Category: Provincial Politics

Why surprise at Toronto casino?

by Peter Lowry

The ‘maybes’ as opposed to the former ‘no ways’ in regards to a Toronto casino should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the hypocrisy of the Ontario government over the years.  In an October 24 posting last year, this blog postulated that there really might be three casinos in the Toronto area.  That could be pushing the envelope but the Toronto Star now reports that Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan says the province ‘may try its luck with a Toronto Casino.’

It had to happen.  The province needs the money.  The city needs the money.  It is a match made in heaven.

The fiction over the years was that the government wanted to capture tourist dollars with its casinos. That was the supposed plan until easy access across the U.S. border became a thing of the past. A higher Canadian dollar made the casinos on the U.S. side of the border more attractive. And Ontario’s restrictive smoking and alcohol laws had already turned off many American gamblers. It makes it time to admit that the only market that can turn a substantial profit for the government is Toronto. All the government has to do is admit what we have always known: Toronto is the tourist destination preferred by most visitors to Ontario.

Mind you, Toronto Councillor Michael Thompson speaks for many Neanderthals when he says: “I wouldn’t want to hear about families losing their house or their life savings.”  Obviously, Mr. Thompson and like-minded people out of Ontario’s puritan past should have stopped Niagara Falls, Rama, Windsor, Sault Ste. Marie, Skugog Island, Brantford, Gananoque and the National Capitol area’s Lac Leamy from taking the hapless gamblers’ money.  That horse has been out of the barn far too long.

The only conflicted Member of the Legislature will be MPP “Tiny Tim” Hudak, Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition.  He will not only be against anything the government is for, but just think of the number of people in his provincial riding who work at the Niagara Falls casinos.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation’s study on “land-based gaming”—whatever that means—will be coming out soon and it will say whatever the Ontario government wants it to say.  The only thing that might be a surprise will be a move by Ontario into Internet gaming.  The government needs the money.

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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

Babel hears from the Ontario Legislature.

by Peter Lowry

Babel has heard from its man at Queen’s Park.  The electoral district sent Mr. Jackson there in early October.  We received mail from him this week and he also signed an article in the Examiner.  There is little to say about the mailing piece; the recycle bin was already filled with copies from our neighbours, so we added ours.  The Examiner article, we read.

The first thing that was obvious about the article was that our new Member of the Provincial Parliament has not spent his time taking a journalism course.  This was written for him.  It was very modest of him to only have his name at the beginning and end of the article.  Usually something like this is written as a news release and the MPP’s name is worked into every second paragraph.

The story was based on Statistics Canada’s release of unemployment figures in October of last year.  It also picked up on Conservative Leader Tim Hudak’s mid-December release that linked unemployment to the perceived weaknesses of Ontario’s apprenticeship programs.  Whoever wrote the MPP’s article, failed to include the information on the subject from the mayor’s blog at Babel’s city hall Internet site.

The more timely response by Babel’s mayor to the unemployment figures last October pointed out the problem was that Statscan emphasized the donut hole instead of the donut.  The mayor, justifiably, complained that Statscan made headlines of the unemployment and ignored the similarly high rate of employment.  It is a factor of the average age of people in Babel.  With its younger population, Babel is also near the top of the charts of the percentage of people employed.

Tiny Tim Hudak’s December release was just to blame Premier McGuinty for all of Ontario’s unemployment woes.  This was hardly a surprise.  What was confusing was that he explained that Ontario only allowed one new apprentice for every four journeyman trades persons in the province.  While not a trained economist such as the Leader of the Opposition at Queen’s Park, we must admit that the ratio rule makes absolutely no sense.  Surely there are various trades that need more apprentices and some that need fewer apprentices.  Is nobody doing any forecasting in this?

But our earnest MPP gives a plug to Georgian College for its efforts with apprenticeship programs.  We expect we can all agree with that as we face a new year in Babel with renewed determination.

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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry

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

Should we kill all the lawyers?

by Peter Lowry

Having been active in business, charities and politics, one gets to know many lawyers.  Some of them are quite civilized and likable people.  Despite this, there is a strong tendency to agree with William Shakespeare’s character in Henry VI, Part 2 who suggested that (to have an effective revolution) first we have to kill all the lawyers.  In Shakespeare’s time, the line probably had even the lawyers in the audience laughing.

At a neighbourhood get-together the other evening, a lawyer made the mistake of claiming that lawyers are put on earth to assure us less fortunate people of access to the law.  The reaction to his claim was spontaneous and bordered on the rude.  Of course, in his field of law, he has every right to feel proud of what he is able to do for people.  It is just that lawyers themselves are often guilty of promoting bad jokes about lawyers.

To many of us, the lawyer is seen as someone with their hand out, waiting for the rest of us to pay our tithes for access to the law.  Without legal training, your way is barred.  Even in small claims court in Ontario where having legal counsel is not always necessary, we have noted that court-ordered settlements tend to be more generous when lawyers are involved—probably to pay their fees.

But lawyers have been with us since before the days of Cicero in ancient Rome.  In Robert Harris’ wonderful novel Imperium, he showed how inseparable lawyers were from politics as far back as Cicero’s time.  Mind you, assassination was one of the alternatives to having more votes back then, so you would have expected politicians to be a bit more cautious in making enemies.

Politicians in our day need not be quite as concerned.  If they are also lawyers, they can look after themselves quite nicely, thanks to the voters.

If, for example, you have ever struggled with condominium law in Ontario, you can quickly learn what an ass, the law can be.  Condominium law, in this province, is probably the best example of lawyers looking after lawyers you will ever see.  The elected board of directors of a condo community is treated in the act as though they are incompetents—and can be.

Of all failures of Ontario lawyer-politicians, the most offensive was the response to Toronto Police Chief William Blair when he asked about laws supporting his expanded police force for the G20 in Toronto.  He was given the wrong and outdated act under which he was to operate that even he knew had to be wrong.  Nobody stepped up to take the blame.  Premier Dalton McGuinty (a lawyer) and his pack of lawyers at Queen’s Park disgraced our province!

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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry

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

They want who to keynote?

by Peter Lowry

That is it!  We are not going.  So what?  There is no way that we can agree to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty giving the keynote address to the federal Liberal biennual conference in mid January.  You need to be some sort of a real liberal to set the right tone for the conference.  Dalton McGuinty is not liberal.

Dalton McGuinty is a whig.  A whig is a liberal twice removed and 200 years behind the times.  If  Tiny Tim Hudak had a brain or Andrea Horwath a plan that could work, there is no way Dalton would still be Premier of Ontario.

The purpose of the Liberal Party of Canada gathering in January is to go forward, not backward. This is a meeting where we must deal with the needs of Canadians in the 21st Century.  Dalton cannot get out of the 19th Century.  He knows nothing about the 21st Century.  He thinks electricity is something that comes from windmills and sunlight.  He thinks gas fired generating stations can be loaded on a hay wagon and moved somewhere else. He thinks you can solve the province’s medical problems by giving the health portfolio to someone with an I.Q. of more than 80.

Canada needs to know that it is going somewhere besides all-day kindergarten.  It believes in our right to a family doctor—of our choice!  It wants medicare to mean something besides more user fees.  Canadians think adding HST to other gas taxes is pushing a bit too far.

Why were we under the impression that the keynote address at the convention was to be a scholarly discussion by Adjunct Professor Don Tapscott from the University of Toronto?  Anyone who could encourage the delegates to think ahead, think broader and advance the party’s position in the political spectrum is most welcome.  Not having heard a lecture by Professor Tapscott, we are open to finding out what he has to say.

What Dalton McGuinty has to say is another matter.  The other day we heard some talking heads on a news program speculating that the real opposition to the Harper Tories in Ottawa would have to come from the provinces.  That is a lot of pressure to put on Jean Charest and three new Premiers.  Dalton has his hands full in Queen’s Park.

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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry

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

Is fear alone derailing our future?

by Peter Lowry

Franklin Roosevelt said it best in his 1933 inaugural address that the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  That certainly helps explain the pitiful excuses from both Ottawa and Queen’s Park to again shy away from high-speed train service in the Windsor–Quebec City corridor.  These so-called politicians do not serve us well.

When something is so vital to the political and economic future of our country, why are we letting it be blocked by the callow, the myopic, the self-serving and the ignorant?  “It’s time for us to pause and reflect,” says Ontario Premier McGuinty in answer to questions from reporters about the high speed train service.  If he had told Ontario voters that, during the recent election campaign, he would have been doing his reflecting today back in his law practice in Ottawa.

Neither Prime Minister Harper nor Ontario’s Premier understand that, in times of adversity—such as today’s economic problems—the country needs clear, non-partisan direction.  It needs determined and understandable leadership, not ideology.  It needs bold moves forward, not quavering inaction.

They think of high speed trains down the Windsor–Quebec City corridor as train tickets. They have little understanding of how those rails of steel can hold this country together.  If they keep letting Quebec isolate itself from the rest of the country, they will never notice when it leaves.  It is important to remember that the Quebec government also wants this high-speed rail service.  We have to build for togetherness, not separation.

Today, we know that the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal part of the scheme is doable, economically viable and essential to our nation.  The only people who will hate it are the people who own Porter Airlines.

The right of way exists, the train stations exist, the dire need exists.  All this country really lacks is leadership.

And with all the electricity that the two provinces generate, the trains have to be electric as an example of Canadian engineering to the world.  At 300-plus kilometres per hour, Canadians could even learn to enjoy on-time rail service

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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry

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

Worrying the Whigs in Ontario.

by Peter Lowry

Referring to Ontario Liberal Party members as Whigs is not entirely derogatory.  There were some very progressive Whigs in their time.  The only problem is that their time was in the 1800s.  They were the grouping of like-minded lawmakers who became the Liberal Party in Great Britain and the name came into use in Canada.

The Ontario Liberals were created when George Brown of  Toronto cobbled together the Clear Grits, a coalition of farmers from Southwestern Ontario, with left-wing Reformers, originally formed by William Lyon Mackenzie to fight Ontario’s Family Compact.  From these honourable roots, the Ontario Whigs are determined to stay locked in the ideas of the 19th Century.

Someone asked recently, how can you be liberal when you complain so much about Ontario Premier McGuinty and his government?  We did some thinking.  We came to the following conclusion:

It is not the harmonized sales tax.  That was just bad judgement.  And how can you blame the Whigs for accepting federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s $2 billion bribe to do it?  Mind you, we have not had enough to say yet about the HST on energy costs!

It is not the ponzi scheme the Whigs are using to pay for renewable energy.  That is, at least, an attempt to do something positive.

It is not the bad management decisions on the health file.  When Ontario citizens get back the right to choose their own family doctor, we can start to feel a little more comfortable about where things are going in health.

It is not the unconscionable loopholes that allow contributors and third parties to drive a truck through the Ontario election expense rules.  Any candidate or third party not spending far too much on the recent campaign was not trying.

What it was, was watching police trample the flowers beds and human rights at Queen’s Park on a rampage during Prime Minister Harper’s G20 events in Toronto.  That is something McGuinty and company can never live down.  As the province’s lawmakers, they did nothing to help Ontario citizens.  That was their disgrace.

Obviously they have no competition but why are the Whigs waging war on us?

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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry

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

GO would rather pollute.

by Peter Lowry

As a child, the electric trams of the Speed River Railway were a fascinating experience.  At one time, that electrified railway ran from Port Dover on Lake Erie, up through what is now Cambridge and on to Kitchener/Waterloo.  The system was fast, non-polluting and on-time, serving Ontario citizens and their packages on a regular basis.  Today, GO Transit, owned by the Ontario government, runs slow and polluting diesel engines in a vain attempt to provide a similar people moving function.

GO does not get there.  GO is slow.  A diesel train engine, weighing about 100 tonnes, takes a long time to get up to speed and a long time to stop.  And that is why it takes almost two hours for a one-hour trip from Babel to Toronto’s Union Station.  That is why people are not lined up ten deep to take the GO Train from Babel to Toronto.

Admittedly, it would cost a great deal of money to build and maintain overhead electrical connections for GO trains.  You have to compare that cost with the ongoing health costs to Ontario because of the pollution caused by diesel.  You also have to consider the cost of maintaining tracks for 100-tonne locomotives versus self-propelled electric cars at about a fifth the weight.

People can argue both sides of the question.  Electricity costs are rising, they will tell you.  Have you checked the cost of diesel fuel recently?  Electric train cars cost more.  With an electric system, you do not need a diesel engine.

It all boils down to the pollution concern.  Diesel engines put nitrogen oxides and soot into our air.  That is not worrying the farmers around Bradford yet but if a diesel engine keeps going into Toronto, when there is one of those atmospheric inversions over the city, that diesel pollution helps kill people.

In the United States, diesel engines are believed to cause about 50 per cent of the total harmful airborne emissions.  There are no comparable statistics for Canada.  GO (which stands for Government of Ontario) Transit continues to pollute.

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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry

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

The way of the Whigs.

by Peter Lowry

Now that the election is over, we can really say what we think of the Ontario government of Dalton McGuinty: very little.  As the local provincial Whig riding president said about this blog, “You hate them all but you hate Dalton the least.”  She was right.

There is no question that Tim Hudak is a disaster foretelling the end of times.  Andrea Horwath started out as promising but never performed.  Yet, it is poor Dalton and his Whigs who were destined to disappoint us the most.

Mind you, we did give Dalton the credit for all-day kindergarten.  That was something that gained general acceptance.  You just did not want to hang your hat on it.

What scared hell out of us was the ponzi scheme Dalton’s Whigs passed called a Feed-in Tariff (FIT) program for renewable energy production.  By paying various premiums for the electricity produced by sun, wind, bio-mass and water, the program promised at least a doubling of electricity prices in Ontario.  Now that the election is over, the Whigs are starting to look at putting limits on the program.

What the opposition lacked in the election—other than a sense of direction—was a clear understanding of what the emerging issues are that need answers.

And Dalton’s opponents sure missed an opportunity when an otherwise intelligent Health Minister Deb Mathews suggested general practitioners make house calls on seniors.  That would be a really great idea if we could just figure out a way to get everyone in the province a family doctor first.

What never got off the ground during the election is the growing anger over the Condominium Act and other later Acts that are overriding the Condominium Act.  With more than 500,000 Ontario residents living in condos and the number growing every week, somebody is going to have to start to care.  The mess the government is causing might be great for making lawyers rich but all that will do is make condo living affordable for only the very wealthy.

The good news is that most people recognize that Dalton is well past his use-before date.  For the next election, the Whigs will have to find another anachronism to lead them.

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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry

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

Are the NDP flying high on Layton’s legacy?

by Peter Lowry

Commenting on the Jack Layton funeral event in our August 28 blog, the question was asked if Canada’s New Democratic Party can fly to greater heights on Jack Layton’s image.  The article ended with the statement, “Ask that question again in October.”  We now know the answer is “No.”

Provincial NDP Leader Andrea Horwath hardly needs to share any of the credit with a ghost for her party’s increase of seven seats in the recent provincial election. The provincial NDP, taking just one seat from the Liberals in Toronto, hardly swept the city Jack Layton claimed as his base.  She did better in Northern Ontario because of McGuinty ignoring the area.

In the meantime, a field of eight has emerged to do battle for Layton’s leadership of the federal NDP.  Three are front runners.  They are MP Thomas Mulcair from Montreal, Brian Topp, the party president, and MP Peggy Nash from Toronto. They are, in turn, the maverick, the choice of the greybeards, and the woman candidate.  None of the three holds a candle to Jack Layton.

And yet, the one to watch is Peggy Nash.  She is old school.  She is the real socialist of the three.  She has also proven herself in making a comeback in the 2011 election to win over Liberal star Gerard Kennedy to regain her Toronto-High Park seat in the Commons.  Her Canadian Auto Workers background will work for her in an election in which every member of the party has a vote.

If it were a delegated convention, an apparatchik such as Brian Topp would have an advantage with his support by the power brokers of the party.  His union, ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists), cannot add much to his numbers in an all-party vote and it is also hard to decipher what his lack a seat in parliament will mean to the rank and file.

Thomas Mulcair, the Montreal candidate, is an enigma.  As a former Liberal Cabinet Minister in Quebec, he has a long way to go to be known and accepted by the NDP outside of his province.  The sparseness of party membership in that province makes his task almost insurmountable.

As one Quebec-based journalist mused, the media has no way of guessing how the all-party voting will go.  She is right.  And neither can the party be expected to know.

There will be no Layton legacy but it will still be an interesting race for the NDP leadership.

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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry

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

Klees clutches for the brass ring.

by Peter Lowry

You have to admire a guy who gives it a shot.  You admire it even if the shot is by a neo-conservative such as MPP Frank Klees.  Frank has decided to take a run at the Speaker’s job at Queen’s Park.  It is an interesting career direction but obviously a swan song for his role as heir-apparent to provincial Conservative Leader Tim Hudak.

Heir-apparents to losers become losers themselves.  Think back to Kim Campbell following Brian Mulroney as Prime Minister or Ernie Eves chasing Mike Harris as Premier of Ontario.  Nobody gave a damn about their credentials or differences from their predecessors.  They carried the can for them.

And nobody would want to deliberately carry the can for Tim Hudak.  Besides, Frank Klees is seven years older than Tim.  And Tim is unlikely to retire tomorrow.   The math does not work in Frank’s favour.

Tim Hudak has reason to be annoyed with Klees as his defection to the speaker’s job will effectively make the Legislature a draw.  If Klees is elected Speaker, it would mean 53 Liberals on the Speaker’s right and 53 Conservative and NDP members on the Speaker’s left.  While the Speaker only votes in case of a tie, the Speaker has limited options.

The good news is that Frank Klees would make an excellent speaker.  He can bring a degree of fairness and experience to the Speaker’s chair better than Liberal contenders for the job.  There are four Liberals also reaching for the brass ring.  Of the four, David Zimmer, MPP for Willowdale, is probably best qualified for the job.

Frank Klees has been in the Ontario Legislature the longest of all present candidates and probably has the best understanding of the role of the Speaker of the House.  He will obviously enjoy the perquisites of the Speaker as well as the higher pay.  Given a good report card by all parties in the next four years, he might even have the opportunity to return as Speaker if re-elected in the next election.  Otherwise, he can return to the business world, with a nice pension from the Ontario Legislature later on.

It must be one of those times when Premier Dalton McGuinty regrets the increased democracy in the Legislature.  Until 1990, the Speaker was chosen by the Premier in consultation with the leaders of the other parties.  Now the Speaker is elected by all members by secret ballot.  The secret ballot is the kicker because it will do no good for Tim Hudak to tell his Conservatives not to vote for Klees.  It could be just a half dozen Tory supporters that could put him over the top.

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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry

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