Category: New

A familiar Alberta Tune.

by Peter Lowry

They are at again in Alberta. The lunatic fringe is getting worked up for a new conservative leadership contest. And they are playing familiar tunes for the crazies. I guess Jason Kenney was just not odd-ball enough for them. I thought Brian Jean, playing his John Wayne Quiet Man role, would make them happy.

But no. Now we have Danielle Smith with her Annie Oakley six-guns in for the fun.   If you are not familiar with Danielle Smith, she was a former leader of the Wildrose party and leader of the opposition, who crossed the floor of the Alberta legislature in 2014 with other members of the Wildrose to join the government conservatives. She could not get nominated in her own riding after that short walk.

But now she is back and considers her former escapades just water under the bridge.

The one thing you can say about Smith is that she is a skilled communicator and has been working for Global television and a Calgary radio station.

But wait until you hear her program for when she is premier. She is setting out to make the péquistes in Quebec look like lazy pussy cats. She is going to show them how to play the separatist card.

Smith tells us that, under her as premier, the legislature would make all federal laws invalid. The legislature would create a police force to replace the RCMP. She has no intention of letting those nasty feds dictate vaccinations for children or anyone else for that matter. She is going to establish a separate agency to collect taxes.

In looking at her plans, one gets the impression that there is something wrong with the rights and freedoms of Canadians.  She wants Alberta to be a sovereign state and able to ignore federal laws and court rulings.

I find this all very confusing. It was my impression from discussions in school that the original Rupert’s Land was sold to Canada in 1870 and it was the Canadian government that created Alberta by act of parliament in 1905. Much of the growth in population in Alberta was contributed to by the federal government encouraging immigration and settlement. What that all means is that nobody is going to separate any part of Alberta from Canada. It is a fixed part of Canada.

Ms. Smith can separate herself from Canada any time she likes. I would suggest that she has her pick of backward states of the United States to choose from.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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“In the Belly of the Beast.”

by Peter Lowry

We spent most of the past week in the Ottawa area. We stayed with family in the middle of Carleton electoral district. We visited in downtown Ottawa and out past Carp. After two years of restricting ourselves due to the pandemic, it was wonderful to be with family of different generations.

Of course, I was curious about the political situation in the area. We were staying in MP Pierre Poilievre’s electoral district. I got the impression in listening to the younger adults that they were more amused by the topic of politics than the older adults. One of my brothers had come up from Boston. His only comment on Donald Trump was a long sigh and a “Good Grief!”

But what I would think of as being “in the belly of the beast,” the younger adults could laugh off. I think MP Pierre Poilievre amuses them. They are not as aware of the damage someone of that ilk can do.

These were not the downtown Ottawa people who were alternately annoyed and frightened by the “freedom convoy” that usurped the peace of downtown Ottawa in February. They had no idea why the Ottawa police were stymied by the trucks and their drivers and their party mood. Yet, again, they were amused by Poilievre greeting the convoy organizers, welcoming them to Ottawa.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau might think he is a great communicator, but he sure didn’t communicate with these people just a dozen or so kilometers up Highway 417.

I was amused by the sight of the new welcoming signs for Ottawa. They announce the population of Ottawa as one million. I was surprised that no wag had painted on “and 338 cranky politicians.” Mind you, the area is rapidly losing its farmers fields that are becoming warrens of cracker box homes at outrageous prices.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip. It was certainly worth the expense for gas.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Poilievre Doesn’t Do Economics.

by Peter Lowry

The most ridiculous statement from the boy conservative, MP Pierre Poilievre this week was the promise that he made about new legislation. He said that, if he was prime minister, he would introduce legislation to offset every dollar of new spending with a cut to old legislation. What he was, in effect promising, was guaranteed recession. He was allowing nothing for growth in the economy.

Poilievre compared his approach to that of many families. He said that when they spend more on one thing, they had to spend less somewhere else. That makes sense in family budgeting but makes less sense for governments. Governments have to spend money on infrastructure that can last many years into the future.

When asked about the Poilievre plan, former parliamentary budget officer, Kevin Page politely said that “it’s difficult to compare government spending to what Canadians do every month.”

Page went on to point out the differences on plans for the public good. A good example would be a program such as the day care program that is currently being rolled out across the country. While billions are currently being spend, the returns in the economy will make the early expense look like a small investment.

And as Page points out, government can borrow money at much lower rates.

But Page also notes that it is good to hear a conservative talk about fiscal responsibility. He must have been thinking of the foolish tax cuts and growing debt during the years of the Harper government. The more recent and larger deficits have been spent on COVID-19.

Where Poilievre is completely off base is to blame the Trudeau government for the current inflation in Canada. The fast-growing world-wide inflation is serious but Poilievre is hardly been cloistered somewhere where he is not aware of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine in which Canada is committed to help arm the Ukrainians and assist their refugees.

Pierre Poilievre studied international relations at the University of Calgary. He should have done a minor in economics. It would certainly have helped.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Trial of Trump.

by Peter Lowry

The world needs a booming voice from on-high that can look down on pitiful humans such as Donald Trump in America and Vladimir Putin of Russia and tell them they have been found wanting. We will have to start with Donald Trump. He is the miscreant that courts can get their hands on. He has only the American Secret Service to protect him and they cannot protect him from being brought to justice in America. And there are those, in the U.S. and beyond, who think a trial is becoming a pleasant possibility.

Most of the credit for this belief is the hard work of the House of Representatives January 6 Committee. The star of that committee is republican representative Liz Cheney. She will never be elected again in Wyoming but she will certainly be remembered. All she hopes to achieve, she has been quoted as saying, is to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office.

While the House committee cannot legally try Mr. Trump, they are laying a trail for the Department of Justice in the U.S. to follow. The Biden Administration Attorney General has given no indication of what he might do about the House investigation. It is likely though that the Department will face considerable pressure—especially with the carefully orchestrated public hearings that are being broadcast on all the major American television channels, except Fox News.

Regrettably, we might miss Trump’s lawyer, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, he will probably be disbarred before any trial of Trump. It was Giuliani who first advised Donald Trump to declare the last presidential election a ‘fraud.’

Across the U.S. lawyers are arguing whether there is a case against Trump or not. Sometimes it might be as simple as which is a democrat and which is a republican. The diehard republicans will carry-on regardless but the honest truth is that there is a case against Trump. The House committee has made that clear.

The committee has followed the trail through seven irrefutable steps and it will be a sad day for American justice if the Department of Justice does not act.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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In Profit We Trust.

by Peter Lowry

Welcome to the Empire Club of Canada—over 100 years of pandering to profit. It is where Canada’s finance ministers go to seek approval and deny progress. It is where the leaders of banking, business and industry gather in mutual admiration. I have always thought the Empire Club served as a rent-a-mob for Canada’s elite. It is where deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland went last week to report nothing—and her audience was pleased.

The minister’s staff had told the media that it would be an important speech. It was not. Freeland summed it up herself when she reportedly told the media: “The measures that we have set in motion already, I think, do a pretty good job of reaching precisely those people in Canada who have the biggest challenges with affordability.”

I have often wondered what sort of finance minister, Freeland would be. Now we know: a nothing finance minister. She does what her department tells her to do. She seems to have no concept of what the real powers of her department could achieve.

Did she, for example, address the unconscionable profits of the oil companies while they drive up inflation? Did she question the huge profits being reported by the big grocery chains? Admittedly, the government does get a small cut of those profits but it also has the power to tax excessive profits. Has her government done a damn thing to control the profits of the big three telecommunications companies in this country?

The answer is no, on all counts.

You tend to wonder if she is really afraid of those unthinking conservatives who accuse her of driving up inflation by printing money? You can hardly blame all the inflationary pressures on the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

You can tell that her main influences are on the right wing of economics. She thinks it is a big deal that her government is helping poor people with a tax credit. The last time I checked, you had to have some taxes to pay before you could get a tax credit.

And isn’t her department the one that is taking money from people getting just $1169 per month in Ontario who mistakenly thought COVID-19 benefits included them?

Oh well, to be fair, she must have wowed all those rich and wannabes at the Empire Club. She is one of them.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Here Comes Highway 413.

by Peter Lowry

Is this what Ontario voted for? Over the next four years, the Ford government is going to spend more than a billion dollars getting things ready to start building Highway 413. And once it gets started—if it does get started—it will likely take another ten years to build. You could get some long odds on it being Ford cutting the ribbon on that highway as premier.

Don’t be impatient. Even the 16.2 kilometres of the Bradford Bypass, that is already calling tenders for bridge construction, will be another four to five years. And don’t even try to compare it to the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, that has been causing business failures over its 19 kilometres of construction across the top of Toronto for the past 11 years.

But building one solution to people movement always seems to demand more. If what they are calling the Ontario Line subway is not built as a relief line for the Young Street subway in Toronto, the Eglinton Crosstown will not do its job. If the expanded bridges are not completed through Barrie on Highway 400 in time for the increased traffic from the Bradford Bypass, there will be angry communications with whomever rules Queen’s Park at the time.

And forget trying to get infrastructure planning and financing and building arms-distance from the politicians. He who pays the piper calls the tune every time. Look at Metrolinx, the subway builder, that is supposedly out of reach of the politicos in Toronto city hall and Queen’s Park. That organization has more good reasons for being late and over budget than any provincial ministry could ever dream of.

There are always the citizens committees, the neighbourhood nags and energetic environmentalists running interference on building any infrastructure but even they can be squelched by determined politicians. And you can bet that premier Ford is determined. When he tells his developer friends that he will build that highway for them, he is going to try to keep his word. Forget previous planning, environmental concerns, and a highway there not being needed. Ford will get it done.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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“Another Fine Mess!”

by Peter Lowry

I like to think of the most recent election in Ontario as something like an ancient Laurel and Hardy short movie. It seems that having the liberal party leader leading from outside the legislature for two years before the election did not work out too well. Having him drive around Ontario in a delivery van did not encourage much enthusiasm either. And obviously, nobody was checking what he was saying out there to the media.

I, quite frankly, wondered what Steven Del Duca was doing in the run-up to the election. You would think he would have built up some momentum for him to win his own riding. He didn’t.

I thought the most ridiculous promise he made before the election was that, if elected, he would resign as premier if he did not change the way we voted in Ontario. I did not know that a premier could arbitrarily change how we vote. It did not sound very democratic not to check with the voters by referendum.

Of course, he got shafted by the conservatives. Here he thought he would have a full month of campaigning. What he got was 15 days of campaigning, before the advance polls opened. Here the conservatives had been campaigning hard over the previous three months, running advertising, making announcements, promising money for this and that. They were winding down their campaign before Del Duca got moving.

There was a nice story in the newspaper a while ago about liberals Ted Hsu, who won in Kingston and the Islands, and Mary-Margret McMahon, who won in Toronto’s Beaches-East York. They had been campaigning in their ridings for about a year. I had told friends in the Beach area of Toronto that Mary-Margaret was a good bet for a hard-working MPP.

I am not sure how well we will come out of another four years of Doug Ford’s inept management at Queen’s Park. Hopefully we will have a strong new leader for the Ontario liberals who, if not an MPP, will soon find his or her way to win a by-election. The liberals in the legislature might not be the official opposition, at this time, but they will find their voices. They have a party to rebuild.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

The Poison of Poilievre.

by Peter Lowry

It’s a poisoned chalice. It could tear apart the conservative party of Canada. And it would benefit nobody. It would be Pierre Poilievre winning the leadership of the federal conservative party.

And this is not a partisan concern. Canada needs a healthy conservative party. It does not need one built on disrespect for law and order. It does not need one built on endorsing cryptocurrencies over the concerns of the Bank of Canada. It hardly needs the nastiness and lies that Poilievre so regularly brings to our parliament.

His supporters can call it hyperbole if they like but Poilievre has disgraced his party in parliament. The truth of the matter is that good government requires a strong and reasoned opposition. It doesn’t need the catcalls and insults across the floor. Yet that seems to be what Poilievre encourages and wants to lead.

And if he really has more than 300,000 temporary conservatives signed up to support his candidacy, do conservatives who have supported the party over the years really want these people deciding who should lead the party into the next election?

Was it just to show these temporary supporters that he is willing to pass a law against mandatory vaccination that he recently presented a bill to parliament to that effect? I seriously doubt that such a law would be approved by many of Canada’s conservatives. To deny the success of mass vaccinations—that have virtually eliminated some of the most serious children’s diseases in this country—would be ludicrous. If that private member’s bill comes up for a vote in this current parliament, it is unlikely many conservative MPs would support it.

While Poilievre might represent Carleton electoral district just down highway 417 from Ottawa, he was born, raised and educated in Calgary. He reflects the same environment-be-damned attitudes of most Alberta conservatives. He is a global warming denier. He preaches the usual hard-right conservatism of small (uncaring) government and small taxes. His rigid right-wing approach to economics is more Ebeneezer Scrooge than Milton Friedman.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Trumping North.

by Peter Lowry

We have obviously been underestimating Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre. He has paid attention to the style and successes of former U.S. President Donald Trump. Along with many other political observers, we failed to see the ability of Trump to utilize the ‘deplorables’ as Hilary Clinton described them. Clinton was criticized for calling them deplorable but Trump won the U.S. presidency in 2016 because of them.

Poilievre is the first mainstream politician to recognize we have the same angry, dissident dogs of discontent here in Canada. They are not just Trump’s bikers and right-wing crazies. It took the truck convoy to Ottawa and the border barricades earlier this year for Pierre Poilievre to realize their counterparts in Canada could be used. He welcomed them to Ottawa with open arms. He let them know that he was their leader.

It was the marriage that Poilievre needed and they needed. He needed hard core numbers. He might not swamp the membership of the federal conservative party with these people, but he will be in a damn strong position because of them in September.

And they needed him. They needed a leader who knows how parliament works. They needed direction for their anger. They might not all buy what he says to them but enough could stay long enough to vote for and give him the leadership of the federal conservative party.

But they will hardly play nice with the rank and file of conservatism across Canada. They are anathema to conservatism. They don’t trust any elites. They are jealous of the rich and look down on the poor. Nor do they like people who are different. They disagree with immigration. They distrust people of colour. And do not try to take away their guns. Their rallying cry is “Freedom” and don’t ask them to define it. They wave the Canadian flag but do not respect it. They will support Pierre Poilievre but do not understand him.

But it is mutual. Poilievre has grasped the nettle. He has been on a quest and has found a key. He wants to rule this country that is impossible to rule. It is country that requires endless negotiation. Pierre Poilievre will fail to negotiate, to navigate the waters or to take Canada into a dystopian Poilievre future.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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The Problems of Polls.

by Peter Lowry

It is amazing how easy we could solve all our problems if we just skipped down the street hand-in-hand with the Toronto Star. If the Star’s editors don’t have all the answers, they can buy opinions from a myriad of writers with the appropriate opinion.

The other day, the Star published an opinion from a gentleman who ran for the NDP a few elections back. It seemed the gentleman thinks that our addiction to polls was to blame for the poor turnout for our recent provincial election. He even had a few thousand heavy words in support of the opinion that publishing the polls was the reason for the problem.

If I had my druthers over the years of working with polls, I would have stayed with the opinion that polls should never be published. The only problem is that I also believe in disclosure and if media outlets want to pay for polls, they should report them accurately to their readers, listeners and viewers.

What I really object to is the aggregators who assemble random published polls, take the liberty of adjusting them for bias and then republishing them. It seems to me that they are really hardening the opinions in them as though they constitute a trend line—which they are not.  

Of course, the question as to whether polls are self-fulfilling always comes up. In the recent Ontario election, there was an obvious stagnation in the reported polls that would be reflected by voters. We have been seeing a trend to lower voter turnout in Canadian elections for the last 50 years. The media is just as responsible for that ‘what’s the use’ attitude as are the politicians. The political parties can forecast it in the malaise they find among their traditional volunteer base at the riding level.

We have knowingly destroyed the democracy in the parties in this country and our ultimate reward is the lethargy of the voters. When you take away the rights of the people at the party’s grass roots to choose their candidates, why should they want to work to elect the appointed candidates? When the benefactors, with the money, call the shots in politics, they also expect to be the beneficiaries. And if you tell the truth about our political parties, they treat you as toxic.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]