Category: New

Not an Organized Party.

by Peter Lowry

We used to joke that we are not members of an organized political party. We are liberals. And it was never more obvious than when the wife and I went to vote the other day in the provincial leadership for the party. I have been seriously considering suing the party for its total incompetence.

If you have never seen my wife really pissed, you have had a lucky life. My problem is that I am the nearest liberal on whom she can direct her anger. The wife has been a paid-up member of the Ontario Liberal Party for more than 60 years. She actually married me despite the fact that we had never taken the time to talk about politics. It just wasn’t a topic on our agenda. Imagine our surprise when we came home from our honeymoon in time to vote in a federal election.

We went to our separate ridings to vote where we had been enumerated. It was then that I found out that we both voted liberal. She was the first to get involved in the party when she met our provincial candidate and offered him some help—mainly me.

She felt up to coming out with me to vote for Bonnie Crombie on Sunday and I was concerned about it. I was concerned because I had done everything to make sure she was registered to vote in the election and I had never seen anything to confirm she was listed. And my concern was confirmed. The liberal who was acting as poll clerk knew us and also expected to find the wife’s name on the list. Out of more than 300 liberals registered in our electoral district, the wife’s name was missing.

I consider it Justin Trudeau’s fault. I don’t think he likes the liberal party. We took up too much of his father’s time when he was a youngster. He dumped the liberal senators in the senate, he cancelled the federal membership fee. He uses the party list as his ATM.

And the Ontario party followed suit. They cancelled the wife’s membership. She was supposed to re-register but they forgot to tell her. I re-registered her to be on the safe side. It never happened.

When you consider that our ‘One person, one vote’ in an electoral district with over 300 registered liberals was treated as about a third of a vote each, it hardly seemed worth it.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

Wrestling With Wrongs.

by Peter Lowry

Two pet peeves I have these days are self-checkouts and gratuities. They are wrongs inflicted on employees and customers alike. Gratuities and self-checkouts belittle the employee and are an imposition on the customer. I am not in this place to help the owner to insult the employee and do the check-out job for them. Nor am I there to ensure that your employee receives a living wage. It is just not my responsibility.

If you are so miserably incapable of providing your employee with a living wage then your business model is wrong. Gratuities came into being ‘for service added.’ Why are we seeing ‘recommended gratuities’ as high as 30 per cent these days? And why are restaurants and other businesses recommending anything? If I wish to tip someone for service, I will also choose the amount. Whether it is a waiter or waitress or the person who delivers to my front door, I will determine the value, not the employer.

Face facts: it is not the value of the items delivered but the value of the extra service. If the person making the deliver has to climb a particularly arduous flight of stairs, that they might not have to climb to make normal deliveries, a gratuity might be justified. A dour and dull delivery demeanour deserves diddly.

And why should I contribute to the booster bucket at Tims? I came in for a cuppa and maybe a cruller. These high school kids at the counter are there earning some extra money as part of life’s experience. And life experience is not awash in additional dimes and nickels.

But I save my most egregious complaint for last. It goes to my corner Shoppers Drug Mart. This used to be a good store when it was really run by the pharmacist franchisee. When it was bought by the rapacious Loblaw clan, I thought they should add a sign over the door, along the lines of: Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.

They forgot that the last chance the store had for some redemption was the cashier. If you could just say hi to that last hope for a friendly face. That friendly face could lighten your step as you go out the door.

But NO. That one lonely, harassed clerk has a long line of customers to serve and your only recourse is the self-checkout. What I have found works is to attack the self serve computer with so many screw ups, it starts ringing bells for help. Someone will come soon to help the clumsy old man. I appreciate the help.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

A Climate Change Critique.

by Peter Lowry

Help is here. After the past several years of feeling like a voice in the wilderness, there is support for the contention that capturing and storing carbon is a dumb idea. And, what I found was particularly infuriating, was the tar sands exploiters wanted our government to pay the costs of the sham.

And even better, it leaves conservative leader Pierre Poilievre adrift on a sea of BS. It was his pathetic support for carbon capture and storage that would leave him free to criticize everyone other than himself. His friends in the Pathways Alliance of tar sands exploiters have been so busy ramping up oils sands exploitation that they have actually increased Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions when we were supposed to be cutting back. The tar sands billionaires have moved into the state of being the single largest producers of greenhouse gas in Canada at 28 per cent of the total.

Mind you, the equal stupidity of the federal government throwing billions away on the Trans Mountain pipeline is inexcusable.

And, can you imagine, in his usual rush to gather media attention, Poilievre was even criticizing Justin Trudeau for imposing some carbon tax on our friends in embattled Ukraine. That is not only untrue but it is a stupid lie, which is what we hear so often from those cheap seats. Poilievre is actually making Justin Trudeau look good.

The current critique of Canada’s tar sands exploiters comes from the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) that represents some 44 countries and has spend the past 49 years studying and reporting on the world-wide energy consumption. The agency points out that the cold hard truth is that Canada is the only G7 country to actually increase greenhouse gas emissions since 1990.  The tar sand exploiters are bringing up more bitumen from the earth’s core every year. It is estimated that if every liter of greenhouse gas emissions were to be found space underground, it would cost as much as US$ 3.5 billion every year to capture and store the greenhouse gases.

The latest figures of world-wide demand for oil and gas are expected to reach a peak by the end of this decade. And yet many oil companies continue to expand production. It is as though the world-wide industry members are competing to provide the world with its very last barrel of oil.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

Freeland’s Folly.

by Peter Lowry

Maybe we never realized that finance minister and deputy prime minister Cynthia Freeland was so competitive. In her fall economic-statement the other day, she seemed to be competing with conservative leader Pierre Poilievre to see who was the most frugal.

It was a foolish effort. In his imaginary world, Mr. Poilievre might not be the smartest politician in Ottawa but he does have easy answers for the Greek chorus that surrounds him in the House of Commons. Freeland also played to Poilievre’s Robespierre, and his waiting Guillotine.  His sneering rebuke to the proposed $13.2 billon in new spending was classic. He just hopes that it will never see the light of day. It looks even more likely that it leaves Canadians to the grubby demands of the American oil barons and the collective greed of grocery clerks from sea to sea to sea.

Nobody wanted to hear that dreary recital of finance department inadequacies from Freeland or anyone else. When we needed succor, she gave us platitudes. When we needed revenge in this time of inflation, she gave us surrender. When we needed hope, she gave us a lecture on deficits. When we needed leadership, she left us with Poilievre’s ball and chain solutions.

What Poilievre poses to Canadians as common-sense solutions is just a reminder to Ontario residents of the common-sense solution of the rapacious Mike Harris and his conservatives, who brought Ontario into the 21st century with disastrous results. Harris oversaw a government that found it could kill citizens with impunity. It also led the way in downloading expenses to the municipalities. The Tories proved conclusively to Canadians that governments lie to those who put them in power.

Poilievre took his training in government from the dying days of the Harper conservative government. By that time, Harper was constantly lying to Canadians. Maybe we are lucky that Pierre Poilievre has no friends. His role model might be Doug Ford in Ontario. Mr. Ford offers his best friends multi-billion dollar deals for the simple act of making sure he has the money to get re-elected.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

Just One Vote, Thank You.

by Peter Lowry

Isn’t it generous of the nebbishes who think they run the liberal party in Ontario? They are letting us suckers tell them our second, third and even fourth choice for leader of the party. What they are really doing is an attempt to deny us our first choice. This ballot that allows you to vote by numbering the selections from one to four has been thrown sideways to where we have no idea who will win if it goes beyond one count.

I am going to keep my ballot simple. I am going to vote for my number-one choice and nobody else. That one vote will be for Bonnie Crombie. I started out this long and dreary campaign thinking I might support Nate Erskine-Smith. All I found out by offering my help, is that Mr. Erskine-Smith is not as well organized as a leadership candidate should be. He reminded me of former premier David Peterson. I liked the entire Peterson family but after a while I was fed up with the truck drivers running David. He became inaccessible and detached from the party. He made some very bad political decisions.

One of the things I was able to do in earlier leadership contests was to assess the team behind the candidate. That tells you a great deal. I must admit that I decided to vote for Bonnie Crombie without knowing who was running her campaign. I found out today and I should have realized that her campaign was the smooth and expensive type of campaign this insider runs. It is the insiders, connected to Queen’s Park, who would have wanted him. He must have come into the campaign late. Her earlier gaffs on bringing the party to the right and using Greenbelt lands would never have happened under his watch.

As it is, Bonnie Crombie is more to the right politically than I. In discussions with liberals across the province, I am of the conclusion that they need a Bonnie Crombie to get rid of Doug Ford and his thugs. It probably reflects what my late friend Hazel McCallion saw in Ms. Crombie. Hazel was always one of the most perceptive politicians I knew. She was always careful how she used her support and whom she trusted. Bonnie Crombie is the Cinderella that the Ontario liberals need. I am also confident that her Disney training will make for an interesting political experience.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

Posing as Poilievre.

by Peter Lowry

Is it better to have a leader of the conservative party who squints at you rather than continue to wear corrective lenses? This has been a puzzle. Why would you want a man who is so obviously uncomfortable with children to have them appear in commercials with him? What is the point?   In many years of working with politicians I have never seen such foolishness. What is best for any politician is to encourage them in the positives and to discourage the negatives.

Why lie? Watching Pierre Poilievre in recent years has been an interesting lesson in what politicians should not be: They should not be phoney. From the time during the pandemic and the parliamentary hearings had MP’s attending through Zoom at home, Poilievre had the whole megillah of staging on his home scene. While some politicians did not think it was bad to look like they lived in a tenement somewhere, Poilievre was always in his blue suit with white starched shirt and tie. The scene was properly lit and the background looked studious with false bookcases.

The clear message in these pretentions was that he considered himself important and we were seeing a false image. And it was when you listened to what he was saying, you got the clear impression that he was choosing his slander carefully. You were supposed to be in agreement with his sneering at other politicos and in agreement with his supposedly superior positions.

Like in the vindictive slogans of Donald Trump in the U.S. such as his “Lock Her Up” for his opponent Hilary Clinton. You never really knew why she should be locked up. Nobody ever proved she did anything wrong.

It seems to be the same for Poilievre’s “Axe the Tax.” The carbon tax, he is talking about is actually not a tax. It is a levy on high greenhouse gas emissions that are collected from industry and returned to Canadians, in entirety, in the form of a rebate to Canadian families, small businesses, farmers, and aboriginal groups.

But do not bother Pierre Poilievre with the facts. Poilievre thinks he is smarter than the people who are concerned about global warming. He doesn’t seem to believe that global warming is a problem. I doubt many educated Canadians will vote for him.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

The Theory of the Tax.

by Peter Lowry

Pierre Poilievre might not be the smartest politician in Ottawa. He stumbles around without his glasses, probably walks into walls and tells his foolish followers to “Axe the Tax.” What he does not seem to understand is that this levy, that he wants to axe, is based on the most successful tax the federal government ever kept raising. It was the tax on cigarettes. And it worked.

Frankly, it was not pictures of tumours in the lung that did the job. I was well aware of the medical reasons not to smoke long before I stopped smoking.

But the constant increases in the price of a package of cigarettes certainly caught my attention. It was a long cycle. I remember when 20 cigarettes cost less than 50 cents. When the cost past 50 cents, I scoffed and said “so what,” and kept on puffing. When I saw a person pay over $10 for a pack of cigarettes recently, I was glad I had quit long before that.

And that is the reason, we are told that today, less than one Canadian in ten lights up. It puzzles me though that our aboriginals account for so much of the smoking that seems to be on their reservations.

But the point of this commentary is that this carbon tax which Mr. Poilievre spends so much time attacking is not even a tax but it is having an impact in terms of reduced greenhouse gasses. And most of the seniors I know welcome the Climate Action Incentive that goes into their bank account every quarter. It might not mean as much to younger recipients but it is going to continue to grow—unless that Mr. Poilievre wins his dream of becoming prime minister of Canada.

I guess it depends on his caucus having the testicular fortitude to force him to keep that Climate Action Incentive flowing into Canadians’ bank accounts.

I really do expect though that some of that money needs to be diverted to charging stations across Canada for electric vehicles. Until we see an easy drive anywhere in the country with adequate chargers, it will be hybrid cars getting the nod.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

Telling Trudeau to Go.

by Peter Lowry

Belling the cat has always been the problem. Back in the 1960s, the conservative party of Canada had a problem with leadership. It was leader John George Diefenbaker, who declined to go quietly into the night. He was fighting with his own party. His nemesis was conservative party president Dalton Camp. I could not say it publicly at the time but I really liked Dalton. And, until he shot down the AVRO Arrow, I liked John Diefenbaker.

It left me in the envious position of giving liberal commentary on Toronto’s best radio news station for the penultimate conservative leadership convention at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1967. Dalton ran the events from the lounge in the Gardens and engineered the win by Robert Stanfield from Nova Scotia. One of the delights of the event was wandering around the darkened grey section of the Gardens and finding fellow liberals there, enjoying the show. I was always ready with liberal comments on the convention and even had some that were breaking news.

I was sitting in the board room of the liberal party’s advertising agency for the announcement by prime minister Lester Pearson of the next year’s liberal leadership convention. I had lost my bid for a seat in the Ontario Legislature but there were some interesting opportunities for the upcoming liberal leadership. I took the offer from Bob Winter’s group mainly because the Ontario party president was his campaign manager and he wanted me to look after the media and the convention.

Nobody had told Mr. Pearson that it was time to go—unless it was his wife who really hated politics. Nor did we feel any urge to suggest that Pierre Trudeau take his walk in the snow. He set his own schedule. He tried to rid himself of that demanding job twice. My advice to all politicians as well as with actors: Is leave them laughing.

I am concerned that Justin Trudeau does not have the acumen of his father. He has worn out his wife who probably told him it was time to go long before the marriage fell apart. Justin lacks the timing that his father had. When you pile on the failures in office, people start to believe your nay-sayers. Justin Trudeau’s time is up.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

A Cinderella Solution.

by Peter Lowry

It is really the best solution for the Ontario liberals. They need Bonnie Crombie for the ‘coup de grâce’ on the Ford conservatives. One term for a pragmatic liberal such as Bonnie is all we need from her. She understands how the Ford government has squeezed the municipalities and where the weak points are in support for hospitals and education. She can get the home building moving with support from the municipalities across the province.

The tall order for Bonnie will be the act of going from eight or nine liberals in the current liberal caucus to a majority liberal government in Ontario. That has always been a tough job. It will take hard work and daring. Her first order of business is to get into the legislature. It is the only place she can tackle Ford on equal footing as party leader to premier. Ontario voters need to see her in action in the legislature, not just as a very popular mayor of Mississauga.

Bonnie obviously has the blessing of the Toronto Star. It will be nice to have the paper on board for a change.

And Bonnie is the fresh face that the liberals need. Liberalism is a tough sell these days as it emphasizes individual rights in a vitriolic political environment. Both federal and provincial elections coming up in the next three years are going to be hard fought against conservatives taking their lead from well-funded American Republican leaders such as Donald Trump.

At the same time political ethics are shifting as promises seem to always be in the maybe category. It is making voters more and more weary of politicians’ promises that earn substantial distrust.

Despite some early missteps during the overly long provincial liberal leadership campaign, Crombie has recovered well and certainly understands that Ontario liberals want to be proactive in progressive policies that will improve Ontario’s economic situation. And we can certainly expect that from now on, the Ontario Greenbelt will always be respected by all Ontario parties.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

Promises, Promises.

by Peter Lowry

You can compare the current leadership race for the Ontario liberals to a schoolyard race. There is still time for somebody to get tripped. It’s a mixed race. It’s the boys against the only girl. Call her Cinderella, if you wish. She is running against her two wicked stepsisters and her fairy godmother’s coachman.

Obviously, we are talking about Mississauga mayor Bonnie Crombie. She thinks she is in for a first-ballot win. Which is possible—if she gets lots of her party sign-ups to vote. Crombie might be the only candidate who really understands the mathematics of the race. By no stretch of the imagination can this be called a ‘one member-one vote’ election. The last riding anybody needs to have new sign-ups is their own riding. As soon as you have 100 members, you have hit your limit. More voters than 100 is just diluting your relative strength.

What particularly annoys me about ranked balloting is when there are a larger number of candidates, the less likely the best person wins. If people would stop to think about it, they would realize that it is a method of picking the best-known candidate, not the most qualified candidate. It is a chance for your second or third best to win. The deeper you get into the count, the less likely that any substantive thought or consideration goes into the choices.

And the most amusing aspect of this degrading count-down is that by the time you get to the fourth or fifth count, you can be letting less than half your voter base make the decision. How many people can even guess who is their fourth or fifth choice?

But don’t pay any attention to me. Do your own countdown on this race. The first ballot will see up to 12,400 votes allocated to 124 electoral districts Those with less than 100 members will have all their voters counted. Voters in strong riding associations have to share their votes on a percentage basis. If there are 300 members voting, for example, each of their votes will only count for 33.3 per cent.

And there is another problem with this that nobody seems to be concerned about. There is no membership fee involved. Of all the mistakes Justin Trudeau has made as leader of the liberal party, I think that was about the stupidest. I bet the candidates’ people went to the easiest people to get memberships. What motivates these freeloaders to vote? Good luck candidates!

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]