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Jack Layton: ‘The Ordinary Man’

August 24, 2011 by Peter Lowry

If you and I should chance to meet,
I guess you wouldn’t care;
I’m sure you’d pass me in the street
As if I wasn’t there;
You’d never look me in the face,
My modest mug to scan,
Because I’m just a commonplace
And Ordinary Man.

Robert William Service

Jack Layton’s secret weapon in the May 2 federal election was that he was Jack. Jack was an ordinary man. He was a Quebec anglo from Hudson but Jack was alright with ordinary Quebeckers. He was also alright with ordinary voters across Canada. For he was Jack.

Jack Layton’s party could not win the federal election but he took second prize with obvious delight. He earned it. The fates then conspired to rip that prize from his weakening hands.

Americans would see it as Jack being Mr. Smith, the ordinary man storming the gates of Congress. In Canada, he was that quiet guy from down the street who was there to help his neighbours. The reality was that in the 2011 election he was every professional campaign manager’s dream, the perfect candidate: who could only do as he was told.

It will be extremely difficult to replace the mix that was Jack. Here was a political science professor talking the talk of the ordinary man. Here was a municipal pothole fixer discussing federal government issues. Here is that regular Joe, married to a Chinese-Canadian lady who is also a Member of Parliament.

Jack was one of the toughest opponents you could ever face in an election campaign simply because he could look so innocent. There was a very telling camera shot of Jack in the English-language television debate with the other leaders last April. The camera angle was high and it looked as though he was looking up at Prime Minister Harper with a slight smile on his face. It was the kind of smile that on a politician says somebody is going to get nailed. Surprisingly it was not Harper but Michael Ignatieff Jack went after. It was an attack on Michael’s attendance in the House of Commons that Jack knew was a cheap shot.

The willingness Jack showed in doing that told us he was not running his own campaign. He had to agree with his team that he could not beat Harper but he could beat Ignatieff. The fact that Michael Ignatieff did not respond told insiders even more.

Jack’s only problem was his party. His illness shielded him from the worst attacks of his political enemies. His illness meant props were used to help him through the ardour of the campaign. It kept him free of the minutia demands of the party and its candidates. And the strategy worked.

Canada will miss Jack Layton. The New Democratic Party will miss him much more. Without that ordinary man perspective, the party will slide back to its third party status. Even when the Liberal Party moves more convincingly to the political left, there is little likelihood of a merger of the parties. Jack Layton never seemed to want to preach the collectivism that the NDP represents. It was because he was unique. He was the ordinary man.

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

George Orwell shows the way.

August 23, 2011 by Peter Lowry

Prime Minister Harper is going to fill his new prisons one way or another. And, if he has to borrow a page or two from Orwell’s 1984, he just might do it. He has already started. If you have read George Orwell, you know that Big Brother loves you and will look after you. He will rewrite history for you. He will watch you and have all your neighbours watching you.

Mr. Harper’s government has already published pictures of people so that their neighbours can report them. Harper’s Cabinet minions have been quite pleased with the results. They immediately expanded their ‘most wanted’ postings from international criminals to people who might be in the country illegally. You just have to start with people it is easy to hate. The Tories will quickly find they can target child pornographers and sex perverts. They could include oil company executives charged with price fixing. With luck these people would be picked up by the R.C.M. Police before our usually mild mannered citizens lynch them.

The government will go on to expand their searches. Eventually they will find out about that parking ticket you forgot to pay. Your own children will report you to the police for that infraction.

This is how Big Brother operates. He starts slowly. He gets you agreeing with him. It becomes insidious. When he has you up doing callisthenics in front of a webcam on the television every morning, it will be too late.

There is no question that Big Brother wants you to think right. He wants you to be right. He wants you to be just like him. He wants you to love him.

We can all join the principal character at the end of Orwell’s 1984 and say it in unison: “I love Big Brother!”

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

‘The Middle Cannot Hold.’

August 22, 2011 by Peter Lowry

In his American Empire Series of alternative histories, American author Harry Turtledove used the title, The Middle Cannot Hold. It also serves as a title for a discussion of the Liberal Party of Canada and why it cannot continue as a pseudo centrist political party. The simple reason is that there is no middle. The only clear direction for the Liberal Party is to the left of centre.

And left of centre is very comfortable ground for real liberals. It is the only ground for people who believe in the rights of the individual in our society. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the legacy Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau left to Canadians, is the essence of that liberalism.

Individual rights have always been the keystone of liberalism. And the status quo is anathema. Humans are on this earth in a window of time. No person can forecast the length of that window or the opportunities that will be offered. Only liberalism offers the visitor the unfettered opportunity to experience and to achieve

The defence of individual rights by the Liberal Party is what has attracted millions of Canadians to the liberal banner for more than 100 years. It is why women in our society know their rights are always protected by liberalism. The party is a party respected by minorities because it protects individual rights.

Liberalism is in contrast to other parties. On the right is conservatism which is based on the past. In preserving the past and the status quo, conservatism resists change or reform and puts property and privilege ahead of individual rights. Further to the left of liberalism are the socialist parties who see humans as collectives. It is within these collectives, they seek strength with numbers.

Today, liberals must take back their party. A renewed liberalism must come from the party roots. Electoral districts must show the way. A new leader must be chosen by the party, to serve at the pleasure of the party. The party executive must be chosen to serve the party. The policy of the party must be determined and articulated by the party members. Party candidates must be chosen by each electoral district. Nobody outside the electoral district has the right to determine that district’s candidate.

To deny this basic right is to deny liberalism. Nobody can lead a democratic party unless they support and encourage democracy within the party. That must be the basic qualification for any potential leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.

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

The choice in Ontario on October 6.

August 21, 2011 by Peter Lowry

It is hard to imagine voting in the October six election in Ontario for anyone other than the Liberal candidate. It is not a happy vote. It is more along the lines of a defensive action. Have you looked at the alternatives to McGuinty?

Hudak and friends simply cannot be allowed to happen. The Conservative leader and candidates such as the one running for that party in Babel would be a disaster for the province. And why would Babel voters want another nebbish like their federal MP?

“But what about Horwath?” is the question. The answer is that just because she is the only leader with a personality hardly makes her and her party an option. Any business person who tried to work with the Bob Rae NDP government back in the 1990s would remember how awful an experience that was. You had to deal with cabinet ministers who had no concept of the job required from them and their advisers who seemed to be chosen for their equal level of ignorance. This is no time for another amateur hour.

That is the only thing Premier McGuinty has got going for him: incumbency. If he could ever get his priorities right, he could make a fair to middling premier. He is in nothing but trouble on his healthcare file. Deb Mathews, as Health Minister, has been covering well but nobody can possibly juggle all those problems for too long. When she misses one of those balls, there is no telling where it will land.

One of the least understood problems with healthcare is the discrimination doctors are practicing against seniors. Throughout the province, seniors are learning that they can no longer choose their doctor and they will be lucky to find one who will be concerned about their health needs. And they have every right to feel angry about it.

The energy file in Ontario seems more like a ponzi scheme than an honest attempt to promote renewable energy. How long can we pay 60 cents per kilowatt hour for energy we resell for about 10 cents per kilowatt hour? No wonder Samsung loves us and will build four new wind and solar energy plants for Ontario.

All-day kindergarten is wonderful program for children. It is the timing that sucks! Who said we can afford it?

This is one of those times that we have to admit that the cure for McGuinty is worse than the disease. We have no choice on October six.

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

The hollowness of political promises.

August 18, 2011 by Peter Lowry

You have to love political promises. They cost the person promising them nothing. They are only creative when the voters do not recognize instantly that they are being bribed with their own money. Take the recent promise by Ontario Premier Dalton McGinty to make GO Transit give you your money back if your commuter train is late. It was a brilliant offer.

The offer was also meaningless. It played to a demographic in which McGinty is neither warmly nor overwhelmingly approved. Suburban commuters using GO trains tend to be upscale in income, small-C conservative if they have a political leaning and are not overly interested in the political scene. Almost all have families waiting for them when they get home and if only four per cent of their trips are delayed, that is too many.

These commuters are going to see the money-back guarantee as their right and you would have a hard time getting them to understand that it is a false promise. First of all, the exceptions covered in the small print are going to mean very few of these refunds will ever be made. There might also be a tendency among GO employees to see if they can blame one of the exceptions before paying. And even if you do get your money back a few times, the increased expense for GO will be paid with higher fares.

The people unhappy with this election promise are GO executives who recognize that this offer will be a pain in the ass rather than good customer relations. Since they work for the politicians, they know to keep their thoughts on this to themselves.

The only other people who might be displeased are New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath and Conservative Leader Tim Hudak. They will be glaring at their staff people who are supposed to be coming up with these ideas and asking why McGinty got there first. If they come back at McGinty with promises of giving double the cash back, the GO Transit execs will really start to worry.

McGinty can claim that the point he was making is that GO Transit is much better than the old Canadian National Railways passenger service. We always used to consider CN to be on time if it arrived on the right day.

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

Forget the London Olympics.

August 17, 2011 by Peter Lowry

Are you headed to London next year? It is a city rich with the depths of its endless past. The Olympics in London will be particularly exciting. Too bad the Brits are going to kill the enjoyment. After the recent riots in England, Prime Minister David Cameron wants to turn the country into a police state. He intends to get his revenge on those rioting hoodlums and savage Britain’s tradition of human rights in the process.

Just like his fellow Conservative Prime Minister, Canada’s Stephen Harper, Cameron would rather spend a pound on maximum security prisons than give ten pence to a community support group. He and his fellow travellers are dominating the tely across the United Kingdom, spewing hate for the dark and disadvantaged of their society. It might have been a bit of a lark for some of those buckos but the Conservatives will make them—and everyone else–pay and pay.

The man in the middle on this is Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister in Britain’s Coalition Government. After losing his bid for a form of proportional representation in the recent referendum, Clegg is hard to read on this issue. While he claims his Liberal Democrats are centre left politically, he has not been as firm on individual rights as he might. While quick on the scene to look at the Tottenham damage, Clegg made no statements that would affront either the right-wing ‘hang-em-high’ voters seeking retribution or the human rights activist who would want to address the cause of the riots.

That was left for the Prime Minister. And he made a right good job of it, to! Cameron wasted no time in making it clear that the youth of offenders or other factors were not to be considered. He wants the courts to be harsh on those charged and they are certainly passing stiff sentences. What Britain’s need to fear is what draconian laws will the coalition present to the House of Commons.

The Brits are very concerned that tourism will suffer around the Olympics and that the expense of the event will not be recovered. If security needs for the Olympics gives the disadvantaged in British society an opportunity to run amuck, the country ends up with a black eye. At the same time, the image of a heavily armed constable at every street corner is not about to attract many North American tourists either

It makes for an interesting conundrum for Cameron’s Conservatives. It makes an even more interesting challenge for Clegg and his Liberal Democrats.

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

Harper heads for the past.

August 16, 2011 by Peter Lowry

It was 44 years ago, on an Air Canada flight to Toronto from Ottawa, Group Captain Bill Lee, sitting in the adjacent seat, explained his idea of how to combine the Canadian military. Bill was, at the time, Defence Minister Paul Hellyer’s executive assistant. As far as national issues went, it did not seem to be of much urgency.

Bill saw the move as an attention getter to make Paul Hellyer the next Prime Minister at the 1968 Liberal Party convention. Bill had not factored in the role Pierre Trudeau would play in that convention. Mind you, Paul went a good ten rounds against the more recalcitrant of Canada’s admirals until he forced some retirements and the Canadian Forces became unified.

Now, four decades later, Prime Minister Harper wants to restore the Canadian Forces to their supposed former glory as the Royal Canadian Navy, The Royal Canadian Air Force and a stand-alone Canadian Army with its various ‘Royal’ regiments. Just who he is going to impress with this is not clear. We are not even sure that the Monarchist League really care about it.

Frankly, it is our observation that people in the Canadian Forces will hardly give a damn. With the small sample of Base Borden military personnel we have talked with in recent years, we find no interest in the history of the separate forces. A person, for example, in a blue air element uniform said he was a major, when we identified the two wide stripes and one narrow stripe on his uniform sleeve as being a squadron leader. He had no idea what a squadron leader’s rank meant.

Mind you, this simplified rank structure can deceive someone who has served in the military. Once, at a cocktail party in Ottawa, we had a pleasant chat with a fellow who was introduced as a lieutenant general. Having previously served in the Canadian Air Force, it would have been a much more awkward conversation if he had been introduced in his Air Force rank as an Air Vice-Marshall.

Bill Lee and Paul Hellyer told us that it would save money to combine the Canadian forces more than 40 years ago. When the silliness is officially announced later this month, Harper and his Defence Minister are going to tell the Canadian public that it will not cost very much to have three separate military services. It will be just like when we were told that it would not cost very much to host the G8 and G20 last year.

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

The argument is not about human rights.

August 15, 2011 by Peter Lowry

When Conservative Leader Tim Hudak and Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty argue about Ontario’s Human Rights Tribunal system, they are hardly arguing about human rights. While it is confusing trying to follow Tim Hudak’s various flip-flops on the issue, they appear to be arguing over who is best at looking after the province’s lawyers.

In his earlier and more simplistic stance to get rid of the Human Rights Tribunal, Hudak was taking the Libertarian approach to please the extremists on the far right of his party. In suggesting, at the time, that the courts should handle human rights cases, he was offering fatter, longer running and profitable cases for lawyers. Even with his ill-defined offer to fix the existing ‘kangaroo court’ tribunals, it sounds as though he might be suggesting they be a more restrictive, legalized process.

There is no question that McGuinty’s approach is also legal aid for lawyers. As a lawyer, himself, he understands that with all the lawyers in Ontario, they need help to make a living. McGuinty sees nothing wrong with hiring a law professor to ensure that the human rights system is protecting people in Ontario. What is wrong is that the system is already too much of a legal system. What it really needs to be is a fair system. There is a difference between the law and fairness. People mistakenly refer to the law as justice. They are two different things.

If someone is seeking compensation for their wounded feelings for a real or supposed discriminatory act, they probably should have a lawyer represent them.

But the province needs to ensure that people can have easy access to Human Rights Tribunals without being forced to hire a lawyer. They need to shut down these quasi-judicial hearing and assess a complaint for what it is. Tribunals held over a telephone connection are intimidating and unfair. Hearings chaired by lawyers, playing at being a judge, are neither satisfactory nor necessarily trustworthy. There also needs to be an easy appeal process for people who feel they have been denied fairness.

The problem is that the law fails to keep up to what society recognizes as fair. For example, there is still rampant discrimination in Ontario based on age. We can hardly forgive this discrimination just because the law has not caught up.

We have no choice but to choose the McGuinty approach over Hudak’s in these circumstances. It is just too bad that McGuinty thinks like a lawyer.

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

The G20 excesses were crimes against humanity.

August 13, 2011 by Peter Lowry

By now, the onion skin layers of the Toronto G20 case have been peeled back to the rotten core. We know the who and whys of what was the most egregious abuse of human rights in Canada since the signing of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The culpability of those responsible cannot be denied.

But who will charge those responsible? Who will bring them to justice? Who will ensure the proper punishment? Will the punishment be sufficient to dissuade those who think of repeating these heinous crimes? Should we charge them at the World Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity?

Then we could start with Prime Minister Harper. It was his cavalier and excessive approach to the G8 and G20 that caused the trouble that followed. Mind you, Tony Clement can probably be charged under the Criminal Code for his abuse of government funding in his electoral district.

Harper initiated the problems by trying to cocoon his G8 and G20 buddies. He could have held the meetings in Iqualuit and they would not have seen anything different. (Other than the make believe Muskoka lake might have been frozen.)

Premier Dalton McGuinty is a co-conspirator. His Attorney General, at the time, shares the blame. As chief law officer for the province, he issued, through the Ontario Cabinet, an outdated, 1939 war-time law that did not apply to the circumstances. His government remained silent and culpable when the police were improperly enforcing the wrong law.

And that leaves the final culprit: Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair. The man should have been fired immediately. In asking the Attorney General for the appropriate law, he knew what he was given was wrong. He did not question a law that was obviously superseded by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He did not even seek clarification of a law that was not what he asked about.

Blair earned a black eye for the Toronto Police that the force did not deserve. It is assuring to know that the police follow orders so well but they also had the right to question orders such as they were given. Individual officers who did not question their orders can be charged with brutality, abuse of rights, illegal incarceration and a myriad of other affronts to their fellow citizens.

Mr. Harper, Mr. McGuinty and Mr. Blair cannot be allowed to sweep this under the rug. It must be made clear that this can never be allowed to happen in our Canada.

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

A friendly note from a whiny left-wing griper.

August 11, 2011 by Peter Lowry

This note is for Toronto Councillor Giogio Mammoliti. He complained to the news media that he is tired of the “whiny left-wing gripers’ and “communists” who contact him. No, this is not from a communist, Mr. Mammoliti. Far from it. The only real communists we have ever met were totalitarian. They did not believe in democracy. They saw people such as you as corrupted by a weak, self-indulgent society.

But if you want to think of this writer as a ‘whiny left-wing griper,’ that is fair comment. Mind you, we will resist the temptation to refer to you as one of Mayor Rob Ford’s ‘storm troopers.’ Name calling is not our game.

When Don Cherry made his silly speech about ‘left-wing pinkos’ back at Ford’s inauguration, everyone recognized that Cherry was just trying to be entertaining. In very small doses, he can be amusing. Sorry, you do not have the élan of a Don Cherry.

It is good to see that you are using the new Internet media. It proves that you are not entirely the Neanderthal that you make yourself out as. We can only assume that your new Facebook page is an attempt at humour. In analyzing Facebook when it was first popular, we tested a few concepts and came to the conclusion that any idiot can use Facebook and often does. It is not our favourite venue for intellectual discourse.

But the problem with Facebook, Twitter and other social media is the time it takes to edit an active page. A cost-benefit analysis can show that the time spent is worth maybe 72 cents per hour. As long as millions of people are willing to contribute their labour, we keep creating more dot-com millionaires. As you have told the media that you can smell the wrong people on your page, you have an obvious advantage.

But getting back to us whiny left-wing gripers: If you think we whine too much, we will try to do better. We will henceforth be straightforward and keep our baritone at a reasonable pitch.

We cannot do anything about being left-wing. It is our nature. Frankly, we should envy you your ability to ignore and disparage the poor and disadvantaged in our society. It must be so refreshing for you not to be concerned for any of those poor souls who voted for you. No doubt they will correct their error in judgement, next time around.

And we promise to try not to gripe. It is probably a waste of time anyway. We will continue to make the case for politics of caring. We believe that a man can only stand tall if he is not standing on others.

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