New – Page 46 – Babel-on-the-Bay

Be Careful What You Wish For.

May 24, 2022May 23, 2022 by Peter Lowry

We are often berated by people who favour proportional representation as opposed to the first-past-the-post voting we use today. They think proportional representation would be better. Well, they are wrong.

The reason that much of the world still uses proportional representation is because many of their voters are illiterate. They cannot vote for an individual but they can learn to recognize party symbols. And that is what they use to vote. Once the vote is counted, party members from a list are appointed to their governing body according to the party’s percentage of the overall vote.

In our democratically elected parliament and legislatures, we have our own member represent us. And that is something that we should appreciate more than we do. Four years ago, Doug Ford appointed a carpetbagger from a different part of the province to run as my riding’s conservative candidate. People are working hard to make sure that person is not re-elected this time. He spent little to no time in the riding. He ignored our needs. He did not represent us.

He is hoping there are enough people in the riding who always vote conservative. Maybe their parents voted conservative before them. Yet, to ignore the opportunity to ensure that the best qualified person represents us is a stupid thing. Why would anyone not want a good representative?

Good representatives are needed on both the government and the opposition side of the house. Good representatives, on the government side, take our opinions into account when planning legislation. Good representatives, on the opposition side, propose amendments important to us. They are not just there to carp or complain. They also have a constructive role.

The Toronto Star had an editorial the other day complaining about a couple of conservative candidates who refused to debate with their opponents. They were told not to by party headquarters. Maybe you agree with the final paragraph of the editorial:

“Candidates so deferential to their bosses, so willing to short-change the people of their ridings, are a discredit to democracy and an embarrassment to themselves.”

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Ford’s Frolic.

May 23, 2022May 22, 2022 by Peter Lowry

If you want to frolic with an elephant, now’s your chance. It is the beast snickering behind you as you cast your ballot. Sure, you can vote for Doug Ford and his cronies. They are using you, as you think you are using them.

But that defiance on your part—that vote for Ford’s cabal—is not going to solve your issues. You think your vote is going to stick it up the backside of the man? Yet the only backside that will feel it is yours.

We have just come through the worst of a world-wide pandemic. There is the danger of a world war in the offing in Europe. Inflation is rampant everywhere and there is no easy fix for it. We can all visualize the fat cats in their office towers getting rich on their profiteering and our suffering.

But do you really want someone as ignorant as Ford to help you get even?

Doug Ford is there for Doug Ford, not for you. He has no time for you if you elect him and his cronies again. Ford is a fraud.

Maybe we can get his sticker company to print labels you can wear saying: “I’ve been screwed by Doug Ford.”

And you best keep that job you’ve got. There are two sides to an inflationary cycle. The second side is all downhill. Ford has already screwed all the destitute people on ODSP and Ontario Works. He cut those programs back four years ago. You might not have noticed. The food banks were all closing during the pandemic. You might not have noticed. On the downside, you are going to discover the truth of that “screwed” sticker.

Doug Ford wants to pave his way across the farmlands and wetlands of Ontario with superhighways you do not need. He is doing it for his developer friends. They know how to show appreciation to a politician.

Mind you, he has already told you what you will get for voting for him. He thinks your vote is worth five cents. And that is what he says he will take off the Ontario tax on gasoline—if you vote for him.

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The Death of Conservatism.

May 22, 2022May 21, 2022 by Peter Lowry

It dies with a whimper, not a scream. It collapses from within. It was unwieldy at the best of times. It never was the big tent in which few believed. It dies in Alberta as it does across the country. Ottawa area MP Pierre Poilievre has crafted a eulogy.

When Poilievre embraced the “convoy to Ottawa” in the winter, it was the death knell. He picked the wrong side. When Jason Kenney found he could not control the far right, his days were numbered. The rift in the supposedly united conservatives in Alberta was down the middle. Even in Ontario, the pegs of the big tent have been pulled on populist Doug Ford and the wind is rising.

The annual federal conservative leadership contest is mired in Pierre Poilievre’s poison of the blame game. The divide between Jean Charest and Poilievre is too wide for one party. Leslyn Lewis and the also-rans stand apart as background to the game being played. Rancour rules and Patrick Brown’s legions of the sub-continent’s diaspora wonder in what farce they have signed conservative party memberships.

Ontario has started to vote and we find the progressive conservatives of our history and gentler times have passed on. Instead, we have the selfishness and uncaring of a rapacious cabal, calling themselves ‘conservative,’ seeking our votes. An ignorant Doug Ford said repeatedly on the province’s leaders’ debate the other day that he thinks the purpose of education is to get “good jobs.” This man who has been controlling billions earmarked for education in this province is obviously ignorant of the purpose of our education system.

It is really too bad that Mr. Ford only attended school long enough to want to be a sticker salesman. Many more of us want to be part of a better society. While knowledge is always very useful, we want education that encourages our children to use the power of their minds to learn, to analyze, to plan, to socialize and to care.

At least, in Ontario today, we have recourse. We have two choices. We can vote the Ford’s uncaring cabal out of office or we can suffer the consequences.

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Vote a better Ontario.

May 21, 2022May 20, 2022 by Peter Lowry

People are already voting in Ontario. And I can assure you, it is far more convenient to vote in the ten days of advance polls than to get in line with the laggards on June 2. And I am sticking to my morning line predictions. I think Doug Ford will be unable to win a majority.

Women are making the difference. They really dislike Doug Ford. They see him as a buffoon. Nurses hate him. Teachers abhor him. And in the confidentiality of the polling booth, Ford’s fate will be determined.

We have to disagree with those who are waiting for Ford to defeat himself. He already has. His health minister is quitting and that is no surprise. Working for that buffoon would not be fun. Ford failed to follow the science from the beginning of the pandemic. The fact that the coronavirus is still taking a high toll in Ontario is because of the lack of leadership from Queen’s Park.

Our young people have suffered enough under a regime that would put private school people in charge of education in this province. Our children have suffered. Computer programs cannot replace a teacher’s guidance. Computers are never a solution to socialization.

Even the lock downs were a disaster. Ford asked Ontario to stay away from their Muskoka cottages and then went himself. He does not think. He doesn’t care about us. He is a self-centered bully and braggard.

He wants your vote! And you know why. He wants to spend $10 billion of our money building highway 413. The fact that the highway is hardly needed seems to be beside the point. He wants it so his developer supporters can make money building over-priced cookie-cutter homes around the highway interchanges that used to be productive farmland.

My feeling is that Ford will not cruise to a majority. A majority after June 2 is hardly likely. What is more likely to happen is that the liberals, new democrats and greens are going to have to step up and say we can work together and do a better job. It will take a lot of cooperation but we could have better government for the next four years. We need the liberals for their experience, the NDP for their drive and the greens for their concern for the environment. Give it a try, we might like it.

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Brits Begone.

May 20, 2022May 19, 2022 by Peter Lowry

Charles and his lovely wife Camilla are in Canada and the news media are dishing out their usual orgy of coverage. Not that the coverage will be anything like the more in-depth stuff being prepared for the Pope’s visit during the dog days of summer.

You have to admit that the Roman Pope has far better heralds (public relations professionals) than the Brit royals. And the Vatican must be far richer than Buckingham Palace—and in obviously better repair. (Though I really suspect that the Vatican would be better off with a woman’s touch.) The other serious failure of the Vatican is that they tend to appoint their popes when they are past their prime. No pope has ruled for 70 years like Charlie’s mum.

Maybe the real difference is in the tithing. The Roman Pope has an outreach around the world. He has adherents who kick in cash flow. The Royal’s must make a few quid off their ponies and estates but other than that, they are on the dole. The Brits earn it back from tourism.

I hardly think we Canadians have to apologize for kicking out most of the colonial traces. Continuing the fiction of the royalty in this country is something of an embarrassment. It reflects the inability of our governments of all colors and stripes to grasp the nettle of our constitution and fix it.

As it is, we are having to rid ourselves of royalty in the same way we are dealing with the Roman Catholic Church. More and more of us have learned to ignore it. It worked in Quebec. From a time when the church’s ongoing ignorance interfered with women’s reproductive rights and human rights, Quebec has led the way in assuring abortion rights and medical assistance in dying.

In the meantime, you can curtsy and bow to the royals all you like. If they ask me, I’d probably tell them to get a life.

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Doug Doesn’t Debate.

May 19, 2022May 18, 2022 by Peter Lowry

Ontario conservative leader Doug Ford showed up at the only all-Ontario leaders’ debate Monday—book of notes in hand. It was an event designed for sociology students. It revealed more about the participants than they really wanted to be known. Doug Ford displayed his ignorance, Andrea Horwath showed that she was out of her depth, Steven Del Duca fumbled some pithy stuff he had memorized but came out all right by default and Mike Schreiner won the debate by showing he knew how to debate.

We used to think of debating as something you could learn in universities. A good debate was not whether you won or lost but how well you made your case. Frankly, if you want the fast summary: Schreiner won on points, Del Duca got a pass on persistence, Horwath came across as strident and Ford showed viewers his ignorance.

Ford failed. If we made watching the debate a requirement before you could vote, Ford would be the loser he should be. That man does not have the attitude nor the brains for being premier of a province of close to 15 million people. He is incompetent at least and mean spirited at worst.

Andrea Horwath of the new democrats showed why she has gotten nowhere in her dozen or so years at Queen’s Park. She was strident and a harridan as she disobeyed the rules that were there to help her hold her own. The most telling moment was when Steven Del Duca quietly told her that she should see Doug Ford smile whenever she attacked the last liberal government.

Yet, the best words of the show were spoken by Mike Schreiner of the greens. It was when Schreiner referred to the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and Ontario Works as “Legislative Poverty.” In a time when close to a million people needed help surviving, Doug Ford cut their funding. When food banks were being forced to shut their doors, Ford attacked the poor and impoverished. He likes picking targets that cannot fight back.

If Mike Schreiner had much of a party behind him, he might have done some good. As it is, we expect that the beneficiaries of the leaders’ debate will be the liberals. They need to get Del Duca and a bunch of new liberals elected. I think this event helped.

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“All Politics is Local.”

May 18, 2022May 18, 2022 by Peter Lowry

Doug Ford’s failure to recognize the “All politics is local” adage is likely to cost him an attorney general when they count the ballots in Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte on June 2.

Putting that out-of-town carpetbagger in our riding was a bad move to begin with and our morning line says we should not be surprised that, without a majority of conservatives elected, Mr. Ford will be unable to form a sustainable government. It was an assessment of this election in Ontario that surprised some people. You can write it off as an honest attempt to help get Doug Ford’s mitts out of the cookie jar, if you wish, yet there is little doubt that his meanness far exceeds that of conservative Mike Harris at the turn of the century. Ending the Ford regime is the outcome that Ontario needs.

And this riding is good news. The change here in Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte is that the liberal candidate is the three-term mayor of Barrie. In all my years in Barrie, I have never seen so many liberal signs. This is not a riding where signs mean much but Mayor Lehman is a strong campaigner and he has knocked on thousands of doors in his lifetime. And his campaign teams are reporting a good reception.

I expect this riding is going to the liberal candidate. It will be another liberal gain from the conservatives.

And I hear the same is happening in Toronto, London, Ottawa and Niagara Falls. I’m not getting the reports that I used to get from Leamington and Windsor but I am always hopeful for that part of Ontario.

And I have no problem with a Liberal and NDP deal. It is the kind of partnership the NDP needs to focus on. We have to make sure that highway 413 never happens. At the same time, we need the Bradford Bypass. We will have some strong voices in the caucus to keep the province’s plan for the bypass to happen with out causing any damage to the environment of the Holland Marsh. (In fact, it will speed the trucking of produce from the Marsh to Ontario markets.) Many of the new overpasses on Highway 400 are already in place to handle the traffic on summer weekends, as well as year-round.

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The Morning Line.

May 17, 2022May 16, 2022 by Peter Lowry

Politicians are not race horses. We rarely see their workouts. They sometimes come up lame after our assessment. What we try to do is give you the best guess of where the politicos might be on the morning after election day.

The election being held June 2, 2022 in Ontario is not the easiest to forecast. And bear in mind that the person writing a morning line is not necessarily impartial. All I can do is use my experience over more than 60 years of involvement in political campaigns to describe a likely outcome of the campaign. And I am going to simplify this for those who are not used to using race track odds. Let’s even forget the percentages and talk seats in a 124-seat legislature. Because we use first-past-the-post voting, we actually have 124 elections going on and the results of those elections might be as follows:

Progressive Conservatives: 58 Seats.

The broad swath of rural ridings stretching from Ottawa to Windsor has seen little reason to leave their roots in conservatism. They might not really like Doug Ford and his fellow conservatives but many seem comfortable voting that way. Where the conservatives are losing votes as the ballots are counted is in the cities of Ontario and their suburbs.

Liberals: 37 Seats.

While some might scoff at the possibility of the liberals going from seven seats on dissolution to at least 37, it has happened before and is logical based on the anger many people feel about Mr. Ford’s conservatives and their mismanagement of the pandemic, the environment and general arrogance. The positive feeling about Mr. Del Duca of the liberals is that he is unlikely going to do any harm.

New Democratic Party: 26 Seats.

There are just too many seats that the NDP picked up from the liberals last time that are likely to return to their liberal leanings. What the NDP needs to learn is that offering the voters a smörgåsbord of promises leaves them with no concrete reason to support the party.

Green Party: 3 Seats.

I might be doing this just to be perverse but if the liberals and NDP think they could make a deal, they should also include Mike Schreiner and his Greens if he can get a few more elected. And maybe Doug Ford would learn a few things if he watched the governing process from the opposition seats.

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Poilievre’s Peeve.

May 16, 2022May 17, 2022 by Peter Lowry

Ottawa area MP Pierre Poilievre has something to complain about. After his carefully choreographed campaign for the conservative leadership has led the field, he is starting to see his basic error. He is puzzling about it. His campaign must have been based on the premise that he could win the leadership on the first ballot. His cockiness carried him off. He burnt his boats. He alternately alienated or ignored his opponents. He seems to have finally realized that he might have to have some second votes.

It was a classic mistake. I doubt very much that he has bothered to listen to his campaign team. He was fooled by those early rallies with his “convoy” friends. He thought their sign-ups would be all he needed.

But even if Poilievre actually signed up a thousand here and a thousand there, he must have realized by now that Patrick Brown is bringing in the new sign-ups by the tens of thousands. And even Brown could not swamp the federal membership as he did in Ontario. What Brown is doing is working as the stalking horse for Jean Charest. He is providing the balance for Charest to win on the third or fourth count of the ballots.

The reality is that Poilievre probably has, at most, 50 per cent of the 250,000 of the already qualified members of the conservative party of Canada. He does not have the same share of the new voters being signed up by June 3. The experts are forecasting that the final tally will be about 400,000 signed up members of the party.

From past experience with these affairs, we know that there will be 300,000 to 325,000 ballots to enter into the computers. Scott Aitchison and Roman Baber will be first and second off the count and nobody will gain enough second votes to go over the top. Assuming that the third person dropped is Leslyn Lewis, it leaves the field to Brown, Charest and Poilievre.

And here is where the Brown-Charest alliance comes into play. Charest’s efforts were concentrated in Quebec and east. Brown’s sign-ups are heavier in in Ontario and B.C. Poilievre might dominate in the Prairies but the treatment of all ridings as equal drops the leadership in Charest’s lap.

If it is any consolation to Pierre Poilievre, he might have won if all votes were equal. It will only be when the conservatives realize that not all ridings are equal, they will stop having an automatic leadership contest after every federal election.

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A Hapless Hepburn.

May 15, 2022May 14, 2022 by Peter Lowry

As a former Torontonian and a life-long Ontario resident, the Toronto Star is a tough habit to break. Like many readers, I have a difficult time reading much of Rosie DiManno. That reporter could see a raindrop and write 2000 words about it. My favourites are the political reporters. I, more often than not, will agree with a Chantal Hébert, Susan Delacourt, Martin Regg Cohn, Althia Raj or Bob Hepburn. And occasionally I might disagree. Today is Bob Hepburn’s turn in the penalty box.

And he needs to pay attention. In writing about politics, you have to run fairly fast to keep up with what is happening. You should not quote old polls this far into an election campaign. The polls at the beginning of this campaign were meaningless. Few voters really knew conservative Doug Ford, fewer knew much about the NDP’s Andrea Horwath and it was the rare person who knew anything about liberal Steven Del Duca.

But that is changing. Even the pollsters are admitting that the liberal party numbers are on the move. This is what a political campaign is about. It is a time when the politicians should listen and let the citizens speak. Even as a campaign manager, I would always spend an occasional afternoon knocking on doors and listening to voters. It is the only way I know to feel the campaign and where it is headed.

What worries me the most about Hepburn’s recent suggestion that Monday’s debate is make-or-break time for Del Duca is that Del Duca might listen to him. I would be especially concerned if Del Duca actually changed his approach in the debate on Monday. He has established an effective persona in this campaign and people are liking it. We know now that he is no braggart like Ford nor as confusing as Horwath. He is just a guy like you or me who wants to do a job for us. There might be some patchwork in the team behind him but, on the whole, they can help him do the job. All we have to do is pick the good ones and send them to Queen’s Park. They will work for us.

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