Category: Federal Politics

The quiet is the most alarming. It is unnatural. It bodes ill. The opposition parties quietly discuss options among themselves while Green Party caucus and leader Elizabeth May talks to herself. The members ready themselves for the cut and thrust of Parliament and Question Period. The news media are impatient to see who will win the networks’ ‘clip of the day’? It takes a while in the time of this hush to realize what has been missing. What is not happening in this House of controversy?

Is this one issue so deadly that nothing else in the pattern of government can be allowed to interfere? Has the Robo Call issue so paralyzed the House? Are the denizens of the Prime Minister’s Office too busy mixing the Kool-Aid to allow them time to approve and move normal routine?

Why is Finance Minister Jim Flaherty so quiet? He would normally be out setting the parameters for his upcoming budget. He would be testing tax cuts for the rich. He would be checking new ways to squeeze more from the poor and impoverished.

Where are Sheriff Peter MacKay and his side-kick the ex-cop who handles the F-35 stealth fighter procurement for him? Defence Minister, MacKay has had no time for fishing trips lately from which he can be so ably rescued by the newly renamed Royal Canadian Air Force.

Has Public Safety Minister Vic Toews taken time off for some quickie courses in marital relations and twitting? And where are our Bobbsey twins, Foreign Minister John Baird and his alter ego, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney? The Bobbsey twins are usually ready and on the alert for opportunities to kiss up to the Americans and spread fear and loathing among less-favoured foreigners.

Why is our Environment Minister Peter Kent not out there on the rubber chicken circuit telling Canadians how our benefactors who are digging in the tar sands are working for us? He wants to tell us how Mr. Harper’s government will ensure that the heavy crude is shipped to the Americans and Chinese to fuel their economies.

And what has happened to our Treasury Board President Tony Clement? You would think by now, Tony would have come up with some new washrooms to build in Muskoka to shore up the Canada-U.S. border fortifications.

But all eyes are on the issue of voter suppression in the last election. The legitimacy of the Harper government is in question. The Harper bag of tricks is empty. Will the government do the decent thing and resign? Probably not.

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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

There is much to be reflective on in today’s politics. And what would be a better subject to reflect on than the crassness of the Conservative Party of Canada? The scoundrels have been abusing Canadians. They have been scurrying around this past week like a house full of rodents. They have been trying to find a way to weasel out of the mess they are in because of their incompetence. They cannot even get their telephone calls right. Are we really surprised to hear that the Harper Conservatives could lie and cheat to win an election? These are the same people that had to fight to keep some of their senior people out of jail over the ‘In and Out’ scam of 2006.

And how can anybody forget that deplorable leaders’ debate in 2008 when Mr. Harper stoically sat there and ignored every suggestion that there might be a growing financial problem that could hamstring our economy? Mr. Harper found that he could flat out lie to Canadians and some of them were stupid enough to still vote for him.

In this most recent election, he was so determined to win that he wrote off Quebec and concentrated on confusing Liberal and NDP voters in electoral districts where his party had a chance. It was hardly a coincidence that Liberal and NDP voters were getting bogus calls from people saying their voting location was changed. Yet Prime Minister Harper stood in the House of Commons and said that it was Liberals making the calls. That was not even funny.

It makes you wonder if Mr. Harper has lost it. The man just does not seem to be able to comprehend the world around him. Does he think he is invulnerable now that he has a majority government? Whoever is responsible for those calls—thousands of them—was breaking the law. These people knowingly committed a felony. To attempt to confuse the issue, to defend the law-breakers, to try to switch the blame to others and to refuse to face facts are not the actions that Canadians expect from their Prime Minister.

Stephen Harper is a man with a powerful ego. He sees himself as redemption for Canada. He knows what is right and he fails to understand why others might disagree with his solutions. His cabinet, that he appointed, are sycophants that he has raised to level that most could never have achieved on their own. His back benchers in the House of Commons are mindless lemmings who will follow him to the cliff’s edge and into the abyss below. And his Senate of Canada appointees are further proof that the Senate should have been abolished years ago.

And Stephen Harper has lost his grip. He goes to Davos, Switzerland to give a speech on an internal Canadian matter that the delegates at Davos neither care about nor understand. He did the ritual walk-around camera shots with the Israeli Prime Minister on Friday like a zombie. His answers to questions in the House are more and more desperate. This guy is supposed to be our Prime Minister. Can anyone suggest a good shrink who might be able to help him?

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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

While everyone was complaining about robo calls and Conservative call centres, we were busy trying to make sense of the local Conservative’s election expenses. Of a legal limit of $96,630.18 that could be spend on his campaign in May 2011, Mr. Brown claims to have spent $95,328.54. Someone obviously kept a close eye on expenditures to cut it that close but it appears that a bus might have been forgotten.

And how the heck do you miss that bus? It belongs to a local company and was provided to Mr. Brown for the duration of the general election last year. It was hard to miss. It was plastered with signs for Mr. Brown. In fact, since there was no out of town need during the campaign, it was a daily eyesore here in Babel.

Mind you an eyesore is just in the mind of an observer. As the bus normally parked overnight at the company’s premises just a block from where we live, it was a regular reminder of the in-your-face nature of Mr. Brown’s campaign. Obviously, we are not impressed with Mr. Brown.

But this bus was a movable eyesore. We never saw it full of Conservative party faithful joyfully going for a picnic. Its principle use was to be parked at spots that it would be illegal for Mr. Brown’s supporters to erect a billboard. These parking places seemed to be prominent and busy intersections in Babel and at polling places when people were voting. Mr. Brown was, of course, advised by the local returning officer that having a portable billboard at a polling place is illegal and Mr. Brown’s supporters had the bus moved.

The Babel supporters of Mr. Brown must have been disappointed with the returning officer’s interference but it made sense. Almost anyone who had ever worked in a federal election campaign before could have told them that election signs at a polling place are a no-no. We are only allowed to act stupid so many times!

But the point of this diatribe is that some how, Mr. Brown’s accountants appear to have forgotten to include the bus in his expenses. Since the company that owns the bus is not included in contributions in kind, we have to assume there is a bill somewhere for that bus. No matter what value the campaign placed on the bus, there is no place in those figures to hide that large an expense. It could not be accounted for in the sign expenses.

Realistically, nobody can rent a bus and driver for less than a couple hundred dollars a day—and probably more. Assuming it cost just $200 a day, that would be an expenditure of over $6,000 to have it available for the entire campaign.

Maybe more Babel residents should ask Elections Canada what happened to the bus.

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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

Interim Federal Liberal Leader Bob Rae fired a caucus researcher yesterday. The person stood accused of embarrassing the Liberal caucus by being identified as establishing the “Vikileaks” Twitter site. This site was designed to attack Conservative Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. The notoriety of the site made it doubly embarrassing when the Speaker’s Office discovered the culprit was in the Liberal caucus office as opposed to the original belief that it came from the NDP caucus office.

Bob Rae had to stand up in the House of Commons and publicly apologize. That can take a lot of wind out of your sails when you are trying to be indignant about possibly illegal Conservative Party activities. At a time when the NDP official opposition are busy with their leadership contest, the Liberals were enjoying the opportunity to appear as the real opposition. Their party employee did not help.

But do not feel to sorry for the miscreant in this case. He will reappear sometime down the road in another incarnation. Most young aspiring political apparatchiks do.

We all carry the memory and the scars from such events. It is part of learning the trade. In our case it was working for a certain cabinet minister, organizing events for him. One of the first events was a critical announcement in one part of a hotel and then the minister wanted to show the news media he was one of the gang by leading them to a bar that was set up in a suite. It would have worked but for a combination of events that had the minister standing, looking foolish, at a locked door. The minister did not like it when things did not work.

Luckily, the campaign manager understood what had happened and knew that it was not possible for his young organizer to be in three places at the same time. He asked us not to slash our wrists and to carry on. The minister took more time to be forgiving.

Bob Rae did not have that luxury. He needed a body to display for the Conservatives and the media. The fact that the researcher might now be enjoying an unexpected holiday on some sunny Caribbean beach is another matter.

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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

One of the least loved of the technological innovations in telephony is the ability to call thousands of people automatically and play the person answering a recorded message. They call them robo calls. They are an affront, annoyance, irritant and cheap. And being cheap is why they are heavily used by Canadian politicians. With a great deal of luck, they could even cost Prime Minister Stephen Harper his majority government.

When this automated ability was first developed, it was thought to be beneficial because telephone companies could offer subscribers the ability to call a group of telephone numbers to inform the subscribers of a church supper or a change in a little league schedule. It became a little silly when the son’s high school started using automated calls to inform the parents that Johnny had missed school that day. The reason it was silly was because parents rarely get to answer a call when teenagers are at home.

Certainly one of the most irritating of the more recent automated calls is the political survey. This is the one that asks you to tell the unnamed call centre how you will vote. It gives you a number for each candidate that you can press and hangs up when you press a choice. Since we always press a number at random, we have to reassure the local Liberal candidate occasionally that we have not switched party allegiance.

If everyone would just press a random number, we could soon end the foolishness. The most accurate answers on those surveys are probably those entered by four-year olds when they get to the phone first.

The recent revelation that the Conservative Party has been using these automated systems to discourage voters from going to the polls is a far more serious subject. These are not simple pranks by low-level party people. This is direct interference in peoples’ right to vote and is a criminal act.  While a lot of Conservative apparatchiks will have to fall on their swords for it, there is enough cause for there to be some by-elections in closely contested ridings.

If the Liberals and New Democrats could just agree to stay out of each others’ way, we could have a good chance to take away the Conservative majority in Ottawa. Now there is a cause, we can all agree on.

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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

Have you met Canada’s parliamentary Bobbsey Twins? They are representing Canada to the world. We can only hope that their tenure is brief and the world forgives us for the confusion they cause. They are Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney. They might come from different backgrounds but you would be forgiven if you got them confused.

Neither of the gentlemen has ever held a private sector job. They found their calling in the extremes of right-wing politics. Baird must have been bored with his early years, learning his trade working for less extreme members of the Ontario Conservatives. He became something of a legend of ideological overkill though when he served in Premier Mike Harris’ Cabinet. He is best known to former friends of Canada for his opposition to the Kyoto Accord, earning derision and insults for Canada in breaking its word to other countries who signed in good faith.

Jason Kenney, the junior member of this duo, grew up with extensive training in a narrowed vision of things. Educated in Catholic institutions in the West, he capped it with studying philosophy at a Jesuit university in San Francisco. His crowning achievement there in 1990 was to lead the fight against a women’s group at the school who wanted to distribute pro-choice literature. Back in Canada, he served various right-wing political and catholic organizations.

Kenney was first elected in 1997 as a Reform Party member and went through his party’s various iterations, becoming a Canadian Alliance member and then a United Alternative supporter of Stockwell Day.  He worked so hard for his parties that Stephen Harper made him his parliamentary secretary, responsible for multiculturalism, when the new Conservative Party of Canada defeated the Martin Liberals.

With the majority Harper government, the portfolios of these two political extremists are labelling Canada. Today, Jason Kenny tells us that he is going to stop women from Hong Kong from visiting Canada to have their baby here so that the child might later claim citizenship. This is on top of his new and draconian approach to refugees. He is making sure Canada is no longer a safe haven.

His twin, the External Affairs Minister, set the tone for his job back in 2003 when he fought the Chrétien government of the time trying to get Canada to join the American Bush administration in the Iraq War. He continues today to toady to the Americans while casually dismissing the concerns of other countries.

Canada used to have a reputation around the world for decency, fairness, openness, for peace keeping and for being an honest broker. Prime Minister Harper is letting these extremist Bobbsey Twins besmirch our image as a country to satisfy their narrow view of right and wrong. Are they representing our Canada?

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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

In the past week, senior police have been talking through friendly media to reassure us of the best intentions of Bill C-30, currently being debated in the House of Commons. The friendly media in Babel have certainly been doing their part. We have heard from the Babel police chief as well as the top cop from the Provincial Police. These people certainly try to be reassuring.

Bill C-30 is called the Protecting Children From Internet Predators Act. Could you ask for anything more innocent or urgent sounding than that? Ontario’s top cop tells us that this bill has had misleading coverage and it is really nothing more than an updating of police capabilities to keep pace with the technology. Oddly enough, that theme is echoed by Babel’s top cop. You would almost think they have been comparing notes—or were both supplied with the same song sheets. Though, understandingly, the Toronto Star-owned grocery wrap is a bit more cautious than the Sun media publication.

The two cops seem to share the opinion that those pesky warrants can take time to process and the investigators are required to have a reason for a justice to issue the warrant. They tell us that they just want access to information such as they used to get easily from the old fashioned telephone book. Mind you, it would be an unusual telephone book that told people where our mail is sorted and delivered from and what other names people used.

It is also questionable if the government should wish to pass a bill that forces Internet service providers to furnish the police with information about customers that they would not normally collect from customers to provide the service. And why should they intrude on a customer’s privacy, just to find out if they might be doing something illegal? Are police not supposed to have an indication that something illegal might be occurring, before they lower the boom?

The entire affair serves to remind us of how the police acted during the disgusting events at the G-20 event in Toronto in 2010. Look what happened when we trusted them to do the right thing then.

If the Conservatives did not have a majority that can ram the bill through the Commons, we would not worry. If we still had a Senate of Canada that was a house of sober second instead of a house of Harper thought, we would not worry.

But since we do not have any such protection, we have every right to be very, very worried!

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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

Is Prime Minister Stephen Harper doomed to the sad fate of living in a black and white world? It makes you feel sorry for him. It makes you feel doubly sorry for his cabinet colleagues, to pity his clack of back benchers, a sense of revulsion for his toadies in the Senate and wonder about the proper potty training of the confused Canadians who voted for Harper’s party in the last federal election. It makes you sad that these people cannot see the world in its full Technicolor beauty.

It seems to be a right-wing thing. As Public Safety Minister Vic Toews put it last week, “You can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.” These people cannot even see as far as the middle ground. To them, ‘compromise’ does not exist.

It all started with their attempts to get their attitude about law and order across to Canadians. In their black and white world, they see the law as a weapon of retribution. There is no such thing as justice in a black and white world. They want judges to use fixed sentences for people who are found guilty. The judges’ reaction has been that it does not take a judge to dole out fixed sentences.

In jurisdictions that have tried to use fixed sentences, it has been found that the system does not work. It ties up the courts because it eliminates plea bargaining. It plugs up the jails and raises the costs to the public. Try to explain that to Harper’s sycophants.

You have to admit though that color is complex. It is like watching the four remaining contenders for the American Republican Party nomination this coming summer. They have all realized that they can no longer diss their opponents without alienating some segment of party faithful that the winner will need to carry out an election effort in the fall. That means they are trying to make nice with each other while seeing who can say the nastiest things about Mr. Obama—without once mentioning his color.

What surprises you about this black and white world of the right wing is their intense loyalty—mainly to money. For example the Athabasca tar sands despoilers have the full support of Mr. Harper and friends. It is the same for the pipeline companies who want to take that heavy crude to refineries in Texas or over the Rockies to tankers that will take it to refineries in China. Mr. Harper seems deeply indebted to these people for some reason.

The late John D. Lowry (our brother who died in January) had an app for Mr. Harper. Among his many inventions for the film and television world, John did remarkable work in colorizing old black and white movies. (The technical Oscar, he was awarded posthumously last week in Hollywood was for his work in restoring old movies to a better than new condition.) It is all done with computers. We have to figure out a way to run Mr. Harper through the colorization program. The program is very good at staying within the lines.

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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

It is getting frustrating. Despite the Pentagon’s continued concerns about the fate of the F-35 fighter aircraft, Canada’s Conservative government says everything is on track. On track for what? They do not say.

At the same time, the Pentagon sources tell us that the only thing that is on track in this program is that costs estimates look like they will probably double. That does not seem to worry our laconic Defence Minister. And it appears to be no surprise for the fat cop that Mr. Harper has fronting for the F-35 program. Mind you, just how credible Julian Fantino is when it comes to fighter aircraft, remains to be seen.

And who should know more? The Americans want up to 3000 of these aircraft in different configurations. The Harper government has ordered 65 in the stealth attack model. You would expect that the people who have ordered so many billions more of the aircraft would keep the closest eye on how things are going.

And just who the Conservatives want to attack with these aircraft remains a deeply clouded mystery. With 3000 or so of these aircraft in the United States compared to our 65, we would be damn silly to attack the Americans. There are very few countries in the world that would welcome us to bomb and strafe their military as did Libya.

It just shows you how little we know about military aircraft. Back in the days of the CF-100 and the AVRO Arrow, we understood that Canada needed long-range patrol aircraft to maintain the integrity of our Arctic and our coasts. What has changed? The Conservatives have ordered very short range aircraft that use stealth technology to sneak up on the enemy. What enemy?

If we sent one of these F-35s out to patrol the Arctic, it would have to take a refuelling aircraft with it. Refuelling aircraft are not very stealthy. For some reason, that does not make sense. And why would you want to be stealthy about patrolling. The very fact of patrolling is supposed to keep out the bad guys—whomever they might be.

But is it supposed to make sense? Maybe the Conservatives think they have to support whatever aircraft program the Americans develop. Mr. Harper thinks that will endear us to the Americans. Surely, Mr. Harper can find a cheaper way to do that.

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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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