Category: Federal Politics

Mr. Ford Regrets.

by Peter Lowry

You never know why some people extend regrets to a friendly invitation. Everyone seems to be going on and on about the premier of Ontario going to his lawyers to get him off the list of witness for the Rouleau Inquiry in Ottawa. You would think that in as much as it is the judgement of the Trudeau government that is being questioned here, Mr. Ford would be delighted to help impeach them.

But no. Mr. Ford’s problem is not that he is unhappy maligning the federal liberals. He can do that over his morning cereal. Mr. Ford’s handlers have another problem. It is the problem that he cannot go into the witness box with a teleprompter. Anywhere that Mr. Ford goes these days, his teleprompter equipment goes with him. He has never been taught how to use it properly but it is there for him to keep his feet out of his mouth.

His need for a teleprompter is so serious that one was installed at the funeral for two South Simcoe police officers in Barrie recently. I think it was the first time I had ever seen teleprompter equipment at a funeral. Doug was the only person to use it. Under the circumstances, it was not as hilarious as his usual use of the equipment. He reads a line from one side, turns his head to the other side and reads a line from there.

The fact this is just an inquiry and not a trial, has not changed Doug’s attitude. He knows that his off-the-cuff remarks can cause him trouble. And that might be serious if it got out just how much he was chortling over the discomfort to Ottawa’s liberal politicians.

His other problem is that part of the order for the emergencies act was to solve the needs at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor. Doug had shot off his mouth about the impact that inconvenient blockade was having on Ontario. I doubt that he has gotten around to thanking the prime minister for including that problem. It was easy enough to resolve, once someone told the Ontario provincial police to clean up that mess.

Talking to Ontario conservatives about what a blowhard Doug Ford can be, I often get the response that he sure is, “But he is our blowhard.”

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Freeland Fails.

by Peter Lowry

Before making her deputy prime minister and finance minister, did anyone check to see if Chrystia Freeland was really a liberal? She does not often talk like one. She sounds more like one of those blue liberals from Quebec. She is heading down the path of former finance minister and, briefly prime minister, Paul Martin.

Paul Martin betrayed the liberalism of his father. The shipping magnate from Montreal was reputed to have promoted the idea in Canadian politics that you campaign down the middle of the road and, once elected, veer to the right.

When an astute observer of political entrails as Chantal Hébert of the Toronto Star says that Freeland is a party-killer, people might start to listen. What Hébert really said was that Freeland is acting like the free-spending party of the early days of COVID 19 may be over.

This is at a time when what Canada really needs is a finance minister who can look ahead and see where this train is really headed.

Yes, some of the so-called financial experts are calling for a recession next year. It just does not make sense to help make the recession happen. And that is where Freeland is heading.

The problem is that we struggled enough to reach the point we are at with COVID. Nobody declared the pandemic over and done with. We are still battling variants. People are still dying. We are still inoculating people.

On top of that, our hospitals across this country are in desperate shape. They had their COVID along with ours. Freeland and her boss are going to have to come to the table with the provinces to help. The federal treasury needs to be raided to support the provinces. We can hardly let some right-wing provincial governments try to privatize parts of Medicare.

And as a favour, I will tell you where Freeland can get some of the money. Get it from the capitalist bastards who reaped unconscionable profits in the past year. They screwed the Canadian public out of that money and now we need some back. They can also make a contribution to the recovery.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Policing Police.

by Peter Lowry

There is more than one benefit of the inquiry into the use of the emergencies act by Justice Paul Rouleau. It is showing how antiquated and inefficient our approach to policing is across Canada. I can only speak to the situation in Ontario but I have seen police actions across Canada and in other countries and I have seen nothing that I thought was a better solution. To go around saying, defund the police, is a foolish waste of time. As much as I admire many of those men and women who devote their working life to policing, we need to learn how they can serve us better.

And new thinking about policing in Canada needs to start at the top. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are an out-of-date anachronism. It is a poorly equipped quasi military force whose costumes are great for citizenship ceremonies and equestrian displays. They are probably more effective when carrying out their national policing responsibilities in mufti.

Policing of the provinces is a different matter. Ontario and Quebec both have overly politicized province-wide forces reporting to their provincial governments. They both seem to lack impartial judicial oversight. To send out young men and women from the RCMP’s Regina training depot to police other provinces is another serious error.

Growing up in Toronto, I saw many sides of Toronto’s municipal police. And it has always struck me that this is the level of policing that raises the more serious problems. I expect that the Toronto police never fell lower in Torontonian’s estimation than during the G-7 in Toronto in 2010. The police services boards are inadequate and are more a system of protecting the police and ensuring adequate budgets, than any level of management. We put a hell of a lot of responsibility on chiefs of police and not enough on the police services boards that hire and fire them.

And as the Rouleau inquiry in Ottawa appears to be indicating, we certainly need better coordination between the different police forces. We also need better civilian oversight of all levels of policing and faster action to contain circumstances such as blockades that impede the normal flow of commerce and citizens.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Freeland’s Faux Pas.

by Peter Lowry

Where does finance minister Chrystia Freeland get off boosting one of conservative Pierre Poilievre’s dumber ideas? We thought he was stupid to say that, under a conservative regime, there would be no new expenditures without equivalent cuts in other programs. And now we learn that Freeland is making it a directive to her cabinet colleagues.

There is no shorter route to a recession than for everyone to stop spending. If she does not know that, then she and her advisors should all be fired.

And how can Canadians stop spending? They are being ripped off by the oil companies and the food chain. When unconscionable profits are not stopped by her government, what gives her the right to inflict more harm on us?

Canada needs investment, not recession. We need clean energy infrastructure. We need high-speed electric trains replacing fossil-fueled airplanes. We need electric vehicles of all types. We need inexpensive, energy-conserving homes. We need reasonably priced rental accommodation. We need to protect our farmland.

Freeland doesn’t seem to understand that you learn from the past and you build for the future. She needs to understand that if Canadians want to forsake the future, they need only vote conservative. And if they wanted a further lift back into the past, they could vote for the new democrats.

I believe I read something about her latest foolishness in connection with a speech in Washington. It seemed to ask American lawmakers for their approval of her road to recession. It would certainly get rave reviews from the Trump republicans. Anything that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer seems to please those idiots.

And, frankly, Canadians are sick and tired of the stupid conservative assertion that government spending, during the worst of the pandemic, was the cause of the current world inflation. Government spending had very much to do with how well we got through the first waves of the pandemic and very little to do with the current inflation. The breakdown of the world-wide distribution system, the greed of some industries and world tensions have caused the inflation. And Ms. Freeland and her finance department staff are not helping.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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For Whom Bell Tolls?

by Peter Lowry

It was 22 years ago that Bell Canada spun off Nortel—the jewel in Canada’s communications crown. What Jean Monty of Bell Canada really did was to dismiss Canada’s world leadership in a company that was key to Bell Canada’s future and the future of telecommunications in Canada.

What started out as Northern Electric in 1895, that was a joint operation of Western Electric in the U.S. and Bell Canada and segued into Bell Northern Research and then Nortel Networks. It was the golden goose. Monty, as head of Bell Canada, cut its throat and then cut it adrift. A cornucopia of some 6000 active patents were feasted on by the world’s, mainly U.S., telecoms and computer companies for just $4.5 billion. Nortel Networks officially died in 2011.

What brings this to mind today was the announcement earlier in the week by Finland’s giant telecom equipment supplier Nokia of a $340 million research hub in Kanata, Ontario. And since politicians never learn from their mistakes, the federal, provincial and municipal governments are kicking in a gift of $72 million to get the project moving. And the excuse was that Nokia can provide fifth generation equipment across the networks.

Platitudes, of course, were proffered by the prime minister, the premier of Ontario and the mayor of Kanata. It all has something to do with deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland’s approach to only doing business with friends and allies who are democratic. It seems counter to the old chestnut that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Personally, I think Ms. Freeland is wrong. In present world conditions, I think we need to attempt to restore friendly relations with China. And when Russia gets rid of the foolish Mr. Putin and makes peace with the Ukraine, we should quickly restore our former relations with that country. Canada has proved its abilities in wars and it has proved its capabilities as a peacekeeper. We also need to prove to countries outside of the Americas that we can be a good friend.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Blame Game.

by Peter Lowry

It is like making sausage. You really did not want to dig into the process. That is what Justice Paul Rouleau and his ‘Freedom Convoy’ Inquiry has gotten into. The vulgar, but technical enough, term for what happened in Ottawa last February appears to be a CLUSTER-F**K. The list of the guilty appears to cover all three levels of government, politicians and their servants alike.

And nobody can spread the blame more thoroughly than civil servants. They know the nuances of political speak. They know what memos to incinerate and which to discover. They know who should be called as witnesses and who to hide. They know who to impeach and whom to protect.

And why is premier Ford not on the witness list? It was his ministers and his employees who fumbled the blockade at the vital Ambassador Bridge. It was his incompetent minister who ignored pleas from the City of Ottawa. And we can only hope that Justice Rouleau spends some time discussing the disgusting lack of intelligence sharing between the RCMP, OPP and Ottawa Police Services.

But we should have no sympathy for the Ottawa police chief who let his cops collapse in the face of numbers. Any military strategist could have told him that when you don’t have the numbers, you need to use your brain. It is not just there to hold up your brass hat.

And they could have brought in MP Bill Blair. He was the guy who let his expanded force kettle innocent civilians during the G7 meeting in Toronto back in 2010. (And he did not even need an emergency act.)

Even MP Marco Mendicino, minister of public safety, could have been helpful in discussing some legal avenues open to the Ottawa Police Services. Why he was not in the forefront of the federal government response to the convoy is a question Justice Rouleau should ask him.

We were cheering when the emergency act was applied. We watched, delighted, the methods of the enlarged police action. It took only one foray by Toronto’s Police equestrian team to show that horses might be old fashioned but they sure scared those truckers. It was the best television show we had seen since before the pandemic.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Price of Freedom.

by Peter Lowry

Justice Paul Rouleau provided a very informative and thorough discussion of the why, what and how of the Emergencies Act inquiry last Thursday. It was a step forward in Canada for an act of parliament to require such an inquiry to be conducted after the act has been used.

One can only wish that we could retroactively have had such a clause in force in the previous War Measures Act that was brought into use by Pierre Trudeau in 1970.  I felt very strongly, at the time, that such strong actions should not have been taken. Yet, to be fair, I did feel the act of 2022 was necessary. The difference was that in 1970, I did not feel we had given the Sûreté du Québec time to do its job. In 2022, we gave the Ottawa police service more than enough time to do its job. There was also the matter of the border blockades in Manitoba and Ontario as well as the one that Alberta did get cleared as the act was brought into force by Ottawa.

Along with millions of other Canadians, I was angry with the Ottawa police service for not doing the job they were paid to do. You did not have to be a follower of Canadian politics to be angry at police who were not doing their job. I am sure most of us will be particularly interested in their excuses for failing to act when they knew what was coming and the intent of the convoy.

I might live today in the middle of Ontario but I know every foot (or metre) of the area in Ottawa being occupied by those convoy people in their ignorance. Those loud and obnoxious boors were insulting our parliament, our parliamentarians, our flag, our country and our law-abiding citizens.

This might seem like a strange comment to add to this commentary, but I sincerely hope that this inquiry will not become politicized. It might be too late already. On the very first day, we were told by three provinces that they objected to the utilization of the act. These three provinces with their conservative governments were obviously not there to listen.

We already have too many divisions in this country. In English and French, we desperately need to work together. City and rural, we desperately need to work together. East and West, we desperately need to work together. We have a great country, with endless potential. We have built our country with the peoples of the world. We will only enjoy the bounty of this land if we work together. Shame on our neighbours to the south for being so divided. Shame on us if we follow.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Next Can of Worms.

by Peter Lowry

Just when you think things are going to quiet down a bit, we have another Ottawa can of worms being opened. Susan Delacourt of the Toronto Star tells us that conservative leader Poilievre and prime minister Trudeau want to start duking it out over the convoy to Ottawa last February. It sounds about as useful as the House of Representatives in the U.S. studying the attack on the U.S. Capitol of January 6.

It is not as though there were no acts to be passed this year according to the liberal-NDP pact that is keeping the liberals in power. If the NDP don’t keep Trudeau’s feet to the fire, we will be lucky to see the beginnings of dental care this year. Without that beginning, we could be into an election before spring of 2023.

Neither Poilievre nor Trudeau would come out well in a head-to-head battle. Both men carry baggage. Poilievre just needs an election before his truckers lose interest. Trudeau needs to find someone to rebuild the liberal party. It is going to take time to repair the damage he has done to that venerable party. You can hardly treat all those workers like your personal ATM and keep them to help liberals get elected.

Every month that goes by will spell trouble for Poilievre. He is no Stephen Harper. Harper was always in trouble with women voters but Poilievre is in worse shape. Women simply don’t like him. His token wife can’t help him here.

It really is funny when you think of it. Poilievre has his path to power all mapped out and the fates are not cooperating. He did not realize that he could get stalled at the starting gate. Every day that Trudeau stays in power is a day when Poilievre loses more of his angry entourage. They wander off, they are too impatient. They need disciplined brown shirts to keep them tense and ready for the combat to come.

It is almost the reverse for Justin Trudeau. His strength in the cities is ebbing. He isn’t connecting the way he is capable. He is disappointing the Ukraine diaspora and yet really doing all that he can to help.

Where I think Trudeau is seriously losing ground is with the G-7 leaders. I think they are perceiving him as lots of talk and little action. They soon lose interest.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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We Need Class Actions.

by Peter Lowry

It is the arrogance of the oil industry that really causes the problems. We need generations of citizens building on the work of those environmentalists who have gone before. It worked to end the crimes of the tobacco industry. The oil industry will be even harder to crack. Its pockets are deeper. Its strategies are different.

And the oil industry has volumes of pseudo scientific studies that question its culpability. It is a long way from the oil fields of Texas to the melting glaciers of Greenland.

But a world of science says that greenhouse gas emissions are melting the polar caps. We are raising the level of our oceans. We are upsetting the critical balance of nature. Out of control fires are making it worse. Thousand-year storms are becoming too common. Placid rivers are overflowing. The politicians and their carbon emission targets are getting nowhere. It is action time.

I propose we take the petroleum industry to court for failing to curb greenhouse gas emissions. We need it to happen in other countries, too. It has to become a cause that the courts cannot ignore. We have to attack on all fronts.

We need lawyers with strength in environmental actions. We will probably end up before the supreme courts. The point is that the oil companies are knowingly destroying our planet. Every barrel of crude oil produced is adding to the burden.

We are coming through a world-wide pandemic and the oil companies have been making unconscionable profits. Hopefully we can come up with an ersatz crude that is not based on the crushed remains of long-ago dinosaurs. We will still need a few oil products.

The bugler is sending a message.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Delusions of the NDP.

by Peter Lowry

That did it. The federal new democrats think they can ingratiate themselves with Quebec voters by supporting bigotry and economic deprivation. As Puck said in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “What fools these mortals be.”

Only fools would support Quebec’s despicable language and religious symbols laws. Do they realize the leader of the federal NDP would be barred from a job with the Quebec government? Maybe, as an observant Sikh, growing up in Brampton, Ontario, Jagmeet Singh does not recognize bigotry. And yet in Quebec, he would be knee-deep in discrimination.

The NDP actually voted in favour of a Bloc Québécois attempt to further strip the rights of non-French-speaking Quebecers. The bill would have denied the rights of non-French speakers to Canadian citizenship if the applicant resided in Quebec. In addition, the Bloc bill would have interfered with the rights of Quebec businesses to communicate in English at work with English-speaking employees. It also denied employers and their employees from communicating in any other language but French. This bill was a further insult to Quebec’s English-speaking minority and actually interferes with the ability of Quebec firms to do business outside Quebec.

But the new democrats supported it in a feeble attempt to win praise and recognition in Quebec. They do not understand that the Orange Wave of Jack Layton is long dead.

And Jagmeet Singh is no Jack Layton.

More seriously, the actions of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) are already hurting the immigration needs of the province. This is continuing to hurt the ability of business to find many of the skills needed in a modern business world. It is crushing the ability of the province to penetrate the markets of almost 400 million Americans and Canadians on their doorstep because too many of their employees are unable to communicate with those markets in English or Spanish.

At a time when new tourism markets need to be developed, the province is denying the need for bilingualism. When his unthinking immigration minister Jean Boulet said publicly the other day (in French, of course) that most immigrants to Quebec “don’t work, don’t speak French or don’t adhere to the values of Quebec Society,” his boss premier François Legault said he still wanted him in the CAQ cabinet.

I think Quebec can do better.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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