liberals were obviously thinking of a much more civilized process.

It is impossible to ignore the gruesome no-holds-barred cage fighting of the current Republican campaign in Florida. It certainly attracts more interest than the somnambulant trek our New Democrats are taking to a leadership decision in March.  The question in the U.S. is it really possible for the ultimate winner to recover a sliver of dignity with which to apply to American voters for the right to the White House? The Democrats in the U.S. can hardly ignore the ammunition they are being handed with which to demolish whomever might be the Republican presidential contender in November.

In the meantime, the New Democrats in Canada seem to be debating how nice each of their opponents might be. The only NDP candidate running a half-way intelligent campaign is the loser from British Columbia. And he still has a chance if he throws himself to the mercy of the party to help him fight Harper’s Northern Gateway pipeline across Northern B.C.

But we can expect the Liberal Party primary for its next leader will not be as dull as NDP love-ins nor should it be as brutal as the cage fighting of American Republicans.  It will certainly help that all the voting takes place at the same time. Why the Americans have never come up with that simple solution to their primary fiascos is a mystery.  The voters for the Liberal leadership will be anyone who wishes to participate and can swear that they are not a member of any other party. It not only builds your voters’ lists for election day but builds a sense of ownership in the party.

Liberals, of course, have far more scope in their arguments with each other as the political positioning of the party is of major concern to Liberal voters.  If a candidate wants to be to the right of Stephen Harper, that candidate might be better off seeking Harper’s job after he loses the next election. Should a candidate want to appear to be to the left of the NDP, there is lots of room over there.

But the candidate who will receive the most attention will be the candidate who defines the broad scope of social democracy that Liberals can offer Canadians. Liberalism in Canada has never been tied to ideology but it does carry the responsibility and commitment to the individual in our society. You cannot be a right winger and call yourself a Liberal.  They are anathema.

-30-

Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

Mr. Harper is in heady company.

by Peter Lowry

It must be the rarefied atmosphere in Davos, so high in the Swiss Alps. It could also be the company of so many of the world’s leaders, political, industrial and academe. With his toupee firmly in place, our Prime Minister is ready to read the riot act to the World Economic Forum. He gently chides the world leaders for their economic bungling.  He tells them that in Canada, we know just what to do. Canada can penalize those who cannot fight back.

Why Mr. Harper chose such a remote forum in which to announce that he would take more money from impoverished seniors, was not clear. He was certainly safe from having enraged Canadian seniors rising up and rendering him into a crushed mass on the floor of that august stage. Not many Canadian seniors can afford the lift fees at Davos at its peak season.

But if you think Canadians back home are puzzled at Mr. Harper’s choice of topics for these world leaders, the world leaders are equally puzzled by him. He has no message of interest to them. He barely gets polite applause.

The Prime Minister and his staff seem to have no clear understanding of what the World Economic Forum in Davos is about. That breaks a cardinal rule for people giving speeches and their writers: you have to know your audience. These people have not come to hear the old conservative economic bromides. They are here to be challenged, to hear new ideas, to see if there are solutions.  They are deeply concerned about the world economic situation and have no interest in the same old conservative ideology.

The Davos participants must be shocked by the threat from Mr. Harper to force through the pipeline to Canada’s British Columbia coast from Alberta.  This twinned pipeline is to take oil-sands crude to ocean tankers for shipment to the Far East.  To threaten to ram this pipeline through the Rockies and native lands to the coast, without proper consideration or precautions, comes as a shock to any caring person.

Mr. Harper needs to look out the window of his Davos hotel suite.  He needs to see the majestic beauty of the  Alps, the challenging ski runs on the Junkerboden and the fact there is a world out there where people care about people, not ideology.

-30-

Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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