Category: New

More on language laws.

by Peter Lowry

You never know where interesting comments will come from. A reader in British Columbia agreed with my comments recently on how to protect the French language. As a he is originally from Quebec, he felt that I left out a key reason. He felt I should have mentioned the Quebec culture.

That is deep water for me to get into. I remember many years ago when I went to a few French language films in Quebec only to find that they were American movies that had been dubbed in French. I felt that it would not help me with learning French. I now know of the excellent films made in Quebec that not only win awards for their actors, directors, writers and producers but win at the box office as well.

I have also always been impressed by the growing lists of French language novels and non-fiction books on the bookshelves in Quebec—and also outside of Quebec.

The Quebec music scene has been growing and expanding for many years now in both of Canada’s languages.

The point is that the Quebec politicians don’t have to worry so much about preserving the language. Canadian anglophones are more at risk from Americanisation of their English than Quebec is of losing its French.

I have always puzzled over the conflict in Quebec created by the need for bilingualism in the tourist industry. The province is rich in history, urban mystery, entertainments, winter and summer sports venues, Carnival in Quebec City and scenic vistas. There are more than 300 million potential tourists south of the border and west of the Ottawa River. That is a challenge to be undertaken, not to be rationed.

The Montreal Saint Jean Baptiste parade might lack some of the obvious inclusionary aspects of Toronto’s Caribbean festival and parade but it would be better if it sought tourists. It would go a long way to repair some of the politically motivated harm done to Quebec over the years.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

Locked Down, Locked In, Locked Out.

by Peter Lowry

It was never said that being a prisoner in your home was so bad. It is not until you look across the breakfast table and realize that the person sitting over there, reading the newspaper, feels the same as you. Damn you Doug Ford. His shilly-shallying over what is a lock-down has led to this. After more than 50 years of marriage, you have never spent this much time together. It is like the reverse side of a honeymoon.

Honeymoons are remembered as an adventure. No matter how much time you had spent together previously, you bring a different attitude to a honeymoon. It is exploratory. It is learning. It is having fun while digging deeper into the psyche of your partner. Bedroom antics are often tempered, while mutual and deeper understanding become the lasting bond. And the honeymoon becomes a fond memory of another time.

Children are also a bond—us against them in some ways but the beaten norms of life influence the relationships. Grandchildren are a precious addition and can bring us even.

But who keeps score?

And today when the sun is shining, the leaves are green and the tulips losing their petals, you listen to the birds and yearn for freedom. You and your partner want to get into the car and drive until you fall off the edge of the world. You want adventures of new places, new foods, refreshing waters. You want dialogues with new people, new thoughts, mental challenges.

Hurry up, you in temporary power, give us our second shot of vaccine, let us challenge a casino, send us to a baseball game, take us to the theater, let us dine at McDonalds one day and on French cuisine the next.

These might be selfish thoughts but there is life to be lived outside of this lockdown. Let us all live it to the fullest.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

Caution and concern in a pandemic.

by Peter Lowry

I was laughing the other day when reading a suggestion that we should have a judicial review of our handling of the pandemic. The writer thought it would be helpful for the next pandemic. Sure. Did you note how we all rushed to read the notes from the Spanish Flu pandemic a hundred years ago? I wonder if that writer had taken the time to Google the word ‘epidemiologist’?

Even the study of how humans so generously share diseases with each other requires grounding. Here we are in the third wave of the coronavirus and we are still a little vague on just how we catch it. You would figure that by the time we have seen a disease kill more than three million of us, we would have a better grip on the cause. All the layman has learned, so far, is that it is airborne and you can’t see it.

I think, in this case, we bypassed the epidemiologists and headed right for a vaccine. Any of us with a bit of a background in the science involved were impressed with how fast we got to vaccines. That might have also fed some stupid antivaxxers’ concerns. It could also have been scholarly arguments among the medical community that generated some of those concerns.

There are those of us who pay attention to the lock-down conditions and there were those who scoff at them. Of course, none of us law-abiding citizens are assuming that it will be the scoffers who will soon be at the local hospital. That would be vindictive!

But are Canadians enjoying watching images on the news of Brits, Americans and others going out mask less and in groups? We have had so many stops and goes in the past 14-months, we might just show the politicians who ordered us around so erratically what we think of it in the next election.

And there is always the economic side of this pandemic. It seems in Canada we have made the rich richer and penalized the working poor. Seniors have been thrown a few dollars a couple times, to keep them quiet.

But the Trudeau government has come up with a new economic theory that says if you have money or made money last year, the government will give you more. And if you don’t have money, you obviously don’t need any. You get all this and covid-19 too!

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

Brampton’s mayor is not Barrie’s best!

by Peter Lowry

As outsiders, Barrie residents might not know as much about politics in Brampton but we sure know the mayor. In a straight trade for Brampton’s former mayor for Patrick Brown, we know we would have got the best of the deal. The one thing for sure is that in a head-to-head race against the incumbent mayor in his home town, Patrick knew he would be lucky to get 25 per cent of the vote.

And it is not as though the Brampton mayoralty is what Patrick wanted. He was at loose-ends, after resigning (under duress) from the leadership of Ontario’s provincial conservatives. He had noted that the now to-be-elected chair of Peel position was up for grabs and that job looked like it would pay as much as $200,000 per year. It was akin to being super-mayor of Brampton, Caledon and Mississauga. Patrick went for the brass ring.

That was until the new conservative leader Doug Ford heard about his plans and cancelled the election for chair in Peel. Patrick took a quick look at the mayoralty situation in Brampton—since that was where his base vote to win the Peel chair was located anyway. Patrick’s strength is hardly in his looks, sartorial elegance or pleasing personality. He is a student of politics and some people think of him as a fair-to-middling retail politician. (A retail politician is one that can sell the folks back home but never has reason to raise hand or head in parliament.)

Patrick’s punch in Brampton is the 44 per cent of people there with roots in the Indian subcontinent. All he had to do was promise to convert most of Brampton’s parks into cricket fields. The years of the British Raj in the subcontinent had developed an inordinate love of cricket. And when only about 35 per cent of municipal voters bother to vote, Patrick’s ploy prevailed.

Not that the road has been smooth since. Patrick is just as confused by the pandemic as any other inept politician. He gets his licks by pointing out the paucity of hospitals in Brampton, trying to manipulate his city councilors and interfering with Brampton’s human relations. Barrie doesn’t miss him.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

What if Ontario protected English?

by Peter Lowry

Trying to make sense of Quebec’s new language act, Bill 96, the other day, it raised the question of what would happen if this type of bill was enacted in Ontario. It is a silly question. Ontario goes out of its way to encourage people speaking French to be able to receive provincial services in that language. It might not always be successful but the provincial people do try.

But we can hardly imagine the hue and cry if the same commercial sign laws were imposed in Ontario as in Quebec. Much of the character of Toronto would be lost without the proliferation of languages on commercial signs in areas of the city offering the diverse foods and products of the world.

I have always regretted the lack of attention I paid to French language classes in high school and despite concentrated tutoring in French as an adult, I remain a sesquilingual anglophone. Nobody seems impressed with my ability to read both sides of a cereal box. Mind you, I have always enjoyed talking with sesquilingual francophones. It can cause considerable hilarity.

But to deny French-language services to a population in some areas that might be somewhat less than 50 per cent French-speaking would be considered to be unreasonable and waspish in Ontario. Many in the English-language community would support their Franco-Ontarian confreres.

It would be unlikely that much would change in Quebec if the province dropped some of its more draconian language and religious symbol laws. The provincial law makers need to understand the difference between a carrot and a stick. I think they would do far better encouraging French in the workplace than some of these laws that have to be exempted from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

But then, Canadian anglophones tend to be more impressed with our charter rights and freedoms than francophones. It seems that getting the courts involved is starting to get our politicians to write better laws. It is something that should catch on across the country.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

A leader with no teeth?

by Peter Lowry

Watching a recording of an interview with Ontario liberal leader Steven Del Duca the other day, it seemed that he talks without showing any teeth. Never having read of any affliction or medical cause for this in humans, it seemed to be a metaphor for the man—or a turtle. In 14 months as leader, he has not seemed interested in being in the legislature. Nor does he seem eager to go mano a mano with our hapless conservative premier Doug Ford.

Since it is hardly likely that anyone on the conservative side of the legislature will call for the resignation of Ford, we might wonder why Del Duca is so reluctant. The corporal’s guard of liberals in the legislature is muted by procedures and Del Duca is in loose lock-down in the City of Vaughan.

He reminds me of the old chestnut former prime minister Stephen Harper used to use about his mother wanting him to be an accountant. The punch-line was that he felt he lacked the necessary charisma.

It all seems in defiance of the opinion polls showing the liberals hot on the heels of the provincial Tories. The provincial new democratic party hardly seems to be in the race.

But then, as it has been said before, the provincial conservatives have no concern for the struggles of the NDP.

And frankly, Ford is viewed by the public as incompetent and the pollsters are being fed the ‘anyone but Ford’ line.

But in the 13 months ahead, our turtle of a liberal leader has to shake off his shell and move more determinedly into the spotlight. Ontario citizens are looking forward to a new beginning in the aftermath of the pandemic and that requires new thinking, new ideas, new leadership and new dialogues.

It is sometimes surprising where leadership can come from. It might be a bad idea to write off Steven Del Duca too soon.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

Politicizing the Pandemic.

by Peter Lowry

There is nothing political about the Coronavirus and the pandemic. Each country, in its own manner, has had to deal with the spread of the virus, the sickness and the deaths. Yet it was the politicians, the democratically elected and the dictators, the leaders who showed their stuff. The comparisons were dramatic.

Take China for example, the canary state in our coal mine. The world should have paid more attention to the lock downs, the barriers to travel and the terrible lack of information provided from behind the barricades. Think of the difference if we had understood earlier.

Think of the difference in a country that poses as the heart of democracy such as the United States of America. In the time of the Trump, all we got was denial, ignorance, false info and lethargy. It was an invitation for the deaths of millions. With the arrival of the Biden administration, we saw an America-first attitude for the American-made vaccines.

Great Britain also had locally produced vaccines but also ordered large quantities of other brands in case of production or efficacy problems. That elected leader, so desperately in need of a good barber, did a good job of getting every one to queue up for their shots The Brits are famous for their ability to form an orderly queue.

Canadians, not so much. Our problem was that we had let earlier politicians sell off our vaccine producing company. We had no experienced local supplier. We ordered large quantities from the potential winners—and had no control over their delays in production or export permits.

But Israel also lacked production capabilities. It solved the dilemma by bribing the vaccine supplier—doubling the price. It is too bad Israel’s right-wing leader, who might not last as leader much longer, did not share with his neighbours. It would have helped prevent a war.

The time of the pandemic of covid-19 has become a time of tensions, political unrest and discontent. Change is in the air, everywhere.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

Sex and the soldier.

by Peter Lowry

There was a gritty movie made years ago about Balkan partisans during the Second World War. These partisans were fighters who attacked German patrols and were hunted in turn by the Germans. A key scene was when a female and male partisan were shot by their comrades for taking a time-out for sex when they were supposed to be on guard duty.

I never saw anything like that during my service in the Canadian air force but it was at a time in the 1950s when the RCAF was rebuilding its women’s division. While they were still not offering women a chance to fly at the time, there was a list of trades open to them.

But the ratio of men to women was still as extreme as it is today. In a volunteer military, there are just not enough women joining. And you can well understand the reluctance of the military brass to get involved in the relations between men and women, who are often a long way from home.

I had a couple girl friends from the WDs during my military years. The first gal was a big hit with my mother when I took her to my home in Toronto but the affair waned a bit when she was transferred three provinces away. It was even more strained when she wrote that she was pregnant by some guy at her new base. The hot steamy letters were no longer as tantalizing. After that I was more cautious in relationships among the Women’s Division.

What the brass needs to realize is that being part of the military services rarely constrains the natural urge for sex among men and women. And I would hardly be the only person to object to the solution of the Japanese military in the Second World War, who provided ‘Comfort Women’ to their troops.

But since General Eisenhower reputedly had his bed warmed by his army driver during his time in London during the Second World War, the question always is: Was his superior rank a factor in the relationship?

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

Those pesky preferential ballots.

by Peter Lowry

It is always good to hear from loyal readers. And from some readers who enjoy arguing. One of the frequent arguments is over different types of voting. In more than 4,000 commentaries posted in Babel-on-the-Bay over the past ten years, I get the most comments about this aspect of our Canadian politics. The archived Democracy Papers on voting systems, from 2007, still draw daily interest from countries around the world.

One of my regular readers is true to his home town of London, Ontario. He wrote the other day to tell me, once again, how well preferential voting works for that city.

As much as I like and admire Ontario’s London and have visited the city many times on business, political activities and to see friends, I hardly think the city has had enough experience with preferential voting.

Let me explain a situation where preferential voting at the municipal level would have been a disaster. This is real: We had a situation in the mayoralty race in a city of similar size to London. The candidates included the incumbent mayor, a recently defeated member of the legislature, a previous, likeable mayor, two councillors hoping for a crack at the mayoralty and three other candidates in the ‘also ran’ category. The reality in that race was that nobody had much chance of getting 50 per cent of the vote.

The danger under preferential voting was that the candidate with the most second choice votes would be the winner.

The candidate I was helping was one of the councillors. He lacked the experience of the other four serious contenders. His campaign chair asked me to run the ground game for him. This involved analyzing areas of high turn-out to send the candidate to canvas, selecting polls for canvassers and for literature drops and then recording results for election day action, as well as analyzing the reports.

After a hot summer of canvassing, I knew my candidate would win handily under first-past-the-post rules. He did with 39 per cent of the vote.

But under preferential voting, my candidate might have lost. The former, likeable, mayor would have gathered most of the second-choice votes. If he had run a stronger campaign, under preferential voting, he would have been more of a threat to my candidate.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

Following the money.

by Peter Lowry

You can’t track the money trail to Canadian politicians as easily as you can to American politicians. I finally have a theory on what is driving Jason Kenney in Alberta.

I have kept an eye on Kenney since he first appeared in Ottawa as a member of parliament for Calgary in 1997. He went through the iterations of reform, alliance and finally the conservative party of Canada. As a fat and forty, career politician, at the time, many thought he was gay but my opinion was that he was just dedicated to his profession. It seemed to be coincidental that he disliked women as a life-long misogynist.

When the conservative government was defeated in 2015, I was of the school that thought Kenney was assessing his chances in replacing Harper. When he set out to unite the right in Alberta, I was as surprised as anyone else. When I did not hear of him passing the hat in Calgary’s Petroleum Club. I got curious. I could not see where the money was coming from.

It was not until a few things came together, that I realized there was a logical source. Mr. Kenney was on course with the interests of Koch Industries in Canada. It started with a combination of factors. They try to be low key in Canada but there was the money Koch Industries invested in the Fraser Institute, their reputed million plus acres of Alberta’s oil sands as well pipelines.

Koch Industries are the second biggest oil company in the world. They are not just a New York-based family that pours hundreds of millions every year into extreme right-wing politicians, lobbyists and radical groups such as the Tea Party in the United States. They are also big men on campus in Alberta. They have tar sands to exploit, storage tanks to fill, pipelines and refineries such as the huge Pine Hills Minnesota refinery reachable by those pipelines. They were heavy investors in the Keystone XL pipeline.

It makes me curious when Jason Kenney also invested $1.5 billion of Alberta taxpayers’ money in Keystone XL in addition to guaranteed loans to the pipeline company for another $6 billion. He is obviously not as good at managing a pandemic for Alberta. That seems to be something outside his objectives.

But Koch Industries can buy what it wants. They invested heavily in Donald Trump in the United States, so they would hardly think small when they need political help in Canada. It makes you wonder what they might be promising someone?

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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