Category: Provincial Politics

Delusions of the NDP.

by Peter Lowry

That did it. The federal new democrats think they can ingratiate themselves with Quebec voters by supporting bigotry and economic deprivation. As Puck said in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “What fools these mortals be.”

Only fools would support Quebec’s despicable language and religious symbols laws. Do they realize the leader of the federal NDP would be barred from a job with the Quebec government? Maybe, as an observant Sikh, growing up in Brampton, Ontario, Jagmeet Singh does not recognize bigotry. And yet in Quebec, he would be knee-deep in discrimination.

The NDP actually voted in favour of a Bloc Québécois attempt to further strip the rights of non-French-speaking Quebecers. The bill would have denied the rights of non-French speakers to Canadian citizenship if the applicant resided in Quebec. In addition, the Bloc bill would have interfered with the rights of Quebec businesses to communicate in English at work with English-speaking employees. It also denied employers and their employees from communicating in any other language but French. This bill was a further insult to Quebec’s English-speaking minority and actually interferes with the ability of Quebec firms to do business outside Quebec.

But the new democrats supported it in a feeble attempt to win praise and recognition in Quebec. They do not understand that the Orange Wave of Jack Layton is long dead.

And Jagmeet Singh is no Jack Layton.

More seriously, the actions of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) are already hurting the immigration needs of the province. This is continuing to hurt the ability of business to find many of the skills needed in a modern business world. It is crushing the ability of the province to penetrate the markets of almost 400 million Americans and Canadians on their doorstep because too many of their employees are unable to communicate with those markets in English or Spanish.

At a time when new tourism markets need to be developed, the province is denying the need for bilingualism. When his unthinking immigration minister Jean Boulet said publicly the other day (in French, of course) that most immigrants to Quebec “don’t work, don’t speak French or don’t adhere to the values of Quebec Society,” his boss premier François Legault said he still wanted him in the CAQ cabinet.

I think Quebec can do better.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Leave ‘Em Laughing.

by Peter Lowry

If you live in Ontario, you need to pay attention to premier Doug Ford. If you don’t, he and his conservatives could bankrupt us. He has totally screwed our healthcare system. He is stealing from us with his planned Highway 413 for his developer friends. He is heading for a collision with our teachers. Remember, he is just a salesman. He hopes to leave the suckers laughing.

I don’t think we have ever seen a man so delighted with his job. He got his money the old-fashioned way, he inherited it. He was taught about politics by his younger brother when Rob Ford was mayor of Toronto with a habit of crack cocaine for fun. When Doug ran for Toronto mayor, he lost to the more conservative John Tory.

But that did not keep Doug Ford from getting even. One of the first things he did when he got to Queen’s Park was to block the increase in the number of councillors for a city of 2.8 million. He left the limited number of councillors with an impossible job. More recently, he decided to have a super-mayor for our two largest cities. He and John Tory must have kissed and made up. The super mayor idea is American and works for them because they have party politics at the municipal level in most of the cities. Toronto has disguised party politics without party discipline.

But Ford’s nemesis will be healthcare. He is attempting to ‘innovate’ with privatization. And it can’t be done. Privatization would cause a further, serious, drain of medical staff from our hospitals. These facilities are already understaffed. Beds are unoccupied in wards with no nurses. There are surgical facilities in hospitals that are not being used. Building new private facilities would be charged to public dollars. Staffing the private facilities would be a further drain on our hospitals. And then public money would be used to pay millionaire doctors.

And the very idea of dumping the feeble from hospitals on for profit nursing homes is the most egregious plan of all. These facilities have neither the staff to handle this influx nor the physio-therapy facilities to help them. To increase private facilities profits in this manner can only be described as abuse of the sick and hurrying them off to what can be a lonely and dreary death.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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An Experiment in Democracy.

by Peter Lowry

OK, I am going to recant, briefly, here. I think they should have proportional voting in Quebec. I admit to the heresy that I am spouting but I think the outcome would be worth it for the laughter.

Quebec politics is good for a laugh at any time. I just feel the amusement could run longer under proportional representation in the Quebec assembly. Under first-past-the-post voting we, too often, end up with one of the minority parties winning enough seats to form a government.

But with five major parties in the running, it would be more fun to have all five in the assembly fighting it out on an on-going basis. Just how long it would be between elections would be a toss-op.

Proportional representation would give each of the parties a number of seats according to their popular vote. As it would be unlikely that any one party would win enough seats to form a majority, there would have to be some deal making to form a government. For example, the CAQ of François Legault might need the four or five of Éric Duhaime’s conservatives to give the CAQ a majority. It would be a marriage made in some place below Heaven.

Conversely, Québec Solidaire might have enough members, along with the liberals, to form a government. There would be heavy action with Quebec’s bookies on how long that coalition would last.

Though nobody would be very interested in a deal with the losers in the Parti Québécois. They might be lucky to elect two or three MLAs.

And that is the problem with Quebec politics. Parties tend to come and go. Here today, gone tomorrow, is their slogan.

As it stands today, the Quebec liberals are the oldest party in the assembly. They have had some interesting conservatives running that party in my lifetime.

But then what is in a name. And who knows what the next two or three Quebec parties will be called? Just keep it interesting ‘mes amies.’

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Ford Forges On.

by Peter Lowry

It really is amazing. How come so many smart people in Ontario can elect such a dumb-ass premier? He really is, you know. Doug Ford would have difficulty finding a one-point score on a Scrabble board. He is a failed salesman. He learned politics from his brother when the younger Ford was mayor of Toronto and high on crack cocaine.

I’ve got to stop laughing every time I see the premier trying to use a teleprompter. They provide it for him to keep him on script and not embarrass everybody. He seems to think that because there is a screen on either side of the podium, he should read a sentence from one and then turn his head and read a sentence from the other.

But he still seems to think of himself as a city councillor. His besties are the lawyers who represent their developer clients at city hall in Toronto. They look after Ford and Ford looks after their clients. The planned Highway 413 might be bad luck for the climate but it’s a sweetheart deal for the developers who have bought up the good farmland around the planned cloverleafs.

Did you understand how Doug has solved the problems for Ontario hospitals? He thinks the hospitals are just going to evict the old and sick and send them to whatever long-term care place might have a bed available. It is that or the hospital will charge the patient $400 per day as long as they stay. Just where the competent staff is to be found for the long-term care places might be a mystery. The conservatives seem to have forgotten we used to have convalescent hospitals. They seem to have been replaced by for-profit long-term care facilities. Some people are wondering how many lawsuits are waiting in the wings for that law.

And you cannot shame Doug or his henchmen. He recently added a few dollars to the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). Some opposition MPPs decided to see if they could live on the money for food in the program. It is about $95 for food for two weeks. They couldn’t do it. And we would all like to see the premier try it. He would probably make it through breakfast and lunch the first day and then he would starve for the next 13 days. Mind you he could stand to lose about 15 kilograms—do him good.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Quest for Quebec.

by Peter Lowry

The Quebec liberals have something the Ontario liberals lack. It is leadership. They have leader Dominique Anglade and she is busy doing her job in the current election campaign in the province. It is almost as though she is running against the news media, the political scientists, the new conservative party, Québec Solidaire, the Parti Québécois and Legault’s CAQ. As leader, she needs to take her party away from the others and run a campaign that sets her party apart.

What I think she needs is a direct attack on Francois Legault’s striking out at the English language when he knows it is only going to hurt Quebecers. She has to say that bilingualism is better. She has to acknowledge that prosperity for Quebec is based on bilingualism. The point is that Legault is hurting the economic potential of Quebec. Bilingualism is better. Bilingualism creates more jobs for Quebecers. French only limits the potential jobs. It has been proved too often that narrow, unilingual strategies have reduced the opportunities for young people. This narrow approach has driven people out of Quebec instead of welcoming opportunities.

And she can hardly lose ground to Éric Duhaime, leader of the mainly libertarian Quebec conservative party. When Duhaime holds news conferences that are half in English and half in French in Montreal, you hardly need to guess whose vote he is going after.

Anglade has to also make the point that to deny Quebecers their rights to their religion to hold a job with the province is the worst kind of bigotry. The National Assembly is a place to ensure Quebecers of their rights—not to deny them their rights. You have to recognize that there are four parties in the assembly that support Bill 96 regarding religious symbols. The party that understands that it is just another piece of roadkill for the supreme court is being honest with Quebecers. And that in itself will be a novelty.

And if you believe the pundits and reporters in Quebec, who say that Anglade’s campaign, as it is, is a loser, you know that Anglade has nothing to lose. Legault can be afraid of the truth but she needs to show that she is not.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Hypocrisy of Premier Ford.

by Peter Lowry

Has Ontario premier Ford found out that organized labour matters? As much as it might gall some Ontario voters, there were conservative members of the Ontario legislature in Labour Day parades this year. They were marching with the workers. They want you to believe they are pro-labour. They are far from pro-labour.

Conservatives such as Doug Ford know little about organized labour, its origins, its reason for continued existence or its objectives. What Ford and his cronies want are the votes of organized labour. What begs the question though is why does the Ontario government mistreat some of the largest union groups in the province?

This is where the hypocrisy is hard to take. The treatment of nurses by the Ford government is discriminatory and has been driving vitally needed nurses out of hospitals. It is hampering the efficacy of our entire healthcare system. We are not out of the pandemic yet and we have growing numbers of medical procedures becoming urgent. Hospitals are being forced to turn patients away from poorly manned emergency departments. Entire wards are without staff and they are closed.

What the Ford government has done is broken faith with the people of Ontario to provide an available, fair and competent healthcare system. And the threat to send convalescing patients to long term care facilities is risking the lives of patients without adequate medical staff and facilities at hand. And what long term care facility has the physiotherapists and equipment to get these people up and back in their communities?

 And the gamesmanship continues in the education system. Some of the largest and determined unions in Ontario are the teachers and the support staff. They are in a game with the government where neither wants to be blamed for children missing any more of the education they need as they grow.

The Ontario government has insulted the first group of teaching assistants, caretakers and clerical staff with an offer of two per cent for those earning less than $40,000 per year and the others just 1.25 per cent.  

Facing rampant inflation, the teachers and support staff are faced with no choice but upcoming strike votes. The first 55,000 Ontario education workers could be out on strike for Christmas.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Matches of the Month.

by Peter Lowry

September is promising to be the most exciting and maybe the most terrifying month for political liaisons Canadians have seen for a while. It was kicked off by the reported bromance between Justin Trudeau and his new BFF premier Doug Ford in Ontario. It gets weirder though when you consider the heating up of the relationship between Pierre Poilievre of federal conservative fame and Danielle Smith of the Alberta’s dis-united conservative party.

Just when you think prime minister Justin Trudeau is the loneliest guy in the country, there he is all buddy-buddy with Ontario’s Ogre-in-chief at Queen’s Park. We see Quebec’s Legault has kicked off his re-election campaign bad-mouthing his fellow Quebecer, the prime minister. So, Justin shows up at Queen’s Park—saying not a word about Ford’s passing a bill dumping seniors and bed holders from hospitals into long-term care homes. Nor was there any comment about the use of Medicare money instead of provincial funds for this abuse of the sick and elderly. And, of course, you don’t rudely ask your buddy where he expects to get the medical and support staff for the long-term care homes?

But they got some great selfies!

You wonder though if anyone is getting the picture in Alberta with Poilievre’s buddy Jason Kenney going out the door of the premier’s office while Danielle Smith of Wildrose fame looks like the probable winner of the key to the premier’s office.

Nothing is guaranteed here as both federal and provincial conservatives like to use a preferential ballot system. That can guarantee you the worst of results.

Danielle Smith has been wooing throngs of Albertan conservatives with her fanciful stories about pandemic lockdowns that never happened, weird stories about machinations by Ottawa to destroy Alberta’s economy and her ludicrous sovereignty bill that the most avid Quebec separatist has only dreamed of.

But it is the combination of Poilievre federally and Smith provincially that makes me wonder what this world is coming to. The two Albertans are reflecting badly on the residents of the wild rose province. The loonies are coming, ta-rah, ta-rah.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Confidence of the CAQ.

by Peter Lowry

Welcome to the opening salvoes of the 2022 Quebec provincial election. In his opening announcement, premier François Legault was telling the news media that he is running on his identity issues. He told them that Quebecers are prouder of being Quebecers because of his laws banning religious symbols and the pressures his government has placed on being sure to do business in French.  What he ignored was the possibility of a libertarian emergence on the right of his Coalition Avenir du Québec (CAQ).

The real libertarians are Éric Duhaime’s conservative party of Quebec. Duhaime is going to get a boost if his friend MP Pierre Poilievre comes out as the new leader of the federal conservatives. Duhaime has already got his party noticed and is expected to win a few seats. It is logical that he would find those seats that are currently held by CAQ loyalists.

I think the liberals in Quebec, with leader Dominique Anglade, are also better positioned than the early polls show. As the current opposition party in the legislature, the liberals are targeting the CAQ’s lack of concern for climate change and the current state of the Quebec economy. The further demands by the CAQ on language ‘purity’ in their Bill 96 are hurting businesses at the wrong time.

The fact that the news media gave the liberals the hardest time when making their reply to Legault, tells us much about the campaign. I think the real campaign is between the CAQ and the liberals.

Québec solidaire, on the left, had some improvements in the last provincial election but I think there is also disappointment in their performance.

The once powerful Parti Québécois claims that it has a ‘Cinderella team’ ready to roll. The only problem is that Cinderella is a fairy tale and so is the Parti Québécois.

I was amused by the sign on the lectern used by François Legault. It said ‘Continuons,’ which reminded me of the old Bolton Brothers movie series from England called the ‘Carry On’ series. Wasn’t there one called ‘Carry On Regardless’?

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Bickering about Billions.

by Peter Lowry

It is Ontario education minister Stephen Lecce versus the teachers and support workers. All the parents want is labour peace and education for their children. After the past two years of on-again, off-again learning in Ontario, parents are frustrated by the political agenda and the demands of people involved in the education of their children. And if Ontario premier Doug Ford is driving the school bus towards private schools, the parents are already constrained by the escalating cost of putting food on the dinner table.

We have known for months that this was coming and that both sides would be intransigent. There are a lot of education unions and they are all lined up to do battle with the Ontario conservatives. And we all know that it will always be the parents and their children who will lose. The parents will lose the work time. Their children will be struggling to catch up.

And all the current union that is up to bat has to say is that Stephen Lecce does not know his arithmetic. Lecce has claimed that the union is demanding $21 billion more for its workers and the union says it only asked politely for an additional $11 billion.

Why the two sides would play that game for public consumption is beyond me. Not to insult the general public but I do not know many people who think in billions. All I know is that the school boards’ council of unions want an extra $3.25 per hour over the next three years for all the 55,000 teaching assistants and other support staff. (You do the math.)

The government, in turn, has made a counter offer of two per cent for those making less than $40,000 per year and 1.25 per cent for those earning more than $40,000. I know that the average is $39,000 per year and that there are part-timers included. (That is where I gave up on the math.)

All I know is that if you live in Toronto and have to support two people on less than $40,000 per year, you are living in poverty.

I am beginning to think that Stephen Lecce is dumber than his boss Doug Ford.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Doug Doesn’t Do Decency.

by Peter Lowry

There are people in our society who do the right thing without being asked. Ontario premier Doug Ford is not one of them. There are people in our society who will go out of their way to make sure that people in our society have enough to eat. Ontario premier Doug Ford is not one of them. There are people in our society who are concerned about those without adequate shelter. Ontario premier Doug Ford is not one of them.

If he does not do decency, it makes you wonder what he is doing in politics. He exhibits all the characteristics of a hedonist and a narcissist. He thinks we will all look up to him and honour him.

But the problem is that he asked us for the job of premier. He knew from his previous four years in the job that it was not easy job to do. He already knew that the healthcare system in Ontario is shattered. He knew that our children had just gone through two years of hit or miss schooling. He knew that there are close to a million of Ontario’s population who need help and government support. He knew that Ontario had the largest population of all the provinces of Canada. He knew that Ontario needed to house a rapidly growing population. He knew that the province needed the infrastructure to support a growing population. The job he asked for is not an impossible job. It is a big job.

It is too bad that Doug Ford is not a forthcoming person. Have you noticed that the solutions for healthcare and housing were never discussed by the conservatives during the recent election?

The conservative solution to the lack of bed space in our hospitals is to suggest that long-term care home beds can be used. Anyone in Ontario who has had to find a long-term care bed for someone they care about will tell you that is easier said than done. And maybe Mr. Ford can tell us where the long-term care homes are going to find the staff to care for the people dumped on them by the hospitals?

And there are many in Ontario who are laughing at the idea that Mr. Ford’s super mayors are going to dictate that more affordable homes be built in their communities.

But please do not blame Mr. Ford for all these problems. If people insist on voting for an incompetent, that is what you get: incompetence.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]