Category: Federal Politics

Building Better Bolder.

by Peter Lowry

Help is here. My old friend, former federal transport minister David Collenette, has written a knowledgeable commentary on the VIA Rail plan for a ‘high-frequency’ passenger service in the Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City corridor. There are some surprises in David’s article in the Toronto Star on the subject.

It is no surprise that David would compliment the liberal government on its innovative plan. He has always been a team player since high school. He even says nice things about VIA Rail. He is only mildly reproving that the plan is not for high-speed rail. He thinks the extra cost for high-speed would be a smart investment.

As a former minister of transport, David is well aware that Canada’s railways have discouraged passenger traffic for so long that passenger rail has failed to develop. Canadians have learned the hard way that, in Canada, passengers always wait for freight.

But he sees hope in the department of finance with Michael Sabia now in the key role of deputy finance minister. After many years of blocking discussion of high-speed rail, the finance department now has someone who understands the need for innovation.  

He points out that much of the new line will be based on abandoned CPR lines in both Ontario and Quebec. It has the political value of adding new stops at Peterborough, Ontario and Trois Rivières, Quebec.

David sees the new service as essential to dealing with climate change. Just how this works when the line only promises to be 90 per cent electric is not clear. I suppose for the 10 per cent of the line without electricity, the passengers could get out and push.

But the Pollyanna aspect of David Collenette’s commentary is that he seems to think it will happen. He even thinks the new service will be capable of 200 km/h speeds. Even VIA Rail has admitted that the system might be capable of 177 km/h. Which coincidently is the top speed of most diesel engines.

Sorry David, but I am not holding my breath for this one.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Greens have Gotta Grow-up.

by Peter Lowry

The greens need to knock off the foolishness. And it is stupid. For the news media to be so malicious as to encourage non-elected people to report on inner-circle doings is less than honourable. For these people to talk to the media does not speak well for the calibre of the executive of the party.

And all this backbiting is hardly helping the green party. If there is an election this fall, the party will be lucky to hold the two seats it has left.

Indirectly, these blabbermouths on the green executive are helping the new democrats. They might enjoy the fake admiration of the news media but they are pushing people such as this writer, and others who lie to polls, to say they are supporting the NDP instead of the green party.

If you have ever wondered why those parties do so well in polls before an election, it is because of people who will not tell pollsters the truth. These spurious answers are called ‘parked votes.’ The green and new democratic parties are the convenient parking lots where your vote sits until needed on election day. Back when pollsters had real people calling to find out how you might vote, you were just as interested in who was paying for the survey and you might have told them the truth.

As it is, I’m sure my name in the liberal voter database in Ottawa must be ‘Mud.’ I have been telling the computers that call for the liberals that I am going to vote green.

I will have to change that now. Nobody would believe that many people would support a party in such disarray.

As it is, the greens really do have a complaint about their last leadership vote. It was done with preferential voting. It was only on the eighth round of counting that Annamie Paul emerged the winner. She had led the vote in six of the eight rounds—proving that she was actually the second choice of most of the green party voters.

You have to admire one aspect of the green party’s voting. They actually had a place on the ballot to vote for ‘None of these options.’ If I had a vote in that election, I might have made that choice.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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A Question of Trust.

by Peter Lowry

Journalists report on our politicians all the time. They think they can judge them best. They kid themselves. There is too much that they do not say about our MPs, MPPs and MLAs. Even if we, as interested citizens, watch our politicians on CPAC and provincial channels, we might only get a small sample of what our local politician is doing on our behalf in Ottawa or as a member of our provincial government.

So, what can we do four years or less later when they want to be re-elected? How do we judge their worth? Do you trust them again to represent you?

Many people abdicate the responsibility by voting for the party. It is their right to do that. Some will cheerfully vote for the village idiot—if he or she represents the preferred party.

The news media encourage voting for the party by spending considerable reporting resources on following the travels of the party leaders. Some of the large city media will also take the trouble sometimes to interview candidates in your electoral district. There will be the usual complaints about sign by-laws and access to voters in institutions and condominiums.

Some people try to save all the literature they receive during the election period and, maybe, sift through the pile before going to vote. What you have read is what they want you to know, or believe. Do you trust all you read?

Surprising few of your neighbours ever bother to go to one of the all-candidate meetings. And there are fewer of those than in the past. There used to be coffee parties where a supporter would invite neighbours to meet and talk with one of the candidates. The rarest event is when a candidate comes to your door.

But if you are lucky and can question your candidate, what do you want to know. Doesn’t it all boil down to a question of trust? Can you rely on this person to represent your concerns to the government of the day?

You are the voter. What do you want? Whom do you trust to deliver for you?

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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We’ve heard this song before!

by Peter Lowry

Of all the stupid announcements that are never going to happen, Omar Alghabra made it the other day. It might just be the purview of federal transportation ministers, but to make it on one of those stop-and-go-slow VIA trains to Montreal, was just adding insult. Alghabra told passengers over the train’s public address system that the government would twin most of the tracks between Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto so that passenger trains would no longer be delayed because freight has the right-of-way. And you wonder how many transport ministers have made the same bullshit announcement, how many times?

All the minister proved is that there is another federal election in the wind.

And, can you imagine, minister Alghabra told the long-suffering train users that the trains would only be able to reach top speeds of 200 km/hr. While Asia, Europe, and soon the United States, are dealing with high-speed networks capable of more than 300 km/h, our idiots in Ottawa are settling for speeds provided by diesel engines. Talk of electrifying the lines were left for the later news conference in Trois Rivieres. (It was not clear if the line was to be 90 per cent electric or the trains to be 90 per cent electric.)

When VIA Rail was asked for its take on the announcement, all we got was a new top speed. VIA tells us that the minister exaggerated, the top speed is only 177 km/h. (Co-incidently, the top speed of most diesel engines.)

It reminds me of the old Turbo trains used by VIA to travel back and forth from Montreal and Toronto from 1968 to 1982. While theoretically capable of almost 200 km/h, these trains had a favourite speed of: stopped. It was a delightful way to travel between the two cities, if you were in no hurry.

I remember catching the Turbo for some reason one time when I was due at a luncheon in Montreal. The timetable said the train was due to arrive in Montreal at 11 am. I took a chance. I lost. The train actually left Union Station in Toronto on time. It went out to Guildwood in the east end of the metropolitan area, picked up some more passengers, and then backed up all the way to Toronto’s CN Tower. I remember sitting there fuming until about 10:30 am. There was no rush, at that point.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Singh’s Success in Social Media.

by Peter Lowry

Has nobody told NDP federal leader Jagmeet Singh that the TikTok program on the Internet is for children? About a third of the world-wide users are not old enough to vote, even if they live in Canada. And what thinking adult would be fascinated with anything so mundane? The billion world-wide users of TikTok might be dealing with artificial intelligence and algorithms, developed in China, smarter than themselves.

But it is nice to know that Jagmeet has found his niche. Like Donald Trump, he has found a home on the Internet. For Trump, it was Twitter—until the program managers banned him for life. He was giving Twitter a bad name.

Not that any of these time-wasting programs are going to survive for long. There is a life cycle to social media programs and without constant improvement and new features, it reaches a peak and then there is a gradual fall-off of interest.

But Jagmeet Singh had to start somewhere. In Canada, only the Trudeau liberals have taken to social media like ducks to water. Maybe the Internet moves too fast for conservatives? In the last two federal elections, the liberals spent the most on Internet advertising. The logic was that it was the one way to reach young Canadians—of voting age. The strategy worked well in 2015. It did not work as well in 2019.

The liberals are so committed that you need a smart phone to canvas for them. They have reduced the questions at the door to the key support question. All the canvasser wants to hear is this a liberal vote or not. Thumb the answer into your smart phone and move on.

It has been my impression over time that the liberals keep forgetting seniors are voters because they do not keep up with trends. Conversely, Jagmeet is looking ahead to when his TikTok followers are old enough to vote. That could be when Justin Trudeau gets his comeuppance.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Grievances of the Greens.

by Peter Lowry

What can they be thinking? The rank and file of the Green Party of Canada must be outraged. The idea of a dust-up between the executive of the party and its newly elected party leader Annamie Paul is destroying the chances of the party making any inroads on parliament in the coming election. This is amateur time for Canada’s greens.

For the executive to forget that the party doubled its vote in 2019 is denying all the hard work involved. It is denying the legacy of Elizabeth May. It was her determination that held that party together through the last election and gave encouragement to the party’s candidates.

It is certainly not the role of the party executive to keep the new leader on a leash. Typically, the party leader is responsible to the party as a whole and is leader of the elected wing of the party. The executive represents the party organization across Canada and is the clearing house for party organization and structural needs.

And if that is not the way the greens have structured their party organization, they have done it wrong.

We can only hope the greens do not follow the liberal party organization. The liberal party of Canada is a political party that is headed for the scrap yard. It is a top-down organization under the totalitarian control of the party leader. The party leader, through his minions asks supporters for money—continuously—and directs who can be a party candidate. It is a party that fails to decide its own policies. The liberal party of today is not a functioning political party, it is a fan club.

What Annamie Paul needs is a party executive who can do their job of building and supporting the party. As leader she needs people working with her to build her strengths—not to use her as a billboard. She needs to talk about Canada’s problems, not hers. She needs the opportunity to lead.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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A Question for Ms. McKenna.

by Peter Lowry

It is possible that the news media forgot to ask Catherine McKenna a key question when she was talking to them at Ottawa’s Flora Footbridge the other day. It seems the footbridge has some significance for Ms. McKenna. The footbridge is named for Flora MacDonald, the first woman foreign affairs minister. She was also unable to get back to Canada from a Brussels meeting to help prevent the Joe Clark conservative government from being defeated in the House of Commons. (Liberals have always thought of the short-lived Joe Clark government fondly as ‘the gang who could not count.’)

But let’s get back to Ms. McKenna. She is a lady with impressive credentials and she has always acted in a self-assured manner. Nobody deserves the slanders and slurs of the ignorant with which she had to handle.

The explanation for her leaving parliament rings hollow. Her family is right there in Ottawa. Does somebody else really need the seat? And what about the outstanding problem left in the in-basket at the environment office?

Nobody has the right to call themselves an environmentalist while leaving the questions unrecognized about the TransMountain pipeline. The place where these questions need to be brokered is the cabinet table.

The cabinet cannot hide from the truth. The only reason that pipeline is being twinned at this time—at a cost of over $12 billion—is to carry more of the most polluting bitumen in the world to the shores of Burrard Inlet at Vancouver.

The plan is to load ocean tankers there with the bitumen from the Alberta tar sands and sail it through the Salish Sea—the waters where the Orca feed.

Just one marine accident with diluted bitumen in the straits would doom the west coast fishing and feeding of marine life in the area for many years. It is of deep concern to environmentalists and realists. Ms. McKenna says she is leaving government because she wants to spend more time with her family. It is to be expected that the whales off Vancouver feel the same about the time they have left for their families.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Celebrating Canada.

by Peter Lowry

In celebrating Canada today, the message is that we need to try harder. No country is perfect. We have made some false steps in the past. We will do better in the future. It’s a promise we can make.

It is certainly okay to take a few minutes to think about the missteps of the past. You know, we used to hang people in this country—sometimes on very shaky evidence. We will apologize to them. They are not here to hear us. It is harder to think of aboriginal children, dying because of the way our ancestors treated them, buried in unmarked graves. Many died of European diseases to which they lacked immunity.

But after the passing of years, how can we sort the venal from the well-meaning? Do we just remove those ancestors from their plinths and mausoleums and consider the problem solved? Do we blame governments for their ill-considered actions? Do we castigate a church for the transgressions of perverts? Do we blame those with the over-sight for their lack of diligence?

And what do we achieve by blaming the dead?

Celebrating Canada Day is a celebration of life to be lived. In a country of promise and prosperity and opportunity and challenge, we are living a dream.

Let’s leave the dead to their eternity in peace. Let us live life to the fullest. Let us recognize our freedoms and share them willingly. Let us open the taps of immigration. We can offer opportunity to many more. And there are many who are worthy and in need.

And, if we have taken time to consider the past, let us also consider the future. Think of the type of politician we need. No demagogues, just people who care. We want politicians who are community leaders, not just followers. We want people who can make a contribution to our country. No ‘yes-persons’ need apply. We want those who can plan for our future and are not just mired in the errors of the past. We want to continue to be proud of our country of Canada.

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You Want Better?

by Peter Lowry

Reading a new democratic party version of ‘building back better’, the other day, it was surprising that there was no new thinking involved. It is something we are not getting from today’s NDP. It seems that Jagmeet Singh and his motley crew are lost back somewhere in the heyday of socialism. We are hearing nothing but the old and tired promises to a working class that no longer exists.

Like most of our political parties today, the new democrats are living in the past. The progressive unions, that are working with employers to build a better relationship and serve to their members better, are deserting the socialists and aligning with progressive thinking. Pick and shovel workers have traded old tools for machines that enable them to work fast and effectively. The office clerk has become a knowledge worker. The gig worker is transitioning to specialist and the hospitality worker is becoming more professional.

The point is that earning a living in the next decades will continue to change and evolve. It is going to involve a new type of politician to recognize and reflect the changes. It is going to be an environment of change.

And you can hardly just change the words and political platitudes. It requires thinking ahead instead of back. It requires planning and forethought.

Canadians want a green future. That is a given. There is no choice. We no longer want to be reliant on trains, planes and trucks that pollute our environment. We need high-speed, electric rail to transport people and goods across our country—and we want it as soon as possible. Urban transit must also be non-polluting.

And, of course, we have to complete Medicare with dental and prescription resources for everybody. And we need to live in a society where nobody needs to live on the streets. And when everybody has a roof over their heads, clean drinking water, we can make sure they have the funds for a healthy diet and the funds to enable them to be included in all aspects of our society.

Canada today can be proud of its potential. It will be leadership that enables us to think of ourselves as a society that can be proud of its achievements.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Conservative Confusion Continues.

by Peter Lowry

Not only does federal conservative leader Erin O’Toole have a problem but he is part of the problem. I like to think of it as Erin O’Toole meets the Three Stooges—and loses. It is not just Larry, Curly and Moe—better known as Doug Ford of Ontario, Jason Kenney of Alberta and Moe of Saskatchewan—who are setting new standards of conservative incompetence. Erin O’Toole joins the ranks of the conservative’s latest lacklustre leaders.

And when you consider how close the previous conservative leadership contest came to choosing libertarian Maxime Bernier, you would think the party leaders would be wary.

Did nobody in the federal conservatives wonder why Andrew Scheer was chosen at that time on the 13th count of a preferential ballot. Did no alarms go off as to why? If you get an inadequate leader the first time you use a preferential ballot, why use the same bad idea the next time?

And why does Erin O’Toole remind me of those old Elmer Fudd cartoons? You know the one when Elmer goes out hunting and he “thought he saw a Wabbit!”

You have to admit that there was not as much choice in the leadership contest that chose O’Toole. It quickly came down to Peter McKay and Erin O’Toole, which is not much to choose from.  

But choosing by preferential ballot, you often get the least contentious candidate. It is the only method of voting that consistently produces losers.

O’Toole’s biggest problem is that even his own caucus have low expectations of him. Their major hope going into this coming election is that O’Toole might keep Trudeau to a minority government. That is going to be difficult when he has major provincial conservative leaders with their own agendas.

And you can bet that when Justin Trudeau drops by Calgary and Edmonton this summer, he will be interested in more than good barbeque. He is hoping a couple of Alberta’s retiring mayors will take the opportunity to join him and his liberals in Ottawa this fall.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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