Category: Provincial Politics

People keep asking how the heck Conservative MP Patrick Brown can sign more than 40,000 new provincial party memberships? What they fail to grasp is that a system developed 30 years ago has grown and become something of an industry. Brown did not invent it, he just used it. This system saw candidates knocking on individual doors as a waste of time and concentrated instead on negotiating support with community leaders. Nobody seems to sign up individual party memberships any more. You negotiate with the community leaders: the wholesalers.

A lot of good community organizers, for all the major parties, were lost to their parties because of this trend. They were buried in the avalanche of ethnic group sign-ups in our major cities. The entire story was covered in a single question at a riding nomination meeting in 1988: standing with your candidate looking up at the back of the hall and asking “Where the hell did all those Armenians come from?” After years of good relations with all ethnic groups in the riding, that particular knife in the back was large, sharp and brutal.

While we often refer to Patrick Brown as “that nebbish” we never said he did not know what he was doing. He is still young enough to endure all those back-breaking flights (at taxpayers’ expense) to and from India to win over the half-million Hindus and Sikhs in Ontario. Did you know that there are 15 Hindu Temples in Scarborough, Ontario alone? Why else would Patrick Brown have campaign headquarters in Brampton and Scarborough? Why else would he want to appear buddy-buddy with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi?

It is obvious that Patrick Brown’s biggest campaign expense was the ten-dollar bills attached to each of the membership applications. It is just too bad you cannot prove it.

But his biggest problem is to balance his membership sign-ups across the province. And that is why the serious study of his memberships has to do with the declared residences of the new sign-ups. In any electoral district where he has signed up more than 100 members, he will only get the percentage of members who vote for him or when he is second choice of the third place candidate’s supporters: which will obviously be those of MPP Monte McNaughton.

It is the limit of 100 votes per riding that is keeping MPP Christine Elliott in the race. Her position as the favourite of the older generation of Progressive Conservatives will definitely balance well across the province’s ridings.

Now if we were a Conservative Party supporter with deep pockets, we might just figure out a way to challenge the Brown sign-ups. These new people might be somewhat conservative but they are not going to be very conscientious Conservatives.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

When Premier Wynne knows what it is she wants, she wants it, she gets it and you best get out of her way. It is just regrettable that she has never learned anything about democracy. For an autocrat such as her to be running the Province of Ontario seems to be a poor solution to the voters’ needs. Maybe it reminds us too much of former Premier Mike Harris’ terrorizing the province over the turn of the century.

But more seriously Wynne seems busy destroying the foundations of the provincial Liberal Party. She appears to see the party as more of a hindrance than a help. She thinks it is just a grab bag of little gremlins to help out and provide backdrops in an election event. That seems to be her only experience with the party.

Wynne certainly does not expect the party to interfere in her decisions on what is good for the province. When she recently asked the voters what they would like to see in the upcoming provincial budget, she must have been horrified to hear that a majority of the respondents were in favour of having beer and wine in convenience stores. All it means is that the topic is top of mind at this time.

But Wynne had already announced that beer and wine in convenience stores is not on her agenda. She does not want to appear weak and give in to those trying to get the province to grow up. She sees the question as a contest of wills and she thinks she should win. We already know there will be some sop to the serious complaints about the foreign-owned Beer Store operations but it will be too little, too late and too inadequate.

The Premier fails to understand that the party would be very pleased to advise her on issues such as this. When the party sees itself actually helping the elected wing of the party address societal issues, it is even more willing to work harder at election time.

It all comes down to involvement. Policy discussions and regional conferences can make excellent platforms for ideas from back benchers and potential candidates. Just the appearance of working together can strengthen the bonds between party and workers.

To come into town to simply announce who will be the by-election candidate is not the kind of motivational speech you give to local Liberals. The party leader might win once or twice but in the long run, you just destroy the base of the party.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

The phones were ringing early in Barrie yesterday. Conservatives were stunned. Liberals were in shock. New Democrats were confused. Not that this blog ever wants to say “We told you so!” but we will this time.

It is not difficult to believe the figure of 40,000 instant Conservatives for Ontario. That is a very realistic figure, give or take a few thousand. If MP Patrick Brown says he has that many sign-ups to the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, you can believe it. Whether that figure wins him the leadership of the party is a very different question. All we can tell you at this time is that it sounds very much like a win-win situation for Premier Kathleen Wynne.

As we pointed out earlier in the year, there is now a period of serious auditing of the sign-ups for each of the Conservative contenders. Did each of these instant Conservatives pay their own $10 for their membership? Do they live in the electoral district they claim? Are they really going to vote in May of this year? After all when you buy your members on the wholesale market, can you trust them?

While you might think of these as picky questions and that a proper Conservative lady or gentleman would not provide an incorrect answer, an occasional error might creep through. You can call it the revenge of the nerds. And you can think of Barrie’s Patrick Brown as the chief nerd.

And if you thought poor Timmy Hudak was a problem as leader of the Ontario Tories, you have never seen Patrick Brown in (in)action. MP Brown not only has the worst attendance record in the Canadian parliament, but he has the record for spending the most money sending trash communications to the voters in his riding.

It hardly matters that women do not like him. As an ardent Right-to-Lifer, Brown would drive women voters away from the Conservatives anyway.

He is a self-described retail politician. That means he puts all his efforts and attention on his electoral district and only shows up in parliament when it is demanded. If he stands up in Question Period, it is to ask friendly questions of his own Ministers.

He had nowhere to go in Ottawa and that is why he threw himself into the provincial leadership race. What he can possibly offer the Ontario Conservatives other than many years more in the wilderness, is the question. You know for sure that Premier Wynne would not mind.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

This guy could only be from South-Western Ontario. Richard (Rick) Nicholls is the Progressive Conservative MPP for Chatham-Kent—Essex in the Ontario Legislature. He also claims to be an evolution denier and is opposed to wind turbines in Chatham-Kent County. He does not think they are good for us.

It has been noted that there are lots of wind turbines in Chatham-Kent but it is an area that can remind you of the wind-swept low countries of Europe. In the Netherlands, for example, they probably have more windmills per hectare than there are wind turbines in Chatham-Kent. They make a very similar and pleasant whoosh as they move in the wind. The Dutch have enjoyed the services of those windmills for hundreds of years and they are something of a tourist attraction.

But Mr. Nicholls is hardly the first Ontario Conservative who has tried to make an issue of wind turbines. He might just be the first in this century to deride Darwinism to his faithful Sancho Panza as he seeks more wind turbines with which to joust.

As an acclaimed supporter of lost causes, MPP Nicholls is one of the few past or present members of the Ontario Legislature to support Barrie MP Patrick Brown for the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. Mr. Brown was one of the 300 members of the public demonstrating against sex education in front of the Ontario Legislature the other day.

Mr. Brown already had the worst record among Conservative MPs for his attendance in the House of Commons but his absence is rarely noted as he has nothing in particular to contribute anyway. What he might contribute to the Ontario party has even more people puzzled. Late this week membership figures will be announced and that will give everyone a fairly good idea of how Mr. Brown hopes to win.

What Patrick Brown has been doing is working among specific ethnic groups in Ontario to try to swamp the party membership. At the beginning of the campaign, he established headquarters in Brampton and Scarborough as bases for his ethnic effort. With Ontario PC membership at its lowest ebb in years, he was attempting to sign ethnic groups in low membership electoral districts throughout Toronto city and the Greater Toronto Area. If his sign-ups can dominate in enough of the districts, he could, in theory, win the leadership. Depending on the detail provided in the membership announcement this coming weekend, we will see how he has done.

But do not worry about the raw numbers. There is a maximum 100 members allowed for each of the 107 ridings. If more than 100 members vote in any one electoral district, the percentages for each candidate will be allocated to the final tally for the three contenders still in the race. Mr. Brown would have had to swamp the membership in more than 54 electoral districts to win this race. That prospect must be scaring hell out of the many progressive Conservatives in Ontario.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

It was interesting comparing how different news media announced the new sex education material issued by the Ontario Ministry of Education. For all the hoopla, it seems to be very tame stuff. It told us more about the maturity of the reporters, news directors and editors than it did about sex education. Global Television’s Queen’s Park reporter Alan Carter was by far the least mature. He insisted on referring to it as the Liberal government’s sex education program and promised large crowds of people objecting to the explicit words and sexual practices being discussed.

Carter’s poster boy for the Queen’s Park protestors was Monte McNaughton MPP for Lambton-Kent-Middlesex who appears to speak for the social conservative side of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives in the current party leadership race. McNaughton’s answer is sex should be left to parents to discuss with their children.

Carter’s obvious bias against the Ontario Liberals is in sharp contrast to the more balanced coverage of Ottawa politics by the Global team based there. Carter has already wasted the goodwill that former senior news reporter Leslie Roberts and co-host John Tory built for the Focus Ontario program that Carter took over. We were hoping the very able Toronto City Hall reporter Jackson Proskow would move to that show but he was promoted to Washington.

The perception of Alan Carter’s reporting can best be described as snide. He has a seemingly sneering attitude in discussing subjects particularly related to the governing Liberals. This writer also tends to disagree with some of the things they do but we are writing commentary not news. And we use our political expertise to question and analyze the actions of politicians. We also encourage (signed) comment from readers.

It must be a knee-jerk thing. Over the years of arranging “spontaneous” demonstrations for this or that, you get to be a quick study of crowds, their numbers and their origins. The demonstration at Queen’s Park in the cold yesterday was a bit pathetic. Carter told listeners on Monday that there would be thousands at the demonstration. Early radio coverage placed the number at 200. The CBC and Toronto Star pegged it more accurately at 300. Carter admitted to 400 on the 6 pm news and also said that it was far short of the promised numbers.

The presence of Conservative provincial leadership hopefuls MPP Monte McNaughton and MP Patrick Brown told you what anti-abortion social conservative groups the people came from. It was actually more raucous during the question period in the Legislature than it was in the demonstration out front.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

One of the lessons learned in the communications business is that endorsements are an attention getter but need substance to last. Take the recent endorsement of an Ontario politician by hockey great Wayne Gretzky. Does it say to you that if the great Gretzky likes this guy, you should too? Or does it say Mr. Gretzky might know how to play hockey but he knows squat about Ontario politics?

For someone who spends most of his time living in California, Gretzky’s opinion on the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party hardly seems germane. Most of us were probably not even aware that he also likes Stephen Harper. And did we care?

One of the things we often sought out in seeking endorsements was if the person had some relationship with what we were talking about. For example in communicating about a specific disease you would seek out someone who had a close relative with the disease. Then you would try to strike the right balance of concern and hope. That kind of endorsement can be very effective.

Not that being a political wannabe is necessarily the same as a serious illness. Wayne Gretzky would not have a clue as to the probabilities of his endorsee ever becoming leader of the Ontario Conservatives. If this guy won the leadership in May of this year, we would have a hard time stopping laughing by September.

But we have an advantage in that we live in Barrie and this guy is the Member of Parliament for Barrie. He is one of the most useless MPs that we have ever had the bad luck to meet. We have seen how he handles the job from Barrie and we have seen him in (in)action in Ottawa. He already knows that he will not be returning to Ottawa from the new Barrie-Innisfil electoral district this fall. It is just not in the cards. Winning the Ontario provincial leadership is his last desperate effort.

What he has had going for him in Barrie was a perception that he did some good for the community by lending his office staff to various charitable activities. While the charities chosen could hardly refuse the aid, the facts are that they could have done better on their own. The Member of Parliament was tainting the effort.

And what was of special concern was the hockey night effort for Barrie’s Royal Victoria Hospital. The Conservative city council has gone along with this fiasco long enough. To allow the use of the city’s Molson Centre for an unaudited, fund-raising event should have been stopped at the beginning. That has become a major Conservative Party event and we should all be concerned that it is harming RVH’s regular fund-raising efforts.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

The bad news is that the buck stops at your desk, Premier Wynne. Many politicians have gone down over the years because of the same arrogance. It can happen to you. You are not above the law. And if your partner Jane bakes you a cake, tell her not to put a file in it. Sell the book when you get out.

Someone should have warned you that kicking a quadriplegic to the curb was not a good idea. They play their politics tough in Sudbury. And the entire business of that by-election cost you too many IOUs. You blew it. You could have sat back, let the locals have their democracy, made the obligatory appearances and come out a hero.

Why do you think some people refer to your party as Whigs? The Whigs were the predecessors to the English Liberals that died off without Prime Minister David Lloyd George almost 100 years ago. Being called a Whig is not as much an insult as it is pointing out that you are terribly out-of-date. You are living in the wrong century.

If you wanted to buy off the former candidate with some appointment or other, you use someone like the local fund-raiser. He is deniable. Of course you did not tell him to bribe the guy. People like that are expected to be self-important.

But that does not work with your deputy chief-of-staff. Pat Sorbara is not deniable. Her job was to advise you not to do it, not to do your bidding. Is she as arrogant as you? Does she think your office can cover for her when she breaks the law? We do not have many protections for democracy in Ontario but we should respect the ones we do.

And Sorbara’s role in this makes you culpable. She said she was working under your instructions. She has hung you out. You best have your resignations to the Lieutenant-Governor and the Ontario Liberal Party written and signed before the Ontario Provincial Police come knocking at your office door.

But do not feel badly about this. You have lasted two years that Dalton McGuinty could never have delivered to the Liberals. From the corrupt convention that gave you the premier’s job that cold day two years ago until now you have failed to recognize what this province really needs. (Sure, the voters rejected your opponents last year but that was hardly to your credit.)

Ontario and the rest of this great country of ours need a new kind of politics, a renewed democracy and a forward-thinking approach to living in the Twenty-first Century. It is as simple as politicians thinking “what do people need?” They have to forget ideology and make sure people are free. They need to give up the past and concentrate on the future. Our time is far too short on this earth so let’s make life here better.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

This has been on the table since day one. Ontario’s foreign-owned Beer Stores have finally played the price card. Wynne’s Whigs have them cornered and threatening to raise retail beer prices is the only tactic left to our foreign beer barons. Wynne has already said that there will be no change in how Ontario residents get to buy their suds. All the government wants is for the Beer Store proprietors to pay the government more for the right to sell beer in this province.

And it is not as if there are no taxes already paid by the beer barons.

But when the owners cry poor-mouth and say that the Beer Store earns no revenue that is just an accounting trick. When an integrated distribution system such as the Beer Store counts its pennies (to the tune of about $4 billion per year), it can leave the profit where it benefits the owners the most. The only independent study of beer sales in Ontario by the University of Waterloo suggested that there is a profit on 24-bottle cases of about $700 million per year. When you add the money spent through the Ontario government on recycling liquor, wine and beer bottles and other containers, you would think that the government would have a very clear idea of where the profits can be found.

It is the consumers who have no idea of how much they are being ripped off by both the government and our foreign beer barons. We are the last to learn. What we do know is that the same 24-bottle case in Quebec costs at least $14 less than in Ontario. Part of it is a difference in taxes but at least $10 more goes to the Ontario Beer Store monopoly.

Anyone who thinks Ontario citizens are getting a fair deal from these foreign-owned beer barons is an idiot. Wynne and her Whigs are colossally ignorant if they think they can expose this travesty and then save their behinds in the next election.

Why should we put up with the bad smell, the bad merchandising, the inconvenience and the dreadful service of Beer Stores that are a provincial disgrace? And why should we tolerate any longer a system of distributing beer that was conceived in the 1920s and stupid politicians have been afraid to change ever since.

We have to realize that the people of Ontario have come of age even if our politicians have not. There is absolutely no reason for beer and wine not to be sold in convenience stores. And liquor stores should be what consumers want not what politicians’ decree.

It is time for us all to grow up.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

And now there are three. The kid in short pants has moved up. Now he can come third. It certainly confirms the opinion that former provincial Conservative leader, Timmy Hudak fouled the nest.

A week ago we were writing about the four provincial members and the one federal member who were jousting for the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership. It is all for nought. We might as well forget about the subject until May when Christine Elliott will be crowned. It was like the ground hog seeing his shadow last week. The sensible forecast was for a long cold winter to come.

But we will not have Vic Fedeli to kick around any more. The North Bay MPP did not see his shadow either on Groundhog Day and decided that a trip south would be more productive than the leadership race. He gave his blessing to Christine Elliott and saved his supporters the $50,000 that the PC Party wanted this week from each contender to stay in the leadership race.

Nepean MPP Lisa MacLeod had even better news early in the week when Nepean MP John Baird announced he is resigning. In fear of anyone who might not be a guaranteed vote getter getting the nomination, the party has turned to MacLeod. While no Nepean native is eager to drive down the Queensway to Ottawa to work, there could be perks if she makes it into a Harper cabinet. And even as a back-bench Conservative MP, she will make more than a provincial MPP.

With both Fedeli and MacLeod out of the running, it is hard to call this a race. It is now a farce. And we are not trying to disparage Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Monte McNaughton. McNaughton is the darling of the social conservatives and is running on a solid platform of putting an end to wind turbines, abortions, same-sex marriage and the use of the word ‘progressive’ in the party name.

And that leaves the kid in short pants from Barrie. He is having fun. His competitors have finally realized that Brown has been wholesaling party memberships to ethnic groups in Ontario. They are waiting to see if he has really swamped the few red Tories left in the province. It all depends on whether he has been able to spread those memberships across enough electoral districts.

This leadership event is probably the only political theatre we have going for us this spring in Ontario. We should all be mindful of the continued good health of Oshawa’s MPP Christine Elliott. She is all the Progressive Conservatives in Ontario have.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

If somebody gave you a monopoly almost 90 years ago and they decide to take it back and give the long-suffering consumer some choice, what are your rights? What is this franchise worth? This question comes up because Ontario’s beer monopoly is starting to fight back. And why not? We are talking about a multi-billion dollar business, owned by foreign-owned beer companies. They think they have the right to sue the Ontario government over their rights to the monopoly.

You can check all the records and, assuming there is nothing mouldy that has been forgotten over the years in the Ontario Archives, it seems there was never payment made officially for the rights to the monopoly. Sure there have been many millions handed over to political parties over those many years but never anything that we have seen that might be considered payment for the sole rights to distribute and sell beer in the Ontario market.

And it is not as though the arrangement has not been subject to change over the years. Most Ontario citizens are not aware that while the government does not put a top price on beer, it does establish a floor price. This has its roots in the paternalistic purposes of the Beer Store arrangement that attempt to keep alcoholic beverages out of the hands of the poor and less fortunate in our society.

The biggest change for the Beer Store management over the years was the relatively recent decision by the government to have the Beer Store responsible for the recycling of packaging of all alcoholic beverage containers.

And that was the straw that broke that camel’s back. Instead of the recycling system being just an inconvenience, it became the defining nature of the retail operations. In the older outlets, the floors became awash with the mixed residue of millions of bottles. Long line-ups of people returning containers became the norm. Street people in larger centres became regulars with found money from what others discarded.

There is a particular smell that dominates Beer Stores today and it is not the smell one would normally associate with beer. It is strongest around the returns rollers. Part of it is the drippings on the floor that sticks to your shoes.

But even if you survive the returns experience, your next adventure is in bad merchandising. Beer is sold in two-fours, 30s, 18s, 15s, 12s, 6s and singles, there are cans and bottles of many sizes and there are kegs that are an entirely different experience. There are the big brewery brands and the craft brewery brands and finding your brand, size and package preference means you better know what you want or hopefully can find an employee who might know where to find it. And if you are an impulse shopper in some of the newer self-serve stores, you better be dressed for that cold-room experience.

So what is the value of a badly merchandised, smelly, poorly served and inconvenient Beer Store monopoly? The very least we should do for the beast is to put it out of its misery.

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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]