Category: New

Confusing Conservatives.

by Peter Lowry

It is hard to compare the conservatives in opposition in Ottawa and the conservatives in power at Queen’s Park for Ontario. The main difference must be the anger in opposition and the arrogance in power. In neither case does it speak well for the conservative party of Canada or its provincial fledglings.

Take the Ontario situation. Please. Talking to an Ontario liberal the other day, I asked him who he liked in the current leadership race for that party. He gave the following answer: “I’ll go with whomever sends a shiver down the fat boy’s spine.”

This liberal should not worry Doug Ford as much as active Ontario conservatives who are deeply embarrassed by the chicanery and dishonesty of the Ford administration. They will turn their backs on Medicare and let him make profits for specialized clinics but they are not pleased with his catering to dishonest developers. Conservatives understand the purpose of the Greenbelt and are hardly pleased with Ford’s self-serving mishandling of that portfolio.

Mind you, if you listen long to federal conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, you would swear that conservatism is headed for Hell in a handbasket. Mr. Poilievre is not only a mean and vicious little man, but he knows of no difference between a truth or a lie.

Poilievre is a classic failure of a politician. He has one only person he wants to please: himself. He has no empathy or caring for people. He wants to inflict a dystopian form of conservatism on our country. He wants a country that does not care about its people. He wants a dog-eat-dog capitalism.

This Ottawa cowboy only seems to understand libertarianism. He does not want a future for our country. He seems to see only the pleasures of the day. He cares nothing for the problems with the environment. He might think of himself as a conservative but he has no understanding of what is worth conserving. He hardly wants a better country for all, he wants a better country for him and those who choose to follow him.

It might be hard to choose between Justin Trudeau and his elitism over the sad plan-less Pierre Poilievre. You will get to decide soon. We can put up with Justin Trudeau. You would hate the alternative with Pierre Poilievre.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

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Singh’s Song.

by Peter Lowry

New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh’s turbans might be bright and colorful but his beard is graying. It is also showing a little more trimming, in contravention of the dictates of the tenth Sikh Guru. Canadians might never choose the NDP for governance under an observant Sikh but they are more than willing to see him as the balance point between the harshness of the conservatives and their tiring with the acting of liberal leader Justin Trudeau.

Even without his glasses, Pierre Poilievre can see the tenuous nature of the liberal- NDP agreement that is supporting the current government. He enjoys sniping at their arrangement. He is in a constant state of readiness for the slug-fest to come.

But like Canada’s aboriginal peoples, the NDP also have their stories to be told. The NDP support works, they can say. “We are holding the liberal feet to the fire.” They will tell you: “We are getting things done.” And that is the song they will sing to their voters.

Poilievre, of course is there to try to convince voters that the NDP are just liberals with different hats. He is trying to redirect some of the rage, that he has been laying so heavily on the liberal doorstep, on the NDP. Whether this is going to work or not is open to question.

Thinking back over the years, we saw an NDP support agreement with the Pierre Trudeau liberals in the 1970s. The federal NDP leader, at the time was David Lewis and his party never won any dividends on that investment. In the same era, Ontario provincial NDP leader, Bob Rae, did benefit from his party’s support agreement with the Peterson liberals in the last half of the 1980s. That was in the 1990 provincial election when Peterson slipped and slid into oblivion leaving a surprised NDP in power in Ontario.

Yet, the question is, will the NDP story be heard, in the ongoing bombast of a federal election fought between a weasel like Poilievre and an elitist like our current prime minister? It could be that the new democrats will, once more, be the detritus left on the battlefield between the two larger political parties.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

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Time To Go Justin Trudeau.

by Peter Lowry

Your sunny days are done, Justin. And few voters want to watch you being defeated by the Ottawa cowboy, Pierre Poilievre. We hear that your effort to provide Alberta with a pipeline for its tar sands product over the Rockies has now become a $30 billion plus disaster for our country.

You have spilled those billions down the Rockies to Burrard Inlet. Even the BC tribes who bought into the pipeline promises to cross their tribal lands, are now questioning their support. And even in a country as rich as Canada, we cannot accept these losses.

And why is your chief critic, conservative leader Poilievre, saying nothing about the failed expansion of the pipeline? Did you build it for the Ottawa cowboy? Will he be there when the first ceremonial barrels of tar sand’s gunk flow through the expanded high-pressure pipeline? Will Poilievre take the bows for you when the first ocean going tanker is loaded with bitumen in Burrard Inlet? Will he take any of the blame when the first ocean tanker spills bitumen into the summer playground of the Orcas in the Strait of Georgia?

The Ottawa cowboy was not as prominent when you bought Trans Mountain five years ago. It only cost taxpayers $4.5 billion at that time. We should not forget that the original pipeline has been in service now for 71 years. And you are going to triple the pressure in those rusty old pipes. And the taxpayer’s final bill for the expanded pipeline is going to be north of $30 billion.

I certainly admire your trust, Justin. I do hope the engineers who planned the increase in pressure through the pipeline for you are still around. You might find you want to get our money back from them that you paid for their opinions. And please do not suggest that the aboriginals buy the whole mess. We would certainly like to see more of the tribes be entrepreneurial but we can ill afford to see the ones who buy into Trans Mountain pipeline, be bankrupted.

We have heard from the Ottawa cowboy about your supposed generosity during the pandemic. We have heard from him about your supposedly taking of Canadian news from the Meta people. Why is he so silent about more than $30 billion?

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

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Let Me Entertain You.

by Peter Lowry

Listening to Mississauga mayor Bonnie Crombie the other day was a surprise political event. It was the first time I had seen her give a speech to an audience. She was working without notes and she had that audience of liberals in the palm of her hand. This lady is an entertainer.

And her audience of Barrie, Ontario liberals loved her. It was the largest gathering of liberals I had seen in one place in Barrie in the last eight years. Ms. Crombie reminded me of the Cinderella character who greets visitors at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. That was probably because she worked in communications with the Disney Company at one time while she was married. That Disney experience is golden.

But she also reminded me of the late Bill Davis. The former conservative premier was a politician who could hold an audience with charm and humour. Since the time of J.J.  (Joe) Greene, who was prime minister Lester Pearson’s Minister of Agriculture, from Renfrew, Ontario, we have seen few liberal politicians who can enthrall an audience. Bonnie Crombie might just be one of those elite.

Bonnie had a simple message: The Ontario liberals are back. People are proud to be liberal again. She is particularly reaching out to all the small towns in Ontario, telling them that they no longer need to feel isolated and neglected by liberals. It was a very smart pitch as the liberal backroom boys and girls on the executive of the party had decided that all electoral districts are created equal and each would only have 100 votes no matter what their real membership might be. That means that a rural riding with a few liberal diehards could have 10 to 20 times the voting strength of a liberal in a riding with a thousand or more members.

It was also impressive that Ms. Crombie wasted little of her time on the incumbent conservative government. Her comments on the way the conservative government is trying to fix our healthcare were amusing and very much to the point. She has no good words for their opening up clinics that are hoping to make money with their additions to Medicare costs.

I can see now why my old friend Hazel McCallion endorsed Bonnie Crombie to replace her in the mayor’s chair in Mississauga. This lady has the skills.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

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No Rest for the Wicked.

by Peter Lowry

No, premier Ford, the Greenbelt fiasco is not going away. Firing Ryan Amato was just the first of many steps back you need to take. Not that you hurt his feelings by saying he was fired. He was probably the recipient of some unexplained miscellaneous funds from the premier’s office, in addition to the legal severance pay. You also opened broad avenues of lucrative employment for Amato in the housing industry in Ontario.

It was premier Ford himself who blew it. He blotted his copybook the first time we heard through the news media that he was having meetings with developers about Greenbelt lands. He was like the deer in the headlights.

“Oh no,” Ford said. “I love the Greenbelt. I will protect the Greenbelt.”

Premier Doug Ford lied.

And the Ontario provincial police have kicked the can on this case down the road to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Did you think for a minute that our politicized OPP would want to take on that can of worms? Anybody who had seriously watched commissioner Thomas Carrique at the inquiry into the Ottawa convoy could guess the servile position he held for the Ford government.

The news media in Ontario are holding on to their demands for the resignation of Ford’s housing minister, Steve Clark. He is hardly the first cabinet minister in Ontario history that claimed to be unaware of what his chief of staff was doing. Proving Steve Clark’s hypocrisy is low hanging fruit when the real target should be Doug Ford.

There are 79 other conservatives in the Ontario legislature and they all appreciate their well-paying jobs. Many of them will freely admit that it was Doug Ford who won those jobs for them. And they will continue to support Doug Ford until there has to be an election. The likelihood at that election is that there will be a surprising number of early retirements.

Even conservatives can have a conscience. And voters can have long memories.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

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Ford Fails Fallacious.

by Peter Lowry

He cannot win his Greenbelt argument and he doesn’t know when to shut up. Every time the Ontario premier opens his mouth in public, he sticks a foot in his mouth. Mind you, what we are hearing from him is grade school sophistry. He can hardly tell us that the only available land for building on in southern Ontario is in the Greenbelt. And he is embarrassing himself when he sticks to his lie.

The basic problem is that Doug Ford has never had any mentoring in politics. His late brother Rob tried to instil some political savvy in Doug when they were both in city hall in Toronto. The problem was that Rob was self medicating on crack cocaine at the time, and leaving his brother to the sycophants among the lawyers and other builders’ representatives.

Ontario is not going to have a housing problem because we don’t want to build in the Greenbelt. We have a housing problem now. Toronto has been trying to build more infill for the past 40 years and has been battled to a stand-still by the NIMBY’s and their over-paid councillors.

What people don’t seem to understand in Toronto is that if you want a world-class city, you damn well have to pay for it. And they had John Tory holding the line for them for the past nine years. John Tory was a pretty damn good mayor, for a conservative. He was living in the past. He did not build any future. Ask me of his legacy and I will try not to laugh too much.

And let me remind you: A world-class city does not have people living in their parks and on their streets. And remember that a panhandler is just a lost boy who is looking for his Peter Pan and Wendy.

I will try to remember that Toronto’s major problem these days is that asshole at Queen’s Park. Doug Ford should have grown up in my part of York Township instead of down in Etobicoke—both integral parts of the Toronto of today. I thought my family was coming up in the world when we moved in 1946 from Sherbourne and Wellesley to north of the stockyards. It was a world that Doug Ford never knew existed. All the homes on streets around ours had their basements finished first so that people could have a place to live while the rest of the house was finished.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

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Ford’s Fall Guy.

by Peter Lowry

In the time-honoured tradition of sleazy politics, Ryan Amato, who, until the turfing, was chief of staff to the Ontario housing minister, got turfed out the back door at Queen’s Park the other day. I would suggest though, you save your tears for his supposed disgrace. He obviously got the golden handshake. He might also have got some hush money. Ryan Amato might have a book he could write or some more interesting interviews. Yet he has proved to be a stand-up guy. He can also take his time in picking just the right job in Ontario’s home building industry.

Which one of the companies, who want to build homes in the Greenbelt, will make Amato the best offer? Don’t forget folks, this guy knows the premier and the minister of housing’s phone numbers. Amato will have two years to ingratiate himself to his new masters. Even when Ford is no longer in Queen’s Park, Amato has the key to behind the scenes in the ministry of housing. The pay off at Queen’s Park might be healthy but the payoff over the next two years will set the boy up for a life of luxury.

It was Bonnie Lysyk’s report on the $8.28 billion deal for Greenbelt land that led to Amato’s resignation. And unless Doug Ford feels some easing in the complaints, his municipal affairs and housing minister Steve Clark will be the next head on the chopping block.

The only problem is that Clark is a member of the legislature and would be expected to sit with the other outcasts in the corner of the legislature. He would, of course be expected to return to the cabinet when the dust of the Greenbelt fiasco settles.

What you cannot expect is for Ford to resign. He insists that the buck stops at his desk but like any school-yard bully, he only talks the talk. He doesn’t walk the walk. Ford will be there for the 2026 provincial election. The Greenbelt will still be the main topic despite all attempts by Ford to change the dialogue. Some things, politicians cannot survive.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

It Isn’t Intelligent.

by Peter Lowry

It was confusing the other day when the Toronto Star ran an opinion piece about artificial intelligence being discriminatory for black people. It was not until you read some of the story that it was clear that the article was about computer programs for facial recognition. This is not as much about artificial intelligence as it is about the world’s peoples, their languages and their facial characteristics.

Back in the 1970s there were many serious programs going on at universities aided by computer companies to facilitate language translation. The computer company I worked for in Mississauga at the time, became something of a clearing house for exchanging thoughts and solutions on many of these problems. In many ways the work played into your sense of humour. To make a correct translation required that you not only programmed in the meanings of words but how they were expressed in the other language’s cultural and logical thought process.

This thinking came in handy when two of my brothers and I started up a company to combine our computer-related experience. As I was the least technical of the brothers, I got the job of running the company.

One of our first projects was to work with the Metropolitan Toronto Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to find a way to computerize the millions of photographs of people who had been photographed by one of our police forces. We quickly found that developing the programs necessary would require millions of dollars. Not having that kind of funding, we moved on to other projects.

One of the realities of facial recognition is the same as in language translation. Different racial characteristics are more complicated than the world’s languages. And people of mixed racial background are sometimes in a class by themselves. You actually need to determine the predominant racial characteristics before allocating the individual to a particular database.

I can well appreciate the problems with the black racial characteristics but the range of characteristics is as broad for the Asiatic.

The only places I know that are trying to upgrade their facial recognition are Ontario’s casinos. Back during the pandemic when the casinos were still open, you were smart to wear a mask. They asked you to stop on the way in and lower your mask so they could get a clear picture. They have some shots of me with my bare face and a middle finger raised. Who do they think they are kidding?

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

Danielle Smith Selects.

by Peter Lowry

If you were wondering who else might support the Ottawa cowboy, Pierre Poilievre, as leader of the federal conservatives, you can certainly add the Wicked Witch of the West, Alberta premier Danielle Smith, to your list.  She is no Doug Ford. The Ontario premier seems a little lukewarm on the Ottawa cowboy and he is definitely on Team Trudeau when it comes to the new energy plan for electrical systems across Canada. 

The Ontario conservative solution to energy for the future is nuclear. There was a short term there when the Ontario conservatives were headed for increased use of natural gas. After the outcry to the natural gas solution, they found that the nuclear option was the best long-term and economic answer. And it was not causing mother nature to fight back. It is an answer that nobody really likes but it works.

While the Ottawa cowboy scoffs at anything proposed by the Trudeau government, he has no solutions either. It seems a bit tragic that Poilievre’s party can raise more funds than the liberals when the conservatives have no solutions to climate change, housing or inflation. It is as though the dumbest among us, don’t know what else to do with their money.

The wicked witch and her friends should listen to themselves sometime. Instead of cutting back on the emissions of greenhouse gas, their solution is to promise improved carbon capture. The one problem with carbon capture is that it can never reach 100 per cent, it becomes much more expensive when the carbon has to be trucked or transmitted by pipeline to a storage site. And carbon capture does not apply when the final oil product is used. That is when the most greenhouse gasses are emitted.

Where Danielle Smith and Pierre Poilievre fail Canadians and particularly Albertans, is they have no direction beyond non-renewable resources. They want to continue to rape our environment. Smith recently put a moratorium on wind and sunlight electrical generation in Alberta, out of pique or anger at Ottawa setting those environmental goals on electrical generation. Luckily, provinces such as Ontario and Quebec can meet those targets and are well ahead of the challenge.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

A Tip Too Far.

by Peter Lowry

The growing arguments about the practice of tipping for service deserve some decent airing. Having experienced the attitude towards tipping in Japan, I admit that I would be happy to see it banned in North America. It is demeaning to the people receiving the gratuity as it is for the person paying for it.

I think most of us in Ontario are caught off guard enough when we forget the 13.5 per cent Harmonized Sales Tax that is being added to our bill. If you want us to add another 15 or 20 per cent to that, you are just being generous with our money. And the very idea of raising tipping to 30 per cent is ridiculous.

The practice of tipping for service was corrupted a long time ago by the practice of pooling them so not only the wait staff shared them but the cooks, maître d’, busboys and dishwashers all came into a portion. Casinos get into the action with the tip boxes at table games that are shared with all casino staff. And why we tip people delivering food or anything else to our home is beyond me?

What this practice tells us is that these people are not paid adequately by their employers and we, the customer, are expected to supplement their income. Why? That seems like a precarious way for these people to live. And it gets them in trouble with the tax people when they skim off too much so as to not pay their full tax load.

What gets me annoyed with the practice is when a company adds a tip automatically. And when annoyed enough, I have been known to demand a company reverse that tip. A good example of this was the other day when the wife and I felt like some Swiss Chalet chicken for supper and we stopped on the way home to pick up dinner. As a hangover from Covid rules, they did not want you to wait inside for your order. They asked us to wait at one of their numbered signs outside. An employee brought us our order. It was when I looked at the detailed copy of the bill later, that I noticed we had been charged $4.49 for a tip for the employee who had brought out the food. That just annoyed me.  

Ontario would be very smart to phase out tipping whether the rest of the country did or not. It would be a novelty for North America and a shot in the arm for the province’s tourism, convention and hospitality industry.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]