Federal Politics – Page 5 – Babel-on-the-Bay

Common Sense Conservatives?

September 29, 2023September 28, 2023 by Peter Lowry

A piece of junk mail came to my home the other day. It was probably the worst mailing from a political party, I have ever seen. There must be Ontario residents in their twenties today who would not remember the Mike Harris conservatives and their common-sense revolution of 1995. The ignorance of what these federal conservatives are offering Canadians today is even more frightening.

This mailer said that they can increase paycheques, build affordable homes, lower prices, make our streets safer and bring home “freedom” (whatever that means?). I might not be a big fan of Justin Trudeau but at least he doesn’t treat Canadians as though they are stupid.

What annoys me the most about these conservatives is that they are railing against the government that got us the vaccines to carry us through a world-wide pandemic. The first concern of the liberal government during the pandemic was our people, making sure they the money they needed to live through those terrible times of lock-downs and constant fear of becoming sick and dying.

These are conservatives who are opposed to cutting back on the pollution that is throwing our world into the chaos of climate change. They are opposed to any new taxes, whether they are designed to help people or not.

You would think that the time of Stephen Harper as prime minister would have proved to many Canadians that the meanness and cruelty of that conservative government did not need repetition. Ontario residents should be particularly wary after the lies and larceny of its conservative provincial government under Doug Ford.

I have no idea why these modern-day conservatives are so ideological and ignore the real needs of Canadians. They certainly march to a different drummer than conservatives such as prime minister John Diefenbaker and Ontario’s premier Bill Davis. As a liberal, I liked those two—because they cared about people.

Pierre Poilievre MP is a man of little life experience, who is committed to the extremes of conservatism. He will do anything, say anything, to get people to vote for him and his followers.

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Leave the Old Feuds Behind.

September 28, 2023September 27, 2023 by Peter Lowry

When Stalin of Russia murdered more than five million Ukrainians by starvation in the 1930s, did the world rush to their aid? Didn’t Finland fight the Winter War alone against Russia in the winter of 1939-40? Most of the Canadian population were not even here for those events. Nor does the majority of our population know much about the events in the Punjab since India’s independence in 1947.

To those of us born in Canada, events such as pogroms and genocide are far away and too often forgotten. Canada welcomes people who are refugees from the problems of the world but we tire quickly from the import of these antipathies. We listen to the adventures of those who struggled to get to Canada. We are glad they are here.

But these people, whom we welcome, must learn to leave the old animosities in the old world that suffered them. And it is not that we do not care about the wrongdoing their people have endured. One on one, we can commiserate. There is also forgiveness.

Canadians cannot take sides in the atrocities of the past in faraway countries. The arguments of the Armenians, for example, belong in the old countries.

Most Canadians have only heard of the Waffen SS that a 16-year-old Ukrainian joined at the beginning of hostilities in the Second World War. It was a time when the hatred for the Stalin genocide of the 1930s was far more palpable in the Ukraine than any understanding of the horrors to come of the Nazis.

The man from the Ukraine who was in parliament the other day, reminds me of an Austrian who came to Canada after the Second World War who had been trained to fly the early German jet fighter planes. He was captured by the Russians. After the war he escaped from a Soviet Gulag and walked across a continent to return home to Austria. He was of noble heritage, yet nothing remained for him in his homeland.

He came to Canada and we accepted him. He had to dig ditches for a while to get a start but what we did not yet know about him was his skills as a designer and as an artist that would make him famous in his adopted homeland.

So be aware, no matter where you were born, Canada welcomes you. Just remember to always leave the old animosities in the old countries. They have no place here.

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Come Blow Your Horn.

September 20, 2023September 16, 2023 by Peter Lowry

You have to admit, Little Boy Blue got a lot of attention from the media with his speech to the conservative convention recently. It was neither modesty nor myopia, nor missing his glasses that caused his eyes to appear to be squinting. It was the placement of the teleprompter screens. Pierre Poilievre was standing on a platform about 30 centimeters (12 inches) above the floor. The teleprompter screens were attached to the top edges of that riser and can be on two or all sides. It takes a lot of practice to make that arrangement work well.

But no matter how he blew his horn though, his message was mean, nasty and counterproductive to good government for Canada. I think I lost interest in the content of his speech and was more interested in his taking a misstep and falling off that riser. With the luck liberals have been having lately, there were likely people in the front row of that quadrangle prepared to catch him.

But why would the party be so busy with new types of teleprompters, redesigning the party logo and producing professional, image-softening commercials of Poilievre and his wife and kids. If they don’t like how he dresses or his haircut, you would think they would also want someone that people can like.

Poilievre built his reputation as an attack dog over the years in parliament. This guy has devoted his entire life to becoming prime minister of Canada. You would think that if getting to that position was his objective, that he would want people to think of him as competent. He might also talk about how he is going to help people. Who would believe a person who promotes Bitcoin just before the flaky promotion crashed and investors lost millions.

He spends many hours of his day complaining about Justin Trudeau but rarely tells anyone what he would do differently. He builds on animosity and hatred instead of trust and acceptance. And if everything in Canada is broken, as he claims, how does he think he can fix it? We have heard nothing but complaints and claims that it is all the present government’s fault. The few answers he approves of are from the extreme right wing of his party. I think Little Boy Blue should go blow his horn elsewhere.

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No Ties That Bind.

September 18, 2023September 16, 2023 by Peter Lowry

We note that the majority of Canadians have realized that there is no reason for Canada to continue to have a monarch. Charley definitely does not cut it. His wife is an embarrassment. His kids by Princess Diana have their own quarrels. Yet they have entitlements to which Canadians cannot aspire.

When polls show that four out of five Canadians feel no attachment to the monarchy, it is time we did something about it. I would suggest that no federal politician is rushing to open discussion on the constitution. That is a can of worms that only provides opportunity to the unwary.

It might fall on the provinces to make the course correction on the monarchy. We could start by not feeding crap about the monarchy to our school children. There would be greater justification for them to learn some American history rather than believe the fancified records of the movies and television produced in the U.S. British history might, in reality be less boring than what our textbooks tell them. Nor should we take them out of their classrooms to provide audiences for those boring visits by this or that overly entitled and titled person.

But leave their statues standing. They provide a welcome perch and a place to poop for pigeons. And besides, only the foolish among us want to hide history. We are not all suddenly woken to the faults of our ancestors. Yes, when John A. Macdonald was prime minister, he was a drunk. It is likely that many who voted for him were also drunkards. But that drunk had a vision of Canada that benefits us today. Give credit when credit is due.

And I personally want to see John Diefenbaker, Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau on our banknotes. We can also stop messing with the ten-dollar bill and restore John A. Macdonald to where he was immortalized.

It is appreciated that the Netflix series, The Crown, did much to inform and explain the monarchy’s role for us but it did not excuse the elitist attitude that allows the monarchy to continue to bore us.

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The Promise of Canada.

September 15, 2023September 14, 2023 by Peter Lowry

Did Justin Trudeau break the promise of Canada to followers of Pierre Poilievre? No. It is not true. For the promise of Canada is opportunity for all. That’s it. It is the chance for any Canadian to be prime minister, or maybe just achieve a little more than their parents did before them. What Poilievre fails to add is the promise has two sides. Nobody has taken the promise away from you. It requires effort.

Nobody wants you to go hungry. We are a civilization that cares and if you are unable to help yourself, we want to help you.

And if you want to become prime minister of Canada, we can help you along the way. It would help, for example, if you had some life experience that shows you what help people need and want in this country. To set out early in life to be just a politician is not equipping Mr. Poilievre with the background of understanding this country.

Understanding Canada also requires knowledge and experience in other countries. And not just in tourist havens. It is like there are many fine restaurants in Quebec City. You have to realize though that the province is much more than that. Quebec has many people, industries, farmers, teachers, entrepreneurs and more. The province and its people contribute much to Canada’s economy.

Canada promises all its citizens and those coming from other countries the same opportunities. They come with equal opportunities to learn. And there are many opportunities to learn. Apprentice training or community college credits or university degrees. It is up to the individual. The efforts are yours. We all share in recognizing your success.

And, in the same sense as Canadians are good citizens of their country, Canada is a good citizen of this world. We have trading partners, defence partners and when people are faced with the ravages of nature, we send help. That is what this world should be, a place where people help people.

A hollow slogan such as “Bring It Home” is showing a selfish nature that disparages Canadians desire to help other countries, to trade with them and help defend them when attacked by tyrants. Canadians come from all parts of this world. We can only set an example for others.

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Poilievre’s Petulant Promises.

September 14, 2023September 13, 2023 by Peter Lowry

When Pierre Poilievre—the guy I think of as Little Boy Blue—gave his speech last week to conservatives in Quebec City, he was not speaking to a broad swath of Canada’s intelligentsia. In fact, you really had to remember this was an audience of conservative party faithful and donors. These people are probably able to translate Little Boy Blue’s hyperbole into concepts that conservatives can understand.

And they would certainly be able to appreciate a stupid joke such as “It was so cold last winter that Justin Trudeau was seen with his hands in his own pockets.”

But it was when you go down the short list of promises he made that you wonder just where this guy is really taking his party? The one promise that seems to continue is the promise of a dollar-for-a-dollar law. He tells us this means that for every new dollar the government spends, it must take back a dollar from some other program. A simple way to look at it would be if the government was to give people making over $200,000 per year a two per cent tax break. It could have to take two per cent from the old age security (OAS) payments to seniors.

It also seems to mean that to build a building that might last 100 years, you have to cut some existing programs to pay for it.

The one thing that really does come through with Little Boy Blue is that he does not like spending money. His trite slogan “Bring It Home” seems to mean that he does not intend to spend any money outside of Canada. He belittles Justin Trudeau’s travels in aid of building Canada’s trade relations. Poilievre does not seem to understand that Canada has to buy some requirements from other countries and, in exchange, has to sell things to other countries. Canada is a trading nation. Without our international trade, Canadians’ standard of living would hit rock bottom in a hurry.

I must admit that I have no knowledge of Canada giving much foreign aid to dictators. I do know that we encourage democracy. But if he thinks the prime minister should stay home and not go to all these ‘gab fests’, it will probably be just as well that Canadians don’t really want to have Poilievre as prime minister.

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Leave No Cliché Unused.

September 12, 2023September 11, 2023 by Peter Lowry

Does Pierre Poilievre, our little boy blue and leader of Canada’s conservatives, now have some conservative concerns to help him do his job? He met with conservatives in Quebec City this past weekend and they were supposed to tell him of their concerns and policy wants. They even thought they were there to help make Canada great again. It was like a wedding. They had clichés borrowed and Little Boy Blue.

It took an hour to get to the close of the new leader’s speech, when little boy blue, once again, told us that he is going to “Make Canada the freest nation on earth.” Mind you, the conservatives who cheered his speech still voted against youth making their own gender selection and complained about who could use which toilets.

Not to worry though. Under the conservative party’s constitution, the party leader chooses to say what will be promised come an election. And he has already told us that he will axe the carbon tax. Maybe there are a few people in the conservative party who understand economics and will explain to Mr. Poilievre that the prime minister’s responsibilities do not include telling the Bank of Canada to print money. That might disappoint Mr. Poilievre. He complains that Mr. Trudeau has not only printed money but has doubled Canada’s national debt. He really needs to come down on one side or the other. And yes, the national debt, which is quite manageable for a country with the gross domestic product of Canada, did take a major hit during the pandemic. We are recovering quite rapidly. Blaming Mr. Trudeau for COVID is illogical.

But the basic problem with the speech was that sometimes you were not sure where the truth ended and the slurs and inuendo took over. The audience was not helpful with its mindless chants of “Bring it home” and “Canada is Broken.”

What was concerning though was the lack of attention to the war in Ukraine. Mr. Poilievre made it very clear that he was not interested in spending any money outside of our country. While Boy Blue normally ignores Quebec, being in Quebec City, and some better polls lately, encouraged him to give Quebec some recognition. I think a smart leader would have also talked more about climate change.

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Poilievre’s Posturing.

September 10, 2023September 9, 2023 by Peter Lowry

Where does conservative leader Pierre Poilievre get off referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a foreign dictator? That was what Poilievre inferred in his speech to the conservative party meeting in Quebec City Friday evening. It was important enough for him to be read from a teleprompter instead of just more off the cuff and off the wall nihilistic invective from a nasty little man.

I have written many speeches for politicians over the past 65 years and I forced myself to listen to every word of that one-hour and six-minute diatribe. I could boil that speech down to less than 20 minutes by not using all the repetition, exaggerations and outright lies. It was a speech deprecating Justin Trudeau as prime minister. It made it simple to understand why Poilievre is the designated thinker for Canada’s anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers and other nihilists. It is also to the delight of those of us who know what the World Economic Forum is about, that Poilievre dumps on the forum every chance he gets. He doesn’t realize that the WEF is something like the Fraser Institute on steroids. It is a place for conservative business people to dump their profits from world-wide inflation, so that they will not be taxed on them.

Poilievre keeps telling people that this is his common-sense solution. It reminds me of Mike Harris and his common-sense revolution. Harris led the conservative party in Ontario as premier from 1995 to 2002. He sounded quite similar to Poilievre. It did not work. Ask any Ontario resident, old enough to remember the e-coli outbreak in Walkerton and the shooting in Ipperwash Provincial Park.

It struck me that Poilievre was desperately calling on his hapless party to bring back the Steven Harper era. The conservative leader was quite definite about Trudeau being responsible for doubling our national debt. He could have just as easily blamed that on the pandemic.

The one thing we know for sure in all this hectoring of the liberals, is that, as prime minister, Mr. Poilievre is going to do things differently. One thing is for sure is that the conservatives will axe the carbon tax. That was covered more than a few times.

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Good News, Bad News.

September 9, 2023September 8, 2023 by Peter Lowry

There was a note on Pierre Poilievre’s desk when he reported in after his summer holiday:

Sire: We have good news and bad news. It seems that the generation Zee or Zed voters prefer that you be elected Canada’s prime minister. The bad news is that this is the most difficult bunch of voters to get out to vote.

It is hard to really rate the Ottawa cowboy’s summer. Yes, more Canadians got to know him a little bit. He laid all the blame for inflation, grocery and home prices on Justin Trudeau. He has been hoping that this weekend’s policy conference for the conservatives will give him something glib to say about climate change. He has been struggling to come up with a workable way to blame climate change and destructive wildfires on the liberal leader.

It has been difficult enough with walking into the odd wall and squinting all the time without his glasses. One benefit of the clothing change is that his wife has been freed from her duties washing and starching all those shirts. She has been out seeing the countryside—albeit from the perspective of conservative donors’ backyards.

It is a bit disappointing to hear that his message has been getting a better play among the younger voters. They are the impressionable youth, though not necessarily trend setters. Plus, we understand that these interview subjects are people who opted in to Internet panels and are not randomly selected respondents.

But good or bad news for the liberals can change over the next few years to an election. It seems unlikely that the conservative leader’s message that Canada is broken will carry for too long. When in all the criteria of what makes a liveable country is added up, Canada always comes in among the top ten countries in the world. It is hard to convince us older folks that Canada is broken. We are the ones who have lived here for a while and know that Canada is a pretty darn good country.

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The Importance of Being Liberal.

September 5, 2023September 4, 2023 by Peter Lowry

Oscar Wilde published The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895. It was a farce for its time. The importance of being a liberal is something of a farce for our time. What annoys me the most is that I have no proof of being a liberal today other than the constant e-mails the party sends me asking for money. Back when I was more active in the party, during the last half of the 20^th century, we had more purpose.

I have come to the conclusion after watching Justin Trudeau in party functions that he really does not like the party. It is quite obvious that our party leader is an elitist. Which is fine with me. I am still a liberal. The only time I have ever respected Justin was when he was trying to bring the country through the pandemic with his television appearances in front of Rideau Cottage. Our country was desperate for clear leadership at the time and he did provide some.

But when he denied and belittled the many years of party experience in the Senate and denied the liberals their label of honour from the party. It was as though he was getting even for the party’s demands on his father’s time when he was a child living at 24 Sussex Drive.

What Justin does not understand while his father did was that the party chooses the leader. The party is responsible for the training and having organized canvassers ready for the ground game when elections are called. The party is supposed to have a say in the party’s policy direction and in basic platforms. And the leader pisses on the party at his peril.

I don’t even think of Justin as a liberal. The dictionary definition of a liberal is not all that helpful. There will always be the dichotomy between the right and the left in the party. There are the progressives and there are those who drag their feet. Where we all come together is on individual rights. This is what we all fight for. At the same time, there was nothing wrong with being progressive. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau used to joke with me that we were both charter members of the ‘Get Off Your Ass’ (GOYA) group within the party.

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