Category: Federal Politics

The devil is in the details.

by Peter Lowry

They are pealing back the Christmas wrappings on the Rogers deal for Shaw Communications. We held little hope for these hearings at the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) this week but what little is learned is appreciated. After all, a $26 billion deal can hold many secrets and ‘oopses.’

The first ‘oops’ is the potential loss of more television news room capability across Canada. It seems that Rogers is enthused about its limited news rooms and not likely to merge the two networks ability to cover Canadian news and events of importance to Canadians. The $13 million that Shaw recently put into Global’s news rooms could be just a bit more profit to Rogers.

Not that Global is that that much better at running news rooms. The three news programs at 5:30, 6:00 and 6:30 pm from the Toronto hub for the Ontario Global is a guarantee of three times the repetition. That does not include the public affairs programs that are promoted continuously and are just more repetitive use of news clips.

Mind you, City News, as promoted by owner, Rogers, reminds me of CP24 (the CTV news channel) on the cheap.

But then the thought of Rogers becoming the majority owner of the Canadian Public Affairs Channel (CPAC) leaves me cold. If any other channel decided a public event needed at least three cameras to cover the event properly, you could always count on Ted Rogers’ people showing up with a single camera.

And the first time I saw a television studio set up by the Rogers organization, I could not believe how they had cut the personnel and equipment costs. They had a fixed camera set for just the wide shots and a camera switcher that must have been made in someone’s garage. When I found that the director had to also operate the switcher while calling for the shots, I should have gone home.

But then Ted Rogers was a pioneer and we used to go out of our way to assist those people. They were helping build this country. It is too bad their heirs seem to just be in it for the money.

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Peeving the PM.

by Peter Lowry

Canadians now know how to get into the throne speech. All you have to do is annoy the prime minister. Yes, it’s that simple. One of the first acts of the new parliament will be to enable a pissed off PM to settle a score with some anti-vaxxers who were insulting his wife. While I am sure that more than a few Canadians would take umbrage at anyone insulting their wife or husband or child, or any other family member, there is no need to launch a law against such rude activity.

At the same time, I appreciate that the PM restrained himself from giving the malefactors a punch in the nose. It would never do for those receiving the punch to be suing the PM for personal injury.

Yet, since the troublemakers in this case were identified as anti-vaxxers, there would unlikely be many Canadians springing to their defence.

Besides, their being anti-vaxxers, my preference would be to banish them to some hot-bed of anti-vaxxing such as Miami, Florida. The few that return in a few years might be suitably chastened.

But what does our PM choose to do with them? He is going to deny them the fun they have picketing hospitals. That’s all folks! The liberals are going to bring out a bill making it illegal to promote anti-vaxxing where it might be seen by doctors, nurses and other health professionals. There will be no more of this picketing where it might be seen by people who are fighting this pandemic battle for us.

We hear there might be a few conservative supporters among those antivaxxers who tried to disrupt liberal events and threw pebbles at the PM. The liberals are certainly going to check out these conservatives MPs who are claiming they are allergic to vaccines.

But before the liberals can act on these claims, the conservative leader’s office wants to check out how the unvaccinated will vote in a leadership review. Mr. O’Toole needs all the conservative votes he can get.

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

To be in Gatineau this time of year.

by Peter Lowry

As the first bite of winter streams through the Ottawa River cauldron between Ottawa and the old city of Hull, the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Committee (CRTC) is meeting at Les Terraces de la Chaudière in Gatineau, Quebec. One of four bodies to consider the application of Rogers Communications to take over Shaw Communications, it will likely be the least important. All our hopes for the CRTC have come to naught.

Over the years, I have been a participant in some of the CRTC’s deliberations. I was there for the birth of the CRTC in a policy workshop of a liberal party meeting in Ottawa. The young Turks of the party wanted to wrest the emerging networks from the control of the Board of Broadcast Governors, who, at the time, also ran the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Prime Minister Pearson chuckled at our antics but it was under Pierre Trudeau that the CRTC became a reality.

Those were the learning years for the CRTC. Cable was happening piecemeal in Canada’s cities. Broadcasters were aligning themselves. The CRTC was there to help build the bridges, the infrastructure, and to create a truly Canadian system. The committee faced the powerful and the entrepreneurs. It never lost sight of its mission over those early years.

But the political pressure was too intense when Bell Canada decided to buy CTV. The CRTC caved in to the politicians.

And what the politicians had in mind when coincidentally chair Ian Scott and his eight, all female(?), commissioners are hearing this current plan to exploit the public, we cannot fathom.

The one thing I might observe, were I there, until the current chair of Rogers Communications learns the purpose of a board and the operating officers of a large corporation, he should practice on something smaller than a multi billion-dollar corporation with thousands of employees. The late Ted Rogers created the corporation by the skilled exploitation of new technologies. It does not seem that Rogers’ son has that same skill. He must be there for the money. Luckily, there are three more hurdles for this nascent mega-corporation. The competition bureau and the federal department of innovation will also have a say. And then it is a decision for the federal cabinet.

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

They’re Ba-ack!

by Peter Lowry

You might as well think of it as the return of the losers. Parliament returns and no party has gained anything from the election—other than greater disillusionment. We do not seem to be winning against global warming, the pandemic, inadequate politicians or failed leadership.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau has returned from his wasted trip south to Washington. The three leaders of North America all spoke to their home audiences from the city of monuments and nobody listened.

Erin O’Toole’s wife, like Calpurnia, Caesar’s wife, has warned him not to go to the Senate today. The sharpest knives of disrespect await him there. And he is not all that sure of those in the Commons who pay him lip service. His efforts to quiet dissent in the ranks seem to fall on deaf ears.

But when he comes to Canada’s forum, he is absorbed in the attack anyway. He sees no good across the House. He will let loose the hounds to vilify and bey against the efforts of the liberals—for they are the enemy. The liberals keep him from the levers of power. They keep him from the perks of privilege, the appointment possibilities that would make his caucus bow to him.

And how few care for the other parties across the House? The new democrat’s warrior leader stands alone before the stragglers from the party’s socialist past. Without direction or purpose, the NDP toils on.

And then there is the murder of crows from the Bloc Québécois. They stand to dismiss their country. They challenge Canada’s existence without cause.

But is Parliament ready for its first speech from the throne—from a governor general who does not speak French?

(And they complain about a unilingual head of Air Canada?)

Yes, Canada’s parliament is back, with all its faults and archaic rules to confound, confuse and co-opt the needs of our country. The question is though: how long will they continue to reign over us?

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

What Year is that $10?

by Peter Lowry

If premier Ford of Ontario and the federal government argue about it long enough, that $10-a-day daycare will become mute. In a time of serious inflationary pressures, ten dollars has already lost some substantive buying power. It is like two skiers trying to negotiate as they clear the flags and moguls of a down-hill ski course.

It seems though that when both parties benefit from the outcome, negotiations would be fast and easy. Maybe Doug Ford thinks he has something to prove but the longer he delays, the less currency he takes away.

What both sides in the negotiations know is that both benefit from more women being made available to the workforce, the more taxes are collected. More jobs are created and, again, the more revenue both governments have available. It is a win, win, win.

Everyone understands that Toronto has the most expensive daycare in Canada. You would expect that. The fact that Ontario pioneered all-day kindergarten for children at ages four and five is not relevant unless it was also negotiated with the other provinces. As it stands today, the federal government does not have paying for part of Ontario’s education system as part of the negotiation.

What is also understood across Canada is that Ontario could have afforded to go it alone on a $10-a-day daycare model. It was one of the few provinces that could afford it. And it will definitely benefit from it.

And if premier Ford thinks he can do away with all-day kindergarten, he has another think coming. It would be the straw that broke many a conservative’s back. All-day kindergarten works for Ontario and it is here to stay.

The brass ring for Doug Ford is right there in easy reach. All he has to do is tell finance minister Freeland that he is in. He will be welcomed graciously.

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

“Home is the Hunter”?

by Peter Lowry

It seems R. L. Stevenson’s Requiem is appropriate for Canada’s environment and climate change minister. He has left Glasgow. Steven Guilbeault’s primary task for Canada was not to produce a glass half-full. If anything, the glass was upside down. The COP26 conference was a COP-out. Bringing all those do-gooders together, caused more pollution than it prevented. The world continues its downhill slide to the seas.

Minister Guilbeault should take a trip to British Columbia and see the realities of climate change. Our beautiful west coast is a disaster area. The waters are winning. People are worried about their next meal. People are dying. Roads are impassable. The people of B.C. are facing the most serious climate disaster in the history of the province.

And the reality is that there is much more trouble to come.

If Canada keeps shipping coal to help destroy the environment, we are losers. If the Trudeau government completes that damnable TransMountain bitumen pipeline, we are losers. If we continue to condone the increased use of natural gas, we are the biggest fools of all. We continue to condemn our world to die.

Was Guilbeault there to hear the COP26 chair apologize to the world for the failure of the conference? Did he recognize the changes that had been made in the meaningless closing communique of the conference?

Does greed surpass grief? Is the money from what we get when we dig in the earth that important to us? Do we have to protect the wealth of a few, just to the see our world die? Who wants to be the richest person in Hell?

What comes as a surprise is that Canada’s right-wing media such as the Toronto Sun, forecast nothing but bad news from Guilbeault. They see him as a danger to Canada’s economic development as a radical environmentalist.

But then, anyone who might be concerned about our world’s fate can be a raving radical as far as the Toronto Sun is concerned.

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

A Conundrum of Conservatism.

by Peter Lowry

What has gone wrong here? Conservatism never used to be so nasty. They might have been slow to act. They might have looked more to the mores of the past. And they might have stressed being frugal. They always promised to balance the budget—even though that was rare. It definitely took a turn for the worse after we watched conservative MP Paul Calandra cry about the missteps of the Harper conservatives in the House of Commons.

One of the problems is that conservatism is a broad-brush belief. It can be different in more than nuance. I have always laughed at those who tell me they are social liberals and fiscal conservatives. That is a cop-out for conservatives.

It seems that social conservatives are the most committed—and they should be.  These are the antis. They are anti-abortion—for themselves and for anyone else. They are anti same-sex marriage. They know how you should live and you better do it their way—and stick to the missionary position. It is something of a wonder that this breed of conservatism doesn’t die out from boredom.

And if you don’t go to their church, you are certainly damned.

But why is leadership the most dangerous position of all for conservatives? Maybe it is just that a broad back is such an easy target. Harper survived by being ruthless. Mulroney slimed his way and made it through two elections. Lose once and be gone. Andrew Scheer can tell you that. The wolf packs are already out for that fool Erin O’Toole—he was too middle of the road. He kept tripping over the liberals.

Real conservatives seem to be trekking over to Maxime Bernier’s Peoples’ Party. It is libertarianism but that is closer to real conservatism, we are told.

But why do these people kow-tow to the rich? Why are they pandering to the millionaires among us? They can talk the talk about some imaginary middle class but they tug their forelock for the billionaires.

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

The Pit Bull from Calgary is Back.

by Peter Lowry

If you can visualize a smarmy pit bull, you can probably visualize Pierre Poilievre MP. And if you didn’t like him the first time you saw him in Canada’s parliament, you are going to like him less this time. This time, the member of parliament for the Ottawa area Carleton riding is a pit bull with a mission. There are no paper targets for Poilievre, he has Chrystia Freeland in his sights and he has been told by conservative leader Erin O’Toole to go, get her.

It is not just choosing the most effective agent to attack Freeland but it was also the realization that even when Poilievre is not the finance critic, he is still the most effective critic.

Watching the conservative MP on Zoom committee meetings over the past two years has been a series of lessons in how to use Zoom. While his electoral district is just down Highway 417, from downtown Ottawa, he is always in a suit and tie, with a fresh shave. He has the best lighting and backgrounds for his Zoom sets. And he is always alert and tenacious.

O’Toole must have been adhering to the tenet of Sun Tzu that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Poilievre is not O’Toole’s friend. He is ready and poised to replace him as soon as the time is right.

An Alberta conservative, with a French name, Poilievre moved from Calgary to Ottawa with a single purpose: to further a career in politics. He has been in parliament since 2004 and is ready to go for the brass ring. He appears to want the conservative leader’s job.

Poilievre is the conservative’s conservative. His words are carefully chosen from the Chicago School’s Milton Friedman ‘song book’ of the right. He will tell you he is an advocate for the hard workers of the middle class even though his sights are higher.

In the long run, Erin O’Toole will be the loser. He had 118 conservative MPs to chose from for finance critic. At this time of pandemic and inflation, he has positioned a pit bull perfectly.

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

The Best Deal is No Deal.

by Peter Lowry

It looks as though the news media were the only people looking for a political deal to lock in the new federal government. It is not really needed. And it could be a more effective parliament because of the open atmosphere. Unless there is some horrendous gaffe committed by prime minister Justin Trudeau, he has clear sailing for the next couple years. Sure, MPs will wet their finger to test the wind occasionally, that is just a smart politico.

The only person with trouble sooner is conservative leader Erin O’Toole. His fractious and unruly caucus has no “good-before” date. It all depends on who will want to take him down and when. And he can hardly look for allies in the provinces. The Ontario general election in June ‘22 might not do much for the conservative brand. Nor will the ongoing strife in Alberta offer any solace before a planned provincial election there in 2023.

While Jagmeet Singh might not be the sharpest knife in their drawer, the new democrats have little reason to be restive. Nobody really proved anything in that 2021 election, least of all the NDP. It is a party without direction or a future until it puts an end to its out of touch socialism and worrying about its lost influence with Canada’s unions.

The NDP should look at the green party and offer some of that party a new home. With new leadership and a realistic base of environmentalism, the NDP could become a more potent force.

There is little need to say anything positive about the Bloc Québécois. They are but a reminder of the counter-productive tribalism between the Anglo and Francophone elements who put this country together—so badly. It is not the statues of our nation’s founders that should be knocked down but their ill-considered statutes.

With parliament to convene in another week, we will soon start be able to learn more about the cabinet Justin Trudeau has drawn around him. It will be their performance that matters.

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

A Legacy Lost.

by Peter Lowry

It makes you a bit sad. What the genius of Ted Rogers built is being mishandled by his son. From the catbird seat on Toronto’s ancient Jarvis Street, you can see the past and future of the city, from the winding streets of once-exclusive Rosedale, to the modern towers at Yonge and Bloor. It is a view of the rise and fall of the Ted Rogers’ vision.

And yet it is strange that a man of Ted’s vision failed to see the weakness of the corporate governance he left his son. The rules must be very clear in British Columbia where his company was incorporated. The judge’s ruling was clear. The Rogers scion had carte blanche. He had carte blanche to fail. And the rest of the telecom industry will ultimately feast on the carrion.

But what amuses me in all of this carry-on, newspaper revelations and speculation, is that young Mr. Rogers is trying to take the company back to its past. Dumping the company president is not the concern. He has the right to do that. It is dumping the more progressive outside directors and replacing them with what seem to be tried and true yes-men that I do not understand.

I think the key question to Mr. Rogers should have been asked by the B.C. judge. The question is very simple. And I think it is critical. It is what do you think is the purpose of a board of directors?

And before you answer that question, you have to bear in mind that Ted Rogers was entrepreneurial and used his board to reach out into the community. They were not only good sounding boards but they were influencers. For example, most of the board were probably conservative but having lawyer and former premier David Peterson as a board member was not for his legal mind but his direct pipelines into the liberal party in Ontario and Ottawa.

The fact that young Rogers has already given Peterson his walking papers shows that his training at Comcast in the U.S. was not what he needed to come back and take over his father’s company. While there might be four different studies ongoing now by the Canadian government, it will ultimately be a political decision as to whether Rogers will absorb Calgary-based Shaw in a $26 billion deal to become the largest telecom in Canada.

I think the boardroom term for this situation is that young Mr. Rogers has screwed the pooch!

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]