Category: Provincial Politics

It is hard to say whether Premier Wynne used delicate chiselling tools or just a Shop Vac to fashion her new cabinet. Either way, it would be wise not to expect all its members to last the four years of her mandate. There is some testing going on in that formula and it will take a while to see how it works.

We all knew that Charles Sousa from Mississauga was going to continue as Finance Minister. That was a no-brainer but the real question is whether he can continue a left of centre budgeting stance and still come to a more balanced budget. The urgency is to continue to raise Ontario out of the doldrums rather than any mythical need to move to the right and balance the books. As a low-tax haven already, we have lots of room for more revenue generation from both old and new sources.

The good news in moving people around was to get Deb Matthews off the firing line in Health. The woman really needs to be able to show her competence without the weights around her neck from previous incompetents. As President of the Treasury Board, her strengths and weaknesses will be more obvious to her fellow cabinet members and less obvious to the public. It gives her a chance to be more useful. The only problem is that Eric Hoskins is in the hot corner of health now and obviously Premier Wynne has more confidence in his abilities than some other people. It is an interesting experiment.

Stalwarts such as Jim Bradley, Michael Gravelle and Ted McMeekin can be expected to perform well in their respective roles as chair of cabinet, northern development and municipal affairs and housing.

The amusing combination of House Leader and Correctional Institutions seems appropriate for the well liked Yasir Naqvi. Considering that almost half the Liberal caucus is in cabinet, he is going to have to ride his cabinet colleagues hard to make them pay attention to the needs in the Legislature.

A couple interesting picks are Brad Duguid returning to economic development, employment and infrastructure and Mitzi Hunter to work with Charles Sousa as an associate minister on the new Ontario pension plan. Both those portfolios have to produce for us and they will be under the gun.

Overall, it looks good. It is a much better selection now that Wynne has fewer debts to pay off. We will watch what happens.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

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

When New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath finally came out of hiding after the Ontario election, her pride (hubris) was all she had left. She has a caucus to lead and since they have nobody better, Andrea is still their leader.

But Andrea’s decision to force an election produced no victory. To hold just 21 seats in a general election that saw only a couple per cent over 50 per cent of the voters get to the polls was a sign of weakness for the Ontario New Democrats. Where was their vaunted strength in getting out their vote? Is 12 per cent of the total possible vote all that was there for them? That low a figure speaks volumes.

The losers in this 2014 Ontario General Election were the voters who declined their vote, spoiled their ballot or did not show up at the polls. That is roughly four million people. These people had no person or party on the ballot for who they cared enough to vote.

Andrea Horwath can take no pride in that. Nor can Kathleen Wynn. The party knives were ready for Timmy Hudak as soon as he tried to quell rebellion. Timmy is toast.

So is Andrea. The Ontario New Democrats just have to wait for their next convention. It gives a few possible successors time to build a convention team, source the funds required and plan their attack. They are going to bake the Pillsbury dough girl. Not because of their ambition alone but because the party needs them to survive.

And with this election and the federal tryst next year, the possible future of the New Democrats has to be decided. And the Ontario New Democrats will have to show the way. What New Democrats have to realize is that if they are truly loyal to the cause of socialism, they have to find a more effective means of achieving greater power.

One of the easiest ways to achieve success for the 99 per cent and to right the wrongs of corrupted capitalism is for the New Democrats to join the Liberal Party. Their numbers alone will give them the power and the influence needed to make the long strides in social progress.

And in that step, every New Democrat can join Andrea’s pride. She has proved that the party cannot move to the right of the Liberals and succeed. Federal New Democrat Leader Tommy Mulcair is also going to find that out next year. The Ontario New Democrats can move forward by planning their steps over the next two years.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to peter@lowry.me

Since the basically corrupt and manipulated congress that chose her as leader of Ontario Liberals, Babel-on-the-Bay has not fawned over Premier Kathleen Wynne. It has not been a close relationship.

But this blog recognized early why she would come out on top in this June’s election. There was no way Ontario could throw Timmy Hudak a bone and the Pillsbury Dough girl, Andrea Horwath stumbled at the start of the campaign and never recovered.

Since the May budget from Finance Minister Charles Sousa, there was growing approval of Ms. Wynne and her party. And that budget was a pleasant surprise. It not only made sense but it addressed some basic issues that had needed to be fixed for some time.

In markets where working housewives have to pay $20 an hour to untaxed cleaning ladies, we actually offered to raise hard working home care workers closer to the poverty line. We might not have crossed all the “T’s” but the new pension plan makes for a much better future for today’s young people. And electrifying the GO trains is the only way we will get better efficiency and speed for commuters. We even approve of the more measured expenditure on the Ring of Fire.

Ontario is no easy province to govern and Wynne surprised us by the ease with which she moved into the premier’s chair and struggled with the problems from the McGuinty era. Seeing her survive the gas plants and Ornge and wind turbines was not only educational but impressive. It is a rare politician who can use basic honesty so effectively.

And it defied everything we knew about her politically. She got into politics during Premier Michael Harris’ reign of terror. Her approach was reactionary. She got into politics to fight against Harris’ amalgamation of Metropolitan Toronto. Those who were students of the emergence of Toronto as one of the greater cities of the world knew she was wrong. It was likely the only thing that Mike Harris did right—for all the wrong reasons. His objective was to dump a lot of provincial costs on the new city without giving it the money or taxation methodology to pay the bills. That mess is only now being straightened out.

It was because of her reactionary approach and her quiet presence in the McGuinty cabinet that we tended to dismiss her as a person of interest during the leadership contest. Nor did it help that the political Whigs who run things provincially here in Babel were supporting her.

But we are big enough to forgive her. Her forgiveness is not required.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

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

Where does a person who poses as a progressive Liberal get off saying other political bloggers are ‘damn fools’? More than one blogger called correctly for the Liberal majority on June 12. Babel-on-the-Bay forecast a Liberal majority government in Ontario on June 6. That was no fluke. It was based on experience. Studying and using many polling techniques over the years helps but you also have to have an instinct for how people react and respond to mass stimuli. Babel-on-the-Bay is rarely far from the mark.

This not to say we did not make an interesting mistake in our forecast. We over-estimated the losses of the New Democrats. We were influenced heavily by the feelings of New Democrat supporters in Toronto. Their anger cost the New Democrats three of their key seats in that city. If Toronto New Democrats have their way at the next New Democrat convention, Leader Andrea Horwath will be toast.

It was hardly a surprise that the pollsters were also getting a reading on that dissatisfaction with Horwath and her campaign. If a 100 per cent of the possible voters in Ontario went to the polls, it is likely that the New Democrats would have been reduced to below 15 per cent of the popular vote and seats. The fact only 52 per cent of eligible voters turned out to vote saved Horwath.

In the end it was Conservative Leader Tim Hudak who carried the can for the return of a Liberal majority. Elections are about success and failure. In simple terms for every action there must to be an equal and opposite reaction. The damaged Conservatives yielded the win to the Liberals.

But this does not explain Mr. Kinsella using his blog to call people liars. The bald statement that “anyone who said they saw Ontario’s majority Liberal before last Thursday was a damn liar…” is overreaching. It is also rude. It is also surprising from someone who purports to know something about slander and libel.

While Mr. Kinsell demanded an apology the last time Babel-on-the-Bay mentioned his name, maybe he would like to apologize to us this time. It is his option. We apologized promptly last time because we had said he made money from Sun Media. Since he told us he did not, we apologized. We might have been puzzled that he would do that for free but here we do this blog for free and have a lot of fun at it.

As usual, we always ask that you please keep the e-mails coming…except from New Democrats with no sense of humour!

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to peter@lowry.me

Watching economist Don Drummond on Tom Clark’s Global Television show the other day, you could understand why Ontario does not elect economists. Conservative Leader Timmy Hudak is an economist (?) and we are seeing the back of him. And people like Drummond need not apply.

Economics itself is not the dismal science. It is more the dismal dialogue of those who practice such a dark art. Drummond did not appear to offer anything positive. And, for that matter, neither did Timmy Hudak! It is not like that rare event of finding a bank manager with a sense of humour. You do your best to keep that one with you.

We mention bank managers by way of reintroducing Charles Sousa. We fully expect that Premier Kathleen Wynne is going to keep the Mississauga MPP on as Finance Minister. This is not because of Charles’ brilliance or particularly outstanding record. He just happens to be one of the members of the newly enlarged Liberal caucus at Queen’s Park with a background in banking. He has the dour demeanour of a banker but really is a nice guy when you get him away from behind a desk.

But has he blown all his humanitarian credentials in the left-wing budget he is supposed to reintroduce in a couple weeks? Does he have to stop there? Is there some code that says if he does something nice this year, he has to screw us next year? And hey, is that not what you are supposed to do when your party has a majority and three years before facing the next election?

Charles needs to notice that the Liberals won this election with a decidedly left-wing bent to their political promises. Ms. Wynne has positioned her party as doing things for people, not to people. It behoves Charles to continue to follow through on that train.

This will take creative thinking. The Liberals have made some expensive promises and Charles has to make sure that these promises are kept, pain and payment free. To do this, he needs help. He needs to optimize proved revenue sources. He needs more revenue from alcohol, casinos, entertainment and fun. Sure he can squeeze a few more dollars out of the high wage earners and corporations but the real revenues are in sin taxes.

Think of it Charles, you can give Woodbine Entertainment that casino it wants and thumb your nose at Toronto Council. Kanata, outside of Ottawa needs a casino resort also. You will be a hero if these places are in operation before the next election.

And how would you like to double your revenue on alcohol? We will save that gem for another day.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to peter@lowry.me

Some of the most surprised Liberal partisans in the recent Ontario election were here in Babel. Nobody, including the Liberal candidate, expected her to win the election. She obviously thought she was the traditional sacrificial lamb. She had been thrown into the fray after the election had been called and did not even have to meet the riding supporters at an uncontested nominating convention.

While there has been some bad blood between the Liberal federal and provincial riding associations, we would all have got behind the candidate just to stick it to the Conservative incumbent. We are also facing a major challenge next year with two new federal ridings and we need the campaigning practice and could use the provincial campaign as a run-up. That did not happen because of the ineptness of the local Whigs who run the provincial association.

But even Babel-on-the-Bay was caught flat-footed when we realized why the “sacrificial” candidate was going to win. The problem with this riding is mainly the south end of Barrie where much of the new housing has been built. Over the past decade, it has brought in more than 40,000 new voters with whom it is extremely hard to communicate. Many of these people head towards Toronto every working day and they have little loyalty, interest or involvement in their community.

What you have to do to overcome the communications problem is a very strong ground game. It means you need hundreds of trained and motivated canvassers, a carefully crafted build-up of literature, good feedback and analysis and a very strong get-out-the-vote program for both advance polls and election day. Babel does not see campaigns such as that very often. The last effort that came close was a mayoralty campaign four years ago (that was won easily), it just did not fit the Babel mould.

What we missed in dismissing Babel’s chances of being won by a Liberal this time was the lack of an occupation analysis in the south end of town. We knew from personal canvassing experience that there quite a few nurses, teachers and other civil servants living there but it was not until we were into the campaign that Conservative Leader Timmy Hudak made his colossal gaff in saying he would get rid of 100,000 provincial employees. Nobody in our local Liberal campaign realized that he had just given a million civil servants good reason to vote against him. Luckily there were enough here in Babel to defeat the incumbent Conservative MPP. They did not need Liberals urging them to get out and vote.

We would congratulate our new MPP but we have never had the opportunity to meet her.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to peter@lowry.me

It is sure getting tough for a person to accurately forecast election results. Watching Tom Clark during the excellent election night coverage by Global Television, he asked a lovely looking communications consultant on Ms. Wynne’s team if she was surprised at the strong showing of the Liberals. As a long time insider in election campaigns, we were amazed when the young apparatchik confessed that she had no idea that the Liberals would get a majority. That was unbelievable.

It has always been easy to be wrong by two or three per cent, but a person in that position should have been fully prepared for the results. Hell, she could have been a regular reader of Babel-on-the-Bay and she would have been right on top of things. Babel-on-the-Bay has never been wrong in its forecasting. Sure we lost a loonie to a péquiste in the recent Quebec election because we forecast that the CAQ would not get more than 20 per cent of the vote. We paid the loonie begrudgingly when the CAQ came in at 22 per cent.

But what puzzled us in the preliminary figures last night was the relative strength of the Ontario New Democrats. They won seats in the Windsor area that showed more dissatisfaction in that part of the Province than expected. The Liberals need to take a hard look at that area and address some of the concerns more thoroughly.

It is also obvious that the NDP are in for tough times in Toronto. Without their strong union support across the downtown, the Liberals are going to continue to eat their lunch. The preliminary results showed the Liberal squeaker in Thornhill. We will hope that holds so that we can enjoy putting the screws to a poker buddy who lives in Thornhill and insisted on voting for the Conservative.

While it has never been a secret how we felt about Kathleen Wynne, we thought her speech last night was warm and to the point. It was hardly great as speeches go but why waste rhetoric when it is not needed.

Conversely, the Pillsbury Dough Girl, Andrea Horwath was too long and she forgot to resign. We will have to be patient for that. Timmy Hudak was surprisingly gracious in his swan song but why should he not?

But the Liberals have earned congratulations. We will put their feet to the fire on being progressive tomorrow,

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to peter@lowry.me

Tomorrow, we can bemoan the poor turnout of voters. This Ontario election will only serve to prove it is getting worse. Too many people have disconnected from the basics of our democracy. The only problem is that we are going about the solution the wrong way. We have got to stop urging the wrong people to vote. If you had to have a licence to vote, more people would participate.

“Vote as you wish, but vote” is a dumb slogan. We hardly need more ignorant people to vote. Not everyone is a political science major and not everyone pays attention to the news media, reads political propaganda or meets their candidate. And just because somebody is stupid does not mean they are not entitled to vote.

But if you had to prove your right to vote and prove you are paying a reasonable level of attention to what is going on around you, you should get a licence to vote. It would save a huge amount of money for the political parties as they would only pester the licensed voters. The licensed voters on your block would lord it over the unlicensed. Mothers would want their children to not only be doctors and lawyers but also licensed voters.

If you just once worked in an election as a deputy returning officer or poll clerk, you would realize the wisdom of this. If you have looked at what people do to ballots, the scrawled comments, the funny marks, you would understand that exercising the franchise is only one step in the process. You really need to know what you are doing.

Just think of the difference it would make if politicians knew that people were really listening. It might end the simplistic, meaningless slogans. It would mean that politicians would have to learn how to add up their promises. They could actually talk to voters instead of a claque of supporters bussed in for the event to impress the news media. It would produce intelligent questions from an attuned audience.

And, we can start young. It would be a key event with becoming an adult. Like the driver’s licence you got at 16, your voting licence would be the big event of 19. We could also start taking away the licences from the failing minds of seniors who know they have to vote but have forgotten why.

The only problem though is that parties in power such as the Conservatives would try to change the licencing law to ensure that only Conservative voters are licenced. That would certainly simplify things.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to peter@lowry.me