Federal Politics – Page 74 – Babel-on-the-Bay

The late, unlamented New Democratic Party.

June 14, 2019 by Peter Lowry

This information has been available for a while but this writer has been reluctant to mention it. The problem I have is with some of my readers who are entrenched supporters of what is left of the federal new democrats. They tend to vilify me for even reporting the failings of their party. Not that it should really bother me. I am a left-wing liberal and am used to abuse from within my own party.

But the problem today is that there are malingering NDPers who do not know what else to say to the pollsters. The party is hardly at the lowest ebb of support since the CCF was founded. It is lower.

It will be October before we get a sense of just how bad it is. I would consider it a win if the party keeps its official standing as a party in the house of commons.

And I do not think it can be blamed just on the lack of leadership. This is a party without a scintilla of direction. The old guard of the NDP are split between the organized labour supporters, the environmentalists and the old socialists. And with nobody to pull the rabble back together, few of the rank and file have any direction.

It is a shame we have to mention the titular leader but Jagmeet Singh is just not cutting it. His position is like that of a catholic choir boy suddenly being anointed Pope of Rome. There is no honeymoon.

But Jagmeet is lost in the morass of political squabbling over who among them killed their party. The only benefit he has found is that he can announce anything off the party wish list and nobody denies it. Mind you, nobody supports him either.

It is still too early to tell but we can probably expect that of the 41 NDP seats they now hold in parliament, for every three seats they lose, the Green party will gain a seat. And if the greens gain enough for party status, they will do so at the NDP’s expense.

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A NOTE TO READERS: When I went to public school in Ontario, they were still teaching us young Canadians British history. We learned the difference between Britain and the ancient Celts who lived in what is now England before the Romans came, who were known as Britons. Now please understand that we do make the odd editing error in writing our commentaries. I was trying to give my Green Party friends something to think about yesterday—not start a war. And what about those Raptors!?

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If you paint a pig green?

June 13, 2019 by Peter Lowry

The question is if you paint a pig green, would it no longer roll in the mud? And if we are concerned about the environment, should we vote for a party called ‘Green’? Is it that simple? Have we solved the problem of global warming, have we protected the environment and will we all live happily ever after?

Maybe life is not so simple. There must be other political parties that care about the environment. Why, just the other day, the prime minister announced that we were going to do something about single-use plastics. He painted a rather gruesome picture for us of whales washing up on shore with their stomachs full of plastics that are drifting through our seas.

Of course, the PM allowed for exceptions. He figures that we will need at least four years to determine what plastics to ban, what to convert from plastic to some more degradable material and what will have to be an exception for later banning. He sees it as an opportunity to create some new industries. He was vague on details.

We could check on the new democrats. They always have good things to say about the environment in their pamphlets. Maybe they will not look like such hypocrites now that former NDP premier Rachel Notley is no longer beating the drum for more tar sands bitumen to add to world pollution. She wanted pipelines and rail cars to get the bitumen to ports where the stuff could be shipped to countries that do not worry so much about pollution.

And you would think that the NDP opposition in Ontario would be making the most of their opportunity to show up premier Ford and his conservative cronies for their appalling ignorance about the environment and the causes of global warming. So much for the NDP!

And as for Mr. Ford and friends: Those ignoramuses are using our taxpayers’ money to say they have a better plan for global warming. I think it includes toasting marshmallows.

And that basically leaves those people painted green. They remind me of the ancient Britons who were druids and worshiped trees and painted their backsides blue.

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‘Chuckles’ is Counting on Chaos.

June 11, 2019 by Peter Lowry

Conservative leader Andrew ‘Chuckles’ Scheer has reason to worry about the antics of Ontario premier Doug Ford. With less than five months to the scheduled October election, the conservative leader’s team knows the election is really going to be fought in British Columbia and Ontario. The other provinces are predictable. It is a butterfly already flapping its wings on the west coast that will create the chaos in Ontario.

And Chuckles Scheer is counting on that chaos. He needs something to upset the balance of Ontario’s traditional voting patterns. He needs warning signs on the economy. He needs layoffs and union unrest.

Scheer is looking for seats in liberal Toronto. He needs NDP seats in Hamilton and Northern Ontario. And it is the chaos caused by premier Doug Ford that can help deliver that. Without chaos, Ontario remains a federal liberal fortress.

And to further frustrate Scheer, he cannot be seen condoning Ford’s foolish antics. All he had planned to do this fall, as Ford tore into Trudeau, was to tsk-tsk and comment that boys will be boys.

But Dougie might be planning to hide out for the summer at the Ford’s summer compound. He wants to be as far away as possible from the antics at Toronto’s Pride parades and festivities. The whole idea was for Scheer to act as the only adult available in October and be seen as a stabilizing factor by the voters.

While it would be hard to believe of Ford, he might have even promised himself to stay out of the federal election. After all Kenney and Moe in Alberta and Saskatchewan are hardly going to make a difference leading their provinces against the liberals. The Plains are no happy hunting ground for Trudeau. He might as well overfly and forget those two provinces.

As for B.C., Trudeau’s fate hangs by the thread of the Trans Mountain pipeline. If he can just find some way to get out from under the weight of that pipeline, he might not come to a complete slaughter at the polls in that part of the country.

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Sir John A. showed the way.

June 10, 2019 by Peter Lowry

He might have been a drunk, but he had vision. He saw a nation across the top of North America brought together with bands of steel. Sir John A. Macdonald saw trains running from coast to coast of a country growing strong and free.

And it could be the belief in that vision that is leading Bombardier to sell off its commuter jet business and concentrate on the company’s expertise on transportation that runs on steel tracks. In a country seeking to lower carbon emissions, high-speed electric trains can challenge air travel. Fast electric commuter trains can challenge the automobile. Modern streetcars, light rail and subways can move people in our congested cities.

From early errors in supplying Toronto with streetcars and Canadian National Railways with trains, Bombardier is learning its trade. With operations in Europe and Asia, the Canadian transportation company has over 40,000 employees building high-speed transportation systems. With 7000 employees in China alone, it is building urban mass transit systems for that rapidly modernizing country and is bringing home constant improvements in efficiency and design. It is ready for the challenges of Canada’s winters that beset the early experience with Turbo trains. We are ready for the corridors and networks of trains that can serve Canadians into the 22^nd Century.

But our real concern must be for the politicians with the vision of Sir John A. The challenge must be the willingness to commit the effort, the monies, the labour and the belief in our country’s future.

We can start immediately with just the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor. And then extend it to Quebec City and Windsor, Fredericton and Winnipeg, the Saskatoon and Edmonton leg with the Regina and Calgary legs and the cross corridors for the provinces. It is not a simple path, but a network that can serve a nation.

And it will take more people. It can only be accomplished over the current century through the determination of millions of people who understand the vision of Sir John A.

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The Tweeting of the Twits.

June 8, 2019 by Peter Lowry

What wannabe politician will dare venture into the electoral fray this fall unarmed with a hashtag of caring? Will the banality of the Twitter blather drive us to Snapchat or will we start tooting on Mastodon? And there is still much to say about the depths of Facebook. The point is that there are options for computer-savvy politicians. You are probably not as rich or as brazen as Donald Trump, so do not expect a huge number of followers.

The important message in this is that you are always better off leaving the twits and other messages to someone you trust in the 16-to-24 age bracket. These people grew up with the Internet and use the right language. Us old fogeys (anyone over 35) use archaic language, lack skill at using emoticons and need more than 280 characters to express ourselves clearly.

But the point here is that there are many ways to communicate with supporters and voters as well as the traditional political pamphlets. Not, I hasten to add, that you should ever forget the impact of a strong, colourful piece of literature. And I noticed there were few politicians over the years who lost when their team produced a tabloid, or a series of tabloids for them to build a winning campaign.

The world today is doing what it is always doing: transitioning. You have people in your electoral district in their 90s. They can be quite reliable voters, if you are helpful. And there are first-time voters who are not sure how our system of voting works. You can also be helpful to them. And you have to be sure that every voter has been asked to support your candidate.

There is also one other factor to consider in regards to social media. Being Internet savvy will keep many MPs engaged during the next parliament. The consensus is that in that parliament there will be a strong movement to bring some regulation and the all-important taxation needed to this digital aspect of Canadian life. The invasions of privacy that we have been seeing in recent years and the need for determining borders for taxation purposes has been ignored by Canada’s governments for too long.

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The fallacy of false findings.

June 7, 2019 by Peter Lowry

If we constantly lie to ourselves, who are we fooling? We lie about our first nations peoples being indigenous. And now we are accusing those whose ancestors came later to this land of the horror of genocide. This is wrong. This is burying our heads in the sands of time

Are we taking the blame for our father’s failings? And his father and his father before him? Does the immigrant stepping off the boat assume the mantle of tyranny that is dispersed willy-nilly to us all?

We should remember that our forefathers were hardly stupid but they dealt with events as they were in their times. Maybe they bought into misconceptions about the natives of their day?

And who the hell gave them license to call themselves ‘indigenous’? They came to this land thousands of years before the first Europeans but they are not from here. Is this just another lie by our politicians to curry favour with the aboriginals?

And the inquiry that just came to its conclusions should be ashamed. The accusation of genocide is evil. It divides us instead of seeking common cause. Genocide requires a plan. It includes an intent—a common purpose. We cannot allow Canadians to be pilloried in this manner. If our police cannot protect Canadian women and girls, we had better hire and train better police.

Even though the residential schools were wrong, the intent, at the time, was to help. It was the wrong way to help. It showed a lack of respect. It showed wrong thinking. It set afoot some terrible injustices. Children were mistreated and died. Families were torn apart.

But today we have the technology for distance learning. We can also deliver adequate housing and potable water. Where the aboriginal peoples choose to live is not the problem. Political will is the problem.

We need to put the blame where it belongs. Promises unkept are lies.

Why cannot the people of the north be our wardens of the north. It can be an opportunity, not a banishment. Why can they not be hired to be our first responders and help protect our boreal forests from wildfires and to help to replant and reforest as needed. They can also help to preserve and protect the wild life we are losing.

Our aboriginal peoples, our first nations, need and want our respect. They need the opportunity to earn it. We have to help make it happen.

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No party politics for Jane n’ Jody.

June 4, 2019 by Peter Lowry

It had been puzzling many of us just where former liberals Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould got the crazy idea of running as independent candidates. Neither had shown much political savvy during the SNC-Lavalin fiasco. When they chose to run as independents, all we could do was assume they got some very bad advice and wave bye-bye. It was hardly a smart choice.

But now we have found the source of their problem. The Toronto Star has revealed all. It seems the ladies have been taking advice from a self-styled democracy reformer who does not believe in political parties. It seems this guru knows little about party politics. Maybe he finds it easy to resolve things that he does not understand.

This is a consensus guy. He was involved in last year’s municipal referendums in Cambridge and Kingston that voted in favour of switching to ranked ballots for city elections. It was an excellent example of the goat leading the lambs to slaughter. He seems to be unaware of the point that ranked ballot systems encourage the selection of the mediocre.

But then this is a guy who seems to misunderstand the rationale of political parties. He must think consensus should replace action. And that inaction can be better than progress.

What he does not seem to understand is that most of us politicos cut our baby teeth on municipal politics. When you learn from hard work and experience, you can move up to provincial and federal politics.

But he and Jane Philpott should get their comeuppance in her riding. The odds in that situation are that Philpott will pull enough votes from the official liberal candidate to elect the conservative candidate.

The situation in Jody Wilson-Raybould’s riding is clouded by what the prime minister intends to do with the Trans Mountain pipeline. If he goes ahead with twinning the pipeline, all bets are off in B.C.

But this so-called democracy advocate who thinks just two independent candidates will have the balance of power in the next parliament is leading those ladies down the garden path.

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Opportunity calling Andrew Scheer.

June 3, 2019 by Peter Lowry

For a guy who got his job by surprise, conservative leader Andrew Scheer MP is a happy camper. He can hardly believe it when public opinion polls show him defeating liberal leader Justin Trudeau. All he could do two years ago when he got the job of leading the party because of a dumb voting system, was put his head down, try to make peace with the unruly losers in the leadership race and concentrate on the rules of parliament. That was what he knew best.

The Saskatchewan MP was Speaker of the House of Commons during the time of Stephen Harper’s majority in parliament. All he had to do was what the prime minister told him to do. No hassle. No trouble. Maybe a bit embarrassing having to contend with the shrill antics of MPs such as Paul Calandra and Pierre Poilievre during that time but the perks of being Speaker soothed his guilt.

But now he is expected to go out on the hustings without a parachute. He has to read speeches about things he is not so sure about. The way his speech writers have him leaning on these people crossing the border to try to get refugee status in Canada has him worried that he might sound like a bigot. It is bad enough that sometimes people wonder if he wants to build a wall along the Canada-U.S. border. There might too many zeroes in that speech for him to count.

He wants to just give friendly ‘Gee-shucks’ speeches to those non-judgemental folks in his riding of Regina—Qu’Appelle. They are hardly about to question any facts or figures that the speech writers have dreamed up.

And he sure as heck wants people to stop calling him ‘Chuckles.’ He can hardly help it if his high cheek bones remind people of the Joker in the Batman comics.

But he sure hopes that people will stop asking him about global warming. He is not as sure as those guys who are helping him, premiers Doug Ford in Ontario and Jason Kenney in Alberta. They know all about that false news promoted by liberals that the world is going to get too hot for humans. Maybe he thinks by then, we will have better air conditioning systems.

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How Justin Trudeau can win.

June 2, 2019 by Peter Lowry

There is a summer of barbeque season to go before Canadians get into the cut and thrust of a federal election. And it is certainly to soon to say who might win. It is even to soon to consider the odds for a morning line. What we can do is pontificate on winning strategies for the parties. Today we will address the liberal party.

I was there in 1974 when Pierre Trudeau took our liberals into the same kind of meat grinder as his son is facing in 2019. It seems that the two Trudeaus share the same need for a harsh lesson on the realities of politics. In 1974, Pierre learned to pay attention to his political advisors. The question now is, can Justin learn?

Think of how you would react, for example, if Justin Trudeau invited Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould back into the liberal party and his cabinet? It would be a bold move and would silence some of the strong criticism he faces.

Or what if sometime, out on the barbeque circuit this summer, he detailed a plan, not for a corridor just for pipelines and communications links across Canada, but also for high-speed electrified trains? Since communications and pipelines already use rail corridors, when they can, it would make more sense than the conservative plan.

This next idea needs to be thought through and smoothed out. What Trudeau needs is a more substantial slogan than “Sunny days.” I think it has to be something that captures the imagination more like “Nobody left behind.” While he could woo the middle-class last time, this time he needs something more all-encompassing. I think he has pissed off more than a few of our seniors by ignoring them over the past four years. Not everyone is satisfied with a selfie.

Our aboriginals also need to feel loved. (But damn-it-all, do not put on another feathered headdress.) Justin just needs to roll down his shirt sleeves, burn his tie, put on his jacket and get serious about Canada’s real needs.

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‘None of the Above’ is not an option.

June 1, 2019 by Peter Lowry

There seems to be some disquiet across this fair land over our lack of good choices in the looming federal election. And whose fault is that? Frankly, Canadians have been encouraging mediocrity in politics for far too long. We have been trashing our political parties. We have been lying to ourselves about supposedly lying politicians. We have been buying into some serious bullshit about how nice Canadians can be.

We are not nice. We have turned the beautiful ballet of hockey into a blood sport. We seriously believe that we can beat the Americans at their own games such as baseball and basketball. (All you have to do is hire better American players.) And we buy into the blather that our foreign affairs people know what they are doing, when all they do is whore for the Americans.

But the truth is that this is a country that has lost its way politically. It has succumbed to mediocre politicians who use political parties as their own and use those who support them as their personal automated teller machines.

New democratic party membership has fallen so low that just the Sikh immigrants in British Columbia and Ontario could swamp the membership and give the party leadership to Jagmeet Singh. The same fall-off of party members in the Ontario progressive conservatives allowed a weasel like Patrick Brown to swamp the membership with Indian sub-continent memberships and take over the party.

And it was Justin Trudeau himself, who ended the membership structure of the federal liberals. While he was still popular, Trudeau ended the party’s independence, its ability to choose candidates and he now uses the party lists solely to raise money for his ongoing financial campaign.

And that leaves us with a liberal government run by an elitist, a conservative party headed by a nobody, an NDP party run by an unknown and a nascent green party run as a one-gal band.

All I can suggest is that each of us take the time to pick out the best candidate in our riding who cares the most about us, the voters. It is our only choice.

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