Category: Federal Politics

Updating the Book.

by Peter Lowry

There is a flow to this election. It is like the wave that starts far out to sea as a gentle roller. It grows in size and anger until it crashes on the shore.

Four years ago, I had a long talk with a Canadian who was telling me how much she admired then American president Donald Trump. I was hardly surprised when her husband echoed her stand. They have two older kids who wisely stayed away from the discussion. I mention this today as the husband is running for the conservatives in the current election. He would never get my vote. He is an anti-vaxxer and belongs with the crazies supporting Maxime Bernier’s libertarian peoples’ party.

But we have conservative leader Erin O’Toole refusing to weed out the anti-vaxxers who are running as conservatives. He needs them. That small, but growing, percentage of Canadians supporting Maxime Bernier’s peoples’ party are what O’Toole needed to follow in the path of Stephen Harper. Instead, polls show his conservatives stuck in a statistical tie with the liberals     

I hated the French debate of Wednesday evening. It was a noisy, overly structured, question and answer session. It proved nothing. It was a status quo discussion between people following their individual scripts. The only time I enjoyed it was when the first question came from a New Brunswick woman. It only made a point to francophones living outside of Quebec. It was the point made by Pierre Trudeau many years ago. Canada is bilingual country and its provinces need to be bilingual. And the Bloc Québécois is an ongoing insult to our Canadian parliament.

I have been working and reworking the figures for the election odds that will be published in Saturday’s Babel-on-the-Bay. I am disappointed with the results the figures come to. Maybe, I am more disappointed with the politicians in this election. Justin Trudeau has hardly lost his arrogance. Erin O’Toole thinks he can tell voters anything just to get elected. Jagmeet Singh might come across as a nice guy who amuses children but when it comes to political success, he can forget it.

It looks like another minority government for the next couple years. That will allow the hiatus needed for the three parties to try to find better leaders. The parties need it and the voters need it.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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O’Toole’s Flip-Flops.

by Peter Lowry

It is unlikely that the air force ever taught conservative leader Erin O’Toole anything about weapons. Navigators mostly stick to the mathematics of figuring out where they are and why they are lost. In fact, based on his recent flip-flops on gun control, I would assume O’Toole knows very little about weapons. Even as a former military weapons specialist, I would be lost in today’s different forms of assault rifles, semi and fully automatic weapons.

What I do know is that they all have one purpose. They are designed to kill and maim as many of the opposing force as possible. They are not for shooting at game animals or birds. They make a hell of a mess of targets if you can hold the weapon steady. And they do make an interesting souvenir, if made permanently inoperable.

Yet, back when the wife and I were raising a family we would never allow a weapon of any type in our home. And I have never seen a need for one since.

But Mr. O’Toole seems to be carrying a brief for the gun lobby. His flip-flops on guns have been puzzling. He started out with a simple statement in his policy booklet that he would not change the liberal government’s ban on some 1500 assault rifles. That was fine. It could even be considered commendable for a conservative.

Mid campaign, he decides to revise his policy. There is now a caveat on the ban. O’Toole tells reporters that, if he is prime minister, he would have a public policy review of firearms classifications. And it would be non-political, as he wants to get the politicians out of controlling firearms.

I can not think of anything stupider than anyone other than politicians making the final decisions on firearms. They make rules on our behalf.

I would not want survivalists to rule on it. They are the ones crazy enough to want to have assault rifles.

Though, I hardly want anyone to take the varmint rifles away from farmers and ranchers. They need them sometimes.

It is a subject that requires the use of common sense. I would like to think our politicians are capable of that.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Throwing the first stone.

by Peter Lowry

And who will throw the first stone? It seems we now have protestors throwing stones at prime minister Justin Trudeau. It is easy to blame the anti-vaxxers, the libertarian extremists of Maxime Bernier, social extremists of the conservative party and the child minds that enjoy the excitement of the scene.

But what if we lay the blame where it belongs: with ourselves? Have we been fair to the position of prime minister? Have we shown the proper respect for the position? Or have we just reflected the anger and frustration we have all felt through the long, frightening days of confusion and pandemic?

Has Justin Trudeau done any less in the job that he wanted? Has he exceeded the boundaries of Canada’s awkward and out-dated constitution? It seems he has done what he can to mitigate the hardships of the pandemic. He faithfully reported on the efforts of the federal government to shore up the mandated responsibilities of our provincial governments. He could do no more than direct federal funds to the hurts in our economy. He searched out the coming vaccines and solutions, shopped, bought, and distributed them just as soon as they became available to us.

But, in six years, he also made his share of mistakes. They hardly need exaggeration. He is, like all of us, an imperfect person. He is a failed feminist. Ask Jody Wilson-Raybould. His choice of charities is “We,” which is a family favourite. As an environmentalist, he has been a disappointment.

And he stands in the spotlight. We have to acknowledge the good and the bad. And we should weigh the successes with the failures.

And we have to weigh him in a bad lot. Do Mr. O’Toole, Mr. Singh or Ms. Paul hold promise for us? Is one of them the answer? Will you accept the vacillations and compromises and inadequacies of their plans for our country?

There is no space on your ballot for ‘None of the Above.’ Your duty to Canada is to vote. This is not a ‘Pin the tail on the donkey’ exercise. Give it your best shot.  This Canadian will watch the debates with open mind. I will publish new odds on the race by Saturday—and then I will vote. I will vote for the candidate who best represents me in my riding.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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Decision in Quebec.

by Peter Lowry

There is much riding on the French language debate tomorrow. It could be equated to an English language debate for just Canada’s western provinces. It would have different spectres to address but would raise the same kind of angers and prejudices. It might explain our failures in nation building.

And we are failing. Many blame the rising tempers that we are witnessing as a reflection on the pandemic we have faced so awkwardly. It could run even deeper than that.

Not that Canada is unique. We can see the similar anger in our American neighbours. It is evident on the streets of London, Paris and Rome. We can see it in the continued turmoil of the Middle East, on the streets of Mumbai, the displeasure with governance in Hong Kong, and the intransigence of Beijing.

But that hardly makes Quebec insignificant. Those of us who love what Quebec stands for in a united Canada still worry about what the debate can foretell.

And frankly, if Jagmeet Singh, Erin O’Toole and Annamie Paul missed attending, it would not change much. They are only there to spread confusion. They just add noise. They could possibly win a few votes but are unlikely to affect the outcome in Quebec.

The two candidates with the most to gain and, of course, the most to lose are liberal leader Justin Trudeau and Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet. Both speak as native to Quebec.

As we move across Canada on election night, we expect the liberals to have a lead out of the Atlantic provinces. A greater lead out of Quebec would spell at least a liberal minority. And if the vote in Ontario does not cap the lead, there is still hope in British Columbia.

But it is a fair fight between Blanchet and Trudeau. They are both at home in French. Both have a quasi-endorsement by the currently popular provincial government. Each understands the biases and concerns of Quebec voters.

But they differ in interesting ways. Trudeau is to the manor born. Blanchet tries to emulate the modern Québécois business executive. We will watch the debate with interest.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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Promises, Promises.

by Peter Lowry

It was while plowing through the major parties’ promises in this election that I realized it was a waste of time. It is not just the wasted promises of those who fail to win. Even the winning party can prioritize its promises and forget those that might not be practical.

The range of promises parties make can be interesting. When the conservative leader started talking about animal rights the other day, I knew this election had gone to the dogs. The facts are that keeping track of the promises and to whom they are made is a herculean task.

And then there are the regional promises. Once again, the conservatives take the prize for quantity over quality. The O’Toole program tells Albertans that there will be more pipelines for the output of Alberta tar sands. Yet he tells Quebec voters that there will be no pipelines there.

At least the NDP are consistent. They are going solve all our problems by taxing the ultra rich. If there is a solution to a problem, the NDP are for it. The only concern is that there might not be enough rich people in Canada to pay for all their solutions.

The only time the NDP got me really confused is when their leader was standing outside a Quebec chip wagon, painted NDP orange, serving what they consider a healthy poutine. I have had poutine off Quebec chip trucks over the years and I can assure you there is no such thing as healthy poutine.

But then they showed us that a wheel had fallen off their chip truck and it was going nowhere. Which made sense for a party going nowhere.

But then we have to look at liberal promises. The typical liberal party platform is being spread across the country like a farmer spreads seed for winter wheat. Some seeds fall on fallow ground and do not germinate. Some produce a plant in the spring.

But unless there is something particularly important to you, you will forget the promises. It is for those reasons that smart politicians build a theme around their promises and they always tell you where the promise fits the theme. We only wish that there were some smart politicians running in this election.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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Polls Fail Us.

by Peter Lowry

It is a form of self abuse that I often study the polls that are available on-line. These polls cannot and do not always tell us the truth. Remember, they are a much-manipulated picture of days before. They cannot and do not forecast the future. At best, polls show us weaknesses and strengths of the various parties and help us strategize for different outcomes.

One aspect of current polls is that everyone seems to be ignoring the new democratic party figures. I remember laughing heartily the other day when reading one pundit’s opinion that the NDP were “poised” to make gains. Well, lots of luck with that. The NDP have been virtually flat-lined since before the election was called. The only direction left to the NDP is down! The Party’s ups and downs between 18 and 22 per cent are well within statistical variables.

Jagmeet Singh is not taking the NDP anywhere. The bus left without him. He will have to be replaced as leader for that party after the election. If I believed today’s polls, I would explain that a vote for Mr. Singh’s party in your electoral district could only benefit the conservatives. It could result in a conservative minority supported by the Bloc Québécois.

The best advice for voters who want to make a meaningful vote is to search out the committee rooms of your favoured candidates and go there. Find out when you might have an opportunity to see the candidate in action. Prepare a couple questions which matter to you and be ready to ask them of the candidate. It is only after getting some idea if your choice has a brain or not, that you can make a more meaningful choice for your vote.

It would be a good idea to wear a mask when talking to a conservative candidate. You never know if this person is an anti-vaxxer or not.

If your candidate has to look up the answer to your question in a book of answers, run, don’t walk to the next choice of candidate.

Some people base their vote on either the French or English debate by the party leaders. Bear in mind that at least two out of three of those leaders will be replaced after the election. We will all be better off if you just pick the best and smartest candidate in your riding.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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O’Toole Troubles Mother Nature.

by Peter Lowry

It’s a strange platform that the Mr. O’Toole is trying to sell us. He will promise anything to voters but he fails to understand that he is pissing off Mother Nature. She has certainly been sending clear signals of her displeasure. We have just spent a summer with the West burning and the East baking in the hot weather. Yet, this amateur does not seem to understand that we are creating the problem.

In fact, Erin O’Toole of the conservatives might be the stupidest political leader in this election. The liberal’s Justin Trudeau and the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh might be close behind him but their promises to Mother Nature are, at least, more conciliatory. Trudeau and Singh might both be wrong to support twinning the Trans Mountain pipeline but O’Toole wants to double down by not only finishing the twinning of the Trans Mountain pipeline but he wants to build the currently defunct Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat.

And yet O’Toole promises Quebec, no pipelines there. How’s that for hypocrisy?

And what else can O’Toole do to help the recently AWOL premier of Alberta? We all knows that he owes Jason Kenney for helping him win the conservative leadership. It is almost as though Mr. O’Toole does not know what to say, when premier Kenney is not around to tell him what to say.

It is not as though we have a green party that is any sort of alternative. That party is too busy fighting with its leader to pay attention to those of us deeply concerned about how Canada is treating the environment.

The purpose of the twinning the Trans Mountain pipeline is to enable the pipes to carry three times the amount of diluted bitumen, under high pressure, for shipment overseas. The 2015 estimate of the cost of just the twinning was $12.6 billion. Today, it is estimated to exceed $16 billion. And the pipeline cost the government $4.7 billion to begin with.

With an estimated recovery by the federal government over the next 20 years of only about $20 billion, the Trans Mountain project is definitely a losing proposition. There must be far better ways to spend the same money to generate jobs that last and return more to the citizens and their government, in an environment friendlier to Mother Nature.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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It’s raining in Greenland.

by Peter Lowry

One can only hope you are paying attention to the reports of rain in Greenland. That rain spells the beginning of the end of human life on this planet, as we know it. That rain starts in the subtropics where Mother Nature brews the increasingly violent tropical storms that head into the Caribbean or up the east coast of North America. The warmed waters of the Gulf Stream skirt Newfoundland, gather speed up the coast of Labrador and load the south winds with water as they head for Greenland. And it is raining in Greenland.

It is raining for the first known time at the three-kilometer-high mountain peaks of Greenland. It could be as much as 100,000 years since anything but ice or snow fell on those peaks. That is where the ice and snow have been compressed to create the glaciers that used to move by centimeters down to the sea to break away and create icebergs. Today, the rainwater is cutting rivulets in the ice to find the crevasses that take the water down to the rock formation and provides the lubrication to speed the glacier to the sea at a faster rate. As the added icebergs melt in the warmer waters, the sea level is rising. All because of the rain in Greenland.

But why should we care about some rain in Greenland? It forecasts the melting of our earth’s icecaps. It forecasts floods, it forecasts more and deadlier forest fires, it forecasts violent swings in our weather. We are no longer allowed to fuck with Mother Nature. Because it is raining in Greenland.

And yet our poor politicians say they are going to be good. They say they are going to meet new pollution levels in 20 or 30 years. But we already know that Mother Nature is not going to wait 20 or 30 years for her revenge. Alberta is no longer free to knock down the foothills of the Rockies for the coal underneath. That province of greed can no longer be allowed to inject steam into the earth to bring up that highly polluting bitumen of the tar sands. It must be stopped, because it is raining in Greenland.

We think of ourselves as a capitalist country. We better stop. We can no longer allow capitalism and greed to dictate our response to Mother Nature. Common sense has to take over. Because it is raining in Greenland.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Perusing Performances.

by Peter Lowry

Some of our readers are getting curious about the upcoming changes in our betting line for the current federal election. As I said when publishing a morning line back when the election was called, an updated morning line will be published after Labour Day. On further consideration though, I think it best to wait until after the two leadership debates.

It seems Canadians cannot be denied these leadership events. They have come to define each federal election. I can clearly remember a single moment in the 2011 English leadership debate that showed NDP leader Jack Layton beaming at Steven Harper. And it was Layton’s success in Quebec that year that kept Harper in the prime ministerial role. You have to admit that Harper owed Jack Layton that state funeral.

Both debates will offer liberal Justin Trudeau a chance to redeem himself. In French, he has to attack and demolish Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet. He can give him no quarter. Trudeau has to show Quebec voters that he can do more for them than the Bloc. He has to show up Blanchet as manipulative and untrustworthy. And he has to establish that he is the federal leader who can work most effectively with the popular CAQ government in Quebec City.

In English, he has to handle two opponents. While O’Toole of the conservatives and Singh of the NDP are irrelevant in the French debate, they are the key in English. Trudeau has to effectively link them as though their efforts against him are by a married couple.

In addition, Trudeau has to make a major concession in the English debate. He has to steal the newspaper headlines and the lead in broadcast news on Friday, September 10. The liberals have to be talking up his win in social media that weekend. I would strongly suggest that his best bet for a memorable headline is to cancel all work on the twinning of the Trans Mountain pipeline. He cannot continue to talk about saving the planet in 20 or 30 years. He has to do something dramatic and now! Climate change is happening now.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

The Parked Progressives.

by Peter Lowry

The other day, Chantal Hébert wrote in the Toronto Star that a Trudeau re-election was in the hands of the swing progressives. While it might be a bit early to spread alarm, it is easy enough to get a reading on those people as there are some of us in progressivebloggers.ca that seem to be at odds with Mr. Trudeau. While some of the progressives might say nasty things about Mr. Trudeau, when push comes to shove, they know they have no alternative.

There are only two possibilities for their vote. They know that a vote for the greens or new democrats is not only a wasted vote but helps the conservatives. And no progressive wants to help the conservatives.

But they will also help if they do not vote. That is really the only way the conservatives can win. If liberals stay home, we will be suffering under an uncaring conservative government. The conservatives will continue to destroy our environment. The conservatives will put an end to the workable childcare plan being put in place by the liberals. The conservatives will take Pharmacare off the horizon. And, would anyone, in their right mind, expect a conservative government to invest in the high-speed electric trains of our future.

That guy O’Toole is running around kissing union organizers, protecting his anti-vaxxer candidates and promising almost anything to voters for their vote. He did the same thing when he ran to be leader of the conservative party. The only reason he won that leadership was by Jason Kenney in Alberta endorsing him and his quietly being nice to the hard-line social conservatives.

There are also the swing progressives who park their vote with the NDP and greens. It is why those parties rarely perform as the pollsters promise. There are just too many progressives who lie to the pollsters.

The real danger with these people is if they actually do vote for the NDP. They do not understand that the NDP are their own worst enemies. If you have been puzzled in recent years about the number of progressive unions deserting the NDP, it is easy to explain. The NDP will talk a lot about higher incomes but the truth is that the unions that fund them are more conservative than progressive. They resist change—especially in the management of the union.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]