Category: Federal Politics

Monarchist Whine.

by Peter Lowry

Nothing seems to annoy monarchists more than to be ignored. They appear to be compiling a suit against Justin Trudeau. They have convinced themselves that he is ignoring the Queen’s Jubilee this year. They are sure that he has nothing more important to do.

It is not often that I get to defend the prime minister. This might be one of those times. The guy just got rid of those yahoos who came to Ottawa to scalp him. Now he is busy defending the action.

In these days of minority government, you not only have to brave the slings and arrows of the frustrated majority in parliament but you are likely going to be hauled into court for overstepping and overkill.

So what? Who do you think won the Battle of Parliament Hill?

And you can complain all you like about Justin Trudeau. He might be an elitist but, at least he is not a monarchist elitist. He is from a Quebec electoral district, so he has little fear of criticism from that source if he ignores the Queen’s Jubilee. He also is safe from any complaints from most Canadians.

The monarchists have to face the fact that the Queen might be a very nice lady but monarchy really is passé. I really do not care how far back you can trace her linage. Ancestors are only important to Mormons.       

I seem to remember some royal medals being passed out to conservative supporters during the Harper regime before 2015. If the medals are platinum for this platinum jubilee, I want one. I might get a good price for it on Kijiji.

I hardly care how long the monarchist list of Trudeau’s transgressions might be. I can give you a much longer list of problems we have faced with poorly chosen governor generals and senators. We have to fix our constitution sometime and when we do, we can cut the umbilical cord with the Brit royals.

But Canadians do not want to be curmudgeonly about this. Justin Trudeau should send the queen a nice card on behalf of all Canadians, mentioning her 70 years on the Westminster throne.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Kenney’s Confusion.

by Peter Lowry

Heard the other day that Alberta Premier Jason Kenney intends to go to court to block the Trudeau government’s use of the Emergency Measures Act. That is a little late and a loonie short. If Kenney paid attention to the court of public opinion, he would realize the case has been made and the court has ruled.

The removal of the “Freedom Convoy” convoy from Parliament Hill provided Canadians with many hours of an enjoyable reality show. It was one of those shows that if you took a washroom break and even stayed to have a shower, you did not miss much.

One lesson learned was that you do not use snowballs when the cops have pepper spray. It was a purely Canadian event. We have seen news clips of crowd control from around the world. We have seen people beaten with batons, stomped with heavy boots, soaked by water cannon, hit by rubber bullets and murdered with real bullets. That is not the Canadian way. We use patience, oodles of warnings, pamphlets, and announcements. That boot in the ass you got might not have been accidental but you probably had expended your entire vocabulary of expletives on the boot-owner first.

Kenney’s only argument against using the act is that the border crossing problems had been resolved without massive police action. And he is right. Small events require small reactions: large events require larger actions. The borders had been cleared before we moved the larger forces into Ottawa. There is no question that 100 cops facing off against a thousand protestors is a killer confrontation. That is when people get hurt needlessly.

Watching Kenney in Alberta these days is like watching a lab rat in the final stages of a study of a serious disease. He came west to ‘unite the right’ and stayed to try to lead it. He was following the path of his mentor Stephen Harper. Without the glue that Harper used to tie the disparate factions of the right together, Kenney was doomed to fail. He is a failure in authoritarianism, and awaits the final decision of Alberta voters.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Tories: Mistake One.

by Peter Lowry

The argument can be made that dumping Erin O’Toole as leader was the conservative caucus’ first mistake. That is now water under the bridge. The situation was best described the other day in an editorial cartoon in the Toronto Star. It showed interim conservative leader Candice Bergen swatting MP Pierre Poilievre upside the head and saying: “You idiot! We’re supposed to be the law and order (sic) party!”

Poilievre might be the first candidate in the running for the coming conservative leadership contest but also might be the first out. He is unlikely to have endeared himself to the voters in his Ottawa area electoral district. His brazen welcoming of the Freedom Convoy to Ottawa must have shocked many of his voters. I would be delighted to come to the riding next election to help whomever is the most likely left-of-centre candidate to defeat him.

Pierre Poilievre represents all that is wrong with politics today. He does not stand for truth. He does not stand for fairness. He fails to represent the Canadians in his riding with dignity and honour. I think of him as a worm who has wiggled his way into politics through guile and divisiveness. He dishonours the great parliamentarians who went before him.

Ask yourself why the “Freedom” convoy have been so bent on denouncing and removing our prime minister? If those really were concerned truckers, they would know why there have been problems for the supply chain. And Poilievre is not that stupid. He knows that Justin Trudeau is hardly to blame for the serious inflation problems the entire world is facing.

Justin Trudeau did his best to try to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on working Canadians. While provinces—on the advice of their health authorities—asked Canadians to lock-down and limit contact. It led to confusion and stress across the country.

But you can hardly blame either the prime minister or the provincial premiers for the problems of the pandemic. They all contributed. They did their best. Mr. Poilievre did not help.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Anarchy versus Freedom.

by Peter Lowry

The wife and I had an interesting discussion on the supposed freedoms being demanded by the Ottawa occupation force the other day. We had been watching a group of the protestors cavorting for the television cameras and waving large Canadian flags. We both objected to these people using our flag to support their antics. We might share the same flag but we see them dishonouring it.

There is nothing new about this. There has been a growing base of libertarianism in North America for many years. What brought it out into the light of day was the election of Donald Trump in the United States. We were shocked by the repetitious use of patently false information. We were puzzled by the insistence in telling us we were the ones listening to false news.

But Canadians were hardly safe from the same BS. We were starting to hear the same crazy dialogue from north of the border. There were Canadians buying into Trump.  I think we were actually pleased when Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party started carving into Harper’s conservatives. We thought it was helping the more progressive parties.

What was not helping was the lack of good leadership for those progressive parties. The liberals gave young Trudeau the crown and he disbanded the party. He got rid of the greybeards in the senate and built his own elitist structure. At the same time, an observant Sikh enlisted the diaspora of the Sub-Continent to win the leadership of the new democrats. Lacking adequate leadership, that progressive party also lies dormant.

The surprise of the Ottawa demonstration was not that it happened as we moved into the worst of the winter weather. It was the size and the ease of funding. It was not the crazies in Ottawa that were the problem. It was the crazies who were reported to be funding them. Even anarchy needs financing.

What is also wrong is that the separatists and conservatives in parliament are also supporting anarchy. Their hatred for their opponents is taking them into the path where no country wants to go. The Ottawa police and the Province of Ontario failed us. The Emergency Measures Act was the only recourse. Get rid of those scofflaws on the Hill and then let’s talk about it.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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In the Fascist Fashion.

by Peter Lowry

It is hard to believe that the Toronto Star would give Magna International founder Frank Stronach free space in the Star’s business section to express his addled ideas. The other day, he told us he doesn’t like licenses, rules or taxes for small business. He thinks small business is any business with less than 400 employees. He thinks businesses bigger than that should tell politicians what to do. He is likely unaware that he is promoting fascism.

Frank Stronach will be 90 next year. He has more than a few loonies tucked away for his dotage. (The most recent estimates range from $1 billion to about $3 billion.) He doesn’t need a tag day.

Maybe he donated some of his loonies to the truckers in Ottawa. He agrees with them. He worries that their methods might have drowned out their message. He thinks the truckers embody many of the values that make this country special. That is hardly the first time that someone has told us that Canadians are obstinate and pig-headed.

But as much as Stronach backs away from the truckers’ tactics, his approval of their endurance in facing cold weather, sleeping in trucks and campers is there and confirmed. He even suggests that the truckers embody the value of hard work, personal autonomy and individual freedom.

Stronach writes that he worries that there is a “troubling trend today towards the socialization and collectivization of individuals, with the result that everyone is pressured to think and act the same and everyone increasingly looks to the state for the solution to every problem.” He thinks this is because of the freedom that he considers stripped away.

The more columns and words I read under Frank Stronach’s byline, the stronger the feeling I get that this is not Stronach’s writing. Stronach certainly does not talk this way. It is either a hell of a good editor (obviously not from the Star) or an erudite ghost. Having ghosted many speeches, articles and books over the years, my guess is a ghost. Obviously not one who studied Italian fascism of the 1920s and 30s.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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His Father’s Son.

by Peter Lowry

In 1970, when prime minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, I disagreed. It was an over-reaction to some clumsy lawbreakers. When his son invoked the 1988 version of the act the other day, my reaction was relief.

In 1970, the police forces were trying to do their job. The army could not do much to help. Today’s policing in Ottawa and Alberta have failed to do the job. The premier of Ontario is back from skidooing up at his cottage. The mayor of Ottawa is a fool. The police chief in Ottawa has proved inadequate to his task. Emergency measures are necessary.

It will always be necessary when there are people in our country who stand in the way of law and order.

And it is necessary because Canadians are angry. They are weary from the pandemic. They are tired of being the brunt of repetitive rules that do not seem to work. They are especially angry about people flaunting the law, with no consequences.

We elect our politicians in trust that they will give us a country where law and order exist. We elect them in our cities and towns and other municipalities where they will maintain the safety and access to our streets, to build schools and hospitals, and to ensure that we have the policing services needed to keep our communities safe.

We elect provincial politicians to make our highways safe and passable, that we have functioning hospitals, an education system for our children to learn and be good citizens.

And we elect our federal politicians to ensure peace, order and good government across this nation.

That is why we cannot allow inadequate policing in our national capital. If the police there cannot do their job, replace them with police who will do the job. Nobody has the right to piss on our national memorial to those who have died in foreign wars. Nobody has the right to camp on the streets of our capital.

There are no deals to be made with these people. They get out of town or their next look at the world is through bars. If they won’t move their vehicles, you take those vehicles apart piece by piece and send them to a convenient landfill. It is time to put out the garbage.

As my American granny used to say: If you can’t push, pull. And if you can’t pull, best you get out of the way.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Fool’s Gold.

by Peter Lowry

If you are thinking of mining Bitcoin, be careful you do not end up with iron pyrite. Fool’s gold is an apt description for Bitcoin. It is a fictional commodity with nothing behind it. It is the money-laundering instrument of drug dealers, pimps and thieves. It is the sanctuary of the lawless. It is a trainwreck, fueled by greed, on its way to happen.

And nobody will care when Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies collapse under the weight of the greed. You buy bitcoin with no recourse. No bank, no nation, no legal entity guarantees it. You invest at your peril.

But if freedom to be a fool is your option, go at it. People such as the conservative’s Boy Blue—MP Pierre Poilievre—will cheer you on. Poilievre also supports the lawless who block Wellington Street in Ottawa. He is a pied piper for the Bitcoin conspiracy.

He is also running to lead the conservatives—we know not where?  Poilievre attacks the Bank of Canada for fueling inflation and yet he supports the hot air balloon of Bitcoin? The advocates of Bitcoin see Poilievre as their hero and yet he says he thinks of money as just a technology to transport value. If you entered a commercial trade for goods based on payment in cryptocurrency, you would be exchanging something of finite value for something of no finite value. That would not be a fair trade. It would be gambling.

(Yes, I know Elon Musk was selling Tesla autos for Bitcoin. I also hear his net worth took a hit of $30 billion when he cancelled the offer. He could afford it.)

But, please, try not to think of cryptocurrencies as real money. It is not. Bitcoin could be just another form of false news. It certainly is not “sound money.” It is not, by any measure, real money. And it will never be “the single most important asset you could own.”

There are many misconceptions about Bitcoin. Government is not created to make laws against fiction. ‘Managing your money’ is a game for grown-ups. It should not involve fictional currencies.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Troubled Tories.

by Peter Lowry

It is the conservative party that has to clean up the mess left by its federal caucus. Hopefully they will bring a renewed strength to their meetings on the road ahead. They should not think of it as the need another sacrificial lamb to lead their party in Ottawa.

But this time, they should do it right. They should be innovative and daring. First of all, they should plan a summer indoor/outdoor venue such as the TD Centre in Ottawa. It should be a delegated convention that includes on-line voters with the on-site voters at the convention. This would allow people to vote who cannot afford the expense and also allow them to use on-line meeting services to caucus with their fellow electoral district members at the convention.

There should be a strong policy element to the convention as delegates will want to hear of the commitment to their policy priorities by the candidates.

This type of convention should allow people both at the convention and at home watching on television to grill candidates. And give the candidates time to make their positions clear.

The most important change is the need to get away from preferential voting. This system has led to serious mistakes in past leadership contests and made the voting suspect. You need a system that is open and easily understood.

To achieve this, can be as simple as no longer voting by secret ballot. It can be recorded by electoral district or by province but there should never be the need for it to be secret. If some people are not going to take responsibility for their vote, then they probably should not vote.

And the conservatives should also stay away from complicated formulas. All electoral districts are equal but provinces are not. A roll call of 338 electoral districts might be lengthy but a roll call of provincial voting might increase the overall Canadian television audience. And you might be smart to have all your ex officio voters identify with their electoral district.

I think it is high time for Canadian political parties to be open and ensure their objectives and policies are clear to Canadians.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Help, Help!

by Peter Lowry

Excuse me, I’m a Canadian and I’m confused. All I know is that if I drive down to the closest border crossing to the United States of America and park my pick-up across the traffic lanes, I will get a ticket for impeding traffic and eventually arrested if I persist.

But if I bring some friends with me, wave a flag and tell the cops it’s a protest, I can do what the hell I like?

Get off it. Is this a country of laws or not? If your cops are afraid of a few fuckers who call themselves truckers, you better get some better cops.

Is my country at the mercy of assholes? I really don’t care about your colour, your birth language, or how long your ancestors have been here.

If our country does not have suitable laws to deal with the unruly, then we need to make some:

Nobody has the right to hold our country’s economy to ransom.

Nobody has the right to block citizens from the quiet enjoyment of their homes or downtown streets or to go shopping.

If you don’t like our politicians, vote for those you do like.

If you do not like any of them, run for office yourself.

But you cannot command the prime minister to sit down with you. Send him a letter. Canada Post is still functioning, I hope. I would suggest you be polite and use grown-up words. If you do not respect the person, respect the position.

I am sorry to be so demanding but like the rest of Canadians, I am fed up with this goddamn pandemic. We are all tired of it. Just remember though that millions of people have now died. This is no way to cull the human herd.

Those of us who are still wearing surgical masks where requested are trying, as best we can, not to spread the disease further. We are not fools. We got the shots, we self-isolated. We did what we were asked to do.

We need a path out. We do not need people blocking that path. Please help.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Tories Tell Us It’s Over.

by Peter Lowry

It has been a tough two years of the pandemic but interim federal conservative leader Candice Bergen tells us it is all over. Isn’t it wonderful? She says that Omicron is on the ebb. She tells parliament that we can ditch all the mandates, lock-downs, testing, masks and tell our healthcare workers that they won.

And, because the pandemic is over. Ms. Bergen asked the government to remove all federal restrictions by February 22.

In addition, she thanked the anti-vaxxer and anti-whatever people who are blocking roads in Ottawa and Windsor, Ontario as well as Coutts, Alberta for their service and said they could go home now. She explained to parliament that they had only terrorized Ottawa and closed those two border crossings critical to the Canadian economy because they love their country and want their freedoms back.

Quite frankly, I think it is a strange way to show your love for your country. Ours is a country of laws. Our federal, provincial and municipal bodies pass laws and regulations to help us have a safe, healthy environment in which to live and raise our families. I’ll bet you would not want to be a trucker or even drive a car on our roads if everyone drove on whatever side of the road they wanted to or parked their rig wherever they wanted to. Rules are designed to be helpful. They can even prevent chaos.

It seems that most Canadians are relatively satisfied with our current approach. Sure, we can always complain about things. When I was a child in Toronto, I wondered why you were not allowed to play baseball or use the swings in the parks on Sundays. Since not everyone was only going to church on Sundays, we eventually fixed that. We all know that change is possible.

Not only is change possible but many of us are interested in change. If you feel strongly about something, there are many ways for you to communicate your ideas. You can find like-minded people who might support you. Not all of them will be willing to break the law but there are many legal ways to change laws. We should stick to those legal ways.

And if you are too stupid to understand that breaking the law pisses most people off, you might be more comfortable living somewhere else.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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