Category: Provincial Politics

Here Comes Nate.

by Peter Lowry

Watch out Mr. Ford. Here comes Nathaniel Erskine-Smith MP, from Toronto’s Beaches-East York electoral district, to run for the leadership of Ontario’s liberals. He is my kind of liberal. He speaks his mind. He believes in the right of individual liberals to disagree with the party on issues. He is neither a maverick nor unpredictable. He is an honest person, a thinking person and a caring person.

It was wonderful to hear that he is going to seek the Scarborough seat of MPP Mitzie Hunter when she resigns so she can be on the ballot for the Toronto mayoralty. They are two people following their dreams. They are both highly qualified for the positions they seek. Mitzie Hunter brings specific knowledge of Toronto housing needs and of Queen’s Park and the Ontario government’s responsibilities to cities. Erskine-Smith brings a wider scope to the Queen’s Park liberal leadership.

The member of parliament for Beaches-East York would be able to takeover as leader from day one if he has already won a seat at Queen’s Park. He would be a formidable opponent for Ontario premier Ford. He would bring a strong support to Medicare in the face of the pressures for-profit medicine is causing for nursing in our hospitals.

The only regret is that liberals have to wait until December 2 to find out the winner of the liberal leadership for Ontario. Other candidates are welcome and liberals across Ontario will have a chance to meet them over the summer and fall. Nathan Erskine Smith is certainly an excellent first to declare.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

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And a small apology: When travelling, I usually try to have commentaries ready to run ahead of my trip. That should not include running two on the same day. Now I have to get things back on track. 

To be In Calgary, In May.

by Peter Lowry

There is nothing else like it. To be in Calgary in May when a provincial election is called is a special experience. It is a hootenanny without the music. You need a shovel to sort through the promises. There is a dingbat on the loose named Danielle Smith who became a short-term premier when she was chosen to head up the (dis-) united conservatives. Sharpshooter and former premier Rachel Notley is leading the NDP and targeting the dingbat.

Notley is going to have to fix Medicare. Smith has more tax cuts in mind. It is only a four-week campaign, so the two parties have to promise much and often. Former premier Notley has accusatory words for much of what the dingbat Smith has to say about Medicare. Smith does not care for Medicare.

But you are never too sure, from day to day, just what Danielle Smith will say.

Smith thought the Coutts blockade—that only hurt Alberta’s economy—helped the province rid itself of Covid mandates. She claims now that she was opposed to mask and stay-home mandates during the worst of the pandemic.

The problem for the NDP’s Rachel Notley, she says, is that she never knows what the United Conservative Party candidate will say next. Smith’s case of interfering in the prosecution of Calgary pastor Artur Pawlowski is still before the Alberta ethics commissioner. Despite premier Smith’s promise, on a recorded phone call, to go to bat for him, he was still found guilty of inciting the protesters at Coutts.

Smith’s credentials as premier are, at best, questionable. She was the leader of the province’s extreme right Wildrose party when she led most of her party across the legislature floor, to join the conservatives. The problem that floor-crossing caused for her was that she could not find a riding at the time in Alberta that wanted her as their conservative candidate.

One of her first actions as premier last year was to have the legislature pass what is called the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act. The most common guess at what that act means is that Alberta wants to decide which of the acts passed by the federal government, it will support. What it will do about those it does not like is not explained.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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Doug’s Decision.

by Peter Lowry

It is not often that premier Doug Ford makes a decision that pleases some of the people in Ontario. I figured it was just a typical Doug decision because he had to. It was probably the last thing someone in his offices suggested, so he went with it. He is moving the Ontario Science Centre. And it is not lock, stock and barrel. No, he is moving it to Ontario Place, because nobody liked any of his ideas for Ontario Place.

Ontario Place is some artificial islands that were built in Lake Ontario just off the shore at the Canadian National Exhibition grounds and its amusement park. It was the delight of our children and even some of adults as it had a water park for summer fun and a huge movie theatre in a geodesic dome with an Imax screen. 

You can just imagine all the thoughts running through premier Ford’s brain while making this decision. A: Nobody liked any of his ideas for Ontario Place. B: Everybody liked the Ontario Science Centre. It was a place that our children liked and it helped encourage them to like science.

This decision ignored a small problem. He had already signed off on a deal for a foreign-owned luxury health spa to be built on the west island of Ontario Place. This is such a big spa that they want to dig down in the island so the luxury customers can park their luxury automobiles under the spa. This spa would leave less room for the new science centre. Ontario would be lucky to get a half-size science centre.

I had watched when the first part of the Ontario Science Centre was built. It is by a river valley that tends to flood. And that is why the science centre does not go to the bottom of the valley. It is not as buildable or as big a parcel of land as it looks. Doug Ford calls the old science centre structure a tear down.

But it needs more space than is available at Ontario Place. It should also be more central to the city with lots of parking for the buses that bring the school children.

I will cheerfully admit that the previous liberal government dithered for years about what to do about Ontario Place. I believe Mr. Ford should have continued to dither.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

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Training Mr. Ford.

by Peter Lowry

I sometimes wonder if Ontario premier Doug Ford has ever taken a train anywhere? It looks like he has even forgotten that the liberal government, his conservatives had followed into office, where in the process of converting Ontario’s GO Trains to electric. They were also eliminating the level crossings.

While this might seem expensive, it is the least expensive way to double the capacity of the system. Electricity-powered trains can come up to speed faster and stop faster. Combined with no level crossings, the province can effectively double their overall capacity. By using electricity, there is the added benefit of reducing pollution.

But Doug and his fellow conservatives seem bent on building roads through our good farming land and our wetlands, that act as reservoirs for our farmlands. They want their developer friends to build on our carefully preserved Greenbelt. They want the gas-guzzling family automobile to remain king in Ontario.

And did you know that Ontario was once a leader in intercity trains. As a youngster, I loved those trains. I used to take the intercity trains between Galt, Hespler and Preston (now known as the City of Cambridge) and then from there taking a coal-burning train back to Toronto.

But I liked the electric trains best. They were usually a baggage car for parcels and one or two cars for passengers. And they were fast.

And, don’t forget, we were also talking about building the first high-speed electric trains starting between London, Ontario and Toronto in that previous liberal government as well. My old friend David Collenette from East York who had served as Jean Chrétien’s transport minister was the point man on the project for the Ontario government.

Ideally, the first high speed trains in Canada should be a triangle route from Toronto to Ottawa, to Montreal and then back to Toronto. It would be faster than plane service to the three cities, cheaper and less polluting.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

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Conservatives Colliding.

by Peter Lowry

It seems there is a growing rift between Doug Ford, premier of Ontario and Pierre Poilievre, leader of the federal conservatives. It is a bumpkin versus an idealogue. It is a street fighter versus a sleaze. They are not even in the same weight class.

And it is not only the Volkswagen battery plant that stands between them. Ford has already professed his admiration for deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland. He considers her his pal. Yet there is this shrill voice from the Ottawa cowboy screaming that Volkswagen is a waste of money. Poilievre is a half-ton trucker himself.

And you cannot expect Justin Trudeau not to keep rubbing salt in that wound. You would think he is toying with Ford just to annoy Calgary-educated Poilievre. It might cost the Canadian taxpayers a few billion dollars but it should pay off handsomely down the road. After all, what is Poilievre doing about the environment? What would he ever do but deny global warming?

Poilievre only drinks the Kool-Aid of the tar sands. Doug Ford goes with the flow. Of course, Doug looks after his pals. He gives up Ontario wetlands and good farmland to serve his developer buddies from Toronto city hall. He constantly shafts Toronto to revenge the treatment of him and his late brother when they were both in city hall.

But it is the liberals in Ottawa who are dealing with industry to bring more jobs to Ontario. Of course, it would help if the province had the housing for workers and they could afford to live there.

What seems to be annoying Poilievre the most is Mr. Ford’s saying that he stood shoulder to shoulder with the Ottawa liberals to invoke the Emergencies Act and sending the ‘Freedom convoy’ home to pout. Those truckers were Mr. Poilievre’s friends and he needed their votes to win the federal conservative leadership.

On top of that, Ford ordered the longest lock-downs in Ontario during the pandemic as well as making all his conservative candidates in the last election have their COVID shots. Pierre Poilievre and Doug Ford are not kindred spirits.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

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Dumbing Down with Ford.

by Peter Lowry

Premier Doug Ford of Ontario is dumbing down the province. He keeps taking us down rabbit holes for the less literate, the less learned. Today’s lesson from the fount of all ignorance is that new police people do not need to complete high school. We are sliding down a snake in a continuing game of Snakes and Ladders. Only in this case, the snake is named Ford.

First, with the help of the pandemic, he destroys our healthcare system. Nurses and other professionals are fleeing a profession where they are exhausted with impossible workloads. And what is the “stupid” solution from Ford but to promote private clinics. We still seem to have a finite number of healthcare workers, so Ford promotes the less trained to do the nursing task.

It is nice to see that the stupid like to stick together. One of the first asks of Ford when he took over the premier’s office five years ago was that an unqualified friend takeover as commissioner of the provincial police.

And, judging by his provincial cabinet, loyalty beats competency, any day. It is like having a private schooled education minister. We wouldn’t want him to understand the system, would we?

To be fair, the mailman just dropped a pamphlet from my member of parliament through the mail slot. It showed his constituents how fat he is getting living the high life in Ottawa. Of course, the member of parliament for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte would be a conservative. I have no idea how smart he is but this pamphlet reads like a kindergarten piece. He wants his constituents to answer three simple questions that would identify them as conservative or other.

What else would you be if you voted ‘yes’ to supporting conservatives in a plan to vote against all new tax increases. And then there is being concerned about the rising cost of living under the liberals. Sure, blame Canada’s liberals for the world-wide inflation. There is one open question and I hope his conservative constituents tell him to join a gym and take off some of the excess weight. That is also a good thought for Doug Ford.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

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Got an Extra $100K?

by Peter Lowry

The good news is that for that $100,000 you can run for the leadership of the Ontario liberals. There is another $25,000 that is refundable but I am not sure why. And you can only spend $900,000 on your campaign. All of these rules have been announced by the Ontario liberal party executive for a leadership contest that will end with voting by ranked ballot on November 25 and 26 by all members and announced on December 2 this year.

There will likely be an admission charge for those liberals attending the leadership announcement party but that is still to be announced. The only really bad news in this announcement is the ranked ballot for the new leader. Hopefully, if the number of candidates stays within reason, at four or five candidates, the results of the voting will most likely be similar to using first-past-the-post.

But the best news of all is that if you have 50 or 60 thousand close friends or followers on Facebook in Ontario, who want to vote for you, there is no charge to becoming a member of the liberal party.

And this is the dumbest part of the entire exercise! Instead of the members of the party paying through their membership for the costs of the leadership campaign, it is the leadership candidates. I think the members of the party would be much happier to get one or two pitches per year for extra funding in support of the party. I, for one, find the constant requests for money annoying.

Yes, I will admit that the ability of the leader to be able to raise substantial funds for his or her campaign is important but it is hardly the most important. Leadership is also gathering a team that can work together to win. It has to be a creative team. It has to be a hard-working team. It has to be a team that can draw support to liberalism, to serving our communities.

Babel-on-the-Bay.com will welcome the candidates and help readers to get to know about them. We will probably do a Morning Line presentation to give our impression on where the candidates stand. We have to defeat Mr. Ford and his friends.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

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Ford versus Smith.

by Peter Lowry

It appears to be a race to the bottom. It is amateur Ontario premier Doug Ford against amateur Alberta premier Danielle Smith. Neither has the experience or competence to be premier. As an Ontario resident, I would gladly trade Ford for Smith any day. Alberta voters might not know what to make of a dingbat but they sure know what to do with someone who wants to spend their money foolishly.

Both provinces are in serious trouble over their healthcare. It was Ford who took our Ontario hospitals downhill during the pandemic. He thinks he is fixing the problem by privatizing some of the hospital’s business. What he has never adequately explained is where the medical staff are coming from for these privatized clinics. He is passing a law authorizing these clinics into existence which is not fully thought through. He has not planned for suitable regulators or inspectors.

But then Smith passes laws that constitutional experts are puzzling over. It seems that if the federal government passes a federal law, she wants to take her time to decide if she wants to obey it.

The main difference between the two premiers is that she is a professional communicator and he seems to prefer to use bombast. What she communicates might be ditzy but she is a good communicator. She has shown that she can switch scripts when forced. She also has a convenient memory. She has been known to talk to people about their cases that are before the courts and that has got a lot of judges, lawyers and opponents talking about her inappropriate behaviour.

At least there is some professionalism to her Sunday show on Corus Radio in Alberta. She has been refusing to talk to those nosy reporters about her oopsies but that has not stopped her from telling her radio audience. The late Rob Ford, the former mayor of Toronto, tried to teach brother Doug how to do a regular radio show but the lessons did not seem to take. He has been having a hard enough time trying to learn how to use a teleprompter without being so obviously reading.

I am sorry to hear that Ms. Smith is facing some really annoyed voters at the beginning of May. And Happy May Day to you too.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Trusting Doug Ford?

by Peter Lowry

It’s an old maxim: Never trust anyone who says “Trust me.” And when it comes to Ontario premier Doug Ford, you should tell him to sell that worn-out jalopy to someone else. He thinks he is a great salesman. He is having trouble selling Highway 413. Nobody believes him. He is carving up the Greenbelt for his developer friends. There is a growing distrust in that. He wants to change the way we appoint the senior judge in Ontario. He tried to sneak that by us. Now, we find that his privatization of medicine in Ontario is without any inspections or other scrutiny.

We have peer review in our hospitals and yet no inspection for private surgical clinics? That is outrageous. That is a license to steal. Oh, I’m sorry. It seems these places will be licenced by some appointee who is probably not qualified to pass judgement on their expertise. There are no qualified people to be appointed to approve them. No wonder a conscientious minister of health refused to run on the Ford team in last year’s election.

What do you think you are doing to our Ontario Mr. Ford? You have loosened up liquor regulations to the point where every city and town can have a Gin Alley. You have licenced more casinos that any Ontario resident expected to see in their lifetime. Those heavy-handed ads for Internet casinos are becoming obnoxious and too much.

I always thought Kathleen Wynne was a bit too cautious in opening up beer in grocery stores. Compared to Doug Ford she was a Puritan. I’m expecting him to allow the grocers to convert their end isles to mini bars to give shoppers the nerve to continue on to the frightening cash registers. Maybe the grocers would prefer to convert some of their end isles into payday loan kiosks to pay for those few groceries.

I feel sometimes that we are just aiding and abetting stupidity when we complain about Doug Ford. Some people, somewhere are laughing at us. Did we do something to deserve Ford?

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Passing a Party in Purgatory.

by Peter Lowry

We might have to ask the Roman Church for help on this. It seems the liberal party in Ontario is stalled in some phase of existence that might take strong prayers to bring it through.

But just where it will end up is a good question. What the party leaders suggest is simply a leaderless phase, it still needs to get through. It could easily turn out to be terminal. I, for one, would be sorry to see that happen.

It was over 60 years ago that I joined the combined federal and Ontario provincial liberal parties. There was a liberal government in Ottawa and a conservative government in Ontario.  The attitude was that all the party needed was a good leader in Ontario and all would come together.

I found out that it was not that simple. While Ontario voters do not always differentiate between the federal and provincial levels of politics, they are known to show different attitudes depending on many factors.

I was deeply involved in leadership contests in my early days with the party and later on I organized a few. They were always delegated conventions in those days. There were more than 75,000 paid-up Ontario members and there was no venue that could hold that number. We had to settle for delegated conventions.

The largest of those conventions was the federal party convention in Ottawa that ultimately chose Pierre Trudeau in 1968. Of course, in my usual contrariness, I was working for second place candidate Robert Winters. I spent two months working in the labyrinth under the old Skyline Hotel.

Today it is possible to have every party member vote. Hopefully not in a ranked ballot. We need to think between ballots. We need the best candidate to win, not just the least offensive. The Ontario liberals need strong leadership and there are some good possibilities in the offing.

And we have time to choose a new federal leader. Justin Trudeau’s day is done. It is time for him to wipe off the grease paint and retire to the back benches.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]