Category: Provincial Politics

Ontario’s Super-Saver Premier.

by Peter Lowry

Maybe there are those of us in Ontario who do not appreciate our premier for his uncaring ways. Did you know that he saves taxpayers money even when he really should have spent it? We got the word the other day. The independent Financial Accountability Office of Ontario told us how Doug Ford’s government had saved us $9 billion. And that was when we knew he needed to spend more.

It was when he first slipped into office that he cut the spending on autistic children. There were complaints about that. Nobody seemed to notice though when he reduced the funds for the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). It sure looks as though Doug doesn’t give a damn about those people.

It is so bad in Ontario that sociologists are now referring to the close to a half-million people on ODSP as our modern-era hunter gatherers. They are always out hunting for free food and the small change they can beg from citizens, or they have to steal. It is as though we are telling these unfortunate people to beg on the streets or to be criminals or starve.

But the real criminals today are the local health integration networks (LHINs). These people are so busy fighting for their jobs that they have no time left to do their jobs. They are taking it out on the hospital patients because of an uncaring government. Ontario had to budget for extra funds because of the pandemic and yet the Ministry of Health throttled back the funds and there is a billion dollars unspent—not because it was not needed—because it was held back by our conservative government.

After spending a month in hospital last year with a leg in a cast, you learn a lot about how hospital funding is being strangled. The hospitals had to close their kitchens and the catered food is awful. (I lost ten kilograms of body weight because I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.) They never had enough nurses to cover the shifts. (These are the same nurses whom the conservatives denied any wage increase.) The weekly surprise for hospital staff was what materials were not delivered to fill needs in looking after patients. No wonder, they had a billion left over!

And who suffers from this stingy, uncaring government? We all do.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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The worth of a person.

by Peter Lowry

Now that restaurants are re-opening across Canada in the wake of the recent wave of the pandemic, there are the expected complaints from hospitality businesses in finding it difficult to hire staff.  Surprise, surprise, what did you expect? Especially in an industry relying on the demeaning system of gratuities to earn a living wage? It is time to put an end to gratuities in North America.

I remember the story of a friend visiting Tokyo with his wife. He thought he could defeat the no-tipping rule there by tucking some money under his plate. The restaurant owner ran after them for two blocks to return the money. The tourist did not realize he was insulting the proprietor. He was inferring that the owner did not pay his staff an adequate wage.

And, obviously, here in Ontario and in the rest of North America, we do not pay wait staff a proper wage. We are depriving these people of their dignity. We are paying them minimum wages and counting on the generosity of the customers to compensate for the stinginess of their employers.

And we are not even distributing these honorariums fairly. The system is so unbalanced as to be a disgrace. Is this the food chain in which people who like this type of work have to move up the ladder of life? Do they start as teenagers at fast food shops and work their way up to the expensive and ostentatious bistros with dinner charges, accompanied by just the right wines, that cost hundreds of dollars on the expense account?

And what is the difference between the two environments? It is the same job. It is the same terrible hours. The employees at the low end cannot all be young trainees. The employees at the top end cannot all be old and grey.

And why should all tipping be the same ’recommended’ 15 or even 20 per cent?

This was all confused when we had to pick up from our favourite restaurant or let Uber or others deliver. Why would you tip the driver the same percentage as you would tip for the service in the restaurant? Let’s turn this truck around.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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A passport to Freedom.

by Peter Lowry

It is called a laissez passer. It is similar to a passport but identifies the role of the individual at the United Nations or one of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their role with the United Nations. It is issued by the United Nations to assist their personnel and NGO officials in carrying out their duties around the world.

And all I want is a laissez passer to get me where I want to go as a fully vaccinated person in Ontario. I have done my duty as a good citizen. I have hunkered down during all the lockdowns. I have foregone travel in my own province. I have worn those goddamn masks that make it hard to breath, easy to sneeze and fogs up my glasses. I got both of my vaccinations as early as possible. And now—after a year and a half of pandemic panic, I am supposed to be free.  I have places to go and things to do. Why should I be held back by the anti-vaxxers and those who shilly-shally over getting their shots.

If it is their right to refuse to be vaccinated, it is my right to be released from lockdowns. I want a laissez passer.

The Blue Jays are coming home and I want to be there to cheer them on. There is nothing to match a warm sunny afternoon at the Dome. Those of us with both our shots are more than enough to fill those seats and cheer the boys on.

I want to go to the casino and challenge the live dealers. I want to play table games with real people. Show your laissez passer and welcome to the table.

I want to go out to dinner at a decent restaurant—without all the fooforaw of masks and plexiglass dividers between diners. I want to browse the wines at the LCBO without keeping the next deserving customer from getting in.

And who has the information needed for your personal laissez passer? None other than that poor, simple-minded premier of Ontario: Doug Ford. The records are there as to who got their shots and when. Our district health boards gave us our vaccinations and have all the records. All I want is a nice handy, wallet-sized card that I can show to skeptics. I deserve a laissez passer.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Give Me Shelter.

by Peter Lowry

There is little reason to ever respect Ontario premier Doug Ford. It is not just that the man is untrained and unfit to be premier. It is the nature of the task that the man has taken on. He has no idea what it really requires.

The job requires compassion.

Recently I wrote a commentary about building a better society. I got some ribbing from readers about being a socialist because I said everyone in our society has to have shelter and clean drinking water. Despite global warming, Canadians are going to need shelter for many years to come. And it is our provincial governments that have to make sure those shelters are built.

We can hardly stand back and watch housing costs skyrocket in our cities. We have to reduce the pressures on the market by building more affordable and geared-to-income accommodation. It is the province that can make that happen. It is the province that can convince the builders.

Rather than build an unnecessary highway to the development lands of his builder friends, premier Ford needs to put the tax dollars into affordable housing—where it is needed most. He can let the federal government help but the constitution leaves the resolution to the provinces.

It is because compassion belongs here.

Healthcare is not a football to kick around either. Under the Ford government, Ontario’s hospitals have deteriorated, rapidly. Covid-19 does not get all the blame. Nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers are being mistreated. Hospitals are falling in community approvals. The food they are feeding patients is awful. The quality of care is falling. We are seeing racism, discrimination and uncaring in services. Staff are overworked and weary. Patient advocacy has become a joke.

Without compassion, hospitals are just unfriendly places in which to die.

And what about our schools. Remote learning is a failure of technology. We can hardly replace the human element in teaching our children. And education is not an exercise in public relations.

Without compassion, education becomes a rote exercise.

Without compassion, provincial governments fail us.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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A Question of Trust.

by Peter Lowry

Journalists report on our politicians all the time. They think they can judge them best. They kid themselves. There is too much that they do not say about our MPs, MPPs and MLAs. Even if we, as interested citizens, watch our politicians on CPAC and provincial channels, we might only get a small sample of what our local politician is doing on our behalf in Ottawa or as a member of our provincial government.

So, what can we do four years or less later when they want to be re-elected? How do we judge their worth? Do you trust them again to represent you?

Many people abdicate the responsibility by voting for the party. It is their right to do that. Some will cheerfully vote for the village idiot—if he or she represents the preferred party.

The news media encourage voting for the party by spending considerable reporting resources on following the travels of the party leaders. Some of the large city media will also take the trouble sometimes to interview candidates in your electoral district. There will be the usual complaints about sign by-laws and access to voters in institutions and condominiums.

Some people try to save all the literature they receive during the election period and, maybe, sift through the pile before going to vote. What you have read is what they want you to know, or believe. Do you trust all you read?

Surprising few of your neighbours ever bother to go to one of the all-candidate meetings. And there are fewer of those than in the past. There used to be coffee parties where a supporter would invite neighbours to meet and talk with one of the candidates. The rarest event is when a candidate comes to your door.

But if you are lucky and can question your candidate, what do you want to know. Doesn’t it all boil down to a question of trust? Can you rely on this person to represent your concerns to the government of the day?

You are the voter. What do you want? Whom do you trust to deliver for you?

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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In Disdain of Demagogues.

by Peter Lowry

It was easy enough to identify U.S. president Donald Trump as being a demagogue. He exhibited all the hallmarks while in office. He was a brash, boisterous braggard. He would not have known a truth if he tripped over it. He promised his followers any foolish thing they wanted.

The classic demagogue is Ontario premier Doug Ford. He learned about politics indirectly from his conservative father and from his younger brother in Toronto city hall. His classic promise of ‘Buck a Beer’ was demagoguery at its best. He promised change and instead gave Ontario confusion over covid-19, cronyism, confidential deals with developers and attempts to control competition.

Ford’s major problem was that he was neither as smart nor as experienced as his buddy out west, Jason Kenny, premier of Alberta. Kenney had years of experience in Ottawa behind him when he went home to ‘unite the right’ in Alberta. He understood the need to drive a pick-up truck, wear a ten-gallon hat, engage ethnic groups, stamp out competition and feed on the old shibboleths of outing Ottawa. What identified Kenney’s demagoguery was his foolish expenditures on false enemies and hoped for pipelines.

Who but a demagogue would pour more than a billion of taxpayer’ dollars into a failing pipeline that is now dead? Who else would see conspiracies in who supports organizations that care about the environment? And who would arrange for a propaganda office to fight Ottawa and environmental concerns?

And yet, we cannot leave these notes on demagoguery without considering Canada’s chief demagogue. We are dealing here with a person who has lived with privilege his entire life. His disdain for those less privileged is there for all to see. He talks environmentalism and builds a pipeline to carry the highly polluting product of Alberta’s tar sands. He talks feminism and fires women who disagree with him.

He harbours with the rich and famous, he is an elitist, he loves the stage and the adoration, he is the cuckoo in the clock at Rideau Cottage. He is the most dangerous of demagogues. He is Justin Trudeau.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Doug Ford Stands Alone.

by Peter Lowry

Like his hero, Donald Trump, Ontario premier Doug Ford has few friends. He has followers, he has some like-minded associates and he has those who pander to him. He is brash and loud and not the warm cuddly type. And as a politician, he thinks he has no peer.

And when the federal election comes, conservative leader Erin O’Toole hopes Doug Ford goes away and stays away. He needs no reminders of the incompetency of Doug Ford in the critical province where the federal conservatives need to make inroads.

Worse still, all the competitive political parties in the Ontario legislature have promised to never cooperate with a Doug Ford minority government. What that means is that if Ford’s conservatives should end up with a plurality of seats next June but not a majority, he could get the heave-ho as premier.

It used to be in Ontario if a party had the majority, the party leader would be allowed to form a government. It was considered the proper thing to do in the club-like atmosphere of the Ontario Legislature. We smashed the club-like atmosphere in 1985.

On election day that year I was about to go into my riding’s liberal committee room when Hershel Ezrin, liberal leader David Peterson’s executive assistant was leaving. We stopped to chat about the election.

We had a friendly argument in that I told him that I expected the count that evening would reduce the conservatives to a minority government but they might still maintain the most seats. The problem was, at the time, that the urban rural split gave rural seats an advantage and the conservatives looked to win those rural ridings. Hershel disagreed with my analysis.

I said, whatever, he and David Peterson had to be ready to bargain with Bob Ray of the NDP to dump the Tories. We had more than 30 years of conservative rule in Ontario at that point and we had to be able to prove to Ontario voters that the provincial liberals could do the job.

The next thing I heard about it was that long-time liberal MPP Bob Nixon and Hershel were in negotiations with Bob Rae.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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‘Show and Tell’ for Political Promises.

by Peter Lowry

Politicians in power tend to deal with problems by telling us they will throw our money at the problem. They have some confused idea that we will all feel good because the problem is being looked after.

That is not necessarily the case.

Sometimes, we look at the amount of money and we recognize that the amount is only a token and it cannot solve the problem. There are other times when we are annoyed because we recognize that it is costing far too much money to fix the problem. The politicians look stupid either way.

And speaking of stupid, there is a third problem with conservative governments. This is the problem created by the Harper conservatives when they were in power with a majority government from 2011 to 2015. This government was very good at guessing the amount of money needed to fix a problem. They would have elaborate news conferences and posts in social media about the amount of money they were going to use to fix this or that problem that had been brought to their attention.

What the Tories discovered was that even if you guessed the right amount of money to solve the problem, you did not have to actually spend the money. It was the MP for Parry Sound—Muskoka, Ontario, Tony Clement, who was president of the treasury board during the four years of the Harper conservative majority government. Most Canadians have no idea what the role of president of the treasury board might entail.

It is the treasury board that ensures that cabinet departments have the staff and funding necessary to implement government programs. As president of the treasury board, Clement could turn the funding taps on or off. Instead of running the board to implement programs, he used the treasury board to implement conservative ideology. He would pick and choose which programs got the money and which might be told to wait. It meant that the finance minister or the prime minister could make grandiose promises but nothing necessarily happened.

Listening to premier Ford of Ontario and some of his minions, it seems they have discovered the same solution. We should ask them at these promise sessions to show us the money.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Mr. Ford’s “Good Ship Lollypop.”

by Peter Lowry

Get it while you can. Like the career of Hollywood child star Shirley Temple that peaked from the time she was 3 to 13-years-old, the Ford government in Ontario is already on its downward slide. The conservative’s rearranging their cabinet crew is time wasted. Their Good Ship Lollypop is sinking.

While it might be foolish for Doug Ford to do anything stupid in the time he has left in office, we are sure to find more reasons to turf the Tories next June. You can re-arrange the deck chairs, offer more candy to the voters but the captain of this ship is going down.

And putting the pandemic behind us, is hardly going to save the premier from being roasted come election time. It was almost amusing seeing him repairing his tattered cabinet the other day. Sure, that pathetic Merrilee Fullerton had to get out of long-term care but to put her in the position of delivering her brand of incompetence to children, community and social services might embarrass the Ford brand even further.

And it was nice to be reminded why the overly-entitled Rod Phillips was needed back in the cabinet. He is the guy who follows the Ford ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ code to the letter. He showed off his communication skills while covering his tracks last Christmas while holidaying in St. Barts. We hear that you can get some quite decent accommodations on that Caribbean pleasure island for as little as a $1000 a day. Was he getting tips on how to improve long-term care facilities in Ontario?

It was no surprise that former prime minister Brian Mulroney’s kid was kept on in transport. Caroline Mulroney is in an ideal position to drive the new highway 413 through Ontario’s vanishing wetlands.

But the most egregious staying-in-place was keeping my parachuted MPP Doug Downey where he can do Ford’s bidding in the attorney general’s office. That was almost as bad as keeping that know-nothing Stephen Lecce in the education portfolio That guy is hated by teachers and parents of school-age children with equal enthusiasm.

But the truth is that the most serious need for change in Ford’s cabinet is Mr. Ford himself. He is 90 per cent of the problem.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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The Trump of the West.

by Peter Lowry

It is a long way from Mar-a-Lago Resort in Palm Springs, Florida to roof-top dining in Calgary, Alberta. Nor is former president Donald Trump likely to be confused with Alberta premier Jason Kenney. They are just kindred spirits.

It might be that Jason Kenney enjoys being linked to the much more successful (and more vilified) Donald Trump. They both share a vision of conservative politics far to the right of anything practical. They both share the autocratic attitude that some might confuse with leadership.

But they make fools of their followers. Their followers are but log jams on the rivers of life. They are there to be used by these losers. They march to the off-beat of their drums. Born again or biker, they are there to support the sacrilege of their leaders.

Kenney and Trump share visions of thrones that are there for them to seize. They believe we should all prostrate ourselves before them. And we should all tithe to them. For what is ours, they consider as theirs.

The difference between them is that Jason Kenney spent his formative years learning of politics. He learned how the politician can use the unwary. He was Stephen Harper’s go-to guy in using groups of ethnic Canadians.

And yet, the political nuance is of no interest to Donald Trump. He is a user. He is a gross communicator. He preens for his audiences. He uses women as disposable. He is only impressed by power and billions. He looks down on America’s allies and honors its enemies. He cares nothing for the environment, turning loose billionaire friends to plunder the land of its high-carbon contents of coal and oil. He let millions die in the pandemic because of his ignorance.

Kenney sees himself as an oil man. He puts on his ten-gallon hat and swaggers into the Petroleum Club. He wastes more than a billion of taxpayers’ money on a losing pipeline. He is also of little use during a pandemic.

Messieurs Kenney and Trump are both losers.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]