Category: New

Reap What You Sow.

by Peter Lowry

Does it come as a surprise that the most serious antisemitic incidents in Canada since the October 7 war was launched in the Middle East, have taken place in Quebec? After all, why should we be surprised in a province that routinely promotes discrimination against people who speak languages other than French? As the kids said in the school yard: “He started it.”

The provincial government of François Legault should not be so surprised. This is a government that routinely uses the ‘Not Withstanding’ clause in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms to try to prevent interference in their discrimination against their English-speaking citizens. And it is not as though it is racial discrimination. English and French speaking peoples are, for the most part, from the same racial origins. Many slurs in both languages have been slung over the English Channel over the centuries of history.

But that is no excuse for the suppression of English in Quebec. It is probably the only jurisdiction with more than eight million population today that does not accept English as the lingua franca of today’s world. The truth be known is that many educated francophones in Quebec want their children to learn English, as it will enable them to have more opportunities in their business career. And come to think of it, what percentage of the members of the Quebec legislature are able to communicate in English?

These are the people who regularly pass laws that limit the availability of English language education in the province. To add insult, they have raised the annual rates for English-speaking students from outside Quebec to attend their English-language universities and colleges to beyond reasonable.

And is our federal government standing up to this discrimination in Quebec. Of course not. The conservatives and the liberals are both thinking of an election in the next two years and are soft-pedaling the objections they might have to this Quebec bigotry. And what else do they have in mind, while they have the feds on the run?

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

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Big Plans: Small Minds.

by Peter Lowry

There must be some amused apparatchiks at the Ontario Legislature. These are the conservative ones in the premier’s office, charged with keeping Doug Ford out of harm’s way. To them, harm’s way is any commitment to give money to the city of Toronto. You tend to think of Toronto as some sort of orphan after Olivia Chow was elected mayor earlier this year. There is no question but former mayor John Tory was treated as the son Doug Ford had never had—treatment such as Chow does not get.

You have to admit that Doug Ford was hardly rooting for Olivia to be the last person standing out of 102 candidates for replacement mayor. The very fact that Ford had agreed to a working group to find funds for Toronto could be the full extent of his being agreeable for this year. In the meantime, Olivia Chow is bicycling herself to work every day at city hall—in high hopes that someone above her pay grade will pay attention to her calls to senior governments for funding.

At her frequent news conferences, Chow takes a positive attitude. Her big plans for Toronto require a big budget. She keeps her hopes alive. While the municipalities are creatures of the province, there is no guarantee that the conservatives consider her pleas to be worthy of their attention. The premier has told her she needs to raise taxes. He wants her to take the blame for the increase.

Did you notice recently in the list the media produced to show which municipalities were meeting their commitments on housing starts that Toronto was well ahead of the game. The province promised municipalities who met their targets would get extra funding. She is well within her rights to demand some of that prize money.

The situation with the federal government is different as it is more of a moral issue. Toronto is the destination that many immigrants want and subsidized housing is the only answer until these immigrants have been established in a job with decent wages. The feds also have people awaiting hearings on their immigrant status that need emergency housing and the city cannot continue to pay their bills.

Quite frankly, Olivia has put herself in a lose-lose position. She might as well increase taxes as well.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

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Trying Trump.

by Peter Lowry

The trial that Donald Trump and his co-defendants are currently undergoing in New York City is not a question of guilt or innocence. The State of New York knows that Trump and the others committed the offence. They know that Trump properties and other assets were overstated in value in a continued effort to deceive banks, lenders and fellow Americans as to the real wealth of Mr. Trump. This trial is seeking an appropriate penalty.

It has been obvious to observers for more than five years that Mr. Trump had a reason to conceal his real wealth. Where former American presidents were willing to release their financial figures, Mr. Trump refused. He lied to Americans. Any thinking person would realize that the only reason to hide the real figures is to cover up the fiction that he is a multi-billionaire. He has no bragging rights to such wealth.

Mr. Trump is a property developer. Regrettably, there is a tendency in that business to over-inflate the value of properties to cover mortgages and loans needed to finance development projects. The truth has never been a Trump ally.

As much as we might want our politicians to tell the truth, Mr. Trump carried this penchant for creative falsehoods with him to the White House. While some people might assume that all politicians lie, the truth is that the voters would prefer that they were not told lies.

Americans have never before seen anything like the final days of Mr. Trump’s time in the White House. It was his time of denial. He denied that he lost in his bid for re-election. He claimed he was cheated. He asked loyal followers to join in insurrection. He instigated the January six attack on the Capitol He took classified documents with him when he had to leave the White House. It was not an orderly transition.

Mr. Trump is still complaining.

Mr. Trump still wants to be president. He is planning to run next year. He is planning to run despite the verdicts of the courts. He is planning to run despite many American Republicans who do not want him to be their candidate. The arguments will continue over the coming year.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

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Communications Constricted.

by Peter Lowry

Ontario premier Doug Ford tends to bluster. Take the recent meeting of the premiers in Nova Scotia, where he claimed that the federal carbon levy was “the worst tax ever.” What he does not seem to know is that it is really not a tax. When people in Ford’s position do not know the difference, there must be a failure in communications.

And it is not just Mr. Ford who is causing confusion. Mr. Poilievre the conservative Leader of the Opposition in parliament keeps urging everyone to axe the tax. And he knows the difference.

Mr. Poilievre’s problem is that he thinks it is more memorable if he says “Axe the tax” instead of “curtail the carbon levy.” What he never mentions is that this levy is distributed to those who can little afford the contribution it makes to inflation. Seniors and people with lower incomes get Climate Action Incentive payments four times each year. There is also a 20 per cent addition to rural Canadians who do not have the advantage of transit systems to save them money.

What confused the issue was the government decision to remove the levy on heating oil for the next three years to give more Canadians the opportunity to convert their heating systems to lower cost heat pumps.

But the problem is that Mr. Poilievre has no other solution. He is certainly hearing of all the problems with global warming and he and other conservatives do not seem to have any answers. In fact, when you stop to think about it, Mr. Poilievre seems to have lots of things he does not like. Yet, he seems to have no solutions for any of them.

The only conclusion to come to in this is that Mr. Poilievre is a very selfish person. His only effort seems to be to please himself. He thinks the prime minister’s job should be given to him. He does not care what Canadians need or want. All he offers them is greed and selfishness. He wants a country with out rules. He wants a country without controls. He promised the ‘Freedom convoy’ of truckers that he would give them a country with the greatest freedom—where they can block city streets or border crossing as they wished. There is no carbon levy on greenhouse emissions in Mr. Poilievre’s plans.

His only problem is that global warming is real. The wildfires are destroying our forests—and their lumber. The floods are destroying our roads and highways. The weather is inconsistent and destroying our farmers crops. Hurricanes and tornadoes are reaching farther with great intensity.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

Boys Will Be Boys.

by Peter Lowry

They are trying to turn the Ontario liberal leadership into a boys-only club. Maybe I was a bit of a wus as a youngster but I always let the girls into our various club houses. And I hardly think that this last-minute deal between Nate Erskine Smith and Yasir Naqvi is going to be anything other than of a passing interest. The only worry is that Bonnie Crombie might note their intransigence when the liberals defeat Doug Ford and she might be reluctant to bring the guys into her cabinet.

All I know is if you get involved in as stupidly arranged a leadership contest as the liberals are running, anything can happen. Copying the conservatives’ style of leadership was a very bad idea. First of all, not all electoral districts are created equal. To give added strength to the few votes from low membership ridings is basically denying liberals who work to have a strong membership their rights to fairly chosen leader.

What Nate and Yasir are trying is the same style of stalking horse deal as Jean Charest and Patrick Brown were attempting in the last conservative leadership. I am not privy to knowing which one of Patrick Brown’s dirty tricks got him kicked out of the conservative race but it certainly cemented Pierre Poilievre’s lock on the leadership. There is a possibility that they kicked Patrick Brown out of that race because they were worried, he might accidently win.

But Bonnie Crombie can be confident of her position as top dog in chasing this liberal rabbit around Ontario. If I provided a morning line for this Liberal race, all I would be doing is restating the obvious. My reading across Ontario says that Bonnie Crombie is ready to do the job of liberal leader.

What concerns me are the next steps. To build the liberal party for the next provincial election requires her presence in the legislature. It was tragic for the liberals last election when the liberal party leader had never had a chance to show his stuff mano a mano against Doug Ford.

And I am a left-wing liberal who has always been delighted to take donations to the party from developers. Our democracy is important to everybody. And I don’t think anybody who thinks they can buy you will respect you.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

The Brass of Brassard.

by Peter Lowry

The city of Barrie, that sits in the middle of Ontario, has two conservative members of parliament. One of the two is Barrie-Innisfil MP John Brassard. He told the local Internet newspaper the other day how pleased he was to vote in parliament for a conservative motion to eliminate the carbon tax for all home heating fuels.

Mr. Brassard claimed that by defeating the conservative motion, the liberals were condemning seniors and young people to a life of misery because they would bear the brunt of increased costs to heat their homes this coming winter. And that tells me that Mr. Brassard is deliberately lying to his constituents.

What he is neglecting to mention is that the levy on carbon-based polluting fuels is considered the most effective method to encourage Canadians to opt for renewable fuels such as electricity. Nobody suffers unduly from the carbon tax as it is not really a tax. This is because the Carbon Tax goes back to the seniors and lower income earners in the form of Climate Action Incentive payments. There is now a twenty per cent top up in payments to rural households because of their increased fuel costs and lack of public transit alternatives.

Nobody expects Canadians to make the change to lower emissions of Greenhouse gasses overnight. That is the reason that the carbon tax increases gradually over time.

Even with the gradual growth in the levy, there was some imbalances in the system because not everybody can switch to non-polluting fuels as quickly as they want. Home heating with oil proved to be a special problem. This is already an expensive way to heat a home and there were price barriers for many to move to systems, such as heat pumps, to replace the heavy pollution of oil heating.

When this became obvious, the government declared a moratorium on the heating oil part of the plan for three years so that more aggressive programs by both the federal and provincial governments can lower the cost of conversion for lower income Canadians. In some provinces now, the combined federal and provincial support programs can provide free heat pump conversion for low-income Canadians.

The point of this is that, good or bad, the carbon tax is a method of getting Canadians to convert to lower greenhouse gas solutions. It is less than helpful for people with no solution to climate change to tell us to ‘axe the tax.’

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

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A People Place.

by Peter Lowry

When premier Bill Davis opened Ontario Place in 1971, he noted that it was “A stimulating and permanent symbol of the work and achievement of the people of Ontario.” Today, it sits fenced off and forlorn on Toronto’s lakefront, a nostalgic memory for those of us who were raising young families in Toronto during the late 1900s.

Closed for the last decade, Ontario Place has been the subject of much political hemming and hawing. It was not until the ignorant Doug Ford moved into the premier’s office at Queen’s Park that the set-backs started. It seems some European company wants to build a luxury spa on the west end of the artificial islands on which Ontario Place sits. Always mindful of the need for profit, Ford cheerfully sold off a piece of Ontario’s heritage. And it is all downhill from there.

On the premier’s behalf, we should note that he is not very smart and not exactly cognizant of the responsibilities of his office to the people of the province. Somebody must have told him he made a boo-boo. He hastened to try to rectify his error by offering to move the much-valued Ontario Science Centre to share the Ontario Place space with the European spa. Since the spa left a space on the islands of about one-third the size of the present Science Centre, this idea has met with little to no enthusiasm.

These islands are very much like the Navy Pier in Chicago. With more than 100 years of history behind it, nobody visiting the Windy City wants to miss spending some time seeing the ever-changing entertainments of the pier today. And it is the range of activities that make the pier a continual success.

In its good times, Ontario Place attracted crowds to the live shows in the forum and the IMAX films in the Cinesphere. The seven-storey high geodesic dome was a distinctive part of the Ontario Place when you were looking south from Lakeshore Boulevard or the Canadian National Exhibition grounds.

I have always been disappointed by the politicians who are unable to recognize the potential of this people place. It needs imaginative and daring management. It needs to keep up with its Toronto market’s interests, for both young and old.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

Leadership in Lethargy.

by Peter Lowry

The wise writer in these days is wary of certain subjects. They are subjects that offer no wins. It is when, no matter what you say, somebody is convinced you are wrong. Good examples of this are about children and gender selection and our schools. I jump into the fray reluctantly only because that Looney-Tunes premier of Alberta has once again embarrassed her province. She has assured the horse’s asses who are the extreme right-wing members of her United Conservative Party (UCP) who want ignorance to prevail about children and gender in Alberta schools.  

It seems also to be appropriate to respond to the assertion that parent’s rights are being pushed aside by us on “the dangerous of the left which caters to the loud minority in this province and country” as claimed by one delegate. There are no more dangerous topics than parental rights and gender selection. And that topic topped the list of resolutions past by the UCP gathering.

Little kids like to play in mud and there is no muddier topic. There is also the point that few are the little girls who have not wished at one time or another that they were born a boy. And visa-versa for little boys. And there are very, very few times in which that thinking becomes serious.

What the teacher has to consider is that some youngsters also like to act out. They will sometimes make outrageous claims that are not in their best interest. There, we parents have to rely on the teacher’s judgement as to whether or not the situation needs or could be helped by the involvement of the parents.

Children go to school to learn more than their ABCs. They are learning about themselves and their classmates. They are learning about their teachers. And they do tend to brag. It reminds me of the time our daughter’s grade one or two teacher smiled and casually told the wife that our daughter had told the class that her mother goes to downtown hotels with lots of men. The wife looked at her and said, “Well, that’s true.” She paused for effect. And then added: “I sing with a 22-piece orchestra.”

But the sad note in all of this is that Danielle Smith and the ‘Take Back Alberta’ crazies passed extremist resolutions at the UCP meeting that should embarrass any thinking Albertan. Alberta does not deserve the bad press this gets across Canada.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

Poilievre’s Poison Persists.

by Peter Lowry

Another two years of conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s poisonous attitude in the House of Commons and there could be a lynching rather than an election. The only thing we do not know is who would bear the brunt of all the vehemence and who would need to be ferried across the Styx. Canadians would be fooling themselves to consider any of the party leaders worthy of election as prime minister. But we are faced with stark decisions and we need to be sure just what we want.

A big part of the problem is prime minister Justin Trudeau. His weaknesses as a leader and failings in office are there for all to see. The one thing you can say for him is that his intentions are honourable. He has embarrassed us. He is only human. He tried hard at leading us through the pandemic and deserves a few ‘attaboys’ for his news conferences in front of Rideau Cottage. He lacked the maturity in international relations to do a very effective job in that area.

There are many differences with Trudeau’s main opponent, conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. This is an interesting trade-off. Pierre Poilievre came east from Calgary to find an electoral district where his French name was not a problem. He found it on the outskirts of Ottawa. The closest Poilievre has ever come in life to a real job is being a member of parliament.

But as an MP, Poilievre is bringing the House of Commons into disrepute. He encourages the hurling of insults and slurs across the Commons. He makes it difficult for the liberals and other parties to maintain a sense of decorum.

Instead of offering the House the responsible criticism of an opposition party, Poilievre’s people devote their time to insults and lies about government programs. While they might call for parliament to “axe the tax,” they have no alternative proposal for Canadians to slow global warming, by modifying Canada’s high level of greenhouse gas emissions.

The problem Canadians are facing is that within the next two years, we will have a federal election. None of the smaller parties in the House are offering any leadership possibilities either. It leaves us with the choice of the limited qualities of Justin Trudeau and the meanness of Pierre Poilievre.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]

Warnings on Wars.

by Peter Lowry

We need to smarten up. Foreign wars do not belong on Canadian streets. Thankfully those Canadians of Russian heritage, as a group, are not fond of Russian President Vladimir Putin. They don’t like his war on the Ukraine. And they undoubtedly realize how they are outnumbered in Canada by the Canadians of Ukrainian heritage. It leaves our government free to aid Ukraine in its valiant effort to ward off Putin’s army.

But we are not as lucky with the Middle East. With the increased immigration of followers of Islam, today, they outnumber Jewish Canadians by about three to one. Luckily the Jewish population is more integrated with those of European origin and they have been known to fight well over their weight class. While a few of the foolish among us might act on their sick antisemitism, I would strongly advise against it.

And the those who want to parade in support of the Palestinians of Gaza would be far wiser to make a donation to the Red Crescent. While not to disparage the efforts of the United Nations in Gaza, the Red Crescent are on the ground and are trying to do the humanitarian job. (I am sure that the Red Cross in Canada is a reliable conduit for donations to the Red Crescent.)

Those who are proud of their parading around Nathan Phillips Square or in front of the American consulate on University Avenue in Toronto in support of Hamas don’t realize the problems they are creating for their fellow emigres. The thing is that the only times you want to gather in large numbers in Nathan Phillips Square are for entertainments, winning sports teams and when the Toronto Maple Leaf team is on the ice rink.

One of the main concerns is for those Middle East immigrants who continue to wear the traditional garments of the desert. As an idiosyncrasy, a fashion statement or a financial necessity, this traditional garb is a label that is not in fashion in Canada at this time.

It might attract some unwanted attention when tempers are inflamed about the tactics of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah. All who come to Canada for sanctuary, should feel safe. We live together in peace.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]