Category: Provincial Politics

Legault’s Gestapo.

by Peter Lowry

History has a slower pace in Canada’s Quebec Province. Old wounds are often rubbed raw as the shibboleths of long ago, such as Duplessis’ Padlock Law, are repeatedly turned against minorities. And the hounds of l’office Québécois de la langue française are to be loosed on business large and small under an oppressive Bill 96.

In Bill 96, Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms is brushed aside with the use of the ‘Not Withstanding’ clause. If the National Assembly did not know that their proposed law was contrary to the rights and freedoms of Canadians, why else would they use the clause?

Legault’s government in Quebec has its own Gestapo ready pounce on the unwary firm that defies the purity of the French language. Like the “Racial Purity Act” of Germany of 1933, the law in Quebec has its language police who will not only determine who speaks French, and what is correct French and what is the forbidden anglicised French.

You can assume that you no longer can say “Le weekend.” And I guess, “Le hot-dog” is verboten. It is ignored that these terms are common in Parisian French. The Quebec version of French must be locked somewhere in the last 300 years. And, for gosh sake, don’t label your small store in Quebec as “The Olde Shoppe.” Let the tourists figure it out for themselves.

The most invasive part of Bill 96 is the provision of search and seizure, without cause or warrant, by these language police. You can bet a lot of long-standing piques are being satisfied as Bill 96 becomes law in Quebec.

It is not as though the Legault government has not been advised of the draconian nature of the bill. They know that the anglophones and allophones are angry and the politicians are laughing. They know that they will win nothing where the anglophones and allophones reside. They win without those seats. They just want their traditional voters to hang with them. That is all they need.

But they also annoy the rest of us. Canada is a country that wants to be an example to the world of racial and language harmony. People seeking sanctuary, or seeking peace or acceptance can find it here in Canada. Maybe not in Legault’s Quebec. Don’t dare be different there.

-30-

Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Kenney’s Comeuppance.

by Peter Lowry

Jason Kenney is leaving the building. He is a political has been. I first noticed him in 2007 when he was a parliamentary secretary to prime minister Stephen Harper. Harper promoted him to secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity and then I paid attention.

What I soon realized was that he had found a much easier way to promote political involvement with ethnic groups than I had faced 30 years earlier. I had often thought you could do much more with money, position and staff.

While I made fun of Kenney—referring to him as one of the Bobbsey Twins—you had to admit that two fat and forty bachelors such as John Baird and Jason Kenney in a conservative cabinet—were something of an anomaly. Not that I gave a damn about their sexual orientation but it did not take long when Kenney went back to Alberta that there were complaints about him being a misogynist.

What concerned me most in the Harper years, was that Kenney was digging hard at a lot of votes that traditionally went to the liberals. I hardly wanted to see Harper in power any longer.

Kenney also fell into the category of politician I have come to despise. He is a career politician. I tend to have more respect for the person who builds a successful career in the private sector before turning their attention to politics.

All I knew when Harper was finally defeated in 2015 was that Kenney had lots of options. When he got the ten-gallon Stetson, the blue pick-up and the fat-boy jeans, I knew there was trouble in the offing for Alberta. I knew for sure that eventually, he would unite the right in Alberta against him.

And I knew Alberta was not the Calgary he knew. There is even a difference between the oil barons of Calgary and Edmonton. And there is a good reason why the University of Alberta in Edmonton is more respected than the University of Calgary. Calgary is the most Americanized city in Canada and the easterners who came west to work the oil and pipelines were another breed entirely. Kenney was defeated by a pandemic he did not understand and people, he came to dislike.

-30-

Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Be Careful What You Wish For.

by Peter Lowry

We are often berated by people who favour proportional representation as opposed to the first-past-the-post voting we use today. They think proportional representation would be better. Well, they are wrong.

The reason that much of the world still uses proportional representation is because many of their voters are illiterate. They cannot vote for an individual but they can learn to recognize party symbols. And that is what they use to vote. Once the vote is counted, party members from a list are appointed to their governing body according to the party’s percentage of the overall vote.

In our democratically elected parliament and legislatures, we have our own member represent us. And that is something that we should appreciate more than we do. Four years ago, Doug Ford appointed a carpetbagger from a different part of the province to run as my riding’s conservative candidate. People are working hard to make sure that person is not re-elected this time. He spent little to no time in the riding. He ignored our needs. He did not represent us.

He is hoping there are enough people in the riding who always vote conservative. Maybe their parents voted conservative before them. Yet, to ignore the opportunity to ensure that the best qualified person represents us is a stupid thing. Why would anyone not want a good representative?

Good representatives are needed on both the government and the opposition side of the house. Good representatives, on the government side, take our opinions into account when planning legislation. Good representatives, on the opposition side, propose amendments important to us. They are not just there to carp or complain. They also have a constructive role.

The Toronto Star had an editorial the other day complaining about a couple of conservative candidates who refused to debate with their opponents. They were told not to by party headquarters. Maybe you agree with the final paragraph of the editorial:

“Candidates so deferential to their bosses, so willing to short-change the people of their ridings, are a discredit to democracy and an embarrassment to themselves.”

-30-

Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Ford’s Frolic.

by Peter Lowry

If you want to frolic with an elephant, now’s your chance. It is the beast snickering behind you as you cast your ballot. Sure, you can vote for Doug Ford and his cronies. They are using you, as you think you are using them.

But that defiance on your part—that vote for Ford’s cabal—is not going to solve your issues. You think your vote is going to stick it up the backside of the man? Yet the only backside that will feel it is yours.

We have just come through the worst of a world-wide pandemic. There is the danger of a world war in the offing in Europe. Inflation is rampant everywhere and there is no easy fix for it. We can all visualize the fat cats in their office towers getting rich on their profiteering and our suffering.

But do you really want someone as ignorant as Ford to help you get even?

Doug Ford is there for Doug Ford, not for you. He has no time for you if you elect him and his cronies again. Ford is a fraud.

Maybe we can get his sticker company to print labels you can wear saying: “I’ve been screwed by Doug Ford.”

And you best keep that job you’ve got. There are two sides to an inflationary cycle. The second side is all downhill. Ford has already screwed all the destitute people on ODSP and Ontario Works. He cut those programs back four years ago. You might not have noticed. The food banks were all closing during the pandemic. You might not have noticed. On the downside, you are going to discover the truth of that “screwed” sticker.

Doug Ford wants to pave his way across the farmlands and wetlands of Ontario with superhighways you do not need. He is doing it for his developer friends. They know how to show appreciation to a politician.

Mind you, he has already told you what you will get for voting for him. He thinks your vote is worth five cents. And that is what he says he will take off the Ontario tax on gasoline—if you vote for him.

-30-

Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

The Death of Conservatism.

by Peter Lowry

It dies with a whimper, not a scream. It collapses from within. It was unwieldy at the best of times. It never was the big tent in which few believed. It dies in Alberta as it does across the country.  Ottawa area MP Pierre Poilievre has crafted a eulogy.

When Poilievre embraced the “convoy to Ottawa” in the winter, it was the death knell. He picked the wrong side. When Jason Kenney found he could not control the far right, his days were numbered. The rift in the supposedly united conservatives in Alberta was down the middle. Even in Ontario, the pegs of the big tent have been pulled on populist Doug Ford and the wind is rising.

The annual federal conservative leadership contest is mired in Pierre Poilievre’s poison of the blame game. The divide between Jean Charest and Poilievre is too wide for one party. Leslyn Lewis and the also-rans stand apart as background to the game being played. Rancour rules and Patrick Brown’s legions of the sub-continent’s diaspora wonder in what farce they have signed conservative party memberships.

Ontario has started to vote and we find the progressive conservatives of our history and gentler times have passed on. Instead, we have the selfishness and uncaring of a rapacious cabal, calling themselves ‘conservative,’ seeking our votes. An ignorant Doug Ford said repeatedly on the province’s leaders’ debate the other day that he thinks the purpose of education is to get “good jobs.” This man who has been controlling billions earmarked for education in this province is obviously ignorant of the purpose of our education system.

It is really too bad that Mr. Ford only attended school long enough to want to be a sticker salesman. Many more of us want to be part of a better society. While knowledge is always very useful, we want education that encourages our children to use the power of their minds to learn, to analyze, to plan, to socialize and to care.

At least, in Ontario today, we have recourse. We have two choices. We can vote the Ford’s uncaring cabal out of office or we can suffer the consequences.

-30-

Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Vote a better Ontario.

by Peter Lowry

People are already voting in Ontario. And I can assure you, it is far more convenient to vote in the ten days of advance polls than to get in line with the laggards on June 2. And I am sticking to my morning line predictions. I think Doug Ford will be unable to win a majority.

Women are making the difference. They really dislike Doug Ford. They see him as a buffoon. Nurses hate him. Teachers abhor him. And in the confidentiality of the polling booth, Ford’s fate will be determined.

We have to disagree with those who are waiting for Ford to defeat himself. He already has. His health minister is quitting and that is no surprise. Working for that buffoon would not be fun. Ford failed to follow the science from the beginning of the pandemic. The fact that the coronavirus is still taking a high toll in Ontario is because of the lack of leadership from Queen’s Park.

Our young people have suffered enough under a regime that would put private school people in charge of education in this province. Our children have suffered. Computer programs cannot replace a teacher’s guidance. Computers are never a solution to socialization.

Even the lock downs were a disaster. Ford asked Ontario to stay away from their Muskoka cottages and then went himself. He does not think. He doesn’t care about us. He is a self-centered bully and braggard.

He wants your vote! And you know why. He wants to spend $10 billion of our money building highway 413. The fact that the highway is hardly needed seems to be beside the point. He wants it so his developer supporters can make money building over-priced cookie-cutter homes around the highway interchanges that used to be productive farmland.

My feeling is that Ford will not cruise to a majority. A majority after June 2 is hardly likely. What is more likely to happen is that the liberals, new democrats and greens are going to have to step up and say we can work together and do a better job. It will take a lot of cooperation but we could have better government for the next four years. We need the liberals for their experience, the NDP for their drive and the greens for their concern for the environment. Give it a try, we might like it.

-30-

Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Doug Doesn’t Debate.

by Peter Lowry

Ontario conservative leader Doug Ford showed up at the only all-Ontario leaders’ debate Monday—book of notes in hand. It was an event designed for sociology students. It revealed more about the participants than they really wanted to be known. Doug Ford displayed his ignorance, Andrea Horwath showed that she was out of her depth, Steven Del Duca fumbled some pithy stuff he had memorized but came out all right by default and Mike Schreiner won the debate by showing he knew how to debate.

We used to think of debating as something you could learn in universities. A good debate was not whether you won or lost but how well you made your case. Frankly, if you want the fast summary: Schreiner won on points, Del Duca got a pass on persistence, Horwath came across as strident and Ford showed viewers his ignorance.

Ford failed. If we made watching the debate a requirement before you could vote, Ford would be the loser he should be. That man does not have the attitude nor the brains for being premier of a province of close to 15 million people. He is incompetent at least and mean spirited at worst.

Andrea Horwath of the new democrats showed why she has gotten nowhere in her dozen or so years at Queen’s Park. She was strident and a harridan as she disobeyed the rules that were there to help her hold her own. The most telling moment was when Steven Del Duca quietly told her that she should see Doug Ford smile whenever she attacked the last liberal government.  

Yet, the best words of the show were spoken by Mike Schreiner of the greens. It was when Schreiner referred to the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and Ontario Works as “Legislative Poverty.” In a time when close to a million people needed help surviving, Doug Ford cut their funding. When food banks were being forced to shut their doors, Ford attacked the poor and impoverished. He likes picking targets that cannot fight back.

If Mike Schreiner had much of a party behind him, he might have done some good. As it is, we expect that the beneficiaries of the leaders’ debate will be the liberals. They need to get Del Duca and a bunch of new liberals elected. I think this event helped.

-30-

Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

“All Politics is Local.”

by Peter Lowry

Doug Ford’s failure to recognize the “All politics is local” adage is likely to cost him an attorney general when they count the ballots in Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte on June 2.

Putting that out-of-town carpetbagger in our riding was a bad move to begin with and our morning line says we should not be surprised that, without a majority of conservatives elected, Mr. Ford will be unable to form a sustainable government. It was an assessment of this election in Ontario that surprised some people. You can write it off as an honest attempt to help get Doug Ford’s mitts out of the cookie jar, if you wish, yet there is little doubt that his meanness far exceeds that of conservative Mike Harris at the turn of the century. Ending the Ford regime is the outcome that Ontario needs.

 And this riding is good news. The change here in Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte is that the liberal candidate is the three-term mayor of Barrie. In all my years in Barrie, I have never seen so many liberal signs. This is not a riding where signs mean much but Mayor Lehman is a strong campaigner and he has knocked on thousands of doors in his lifetime. And his campaign teams are reporting a good reception.

I expect this riding is going to the liberal candidate. It will be another liberal gain from the conservatives.

And I hear the same is happening in Toronto, London, Ottawa and Niagara Falls. I’m not getting the reports that I used to get from Leamington and Windsor but I am always hopeful for that part of Ontario.

And I have no problem with a Liberal and NDP deal. It is the kind of partnership the NDP needs to focus on. We have to make sure that highway 413 never happens. At the same time, we need the Bradford Bypass. We will have some strong voices in the caucus to keep the province’s plan for the bypass to happen with out causing any damage to the environment of the Holland Marsh. (In fact, it will speed the trucking of produce from the Marsh to Ontario markets.) Many of the new overpasses on Highway 400 are already in place to handle the traffic on summer weekends, as well as year-round.

-30-

Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

The Morning Line.

by Peter Lowry

Politicians are not race horses. We rarely see their workouts. They sometimes come up lame after our assessment. What we try to do is give you the best guess of where the politicos might be on the morning after election day.

The election being held June 2, 2022 in Ontario is not the easiest to forecast. And bear in mind that the person writing a morning line is not necessarily impartial. All I can do is use my experience over more than 60 years of involvement in political campaigns to describe a likely outcome of the campaign. And I am going to simplify this for those who are not used to using race track odds. Let’s even forget the percentages and talk seats in a 124-seat legislature. Because we use first-past-the-post voting, we actually have 124 elections going on and the results of those elections might be as follows:

Progressive Conservatives: 58 Seats.

The broad swath of rural ridings stretching from Ottawa to Windsor has seen little reason to leave their roots in conservatism. They might not really like Doug Ford and his fellow conservatives but many seem comfortable voting that way.  Where the conservatives are losing votes as the ballots are counted is in the cities of Ontario and their suburbs.

Liberals: 37 Seats.

While some might scoff at the possibility of the liberals going from seven seats on dissolution to at least 37, it has happened before and is logical based on the anger many people feel about Mr. Ford’s conservatives and their mismanagement of the pandemic, the environment and general arrogance. The positive feeling about Mr. Del Duca of the liberals is that he is unlikely going to do any harm.

New Democratic Party: 26 Seats.

There are just too many seats that the NDP picked up from the liberals last time that are likely to return to their liberal leanings. What the NDP needs to learn is that offering the voters a smörgåsbord of promises leaves them with no concrete reason to support the party.

Green Party: 3 Seats.

I might be doing this just to be perverse but if the liberals and NDP think they could make a deal, they should also include Mike Schreiner and his Greens if he can get a few more elected. And maybe Doug Ford would learn a few things if he watched the governing process from the opposition seats.

-30-

Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

A Hapless Hepburn.

by Peter Lowry

As a former Torontonian and a life-long Ontario resident, the Toronto Star is a tough habit to break. Like many readers, I have a difficult time reading much of Rosie DiManno. That reporter could see a raindrop and write 2000 words about it. My favourites are the political reporters. I, more often than not, will agree with a Chantal Hébert, Susan Delacourt, Martin Regg Cohn, Althia Raj or Bob Hepburn. And occasionally I might disagree. Today is Bob Hepburn’s turn in the penalty box.

And he needs to pay attention. In writing about politics, you have to run fairly fast to keep up with what is happening. You should not quote old polls this far into an election campaign. The polls at the beginning of this campaign were meaningless. Few voters really knew conservative Doug Ford, fewer knew much about the NDP’s Andrea Horwath and it was the rare person who knew anything about liberal Steven Del Duca.

But that is changing. Even the pollsters are admitting that the liberal party numbers are on the move. This is what a political campaign is about. It is a time when the politicians should listen and let the citizens speak. Even as a campaign manager, I would always spend an occasional afternoon knocking on doors and listening to voters. It is the only way I know to feel the campaign and where it is headed.

What worries me the most about Hepburn’s recent suggestion that Monday’s debate is make-or-break time for Del Duca is that Del Duca might listen to him. I would be especially concerned if Del Duca actually changed his approach in the debate on Monday. He has established an effective persona in this campaign and people are liking it. We know now that he is no braggart like Ford nor as confusing as Horwath. He is just a guy like you or me who wants to do a job for us. There might be some patchwork in the team behind him but, on the whole, they can help him do the job. All we have to do is pick the good ones and send them to Queen’s Park. They will work for us.

-30-

Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]