Federal Politics – Page 81 – Babel-on-the-Bay

Lies, hyperbole and alt truths.

February 4, 2019 by Peter Lowry

What has happened to politics? And what has happened to the decency that it used to have? We all know that U.S. president Donald Trump creates his own truths but we also know that he is not really a politician. He does not know any better.

Justin Trudeau knows better. He was raised in politics. His father was quite good about telling the truth—and, sometimes, regretted it.

But that did not stop Justin Trudeau from using some hyperbole (exaggeration for emphasis) last week in the House of Commons. He claimed that his government has “helped more than a million Canadians find affordable housing.”

Defending the prime minister’s exaggeration, Adam Vaughan, parliamentary secretary to the minister of social development, explained that while the actual results created housing for less than a million Canadians, some double counting was involved. He stated that this was necessary to provide “rhetorical advantage.”

What it sounds like, is Vaughan is saying that Justin Trudeau, who used to be a school teacher, could stand up in front of a class and tell the children that it is alright to lie, to make your point. This is a frequently used rationale for telling lies.

But reality is that there is no need to lie. There is a long journey from truth to the way station of hyperbole and on to the alt truth. We see the alt (alternative) truth everyday in television commercials such as the current heavy saturation of ads for what Alberta calls an “oil” pipeline. What they do not want you to know is that it is to carry the highly-polluting bitumen from the tar sands. They want the public to think of it as just crude oil.

In this election year, we are going to hear many more alt truths. My favourite Alt truth last year was Ontario conservative Doug Ford’s slogan, ‘For the People.’ We spend a lot of time trying to figure out what people Ford meant. I am waiting for this year’s campaign when Andrew Scheer’s conservatives try to convince us that we should not be concerned about the environment. I bet the Tories will have a slogan for that.

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The Senate of Canada sleeps on.

February 2, 2019 by Peter Lowry

It was surprising. A regular reader who frequently agrees with Babel-on-the-Bay has changed his mind about the undemocratic anachronism of Canada’s Senate. Now he thinks he likes the elitist appointments. He met a Senator he likes.

I used to know a lot of Senators I liked. That hardly means that I think it is right to have an appointed Senate in a democratic nation.

But this chap thinks that because he met one Senator who seemed to have her wits about her and knew a few things, the Senate is some how necessary.

But the opening question is: Why do we need a Senate? It seems it was suggested by Queen Victoria’s ministers to slow down the impetuous actions of those people who were elected. It was to be a House of sober(?) second thought. It is for a serious (supposedly) non-partisan review of legislation. The Brits have a House of Lords. And how well does that work?

Our reader was impressed that this Senator he met was neither a lawyer nor a politician. All this meant was that she had neither the training to understand the legal structure of laws nor the easy familiarity with the political implications of the bills the Senate was asked to review. And why do we tenure these people until age 75? There is nothing magical about that age.

I seriously believe that the Senate is just one of those hold-overs from the Victorian era that should be studied and modernized or abolished. And if we need review of legislation, we could hire independent panels of people with expertise in the subject matter to review legislation at a much lower cost than the Senate of Canada.

Canada is a large and complex country. I like to think that it is a country with good instincts. It is the ability of a country to change and adapt with changing times and changing technologies that will give it the strength it needs in the future. And always remember, when it comes to governance, nothing is impossible.

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Di Iorio does district a disservice.

February 1, 2019 by Peter Lowry

Nicola Di Iorio M.P. for Saint Leonard-Saint Michel in Montreal has finally resigned his seat in the House of Commons He has been missing from parliament since last September and had been talking about resigning since April before that. By the time, a new Member takes over after the October, 2019 election, the riding will have been without representation for more than a year.

To add insult to injury, Di Iorio says he should be the one choosing the new MP for the electoral district. Instead of having just one vote as the former MP, he thinks he should have the right to choose his successor. He does not think the riding party association should have the right to choose the candidate. He insults his riding people as incompetent to make the decision.

But what if he chooses someone like himself who paid more attention to moonlighting as a labour lawyer than in the job in Ottawa. MPs are now paid $170,000 a year and that is not for a part-time job.

Believe it or not, MPs are not just elected to vote for whatever their party tells them. There are committee meetings, fact-finding missions, responsibilities in the House and answering to constituents that take a great deal of an MP’s time.

And, most important, MPs get to talk about their concerns and their constituent’s concerns in regional and national caucus meetings and party leaders ignore this input at their peril. There are even MPs who take the time to meet with constituents in open meetings in the district to discuss government legislation and get local input.

MPs such as Di Iorio are rarely re-elected. Every voter deserves have a Member of Parliament who listens to his/her concerns. Voting for just the person leading the party is a losers’ game. It is the road that takes us to totalitarianism.

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Out in the open with ‘Chuckles’ Scheer.

January 31, 2019 by Peter Lowry

It’s time. Canada’s conservatives can no longer keep their leader a secret. Bloggers and broadcasters, reporters and speech writers are all digging into his history to find something to say about MP Andrew Scheer. He has been hiding in plain sight in Ottawa for the past year and a half. It is just that by keeping him secret, the Tory fund raisers brought in twice as much as the liberal party last year.

‘Chuckles,’ as we like to call him, is really the Tin Woodman who will be travelling down the Yellow Brick Road to the October 21 election this year. And, as you probably know, the Tin Woodman wants the Wizard of Oz to provide him with a heart. He wants to be seen as aware and caring.

The problem is that Chuckles is an uninspiring, uninteresting and boring western conservative.

Chuckles is also an excellent example of the last-man-standing of preferential balloting. In that type of voting, the voters drill down on the ballot to effectively select the least obnoxious of the candidates. It took 13 ballots in the conservative party counting to find that Chuckles was the least obnoxious of the 13 conservative party candidates. He finally got 51 per cent of the votes, narrowly beating out fellow Tory MP Maxime Bernier who had 49 per cent.

Chuckles’ claim to fame in the conservative party is his longevity as a Saskatchewan MP and serving as the tame Speaker in the House of Commons for the last term of the Harper government. That was when the conservative government had a majority and passed most of its undemocratic legislation. Chuckles was not known for his fairness while wearing the black robes of Speaker.

Chuckles ran a desultory campaign for the conservative leadership under the slogan “Real conservative, Real leader.” He was considered a front runner because of the 32 members of the conservative caucus who supported his campaign. His continued allegiance to prior party leader Stephen Harper has earned him the sobriquet, ‘Stephen Harper Lite.’

And to add to that is to imagine someone even more boring than former PM Stephen Harper.

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Politics in anxious times.

January 30, 2019 by Peter Lowry

If prime minister Justin Trudeau had his druthers, he would not want an election this year. It is simply bad timing. Canadians are anxious. It is not any one thing. The world is just not behaving as it should. Not even the weather is acting as normal. People are concerned. There is that clown in the White House in Washington. You can hardly blame everything on him, even if you would like to.

And what can you count on? The stock market is just perverse. The Brits are stupidly leaving the European Union and do not admit why. The rich are getting richer and the rest of us are getting poorer. And have you seen the price of bread recently?

People are pissed. They are looking for scapegoats. They hardly need another stupid politician to get in their way. Justin Trudeau and his little friends have worked their hearts out for our approval. Sure, they blew a few promises. Yes, you will be using first-past-the-post voting in October. Maybe they did save the North American trade agreement from that terror Trump. Who knows?

But do not ask for the right to die in a frivolous manner. There is more than one way to default on a promise.

The liberals are going to spend the election telling us how well the economy is doing and how much they love the middle class. The opposition are going to tell us, it can be better. The liberals will tell us what a great job they are doing for the environment. The opposition will tell us the environment is just fine, thank you. The liberals want a price on carbon. The opposition will tell you it is just a tax grab.

But why did the liberals buy the Trans Mountain pipeline to ship highly polluting bitumen from Alberta to countries that do not care about pollution?

The liberal cabinet spent an expensive weekend retreat in Quebec recently planning their messaging for the campaign. The message is ‘vote for us and take another selfie with Justin.’

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Potholes on the Yellow Brick Road.

January 28, 2019 by Peter Lowry

While the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion are still planning their trip with Dorothy to the Emerald City and the October election in Canada, it is best to check for potholes. Peering into one of these potholes the other day, I saw Canada’s former ambassador to China sitting in it and wondering how he got there.

This is a serious hazard for the Cowardly Lion. It took Justin Trudeau almost a week to fire our politico-cum-ambassador. The arguments must have raged at the Prime Minister’s Office but it took a second attempt to put foot in mouth that got McCallum bounced. And nobody ever said McCallum was wrong—wrong to tell the truth, maybe.

It is against this news background that author Jonathan Manthorpe is making hay selling his new book on China, Claws of the Panda. I have not read it yet but I am still waiting for Jon to autograph my copy of his first book, The Power and the Tories about the Bill Davis government in Ontario.

Interestingly, while Jon was in China trying to fathom the depth of the country’s communist government, I was watching Beijing extend its influence into Canadian-Chinese news media. I had the impression that those people understood more about the future of newspaper publishing than Conrad Black, Paul Godfrey and Torstar’s John Honderich, combined.

My best source of information at the time were the many delegations from Beijing that I took on tours and entertained for a computer company. They usually assumed I was a fellow technologist and they always enjoyed their visit. It earned me many invitations from other high level visits from Beijing.

But it is Hauwei’s inscrutable technologies and the extradition of Hauwei executive Meng Wanzhou affair that has the Canadian public wondering. First of all, explaining 5G networks is a tough job and how this technology can give Hauwei access to state secrets is not an easy subject for politicians to digest.

But then you also need to understand Canada’s relationship in the Five Eyes which allows us to listen in on everybody else. Which begs the question, how the hell is any of this explained to a dolt such as Donald Trump? And that clown has someone with all the nuclear codes sitting outside his door?

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Trump can: You can’t.

January 19, 2019 by Peter Lowry

Social media are a trap just waiting for the unwary politician. While I have tested some of the major social media apps, I try to stay away from them like the plague. They are not mainstream. They are not only overrated but they are for people who need to get a life. And what makes you think you can convince a non-voter to go to the polls and vote for you?

But social media do present a problem for the serious politician. It has become part of the communications mix. You should always be careful to understand the demographics of the programs. You need to have people from within that demographic to look after what you feed it. I never advise candidates to do their own entries. Check it occasionally but you have far more important things to do.

Your job is called pressing the flesh! And you best keep the pressing to a firm handshake. Meeting the voters and making a favourable impression is your job. And if you do not like doing that, stay out of politics. And do not say or write something in Mandarin or Punjabi or Urdu that you think is exclusive to your supporters. The listeners and readers are not all your supporters.

And it is very important that you remember that Donald Trump in the United States can get away with saying something stupid. It is expected of him. He can say something stupid and he is still president and a billionaire. You say something stupid and you might be toast like the gal who was supposed to be running for the liberals in the Burnaby South by-election.

It would also be wise, if you are supporting a particular political party and want to be a candidate, to stick to supporting the party’s positions on the current issues. And it is also wise to be very careful of adding anything to the party position. What seems logical to you might not be logical to other party members and candidates.

A candidate is always criss-crossing the electoral district, meeting groups, attending all-candidate meetings, coffee parties, and talking to individual voters. You have to be everywhere and be noticed as being everywhere. It is what candidates do.

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What to do when money wins?

January 18, 2019 by Peter Lowry

The cynic tells us that everyone has a price. And when you are dealing in billions, what is a million here or there? I have often wondered when the companies exploiting the tar sands and the pipeline people were going to give the aboriginal peoples who have stood in their way a serious piece of the action. Now we find that they are not only offering participation, they want to sell the tribes everything.

A recent deal between Teck Resources and the aboriginal groups around Fort Chipewyan shows that the aboriginal nations are more inclined to be joining instead of fighting. It is as though, they have given up on the government protecting them.

Of special interest is a potential deal reported by the CBC that a group of aboriginal nations who have been involved in resource exploitation are interested in buying the Trans Mountain pipeline from the government. It was also clear from the quick denial by finance minister Bill Morneau that this is not a joke. It is for good reason that the government is not comfortable with Justin Trudeau’s rash decision to buy the Kinder Morgan package. The aboriginals can probably get it for a fire-sale price when the timing is right. And while these first nations do not always play well together, they understand each other and the negotiations would be fair and expeditious.

And can you imagine the relief for government and taxpayers when more of our first nations start to become financially self sufficient and paying taxes.

The only people who would be left with egg on our faces will the environmentalists who have been backing them. It would sure feel funny fighting the aboriginal-owned pipeline and those huge ocean tankers on behalf of the marine life in the Strait of Georgia.

I can already hear premier Rachel Notley and that damn Jason Kenney snickering over their brandies at the Petroleum Club.

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On the road to Oz, the Lion starts strong.

January 17, 2019 by Peter Lowry

Dorothy has already clicked her heels and the Cowardly Lion has been the first to put a paw on the Yellow Brick Road. It is very early in the trip and he can act brave. There is no competitor yet on the road to Canada’s federal election.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is also in an element that he enjoys—and where he comes across strong. It must be the school teacher in his training. He enjoys the cut and thrust of town hall meetings. It is a chance for him to teach and preach and he is good at it. I was particularly impressed with his handling of an immigration question at the meeting in Regina last week.

Trudeau actually drew the questioner out on what he was asking and helped him phrase his question so that what he was saying was clear to most people listening.

What he accomplished in drawing out the question was to establish it as the current tone and misinformation as spread by the conservatives around conservative leader Andrew Scheer (the Tin Woodman, who will be joining the others on the Yellow Brick Road to the Canadian election).

What it boiled down to was that the questioner in Regina did not consider the Christian and Muslim religions to be able to co-exist.

Mr. Trudeau countered with the contention that it is the ability of different cultures and religions to co-exist in Canada that has built a strong and vibrant nation. There was no question in the reaction of the audience, that they agreed with the prime minister’s point. It was a spirited and clear explanation for the reputation Canada has gained around the world for being an open and caring society.

But it is also something all Canadians, who really care about this country, should be repeating. If we hear vapid, unthinking expressions of bigotry, we need to counter them. Please do not leave this type of ignorance unanswered.

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The amazing breadth of progressivism!

January 15, 2019 by Peter Lowry

It has always pleased me that the people running the Progressive Bloggers web site have included Babel-on-the-Bay in the collection. It also becomes important when I note that as many as a third of my constantly growing number of daily readers are able to find my website through the portal.

But in checking the collective site periodically, I am sometimes amazed at what is included in the definition of progressive. It is obvious, I am sure, that the best read of the blogs is the one (or more) each day from the chap in Montreal who is so adept with his photoshop software at creating cartoons of political characters. And I always enjoy reading treatises and comments from the King of Curmudgeons on Vancouver Island. He inspires me.

But the point of this commentary, was my surprise recently to receive an e-mail comment from the editor of the Maple Monarch. If I would ever make a choice between the most regressive tracts in Canada, it would be anything about the monarchy or from the Fraser Institute.

But the editor of the Maple Monarch surprised me. He was commenting on my diatribe about the uselessness of walls as a deterrent against people. His comment was a scholarly epigram about walls through history that served a purpose. He certainly knew a few things about the Great Wall of China. All I could do was counter with Hadrian’s Wall that did a job, for a while in Roman times, in keeping my Scot’s ancestors away from the English farmers’ wives, daughters and sheep.

While it surprised me to find that the Maple Monarch is now considered a progressive blog, who am I to say who is progressive and who is not. I have always found that if it is something, I can do nothing about, why let it worry me?

And it supplied a fast and easy commentary for today.

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