Category: Provincial Politics

Cabinet Building for Dummies.

by Peter Lowry

It never takes premier Doug Ford long to display his ignorance. I expect whomever in his office reads the comics to him had to explain the meaning of ‘nepotism.’ Giving newly-elected nephew Michael Ford a cabinet post was not just the same-old Doug Ford but it was a finger in the eye for common sense. Not that common sense had any standing in Ford’s cabinet choices.

You have to consider keeping Caroline Mulroney in transport and Stephen Lecce in education as worse than nepotism. Neither minister has a background that would enable them to ask the right questions of their staffs. Lecce is the product of private schooling and a career in politics. Caroline Mulroney grew up in politics and was educated in the United States. Neither brings anything but loyalty to the conservative party to their jobs.

We should have some sympathy though for Sylvia Jones. This lady has been dumped into a can of worms in taking over health from Christine Elliott. Unless Ford gets rid of bill 124 (with its pay constraints) immediately, that lady’s hands are tied. Our healthcare system is going down the toilet so fast, you would swear that Elliott and the pandemic gave it one massive enema. The medical staffs are suffering burn-out and the non-medical people are all fighting for their jobs, while ignoring doing them.

But, back to nepotist and nephew: To suggest that the younger Ford’s experience is from stints on school board and at city hall in Canada’s largest and most polyglot city is a joke. Aside from the nephew’s inability to contribute anything useful in cabinet, I disagree with the shallow-minded critics who complain that a person of colour should have the job. A person’s colour or ethnic background should have nothing to do with it. I had been the go-to guy when the party wanted to have foreign language media at an event through the 70s and 80s. When they started hiring people of ethnicity or colour to do the foreign language communications, what they were often doing was putting someone into the role who would bring old-country prejudices to the job.   

As a sixth-generation Canadian of mixed-European origin, I had none of those prejudices and I got along very well with the foreign-language media. They turned out in droves for my party’s events.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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A familiar Alberta Tune.

by Peter Lowry

They are at again in Alberta. The lunatic fringe is getting worked up for a new conservative leadership contest. And they are playing familiar tunes for the crazies. I guess Jason Kenney was just not odd-ball enough for them. I thought Brian Jean, playing his John Wayne Quiet Man role, would make them happy.

But no. Now we have Danielle Smith with her Annie Oakley six-guns in for the fun.   If you are not familiar with Danielle Smith, she was a former leader of the Wildrose party and leader of the opposition, who crossed the floor of the Alberta legislature in 2014 with other members of the Wildrose to join the government conservatives. She could not get nominated in her own riding after that short walk.

But now she is back and considers her former escapades just water under the bridge.

The one thing you can say about Smith is that she is a skilled communicator and has been working for Global television and a Calgary radio station.

But wait until you hear her program for when she is premier. She is setting out to make the péquistes in Quebec look like lazy pussy cats. She is going to show them how to play the separatist card.

Smith tells us that, under her as premier, the legislature would make all federal laws invalid. The legislature would create a police force to replace the RCMP. She has no intention of letting those nasty feds dictate vaccinations for children or anyone else for that matter. She is going to establish a separate agency to collect taxes.

In looking at her plans, one gets the impression that there is something wrong with the rights and freedoms of Canadians.  She wants Alberta to be a sovereign state and able to ignore federal laws and court rulings.

I find this all very confusing. It was my impression from discussions in school that the original Rupert’s Land was sold to Canada in 1870 and it was the Canadian government that created Alberta by act of parliament in 1905. Much of the growth in population in Alberta was contributed to by the federal government encouraging immigration and settlement. What that all means is that nobody is going to separate any part of Alberta from Canada. It is a fixed part of Canada.

Ms. Smith can separate herself from Canada any time she likes. I would suggest that she has her pick of backward states of the United States to choose from.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Here Comes Highway 413.

by Peter Lowry

Is this what Ontario voted for? Over the next four years, the Ford government is going to spend more than a billion dollars getting things ready to start building Highway 413. And once it gets started—if it does get started—it will likely take another ten years to build. You could get some long odds on it being Ford cutting the ribbon on that highway as premier.

Don’t be impatient. Even the 16.2 kilometres of the Bradford Bypass, that is already calling tenders for bridge construction, will be another four to five years. And don’t even try to compare it to the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, that has been causing business failures over its 19 kilometres of construction across the top of Toronto for the past 11 years.

But building one solution to people movement always seems to demand more. If what they are calling the Ontario Line subway is not built as a relief line for the Young Street subway in Toronto, the Eglinton Crosstown will not do its job. If the expanded bridges are not completed through Barrie on Highway 400 in time for the increased traffic from the Bradford Bypass, there will be angry communications with whomever rules Queen’s Park at the time.

And forget trying to get infrastructure planning and financing and building arms-distance from the politicians. He who pays the piper calls the tune every time. Look at Metrolinx, the subway builder, that is supposedly out of reach of the politicos in Toronto city hall and Queen’s Park. That organization has more good reasons for being late and over budget than any provincial ministry could ever dream of.

There are always the citizens committees, the neighbourhood nags and energetic environmentalists running interference on building any infrastructure but even they can be squelched by determined politicians. And you can bet that premier Ford is determined. When he tells his developer friends that he will build that highway for them, he is going to try to keep his word. Forget previous planning, environmental concerns, and a highway there not being needed. Ford will get it done.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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“Another Fine Mess!”

by Peter Lowry

I like to think of the most recent election in Ontario as something like an ancient Laurel and Hardy short movie. It seems that having the liberal party leader leading from outside the legislature for two years before the election did not work out too well. Having him drive around Ontario in a delivery van did not encourage much enthusiasm either. And obviously, nobody was checking what he was saying out there to the media.

I, quite frankly, wondered what Steven Del Duca was doing in the run-up to the election. You would think he would have built up some momentum for him to win his own riding. He didn’t.

I thought the most ridiculous promise he made before the election was that, if elected, he would resign as premier if he did not change the way we voted in Ontario. I did not know that a premier could arbitrarily change how we vote. It did not sound very democratic not to check with the voters by referendum.

Of course, he got shafted by the conservatives. Here he thought he would have a full month of campaigning. What he got was 15 days of campaigning, before the advance polls opened. Here the conservatives had been campaigning hard over the previous three months, running advertising, making announcements, promising money for this and that. They were winding down their campaign before Del Duca got moving.

There was a nice story in the newspaper a while ago about liberals Ted Hsu, who won in Kingston and the Islands, and Mary-Margret McMahon, who won in Toronto’s Beaches-East York. They had been campaigning in their ridings for about a year. I had told friends in the Beach area of Toronto that Mary-Margaret was a good bet for a hard-working MPP.

I am not sure how well we will come out of another four years of Doug Ford’s inept management at Queen’s Park. Hopefully we will have a strong new leader for the Ontario liberals who, if not an MPP, will soon find his or her way to win a by-election. The liberals in the legislature might not be the official opposition, at this time, but they will find their voices. They have a party to rebuild.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Problems of Polls.

by Peter Lowry

It is amazing how easy we could solve all our problems if we just skipped down the street hand-in-hand with the Toronto Star. If the Star’s editors don’t have all the answers, they can buy opinions from a myriad of writers with the appropriate opinion.

The other day, the Star published an opinion from a gentleman who ran for the NDP a few elections back. It seemed the gentleman thinks that our addiction to polls was to blame for the poor turnout for our recent provincial election. He even had a few thousand heavy words in support of the opinion that publishing the polls was the reason for the problem.

If I had my druthers over the years of working with polls, I would have stayed with the opinion that polls should never be published. The only problem is that I also believe in disclosure and if media outlets want to pay for polls, they should report them accurately to their readers, listeners and viewers.

What I really object to is the aggregators who assemble random published polls, take the liberty of adjusting them for bias and then republishing them. It seems to me that they are really hardening the opinions in them as though they constitute a trend line—which they are not.  

Of course, the question as to whether polls are self-fulfilling always comes up. In the recent Ontario election, there was an obvious stagnation in the reported polls that would be reflected by voters. We have been seeing a trend to lower voter turnout in Canadian elections for the last 50 years. The media is just as responsible for that ‘what’s the use’ attitude as are the politicians. The political parties can forecast it in the malaise they find among their traditional volunteer base at the riding level.

We have knowingly destroyed the democracy in the parties in this country and our ultimate reward is the lethargy of the voters. When you take away the rights of the people at the party’s grass roots to choose their candidates, why should they want to work to elect the appointed candidates? When the benefactors, with the money, call the shots in politics, they also expect to be the beneficiaries. And if you tell the truth about our political parties, they treat you as toxic.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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“What Fools These Mortals Be!”

by Peter Lowry

The hue and cry might now be more complete. The Toronto Star has discovered that only about 18 per cent of our Ontario electorate voted for the Ford government’s majority. And would not Shakespeare’s Puck agree? We did it to ourselves.

Not voting is also a political decision, of sorts. Does it really need a proposition on the ballot for “none of the above”?

And despite the clear proof that the majority of the electors said “a pox on all your houses,” the Toronto Star tells us we merely err in how we select our politicians. They blame first-past-the-post voting for the low turnout. And, just how, first-past-the-post voting is to blame for this low turn-out is never really explained.

The Toronto Star wants proportional representation. The greens and NDP have wanted it for years. Some liberals might agree. Let’s hear it, yay, yay for proportional.

Then it is settled. We will henceforth get people to pick a party instead of a candidate. Party leaders have been choosing candidates for some time anyway. So, why not?

But just a minute. If only 43.5 per cent of Ontario voters went to the readily available polling places in 2022, why would more go, just to vote for a party, in 2026? How would we be solving the problem?

Maybe we should be proud of the 2022 Ontario election. Once again, we have proved that any doofus can be premier of Ontario.

And we do not need the insult from the Toronto Star that discussions about changes in how we vote being dominated by political hobbyists. First of all, it is not true. The last full-blown discussion of voting systems was under the quite incompetent management of Justin Trudeau’s government in 2016. Those committee hearings were dominated by political scientists with rare rays of enlightenment to contribute.

Before that, in Ontario, we had a 2007 referendum on a proposal made by lottery winners that was soundly rejected by the voters. British Columbia tried twice to get a rather confused proposal through its voters and it failed both times.

I could also draw the Star’s attention to the ridiculous proposal of liberal leader Steven Del Duca that he would change the way Ontario votes after the recent election. Luckily, he is not in a position to do that.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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You Jest Sir!

by Peter Lowry

A long-time NDP apparatchik, Robin Sears, writes his opinion in the Toronto Star. And no, I am not jealous. I had my fill of writing for Toronto papers years ago. It is more fun questioning the wisdom of those who do it today.

And, it is certainly questionable when Mr. Sears tells us how premier Doug Ford can build a legacy similar to that of the late Bill Davis. Surely, he is trying to be funny!

Sears seems to believe that Ford has matured during his first four years in office. I will go along that he got fatter and older—maturing is a different subject.

It is as though Sears had never seen a salesman lay on the B.S. before. When I heard Ford saying how much he admired and trusted liberal finance minister Chrystia Freeland, it almost cost me my lunch. Luckily, I had heard that song before and took it for what it was worth—nothing. Hell, I’m a liberal and I am still not sure she knows what she is doing in that portfolio.

And what is this bunkum about a friendship with prime minister Trudeau? Queen’s Park gets a lot of funds from the Ottawa government. Doug Ford would kiss Trudeau’s bare behind on the front steps of Queen’s Park if it would get Ontario more money. The delayed negotiations with the Trudeau liberals over child care was arranged by someone much smarter than Ford. That was carefully staged and planned to gain maximum impact on the provincial election.

I only wish I could ask Doug Ford to parse the comment Sears made about “Ford’s new understanding of the value of greater nuance in perspective—and the limits of a world of only predictable partisan certitude—was double edged.”

I could just see Ford blurting out “What the hell does that mean?”

But what Sears appeared to be attempting in that syntactic labyrinth was to apologize for many of Ford’s stupider decisions related to the pandemic. The premier was just as confused coming out of the worst of the pandemic, as he was going in.

And anyone who thinks Christine Elliott and Rod Phillips were the shining lights of Ford’s last cabinet, hasn’t looked at the current conditions of Ontario healthcare and long-term care. Those ministers had no successes in any portfolio. And, if you see Phillips, ask him how things are in Saint Barthélemy.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Bitumen Bust.

by Peter Lowry

It seems the Oil Gods have looked down on Alberta’s tar sands bitumen and damned it to further discounting. It would seem that at a time when the world needs cheaper oil, Alberta just cannot catch a break.

And, for once, we cannot blame the problem on hard-luck, departing premier Jason Kenney. He brought Alberta bad luck. And that cloud continues over his head.

And if the province did not need those farm silos for increased grain production, because of the conflict in Ukraine, they might be converting silos to hold bitumen.

The American refineries that can handle the highly polluting Alberta product have found lately that they can get lots of easier-to-process ‘heavy oil’ from Mexican and off-shore sources. The Alberta gunk ends up low-man on the totem pole.

And to make a sour outlook bleaker for Alberta, is the news from Washington. It seems President Joe Biden plans to undercut the profiteering by the American oil companies. In the peak holiday time of this July, he is releasing 40 million barrels of reserve crude oil into the American market. This reserve is intended for emergencies and I guess a cost of over US$4 per U.S. gallon of regular gasoline, across the United States, would be considered an emergency.

With that much crude flooding the American market, Alberta would have to start giving away bitumen to stay in full production. With only limited capacity for bitumen in the present Trans Mountain pipeline, only a trickle of bitumen can be shipped to the Far East markets or south to California.

To add insult to the costs of the Trans Mountain, it has now been confirmed that total costs for the planned dual pipeline now exceed $21 billion. With the federal government unable to remain credible in funding the project, the pipeline managers are out beating the bushes for private capital to continue the expansion.

The only problem is that the Canadian taxpayers will no longer be first in line to recover the billions already wasted on this project. It would probably take another fifty years to be paid back.

But with another fifty years of bitumen processing and pollution, there would not likely be much of our population left to spend the profits.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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“There is no joy in Mudville.”

by Peter Lowry

In writing “Casey at the Bat” E.L. Thayer spoke of the depth of disappointment felt by the people of Mudville when their champion is defeated. It is the same disappointment that we feel in Barrie when our mayor of the past 12 years, lost in a close race, in the provincial election.

But we have to agree with Thayer that our champion contributed to his own defeat. Casey let the first two strikes fly by—waiting for that perfect pitch. Our champion had to overcome the gerrymander of our riding. He had to address the predominance of conservatives and gun nuts in the rural area of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte electoral district here in middle Ontario.

It meant little to our country folk that Barrie’s mayor was chair of Ontario’s big cities mayors’ caucus. If anything, his strengths as a highly successful city mayor worked against him.

When I first met Jeff Lehman in 2009, he had been back in Canada from teaching at the London School of Economics for ten years. He had built a successful business advising cities across Canada. He had won a seat on council for my downtown ward in Barrie. He soon let me know that his objective at the time was the mayor’s job.

In a field that included the incumbent mayor, a former mayor, a former member of the legislature, another councillor and some other hopefuls, we got to work on the 2010 municipal election in Barrie. I ran the ground game for him. I was training volunteers, organizing and selecting polls for canvas. We did a lot of canvassing in the city over a hot summer. I saved the condominiums around the city for canvassing on the hottest days, to protect our canvassers from heat stroke.

I went canvassing with the candidate fairly often to help move him along and to get to know the city better. He is a strong canvasser but he could get delayed by voters with serious comments on conditions in the city.

But in the provincial campaign, he seemed to rely on his social media, city door knocking and voter identification for the win. He was some 600 votes short of a home run to the Ontario Legislature.

As Thayer said in the last stanza of Casey at the Bat:

“Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,

But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.”

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Ontario Omertá.

by Peter Lowry

It was somewhere between Thomas Harris’ Silence of the Lambs and the Mafia’s Omertá, a vow of silence. The only difference was that it was Ontario’s electorate that was being bled out. Some how, the conservative managers were able to convince that loudmouth Doug Ford to shut up. They also told the conservative candidates to stay away from confrontational events in their ridings—such as candidate meetings. The conservatives were in the zone and they coasted to victory.

Of course, what do you expect in a province with no discernible leadership in the political offerings. Doug Ford of the conservatives was the incumbent with no fixed IQ. Andrea Horwath of the NDP had aged poorly over too many years as leader. Steven Del Duca of the liberals reminded us of a turtle, without the security of a shell.

And we were really motivated to get out there and vote with all the lies they told us. Ontario voters are not all stupid you know.

And the election was jigged to the incumbent’s advantage. The lead-up to the election was long and the announcements many and heavy. It was sometimes frightening to hear what they had in mind for the use of our money. And the actual election was short, vicious and an insult to the electors. Also, the leaders had their share of daily insults for each other.

But an opportunity is hidden in the four more years of a loudmouth premier. The opposition parties can renew and refund and choose leaders who can lead and can make us proud. Please, let’s make them people of decency and character. They should be leaders whom we can all respect. And who will respect their opponents and will stay above the mud slinging.

We also need to restore democracy in our political parties. We need to recognize that the responsibility of our members in parliament and legislatures is to represent our electors. We need to hear our representatives speak out for us. There needs to be honest accountability to our voters.

Let’s stop this interference by leaders in the selection of our candidates. If we are going to continue our first-past-the-post voting, let’s be sure it is working for us.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]