Category: New

The lost year.

by Peter Lowry

It was when sitting through the excruciating ignorance of a Donald Trump briefing with his Gong Show covid-19 crew that it occurred to me. With this kind of leadership in the U.S., the country will be lucky to be out of the woods before Christmas, 2020. North Americans still have most of a lost year ahead of us. And here was forecaster-in-chief Trump telling the American audience that there could be a turn-around by Easter!

I have an image in mind of a republican senator sitting reading a report on the numbers of constituents who are dying of covid-19. He, or she, is asking: ‘Why didn’t I impeach when I had a chance?’

But we still have close to a year of pain to endure. We could be on the backside of the first wave of the disease by summer. How many months will we need to physically impede a second wave from causing more deaths. And what about the possibility of a third wave?

Of course, the optimists among us are hoping for a vaccine. You do not want to tell these people that we have not even come up with a vaccine for SARS yet. Vaccines take a lot of time and patience and many failures along the way. There is a remarkable world-wide effort at this time but in the meantime, the disease is running its course. Let’s just try to stay out of its way.

The last time a virus of this type ran rampant around the world was the Spanish flu (H1N1) that killed indiscriminately from the First World War until into the mid 1920s. The reason the U.S. was so ill prepared at that time, was the war was not yet over and there was no national direction to the effort to fight the disease. With about a third of the population catching the disease in Canada, 50,000 Canadians died. In the U.S. (where the disease is believed to have its start) it killed 675,000.

What the U.S. is once again showing the world is that a poorly co-ordinated, irrational response to the disease is not the answer.

And do not even bother to replace common sense with make-believe surgical masks. The only non-medical personnel who need masks are the people who are showing symptoms of covid-19 and are on the way to get medical help.

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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry

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

Lucking into leadership laurels.

by Peter Lowry

You hardly need to check with pollsters to know that prime minister Justin Trudeau has aced it. He is getting lots of positive votes for his leadership in this time of crisis. You even talk to known conservatives and some of them tell you what a good job he is doing. And would you believe that, in some ways, he has won the kudos by happenstance?

Part of it was Sophie Grégoire Trudeau. Her testing positive to covid-19 on returning to Canada after a speaking trip to the United Kingdom, is not something that could be planned. The prime minister’s wife was quarantined at home and the prime minister chose to be in isolation with her and the children. He was just one more Canadian being told to go home and stay there. Mind you, when you are prime minister, you can work from wherever you like.

It also brought the news media to the Rideau Cottage briefings. It might not be 10 Downing Street but only the prime minister is allowed at that mike. The briefing at 11:15 am has been convenient for the government and the news media. And large numbers of Canadians are watching and talking about the words direct from the PM.

Compared to that buffoon in Washington, Mr. Trudeau’s information is precise, understandable and helpful. Mr. Trump seems to run a Gong Show with more-qualified actors trying to correct his misdirection, confusion, pet theories and favoured medications.

While no doubt the opposition leaders in parliament are deeply resentful of the opportunity given to the liberal leader, there is little they can do about it. Mr. Trudeau can easily fall back on the national interest and the non-partisan (well, sort-of) nature of what he has to tell Canadians. What can the opposition do anyway when the largest opposition party (the conservatives) is trying to choose a new leader, the new democrats need a leader, the bloc québécois want to stick around for a while and the greens want a new leader.

The only achievement of the opposition so far is to say no to a very silly suggestion that they give complete control to the liberals for the next two years. That was taken off the table.

But it really could be two years before politics in this country gets back to normal. Until then, we are going to be fed pap such as deputy pm Chrystia Freeland and Ontario premier Doug Ford being the best of buddies. With politics in that bad a shape, we have got to beat this coronavirus as soon as possible!

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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry

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

What Value Trust?

by Peter Lowry

Do you trust U.S. president Donald Trump? Why would you when his actions are erratic, his decisions changeable, his sources of information questionable and his attention span so limited? In approving the revised North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), did the parliamentarians consider this man’s weaknesses and frequent whims? They might have, if they understood the executive power he wields over American foreign trade.

The reason the first version of NAFTA worked so well for Canada is that the Americans wanted guaranteed access to Canada’s resources such as the tar sands and grandfathered the Auto Pact in exchange.

It was a few years until the fracking for oil in the U.S. proved that the U.S. was actually self-sufficient in oil resources. At the same time, Eastern Canada had rebuilt its manufacturing to supply auto parts and was attracting auto assembly operations from Asia. The Americans felt the rules of origin in NAFTA were under threat. What started as ruffled feathers over soft-wood lumber on the west coast became steel and aluminum barriers in the east. Donald Trump saw the free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico as an easy target in stirring dissent with the status quo in political America.

When Trump found recently that he was in the cross-hairs for not managing the panic in the U.S., he saw a chance to lay blame on 3M for selling critical N95 surgical masks to Canada and Latin American countries. Despite the new NAFTA agreement, that he had congress approve, Trump used his executive power to stop shipments to Canada and others outside the U.S. This was also despite the fact that the major material for these masks comes from Canada. Trump was very lucky that the Canadian government did not choose to retaliate.

But that is the trust that countries place in trade agreements. The agreements are not just for sunny days. Situations change, needs change but the countries that make these deals have to be able to trust their trading partners. You do not make unilateral changes. A dire need on one side of a border can be just as dire as the need on the other side. And it is in times such as this that the unilateral actions of one country can be long remembered by the population of the other.

Trust cannot be written. It can only be earned.

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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry

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

Paying for Jobs?

by Peter Lowry

After careful study over the past few days, listening to the ideas of others and comparing the programs, I have decided that it is all a terrible waste. The federal government’s big billion bailout for Canadian business is money down the drain. We can do much better.

First of all, this emergency wage subsidy idea is not only wasteful but turns its back on a sensible approach to the need. Why not let the banks do what they do best—lend money to business? In this case, the loans can be forgivable—if it is confirmed that the money is directed to salaries and keeping Canadians employed, as promised. That way experts are doing the lending. And the government has their back, as usual. The government can foot the bill and allow the banks a bit of interest—a lot cheaper for the taxpayers.

And the whole system can be in process as soon as the government gives the banks the go-ahead. And, let’s be honest. Government employees make poor loan officers.

You might also want to ponder just how many former employees want the job back with the company that fired them or, euphemistically, laid them off? They should be allowed to go where they want. This is still a democracy, I hope.

But at the same time as this program eventually gets off the ground, will these people really be going back to work? Will airlines need flight staff so soon, will restaurants need wait staff, will fitness clubs need instructors, will schools need teachers? Or will we still be dancing two metres apart?

The only part of the deal to be presented to parliament that makes any sense is the Canada emergency response benefit that will pay individuals $2000 per month. It is really too bad that this program is only slated to be operating for four months. In Ontario where there are more than 360,000 people getting support from the provincial disability support program (ODSP). The maximum ODSP payment is just over $1100 per month. These people stay alive because charities, food banks, churches and families give them some help. There is no help from the uncaring Ford conservatives. They even tried to cut the payments in the program when they came into office.

Maybe the Trudeau liberals also forgot these people!

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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry

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

What was left under the rug?

by Peter Lowry

There always comes that time when we have to look under the rug. Maybe we were just sending the rug out for cleaning but we can hardly ignore the detritus of time that we have collected. It is like this covid-19 emergency. This dust from under the rug was what finance minister Bill Morneau meant when he admitted recently that he did not know how to help.

This is when all the problems politicians have tried to ignore come back to bite them.  It is also a time when they must face the reality of the past myopia and do something about it.

It was like my reporting early in the Ontario shut-down about the problems of washrooms for long-distance drivers. Professional truck drivers, desperate auto drivers and even city bus drivers have been faced with the closing of all public washrooms. How careless! How thoughtless! How typical of our politicians.

I hear that the Tim Hortons people are stepping into the breech—so to speak. They should be compensated for the extra staff and supplies they will need to try to keep those coffee-shop washrooms reasonably sterile and usable.

But what about those members of our society whom we always seem to ignore? We walk by them on the sidewalks of our cities. They are the homeless, the invisible rejects of society, the mentally challenged, the sick, the despairing, the old, the lonely—a smile, a friendly word, a bit of help, can make their day. And what do you need?

These are problems we ignore as we shrug and say, “What can I do?”

And if you are not tired of this direction yet, what of the overcrowding in our prisons. That guy responsible for prisons, a minister of the crown, named Bill Blair, even asked the parole board recently to do something about it. What else is he doing about the overcrowding?

I guess, we should all check under the rug.

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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry

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

Just breath that air!

by Peter Lowry

Have you stepped outside lately? Even from a city condo balcony, you can feel the difference. Take a deep breath and enjoy. It is the breath of fresher air when there are so few carbon-spewing vehicles on the roads. It is air that we used to spend weekends and holidays seeking by our lakes and mountains. It is healthy air. It is invigorating.

Of course, there is a price on this wonderful air. The world will spend a long time paying back the costs of this pandemic. What we have to think of is the price of continuing to despoil this air that we have had a taste of at this time. We are faced with chance. We know that it is time to make a turn. Why would we rebuild walls of smog when there is no need?

What we need is greener cities. Go electric or just go. We need fewer plastics, less non-biodegradable packaging, green energy, better insulated homes and we have to have respect for the environment.

And along with better buildings, we have to do better planning for the vagaries of nature. The hundred-year events are happening too often. We have to be better prepared.

I am sure you can add many things to this brief request. We all need to pitch in. We can tackle this now or we can regret our inaction during the years our world has left.

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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry

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

Kenney dives into pipeline financing.

by Peter Lowry

In a time when the rest of the world is expending all energy and funds into the war against the novel coronavirus, Alberta premier Jason Kenney is following his own drummer. In a time when you cannot get $5 a barrel for the bitumen from the tar sands, Kenney is investing over a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money into a bitumen pipeline that is never likely to be completed.

We are talking here about the long-running drama known as the Keystone XL pipeline. It has been stalled, stopped, rerouted and fought through the courts in the U.S., since the beginning of the Obama administration. It was one of his final acts as president that Barack Obama turned thumbs down on the completion of the pipeline to get Alberta bitumen to America’s Gulf Coast refineries in Texas.

But it took the environmentally ignorant Donald Trump little time as president to tell the coal people to dig more coal, the pipeline people to carry on regardless and the auto manufacturers to forget emission standards. With this latest stimulus, the outraged environmentalists in the United States will soon have Keystone’s more contentious pipeline segments, that are still to be built, back in court.

But what is going to happen in November of 2020? Would you be so stupid as to bet more than a billion dollars on the outcome of that election? Even if you were as environmentally challenged as Jason Kenney, would you really risk that much?

Just who he is trying to impress with the gamble? It can hardly be Albertans. They have suffered enough. Not only is he betting with Albertans’ money, but this is at the same time as Kenney’s conservatives have laid off 25,000 teachers. These were the people who were going to help Alberta children, on the phone, with their computerized programs, while schools were closed during the pandemic.

Jason Kenney has strange priorities.

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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry

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

It’s the Tory party that is self-destructing.

by Peter Lowry

Last weekend, Chantal Hébert wrote her regular opinion piece for the Toronto Star. She was ruminating on the idea that presumed front-runner Peter MacKay’s campaign for the conservative leadership might be self-destructing. Not that MacKay was heading anywhere in particular anyway. He is hardly the saviour of Canada’s conservatives.

If you are checking with conservatives on the telephone, you can hear an audible gagging sound when you ask them about MacKay’s campaign. And it is hardly a direct reference to the Deity when you hear the person say, “Oh God.”

But Peter MacKay has been in trouble since the turn of the century when he drove the progressive conservative bus into the arms of Stephen Harper and the Alberta cowboys of the reform conservative alliance. It was hardly good intentions that finally united the right across Canada. It was more like desperation.

What is really desperate today is not MacKay. He might be Elmer MacKay’s son but even our friends in Nova Scotia wonder about Peter’s campaign this time around. They have been there before.

If you did not know that Peter is a lightweight, you have not been paying attention over the past 20 years. At least he is a married man today and we can stop making fun of the ways his lady friends embarrassed him.

And he no longer is among the privileged who have military helicopters at their beck and call.

But it is really the party committee that was making the rules for the leadership that did Peter in. They set forth the most ridiculous and short-sighted rules for the leadership campaign that were more suited to the requirements of Vladimir Putin in Russia than a democratic party. The cut-off was just the other day for their proposed $300,000 fee and 3,000 party signatures.

The right leader for the conservatives has not even surfaced yet. It is a good thing the campaign was delayed because of the coronavirus.

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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry

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

Escaping the prison of a coronavirus.

by Peter Lowry

With all the rules these days, my wife and I still like to get out for some fresh air and do our own shopping errands. Last Friday, in balmy weather and bright sunshine, my wife said ‘let’s go.’ It is becoming something of an adventure in this world of the coronavirus.

One of our stops was at a branch of our bank. I needed to make a deposit and get some rolls of coins for our apartment building’s washing machines. My wife decided to come in also, as she wanted some personal cash from her account. The only spot where it was difficult to maintain social distancing was at the front door where three employees were grouped, making sure that only a few customers, at a time, came into the bank.

I went immediately to a teller behind a new plastic screen and my wife waited for another teller. I then heard my wife called over to the next teller by her first name. It was obvious from the look on her face that my wife was not sure who the woman was but she had obviously met her somewhere.

What surprised me was that this woman, who might have been 25 years younger than my wife, started to berate her for being outside of her home. From what she said, it was obvious that the woman knew my wife has a non-virus-related health condition. My wife stood, mouth open, in surprise. I jumped to her defence with a flip remark. All that got was the woman’s ire directed at me. She thought I was irresponsible for being outside at my age, as well.

As we doubted someone like that would be working long at the bank, we completed our business and departed. When we came out of the bank, we found a line had formed across the front of the bank and around the corner—all respectably separated by two metres.

But we did enjoy our drive in the warming sun.

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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry

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

Dougie dumbs it down.

by Peter Lowry

You get the impression that our Ontario premier goes to the office each day hoping to find new things to screw up for Ontario residents. Despite the tantrum he threw the other day over a high-priced grocery store overcharging for sanitary wipes, I never get the impression that he is on our side. He is not.

I do not believe of making lists of peoples’ failings and in Doug Ford’s case I have probably forgotten half of them anyway. I think the reason is the lack of logic in what he and his troop of clowns decide to tackle. For some reason, he had taken aim at price gouging this past week.

It was Dougie’s ‘whim of the week.’ He is proposing fines of as much as a $100,000 for price-gouging convictions and up to a year in jail. If he could go after a federally incorporated company such as Bell Canada, I would settle for just the board of Bell going to jail for a year. Bell just raised the price of already over-priced Internet services by another $7 a month. Add that up for close to three million customers and you are talking about a billion dollars in annual cash flow. Bell could pay a $100,000 fine from petty cash.

But the most serious problem is that Dougie and the rest of his troop do not think things through. The gang heard that some people might be stock piling their meds. The government’s solution was to stupidly cut back on certain meds that are for long-term conditions such as with heart and diabetes. These drugs are usually supplied on a three-month schedule. I really doubt anyone would over-dose on any of them. There is certainly no black market for them. Nor are they in danger of being in short supply. All this incompetent government did was increase the costs for private drug plans and seniors. Instead of one co-pay for these prescriptions every three months, we now have to pay the co-pay three times. I really do not think my local Shoppers Drug Mart needs that extra $12 per prescription every three months from seniors!

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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry

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