Category: Federal Politics

In Disdain of Demagogues.

by Peter Lowry

It was easy enough to identify U.S. president Donald Trump as being a demagogue. He exhibited all the hallmarks while in office. He was a brash, boisterous braggard. He would not have known a truth if he tripped over it. He promised his followers any foolish thing they wanted.

The classic demagogue is Ontario premier Doug Ford. He learned about politics indirectly from his conservative father and from his younger brother in Toronto city hall. His classic promise of ‘Buck a Beer’ was demagoguery at its best. He promised change and instead gave Ontario confusion over covid-19, cronyism, confidential deals with developers and attempts to control competition.

Ford’s major problem was that he was neither as smart nor as experienced as his buddy out west, Jason Kenny, premier of Alberta. Kenney had years of experience in Ottawa behind him when he went home to ‘unite the right’ in Alberta. He understood the need to drive a pick-up truck, wear a ten-gallon hat, engage ethnic groups, stamp out competition and feed on the old shibboleths of outing Ottawa. What identified Kenney’s demagoguery was his foolish expenditures on false enemies and hoped for pipelines.

Who but a demagogue would pour more than a billion of taxpayer’ dollars into a failing pipeline that is now dead? Who else would see conspiracies in who supports organizations that care about the environment? And who would arrange for a propaganda office to fight Ottawa and environmental concerns?

And yet, we cannot leave these notes on demagoguery without considering Canada’s chief demagogue. We are dealing here with a person who has lived with privilege his entire life. His disdain for those less privileged is there for all to see. He talks environmentalism and builds a pipeline to carry the highly polluting product of Alberta’s tar sands. He talks feminism and fires women who disagree with him.

He harbours with the rich and famous, he is an elitist, he loves the stage and the adoration, he is the cuckoo in the clock at Rideau Cottage. He is the most dangerous of demagogues. He is Justin Trudeau.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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“A Call to Arms.”

by Peter Lowry

It might not be up to the style of a Hemingway opus but the complaints by Canada’s military ombudsman the other day seemed to be from a man who does not like his job. Nor does he seem to like his prime minister, the cabinet minister he reports to and senior military personnel with whom he deals. He told the media the other day that he would rather report directly to parliament.

There is no doubt that the opposition there would enjoy hearing from him.

Dealing with the current sexual misconduct in the higher ranks of the military seems to have emboldened the ombudsman to make his complaints public. Since his direct reporting responsibility is to the defence minister, Harjit Sajjan, Gregory Lick was seriously talking out of school. If he continues to complain, he will probably talk himself out of government service.

Reading all the background on this issue, one comes to wonder that since General Vance is now retired from the Canadian forces, the complainant might have access to civilian recourse, if that is what she wishes. And as part of her claim is that he fathered two of her children, her complaint could be relatively easy to prove or disprove.

And as for our previous remarks in Babel-on-the-Bay, we read in the National Post that conservative leader Erin O’Toole was apprised of complaints of Vance’s sexual activities when prime minister Harper promoted the general to chief of staff of Canada’s armed forces. That was when O’Toole was briefly minister of veterans’ affaires in the conservative government of Stephen Harper. He did exactly the same thing about the charges as did liberal Harjit Sajjan: nothing. They expect the armed forces to solve their own problems of inappropriate sexual conduct.

But O’Toole seems to be enjoying the knowledge today as he can blame it all on ‘those shameless’ liberals.

As for General Vance (Ret), it seems he has fallen into the trap of most humans about sex. It seems it is like riding a bicycle. Once you have learned about it, you want to keep on doing it.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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Does the Pandemic Divide Us?

by Peter Lowry

While there might be light at the end to this tunnel we have been in, will we come out divided and insular to our fellow Canadians? Have the restrictions on travel driven us into the depths of bigotry and division? Have the anti-vaxxers and deniers rampaged as we followed instructions to lock down? What kind of new society is emerging?

At this time, we need to take a hard look at what divides us. Maybe we need to stop separating our children by religion, schooling and wealth of the parents. Maybe we should enforce the rights to our two languages in all corners of the country. We certainly need to stop driving people out of their homes and forcing them to live on the streets. We have a responsibility to all of our citizens for their safety and wellbeing.

And let us stop talking mealymouthed platitudes to our aboriginal peoples. They are not indigenous (from here) but they came thousands of years earlier than the rest of us and they have rights in this land and to share its bounty. Truth and reconciliation need not take decades to resolve.

Hell, we have not even resolved the relationships between men and women in this country. Men are not all rampant rapists and women are not all sweet and pure. We have to separate morning after regrets from sexual aggression. It was hard to believe recently that some poorly-equipped men who lost their condom, during consensual sex, were being charged with rape. There is a pill for that.

And we should recognize that there is no such thing as systemic (in all parts) racism or sexism in the police forces or armed forces of this country. We still do not have large numbers of female soldiers, sailors, air personnel or police but the point has been made clear that there are rules of engagement between the sexes in these organizations and they need to be followed.

And what difference does a person’s color make? We benefit in so many ways by the mixed nature of our society. And some people want to discriminate? Why? Maybe, if there is anything left of this world in a couple hundred years, Canadians will be of so many mixed shades, they will need to check with the computers that will be running things to determine their racial ancestry. And we will be better for it!

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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Sajjan Is Not the Sex Police.

by Peter Lowry

The opposition parties in Ottawa have voted for a politically motivated censure and are demanding the resignation of Canada’s defence minister Harjit Sajjan. The opposition parties are complaining that he has not done enough about the senior staff of the military having or wanting to have sex. To his credit, it would seem that Mr. Sajjan is not interested nor involved in the sex lives of Canada’s generals and admirals.

And, frankly, everyone in parliament should follow Mr. Sajjan’s example. They should realize that that celibacy is not required in our armed forces. We have a military that is made up of Canadians looking for travel, organization in their lives and a reliable paycheque. The military houses them, feeds them, clothes them and looks after their health. They lead a nice life and rarely go in harms way. And if you get some sex occasionally, life can be even better.

But, as in any organization, there are restrictions on the sex. The boys have to stay out of the girls’ barracks and the girls have to stay out of the boys’ barracks. And, like in many organizations, men and women with authority over another person cannot demand sexual favours from the people who report to them. In the military, this is considered an offence under the Queen’s Regulations for the particular military service. And, as each military service has its own quasi police force, offenses that become known are handled, so to speak, and disciplined within the service.

There is more of a problem when you hear of complaints within the ranks of generals and admirals. These are the people who make the rules and it is very awkward when they break them. The problem is that people of this rank are expected to know when to defend themselves and when to capitulate.

People who rise to this level in the services are expected to know when a person of sexual interest to them has said yes, no or maybe. They are also required to know when the relationship could be considered improper.

The only body that can deal effectively with indiscretions at this level is the general staff of the military. The defence minister has to accept the decision of the general staff or appoint a new general staff.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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Crocodile tears from Bell Canada.

by Peter Lowry

The new owners of the Toronto Star should be ashamed. When reading an article on a business opinion page on the weekend, it became apparent that I was reading an advertisement. This was not balanced reporting. It might be something that the company sends out in a news release but was not a report by an impartial and knowledgeable reporter. The source was obviously some public relations person writing on behalf of the president of Bell Canada’s residential and small business services!

This was purported to be an article about the recent reversal of a 2019 plan by the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to make deep cuts in Bell Canada’s wholesale rates for use by resellers of Bell’s Internet infrastructure.

Bell Canada’s near-monopoly position because of its copper wire and fiber optic networks allows the company to charge what the market will bear for its Internet services. And those rates are substantially higher than those charged in other developed nations for similar broadband services.

The Toronto Star article was written to make it appear that the CRTC decision in 2019 was some flight of whimsy. The reason the 2019 rates were never implemented was that Bell Canada and other networking telecoms had the rates challenged in court, denounced to politicians and anyone else willing to listen. Heaven forbid the Canadians ever get a fair shake in Internet pricing.

The facts are that the CRTC had set the previous 2016 wholesale rates so high that savvy customers saw that the resellers rates were no lower than Bell’s or other telecoms. There was no wiggle room for a better price.

A great deal of study and evaluation went into the 2019 figures. What the telecoms claimed as serious cuts were in fact the cuts that were needed to give the resellers an opportunity to carve out a piece of the Internet market. Internet customers are not about to organize a tag day for Canadian telecoms.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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“The evil that men do…

by Peter Lowry

Chantal Hébert of the Toronto Star is no William Shakespeare. A good writer but sometimes a bit too Quebec-centred, I was annoyed at her column the other day questioning why John A’s still on a pedestal.

Sir John A. Macdonald is on a pedestal (actually, under a statue, it is called a plinth) because he belongs there. For all his weaknesses, idiosyncrasies and alcoholism and skulduggery, he did a hell of a job putting this country together. And that is why there are statues and places named after him across the breadth of this nation.

This country needs heroes. We have damn few. It amuses me when visiting Queen’s Park in Toronto that there is a collateral relative of mine on a plinth in front of the legislature. It is Oliver Mowat. My old friend Bob Nixon, when leader of the Ontario liberals, referred to Mowat in a speech once as “that myopic little man.”

While I argued in favour of my relative, I had to admit that many of the problems facing the Canadian federation today, can be blamed on Sir Oliver Mowat. He was the main advocate for provincial rights in his time and, in that time, he was right. He had no way in his day to see the long-term needs of this country. It was his one-time law partner, Sir John A. Macdonald, who saw the need for a country-spanning railroad and a strong federal government.

But, in terms of the needs of the country back then, just before the turn of the 20th Century, it is not for us to say who was right or wrong. For people to throw paint at statues is a wasted effort—it is but a foolish action by callow youth.

The question today is ‘Can we change the past?’ Ask that of the paint throwers. Ask those who stand in the halls of government and apologize for the actions of past generations. They should tell us who could land on these shores and tell us how to interact with the aboriginals who sheltered here?

We should never forget that, in the thinking of past times, there was no greater offer to our aboriginals than to become as one with these late-comers to this land. Canada never has been the ‘melting pot’ of the Americans.

Only when we are sure that aboriginals have all the rights, privileges and opportunities in this land of which they are due, can we stand tall beside them.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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Those Bastards at Bell.

by Peter Lowry

Having once worked for Bell Canada, you find out very quickly why Bell is among the most hated of Canadian companies. It is the arrogance. Bell Canada shares its arrogant attitude with other telecoms and communications companies. Whether you are dealing with Rogers, Shaw, Telus, or Bell matters little. There is the same sense of privilege in all Canadian telecoms.

I remember a decade ago, at a Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) hearing, Bell Canada was applying for permission to buy CTV.  At the hearing in Gatineau, Quebec, I was sitting directly behind the Bell executive responsible for orchestrating the proceedings for Bell. his people where writing speeches for supporters and MPs who spoke to impress the commissioners. When it was my turn to speak as an intervenor, he left the room for probably an over-due washroom break. He would not have enjoyed what he knew I was there to say anyway.

I knew my intervention was a waste of time. I gave it my best shot. Even the chairman was congratulatory in a quiet discussion later as we both left the building. He knew then that the Harper conservatives would just overrule the decision if the commission did not bow to the Bell demands. It was another low point in the existence of the CRTC.

I had been there for the birth of the CRTC in the late 1960s. Some of us young Turks in the liberal party had taken on the challenge of swapping the old Board of Broadcast Governors (dominated by the CBC) for a more independent body.

And I will probably be there for the death of the CRTC the way it is going these days. They have let the fox in the henhouse by picking the former bureaucrat and former lobbyist for Telus, Ian Scott, as chair of the supposedly independent body. He stunned all knowledgeable Canadians by reversing the CRTC’s 2019 ruling on lower prices for wholesale Internet prices from major telecoms.

It came like a gift from heaven to people such as Bell that have been screwing consumers and smaller distributors alike for years. From personally pricing all the independents, I found that they could not give the consumer a break. Their prices worked out to the same as Bell’s—with poorer service.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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And he’s Pierre’s son?

by Peter Lowry

Screw you Justin, and the horse you rode in on. You have lost all rights to the name Trudeau. You have belittled and betrayed your father. You have denounced Pierre Trudeau’s legacy. You have pandered to those small-minded, bigoted politicians in Quebec who want to keep their people imprisoned on a French-speaking island.

Justin Trudeau, as prime minister, could have kept his mouth shut. Premier François Legault hardly needed Justin’s support in looking so small. Quebec’s latest demand to be recognized as some sort of nation is unCanadian, unnecessary and uncaring of the people those politicians are there to serve.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is there for all Canadians. They are not only rights and freedoms for just some Canadians. They are hardly just rights and freedoms for English-speaking Canadians.

Canada exists as a nation from Sea to Sea. Nobody gets a chunk of this nation to float out into the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. Separation is not an option. It all belongs to all of us. And we would be damn stupid not to fight for that.

We have tolerated this nation crap from these petty politicians in Quebec for too long. When they felt so brave as to show off their bigotry, many of us lost patience. When I drive across a bridge from Ottawa, Ontario into Gatineau, Quebec, I do not want to become any less of a citizen.

But I am according to those ignorant politicians in Quebec City. As Pierre Trudeau once put it: I have been called worse by better people.

Pierre Trudeau saw a nation that accepted its bilingualism and its tolerance from sea to sea. He thought it ridiculous for Quebec City to defy Canada’s history in preference for one language over the other. Manitoba was wrong a century ago when it tried to banish French and Quebec is wrong to constrain English. Our languages are part of our individual rights. Nobody takes them away from us.

Just because Justin Trudeau has an election coming where he wants Quebec support is no reason to betray English-speaking Canadians.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

Just a voice in the wilderness!

by Peter Lowry

The truth is that blogs get as much attention as just another mosquito in the wildness of Ontario. No matter what the readership numbers, you never seem to reach the readers who can do something. They are too busy to read blogs. And after all, it is just one person’s opinion.

And it is all the fault of those idiots out in Alberta who want to call diluted bitumen ‘oil.’ They are putting diluted bitumen through Enbridge’s Line 5 and calling it oil. That seems to be fine with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Her response is to order the shutdown of Line 5 where it crosses the Straits of Mackinac—the point where Lake Michigan flows into Lake Huron.

Governor Whitmer’s only experience with a pipeline burst is ten years ago when another Enbridge pipeline spilled diluted bitumen into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River in south Michigan. And even after spending close to a billion U.S. dollars plus millions in fines, Enbridge was unable to complete the clean-up. Bitumen in water is almost impossible to clean-up.

If a lake cargo ship dragged anchor through the shallow water at Mackinac, it would be guaranteed to collect a piece of pipeline in the process. If the line was carrying butane gas at the time, it would be the equivalent of our Canadian cows passing gas. It could also be equivalent to a month or so more of or even a year’s emissions from thousands of gas burning cars.

If the line was carrying refined real crude oil or gasoline, the released oil products would float and fast action could contain it. It could be cleaned up.

But if the line was carrying diluted bitumen at the time and the pipeline kept pumping long enough, the diluted bitumen would keep polluting even as it went over Niagara Falls. It could destroy the major source of fresh water for about 40 million Americans and Canadians as it made its way through the Great Lakes.

What the governor of Michigan needs to do is simply forbid the transmission of diluted bitumen through the pipeline. Anything else can be cleaned up.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

When every vote counts.

by Peter Lowry

There are Canadians I know in the Jewish community who tend to come down hard on me if I criticize Israel. It just cannot be helped though when that country’s government, the Knesset, is such an interesting example of proportional voting.  It looks now as though Mr. Netanyahu and his Likud party cannot form a government out of the 13 parties elected in the most recent of five elections in about two years. And people wonder why proportional representation would be a destructive way to elect our governments in Canada.

Quite frankly, proportional representation in Canada would be a disaster. Can you just imagine the potential number of political parties we would have? I can assure you that the Toronto liberals would have no truck with those Tories in Quebec who call themselves liberals. And Albertans would have their own gun-toting right-wing cowboys and cowgirls. I figure there are at least three potential parties currently holding the Bloc Québécois together. And the Ontario rural voters would resurrect the latent farmers of Ontario party.

It is mind blowing to think of the different interests and potential demands of the number of small parties needed to create a workable government. And that, in essence is the problem in Israel. Now, you could argue that we might not have a situation such as Mr. Netanyahu’s, where he has the largest group of supporters in the Knesset, but is also under some form of indictment for corruption at the same time.

You would think that Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud would also suffer from his hard right-wing attitude. You have to admit though that it is extremely difficult to maintain a graceful approach in a region with millions of people who dislike and distrust you. You can assume if he held out an olive branch, he would probably lose his arm along with the branch.

But if you want to balkanize Canada and turn it into a bunch of inconsequential states the size of Israel, just keep on trying to switch us to proportional voting. Think of what can build this country. Think of how we can get the leadership this country needs so desperately.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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