Category: Provincial Politics

Following the Math.

by Peter Lowry

I made a mistake last week and you would have thought I would have had a bunch of e-mails having a laugh at my expense. I got none. It was only today that I realized the error. The earlier commentary had stuck in my mind and I checked back on it to see if there was a logical bridge to re-introduce the subject.

What I found was a silly error. I was writing about the penchant of conservatives to use preferential voting. I checked a report on the Alberta leadership voting and it said there were six vote counts for the six candidates. That did not seem right but I was rushed. I still had the thought in the back of my mind that I was saying something wrong when I posted that blog.

It was only today when I reread the blog that the error was clear; you can’t have six counts for six candidates. And besides, I knew that there were seven candidates to replace Jason Kenney.

But the point of that commentary was to reinforce my argument that in preferential voting, the losers in the race can, too often, be the choosers. And, it was the losers who chose Danielle Smith.

Smith was in the race all the way to the sixth ballot count. It was that final count that gave Smith over 50 per cent. She won by 53.77 per cent. That meant that she only won by being the second, third, fourth or fifth choice of voters who actually preferred one of the other candidates.

What always seems to be left out of the party’s reporting is the number of ballots in this final count. There must have been many ballots without all the choices indicated. They might have counted over 85,000 first votes but some of the ballots would not have all seven preferences. That means they had to be set aside in the later counts.

I have attended more than a few liberal party leaderships and been an observer at those for other parties. Many were delegated conventions when a sub-set of party members were elected to make the decision. I was always appalled at the sleaziness of deals that saw losers go openly to this opponent or that one. I always believed that delegates needed time to reassess the needs of the party—not the directions of a failed candidate.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Fruit-Cake Carries On.

by Peter Lowry

Bet you thought the fruit-cake would change her tune as soon as she became premier of Alberta? Nope, no such luck. This is libertarianism at its nuttiest. Danielle Smith is telling us that she is going to protect the anti-vaxxers. She says they have the right to kill themselves. She keeps talking about some sovereignty act. She’s dumb.

Did you know that vaccines were discovered more than 200 years ago? The world has wiped out small pox. Can you count the number of children’s diseases that we are controlling today? And yet she supports the idiocy of those who are afraid of vaccines?

Don’t join one of Canada’s military services if you do not like vaccines. I’m ex-air force myself. They shot me so full of vaccines for diseases. Some, I didn’t even recognize. I feel like I am falling behind the curve, not having my fifth shot yet for COVID. I might be more confident if the anti-vaxxers had to wear a sign stating the danger they represent to the rest of us.

I am most concerned that premier Smith wants to turn one of my favourite provinces into some sort of a leper colony.

And where did she ever get the impression that provinces could pick and choose between federal laws? We thought someone might set her straight once she took office. Many were under the impression that she was kidding.

Was she aware that the three prairie provinces were created by acts of the Canadian parliament? Manitoba became the fifth province in 1870 and Alberta and Saskatchewan, numbers 8 and 9, in 1905.

And can you imagine a provincial premier who thinks that the unvaccinated should be allowed in long-term care homes? Isn’t she the one who wants to fire the province’s medical officer of health? We will all wonder just what qualifies Danielle Smith to decide to fire the province’s medical officer or. to choose a replacement?

It seems that Jason Kenney has refused the opportunity to meet with her prior to her signing in to have a ceremonial passing of the washroom key in the premier’s office. I think he feels insulted that she was chosen to replace him.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Fat of the Land.

by Peter Lowry

The only person pleased with Doug Ford as premier of Ontario is likely his tailor. You can take old suits in but it is obvious if you try to let them out. And nobody in Ontario is packing on the new pounds faster than our premier. You get the impression that there are those who hope he bloats to the degree that he will explode.

The other day Fatso was threatening 55,000 education workers (other than teachers) that they will force his hand if they go on strike. It was an interesting choice of words but somewhat careless. If he passed a law saying they were essential workers, they would have right to arbitration and probably end up with more than the 11 per cent (over three years) they said they wanted originally.

Ford’s problem is that the three major teachers’ unions are warming up in the bull pen. They are keeping an eye on what those education workers get and they will hardly settle for anything less.

And then, the Ontario nurses are next in line. They are prepared to go to the wall with the Ford government. They cannot strike but a work-to-rule would tie Ontario’s healthcare in knots. And that we can ill-afford.

What we also need to watch for are shovels in the ground on the route of Ford’s highway 413. That abomination defies all reasonable planning in Ontario. The simple fact is that another east-west highway in that area is not needed. The loss of good farmland in that part of Ontario is criminal. The loss of aquifer and wetlands in the area is serious for the remaining farms.

And I hardly think we have heard the last about the Ford government’s solution to clearing some beds in our hospitals. A couple years back I had a conversation with the person responsible for clearing beds in our local hospital. I was even more eager to get out of that hospital than they were to be rid of me. They were feeding me the worst food I have ever had in a hospital. I was also losing weight every day in the physiotherapy. I was struggling with it to get me in shape to go home. If they had moved me out to a long-term-care facility, there likely would have been no physio. I would not have been able to get home as quickly.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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When Losers Are Choosers.

by Peter Lowry

If there is one thing consistent among conservatives in Canada, it is the way they choose their leaders. There were seven candidates for leader in the latest round in Alberta. And once again, the conservatives got the worst possible result from six rounds of preferential voting.

There is a little solace for Jason Kenney in this. He, at least, got 51 per cent support from the conservatives in Alberta. Danielle Smith was the choice of losers.

You have to admit that in the last federal conservative run-off, Pierre Poilievre brought in his own crazies and won on the first ballot. Frankly, Poilievre is hardly worth the price of membership in the conservative party. The other problem is that few of those temporary members will stick long with a party that is mired in dogma dedicated to a losing past.

But the problem in Alberta is preferential voting. Preferential voting is based on the voters, instead of marking an “X” beside their choice, they put the number “1.” They are then asked to number the other candidates so as to indicate their preference.

What is wrong with preferential voting is the backward objective of artificially giving approval to a candidate who was not the first choice of the voter. When a candidate comes last on the first ballot, their name is taken out of the list of eligible candidates. What, in effect, happens is that the second choice of the removed candidate’s ballots are then counted in a second round and a new winner is chosen. Again, if the winner does not have 50 per cent or more of the vote, the second loser’s vote is distributed to the remaining candidates. This process continues until a candidate has 50 per cent or more of the votes. In effect, it can be the voters who chose the losers, who ultimately choose the winner.

What concerns me the most in the Alberta vote was that the winner was not selected until the sixth round of voting. It means that the final votes that put Ms. Smith over the top were the number 6 votes of a field of seven candidates. If I were voting in preferential contest between seven candidates, I would leave the number 6 and 7 slot for the candidates I wanted the least to win.

Between Ms. Smith’s screwball ideas of Alberta’s importance in Confederation and her plans to assert that importance, I wish my friends in Alberta lots of luck.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Evil Twins?

by Peter Lowry

Let’s hear it for Ford and Legault. The premiers of both Ontario and Quebec sailed through elections this year with increased majorities. It seems the anger of the voters was not directed towards those two.

But, if not, why not?

Neither of the right-wing provincial leaders were condemned for the ineptness of their management during the depths of the pandemic. Whether to lock-down or open up seemed to be more political than medically inspired. They both survived.

Doug Ford of Ontario could call for a lock down and tell people to stay away from the summer lake country. It did not seem odd to Ontario voters that he then headed north to enjoy a little leisure time on the lakes. Hell, in Alberta, an alfresco lunch, during a lockdown, cost premier Jason Kenney his job.

It would hardly matter to François Legault in Quebec City that there was some rioting in Montreal. He would have said it was just a bunch of anglophones and allophones venting. They are not his voters.

After all, Legault’s success in politics is in dividing people, not bringing them together. He has to keep the Anglos and the immigrants from corrupting the purity of Quebec. One wonders why he bothers talking to some reporters in English?

One difference between the two premiers of Canada’s most populous provinces is that Ford has been known to back down when the going gets tough. He has been known to offer to throw money at problems to make them go away. Whether that money is actually ever spent is another matter.

Legault doesn’t make mistakes and he will tell you so himself. He hardly believes he is a bigot. Even though the evidence of his tribalism and bigotry is mounting. He is trying his utmost to wrest control of immigration from the federal government.

Legault panders to his rural strength in Quebec while Ford just accepts that in Ontario as his due.  Neither is a man you would want for a friend.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Dreamed-of Day-Care.

by Peter Lowry

It looks like out of all his missteps over the summer the most serious for Ontario parents was when premier Doug Ford gave the $10-A-Day Care file to MPP Stephen Lecce. The education minister has likely only been to a day-care as a politician looking for a photo op. Ford picked a person with no sympathies or understanding of what day-care is all about.

And the conservative government is reaping what it sowed. They are always so hung up on their credo that for-profit is better than not for-profit. They have been catering to the for-profit daycares. They are changing the federal government plan to please the 30 per cent of for-profit daycares that have signed up to participate.

To accommodate for-profits they are rewriting the specifications of what can be paid. It is like when the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ordered a skinny-basic platform of television channels for $25 per month for Canadian subscribers and the Telecoms have been adding charges to it ever since.

Try as you might, finding a $10 per day daycare for your children in Ontario does not seem likely as long as Doug Ford and his education minister are in charge of delivery.

I would really like to tell you more about this but the Toronto Star devoted more than 4000 words to the story along with pictures—the cutest is one of Mr. Lecce playing mini-basketball with someone’s adorable child. So, if you want more of the story, that is where it is. Beside I’ve got a cold and I’m going back to bed.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Armed To The Teeth.

by Peter Lowry

Watch what you say in Alberta partner. That province has enough guns to go to war and lacks a sensible government to prevent it. Between the lunatic fringe vying to replace the discredited Jason Kenney as premier and the existing Alberta justice minister Tyler Shandro, they seem to be very confused.

Maybe they are getting too much of that tar sands bitumen in their drinking water. Shandro says the federal government is going to confiscate all the guns. That is an interesting impression of a proposed federal government bill that has only now reached the point of committee study.

Shandro thinks that the federal government is going to have its mounted police (who are paid as Alberta’s provincial police) confiscate some 190,000 guns that are reported to be locked and loaded throughout the province. Well, that is what you get when you offer to buy back the more dangerous weapons. I sure would not want to be the first Mountie to kick in a door to confiscate anyone’s possibly illegal assault weapon.

According to the justice minister, the Alberta government is going to fight any and all firearms prohibition laws. Shandro tells the news media that he has had a letter from federal public safety minister Marco Mendicino saying that his provincial RCMP will be required to start confiscating guns later this year. Maybe, in Alberta, the schools do not teach the difference between a buy-back program and confiscation?

It would be possible to disregard Mr. Shandro if it was not for Danielle Smith. Ms. Smith seems to be the front runner in the race to replace Jason Kenney as leader of the united conservatives and premier of Alberta. Her pushing of the Alberta Sovereignty Act might seem Looney Tunes to reasonable Canadians but it is resonating across the province.

Her explanation of the Sovereignty Act goes well beyond firing the Mounties as the province’s police force. She also thinks Alberta can simply decide which federal laws the province will agree to obeying. It might just be sour grapes from Jason Kenney but he considers Smith’s act to be “a de facto plan for separatism.” He’s out of there!

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Delusions of the NDP.

by Peter Lowry

That did it. The federal new democrats think they can ingratiate themselves with Quebec voters by supporting bigotry and economic deprivation. As Puck said in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “What fools these mortals be.”

Only fools would support Quebec’s despicable language and religious symbols laws. Do they realize the leader of the federal NDP would be barred from a job with the Quebec government? Maybe, as an observant Sikh, growing up in Brampton, Ontario, Jagmeet Singh does not recognize bigotry. And yet in Quebec, he would be knee-deep in discrimination.

The NDP actually voted in favour of a Bloc Québécois attempt to further strip the rights of non-French-speaking Quebecers. The bill would have denied the rights of non-French speakers to Canadian citizenship if the applicant resided in Quebec. In addition, the Bloc bill would have interfered with the rights of Quebec businesses to communicate in English at work with English-speaking employees. It also denied employers and their employees from communicating in any other language but French. This bill was a further insult to Quebec’s English-speaking minority and actually interferes with the ability of Quebec firms to do business outside Quebec.

But the new democrats supported it in a feeble attempt to win praise and recognition in Quebec. They do not understand that the Orange Wave of Jack Layton is long dead.

And Jagmeet Singh is no Jack Layton.

More seriously, the actions of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) are already hurting the immigration needs of the province. This is continuing to hurt the ability of business to find many of the skills needed in a modern business world. It is crushing the ability of the province to penetrate the markets of almost 400 million Americans and Canadians on their doorstep because too many of their employees are unable to communicate with those markets in English or Spanish.

At a time when new tourism markets need to be developed, the province is denying the need for bilingualism. When his unthinking immigration minister Jean Boulet said publicly the other day (in French, of course) that most immigrants to Quebec “don’t work, don’t speak French or don’t adhere to the values of Quebec Society,” his boss premier François Legault said he still wanted him in the CAQ cabinet.

I think Quebec can do better.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Leave ‘Em Laughing.

by Peter Lowry

If you live in Ontario, you need to pay attention to premier Doug Ford. If you don’t, he and his conservatives could bankrupt us. He has totally screwed our healthcare system. He is stealing from us with his planned Highway 413 for his developer friends. He is heading for a collision with our teachers. Remember, he is just a salesman. He hopes to leave the suckers laughing.

I don’t think we have ever seen a man so delighted with his job. He got his money the old-fashioned way, he inherited it. He was taught about politics by his younger brother when Rob Ford was mayor of Toronto with a habit of crack cocaine for fun. When Doug ran for Toronto mayor, he lost to the more conservative John Tory.

But that did not keep Doug Ford from getting even. One of the first things he did when he got to Queen’s Park was to block the increase in the number of councillors for a city of 2.8 million. He left the limited number of councillors with an impossible job. More recently, he decided to have a super-mayor for our two largest cities. He and John Tory must have kissed and made up. The super mayor idea is American and works for them because they have party politics at the municipal level in most of the cities. Toronto has disguised party politics without party discipline.

But Ford’s nemesis will be healthcare. He is attempting to ‘innovate’ with privatization. And it can’t be done. Privatization would cause a further, serious, drain of medical staff from our hospitals. These facilities are already understaffed. Beds are unoccupied in wards with no nurses. There are surgical facilities in hospitals that are not being used. Building new private facilities would be charged to public dollars. Staffing the private facilities would be a further drain on our hospitals. And then public money would be used to pay millionaire doctors.

And the very idea of dumping the feeble from hospitals on for profit nursing homes is the most egregious plan of all. These facilities have neither the staff to handle this influx nor the physio-therapy facilities to help them. To increase private facilities profits in this manner can only be described as abuse of the sick and hurrying them off to what can be a lonely and dreary death.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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An Experiment in Democracy.

by Peter Lowry

OK, I am going to recant, briefly, here. I think they should have proportional voting in Quebec. I admit to the heresy that I am spouting but I think the outcome would be worth it for the laughter.

Quebec politics is good for a laugh at any time. I just feel the amusement could run longer under proportional representation in the Quebec assembly. Under first-past-the-post voting we, too often, end up with one of the minority parties winning enough seats to form a government.

But with five major parties in the running, it would be more fun to have all five in the assembly fighting it out on an on-going basis. Just how long it would be between elections would be a toss-op.

Proportional representation would give each of the parties a number of seats according to their popular vote. As it would be unlikely that any one party would win enough seats to form a majority, there would have to be some deal making to form a government. For example, the CAQ of François Legault might need the four or five of Éric Duhaime’s conservatives to give the CAQ a majority. It would be a marriage made in some place below Heaven.

Conversely, Québec Solidaire might have enough members, along with the liberals, to form a government. There would be heavy action with Quebec’s bookies on how long that coalition would last.

Though nobody would be very interested in a deal with the losers in the Parti Québécois. They might be lucky to elect two or three MLAs.

And that is the problem with Quebec politics. Parties tend to come and go. Here today, gone tomorrow, is their slogan.

As it stands today, the Quebec liberals are the oldest party in the assembly. They have had some interesting conservatives running that party in my lifetime.

But then what is in a name. And who knows what the next two or three Quebec parties will be called? Just keep it interesting ‘mes amies.’

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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