Category: Federal Politics

It is time to fire Bill Morneau, Justin.

by Peter Lowry

Bill Morneau has a straight-forward job. As complex as the Finance Department might appear to the average Canadian, the Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre has the credentials that say he should be capable of handling the finance portfolio. He is also considered to be a generally good guy. It is really too bad that Prime Minister Trudeau needs to fire him.

But Mr. Morneau does not appear to be getting the best efforts from his department. He does not appear to be effective in selling his department’s new programs. Maybe the job requires someone more political by nature. And when you are not even effective in communicating with your party’s back bench, all is lost.

This is not to suggest that the tax reforms Morneau is proposing are not complex and need thorough debate. And that was the intent when the reforms were proposed two months ago. All this accomplished is an opportunity for those who fight any reform to go after these reforms with renewed vigor. They have been sewing discord and confusion. They have deliberately misled Canadians with false information.

This time frame has allowed Conservative MPs to rail constantly against the tax reforms. A local Tory MP published an opinion piece in our local Sun rag the other day saying that Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau believe that small business owners “are tax cheats and that they are rich people abusing the system to avoid paying their share of taxes.” Talk about false news!

The Conservative caucus in Ottawa under Leader ‘Chuckles’ Scheer is saying that the reforms are going to impact all small business owners and will mean a massive tax hike. This obviously comes as a surprise to Morneau when all he is looking for it to do is close some of the loopholes that have been enabling the wealthy among us to escape paying taxes.

Here Morneau thought he was closing loopholes that benefitted people making over $150,000 a year and the Conservatives are claiming these people are part of the middle class. If he cannot get the justice of his reforms across to Canadians, he is obviously in the wrong cabinet portfolio.

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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Netflix should be told to “Get Stuffed.”

by Peter Lowry

Canada’s heritage minister needs a better understanding of Canada’s heritage. Another of the junior grade ministers in the Trudeau cabinet, Mélanie Joly, defended Netflix last week. It was a betrayal of Canadian actors, production capabilities and our French-speaking citizens as well as a allowing a leach to defy Canadian broadcast and tax rules.

Joly welcomed Netflix’s promise of spending $500,000 over the next five years. The problem with the promise is that if Netflix is really reaching the estimated audience it is purported to have in Canada, the $100,000 per year is just small change.

The ridiculous part of Netflix is that even if it only costs $10 per month, you are paying much more for the bandwidth of your Internet service to provide decent streaming video.

And what do you really get for your $10? Every time I examine Netflix for content of interest, I find little to recommend it. Friends who use it tell me that the first season of “The Crown” was absolutely excellent. That is all very nice for the few monarchists among us who believe in the travesty of royals.

There was some amusement among those who had seen the original “House of Cards” which was British. They say the American model is not quite as good. The wife and I are watching the American product now on commercial television and I find I appreciate the political manipulation techniques the show displays, while the wife is bored by that aspect.

But the more serious problem are the few people who like the French-language “Marseilles” which was made for the market in France. Quebec-based reviewers are turning up their noses.

Maybe people are caught up by the novelty of Netflix but dollar for dollar, we are getting far more bang for our loonie from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. The Corp gives us believable news, great sports and original Canadian programming. How can you expect anything from Netflix?

And even if there are two or three good shows among the dross offered by Netflix, it does not make sense in a world used to commercial television. The picture quality is still not there. And let’s face it, without commercials, when do you know when it is time to go to the bathroom?

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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Americans bomb Bombardier.

by Peter Lowry

Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard and the prime ministers of both the United Kingdom and Canada are furious and have spoken out angrily about the proposed 219.6 per cent duty on Bombardier planes purchased by Delta Airlines. This is a direct and brutal attack on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and on the very existence of an aircraft industry anywhere other than in the United States.

Mr. Trump has found a way to make America great again—all he thinks he has to do is beggar his neighbours.

With the completion last Wednesday of the Ottawa round of NAFTA negotiations, it is now obvious that the Americans are not bargaining in good faith. They have laid out no expectations for the more contentious issues. While publicly stating that the 62.5 per cent American content on automoniles is not good enough, there does not seem to have been information received by Canada or Mexico on a way to increase American content, or if it is even possible under NAFTA.

It is the same problem with Canada’s supply management in agriculture. Without some indication as to what they want, Canadians are left with President Trump’s ranting about milk and cheese. The problem is that Mr. Trump is totally ignorant about Canada’s approach to this and his NAFTA negotiators seem to have no direction.

It is obvious that the American negotiators were blind-sided by the Bombardier ruling as much the Canadians. It is hardly a simple duty charge when you increase the purchase price by as much as three times. It is as much to say as ‘Get out and stay out.’ Why the American negotiators did not go back to Washington and resign does not speak well for their moral fibre.

Mind you, the Canadian and Mexican negotiators and their political bosses share the problem. The serious question is can diplomacy work when you are dealing with an blow-hard such as President Trump. He does not speak ‘diplomacy.’ The only language Mr. Trump seems to understand are the spread sheets of the financial managers who did the funding of his grandiose development projects.

If I were in Justin Trudeau’s or Chrystia Freeland’s shoes, I would go to New York and talk to bankers who funded some of Trump’s better projects. They might learn how to communicate with the son of a bitch.

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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

The problem for political pundits.

by Peter Lowry

While waiting to hear the New Democratic Party leadership tallies yesterday, I was reading what Mainstreet Technology’s Quito Magi had to say about the race. Having worked with Quito in the past, I have often had the feeling that he should forego all this technology and make an arrangement with a healthy young groundhog, to help him with his political forecasts.

To his obvious embarrassment, I once got Quito to pay off an election bet in front of witnesses. He had all his company’s automated telephone calls responses and analysis and all I had was some doors I had knocked on with the candidate. We both agreed that our candidate would win easily but Quito made a rookie mistake about the fringe candidates in the race. When I gave him an estimate of their vote, he bet I was wrong. It cost him ten bucks.

And if he had checked with me recently, I could have saved him some embarrassment on forecasting that it could take three ballots for MPP Jagmeet Singh to win the federal NDP leadership. That was an interesting scenario he forecast but it showed a lack of experience with the Sikh communities in Canada. When Sikh voters offer their support for a candidate, they usually prove to be more reliable than the average voter.

The member of the Ontario Legislature had swamped the membership of the NDP with about 47,000 new sign-ups, mainly among the Sikh communities across Canada. It resulted in more than 35,000 winning votes to a combined total vote for his three opponents of just over 30,000.

It was particularly important once the results were announced on Sunday, to see the Ontario MPP go into full political mode to try to repair some of the disappointment of his opponents and their supporters. MP Charlie Angus looked particularly pained by his showing. He really thought he could do better than 12,700 votes. MP Niki Ashton was about 1400 votes behind and MP Guy Caron came last at just over 6100 votes.

The results of this race speak volumes about the state of politics in Canada. It is cynical and sad that people so disrespect our political process that they will attempt to crush opposition to the honours and position they think they deserve by mass sign ups of groups of ethnic supporters.

This was not a contest of ideas and suitability to the task ahead. This is the decision of a single community—a single ethnic group. Singh offered no new ideas, no new style of leadership. He was the choice of his own community. It was not a win for Canada.

Maybe we are heading down a similar antidemocratic path as our American neighbours.

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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Singh misreads Canadian acceptance.

by Peter Lowry

Ontario MPP Jagmeet Singh is heading for some disappointment. It would really be better if he faced it this weekend instead of in the next federal election. As the obvious frontrunner in the announcement this weekend of the first vote in the New Democratic Party leadership race, it would be better if he did not win.

As much as Singh might believe in the easy acceptance by Canadians of Sikhs in their society, they are not about to make a turbaned Sikh politician prime minister.

And there is very little or no bigotry involved. Canadians would also not be likely to vote for a Muslim woman in a burka, nor a Jewish Hasidic, nor a Mennonite prepared to take horse and buggy to Ottawa, nor an ordained Catholic priest in vestments, nor an aboriginal holy person in tribal costume. You simply cannot put any of the values attributed to those various religious statements ahead of the neutrality of the office of prime minister. The prime minister represents everybody.

Canadians want to be very accepting, tolerant and welcoming people. They take pride in the mix of their society, yet do not intermix very much in social relations.

It always amused me that back in the days when I looked after media relations for the Liberal Party in Toronto that I would routinely look after contacting the ethnic media for meet-and-greets with party leaders. Yet, when it came to appointing someone to a paid position, it had to be someone with a more ethnic-sounding name.

It is the ethnic strength of the constant growth and change in Canada that is helping to destroy the nature of our political parties. There is nothing new to the wholesale enrolling of an ethnic group to support this or that cause or this or that politician. It has served to both build and destroy causes and people.

Patrick Brown swamped the Progressive Conservative membership in Ontario by signing up and paying for Hindu, Sikh and Muslim groups from the Indian sub-continent. Jagmeet Singh did not even have to pay for the Sikh communities across Canada who delighted in buying more than 40,000 New Democratic memberships. All that means is that, if he is leader of the New Democrats, he will do well in a couple ridings in Montreal, in the greater Toronto area and around Vancouver in B.C. He needs to realize that all he can win is a mirage.

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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Is NAFTA circling the drain?

by Peter Lowry

You always assume there is hope as long as negotiations continue—as they are for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) this week in Ottawa. The only problem is that the negotiators are not the decision makers. The final solution rests with an incompetent occupant in the White House. And you should not try to confront that gentleman with facts.

Mr. Trump promised his voting claque that he would dump NAFTA. While economists might reason that pulling out of NAFTA could destroy the American economy, his claque does not understand that. And many, if they did comprehend, would not care. To them, a pyrrhic victory is still a victory.

It is the same attitude as led to the self-destructive BREXIT in the United Kingdom. People who vote in anger often live to regret it.

But those NAFTA negotiators continue to pontificate as they enjoy the fine cuisine in Ottawa. The least involved are the Mexican participants who have serious concerns about the conditions they left behind in and around Mexico City. As the world comes to their aid after the devastating earthquake, one wonders when the American and Canadian aid is coming?

And we can really be puzzled at Canadian cabinet members who naively think this negotiation can be about environmental issues. Do they really think that Mr. Trump gives a damn? This is the climate-change denier who reopened the Appalachian coal mines to make his billionaire friends richer.

You have to hand it to the American negotiators. These people are going through the motions as though they mean it. There will be no complaints from Congress and the Washington clique over their efforts. One of the surprises is they might really drive a wedge between the Canadians and the Mexicans. If they can keep the Canadians on-side in forcing the Mexicans to equalize wages (with the southern U.S. at least), it could go a long way to stopping the steady drain of labour-intensive production south to Mexico.

The problem though dear friends is that the entire exercise is nothing but an interesting review of the concerns. We can hardly deny that some changes are needed but Mr. Trump does not care what we think. None of the changes proposed by Canada or Mexico will happen. The American negotiators are more interested in what they can possibly bully the other two countries into.

And the future of NAFTA will only be decided around the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.

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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Trudeau’s terrific travels!

by Peter Lowry

Canadians sure get full measure when they send their prime minister on a personal appearance tour. He did more in two days in New York than most rock stars can do in a week.  The British prime minister and that New Yorker who currently occupies the Washington White House were also in town but the young guy from Canada got the star treatment.

Trudeau must have planned to arrive after Trump’s speech which was smart. Nobody could have matched the hyperbole and B.S. of that Donald Trump classic. It was over the top, overdone, over dramatic and dreadful diplomacy. Trump took the U.S. to depths of dishonour not seen in the United Nations forum since Nikita Khrushchev took off his shoe and banged it on his desk to show his displeasure.

But after a day of special appearances and being lionized, Trudeau showed up at the United Nations. This is the world’s forum. He had this golden opportunity to tell the world of his thoughts and dreams. He could have followed the American president and the British prime minister with a balance of logic and reason, peace and temperance, love and understanding.

Instead, our nit-wit PM blew it!

What egotistical brain fart led him to devote his speech to Canadians’ historical crapping on their own indigenous peoples? What made our rock-star prime minister think these world diplomats give a damn? Most of them have a rooms in their palaces for their own shames. They hardly need to hear chapter and verse on our failings.

What you do, Mr. Prime Minister, is admit your failings and move on. Nor do you try to hide those failings and let them be used against you.

But there are problems in the world that need to be addressed in this world forum. Are we to leave the North Korean problem to a sabre-rattling incompetent in Washington? Cannot Canada take a role in helping the people in the Caribbean who have had the ground washed out from under them? Where is the promised plan for Canada to help with world peacekeeping? World trade is being endangered by a nincompoop in the White House and someone has to take a stand for reason.

Are you not afraid Mr. Prime Minister that those screaming kids at the We Meeting the day before will find out you are a coward?

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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

‘Chuckles’ cheers the cheaters.

by Peter Lowry

There are two types of people who take advantage of Canada’s tax laws and form private corporations. There are those who legitimately pay family members (and others) for their work and there are those who sprinkle the income among family to avoid taxes. It is this second group that is so delighted that Conservative Opposition Leader Andrew ‘Chuckles’ Scheer has taken up their cause. Cheating on your taxes seems to be a game for some people and they welcome politicians foolish enough to try to help them.

But cheating on taxes is not a game and Canadians have put up with a system that panders to the rich for too long.

I will never forget a comment by my late brother the first time he made more than a few million dollars. He was a convinced capitalist but he admitted to me that he was actually embarrassed by the small amount of money he had to pay, once one of the large accounting firms had done his taxes.

Canada’s tax system relies heavily on the honesty of its citizens in reporting their income. When the loopholes in the system are mainly used by those who can afford expert help in preparing their taxes, the system is wrong. What the tax avoidance schemes of the very wealthy tell us is that it is alright to cheat on your taxes. As this attitude trickles down, the response is to build the underground economy. The tax system is being attacked at both ends.

What we must do is convince Canadians of the fairness of the system again. We can only do that by proving that it is fair.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau has his work cut out for him. His problem is that his department has built up a fiction over the years that there are different types of dollars. There are earned dollars and capital gains dollars, there are dividend dollars and wage dollars, there are dollars earned in Canada and there are off-shore dollars. To add more confusion there are expense accounts that help companies make money and there are expense accounts that are purely benefits. And why do employees who earn the most have the most benefits?

When every dollar is recognized for what it is—taxable—we will have a tax system that everybody can trust. Politicians who rant over perceived unfairness to their friends are not very smart politicians.

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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

What ‘New’ Democratic Party?

by Peter Lowry

We are hearing that ‘Love is in the air’ and the New Democratic Party of Canada is facing the future to the beat of new drums. Everyone anticipates that this new day will start with the election of the new leader of the party. And if you believe all this guff, I have a fine piece of swampland in the Ontario north in which you might want to invest.

The first part of all this B.S. is the news media believing the NDP is a social democratic party. That is further from the facts that any human can throw. When the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was founded by Tommy Douglas and J.S. Woodsworth in 1932, it was a socialist party with agrarian roots.

In 1961, the CCF became the base of the New Democratic Party (NDP). It was a deal made with the Canadian Labour Congress and the party structure was committed to organized labour. It was and still is a party of labour. That is not the basis for social democracy. Labour can best be described as organized collectivism. It is a mutual protective society. It is rarely interested in the overall concerns of its society—other than when it affects them.

Social democrats are people who can work within a democratic structure to effect reforms. They are progressives who want to build a better future for their society. They recognize the rights of the individual ahead of the collective. They build on human excellence.

But who among the four candidates really understands this need for a social democratic party? Who is the progressive? And who can lead?

Listening to the four candidates on Sunday in Hamilton it was obvious that Guy Caron was the thinker. The Quebec MP had the positions that he felt the party should take. What he could not demonstrate was the leadership the party needs.

Charlie Angus was up to the challenge. The Northern Ontario MP showed his empathy for the long-time party members who want to help define where the party is going. He was the only one to note the need to keep the faith with seniors and promised to advocate for them.

Niki Ashton was also in good form. The Manitoba MP showed that she was the last true prairie socialist and she stuck to her guns.

The newcomer Jagmeet Singh showed up with his drummers. The Ontario MPP brought some showmanship to the event.

What nobody brought was a future for Canada’s New Democrats.

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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Canada’s NDP: In the eye of the storm.

by Peter Lowry

It is that period of calm before all hell breaks loose. Everything you could have done, has been done. Everything you have set in motion is now in motion. You are waiting for the results. You cannot sleep. All possible scenarios seem to slip unwished for into your mind. You are waiting for the decision of the voters.

Everyone in politics has been there but never as serious as the candidates for the leadership of a political party. This month it is the New Democratic Party’s turn. Voting starts in a few days. The answer will likely be announced on October 1.

This is one of those simple votes. One member is one vote. Easy to understand and easy to do and easy to count.

Well, maybe.

The only thing that confuses people is the ballot. It follows the recent Conservative Party ballot that caused a lot of questions afterwards. They tell us that the printed ballot allows people to show their first, second, third and fourth choice. And, in theory, people can change their mind between ballots—if they are voting on line.

But whether a second vote will be needed is debateable. When you have reason to expect Jagmeet Singh could have over 50 per cent of the votes on the first ballot, there might be no reason for any further counting.

It could certainly produce a lot of Google searches on Sikhism. It is not a well-known religion and frankly there is not that much to go on unless you can read Punjabi. Sikhs have ten gurus, quite a few saints and five centuries of history. It does make for interesting reading.

While Charlie Angus M.P. will make a very good showing, his total vote combined with the votes of Niki Ashton M.P. and Guy Caron M.P. might not be able to match the total vote for Singh.

And whether Jagmeet Singh can be expected to lead Canada’s NDP anywhere is a question best answered after the ballots are counted.

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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]