Category: Federal Politics

Poilievre’s Posturing.

by Peter Lowry

Where does conservative leader Pierre Poilievre get off referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a foreign dictator? That was what Poilievre inferred in his speech to the conservative party meeting in Quebec City Friday evening. It was important enough for him to be read from a teleprompter instead of just more off the cuff and off the wall nihilistic invective from a nasty little man.

I have written many speeches for politicians over the past 65 years and I forced myself to listen to every word of that one-hour and six-minute diatribe. I could boil that speech down to less than 20 minutes by not using all the repetition, exaggerations and outright lies. It was a speech deprecating Justin Trudeau as prime minister. It made it simple to understand why Poilievre is the designated thinker for Canada’s anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers and other nihilists. It is also to the delight of those of us who know what the World Economic Forum is about, that Poilievre dumps on the forum every chance he gets. He doesn’t realize that the WEF is something like the Fraser Institute on steroids. It is a place for conservative business people to dump their profits from world-wide inflation, so that they will not be taxed on them.

Poilievre keeps telling people that this is his common-sense solution. It reminds me of Mike Harris and his common-sense revolution. Harris led the conservative party in Ontario as premier from 1995 to 2002. He sounded quite similar to Poilievre. It did not work. Ask any Ontario resident, old enough to remember the e-coli outbreak in Walkerton and the shooting in Ipperwash Provincial Park.

It struck me that Poilievre was desperately calling on his hapless party to bring back the Steven Harper era. The conservative leader was quite definite about Trudeau being responsible for doubling our national debt. He could have just as easily blamed that on the pandemic.

The one thing we know for sure in all this hectoring of the liberals, is that, as prime minister, Mr. Poilievre is going to do things differently. One thing is for sure is that the conservatives will axe the carbon tax. That was covered more than a few times.  

-30-

Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

Good News, Bad News.

by Peter Lowry

There was a note on Pierre Poilievre’s desk when he reported in after his summer holiday:

Sire: We have good news and bad news. It seems that the generation Zee or Zed voters prefer that you be elected Canada’s prime minister. The bad news is that this is the most difficult bunch of voters to get out to vote.

It is hard to really rate the Ottawa cowboy’s summer. Yes, more Canadians got to know him a little bit. He laid all the blame for inflation, grocery and home prices on Justin Trudeau. He has been hoping that this weekend’s policy conference for the conservatives will give him something glib to say about climate change. He has been struggling to come up with a workable way to blame climate change and destructive wildfires on the liberal leader.

It has been difficult enough with walking into the odd wall and squinting all the time without his glasses. One benefit of the clothing change is that his wife has been freed from her duties washing and starching all those shirts. She has been out seeing the countryside—albeit from the perspective of conservative donors’ backyards.

It is a bit disappointing to hear that his message has been getting a better play among the younger voters. They are the impressionable youth, though not necessarily trend setters. Plus, we understand that these interview subjects are people who opted in to Internet panels and are not randomly selected respondents.

But good or bad news for the liberals can change over the next few years to an election. It seems unlikely that the conservative leader’s message that Canada is broken will carry for too long. When in all the criteria of what makes a liveable country is added up, Canada always comes in among the top ten countries in the world. It is hard to convince us older folks that Canada is broken. We are the ones who have lived here for a while and know that Canada is a pretty darn good country.

-30-

Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

The Importance of Being Liberal.

by Peter Lowry

Oscar Wilde published The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895. It was a farce for its time. The importance of being a liberal is something of a farce for our time. What annoys me the most is that I have no proof of being a liberal today other than the constant e-mails the party sends me asking for money. Back when I was more active in the party, during the last half of the 20th century, we had more purpose.

I have come to the conclusion after watching Justin Trudeau in party functions that he really does not like the party. It is quite obvious that our party leader is an elitist. Which is fine with me. I am still a liberal. The only time I have ever respected Justin was when he was trying to bring the country through the pandemic with his television appearances in front of Rideau Cottage. Our country was desperate for clear leadership at the time and he did provide some.

But when he denied and belittled the many years of party experience in the Senate and denied the liberals their label of honour from the party. It was as though he was getting even for the party’s demands on his father’s time when he was a child living at 24 Sussex Drive.

What Justin does not understand while his father did was that the party chooses the leader. The party is responsible for the training and having organized canvassers ready for the ground game when elections are called. The party is supposed to have a say in the party’s policy direction and in basic platforms. And the leader pisses on the party at his peril.

I don’t even think of Justin as a liberal. The dictionary definition of a liberal is not all that helpful. There will always be the dichotomy between the right and the left in the party. There are the progressives and there are those who drag their feet. Where we all come together is on individual rights. This is what we all fight for. At the same time, there was nothing wrong with being progressive. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau used to joke with me that we were both charter members of the ‘Get Off Your Ass’ (GOYA) group within the party.

-30-

Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

Say ‘No’ to Singh.

by Peter Lowry

Federal new democratic party leader Jagmeet Singh wants the liberal government to come up with another one-time benefit payment of $500 for low-income families. This is the same as the payment in 2022, that the liberals had issued to Canadians to ease the impact of inflation. It did not do all that much last year and is unlikely to do more this year. Nor was the payment appreciated all that much last year.

Singh’s approach is similar to the rhetoric of a union leader snarling at corporate management for the sake of some publicity. He hopes the liberals will refuse and give him an excuse to be more critical of their lack of action on behalf of Canadians.

What would make more sense is for the liberals to lower the tax rate on low-income Canadians and to increase the Old Age Security payments to seniors. That would put more money every month into the pockets of those who need it, instead of a one-time payment that soon disappears.

Canadians should realize that inflation is also benefitting government revenues. A reasonable decrease in the low-end of the income tax rate is justified and would be easily covered by the higher tax levels.

Of course, the conservatives under leader Pierre Poilievre will be outraged at anything that smacks of an increase in taxes for the well-off. Typically, conservatives are not impressed with anything that even maintains the balance in our country’s graduated tax system.

As for the new democrats, they do not want to be forgotten and the strategy is to be critical of the liberal regime without upsetting the accord they have with them that is keeping that party in power until 2025.

For the liberals, the key is to get the home building across Canada moving. It is going to take a complex program of incentives. This could include tax refunds on certain basic building materials and tax benefits on completed geared-to-income housing.

The current government needs to look at the home building programs that got millions of homes built in the years just after the Second World War. Those incentives were put together by a liberal government that understood the needs.

-30-

Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

Guilbeault’s Guilt.

by Peter Lowry

If, by some miracle, the twinning of the Trans Mountain pipeline is completed this year, where will the tar sands bitumen come from to fill that greedy sucker? On one hand, federal environment minister Steven Guilbeault ignores the need to recover at least a portion of the $30 billion cost of the twinned, high-pressure line and on the other hand, he is threatening tar sands companies, such as Suncor, with a cap on greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector.

Mr. Guilbeault wants it both ways! Not, that we really expect the twinned Trans Mountain pipeline to be ready to boogie that early. One would be hopeful that there is a lot of testing to be done before anyone would want to try to force three times the bitumen through the new and high-pressure version of the 70-year-old pipeline.

And besides, the pipeline people have already worn a path to the Canada Energy Regulator’s office complaining about the non-co-operative British Columbian tribes resisting change in their agreements. It is something like the housewife who has been promised a new sky-blue kitchen and the contractor trying to get her to accept a shocking pink kitchen instead.

Guilbeault threatened the tar sands industry with a cap on emissions after the Suncor chief executive officer, Rich Kruger, said the company was disengaging from non renewable resources in favour of short-term tar sands profit. That was akin to sticking the minister in the eye with a sharp stick.

Suncor’s most current figures show the company emitting 17.4 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2021. The entire tar sands production of bitumen contributes 13 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions but that does not count the emissions after the bitumen is refined into crude oil products and used in heating oil and gasoline, diesel fuel and other products.

The tar sands companies, led by Suncor, are going to make carbon capture their thing and they promise that they will be “net” zero in carbon emissions by 2050. While I, for one, might not be here to witness that miracle, I side with the more technical experts who think that promise is ridiculous. It would cost too much in the long term.

-30-

Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

Confusing Conservatives.

by Peter Lowry

It is hard to compare the conservatives in opposition in Ottawa and the conservatives in power at Queen’s Park for Ontario. The main difference must be the anger in opposition and the arrogance in power. In neither case does it speak well for the conservative party of Canada or its provincial fledglings.

Take the Ontario situation. Please. Talking to an Ontario liberal the other day, I asked him who he liked in the current leadership race for that party. He gave the following answer: “I’ll go with whomever sends a shiver down the fat boy’s spine.”

This liberal should not worry Doug Ford as much as active Ontario conservatives who are deeply embarrassed by the chicanery and dishonesty of the Ford administration. They will turn their backs on Medicare and let him make profits for specialized clinics but they are not pleased with his catering to dishonest developers. Conservatives understand the purpose of the Greenbelt and are hardly pleased with Ford’s self-serving mishandling of that portfolio.

Mind you, if you listen long to federal conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, you would swear that conservatism is headed for Hell in a handbasket. Mr. Poilievre is not only a mean and vicious little man, but he knows of no difference between a truth or a lie.

Poilievre is a classic failure of a politician. He has one only person he wants to please: himself. He has no empathy or caring for people. He wants to inflict a dystopian form of conservatism on our country. He wants a country that does not care about its people. He wants a dog-eat-dog capitalism.

This Ottawa cowboy only seems to understand libertarianism. He does not want a future for our country. He seems to see only the pleasures of the day. He cares nothing for the problems with the environment. He might think of himself as a conservative but he has no understanding of what is worth conserving. He hardly wants a better country for all, he wants a better country for him and those who choose to follow him.

It might be hard to choose between Justin Trudeau and his elitism over the sad plan-less Pierre Poilievre. You will get to decide soon. We can put up with Justin Trudeau. You would hate the alternative with Pierre Poilievre.

-30-

Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

Singh’s Song.

by Peter Lowry

New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh’s turbans might be bright and colorful but his beard is graying. It is also showing a little more trimming, in contravention of the dictates of the tenth Sikh Guru. Canadians might never choose the NDP for governance under an observant Sikh but they are more than willing to see him as the balance point between the harshness of the conservatives and their tiring with the acting of liberal leader Justin Trudeau.

Even without his glasses, Pierre Poilievre can see the tenuous nature of the liberal- NDP agreement that is supporting the current government. He enjoys sniping at their arrangement. He is in a constant state of readiness for the slug-fest to come.

But like Canada’s aboriginal peoples, the NDP also have their stories to be told. The NDP support works, they can say. “We are holding the liberal feet to the fire.” They will tell you: “We are getting things done.” And that is the song they will sing to their voters.

Poilievre, of course is there to try to convince voters that the NDP are just liberals with different hats. He is trying to redirect some of the rage, that he has been laying so heavily on the liberal doorstep, on the NDP. Whether this is going to work or not is open to question.

Thinking back over the years, we saw an NDP support agreement with the Pierre Trudeau liberals in the 1970s. The federal NDP leader, at the time was David Lewis and his party never won any dividends on that investment. In the same era, Ontario provincial NDP leader, Bob Rae, did benefit from his party’s support agreement with the Peterson liberals in the last half of the 1980s. That was in the 1990 provincial election when Peterson slipped and slid into oblivion leaving a surprised NDP in power in Ontario.

Yet, the question is, will the NDP story be heard, in the ongoing bombast of a federal election fought between a weasel like Poilievre and an elitist like our current prime minister? It could be that the new democrats will, once more, be the detritus left on the battlefield between the two larger political parties.

-30-

Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

Time To Go Justin Trudeau.

by Peter Lowry

Your sunny days are done, Justin. And few voters want to watch you being defeated by the Ottawa cowboy, Pierre Poilievre. We hear that your effort to provide Alberta with a pipeline for its tar sands product over the Rockies has now become a $30 billion plus disaster for our country.

You have spilled those billions down the Rockies to Burrard Inlet. Even the BC tribes who bought into the pipeline promises to cross their tribal lands, are now questioning their support. And even in a country as rich as Canada, we cannot accept these losses.

And why is your chief critic, conservative leader Poilievre, saying nothing about the failed expansion of the pipeline? Did you build it for the Ottawa cowboy? Will he be there when the first ceremonial barrels of tar sand’s gunk flow through the expanded high-pressure pipeline? Will Poilievre take the bows for you when the first ocean going tanker is loaded with bitumen in Burrard Inlet? Will he take any of the blame when the first ocean tanker spills bitumen into the summer playground of the Orcas in the Strait of Georgia?

The Ottawa cowboy was not as prominent when you bought Trans Mountain five years ago. It only cost taxpayers $4.5 billion at that time. We should not forget that the original pipeline has been in service now for 71 years. And you are going to triple the pressure in those rusty old pipes. And the taxpayer’s final bill for the expanded pipeline is going to be north of $30 billion.

I certainly admire your trust, Justin. I do hope the engineers who planned the increase in pressure through the pipeline for you are still around. You might find you want to get our money back from them that you paid for their opinions. And please do not suggest that the aboriginals buy the whole mess. We would certainly like to see more of the tribes be entrepreneurial but we can ill afford to see the ones who buy into Trans Mountain pipeline, be bankrupted.

We have heard from the Ottawa cowboy about your supposed generosity during the pandemic. We have heard from him about your supposedly taking of Canadian news from the Meta people. Why is he so silent about more than $30 billion?

-30-

Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

It Isn’t Intelligent.

by Peter Lowry

It was confusing the other day when the Toronto Star ran an opinion piece about artificial intelligence being discriminatory for black people. It was not until you read some of the story that it was clear that the article was about computer programs for facial recognition. This is not as much about artificial intelligence as it is about the world’s peoples, their languages and their facial characteristics.

Back in the 1970s there were many serious programs going on at universities aided by computer companies to facilitate language translation. The computer company I worked for in Mississauga at the time, became something of a clearing house for exchanging thoughts and solutions on many of these problems. In many ways the work played into your sense of humour. To make a correct translation required that you not only programmed in the meanings of words but how they were expressed in the other language’s cultural and logical thought process.

This thinking came in handy when two of my brothers and I started up a company to combine our computer-related experience. As I was the least technical of the brothers, I got the job of running the company.

One of our first projects was to work with the Metropolitan Toronto Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to find a way to computerize the millions of photographs of people who had been photographed by one of our police forces. We quickly found that developing the programs necessary would require millions of dollars. Not having that kind of funding, we moved on to other projects.

One of the realities of facial recognition is the same as in language translation. Different racial characteristics are more complicated than the world’s languages. And people of mixed racial background are sometimes in a class by themselves. You actually need to determine the predominant racial characteristics before allocating the individual to a particular database.

I can well appreciate the problems with the black racial characteristics but the range of characteristics is as broad for the Asiatic.

The only places I know that are trying to upgrade their facial recognition are Ontario’s casinos. Back during the pandemic when the casinos were still open, you were smart to wear a mask. They asked you to stop on the way in and lower your mask so they could get a clear picture. They have some shots of me with my bare face and a middle finger raised. Who do they think they are kidding?

-30-

Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

Blaming Voting Systems.

by Peter Lowry

One of Justin Trudeau’s promises in the 2015 federal election was that it would be the last time Canadians would use first-past-the-post voting. And you know how far he got with that idea. His first error was to give the challenge of change to a minister who seemed to have little understanding of how democracies work.

What should have been beneficial was the special committee of parliament that was created to study the subject. The committee hearings were streamed across the country for the edification of anyone interested. I might have been one of the few who watched, listened and felt I was gaining a better understanding of how Canadians approached the subject.

I have also had the advantage of visiting countries around the world with different voting, varied political structures and different results. You might have a good laugh at the city hall in Stockholm but the politics can be boring and slow on the uptake. Another riot in the Diet in Tokyo can be puzzling but the results aren’t too bad. I was impressed with the run-off for president in France. The French aren’t opposed to trying new approaches. Watching the Lords in London is just another exercise in watching paint dry. I always think of Washington D.C. as a city of monuments, many of them in the U.S. Senate.

But Canada is a special problem. I think of our system as a failure of British colonialism. The Brits bequeathed us with a copy of the British parliament but screwed us by giving too much power to our former colonies, in the form of provinces.

I was not as disappointed with some of the political science professors but it was not as encouraging to listen to their views as I hoped. When the committee seemed insistent in listening to so many of them, you would have thought the odd good idea might come along with some solutions. No such luck.

That was one of the few times when Canadians saw an impasse in a special committee. It was one of those times when, divided down party lines, the committee agreed to disagree. There was no acceptable solution.

-30-

Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]