Category: Provincial Politics

Feel the Anger.

by Peter Lowry

The frustration with COVID-19 keeps growing. Canadians are tired of the distancing, the damn masks and the stupid elbow bumping. We all want our lives back. And the politicians aren’t helping.

In Ontario, the politicians have other fish to fry. We are going to have an election called in another week—in case you hadn’t noticed all the electioneering. The Ford conservatives have been straight out campaigning for the past two months. Maybe they feel they’ve the most to lose. And they should.

But there seems to be some confusion about what this election is about. It is certainly not about long-term care facilities. The only people who have right to be concerned about that are those in ill-health and in their late 80s or 90s and their families.

I think Mr. Ford’s most serious enemy in this campaign will be that smarmy MP Pierre Poilievre. He is going around giving conservatism a bad name. He is pandering to the angry and the ignorant. He is promising free-form protesting to all. He is making foolish promises that we expect any sensible person to suspect.

For that hopeless Horwath and the emerging Del Duca to be arguing about who has the best plan for publicly-funded long-term care for Ontario is not going to help either of them.

Long-term care in this province is serious but there are other issues. There is a long-term approach to COVID-19 to address. There is a serious inflationary spiral that has to be alleviated. There is a serious shortage of decent rental accommodation in our province. We need more medical training and graduates. And then we need to pay them properly.

We certainly don’t need to learn that our senior management in our hospitals are topping the province’s sunshine list. We have far too much management and not enough nurses.

And you can hardly say that we will have more teachers and pay them properly. First you have to train the teachers.

What is desperately needed is a statement from each of the parties that encapsulates what they are planning for the province. If they are unable to come up with a statement, the voters will provide it. And the parties are unlikely to like it.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Better Build Bradford Bypass.

by Peter Lowry

Damn the greed of Doug Ford’s Ontario conservatives. They have told their developer friends that they will build highway 413. The idea of 413 had been killed by the Wynne liberals because it wasn’t needed. Yet the Bradford Bypass was already in process and is needed. Ford got the two projects linked and has created a protest movement against both highways.

The Bradford Bypass is a 16.2-kilometer stretch of controlled-access four-lane highway designed to take traffic from highway 404 past Bradford to highway 400 so that it can go around Lake Simcoe. And you should be warned that anyone who lives north of highway 88 (that runs through Bradford) or has a summer cottage in Muskoka, understands the need for the bypass.

If you wanted to challenge the government on whether homes in Bradford are more important than a couple fairways in a conservative-owned golf course, have at it. It is far to late to stop the Bradford Bypass.

This short piece of highway has been in the works for the past 25 years. All the studies have been done. Many millions of dollars that have already been spent on environmental studies, rights of way, designs, overpasses and related road improvements.

And if you ever happen to be driving north on highway 400 from highway 88, you will notice all those new overpasses that have been built or are still in the works to eventually accommodate the heavier traffic that is anticipated in years to come.

I can assure you that my environmental concerns are a match or maybe even better than yours. I have had many years of appearing before councils, boards, commissions and parliamentary committees. When you do that, you need to have your facts well documented

But as a resident of Barrie, Ontario, I find it very annoying that I have to drive through Newmarket, Ontario to get from highway 400 to highway 404 when going to the east end of Toronto. That 16.2-kilometer bypass to highway 404 will likely save me about a half hour in driving time every time I use it.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Hepburn’s Horrors.

by Peter Lowry

Way to go, Bob Hepburn. The Toronto Star pundit tells us that that Ontario premier Doug Ford is chortling over the polls the conservatives have been taking. If Ford is dumb enough to believe the pollsters, let sleeping dogs lie.

I will have the morning line for my readers on this June 2 provincial election in three to four weeks. Until we see how this election is going to play out, nobody knows what will happen.

As far as I can tell, we are starting out with a three-legged race. The key to a three-legged race is matching runners who can get in synch with each other. At this time nobody is in synch.

And we are not talking about synchronizing our watches. We know that the medical profession is pissed with the conservatives. The doctors, nurses and other staff have done a great job for us over the past couple years and the conservatives have treated them like crap. Maybe this is one of those times when the medical profession can all pull in the same direction. I think they are waiting to see whether the liberals are going anywhere or not.

And it is the same with the teachers. Ford sent a little boy from private school out to confound our teachers. That was a dumb move. Teachers are great organizers and there is an army of teachers ready to rumble. They just need to pick their winner. The last time the liberals had the teachers in sync with them, the Tories almost came third.

The third cohort, with a large vote, that Doug Ford cannot understand are the provincial government employees. They might keep a low profile but the rumbling in that bailiwick spells trouble for the conservatives. What Mr. Ford forgets is that these silent people are also voters.

To be fair to the Star’s Bob Hepburn, his article the other day was about the chances of strategic voting doing anything. We could have saved him the trouble. Nobody trusts strategic voting. It is a secret ballot you know.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Is Del Duca Missing in Action?

by Peter Lowry

I think not. After two years of hiding in the bushes, I bet Ontario liberal leader Steven Del Duca has a grand plan. There must be a scheme in place that will devastate the Ford conservatives. Hopefully, it is ready to rumble.

After all, what will our June 2 election in Ontario be about but leadership? Ford and his henchmen have been running around the province promising anything to get re-elected. What else did Del Duca have to be doing but plan. The Ontario conservatives have been in overdrive, campaigning for the last two months. Del Duca would hardly be at home watching re-runs of Doogie Howser, M.D.

Of course, Del Duca shows up occasionally so that the liberal caucus at Queen’s Park will know they still have a leader. All he could do was chortle over Doug Ford’s hopeless handling of the pandemic. Ford would listen to the best medical advice and then do what he wanted anyway. The Ford solution to the pandemic was a heavy hand and bombast. He had no compassion and no sense of how people were re-acting. He based direction on his gut feeling. And when you have as big a gut as Ford, your gut usually needs medical attention when it is trying to tell you something.

Doug Ford is the kind of guy who tells you not to go to your cottage because people should not be wandering around the province spreading COVID. And then he goes up to his Muskoka cottage to enjoy the peace and quiet. When he has enough peace and quiet, he takes out his gas guzzling water ski and scares hell out of the fish.

But don’t get me wrong here. I have seen lots of leaders get re-elected despite being useless. Del Duca is not going to let that happen. He has made the occasional sortie into the media’s view to make comments about policies. He even has a sense of humour and he told the media that if he did not change how Ontario votes soon after being elected premier, he would quit as premier.

He also announced some party promises for ideas like a four-day work week and two-year maternity leave. More recently, he announced he wants to ban handguns in Ontario. It shows us, he has been thinking.

So, when he starts campaigning, it will be a block buster.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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It’s Hopeless for Horwath.

by Peter Lowry

It is 13 years now that Andrea Horwath has been leading Ontario’s new democrats. It has been a sad four years of lacklustre leadership that Horwath has provided the official opposition. She only became opposition leader in the Ontario legislature because former premier Kathleen Wynne of the liberals gave up before election day in 2018.

If Andrea Horwath was a real leader, she would never have lost Brampton North MPP Kevin Yarde for the coming election. She needs him in the NDP caucus. She lost him to an ethnic putsch in his electoral district.

And there was nothing new about that. All major parties have suffered from one ethnic group or another ganging up and dictating that it will be one of their own who will represent their riding. If it is not the Italians in one riding, it is the Sikhs in another. And you can hardly complain that the federal government passed an amendment to the election act back in the 1990s that the party leader has to sign off on all candidates for his or her party. (Which only stupid leaders abuse by simply appointing who will represent their party.)

But the entire provincial electoral district of Brampton North should be embarrassed by the loss of Kevin Yarde. He was one of the effective people in the legislature. He was a strong advocate for his riding. The Sikh community, that obviously ganged up on him, should be embarrassed by the foolishness. The Sikh community in Ontario does not lack representation in the legislature.

And it was hardly as though Kevin Yarde just represented the black community. It was unfortunate that Howarth told the black NDP members that they could have their own caucus. Five members who happened to be black made a good number for an interesting lunch but they hardly need their own caucus. The NDP caucus was not so large that their opinions could not be heard. Next thing we will hear is that the NDP has a women’s caucus.

It reminded me of years ago, I decided to drop in on my local riding annual meeting. I had been traveling frequently and was not as active in the association. What struck me when I got there was that we seemed to have a large number of new members. I was moving about saying ‘hello’ to people when I bumped into a young chap whom I knew because my son had invited him to our back yard swimming pool.

I welcomed him to the liberal party and asked him what encouraged him to take an interest in politics. His answer was most upsetting. He smilingly told me that he had been recruited to help it to be what he called “Our turn.”

I just stood there and looked at his dusky brown face and realized that the riding association had been taken over. How was I going to explain to this young man that liberals do not take turns? We pick the best person to represent all of us. We do not pick by skin color or religion or country of birth.

And maybe, I’m just an idealist.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Troubling Thinking.

by Peter Lowry

You should never ignore a political party’s pamphlets. They tell you so much about how they think—or, in some cases, do not think. In this phony war before the real provincial campaign commences in Ontario, the sneakiness of the pamphlets dropped at your door can tell you much.

All of this came to me looking at a conservative pamphlet delivered by Canada Post the other day. Basically, if they can afford to send such tripe by Canada Post, they have entirely too much money. It was one of those gems that was not only specious but reminded me of a wedding. It was something borrowed and something blue.

The pamphlet was headed “New Ontario Tax Credits 2021.” It was nothing new. It listed five Ontario tax credits past during the four years of the Doug Ford conservatives. If our local conservative carpet bagger thought they were important, he was wasting his money on promoting them.

“Tax credits” are just what the words imply. If you spend some money in the previous year, the provincial government will give you a part of that money back this year. That is if you actually spent the money and kept all the receipts and documentation.

But this is how the conservative government thinks. They want to give money to people who can afford to pay out the funds. If you cannot afford it: tough luck. This government isn’t interested in people who cannot afford to pay $500 per week to have their children looked after. It ignores the person who needs skills training and does not have the money. It tells people who don’t have the money that it is not interested in them.

The only exception was the straight-out bribe to vote conservative in giving back the money for your car licence renewal.  Mind you, if you owned two or three vehicles that required licencing, you made out like a bandit.

It is good that the federal government is making good on its promise of lowering daycare costs across Canada. Yet it was the Ontario Tories who dragged out the negotiation with the feds to try to make sure it looked like the province got more—and closer to the election.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Keening of Kenney.

by Peter Lowry

It seems Alberta’s premier has decided to play out the tragedy of his time in Alberta politics. He was so eager and ready seven years ago when he bought a pick-up, a ten-gallon hat and fat-boy jeans and headed home for Alberta. It was Ottawa’s loss and the Alberta legislature’s gain. It was when many conservatives thought he should have followed Stephen Harper as leader and help rebuild the federal Tories.

But Jason Kenney knew well what he was doing. His path and strategy were carefully considered and planned. He easily took over the dispirited Alberta provincial conservative party. He was eager to accommodate when he united the right. He knew the key was in shutting down the Wildrose party. The distraction that worked for him was the success of the Alberta new democrats. Few made note early enough of Kenney’s rampant misogyny and his take-no-prisoners approach to politics.

But it was classic Kenney delivering his speech to the United Conservative Party faithful last Saturday in Red Deer. Most of the 45 minutes of customary conservative rhetoric was grinding at the inbred fear of a return to the ‘socialist’ new democrats and their leader Rachel Notley. He admitted that he might not be perfect but hopefully the listeners would forgive and forget about the billions of taxpayer dollars wasted on pipelines that could not be built.

He glibly asked for forgiveness while clutching at the one last arrow in his quiver. He knew it was the bitter and those wanting blood who came to Red Deer for the party conclave. He was talking to about 16,000 live bodies and more at home watching his speech streamed to them.

But it will be the party’s 60,000 some members who are invited to vote on his future. He is betting on those stay-at-home voters to keep him employed as leader of the united conservatives and premier of Alberta.

It takes time for those ballots to be delivered to 60,000 voters. You have to give them time to consider it and then Canada Post time to return the ballots. And, since it takes time to carefully count those ballots, the results will not be announced until May 18. And that is plenty of time for Kenney to find a way to cheat his defeat by a really angry party.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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The Timorous Legacy.

by Peter Lowry

Former premier Kathleen Wynne stood in the Ontario legislature last week for her farewell speech to that house. It was not an inspiring moment but her speech was gracious. And if she is not worried about her legacy, she should be.

Wynne was premier of Canada’s most populous province for five years. She was not only the first woman premier but the first openly gay woman premier. Yet, her rule was timorous. If she felt something was worth doing, she would do it in small increments.

Would you believe that her legacy is beer and wine in the large grocery stores? Watching her government roll out beer in grocery stores was an exercise similar to watching paint dry. On her schedule, it would be 2050 before beer is available in a convenience store.

Compared to Wynne, Doug Ford is on the lunatic fringe of the “let’s do it” types. He let restaurants get into the off-premises sale of beer and wine with little or no fanfare. He is an excellent example of the business chief executive officer who is hired for the ability to make decisions. You expect this person to be wrong at least 50 per cent of the time.

Wynne spoke in measured terms while Ford is brash. Wynne shared credit with others in her government while Ford hogs much of the publicity.

Wynne wanted a $15 minimum wage four years ago. Ford canceled it and reinstated it this year.

Wynne wanted, once again, to try a guaranteed annual income, Ford canceled the trial.

Where Wynne would vacillate, Ford plows straight ahead.

Ford is a blowhard where Wynne is a bit of a prune.

Wynne kept Ontario Lottery and Gaming under constraint while Doug Ford is blowing the lid off their operations.

Wynne had some heart and treated the poor and impoverished with concern. Ford takes money away from the desperate and hopes to find more.

Ford says how hard the nurses have worked through the pandemic and puts the screws on their salaries. Wynne spoke the teachers’ language and got their cooperation.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Which Ten is that?

by Peter Lowry

Ontario has bought into the federal government’s “Ten Dollars a day” daycare deal. That is what everyone calls it. And most people realize it is not going to happen overnight. What puzzles me though is this payment going to be in 2022- ten dollars or in 2027-ten dollars?

The way inflation is galloping along, it is very hard to say what a Canadian ten-dollar bill will be worth in five years.

It was good to see that finance minister Chystia Freeland knows that we are not going to be able to train a quarter million new daycare workers overnight. And, obviously, there will need to be a lot more daycare centres. These need to be built, staffed and in operation to serve the needs. And feel assured, if we build them, the kids will come.

Maybe the question of value will be solved if Pierre Poilievre wins the lottery being run by the conservatives to choose a new leader. As conservative leader, he seems to want to campaign on making Bitcoin the Canadian currency. We would probably need to keep our phone batteries charged, in that event. I checked and saw that a bitcoin was being quoted at over C$54,000. You would never want to make a decimal point error in Mr. Poilievre’s world.

What worries me though is that there are obviously going to be many daycare spaces in different daycares. They are not all going to be cookie-cutter daycares. Will not some of these daycares be more desirable than others? Will there not be extras? Is there a surcharge for chocolate milk instead of two-percent?  Is having junior in this daycare over that daycare going to be more prestigious? Will there be some where the drop-off and pick-up is more convenient? You never really know what junior or his parents will prefer.

I do not want to be a skeptic but there will be many cookie-cutter daycares and there will also be the innovators. And that is life. And if you don’t think lots of operators will find ways to get around the limit of ten bucks, you do not know human nature.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Dumbing Down with Doug.

by Peter Lowry

If there is one thing Ontario voters can agree on is that Ontario premier Doug Ford is not the brightest star in the sky over Queen’s Park. When he thinks he has an idea that might appeal to voters, he will ride the idea into the ground.

Take his recent sticker idea. He knows that the actual sticker that shows you have paid for your vehicle license this year is worth a fraction of a cent.  He is going to give back the money you paid. It should come with a note reminding you to vote conservative in the coming election.

All it did was remind people of the stickers he had made to add confusion on the province’s gas pumps. It was finally a judge who got rid of that nonsense.

But how about his latest promise. If you vote conservative on June 2, he will roll back five cents of the Ontario gasoline tax—just for the rest of the year. You have got to figure that this guy doesn’t often get to fill up his limousine.

How did you like his preening for the television cameras at General Motors the other day? Here is the guy who killed the provincial grants for people buying electric cars four years ago taking the credit for General Motors being bribed to built pickups in Oshawa, Ontario and—eventually—some electric vehicles in Ingersoll, Ontario. What do you want to bet that the deal was engineered by the federal people in Ottawa?

Doug thinks he should get the credit. What he fails to understand is that with accepting the credit for something, you also have to take responsibility for the down sides. It is like the current situation with COVID-19. If the conservatives want the credit for declaring that the pandemic is over in Ontario, then we should not be hearing about more people in hospital and in the ICUs and dying. Which is what we are hearing.

On the positive side, it time for the Ontario government to proceed with the Bradford Bypass. There is no reason though to proceed with Highway 413. It is not needed by anyone other than Doug Ford’s developer friends.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]