New – Page 12 – Babel-on-the-Bay

Bad Night in Thunder Bay.

September 16, 2023September 15, 2023 by Peter Lowry

The Ontario liberals are not that inept. It was like an out-of-town try-out of a major play. The first debate in the current liberal leadership contest was allowed to have gaffs and try-out jitters. You just have to hope that not many saw it.

But when you have trouble with the sound from the beginning, you know it is going to be a bad night. You really have to have some sympathy for your stars. From the get-go, Nate Erskine-Smith MP was flat and a bit surly and mayor Bonnie Crombie was her perky self—if you can imagine a sixty-three-year-old ingénue. It was an opportunity for MP Yasir Naqvi to show off his political expertise and for MPP Ted Hsu to be optimistic. They were trailed by the noviciate MPP Adil Shamji who made some good points—if only, he talked into the microphone.

The audience was given warning of the sound problems when one of the co-chairs microphones did not work at the beginning and nobody did anything about it.

You knew that Bonnie Crombie was best prepped for the debate when she brought up Northern Ontario issues such as the Ring of Fire and the federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Everyone tried to show that they were serious about the north but this was a bit strained in some cases.

Yasir Naqvi’s key phrase was that “We have to build trust.”

Adil Shamji made a good point when he (faintly) said that to build trust “We have to know what we are.”

As is typical in these events you quickly know who is leading the pack. That is the kid, the other kids pick on. Erskine-Smith led in the charge that Crombie was not building homes in Mississauga. Her simple answer was that there were currently 39 construction cranes working in the city. They are probably building condominium high rise buildings but they are also homes.

But, overall, it was a civilized event and there is no question that all five of the candidates could make a contribution at Queen’s Park. You can also tell that Doug Ford and the conservatives are particularly worried about Bonnie Crombie heading the liberals in the next provincial election.

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The Promise of Canada.

September 15, 2023September 14, 2023 by Peter Lowry

Did Justin Trudeau break the promise of Canada to followers of Pierre Poilievre? No. It is not true. For the promise of Canada is opportunity for all. That’s it. It is the chance for any Canadian to be prime minister, or maybe just achieve a little more than their parents did before them. What Poilievre fails to add is the promise has two sides. Nobody has taken the promise away from you. It requires effort.

Nobody wants you to go hungry. We are a civilization that cares and if you are unable to help yourself, we want to help you.

And if you want to become prime minister of Canada, we can help you along the way. It would help, for example, if you had some life experience that shows you what help people need and want in this country. To set out early in life to be just a politician is not equipping Mr. Poilievre with the background of understanding this country.

Understanding Canada also requires knowledge and experience in other countries. And not just in tourist havens. It is like there are many fine restaurants in Quebec City. You have to realize though that the province is much more than that. Quebec has many people, industries, farmers, teachers, entrepreneurs and more. The province and its people contribute much to Canada’s economy.

Canada promises all its citizens and those coming from other countries the same opportunities. They come with equal opportunities to learn. And there are many opportunities to learn. Apprentice training or community college credits or university degrees. It is up to the individual. The efforts are yours. We all share in recognizing your success.

And, in the same sense as Canadians are good citizens of their country, Canada is a good citizen of this world. We have trading partners, defence partners and when people are faced with the ravages of nature, we send help. That is what this world should be, a place where people help people.

A hollow slogan such as “Bring It Home” is showing a selfish nature that disparages Canadians desire to help other countries, to trade with them and help defend them when attacked by tyrants. Canadians come from all parts of this world. We can only set an example for others.

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Poilievre’s Petulant Promises.

September 14, 2023September 13, 2023 by Peter Lowry

When Pierre Poilievre—the guy I think of as Little Boy Blue—gave his speech last week to conservatives in Quebec City, he was not speaking to a broad swath of Canada’s intelligentsia. In fact, you really had to remember this was an audience of conservative party faithful and donors. These people are probably able to translate Little Boy Blue’s hyperbole into concepts that conservatives can understand.

And they would certainly be able to appreciate a stupid joke such as “It was so cold last winter that Justin Trudeau was seen with his hands in his own pockets.”

But it was when you go down the short list of promises he made that you wonder just where this guy is really taking his party? The one promise that seems to continue is the promise of a dollar-for-a-dollar law. He tells us this means that for every new dollar the government spends, it must take back a dollar from some other program. A simple way to look at it would be if the government was to give people making over $200,000 per year a two per cent tax break. It could have to take two per cent from the old age security (OAS) payments to seniors.

It also seems to mean that to build a building that might last 100 years, you have to cut some existing programs to pay for it.

The one thing that really does come through with Little Boy Blue is that he does not like spending money. His trite slogan “Bring It Home” seems to mean that he does not intend to spend any money outside of Canada. He belittles Justin Trudeau’s travels in aid of building Canada’s trade relations. Poilievre does not seem to understand that Canada has to buy some requirements from other countries and, in exchange, has to sell things to other countries. Canada is a trading nation. Without our international trade, Canadians’ standard of living would hit rock bottom in a hurry.

I must admit that I have no knowledge of Canada giving much foreign aid to dictators. I do know that we encourage democracy. But if he thinks the prime minister should stay home and not go to all these ‘gab fests’, it will probably be just as well that Canadians don’t really want to have Poilievre as prime minister.

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Leave No Cliché Unused.

September 12, 2023September 11, 2023 by Peter Lowry

Does Pierre Poilievre, our little boy blue and leader of Canada’s conservatives, now have some conservative concerns to help him do his job? He met with conservatives in Quebec City this past weekend and they were supposed to tell him of their concerns and policy wants. They even thought they were there to help make Canada great again. It was like a wedding. They had clichés borrowed and Little Boy Blue.

It took an hour to get to the close of the new leader’s speech, when little boy blue, once again, told us that he is going to “Make Canada the freest nation on earth.” Mind you, the conservatives who cheered his speech still voted against youth making their own gender selection and complained about who could use which toilets.

Not to worry though. Under the conservative party’s constitution, the party leader chooses to say what will be promised come an election. And he has already told us that he will axe the carbon tax. Maybe there are a few people in the conservative party who understand economics and will explain to Mr. Poilievre that the prime minister’s responsibilities do not include telling the Bank of Canada to print money. That might disappoint Mr. Poilievre. He complains that Mr. Trudeau has not only printed money but has doubled Canada’s national debt. He really needs to come down on one side or the other. And yes, the national debt, which is quite manageable for a country with the gross domestic product of Canada, did take a major hit during the pandemic. We are recovering quite rapidly. Blaming Mr. Trudeau for COVID is illogical.

But the basic problem with the speech was that sometimes you were not sure where the truth ended and the slurs and inuendo took over. The audience was not helpful with its mindless chants of “Bring it home” and “Canada is Broken.”

What was concerning though was the lack of attention to the war in Ukraine. Mr. Poilievre made it very clear that he was not interested in spending any money outside of our country. While Boy Blue normally ignores Quebec, being in Quebec City, and some better polls lately, encouraged him to give Quebec some recognition. I think a smart leader would have also talked more about climate change.

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Tell It Like It Is Paul.

September 11, 2023September 11, 2023 by Peter Lowry

Ontario premier Doug Ford thinks he has chosen well. Telling the truth has never been a strong or notable habit of Ontario’s new housing minister. I told you the other day about his crying jag in the House of Commons, when he was a member of Steven Harper’s government. It was obvious why people did not re-elect him federally.;

It is worrisome that people might not think the same high standards apply in our provincial legislatures. Did Doug Ford consider the distraction Paul Calandra might be if he brought his fabrications to the Queen’s Park crowd? Maybe Doug Ford is just that determined to distract us from his designs for the Greenbelt.

But, do you think nobody would notice if fleets of bulldozers arrived at the Greenbelt and started to bulldoze the top soil from some of the richest farmland in Ontario? Did Doug’s call go to all his friends the developers?

And is Paul Calandra, the distraction he needs? Can this review of all Greenbelt lands really be needed at this time? Or is it just a red herring to distract the hoi pollio? Does somebody go out and check if the wetlands are still wet? Are the rich and arable lands still arable? Does the new minister intend to go out and count the trees in the Greenbelt?

And just why is this new minister of municipal affairs and housing even involved in an evaluation of the Greenbelt? Isn’t Graydon Smith, minister of natural resources and forestry the appropriate minister? Or why not have Lisa Thompson, minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs involved? And then there is David Picinni, minister of conservation, environment and parks. Would he not be the more logical minister to evaluate the Greenbelt. After all, if the ministry of housing is involved, would they not be evaluating it for housing?

After all, when you have a need to have housing for people who want to live in a city, should you not be choosing land available for housing in the cities? Starter homes do not make sense out in the countryside. You not only need fully serviced land but the closer it is to mass transportation systems the more convenient and useful it is for starter homes. Our premier needs a thinking dog to assist him.

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Poilievre’s Posturing.

September 10, 2023September 9, 2023 by Peter Lowry

Where does conservative leader Pierre Poilievre get off referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a foreign dictator? That was what Poilievre inferred in his speech to the conservative party meeting in Quebec City Friday evening. It was important enough for him to be read from a teleprompter instead of just more off the cuff and off the wall nihilistic invective from a nasty little man.

I have written many speeches for politicians over the past 65 years and I forced myself to listen to every word of that one-hour and six-minute diatribe. I could boil that speech down to less than 20 minutes by not using all the repetition, exaggerations and outright lies. It was a speech deprecating Justin Trudeau as prime minister. It made it simple to understand why Poilievre is the designated thinker for Canada’s anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers and other nihilists. It is also to the delight of those of us who know what the World Economic Forum is about, that Poilievre dumps on the forum every chance he gets. He doesn’t realize that the WEF is something like the Fraser Institute on steroids. It is a place for conservative business people to dump their profits from world-wide inflation, so that they will not be taxed on them.

Poilievre keeps telling people that this is his common-sense solution. It reminds me of Mike Harris and his common-sense revolution. Harris led the conservative party in Ontario as premier from 1995 to 2002. He sounded quite similar to Poilievre. It did not work. Ask any Ontario resident, old enough to remember the e-coli outbreak in Walkerton and the shooting in Ipperwash Provincial Park.

It struck me that Poilievre was desperately calling on his hapless party to bring back the Steven Harper era. The conservative leader was quite definite about Trudeau being responsible for doubling our national debt. He could have just as easily blamed that on the pandemic.

The one thing we know for sure in all this hectoring of the liberals, is that, as prime minister, Mr. Poilievre is going to do things differently. One thing is for sure is that the conservatives will axe the carbon tax. That was covered more than a few times.

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Good News, Bad News.

September 9, 2023September 8, 2023 by Peter Lowry

There was a note on Pierre Poilievre’s desk when he reported in after his summer holiday:

Sire: We have good news and bad news. It seems that the generation Zee or Zed voters prefer that you be elected Canada’s prime minister. The bad news is that this is the most difficult bunch of voters to get out to vote.

It is hard to really rate the Ottawa cowboy’s summer. Yes, more Canadians got to know him a little bit. He laid all the blame for inflation, grocery and home prices on Justin Trudeau. He has been hoping that this weekend’s policy conference for the conservatives will give him something glib to say about climate change. He has been struggling to come up with a workable way to blame climate change and destructive wildfires on the liberal leader.

It has been difficult enough with walking into the odd wall and squinting all the time without his glasses. One benefit of the clothing change is that his wife has been freed from her duties washing and starching all those shirts. She has been out seeing the countryside—albeit from the perspective of conservative donors’ backyards.

It is a bit disappointing to hear that his message has been getting a better play among the younger voters. They are the impressionable youth, though not necessarily trend setters. Plus, we understand that these interview subjects are people who opted in to Internet panels and are not randomly selected respondents.

But good or bad news for the liberals can change over the next few years to an election. It seems unlikely that the conservative leader’s message that Canada is broken will carry for too long. When in all the criteria of what makes a liveable country is added up, Canada always comes in among the top ten countries in the world. It is hard to convince us older folks that Canada is broken. We are the ones who have lived here for a while and know that Canada is a pretty darn good country.

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The ‘Truthiness’ of All.

September 8, 2023September 7, 2023 by Peter Lowry

The word ‘Truthiness” has come into heavy play. “Truthiness” applies to the relative truth of what we learn from the Internet and other questionable sources for news. ‘Truthiness’ is truth, as defined by people without facts, logic or concern for verification. There is, for example, the truthiness of the climate deniers and grocery store magnates. And there is former president Trump in the United States and the pipsqueaks in this country who like to ape him, such as Pierre Poilievre of Canada’s federal conservatives and people such as Doug Ford and his minister of anything needing cover-up Paul Calandra of the Ontario conservatives.

The tendency of those of us who still respect the news media for truths, is based on the many editorial hands that legitimate news stories must submit to, prior to being published. And then there is truth as defined by that strange man, Ontario’s premier Doug Ford. Mr. Ford would not know the truth if it bit him on the bum.

Speaking of Ford, did you hear the other day that he and that new premier in British Columbia had both taken to telling the governor of the Bank of Canada what to do. This advice was wasted, as they later found out. What they did not seem to know was that that the Bank’s board is required to ignore any and all political interference in their deliberations to protect Canadian and foreign trust in our currency.

And speaking of Mr. Ford’s truthiness, it is questionable at the best of times. Mr. Ford is that old-fashioned blustering type of salesman. He is out to make the sale, no matter what. If he cannot look after his friends with a few chunks of the Ontario Greenbelt now and then, how else would you spend your days cooped up in the Ontario premier’s office? He is very free with his promises but few are kept.

I mentioned Paul Calandra. This is a MPP who, when he was a federal MP, made it all the way to parliamentary secretary to the prime minister. It was in that position that he made his mark. He might not have been the first parliamentarian to cry in the House of Commons but he came closer than most. He was apologizing to the leader of the opposition for not answering his questions for the prime minister. He had made a habit of doing it in all truthiness. He also lost his federal seat because of it in the 2015 election.

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Steve, We Hardly Knew Ye.

September 6, 2023September 5, 2023 by Peter Lowry

Sometimes a boy from Brockville gets overlooked but Steve Clark had an impressive electoral record before Ontario premier Doug Ford made him minister of municipal affairs and housing. Steve had even served three terms as mayor of Brockville before putting in an appearance at the Ontario legislature. He also served as Leeds-Grenville MPP Bob Runciman’s executive assistant before continuing as MPP for what is now Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes. The point of this is that Steve Clark must have lots of friends in eastern Ontario but he might not know as many people in the Greater Toronto Area.

And that is why he might not be as au courant of the who’s who of developers in Toronto and York. This is where those major developers, their lawyers and lobbyists hang out, like drug store cowboys, is at Toronto city hall.

There used to be six city halls in Metropolitan Toronto but, in preparation for the 21^st century, the city now makes do with just one. It sometimes looks like a builders’ convention at Toronto city hall.

This engorged city hall is where a novice councillor, Doug Ford, under the wing of his younger brother, Rob, mayor Rob, at the time, taught his older brother the why’s and where-fore’s of politics. And, given the confusion of the times, and his younger brother’s crack-cocaine habit, Doug Ford must have thought the developers where the sanest people he met. As a natural sales person, Doug Ford came to liking these developers.

After the death of his younger brother, Doug Ford took solace in an unsuccessful attempt at moving directly to the mayor’s office. No doubt, his campaign was resoundingly supported by his recently acquired developer friends. He lost to fellow conservative, John Tory.

Doug Ford’s next political opportunity came when a rather rattled politician named Patrick Brown, the leader of the Ontario conservatives, made the mistake of resigning when he was obviously not guilty of the questionable charges of some young ladies. When the dust settled on that ridiculous situation, we found that Doug Ford was leader of the Ontario conservatives and the fox was in the hen house.

But when you stop to think about it; those developers who were just assured billions in profits, are Doug Ford’s friends. Why the hell should poor Steve Clark have to resign from cabinet?

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The Importance of Being Liberal.

September 5, 2023September 4, 2023 by Peter Lowry

Oscar Wilde published The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895. It was a farce for its time. The importance of being a liberal is something of a farce for our time. What annoys me the most is that I have no proof of being a liberal today other than the constant e-mails the party sends me asking for money. Back when I was more active in the party, during the last half of the 20^th century, we had more purpose.

I have come to the conclusion after watching Justin Trudeau in party functions that he really does not like the party. It is quite obvious that our party leader is an elitist. Which is fine with me. I am still a liberal. The only time I have ever respected Justin was when he was trying to bring the country through the pandemic with his television appearances in front of Rideau Cottage. Our country was desperate for clear leadership at the time and he did provide some.

But when he denied and belittled the many years of party experience in the Senate and denied the liberals their label of honour from the party. It was as though he was getting even for the party’s demands on his father’s time when he was a child living at 24 Sussex Drive.

What Justin does not understand while his father did was that the party chooses the leader. The party is responsible for the training and having organized canvassers ready for the ground game when elections are called. The party is supposed to have a say in the party’s policy direction and in basic platforms. And the leader pisses on the party at his peril.

I don’t even think of Justin as a liberal. The dictionary definition of a liberal is not all that helpful. There will always be the dichotomy between the right and the left in the party. There are the progressives and there are those who drag their feet. Where we all come together is on individual rights. This is what we all fight for. At the same time, there was nothing wrong with being progressive. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau used to joke with me that we were both charter members of the ‘Get Off Your Ass’ (GOYA) group within the party.

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