Federal Politics – Page 83 – Babel-on-the-Bay

Biting the hand with the handouts.

November 26, 2018 by Peter Lowry

We have warned Justin Trudeau repeatedly that those so-called independent senators are going to bite him on the bum. Blame him for all those Christmas presents that Canada Post cannot deliver by Christmas this year. Every day of further delay is thousands of packages undelivered.

But elitism cannot be rushed. Justin Trudeau made it clear back when he became the elite leader of Canada’s liberals that henceforth, the senators would not be liberals. And the slaves were freed.

And of course, they have minds of their own and they are always eager to emphasize their freedom. They were nominated by the elite committee that chose them as elite enough. They were then selected from the list of acceptable elites by the prime minister. They were welcomed to the senate by other elites.

And to sweeten the deal, they are paid the same salary and perks as an elected member of parliament. They even get a generous pension when they have to retire at 75.

But as an elite they answer to nobody. The government leader in the senate is not their boss. He has to be nice to them to get their cooperation. They might be considered nobodies by the conservative senators but they can outvote them.

They know that they can take an extra day to consider sending the postal workers back to work if they feel like it. It shows Canadians that they are independent and do not like being pushed around.

And so what, if Justin Trudeau is turning purple over there in the prime minister’s office? He is one of those elected people and therefore not as much an elite as the senators who do not have to get elected.

Here is an idea for you people who like the idea of proportional elections. Why do you not fight for the senate to be a house representing the proportion for each political party in each province in the general election voting. I would agree if these senators were nominated by the political parties and selected by registered voters for the individual parties so that they could be appointed senators for the term of the parliament. Think about it. There might be the germ of an idea there. It might work, as long as Canada’s elected parliamentarians always have the final word.

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Doppelgangers don’t do it.

November 25, 2018 by Peter Lowry

There is a tendency among political leaders to have someone very much like themselves to serve as their chief of staff. It gives them confidence that the person will react as they do and carry out solutions much the same as their principal. It is a lazy person’s solution. And how smart is it, to pay two salaries for the same opinion?

The notion of this person being something of a doppelganger is based on a person and their pet, over time, coming to look like each other.

In fact, in Ontario, premier Doug Ford and his chief of staff, Dean French, are two arrogant white men in suits. They are too much alike. It is just that Doug Ford lets French do the dirty jobs. French phoning the head of Ontario Power Generation to tell him to fire former conservative leader Patrick Brown’s former chief of staff might have been the ultimate in irony.

The claim that French might have directed the police to make raids on illegal pot shops was far more serious. The idea of any politico directly directing the police in carrying out their policing duties is anathema to how Canadians see their police doing their duty. It carries the risk of being interpreted as something that happens in a police state.

There seems to be no such problems for prime minister Justin Trudeau. In this age of feminism, it would be fascinating to learn if his chief of staff, Katie Telford, makes as much as his principle secretary, Gerald Butts. It is obvious that both make over $200,000 and that is quite a bit more than the much-touted middle-class job.

But the doppelganger danger still pertains. The charmed circle with which Justin Trudeau surrounds himself is isolating him from argument and reality. We now have elite selections of senators, elite selections of judges, elite selections for boards and commissions. It would never hurt to have a modicum of political common sense included in making some of these appointments.

But both Ontario’s Doug Ford and Ottawa’s Justin Trudeau have too much ego for that. Both need to have some better exposure to contrary thinking. There does not seem to be much danger of that.

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Competing with Donald Trump?

November 24, 2018 by Peter Lowry

It is unlikely that Canadians had any idea just how much American president Donald Trump would cost them. Our great-great grand children will be paying off Canada’s national debt. And if anyone could explain what good it will do, we would be rushing out to ring all the church bells across the land.

Not being one to worry too much about billions of dollars of sustainable debt, I would let it all fly by me. The only problem is the latest salvo from Mr. Trudeau’s elitist finance minister Bill Morneau added another $18 billion of debt when what he was really doing was stuffing the turkey at the wrong end. He was ignoring the fact that the front end of a turkey has limited capacity for stuffing.

The last thing that Morneau’s fall statement did was invest in middle-class jobs, so that was what they called the document.

After many years in the business of public relations, I can assure you that calling something by a positive name does not make it so. Simply stated, the Good News Bible is not all good news. All those ancients in that book are dead and no longer responsible for the misguided screw-up they made of our world.

What our finance guru Morneau was doing was catering to his pals in industry. He was competing with the business tax cuts of that ass they have for president in the United States. They want to see who can have the lowest taxes for industry. It was all in aid of better quarterly reports for shareholders. That is a suckers’ game. Who wants to have a contest to see who can give away the most to people who will always be whining for more?

If I wanted to win an election next year, I would go for a little more balance. Sure, give industry some tax saving so they know you care and then balance it by giving them more customers. Companies are always happiest when they have lots of customers wanting to give them money. That is how you stuff both ends of the turkey.

And you do it because companies do not vote. Keep companies happy and keep them creating jobs but it is the consumer who votes. Seniors like to vote. If Mr. Morneau was nicer to them, some might vote liberal.

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Chuckles’ confusion of conservatives.

November 20, 2018 by Peter Lowry

Federal conservative leader Andrew ‘Chuckles’ Scheer knows that a bunch of whales is a ‘pod,’ and a group of geese a ‘gaggle.’ We are guessing that he has also found out that a collection of conservatives might be a ‘confusion.’ He was at a celebration with an Ontario confusion of conservatives the other day and he would have been smarter to have stayed at Stornoway.

It is not as though Doug Ford’s black conservative heart is not in the right place but his lack of experience and political reasoning and seasoning is showing. The other day Dougie’s finance guy Fideli dumped all over Ontario francophones as though they did not matter. He took away the proposed French language university that the liberals had proposed. He abolished the French language commissioner who made sure that Ontario francophones are treated fairly.

It is not as though Chuckles is that concerned about Ontario francophones—they rarely vote conservative anyway. It is just that Quebeckers are very patronizing of their Ontario amis (that is French for friends, Dougie). Chuckles Scheer simply cannot afford to have Quebecers annoyed with all conservatives just because of Ontario premier Ford being such a klutz.

Mind you Dougie is not continuing to do so well with the anglophones in Ontario either. Chuckles might be worried needlessly. Next fall will be Ontario voters’ first chance to comment on their conservative regime at Queen’s Park.

And it is not as though Chuckles could complain to Brian Mulroney that his kid is not doing her job. We thought it was a joke when Dougie made Caroline Mulroney responsible for francophone affairs as well as attorney general. She is doing exactly the job that Dougie expected: absolutely nothing. After all she has probably not spoken French except as a tourist since she was 7-years old. She got her education and legal training in the United States.

The bad news is that Quebec premier François Legault came to Toronto yesterday expecting some answers from Dougie about what the hell he thinks he is doing? Legault has more than enough to be annoyed with Dougie about. Fideli’s fiasco last week was just icing on the cake.

Reports are that in their two-hour meeting yesterday, Ford and Legault agreed to disagree about Ford’s treatment of francophones in Ontario. The next meeting between the two business-man premiers might not be as friendly.

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Get your social media on.

November 16, 2018 by Peter Lowry

Despite the sage advice from aging sages, social media will continue to be a useful addition to political campaigning. It is not going to go away. And do not think of it as cheap coverage. It needs careful attention and scarce resources. You do not want to miss out and you do not want to waste them.

The first audience you want to consider is the 18 to 25-year olds. You can easily track them down at your local community college or university. Do not settle for the opinions of just a few. Remember though that the pre-meds are serious grunts. It is the soc-and-phil guys and gals who are there for the social life. And if you line up the gals first as volunteers, the guys are sure to follow.

Every campaign needs all the person power it can get. It helps if you budget generously for pizza.

And let the young people run the social media campaign. You need a small team with a leader and back-up. Stream the younger volunteers by them so they can get updates on what’s trending.

Be sure you understand the differences between the popular social media apps—it is really not all that complicated. Facebook is still king at the moment but there is new competition coming. Twitter is being hurt by the abuse of Donald Trump but you cannot argue with that many million followers. And I strongly believe that any candidate who thinks he or she could use a chatbot, should be replaced with a chatbot. And I would suggest the unless you have someone very good at creating videos, you do not waste time on YouTube

But the intent of getting candidates involved with social media is to make sure that they are reaching the audiences that we see everywhere with their noses stuck to that smart phone screen. They need to get the messages—the same as seniors who might never have seen a Facebook page.

The different generations out there are just a complication to modern campaigning. They all need convincing communications. Social media has not replaced the printing press. You need strong printed images and signs to pull together your different audiences. Communication constantly changes, but basics are slow to evolve.

Nor have the principles of the ground game changed that much.

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Bernier’s bonus: “No more political correctness.”

November 15, 2018 by Peter Lowry

As MP Maxime Bernier continues to build his new party of the far right, he is finding easy hunting in Alberta. The MP from Beauce claims some 30,000 memberships sold to-date and Bernier remains quite confident. The former conservative’s People’s Party of Canada (PPC) is reported to be up and running in eight out of ten Calgary electoral districts.

The political theories that Bernier is espousing are those of a libertarian. He is ultra conservative and preaches a cant of small government and low taxes. He is the same as French President Macron described the other day as a nationalist—the opposite of a patriot. He takes a stand against those who are different. He is opposed to immigration and against foreign aid. Bernier is your basic bigot.

But nobody denies that there is support for a party such as he proposes. He had a good crowd in Vancouver the night before and then again in Calgary the next day. At this stage, he is a novelty but given the funding needed, he could be a force next October. The very fact that he is out looking for acolytes so early, tells us that he is confident of his funding. He will be a thorn for Andrew Scheer and the conservatives.

The novelty for Canadians next year will be having a party supporting the freeing up of restrictions on fire arms. Bernier wants to take us back in time. It will be a strong selling point in the west and in rural Ontario. His biggest problem will be the negatives he will encounter to his wild-west approach in his home province of Quebec.

But people will find that Bernier is most unlike populists such as Doug Ford or Donald Trump. It is hard to stump Bernier with a question. He is an experienced politician. He fully understands the challenges facing him between now and next October.

But, at the same time, Bernier is recognizing the anger and frustration of voters who resent the open liberalism of Canadian society. The very fact that his audiences are mainly male and misogynist tells us where Bernier’s strength might be. Most political pundits are being cautious in assessing Bernier’s chances next year. Given a foothold as a party in the Commons, he could be far more of a problem.

We really do live in interesting times.

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“Wasn’t That a Party?”

November 12, 2018 by Peter Lowry

The Rovers got it wrong when they wrote a song about the party. It was certainly not the whiskey or the gin that is doing in the liberal party. It was the desperation for leadership. And Trudeau is a magic name to Canadian liberals. At a time when people are questioning the viability of political parties, they reached back into the party’s past.

But Justin Trudeau is not his father and he marches to a different drummer. He was playing the right tunes on his flute to impress the party’s urges for reform. He promised to restore the party’s right to selecting its candidates—and then, inconveniently, forgot.

And he thinks it should be a BYOB party. He got the party to give up the standard $10 memberships. He wanted lots more than that. He added people to the party lists for free, called them liberals and inundates the old and the new with e-mails for funds.

Justin Trudeau does not understand the functioning of a political party. What he failed to do was build the party in the electoral districts. He failed to understand the superior strength of the conservatives in the ground game. My district liberal association is meeting for the first time in two years later today and he expects them to mount a strong campaign next year?

But they have been left with nothing to do for the past two years. The national conventions have been for the party elite and its apparatchiks. The policy discussion has been cursory and carefully controlled. After conventions, policy is filed and forgotten, despite the right intentions. Nobody seems to be complaining about what Justin Trudeau is doing to their party. It is no longer the party it used to be.

We used to have regular meetings and events in the districts, in provincial regions and in the provinces. We used to meet to discuss policy, party structure and constitution. And we used to send experts out to the districts to inform them of the latest thinking on party communications and campaigning techniques. And more than 90 per cent of the work was done by volunteers.

As Pierre Trudeau found out in his second election campaign, the voters are fickle. In the general election of 1972, Pierre Trudeau won a slim majority of only two seats in the House of Commons. We shall see how Justin does next year.

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Clement’s calamity?

November 10, 2018 by Peter Lowry

It is so easy when you never liked someone to get a little lift from their downfall. It is always best to leave subjects such as this without comment, as the person is gone and will soon be forgotten.

But that used to be the supposition BBB (Before Brampton Brown). Some people are hard to lose. After watching Brown for years in Barrie, why would I be surprised when the wily little putz pulled a fast one in Brampton.

But Tony Clement might have been slipperier than Brown, if he had devoted his lifetime to political manipulation. And who would believe that he might get it off by sending pictures of his genitalia, in full regalia(?) to ladies who might not be from Australia?

I used to think of politician Tony Clement as Ontario’s gift to Stephen Harper. He had apprenticed the fine art of screwing the taxpayers under Ontario’s premiers Mike Harris and Ernie Eaves.

He was the most famous though for his largess in building washrooms and other infrastructure in Huntsville in honour of the G8 in 2010. He spent $50 million of monies that had been earmarked for our border security in a town more than 300 kilometres from the U.S. border.

He did not find money as easy to come by when he tried for the federal conservative leadership after Harper resigned. He quit the race and left behind the pitiful 13.

Stephen Harper had used Clement to turn the tables and block spending from 2011 to 2015. What was happening was that departments such as Veteran’s Affaires had been allocated funds to help veterans. When voters asked about this, conservative MPs just said that the money had been allocated and everything was fine. What they might not have clued in on was that, as president of the treasury board, Clement could stop the funds from being passed to the department.

One of the most reprehensible of Clement’s restraint of funds was the money allocated for training and supplying the RCMP with carbines to supplement their revolvers. The money came so slowly to the field that Mounted Police personnel were being killed because they did not have adequate fire power against longer range and automatic weapons. (It is only on television programs where pistols win such gun fights.)

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Why should I apologize to Justin Trudeau?

November 7, 2018 by Peter Lowry

It was disconcerting the other day to have some readers complain about my insulting prime minister Trudeau. I casually ended a commentary by saying that nobody complains about our prime minister being too smart. Hell, neither one of us is riding that high on the IQ bell curve. And I can honestly state that, to my knowledge, nobody complains about him being too smart.

But what worries me is that I do not think he even likes people who are politically smart. Frankly, I find him elitist. He grew up to wealth and privilege and tends to choose that type of friends. If his father were here, he would be mortified.

He might use some politically savvy people in his cabinet but the smartest politician in the cabinet is Ralph Goodale, the right-wing minister of public safety from Regina. There are no real reformers.

But my criticism of our prime minister does not mean that I might not vote for the liberal candidate in my electoral district. Providing the person is selected by the liberals in the district, I might even see how I can help him or her get elected. I would not give you two cents for the current conservative dolt and I am not very likely to vote for a new democrat or green candidate unless it was a truly exceptional individual.

The problem is that I have been a liberal for the past 60 years and while the party has wandered away from my ideals occasionally, I support the liberal principles of individual rights and social reform.

But there is always hope. I had hopes for Stéphane Dion, but Stéphane was not his father either. His awkward English kept his intelligence from getting through to anglophone voters. Maybe the reverse was true for Michael Ignatief as liberal leader but I think he really had been out of the country much too long.

It was the growing frustration with the Harper years in Ottawa that led us to turn to the young Trudeau. Liberals were ready to forgive a lot to rid us of what Harper was doing to the country.

But it is still frustrating and I am tiring of listing Trudeau’s acts of bad judgement. His leadership is questionable. His liberalism is weak. And I resent his casual destruction of the liberal party.

But Trudeau is still ten times better than the other choices.

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It started with Kennedy and Nixon.

November 4, 2018 by Peter Lowry

As a Canadian, I had no dog chasing a rabbit in the race but it has impacted my attitude about politics for the rest of my life. Being there in 1960 to watch the first ever television debate between presidential candidates John Kennedy and Richard Nixon was not just a casual event. We were watching a permanent change in how North American elections were conducted.

What is very important about these debates is to consider that, while they rarely solve anything, they do help set the stage. They often highlight opportunities gained and lost. For example: Two years ago, Hillary Clinton might have gained some ground if she had stopped Trump from upstaging her by telling him to get back in his cage.

The next such debate we will be seeing will be the single leadership debate that is to be arranged for the Canadian 2019 federal election. In his usual elitist style, Trudeau has appointed former Governor General David Johnston to make all the arrangements. With his only experience in this field as an emcee of a couple such debates, the vice-regal Johnson might have bitten off more than he can chew.

It will be particularly interesting to see how he gets along with the television networks to ensure that there is as wide an audience as possible for a debate in each official language.

The first problem Johnston faces is that everyone goes into these events with entirely different objectives. He will want the television people to give up the revenue from the most lucrative time of their day. If he would just settle for 3 am on a Sunday morning, he would have as much time as he wanted.

But his most serious problem is that political parties are, as the words imply, political. They are always looking for ways to have a political advantage. That is not Johnston’s strong suit. If it looks like he is getting his advice from the guy who appointed him to this job, he is going to find what it is like to be vilified.

Frankly, Trudeau would have been far smarter to meet with ‘Chuckles’ Scheer, Elizabeth May and a representative from the NDP and appoint someone whom they also trust.

But then, we have never heard anyone complain that Mr. Trudeau is too smart.

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