Federal Politics – Page 46 – Babel-on-the-Bay

Big Tech versus Big Media.

February 9, 2021 by Peter Lowry

It is not as exciting as the meeting at the OK Corral. There is no shooting. And the only people shouting are the news media. They want Big Tech to stop stealing their work product. If our copyright laws where easier to enforce, it would not have even been a problem.

But the dumbest idea to come out of all of this wrangling is having government solve the problem. You would expect the news media to know that it takes government years to keep its promises. Overnight solutions usually end up being tossed back by the courts.

And if the government did solve the problem between the media and the Internet exploiters, would the news media then be nice to the government?

We should stop dreaming now and keep government and the news media each in their own kennel. Do you really think the Australian government meant to get into the middle of a war zone between Google-FaceBook and Australian news media?

What is without question here is that the Internet interlopers are stealing from the news media to create a false news creation of their own. It is usually a mishmash of real news headers, veiled advertisements and Hollywood blather.

If the Internet guys and girls had ever studied the work of 20^th Century psychologist Daniel Starch on newspaper readership, they would know that, for many of the readers, that header was their take-away for that news item. Remember that the header or first paragraph of newspaper stories is most likely to include the “Who, what, why, when and how” of newspaper tradition. Starch found a smaller percentage of the readers read half or more of the news story. And as many news media are using paywalls to pull in some extra revenue, it often just annoys the potential reader when clicking on the news item to find a paywall blocking them from reading is annoying.

For this argument to be resolved, everyone has to understand that legitimate news costs money. You need reporters dogging your politicians, watching your police and fire departments, studying what is happening in businesses and reporting from around your country. This costs money to observe, write and either print or broadcast and in the Internet. Internet people cannot just steal this expensive commodity for their own use to attract customers.

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Going where no politico dares to go.

February 8, 2021 by Peter Lowry

It always amazes me when some politicians will wade into subjects about which, they know nothing at all. It is what can get them in trouble, most of the time. Take Justin Trudeau’s supposed expertise in vaccines. It is like the other day when he was assuring parliamentarians that he talks regularly to the CEOs of the vaccine producing laboratories.

What does he talk to them about: their golf scores? You need more than a few lessons in pharmaceuticals to try to understand the complexities of developing vaccines for a coronavirus that attacks the respiratory system, and can kill.

And for the laboratories to be as far ahead of the expected curve in developing more than one vaccine is amazing in itself.

The bad news is that no firm has ever developed a new product that did not have any production problems, shipping delays, storage problems or arguments about priorities. Add another month.

But people have now heard about it and they want it. Too bad instant gratification is not available in this case. Best you listen to the promises of when you get your shot(s) and add two months.

And you can be sure there will be as many queue jumpers as there will be anti-vaxxers who would rather die than get a needle in the arm. Add another month.

What causes the most hilarity is the idea of getting senior military people to organize the injections for us. The first move is to get us all to march in columns and in-step. Add another month to teach generals that civilians are neither obedient, in-step, easily sorted, organized or that any new product arrives on its promised schedule.

If you have ever wondered why all political people sound alike is that their party leaders’ offices spend a lot of time writing answers to questions that might embarrass the party leader. The leader and all his party sing from the same songbook. They might sound stupid but it seems to work.

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Did you know the campaign was on?

February 6, 2021 by Peter Lowry

Jagmeet Singh has been heard from. He did not exactly come down from the mountain with tablets of stone. The new democratic party leader has decided that the low-hanging fruit of for-profit, long-term care homes was as good an issue as his party needs in the looming federal election.

It is likely that he figured that is all he needs if Canadians are to be presented with a campaign fought over the handling of the pandemic. The NDP might not be aware that there are no heroes while the battle still rages. Our prime minister, Justin Trudeau is hardly looking like a leader popping in and out the front door of Rideau Cottage like a cuckoo to repeat the advice of medical personnel. And conservative leader Erin O’Toole has hardly won kudos from the voters complaining about how Trudeau does, or does not, do the job.

O’Toole might not remember that it was conservative Brian Mulroney who sold off the Connaught Laboratories that might have helped Canadians get vaccinated as fast as citizens in other countries. Nor does it help Justin Trudeau if the liberals did give out more money per capita than any other advanced country during the pandemic.

It might come as a surprise for those who pay attention to politics that Justin Trudeau is doing as well in the polls as he is. You would think that some of his record as prime minister would work against him.

But his real secret weapon is the opposition. The reason Justin Trudeau and the liberals are likely to win any election called this year is the sad condition of his party’s opposition. There really is none. Erin O’Toole is a mistake. He is a conservative who thought the military taught him leadership. He is no leader. Jagmeet Singh has already proved that he is incapable of leading the new democrats anywhere. His leadership of that party is being endured.

There are only a few Canadians who would bet on the new leader of the Green Party. Annamie Paul, leader of the Greens, is an unknown to the majority of Canadians.

That leaves us with Yves-François Blanchet of the Bloc Québécois. That is hardly an alternative for anyone who cares about our country.

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The lingering death of CTV.

February 4, 2021 by Peter Lowry

There are some flash drives littering my desk behind this computer. Those memory sticks date from my last three computers. I started to search in them earlier and wasted hours in nostalgia. What I was looking for, was not found. It was the presentation I made to the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) 13 years ago. It was when Bell Canada was seeking approval to buy CTV and its holdings.

I said in very clear terms to the commissioners that Bell Canada knew nothing about television or radio, its production needs or programming. When the future of the industry was in question, CTV was unloading an albatross on the suckers at Bell. Time is proving me right. The news today of another 200 staff cuts in CTV in Toronto area alone tell the tale. Based on their presentations to the commission, I think the commissioners believed that the two giant concerns deserved each other.

I walked away from that CRTC meeting, never to return.

It was part of the disappointment. I had been in on the conception of the CRTC and at the turn of the century, my late friend The Right Honourable Herb Gray, who spent 40 years in parliament, asked me if I would like to sit on the Commission, I helped create.

The involvement started in the 1960s with prime minister Lester Pearson telling Jack Pickersgill, then minister of transport, to get down to the party policy meeting at the Chateau Laurier, where some young Turks in the party were tearing apart his Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

What Pickersgill found was that we were simply asking for the separation of the CBC from the Board of Broadcast Governors. We were convinced that, at the time, the arrangement was strangling growth for both the CBC and the Canadian television industry. We won the battle and the CRTC was created by Pierre Trudeau’s government under the first minister of communications for Canada, my, then member of parliament, Robert Stanbury.

But that right-wing jerk John Manley, was political minister for Ontario over 30 years later when Herb Gray suggested me for the CRTC and Manley shot down my appointment without any consideration.

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The Constitution Conundrum.

February 2, 2021 by Peter Lowry

It takes two things to fix Canada’s constitution. It takes ideas and leadership. Without suggestions as to how we will fix it or people to lead the parade, it is rather silly to take polls as to how people feel about our sorry mess.

As it stands to-day, Canada is tied in a constitutional lock-down. Giving petty dictators running provinces the power to deny Canadians a better future is undemocratic and a failure in negotiation. It will only be when we can all see the potential for Canada’s future that we might come to agreement.

The first step in the process is to convince Canadians that a constitutional conference needs to be held. This can be created by a national referendum. It can be kept to a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ The proposal could deal with the creation of the conference and the questions about the future that need to be discussed. And then, after the conference, we can have a vote by all Canadians as to whether they approve of the suggestions coming from the conference.

The constitutional conference could be fashioned as a parliamentary assembly—with maybe two persons per constituency. What we would not want would be for them to run to be members of the assembly as members of a political party. We would certainly want input from the parties but this is a situation where geographical input should come first. We really want the people to represent the people in the constituency that sent them.

What we need to stay away from is choosing members as though in a raffle. We saw what happened in 2007 when Ontario picked people at random for a conference and the guy chosen to run it led the raffle winners down the garden path. It was a waste of time and the majority of Ontario voters agreed.

At the same time, we have to stay away with results such as the Charlottetown Accord. The 1992 accord was a politician’s view of a solution to Canada’s discord. It was a plan put forward by the leaders of the federal and provincial governments. After former prime minister Pierre Trudeau came out against the Accord, it was also a waste of time.

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The hypocrisy of the provinces.

February 1, 2021 by Peter Lowry

If there was ever a reason to change Canada’s constitution, it will be the hypocrisy of so many of our provincial leaders. It also explains why I often preferred to drive to Ottawa from Toronto when dealing with some federal departments. It was because I could return to Toronto with a trunk full of inexpensive wines purchased in Gatineau, Quebec.

And, as long as that wine was for personal use, I was not breaking any law. It was just that Canada Post or a delivery service would be breaking the law if they crossed the same border and delivered the wine to my Toronto home.

Canada’s premiers have been meeting fairly often for the past 60 years and frequently discuss inter-provincial barriers to commerce. They have promised much and resolved little, in all that time.

Alcohol is not the only problem. The greatest hypocrisy is the provincial control of trade in terms of professionals licensed in one province having to obtain a license in another province in order to sell their services in that province.

This does not exclude the problems related to language. Provincially regulated trades can still dictate what language you have to be able to speak.

Of course, that does not apply to the federal government. I once signed a contract with the federal government that required me to spend time in meetings in Ottawa and in the department’s Laval, Quebec facility. Nobody had thought to mention to me that the Laval facility was run in French. They quickly found out my language limitations when I had my first meeting with a dozen or so staff members in Laval. It was a tough year, though it helped me improve my French, a bit.

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Understanding Basic Income.

January 31, 2021 by Peter Lowry

There are three sides to this argument. The idea of a basic income for all Canadians is an idea championed by progressive politicos. And then there are the regressive politicos (usually conservatives) who think it is a terrible idea and that what all those lazybones need is a little encouragement. And then there are those academics who start out saying: “But on the other hand…”

The idea of a basic income program got new impetus when the federal government finally got around to the concept of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). It caused a rush to the pay windows of the government and a response that sounded like the slamming of government doors and pay windows. While many of us appeared to be ignoring the small print, it was the first time we actually thought the government was turning on the spigots where needed.

But it was good to hear from one dubious recipient of the liberal largess: “I have to give the money back, but they were nice about it.”

What was sad but amusing about the government’s reneging on CERB was that to be a recipient, you had to have some earned income in the past year.

Dammit all, who the hell is going to worry about Canadians who are too old, too sick, or disabled, infirm, or incoherent, or simply unmotivated? The world is not a perfect place and we do have to deal in reality sometimes.

In 2015, Trudeau and his cabinet danced through a sunlit Rideau Park and, according to Justin Trudeau, all was supposed to be perfect.

To be fair, he did not expect a pandemic either. I think he has done good trying to deal with covid-19. He is no genius. He is his mother’s son. He has done his best. He might not be leading us to a land of milk and honey but he has probably done as good a job on the pandemic as we can expect.

But, for goodness sake, let’s keep the academics out of the implementation of a basic income. We expect to make mistakes. That is when we will know it is working. We will fix things as we go. Start by doing the honourable thing.

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You can’t do one without the other.

January 30, 2021 by Peter Lowry

It was an amusing op-ed the other morning in the Toronto Star by Bob Hepburn. Not only is Bob late to the lists but his suggestion regarding our governor general would complicate more than it resolved. I certainly agree with him that the role of governor general is something to be relegated to the past. The only problem is that Bob’s solution leaves us with fewer safeguards on our already challenged democracy.

As our Canadian constitution stands, when we elect a majority government, we are giving the leader of that government almost unlimited power. You might note that the supreme court is a potential barrier to unlimited power—but who do you think appoints members to that supreme court?

And don’t be so sure that Canadians might not elect a Trump-type leader? Yes, it took a lot of stupid Americans to elect Trump president—but since when did Americans have the sole franchise on stupidity?

I have heard it said that Americans have too many roadblocks to getting things done politically. With the complexities of a bicameral congress, a supreme court and a separate administration under a president, it is amazing what has been accomplished south of Canada sometimes.

But it is the undemocratic nature of the senates in both countries that cause the most problems. In Canada, the fact that the prime minister in the House of Commons appoints the senators, usually alleviates the problem. In the United States, the brazenly undemocratic nature of the Senate has a smell that indicates it is well past its date with updating.

The puzzle with the Canadian Senate is; why bother? It seems redundant for the senate to the examine the legislation coming from the commons when they are always controlled by the party in power. It seems that the people who wrote our constitution had their doubts about the trust-worthiness of our elected commoners as parliamentarians.

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Is it cruel to fool O’Toole?

January 29, 2021 by Peter Lowry

Is finance minister Chrystia Freeland deliberately fooling conservative leader Erin O’Toole? It seems like she has more important tasks ahead of her. Maybe she is forging ahead with her plans and ignoring what O’Toole has to say. He accuses her of ideological and a reckless budgeting. She might be one of the first liberal finance ministers to ever do that.

Her problem is that she has far too many claimants wanting a piece of the finance action. First, she has to budget for ending the pandemic with foreign-made vaccines and then she has to build a better country for the survivors.

The main difference between Freeland and O’Toole is that he thinks we should rebuild the country to where it was before the pandemic. Freeland believes we should build better.

We all seem to have our own idea of what this means. I am sure many of us would put the emphasis on raising our peoples to greater heights of achievement. We need to ensure each and every one of us of sufficient funds and opportunity to learn and to work at what brings us fulfilment.

But I also believe that if we have a few billions left over in this budget, we need high-speed trains to reach from sea to sea. High-speed electric trains are an ecological solution to the heavy pollution of planes and road transport. It means building new track beds and overpasses in every province of Canada.

And finance minister Freeland should make a point of talking about this to president Biden’s treasury secretary Janet Yellen. The U.S. is currently on the brink of building more high-speed electrified train service—if Biden can stop the political interference by those who want to continue the use of fossil fuels.

It looks like the use of fossil fuels is the main challenge to both Biden and Trudeau. They have strong and well-funded opposition. Alberta remains Trudeau’s nemesis and it will take a while for the average Albertan to realize that the future is in thermal energy from the earth not in tar sands that pollute so much. Biden made a good start by cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline. All Trudeau has to do is cancel the twinning of the TransMountain pipeline.

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Our failing democracy.

January 28, 2021 by Peter Lowry

We are all responsible. We are failing to support democracy. We are making bad choices in leaders, bad choices in who represents us and failing to demand that they protect our democratic institutions and customs. And we can only blame ourselves.

We need to face the facts: our political parties are failing us. Bad leaders speak volumes about the parties they are chosen to lead. Do you think the Ontario conservatives are pleased with their choice of a blowhard such as Doug Ford as leader? Do you think rank and file new democrats across Canada are pleased with the leadership of Jagmeet Singh? He has no idea where that party needs to go. And I would say harsh words for the federal conservative leader but sometimes the parties do not get much of a choice.

But the real challenge is in the court of the federal liberals. We laughed with Justin Trudeau in 2015. We were so pleased to be rid of the Harper conservatives at the time that we did not pay enough attention. Trudeau lied to the liberal party and we let him get away with it. He promised us a new era of party resurgence. The only problem was the party could only go where he wanted it to go. And today, the liberal party is powerless to bring him to heel.

Trudeau has proved himself an elitist. He only lets the party go where he wants it to go. He and his circle rule from the prime minister’s office and never a negative word is heard.

We wondered when he holidayed with the Aga Khan. We cringed when a trip to India was a family dress-up occasion. He seemed forgetful with the We charity. He saw no problem in trying to corrupt his justice minister. He demoted and fired ministers who said ‘no,’ Gender equality seemed difficult.

And when he told us that 2015 was the last time Canadians would use first-past-the-post voting to choose a parliament, many believed him. He failed to democratize the Senate. He chose the selections of elitist committees. He burnt himself in his selection of a governor general.

Canadians want and have the right to demand truth, honesty and integrity in their prime ministers. We need to get back to that.

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