Category: Provincial Politics

The Matches of the Month.

by Peter Lowry

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

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

But they got some great selfies!

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

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

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

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

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Confidence of the CAQ.

by Peter Lowry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Bickering about Billions.

by Peter Lowry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Doug Doesn’t Do Decency.

by Peter Lowry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Nothing For Sure in Quebec.

by Peter Lowry

Say it in English or in French, nothing is for sure politically in Quebec. Yet all the talking heads are referring to the upcoming Quebec provincial election as a cake-walk for François Legault’s Coalition Avenir du Québec (CAQ). You would think the pundits would know better.

First of all, it is never safe to prognosticate about what will happen politically in Quebec. The moods of the voters can turn on a dime. There has been many a Quebec premier who has stood there on election night, wondering why a speech for a possible loss had not been written.

I like to think of premier Legault as something like King Canute defying the tides. All this foolishness his party imposes on Quebec about the danger of speaking English is going in one ear and out the other across the province.

It must have come as a shock to Legault and his other bigots when they heard that, according to a recent survey, French is spoken in fewer homes in Quebec. Part of the problem is that they have been taking in more immigrants who speak neither English nor French. The other reason is that French-speaking parents want their children to have better economic opportunities by speaking both official languages. Legault has been trying to suppress those opportunities. His efforts have just led to more lawsuits that the province has to defend in court.

And quite frankly, Legault has gone too far. He knows the anglophones and allophones are pissed with him and he doesn’t care. He thinks his majority is safe with the farmers.

But Legault fails to understand the cycle of life. People age and new voters replace those who have past on. The younger vote is more volatile, more questioning, more eager to try something new.

Legault and his CAQ are living in the past. There is life beyond Quebec. Canada is a big and welcoming country. Those who speak both official languages benefit.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Dougie Did It.

by Peter Lowry

As one of six siblings, I found as a child that blame tended to run downhill. It was not geological but based on age. My youngest brother, Douglas, tended to take the blame for much of the damage done by six rambunctious children. It seemed our mantra when questioned by a parent was mostly; ‘Dougie did it!’

It seems the probable mantra for Ontario over the next few years will also be ‘Dougie did it.’ With the ham-fisted political philosophy of Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, it will hardly be difficult to lay blame squarely on his broad backside.

It is important to remember that Doug Ford’s experience is that of a boisterous sales guy. He is neither well educated nor polished. His introduction to conservatism was through his one-term member of the legislature, father, Doug Ford Senior. His introduction to politics was by his crack-cocaine smoking younger brother, Rob, who served a term as mayor of Toronto.

It seems appropriate that Doug Ford campaigned in his last election as the conservatives will get it done. What it is that will get done remains to be seen.

It seems appropriate that as soon as the legislature got back into session, the conservative MPPs handed premier Ford an important lesson. In the secret ballot to choose the next four year’s speaker of the house, a number of the conservative MPPs voted with the opposition members for a speaker who was definitely not approved by the premier. That loss stung Ford.

It became obvious as soon as the legislature was in session that Ford and his cabinet had no plans in place for the two major and most expensive provincial problems—healthcare and education. The desperation solution for hospitals to move out bed occupiers to long term care homes is a desperation tactic that will bounce back hard on the conservatives while making money for the privately-owned long term care properties in the province.

The war between the teachers and their co-workers against the conservative government is in the early days of skirmishes. It will be the parents who see another lost year for their children who will bitterly say: ‘Dougie did it.’

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Political Pitfalls.

by Peter Lowry

It’s a wonder that the way we vote hasn’t been blamed for bad breath. It has been blamed for everything else. Fewer people vote, blame it on first-past-the-post (FPTP). A party wins the election with just 40 per cent of the vote, blame it on FPTP.

Mainstreet Research annoyed Ontario voters recently by having automated telephone calls ask how they would like to exercise their vote. The result was also annoying. According to reports, it appears about a third of us want to vote for proportional representation—that is where politicians are appointed to sit in parliament according to the per cent that we vote for. About a third also opted for preferential voting—where your second, third or fourth choice can help one of the candidates to get over 50 per cent support. Luckily another third of us supported first-past-the-post. You would think that all the ballyhoo about voting, some sort of consensus would start to form.

Back in 2007, Ontario voters chose by about two-thirds to stick with FPTP instead of opting for a form of proportional representation. In that version, only some of the politicians were appointed. I got the impression at that time that our voters were opposed to the idea of having anyone appointed to the legislature.

It has been said that a definition of insanity is the repeating of the same thing over and over and hoping for different results. That is an excellent description of the conservative party’s voting system for leadership. They always use preferential voting—and never seem to like the results. This is the form of voting used with a large number of candidates and you indicate your preference from one to ten to find which one can first reach 50 per cent plus one. The problem is that they drop the poorest performers first. They then add the second choice of this loser to the count. What they are doing is adding the losers’ second choice or then third choice or fourth choice and so on, until somebody adds up to more than 50 per cent. In effect, it is the losers who really pick the winners.

The more reasonable alternative to this is when one candidate does not get more than 50 per cent on the first ballot is hold a run-off vote for the top two. At least this precludes drilling down among the losers.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Ford’s Foolish Fumbles.

by Peter Lowry

Ontario premier Ford has fallen on failing times. It was not just swallowing a bee the other day—that, at least, was funny. It is incidents such as watching him read from a teleprompter and realizing that nobody has taught him how to use it. It is his conservative caucus blind-siding him and voting for a speaker of the house who was not his choice. It is his not knowing when to shut up about his ‘strong mayor’ proposal. If he doesn’t stop talking about it, people are going to realize what it really means. And if there was one error that will hamstring his government over the next four years—it is the conservatives collective lack of empathy.

Quite frankly, that private-schooled education minister is going to be the first cabinet road kill. That poor fool is facing a gathering swarm of teachers and education unions who are not going to pay any attention when he offers minimal wage increases. In an education system that has failed its students and abused teachers and staff throughout the pandemic, Stephen Lecce, has no solutions, no money, no plan and faces off against people facing runaway inflation.

And here we have Ontario hospitals crashing. And people are dying. The replacement health minister will probably not even be there long enough to institute private medicine, even if she could.

And there are people in Ontario who are waiting to see just what Doug Ford will accomplish for them. I keep waiting for a ceremony to start the building of highway 413. This is the highway through rich farmland and wetlands from Milton to Vaughan that nobody really needs. No doubt transport minister Caroline Mulroney already has her shovel polished and ready for the event.

At least Ontario voters in the cities of Hamilton and Vaughan have the amusing chance to vote for the two losers for Ford’s job earlier this year. Ms. Horwath is running for ‘strong mayor’ in Hamilton and Mr. Del Duca is running for mayor in Vaughan. What neither of them realize is that this ‘strong-mayor’ proposal really means that the mayor reports to Queen’s Park. It is quite likely that the only time one of these super mayors can stop something passed by their council is when the provincial government of the day disagrees with it.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Looney Tunes in Alberta.

by Peter Lowry

If I had a bucket list of places I have not visited in Canada, I would have to include Nunavut in the north and Gander in the east. It is only Alberta that I need to revisit. It seems that the entire province has gone Looney Tunes since I was last there.

We will have to blame Jason Kenney. When he put on his fat boy jeans and his ten-gallon hat and started driving his pickup around Alberta back in 2015, it was hard to imagine the mess he would make of the politics in that part of Canada.

It was obvious that if he could unite the right in that province, he would end up in the driver’s seat. He made short work of the Wildrose party. He told so many lies about life back in Ottawa and how the NDP’s Rachel Notley was in cahoots with those eastern devils, we were getting confused about who he was talking about.

You have to admit that Jason Kenney brought some of that ‘old time’ politics back to Alberta. What he did not foresee was what a pandemic might do to his leadership. He was caught up in a maelstrom of nature’s making. He could not blame it on others or pass the buck. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. To put it bluntly, he did not have a clue what to do.

And it could not have happened to a more deserving politician. He is out of there.

But wait for it! Do you know that the most likely candidate to replace Kenney is the dynamic Danielle Smith of former Wildrose fame. She was the dingbat, who, as leader of the Wildrose and leader of the opposition, crossed the floor of the legislature with most of her caucus to join the conservative government. She virtually held the door of the legislature open to elect the NDP’s Rachel Notley as premier of Alberta.

But never suggest that the devil himself could not make a comeback in Alberta. Danielle Smith has promised Alberta a sovereignty act that would place Alberta outside of Canada’s federal government. They would have their own provincial police force, their own pension plan and, pretty well, run things however they damn well pleased. Did you know that another former Wildrose leader, Brian Jean, seems to be running second behind Ms. Smith. And they call the Canadian dollar a loonie?

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Ford’s Missing Ingredient.

by Peter Lowry

Some days, you wish that Ontario premier Doug Ford knew what he is doing. As premier, he is busy rearranging Ontario’s municipal politics. It shows how much harm a little knowledge can cause. He is trying to create a strong mayor system for Ontario’s larger cities without much understanding of what is needed.

The simplest way to explain the problem is that for a strong mayor system to work, you have to have political party support. It is the very rare situation where a really strong mayor can hold together a council without either a political party endorsement or a personal popularity that is equivalent to a strong party endorsement.

Toronto has had a quasi-political system for years. We have had mayors from all major parties. Most progressive mayor’s have had the support of other progressives. The current mayor, John Tory has been effective at pulling together support from the suburban right wing. Despite nobody wearing party name tags, Toronto has moved along—sluggishly—but with persuasion.

The least effective example of Toronto mayors was Doug Ford’s younger brother Rob. A right-wing populist, Rob was a loose cannon. As a background to Doug Ford’s strong mayor plan, Rob was the last person who could have made it work.

The person who could have made it work was David Crombie, Toronto’s ‘Tiny, Perfect Mayor.’ David won the mayoralty as head of a bunch of reformers in 1972. I had always enjoyed arguing politics with him until his little mob in city hall tried to stifle development, rather than to control it properly. What helped David win the mayoralty was the liberal party being honest about its participation in municipal politics. A lot of liberals lost that year. David was elected as a federal conservative MP in 1978 and I have not spoken to him since.

To elect a strong mayor, such as Ford envisages, will not work unless the mayor can get a majority of the council behind him or her. The easiest way to make that work is to invite the major political parties to run candidates for the mayor and councillor seats on city council. And that is about to happen?

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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