Provincial Politics – Page 33

A Mea Culpa on Small Nukes.

April 18, 2021 by Peter Lowry

The other day I really wanted to write something positive. I feel guilty about writing so many negative comments about politicians today. It was an old friend who suggested to me that I could make up for my past criticisms of nuclear power. This guy is a retired university professor and a noted environmentalist. He was singing the praises of small nuclear generating systems. I should have known he was putting me on.

But, needing something to comment on, I bought his malarkey. It ran the other day and I have been hearing from readers—not all polite, I should admit. One e-mail from a reader in Nova Scotia was particularly articulate and knowledgeable. He politely told me I was an idiot. The writer was an engineer and seemed to know his nuclear. The e-mail was so detailed, I forwarded it to my professor friend.

When we talked later, the professor was having a good laugh. I was annoyed. I asked him how I was supposed to respond—other than ritual suicide? He said that he was thinking of congratulating the writer for his overall observations on my column.

“But, but,” was about all I could say. After all, it was his suggestion.

“Yah, but I was thinking about Iqaluit in Nunavut,” he said. “Do you realize that a warm summer there is a couple months when the temperature gets up to ten degrees Celsius? They can use the normally waste heat generated by nuclear power.”

And that was his excuse. I get left with egg on my face and Jason Kenney in Alberta thinks he can include me among his few friends in Ontario. The thing is, we have to recognize that Kenney and the Three Stooges; Larry – Blaine Higgs in New Brunswick, Curly – Doug Ford in Ontario and Moe in Saskatchewan are putting forward a carbon solution that Canadians will never buy. So, who really are the idiots here?

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The Ford Agenda.

April 17, 2021 by Peter Lowry

It is hard to tell if the pandemic is helping hide premier Doug Ford’s agenda for Ontario or just slowing it down. His plans seem to be everything except the stuff you would hear in a speech from the lieutenant governor. It is enough that he keeps confusing Ontario residents on how to handle covid-19. His real agenda seems to keep coming out with surprise packages for us.

When he first took office, it was all about him. He got even with his old enemies on Toronto city council by cutting the number to be elected in half. He stopped former conservative leader Patrick Brown from running for the top dog role in Peel County. He asked the provincial police to provide him with a ‘comfort wagon’ for his trips around his province. He even picked an old friend to run the provincial cops for him.

It seemed he was also picking the least qualified people to do cabinet level jobs. The classic was the initial choice of Caroline Mulroney as attorney general. All her legal training and experience was in New York State. That did not last long. She is currently transportation minister and minister of francophone affaires. I assume, she can, at least, speak French.

Another example of his curious choices is political publicist Stephen Lecce, a graduate of a private school—St. Michaels in Toronto—as the replacement minister of education. His parliamentary assistant in this is a very young Sam Oosterhoff MPP who is a product of home schooling. It is difficult to guess what Mr. Ford had in mind here but he would do almost anything to get rid of all those expensive teachers. Watch for more remote learning by computers when the pandemic is over.

Mr. Ford must also be less than impressed with a university education. He certainly is not rushing to save Laurentian University in Sudbury from bankruptcy during the problems created by the pandemic.

His plans to cut costs in medical care in Ontario also seem to have been upset by the pandemic. The people in the local health units around Ontario are scrambling to try to save their jobs while the actual costs of the pandemic are escalating every day.

But it is plans for his friends who have invested heavily in land around the proposed new Highway 413 that is even more concerning for him. It is a highway that makes no sense unless you own lots of land in the area and want to develop it.

Maybe, sometime, before the next provincial election, Mr. Ford will tell us what he has in mind.

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Small Nuclear? Think Ships.

April 16, 2021 by Peter Lowry

Anyone who is worried about small nuclear reactors being promoted by four Canadian provinces should check out the nuclear ships using nuclear reactors. The world has had nuclear ships now for over 65 years. The four countries who use nuclear powered ships tell us that they have about 160 ships currently using this form of power. Nuclear is mainly used in submarines because it allows the submersible to stay under longer and move much faster than previously. The importance is that nuclear in ships has proved to be safe, clean and efficient.

And it is the efficiency of small reactors that is a strong argument for this type of power generation. The small reactors are safer, give a better power output ratio than previous nuclear systems, producing less nuclear waste per megawatt, eliminate greenhouse gases and can be modular to fit a variety of needs in remote parts of the country as well as industrial areas.

I mention this as because I have done studies on Canadian attitudes towards nuclear power for electricity and the answers are always negative. In one study I asked what would be the reaction to having nuclear power generation in the high arctic. Even the Toronto respondents turned thumbs down.

But folks, if the sun don’t shine, the wind don’t blow and the cricks dry up, we are still going to have to have clean electricity.

What worries me the most about the current proposal for small nuclear generators is being sure that there is adequate and plentiful deep storage for the nuclear waste.

And I try not to be turned off by the four conservative premiers promoting this form of electricity generation. The fact that the Alberta premier has joined with his buddies in Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick has not turned me off the reasonableness of their proposal.

We all have to realize that we have to have cleaner fuels to generate electricity than coal or natural gas.

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Requiem for the Beer Store?

April 11, 2021 by Peter Lowry

It was mentioned yesterday that the Beer Store in Ontario is supposed to be losing money. Well tough cookie! If you follow the bouncing ball of this story, you might be as curious as I, as to how this company can lose money by selling its product: Beer?

All we are told is that the Beer Store, the retail outlet for the brewers in Ontario—you can think of them as the three foreign-owned giants and the 30 or so Ontario craft breweries—are losing money. They claim their Beer Store sales have dropped by 20 per cent.

I think this is one of those situations where we need to follow the money. For example, when I buy a bottle of scotch at the liquor control board, I pay 20 cents deposit on the bottle. If I return that bottle to the Beer Story, they will give me back the 20 cents. The questions remain: Who keeps the money for bottles that do not get returned? Who gets the cash for bottles that can be recycled? You see where this is going do you? We are not getting the full story.

The one conclusion we can make is that the Beer Store is not losing money on the recycling business. It is getting money. It is how it accounts for that money that makes us wonder.

Our next question is about selling beer. Do the breweries sell directly to the liquor control board, grocery stores and restaurants or is it all or partly channeled through Brewers Warehousing Company Ltd. (the legal name of the Beer Store)?

And if there really was a dip in sales through the Beer Store, why have not the excessive price increases in the past year not mitigated that lower sales figure?

It also seems to me that the triumvirate of foreign-owned breweries who really own and run the Beer Store can set both their prices and the prices for the smaller packages at the LCBO and grocery stores. In any other jurisdiction than Ontario, these people would be in court for screwing beer drinkers.

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Recriminations: We have a few.

April 10, 2021 by Peter Lowry

At finger-pointing time, politics in Canada slips away into a morass of regrets. Wending your way through the reports on the pandemic, you have little to console yourself. We think of our politicians as the bickering class. There has got to be a light somewhere down damn dark tunnel.

What about the promise of science? Is covid-19 that much worse than the Spanish Flu of a century ago? Is it not just facile to lay the blame for this pandemic at the doors of the unprepared politicians?

Is it really a race between new strains of covid and vaccinating the population? When does herd immunity kick in?

I would rather be at a casino, showing off my expertise at the game of Blackjack. Yah, that is what I miss the most. I could kid you that I would rather be down in Toronto in that concrete convertible where the Blue Jays play. Quite honestly, I would not waste my time with that between-seasons bilge by sports writers who think they are talking about something important. Baseball is a game for a sunny summer afternoon and gentle breeze, with the roar of the crowd drowning out the vendors with their wares.

And by the way, save some crocodile tears for Ontario’s no longer omnipotent Beer Stores. Did you know that the Ford conservatives have slipped them a mickey while everybody thought they were fighting the pandemic? We now have beer and other booze on off-sale from our bars and restaurants. That is in addition to the beer and wines in the grocery stores. Mind you, you still have to go to the liquor control board stores to get any decent French wines at half-way reasonable prices. If I am going to pickle my liver in alcohol, it will be with something fit to drink.

They tell us now that the Beer Store lost $50 million last year. At what? The Beer Store are the poorest merchandisers in the province. They are dedicated to beer and have no clue of how to find an attractive way to sell it. I like to think of my local beer shoppes as recycle places that will conveniently sell you some beer when you take the time to drop off your empties.

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Canute-like Kenney confronts Canadians.

April 5, 2021 by Peter Lowry

In the supposedly moralistic story of King Canute of the North Sea Empire, Canute was demonstrating that even a king could not control the tides. It is somewhat strange that premier Jason Kenney of Alberta never paid attention to this story when in grade school. Instead, Kenney challenges the facts of a pandemic, challenges the rulings of the strongest nation on earth and blames others for the results when he fails.

Kenney is the child who keeps calling ‘wolf.’ He is the child of Canadian politics who keeps blaming prime minister Trudeau for his failures. He loses billions of his taxpayers’ money on failed pipelines. He fails his voters by failing to recognize reality. He fails them in not managing their money. He fails them by not recognizing the seriousness of the pandemic. He is a climate change denier.

Kenney locks Alberta in the arms of the tar sands exploiters. These are mainly foreign investors who want the maximum return for their investments in the tar sands. They care not for the thousands of acres of settling ponds that mar the fertile lands of Alberta. They care not for the thousands of depleted oil wells that still dot the landscape of the province. They care not for the larger amounts of greenhouse gases released by their ersatz tar sands oil.

And they hardly give a damn for the people of Alberta. Premier Jason Kenney is their instrument. They fund him. They direct him. They use him.

And they laugh when he challenges the new president of the republic to the south. Joe Biden has said there will be no Keystone XL pipeline bisecting the United States of America. President Biden has said it is not needed. He is hardly responsible for the economy of Alberta.

What is obvious to all is that Jason Kenney is not doing the job he promised Albertans he would do. He has failed to deliver. He has been deceitful in his handling of the pandemic. He has failed to be responsible about climate change. He has failed to bring a reasonable level of diversification to the Alberta economy. He has failed to adjust the tax base of Alberta to the real needs. Kenney is a failed politician.

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Locked down or locked up?

April 4, 2021 by Peter Lowry

It feels like being kept after school because some one else broke the rules. It feels like a piling on of detentions. Now premier Doug Ford has added another four weeks of lock-down for the entire damn province. It never would have happened if the jerk had known what to do in the first place. Why have we been listening to that blowhard?

Covid-19 is killing more people in Ontario every day. The government is putting temporary wards in army tents in hospital parking lots. We have already killed close to 8000 people. Would you not just love to introduce those covid-19 deniers to some of the dead we have not had time to cremate yet?

But this pandemic has already frightened enough people. We grumble but we put on the masks. We try to maintain safe distance from others. It is the young people who think they are invincible. The older ones are just scared. Even those of us who had that first vaccine shot are worried about when we can have the booster? Who told Ford that we can wait four months for it?

Would you not like to nail former prime minister Mulroney to a fence post for allowing Connaught Labs to be sold to the Pasteur people in France? Now Canadian governments are paying Pasteur millions to bring production of vaccines back to Canada. It will sure make a big difference if and when we get another pandemic. Next time, maybe we will put our own people first.

What is particularly infuriating is that premier Ford says he is listening to the experts but the news media always come up with experts with differing opinions. Maybe Mr. Ford needs better experts. Maybe Mr. Ford is part of the problem. People seem tired of his announcements that he is going to have an announcement and then the announcement is not going to come into effect for a few days.

Most of Ontario is tired of Mr. Ford’s bombast. If we are going to come through this pandemic, we certainly need better leadership.

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Picture That.

March 31, 2021 by Peter Lowry

Ontario premier Ford likes to bring some back-up when he is doing a Covid-19 presentation. It was a surprise last weekend when one of the smirking faces in the conservative back-up was that of Brampton mayor Patrick Brown. Oh, how well we know that weaselly countenance. He was even wearing a new suit to impress us.

Last time I checked, I was under the impression that Ford hated Brown. It was Ford who cancelled the election of the new Peel County Chair, who was to be the new super mayor of Caledon, Brampton and Mississauga. It forced Brown to drop down from running in that race to just running for mayor of Brampton. It was a bit of a come-down for a former member of parliament and a former leader of the Ontario conservatives. It was a step up for the guy who wrote a book about how certain conservatives in Ontario stabbed him in the back.

I first met Brown during the 2004 federal election. He was at my condo door in Barrie, Ontario, offering to shake hands. I just glared at the hand and asked him what he wanted. Here was the most unappealing person I had met in a long time and he wanted me to vote for him. It did him no good that I could see the conservative symbol on his literature. That confrontation led to a mutual dislike that has lasted.

As politicians go, Brown is an interesting study. At an early age, he probably decided that he did not like working for a living and entered politics. People familiar with politics think of him as a fairly good ‘retail’ politician. He knows how to sell the external package but you know the inner part of that melon is rotten. In parliament, he reminded me of the line from Gilbert and Sullivan that “He always voted at his party’s call.” I could never pin down what he did for his constituents.

In Ottawa, as an MP, he was an acolyte of Jason Kenney, minister of everything slippery in the Harper government.

It was Kenney who showed him how to pick strong ethnic groups for support and set him up with his trips to India. He and that hard-ass Indian president Narendra Modi were made for each other. It is why Brown had no problems winning the Sikh and sub-continent support to oust the Brampton mayor. Mind you, I am waiting for Brown to convert most of the parks in Brampton to cricket pitches—as he promised his Sikh supporters.

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Billions to nowhere.

March 26, 2021 by Peter Lowry

It seems strange to have a provincial budget that spends close to $200 billion in the coming year and ignores the most vulnerable among us. It is a budget that will increase the provincial debt by about $33 billion and raises no taxes. You have to remember that this is a conservative budget in a country locked in an outmoded constitution.

With provinces committed to funding education and health care, they have the excuse of the pandemic to fall back on. There are few savings in education as we struggle with opening and closing schools and the variables of computer education that are devolved to the caregiver—often a working-from-home parent. At the same time, the costs of health care grow exponentially as covid 19 rapes the system and as millionaire ophthalmologists and radiologists continue to play the system.

There is small relief for small business. They were hit the hardest by the lock downs that we are not even sure are over. And there is a little extra help for families with little ones.

Where the greatest needs were ignored was in the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). More than 360,000 Ontario citizens are being forced into desperation by a program that does not and cannot meet their needs. At a time when food banks are desperate to try to continue helping, and both shelter prices in Ontario and grocery prices are rising, these people were ignored.

The conservative budget also ignored the plight of personal support workers who had received a temporary increase in wages to try to keep them working with long-term care. There was not even a continued increase for these workers. The government forgot all the promises that had been made.

Thankfully, the conservatives forgot to mention the new Highway 413 that went from nowhere west of Georgetown, through wetlands and built-up areas to crowded highways north of Toronto. If it continues to be forgotten, we will be pleased about that one aspect of the current budget.

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Kenney sugar coats dishonesty.

March 24, 2021 by Peter Lowry

We get lots of promotional stuff in our Internet in-boxes. It usually only takes a second to click on the little garbage-can icon.

But the other day, with my finger hovering, I took a minute to think about one of them. This promotion was by the Canadian Energy Centre—better known as Alberta premier Jason Kenney’s taxpayer-funded war room. It was promoting a petition they were sending to Canada’s members of parliament. It was saying that this citizen is standing up for pipelines. My first reaction was to think of a nasty reply about where they could stick their pipelines.

What I was feeling was not anger but frustration. It was caused by the sense of futility about taxpayers’ money being used by governments to fight the environmentalists. It is a lop-sided fight.

How can Canadians who care about global warming fight their federal government when it is providing billions of our money to twin the TransMountain pipeline? And how can Canadians support the State of Michigan in its fight to protect the Great Lakes from a catastrophic pollution in the Straits of Mackinac?

The State of Michigan knows very well the hopelessness of trying to clean up the spill of diluted bitumen from the Alberta tar sands in a major waterway. The clean-up of the spill into tributaries of the Kalamazoo River has never been complete despite the expenditure of more than $700 million U.S. dollars.

To have a catastrophic spill from the under-lake pipeline at the Straits of Mackinac would just take one more tanker dragging its anchor through the shallow straits.

And shipping for this bitumen from Burrard Inlet and through the west coast’s Straits of Georgia is just as risky. It is the summer feeding grounds for the endangered Orcas.

The American administration of president Joe Biden has made it very clear that they neither need nor want diluted bitumen from Alberta fed through American pipelines. Neither do clear-thinking Canadians.

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