Provincial Politics – Page 43

The greed that consumes Alberta.

February 4, 2020 by Peter Lowry

It was at the end of December that Babel-on-the-Bay discussed the hopes of Alberta premier Jason Kenney for the Teck Frontier mine in North-East Alberta. The proposed open-pit tar sands mine, north of Fort McMurray, would be Canada’s largest and is planned to produce 260,000 barrels of bitumen per day for processing into synthetic oil. It has also been mentioned that the operations would also produce more than four million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year for the next forty years.

It is quite obvious that the political leaders of Alberta have their own climate agenda—do nothing—get the money.

Some Albertans will attempt to tell you that they have been mitigating to minimize the greenhouse gas emissions of this project. Mitigating means reducing the harm that this amount of greenhouse gas emissions can cause. Can they tell you of even one of the millions of tonnes of greenhouse emissions from which our earth will be saved?

And yet the federal government is continuing to debate the wisdom of approving the project. Despite the continuing threats of insurrection and separation from the Alberta premier, there are still members of the federal cabinet who are resisting this additional hypocrisy that will make a lie of any and all efforts to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. There is no magic that will enable Canada to get to net zero greenhouse emissions when we are adding such huge amounts of pollution instead of converting to clean energy.

We need to remember that this 20 billion-dollar project is on top of federal government completing the Trans Mountain pipeline. How else do you think all that additional bitumen would get to world markets.

But despite the protestations of the prime minister, Kenney continues to accuse him of dragging his feet on the Trans Mountain. The only conclusion you can come to is that, in Alberta, Justin Trudeau will never be the poster boy of the year. Greed is the watchword.

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‘If the system works; corrupt it.’

February 2, 2020 by Peter Lowry

The carpetbagger from Severn, Ontario is certainly doing the job for Ontario premier Doug Ford. Those conservatives who resented the appointment of Doug Downey as conservative candidate in our riding of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte would have to agree that he is jumping to his master’s bidding. Look at what he is attempting to pass off as an independent recommendation in changing how we appoint judges in this province.

It must all stem from the complaints when Doug had barely warmed the premier’s chair and he tried to appoint a friend as head of the provincial police. This was accompanied by a request for the provincial police to fund a van with sleeping accommodations for the premier to travel about the province.

He might have gotten away with it if his attorney general at the time, Caroline Mulroney, had been trained in law in Canada and had ever practiced law anywhere other than New York State. As you can imagine, the premier’s wishes were soon a hilarious topic around the water coolers in the attorney general’s ministry, and then the Bay Street bars, and then everyone knew. It took a while to figure out what to do with Brian Mulroney’s kid but Ford found another job for her.

And then Ford found the perfect patsy, the small-town lawyer he had appointed to my riding to keep Patrick Brown from running to succeed himself. This guy probably never even looks up from his notes when his driver drives through his riding on Highway 400 on his way from his office at Queen’s Park to his home in Severn.

But his proposed changes in appointing judges has got him noticed. As is typical of the Doug Ford government, nobody had complained about how judges are appointed. Ontario has an international reputation for how it appoints judges. It has a respected judicial appointments advisory committee that screens applicants and ranks at least two qualified applicants for each open position for the attorney general. In the rare case, the attorney general might ask for more.

The proposed change is that the attorney general wants a list of all the qualified applicants for the position. That is recreating the old patronage system. It is many steps backwards for Ontario.

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The politician and the poser.

January 29, 2020 by Peter Lowry

We met with one of the Ontario liberal leadership candidates the other day. He is Michael Coteau, MPP for Don Valley East. His pitch to the liberals present was impressive. He has style, he is progressive, he is articulate and he is relaxed. Listening to his talk I saw an interesting counterpoint to the efforts of education minister Stephen Lecce.

The biggest difference was that Coteau had spent two terms in office as a school trustee in Toronto before becoming a member of the legislature. He could discuss the current strife between the conservatives and the school boards without notes, without a teleprompter and with obvious candour. In fact, he had some good advice for Mr. Lecce.

Lecce’s problem is that he lacks the depth in his portfolio. He was thrown into it to try to rescue the conservative government’s heavy-handed approach to change—which, in their terms, is known as ‘Our way or the highway.’

He had no way of knowing the history of the class-size wars between government and the teachers’ unions. He obviously was not aware of the resistance from educators over the last forty years to academic courses being taught on computers. And firing supposedly excess teachers across the province in preparation for these changes, got more than the teachers’ backs up.

As Michael Coteau said to the liberals, the premier and the minister had obviously not done their homework.

In balance to the Coteau presentation (which was in Orillia), education minister Lecce was in Barrie for a photo opportunity with Barrie-Springwater—Oro-Medonte MPP Doug Downey (from Severn, Ontario) and the other local conservative member of the legislature. The subject of the day was bullying. Now this is a subject with which Lecce should be familiar, as he is a graduate of St. Michael’s College School, a private school for boys in Toronto that is famous for high annual fees and its bullying experience.

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The smart ones fight on.

January 26, 2020 by Peter Lowry

Former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne could learn something from MPP Michael Coteau. He is no quitter. Wynne did irreparable harm to Ontario liberals in the 2018 election when she conceded the election before the voters made their decision known. All her mistakes as premier could not top that one amateur act.

Before she made that gaff, the liberals looked like they were down to 15 or 20 seats in the legislature. She ended up as part of a rump group that were not even recognized as a party. It makes the challenge for the next leader all that more difficult.

But I made the mistake yesterday of saying that Steven Del Duca had effectively won the leadership with his 14,000 membership sales. Michael Coteau, very wisely, challenges that assumption. We will not have the basis for these assumptions until after the ridings elect their delegates. It will be the number of first-vote commitments that will tell the tale. We will not have the detailed analysis before mid February.

The wild cards in this game are the ex officio voters such a federal MPs, provincial candidates and party office holders. Over 400 potential votes fall into this category. With a likely turnout of 1600 to 1800 voting delegates at the convention, Coteau and his supporters are hoping for a second ballot. Del Duca and his people will be hoping for a first ballot win. It all seems to come down to who can give a real barn-burner of a speech to the crowd that morning.

The one thing that is obvious about this campaign is that Steven Del Duca represents the past of the Ontario party and Michael Coteau represents the future. He is aggressive, welcoming to change and recognizes that the future offers a new type of politics.

A lot of what we have heard so far in this leadership contest has to do with getting rid of Doug Ford. I think we need to hear more about the type of politics that would end the possibilities for electing people like Doug Ford.

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The metrics of higher education.

January 22, 2020 by Peter Lowry

Ontario premier Doug Ford wants our colleges and universities to earn their way. He wants some measurement on their economic performance. He wants to put a dollar value on that cap and gown. And when the minister of higher education is a lawyer, he seems to believe that such measurement is possible.

It is hardly the first time we have heard this debate. The argument in academe just uses bigger words. We have had the argument in my family. Of five brothers, two have post-graduate degrees and one, who did not finish high school, made quite a few millions.

But when you add it all up, I think it was the brother with the PhD who contributed the most value—as a professor, teaching business students in the U.S. about ethics.

A college drop-out like Doug Ford is probably not overly strong on ethics and he would have benefitted greatly from my brother’s lectures. I even did a guest lecture for my brother on the social responsibility of business when he was teaching at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.

And this is not the first time there has been an attempt to measure the value of a piece of parchment from a university. I can hardly vouch for the studies, I have heard quoted, that said the average bachelorette in sociology and philosophy returns value to society at about nine or ten to one. It just seems reasonable. It is in accord with the old saying that you do not just give a poor man a fish to eat, you teach him how to fish.

Those ubiquitous ‘soc and phil’ bachelor degrees can simply mean that the recipient has been taught how to think. And just imagine how useful that teaching could have been for premier Ford?

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“It’s time to give the profile…”

January 21, 2020 by Peter Lowry

It is likely due to the lack of creativity on American network television that the show Criminal Minds has lasted so long. I thought of it when reviewing the Ontario liberal leadership race the other day. It is a puzzle to figure out why Ontario liberals put up with such an easily manipulated contest. If you think everything is on the up and up with the arrangements for this contest, you will also believe that the FBI has its behavioural analysis people flying around that country chasing killers, with guns blazing.

It looks like the guy who should be the next leader of the Ontario liberals is MPP Michael Coteau from Toronto. As one liberal told me, Michael is the only contender tall enough to be a leader. He has also been running the smartest and most open campaign. He is refreshing in his honesty and openness to innovation.

The only contender who might yet steal the leadership is former MPP Steven Del Duca. Nobody adds 14,000 names to the membership of the party in the period of time indicated. Nor can it be seriously suggested that they are all liberals or necessarily paid for their own membership.

It is also hardly the first time that Del Duca has thrown his weight around to political advantage. As minister of transportation, he was accused of political interference in the independent planning of Metrolinx commuter stations. Adding a station in his riding that independent studies claimed was unnecessary was the type of action that brought down the Wynne liberal government.

The other former minister running is MPP Mitzi Hunter from Scarborough. As I pointed out to the liberal who liked Coteau’s height, Ms. Hunter is about as tall. He pointed out it was only appearance because of her hair-do and her high heels.

The other three candidates can hardly be criticized for the failures of the Wynne government. They have never been elected. It leaves them free to come up with innovative suggestions. It makes the debates more interesting.

But we will not know who the likely winner will be until the local election meetings in February. We should be ready give you a profile and a morning line on the liberal leadership by about the Ides of February.

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‘Unencumbered as I am by experience.’

January 16, 2020 by Peter Lowry

Ontario education minister Stephen Lecce is no mystery. Politics is full of people like him. Their ability as a con artist is far more important than any particular experience or training. They are chameleons.

Lecce was actually prime minister Stephen Harper’s discovery. He gave the handsome young man a job right out of political science at Western University in London, Ontario. The kid had the gift. With absolutely no background or experience, Harper put Lecce on the PMO’s communications staff.

Mind you, the prime minister’s communications staff in those days was something of an oxymoron. They were hardly there to dispense information. They were there to close ranks, to hue to the party line (as directed), lie when necessary and to protect the office and the person of their leader. Their willingness to lay down their bodies to protect their boss, was the essential criteria.

It was the loss of power in 2015 that sent the young Lecce back to Kleinburg, Ontario. He already had his heart set on the provincial nomination in King-Vaughan. It is an area that I have always supposed provided the country estates for retired Toronto mafioso. All Lecce had to do was open a small public relations business with one major client; himself. He obviously had the right connections as he was elected in 2018 to the Doug Ford juggernaut.

But he did not get his real chance until June of 2019 when Ford had to replace Lisa Thompson as education minister. He did not even have to shave properly. He was dumped unceremoniously into negotiations with Ontario’s education unions. And by then, the unions were angry. It was not pretty.

But the only people who are buying the Lecce BS are the news media. All Lecce had to do was start recanting on all the demands of his predecessor. It is absolutely amazing that Premier Ford has an education minister, managing a $23.9 billion budget, who went to St Michael’s College School, reputed to be the most expensive private school for bullies in Ontario. On top of that, his parliamentary secretary, 22-year old Sam Oosterhoff MPP, was home schooled.

This is the Doug Ford conservative government. Nobody with experience need apply.

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Being a liberal is tough.

January 15, 2020 by Peter Lowry

Maybe I am not the only liberal who wonders where my party went. I got a copy of a rather angry e-mail the other day from a liberal in my riding of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte. The e-mail was to the provincial party president. I know that this letter-writing liberal is a hard-working supporter of both the federal and provincial party and, over the years, has been generous in supporting the party and its candidates, as well as a reliable canvasser during elections.

But he is worried. He is disappointed that his provincial riding association has not held a meeting in the last year and a half. He is worried that the provincial party in our riding is moribund. He is annoyed that he has not had an opportunity to meet or talk to any of the candidates for the job of provincial leader. He does not think that liberal party members are getting a proper opportunity to evaluate the candidates. He complains that the party only seems to want him for his wallet. He wants to be respected by the party for more than the money he contributes.

And would you believe that the federal party is worse than the provincial. In Ontario, the federal and provincial parties share the same electoral district boundaries except in the extreme north. If there was ever a time when the federal and provincial liberals could benefit from working together, it is now. We need the synergy. We need the shared experience. We need to build momentum.

I could add a few things to that liberal’s e-mail. I am outraged that when by a vote of 57 per cent, at its last annual meeting, the party called for a leadership vote for every member of the party, it was refused. This is supposed to be a democratic party and anything other than 50 per cent plus one is an affront to democracy. The party wanted a democratic selection and it cannot be denied. Anything else was to declare any choice undemocratic and subject to corrupt practices.

And I would hardly charge $250 to $600 per delegate to attend the event. That is the most undemocratic aspect of a possibly corrupted convention. The liberal party needs to get with the times.

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The gang that can’t sell pot.

January 12, 2020 by Peter Lowry

It pains us to consider the lengths some cartel bosses would go to if it happened to them. Imagine an outfit that cannot even make a profit selling marijuana. We are talking about the Ontario government here! After a full year in the business of selling the stuff, the government swore that they only lost $42 million. While the private sector is doing the heavy lifting in start-up costs, Doug Ford and his incompetents paid out more for product than they could earn in revenue.

And the problem was simple. They did not have the retail outlets to satisfy the market demand. They had strangled the critical need for distribution. They thought 25 stores plus mail order could satisfy the largest provincial market in Canada. Compare that to Alberta, with a market of less than a third of Ontario, having more than 200 stores in operation at the same time.

It is not as though Ontario consumers did without their pot from the government-licensed dealers first fiscal year. Their friendly neighbourhood dealer—with much lower overheads—was there for them. These unlicensed dealers had better prices, quality and even home delivery, if that was your pleasure. They carry their nickel bags in the left pocket and the dime bags in the right. Just tell your dealer your preference in potency.

What is intriguing is the potential for the illegal market to offer their grandma’s own recipes for brownies and other edibles. Judging by the pricing we are hearing for gummy bears and baked goods from the licensed establishments, the home-made products should have an easy time competing.

If all goes according to the government plan, by the end of 2020, Ontario hopes to have almost as many licensed establishments in business as Alberta does now. And the Ontario government apologists will tell you that with a straight face.

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“Rent-a-Vote” services for political parties.

January 9, 2020 by Peter Lowry

It has been going on for many years. As someone who taught others how to communicate with Canada’s ethnic groups, I have always been disgusted by how the information is being used. Something that started out as an honest effort to bring newer Canadians into the political process has become a rent-a-vote scam.

How do you think Patrick Brown won the Ontario leadership of the conservatives in 2015? He had his friend Jason Kenney, now of Alberta, to thank for arranging for Patrick, when an MP, to be the parliamentary liaison with India and the Sub-Continent. It not only got him free trips to India and recognition in the Indian president’s office but recognition throughout the Sub-Continent diaspora in Canada. And there are more than 100,000 of those immigrants and their progeny in Ontario alone.

All Brown needed to do was hire the key people from the Hindi temples and the Sikh community to get his sign-ups. He swamped the Ontario conservative party’s normal membership with almost 40,000 sign-ups. Even if his backers paid for the party memberships it was a bargain. Brown won the conservative leadership in a complicated counting process by over 60 per cent. It was also why, when he tried to run to replace himself, he was prevented from running.

It was also why when he chose to keep trying to find a place to run municipally, he chose Brampton. That city has the largest Sub-Continent immigrant population in Ontario. It was the key to that city. He would have lost badly if he ran in his home town of Barrie. I am waiting to see if, as Brampton mayor, he keeps his promise to turn most of Brampton’s parks into cricket pitches.

The practice of using large numbers of an ethnic group is common in the larger cities across Canada. It is noted, for example, that Italian immigrants really stick together and they love to support fellow Italian immigrants and their children. Now, just how do you think liberal Steven Del Duca would do among Ontario residents who came to Ontario from Italy? It is something akin to fishing in a barrel. But one of the problems you face is similar to the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh’s problem. After you have used your ethnic group to get you the nomination or the leadership, you had better start appealing to a broader audience of voters.

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