Category: Provincial Politics

Death Wish of Conservatism.

by Peter Lowry

At a time when Justin Trudeau is busy busting liberalism in Canada, the conservatives are doing themselves no favours. It is as if there is no place for the old political parties. Even the new democrats are losing their grip. That old time socialism ain’t what it used to be.

But today, let’s stick with the conservative’s problems. And those, they have a plenty. Ruction in the ranks, pathetic provincial leaders and disparate directions are just a few. When you realize that Justin Trudeau is the longest serving first minister in Canada and that only one province and the Yukon have liberal governments, you get a sense of the problem.

And where do you start. Just because the Coalition Avenir Québec doesn’t call itself conservative does not mean it is not conservative. It has its own ideas on what is fair and the federal government is going to have to take the Quebec government to the supreme court to get them to stop discriminating against religion and the English language.

Ontario is likely to present the most ongoing problems. There are actually people who say they will vote conservative next June and if enough commit that act of lunacy the province would have four more years of an incompetent government intent on creating a dynasty. One almost hopes that Doug Ford and his buddies are stupid enough to turn down the federal offer of ten dollar a day daycare.

And none of the Prairie provinces is helping. There is a new gal in Manitoba, a nerd named Moe going nowhere in Saskatchewan and then Jason Kenney in Alberta. Things are so bad under conservative rule in Alberta that Albertans, at least in Calgary and Edmonton, are starting to vote liberal.

With Alberta and Ontario headed for provincial elections next year, we can have a contest to see who is the most distrusted conservative leader in Canada. The conservative party of Canada will be having a vote to see if Erin O’Toole has legs for the next federal election or is to be cast aside.

And to think there are liberals who are dissatisfied with the leadership we get in our federal and provincial liberal parties.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Alerting Alberta.

by Peter Lowry

It can be a delight to read one of David Climenhaga’s reports on Alberta politics. He seems to be a knowledgeable and fearless reporter of things political in Calgary and Edmonton. He does not seem to share the general public’s admiration for the Jason Kenney administration and its leader.

But dammit, I was waiting breathlessly for the report of Kenney’s Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns. It was like sitting outside the walls of Fort Zinderneuf in Beau Geste waiting for something to happen.

And what do we get? Nothing, nada, zilch. What do they always say: Follow the money?

Albertans paid $3.5 million for a 697-page report of nothing. In fact, Climenhaga was somewhat critical of the clarity of the prose. For the amount that Albertans paid for that report, it could have had some decent editing.

But I was waiting to find out who was paying money for critical commentary on Alberta’s foolish energy aspirations. I wanted my cut of the pie. Here I have been critical of Alberta tar sands operations all these years and never been offered a bribe to write more.

From the first time I saw open pit mining of the tar sands, I was revolted. Now that they are forcing bitumen up from the depths with steam and establishing vast acreages of settling ponds, I am even more revolted.

I have seen the warming of the glaciers, the rising of the seas, the swirling clouds of bitumen dust from the oil refineries, the smog of polluting coal smothering our cities and none of it offers hope for mankind.

And yet our ignorant world leaders are getting together for a soiree this next week in Glasgow to pat each other on the back and make stupid promises to be good and be kind to mother earth.

Meanwhile, back in reality, Kenney’s War Room carries on its expensive fight against truth, justice and the Canadian way—of ignoring the obvious.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Doug Defends Dougie.

by Peter Lowry

There was an opinion piece in the Toronto Star the other day about the trials and tribulations of Ontario’s attorney general Doug Downey. It was about him trying to defend Ontario premier Doug Ford. It would certainly be a tough job if the attorney general did not owe fame and fortune to the premier.

According to the opinion piece by the Star’s Martin Regg Cohn, it is tough to defend stupidity. Maybe if Doug Ford had not parachuted that ward healer from Severn into my riding, I would be more sympathetic.

And contrary to Regg Cohn’s column, Downey is not a Barrie lawyer. We already have enough lawyers in Barrie. Downey was the conservative’s go-to guy when he was on the local council in Orillia. He lives further up the road in Severn. His appointment to my riding of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte was probably just another way for Doug Ford to tell former conservative leader Patrick Brown that he was no longer wanted in Ontario politics.

Not that we were looking forward to having Brown in our riding but oddly enough, Downey turns out to be worse. We had no idea that Downey was the contemplated replacement for Ford’s first choice of attorney general, Caroline Mulroney. Her training and experience in law in New York State seems to require a different outlook than we need in Ontario.

Downey’s job is obviously not to protect our charter of rights and freedoms. Doug Ford called back Downey and the entire legislature from summer holiday when he wanted to use the ‘Not withstanding’ clause of the charter to suppress third party advertising for 12 months before an election. Downey was the guy who rewrote the act taking away our basic right to freedom of speech.

It seems we can still say whatever we wish about our premier. We are just not allowed to pay for it to be said where too many people might notice. He can lie to us, he can make outrageous promises, he can cheat us, yet we are not allowed equal time or equal access to communications to question what he is doing.

Despite Regg Cohn’s sympathetic view, I think Doug Downey might just be another front man for a con man.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Promises, Promises.

by Peter Lowry

Ontario liberal leader Steven Del Duca is promising to resign if he does not change how we carry out elections in Ontario. He might as well resign as leader now and save us all a lot of time and trouble. It is like premier Doug Ford’s promise of a ‘Buck a Beer.’ It isn’t going to happen.

Any serious study of existing alternative voting systems will find that all have weaknesses. Inventing a new system is not going to happen and be accepted by Ontario voters overnight.

And no political party is likely to get the support to change how Ontario votes without a referendum. At present we use the Westminster system of constituent representation in a bicameral parliament federally and unicameral provincially in Ontario. As old and as creaky as this system might be, our voters know it and trust it. Attempts at changing how we vote have been made in three provinces and each attempt has been rejected by the voters.

It is not that change itself is being rejected. People are not going to rush into a system of voting that they do not understand. Change that can gain acceptance across party lines can go a long way to reassuring people. Change that benefits some parties and not others are non-starters.

There are two basic types of voting that some people are promoting.

Preferential voting, what is erroneously called ‘instant run-off,’ can be an advantage for what are called middle-of-the-road party candidates. You saw how crowded that ‘middle-of-the-road’ can become in the last federal election. Mind you, it would be an interesting experience to have an election where all the candidates tried to prove how lovable they could be. They would all campaign hard for your second preference.   

Proportional voting is another alternative. This one has the advantage that we could reduce the space needed for the legislative chamber. All you would vote for is a party. The leader of each party would have a list available for people who would sit in parliament as though you also voted for them. There are many variations on this around the world but they all have the same problems with minority parties trying to negotiate with other parties to form a government.

And I would miss not having a local member to take me to lunch in the parliamentary dining room when visiting.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Dougie Dumbs It.

by Peter Lowry

Ontario premier Doug Ford will always revert to type. He is basically dumb and there is no way to hide it. He has the political savvy of a gerbil and reminds us, at times, of Napoleon in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. That was the mean pig that ran things because he was ‘more equal than other animals.’

Obviously, our least favourite premier just did something else stupid. It is his nature. It was enough to curl all the hair on your body. It was a news clip. He was advising immigrants to Ontario not to come for the lavish life style of being on the dole. The wife and I were laughing so hard, we missed what the news reader was saying about it.

Dougie actually cut the amount paid to those on the dole when he came into office. And if you can figure out how anybody could live on about $1100 per month anywhere in Ontario, good luck. Dougie sure doesn’t give a damn.

Dougie doesn’t give a damn for anybody that cannot do anything for him. The problem for the people on the dole is that they lack the advocacy of, for example, autistic children. Dougie tried to cut the program for autism and the hue and cry of parents and other advocates was in full throttle. He had to backtrack.

The Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) is obviously an orphan without advocates. It was starved under the Wynne liberals and crushed under the boot of the conservatives. Nobody cares for those ghouls of charity forgotten, as they roam our streets.

What our premier has done is literally turned loose a horde of about 900,000 hunter gatherers in Ontario communities. These are street people who have to beg or steal their next meal.

Yesterday was a bright sunny day and the wife and I had driven to a nearby town for lunch. I parked the car when we arrived and realized that there were two street-wise gentlemen doing some business there. They were drying out their marijuana crop on the street in the thinning rays of the October sun. It seems that frost is threatening and they told us they had to do a rushed harvest. I asked them what the building was a couple doors down the street with all the police cars parked out front and a big sign saying ‘Police.’ One of them looked where I was pointing. “Oh,” he said, “We call them ‘customers’.”

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Legault Betrays Quebecers.

by Peter Lowry

There is no question that Quebec enjoys a special place in the hearts of all Canadians. It is a province rich with our history. Its contribution to the culture and character of our country is enormous.

But what many of the politicians in the provincial assembly in Quebec City fail to recognize is that their view of Quebec’s future is not always in sync with the desires of their constituents. It might be alright, most of the time, to put the squeeze on the anglophones. At the same time, it is well understood by Quebec parents that the economic future of their children will be better if they are able to speak English as well as French.

As an Anglo who has spent a great deal of time in Quebec over the years, I always found that more Quebecers are eager to speak in English than to let me speak in my stumbling French. It is not difficult to also meet the occasional péquiste who resents your presence on his island of French-language purity in a mainly Anglophone North America.

That must be premier Legault’s problem. He thinks he can, with a wave of his regal hand, eliminate the English language in Quebec. I am waiting to see how he intends to close the Ontario-Quebec and the New Brunswick-Quebec borders. And it will be even more interesting to see how he will handle the rioting of the unemployed in Vieux-Québec when there are no more tourists.

Speaking only French comes with a price and it is unlikely that bilingual premier Legault is willing to pay it. The Canadian constitution already preserves the French character of Quebec. To deny the equality of English in Quebec is to deny the constitution.

I hope and believe that premier Legault and his colleagues are mistaken that they have the right to enact unilateral legislation on Quebec languages. They have the right to encourage the use of the French language. They can hardly do that by the mindless act of eliminating the rights of English speakers.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Del Duca Dumbing Down.

by Peter Lowry

When will politicians learn not to leap into voting reform without at least checking? At a sort-of liberal party meeting today, Ontario liberal party leader Steven Del Duca intends to promise Ontario voting reform—a subject he does not seem to understand.

Like prime minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario’s liberal leader (without a seat in the legislature) is promoting that, if he is elected premier, to use ranked ballots for future Ontario elections. Neither leader has thought much about the subject. This form of voting has been used in municipal elections in cities such as London Ontario and also by the federal conservative party.

What people need to know is that ranked balloting is not the same as an instant run-off election. Nor is it a fairer form of voting. There are lots of variables in ranked balloting. Much depends on the number of candidates, the closeness of the race and the mind-set of the voters.

The best result is when there are few candidates and one of the candidates gets more than 50 per cent of the first votes cast. It is exactly the same as first-past-the-post, you have a winner on the first ballot.

The worst result is when there are many candidates and none of them is a shining star. The worst of the ranking happens when voters think they have to fill in some second, third and fourth, etc., choices. They might not have thought this process through before the balloting. They sometimes spend an inordinate amount of time doodling on their ballot.

Frankly, you should never trust voters to have a fifth, sixth or seventh choice in mind. This is the situation where the series of vote counts are actually dumbing down to the least offensive of the candidates.

All the liberals need to do is look at the end result of the balloting in the last two leadership contests for the federal conservative party. Those were the contests that chose first Andrew Scheer and then Erin O’Toole as leaders of that party.

Would you want results such as those from voting in Ontario?

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Does Doug Do Privacy?

by Peter Lowry

Bet you are all set to go with your smart phone and Ontario premier Doug Ford’s vaccine passport. You do realize, I hope, that this passport with its QR code can contain much more than just your COVID-19 vaccine status?  With capacity for 4000 characters, it is not as simple as a tweet on Twitter. The ministry of health includes recent lab tests and other information in its QR code. It is hard to get in touch with anybody in the know about this question at Queen’s Park. No doubt, you would agree to sharing some of the details with your doctor. You might want to draw the line though with the guy on the door at your local gym.

Would you really want to share your recent test results for gonorrhea? Or your prescription to help you get erections? Maybe you scoff at this, but a rushed QR code app might just be making a mockery of your supposed right to privacy.

Maybe they are lazy? Because they were in a hurry? Because they did not want to excise your recent lab results, doctor to doctor information or your refills at your pharmacy?

Nobody is arguing that the ministry of health vaccine certificates we used for the past month are easy to fake but this QR code might be a major trade-off.

And maybe all that extraneous info has been deleted. Mind you, I worry more about the people without smart phones. And it is not just seniors. Some people simply do not want or cannot afford a smart phone. I have never seen a deal for a smart phone that did not start at less than $50 per month. And that is before all the charges for extra usage.

I, for one, am quite happy with my $10 per month cell phone (a cheap flip phone). It serves nicely as an emergency phone in the car and to check with the wife when buying her something at the grocery store. The home phones are the same $10 per month deal.

And I really wish that restaurants would go back to the colorful printed menus, that made them think twice about the printing costs, before raising prices.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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The Face of COVID.

by Peter Lowry

Don’t you hate those obituaries that read: ‘Died peacefully with family in attendance.’ And you know it is B.S. written by an unimaginative and unctuous undertaker. The person probably passed away kicking and screaming and fighting, while the family was in the waiting room arguing over the estate.

COVID-19 needs a new face. The next time someone dies of COVID in your local hospital, their agony needs to lead the six o’clock TV news, be spread across the front pages of the newspapers and replace the placebos of FaceBook. This is a wrongful death. It is no less than a murder. It is death by COVID, spread by the uncaring of the unvaccinated.

And that does not let the idiot politicians off the hook. If we had smart politicians, vaccination would have been mandatory from day-one of vaccines becoming available. It never was intended as an option.

Nobody has the right to spread death. The unvaccinated have become modern-day lepers. We need to put them in cages, send them to die among colonies of the unvaccinated, not beg them or pay them to join the human race.

We don’t want the unvaccinated in our homes, in our stores, in our workplaces, in our parks or places of amusement. If they don’t want to join us, then make them go away.

Did we really want to spend the past year and more looking at statistics, watching politicians reading scripts on the advice of administration doctors, who might not have diagnosed a patient in the past 20 years? This was not reality. This was a farce written by incompetents and screened by political speech writers. They never bothered to show the horror,

We would have been smarter to get some of our western friends off the range and let them rope and hogtie the unvaccinated—so we can brand them with vaccine where it hurts.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Doing a Dance with Doug.

by Peter Lowry

Ontario premier Doug Ford isn’t much of a politician but whomever is advising him on the day care file isn’t either. The feds are offering Ontario $10 billion to get on board the federal day care deal and the Ontario conservatives are hemming and hawing! They have to be clueless to not understand what this deal will add to the economy of Ontario. This is a dance Ontario doesn’t need.

Would you believe that the conservatives are suggesting that Ontario deserves more than $10 billion? Ontario and Quebec are the only two provinces that could do this on their own. They don’t really need the federal largess.

Maybe Doug Ford is waiting for Premier Kenney in Alberta to make the decision first. He would hardly be waiting for the other holdout, New Brunswick. Isn’t it amazing that three conservative premiers waited until after the election to even talk about the proposal?

But you hardly want to annoy a large number of women voters by dragging your feet on this issue.

Typical of conservatives, the Ontario dim-wits are questioning if the province can afford to subsidize day care to get it down to $10 per day. The truth be told, Ontario cannot afford not to. Every new day care space created, adds to the Ontario economy, helps create jobs and frees another person to get a job.

And that is the challenge. The $10 billion offered Ontario is to kick-start the creation of day care spaces, the training of child care workers and a chance to be creative. Private companies can create many of those spaces as the major users are their own employees. The same goes for government offices, schools, hospitals and churches. There is space to be converted to safe, comfortable, controlled and inexpensive day care. New building is another opportunity with condos, rentals, offices, shopping centres and services to include properly planned day care space.

And, one other point. Is that $10 per day in 2019 dollars or in 2026 dollars? There has to be some flexibility for cost of living here. We hardly want another fiasco such as Doug Ford’s famous ‘Buck a Beer.’

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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