Provincial Politics – Page 52

‘Dirty Thirties’ solutions for Ford.

February 7, 2019 by Peter Lowry

Ontario premier Doug Ford must admire the past. His government keeps reaching back in time to the solutions of the 1930s. The latest is to return to those times when a landlord could hire thugs as bailiffs and physically remove a tenant. They would toss impoverished tenants and their pitiful possessions on the street.

A body of rules regarding landlord and tenant relations has been built over the intervening 80 years. The Ford government is not only thinking of scrapping some of these rules. Their objective seems to be to refute them. They even want to reduce the 11 days allowed before someone can be evicted to just six days.

These revisions in the law are claimed to be part of the government’s plan to boost the availability of much needed housing in Ontario. It is difficult to imagine how this strategy would have any noticeable affect on the quantity of housing in the province. We are supposed to hear about the plan to increase housing supply sometime in the Spring.

It just reminds us too much of the Stephen Harper era in Ottawa when people would ask about the environmental rules for tar sands exploitation in Alberta. We were constantly told that these rules were coming. It never happened on Mr. Harper’s watch.

It seems Mr. Ford and his friends are fans of the 1930s. They want to take Ontario back to that era. We should also bear in mind where that attitude took the economy of the times.

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A Feisty Fedeli files on Brown.

February 3, 2019 by Peter Lowry

If I had ever written a proper review of Patrick Brown’s tell-all book on his political take down, I would have paid far more attention to his relationships with the Tory caucus at Queen’s Park and particularly Vic Fedeli the MPP from North Bay. Fedeli, now Doug Ford’s finance minister, is suing Brown and his publisher for exactly the same $8 million that Brown is suing Bell Media’s CTV News.

It was hardly a review of Brown’s supposedly tell-all book that I wrote at the end of December. My only surprise on the comments I made was the immediate response from his publisher. While you would expect a publisher to be defensive about what he decides to publish, Dean Baxendale of Optimum Publishing appeared admiring. I admitted openly that I had only read half the book before giving up. The truth was that, in my humble opinion, it was badly written, poorly edited and the inside pages lacked decent design. When the publisher said that I had missed the essence of the book, it did not surprise me. It was hard to find any other reason for the book than to make some quick cash.

What surprised me was that I had more of a back and forth dialogue with his publisher than I had ever had with Patrick Brown over the 12 years that we both lived in Barrie. We have been at many of the same meetings over those years in Barrie and in Ottawa.

But now it is obvious that Vic Fedeli does not like Patrick’s writing either. To suggest that a gentleman such as Fideli did something untoward such as “workplace sexual harassment” would cause him some consternation. Insults are one thing but claims of impropriety are not acceptable. As Mr. Brown has found himself, such claims cause law suits and paying lots and lots to lawyers.

The statement of claim is reported to have said that Mr. Fedeli was described in the book as having “a holier-than-thou attitude and being a suck-up.” This was along with being described as “toxic, power-hungry, anti-democratic and a political opportunist.” While comments such as this about politicians are rarely cause for law suits, Mr. Brown would be well advised to restrain himself from childish name calling.

In my last e-mail from Brown’s publisher, he advised me that, in regards to Mr. Brown’s book, it will “long be studied after you and I are dead.” That thought really chokes me up.

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Brown bounces back.

January 29, 2019 by Peter Lowry

This is not a contrite political Patrick Brown bragging about his comeback from being a nobody. This is a brazen Brown bragging that he has bested the best. Comfortably ensconced in the mayor’s chair in Brampton, Ontario, he has four years to choose his next steps. And he expects CTV television network to pay his passage back to power.

A few days back, January 25, was a sort of anniversary for Brown. He not only resigned as leader of the Ontario conservatives a year ago, he gave up a clear shot at becoming premier of Ontario. What was obvious to all of us Brown baiters at the time was that he had to be brought down. It was either his financial manipulations or under-age women that would do the job.

Personally, I preferred the financial questions but the answers to that route were well hidden. Our best guess was that it was some of his conservative enemies who played the under-age girls card with the help of cronies at CTV News. It turned out that the ploy got him to resign as leader of the Ontario PCs. A vindictive caucus of Tories at Queen’s Park finished the job.

But Brown is as slippery as they come. When Doug Ford and the caucus made it clear that they did not want him at Queen’s Park, he looked around for other roads to redemption. The Peel Region chair was a new opportunity—and look where the Toronto Region chair took Paul Godfrey. And the largely undefined job paid well.

Ford slammed that door shut in an oddly vindictive manner. With only hours to go before the deadline, Brown opted for the mayoralty in Brampton. Not only was incumbent Linda Jeffrey vulnerable but he had a major part of his organization that won the Tory leadership for him based there.

Brown could have also vied for the mayoralty in Barrie but he had little confidence in who was loyal back in his home town. He also remembered the trouncing incumbent Jeff Lehman had dealt his uncle Joe Tascona when Lehman first ran for the Barrie mayoralty.

Brown had bought and paid-for connections with the dominant South Asian community in Brampton and it was this faction that gave him the Brampton mayoralty. Down the road further, who knows what challenges he will tackle?

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First pick a direction.

January 27, 2019 by Peter Lowry

It is ridiculous that people are speculating about the possible leaders of the Ontario liberal party so soon. We do have a choice. And the old adage says, we can decide now and repent at leisure. As we have mentioned before, we first want to figure out where the party is going.

Looking back at the provincial scene, it is hard to say what direction the party was choosing when it chose the leader first. Kathleen Wynne’s background was touted as left wing but quickly proved that, if she had any direction in mind at all, it was liberal socially and conservative economically. The exception was in her last campaign when she opened the left-wing floodgates and confused the voters.

Her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty was an old-time middle-of-the-road liberal who did a good job on schools and protecting the environment but he was very bad in managing people—particularly those in his government’s cabinet.

The only recent liberal premier before that was David Peterson—basically a nice guy who proved to be a neoliberal. While the province was ready for what he offered, he failed to build any rapport with Ontario voters.

What Ontario voters are really looking for in Queen’s Park is a to have a party in power that really is there for the people. This is a government responsible for the delivery of effective Medicare in the province, as well as ensuring that we have schools, colleges and universities that meet our needs for today and tomorrow. It is the level of government that deals with our daily living, our municipalities, our infrastructure (roads and bridges and public transit), our environment and a myriad of services that contribute to our quality of life.

These services require a government that understands that we are individuals with individual needs. We are not a collective. Nor are we necessarily competitive. We are not satisfied with minimal cost services. We want the best services at a reasonable cost. We want to be respected in the delivery of the services in a friendly society.

Real liberals believe in that type of society.

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Ford follows Forrest.

January 24, 2019 by Peter Lowry

Remember the famous line from the blockbuster film: Forrest Gump? It was “Stupid is as stupid does.” The point was that stupid people keep on doing stupid things because that is what they are.

But if the Economic Club of Canada audience gave Ontario premier Doug Ford a standing ovation for his speech the other day, who is stupid now?

Mind you, there are those of us who recognize the private company, known as the Economic Club, as offering events that are nothing more than profit-making entertainment for egos. You should hardly confuse the company’s ‘pop-up’ audiences for its events as necessarily having anything to do with the study of economics.

And for the premier of Ontario to stand up before the news media and that audience and encourage the belief that a carbon tax would take Ontario into a recession is irresponsible. The man has absolutely no credibility in the field of economics nor a realistic basis for his claim. At the same time, there are media companies that delight in scandalously using such claims for shock headlines.

What real economists consider the minor impact of any carbon taxes, is premier Ford’s bogey man. He was there to create fear. He is looking for public support for him to wage a war with prime minister Trudeau. Luckily, to-date, Mr. Trudeau has mainly ignored his claims.

As it is now, Mr. Ford has launched a storm on social media with economists and others who recognized the ridiculous nature of his claims. Social media do tend to remind you of the old joke on the t-shirt that have an arrow pointing right or left and say, “I’m with stupid.”

But for the citizens of Ontario, Ford reminds them almost every day of the adage of Forrest Gump’s momma who always said, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

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An Olive Branch to Alberta?

January 21, 2019 by Peter Lowry

It was last April when Babel-on-the-Bay commented on the Toronto Star’s Quisling-like coverage of the Alberta tar sands quandary by Star business writer David Olive. We were pleased to note the other day that Olive has seen the light. In a recent opinion piece, he suggests that Albertans should get serious about the province’s future.

Olive picks up on the Alberta tendency to ride the rollercoaster of oil-industry feasts and famines. He even points out that most of the oil money profits (when they happen) go to out-of-province investors rather than to the citizens of the province. What he considers as inexplicable is the province’s lack of forward planning.

Olive is old enough to remember the heyday of Burns Foods and Gainers when Alberta was processing world-class beef products for Eastern Canada and world markets. The province also seems to have turned its collective backs on the high-tech potential out of the University of Alberta and a strong dairy sector.

While Olive still panders to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) desire to call bitumen ‘heavy crude,’ he admits that he is astonished that Calgarians, particularly, seem to have no concept of how long it takes to get a pipeline approved and built in Canada. (And if Jason Kenney thinks it is because we believe in democracy; tough beans.)

Olive says he is surprised by Albertans who seem to think everyone other than themselves is to blame when the price of crude oil drops. He is surprised that Albertans still do not understand why Peter Lougheed urged economic diversification. They would much rather damn a Trudeau for their pipedreams.

What surprises me about Olive’s article was his thinking that all bitumen mining in Alberta is open pit. That is the impression that CAPP seems to encourage by using the old news clips and pictures from Suncor. People in the east seem unaware that most bitumen is now flushed up from deep underground by forcing hot water down to the bitumen seams. Those wildlife-killing settling ponds that are taking over the northern Alberta landscape are the residue from bitumen extraction.

And Olive does not think premier Rachel Notley helped inter-provincial relations by saying in a Toronto speech recently that Canadians who are not lucky enough to live in her province were holding Alberta up for ransom. No doubt she could also improve relations by stopping those false-news commercials that say doubling the Trans Mountain pipeline is good for all Canadians.

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Parsing the political petulance.

January 20, 2019 by Peter Lowry

Had an opportunity the other day to measure the mood of local liberals after the humiliation of last June’s provincial election. It was the annual meeting of the provincial party for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte in central Ontario. All you had to do was mention premier Doug Ford and eyes rolled and teeth gnashed.

This electoral district was a rollercoaster of possibilities from the confused conservative events of January 2018 through to a very disappointing election day. We started with Ontario conservative leader Patrick Brown as the known candidate to tackle and ended up losing the electoral district to a parachute candidate, a carpetbagger appointed by Doug Ford.

It was not the largest turnout I had seen at an annual meeting for the liberal party in the area. It was a predominantly male group and the average age had to be close to 50. There was a definite lack of younger liberals. This group has its work cut out for it.

But the numbers were better than expected. The demographics were of concern but it was an unfamiliar location for the meeting and the wind chill outside was down to about -16 C.

And, we lost all three of our invited speakers. They were three of our seven MPPs from Queen’s Park who are testing their possibilities for a run at the party leadership—and all from Toronto. Two begged off with colds and the third was a no-show. (More about them another time.)

Once the business of electoral district elections was out of the way, the chair (a former MPP himself) asked for an open discussion of why the liberals lost so badly last June. He introduced the theme himself: anger.

There was general agreement on the anger. Where the disagreement emerged was the nature of that anger. Some thought it was just that the liberal government had run out of gas. Some thought it was Premier Wynne herself—she certainly came across as arrogant.

What worried me was those who thought the liberals had veered too far to the left and needed to come back to a more middle ground.

Personally, I think it is the reverse. Wynne is really one of those liberal socially and financially conservative liberals who tend to confuse the voters. And she made her own mistakes. The Sudbury candidate fixing fiasco was never forgiven. And the selling off of part of Hydro One was seen as bad advice, badly executed. The rest was just chatter.

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What to do when money wins?

January 18, 2019 by Peter Lowry

The cynic tells us that everyone has a price. And when you are dealing in billions, what is a million here or there? I have often wondered when the companies exploiting the tar sands and the pipeline people were going to give the aboriginal peoples who have stood in their way a serious piece of the action. Now we find that they are not only offering participation, they want to sell the tribes everything.

A recent deal between Teck Resources and the aboriginal groups around Fort Chipewyan shows that the aboriginal nations are more inclined to be joining instead of fighting. It is as though, they have given up on the government protecting them.

Of special interest is a potential deal reported by the CBC that a group of aboriginal nations who have been involved in resource exploitation are interested in buying the Trans Mountain pipeline from the government. It was also clear from the quick denial by finance minister Bill Morneau that this is not a joke. It is for good reason that the government is not comfortable with Justin Trudeau’s rash decision to buy the Kinder Morgan package. The aboriginals can probably get it for a fire-sale price when the timing is right. And while these first nations do not always play well together, they understand each other and the negotiations would be fair and expeditious.

And can you imagine the relief for government and taxpayers when more of our first nations start to become financially self sufficient and paying taxes.

The only people who would be left with egg on our faces will the environmentalists who have been backing them. It would sure feel funny fighting the aboriginal-owned pipeline and those huge ocean tankers on behalf of the marine life in the Strait of Georgia.

I can already hear premier Rachel Notley and that damn Jason Kenney snickering over their brandies at the Petroleum Club.

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Jason Kenney would rather fight.

January 8, 2019 by Peter Lowry

The last thing Canada needs is another provincial leader spoiling for a fight. Alberta opposition leader Jason Kenney was on Global Television’s West Block last Sunday laying out his battle plan and various lies for his anti-Trudeau, Anti-Quebec and anti-British Columbia campaign. This is, of course, provided his reconstructed conservatives win the Alberta election, expected in May.

Kenny wants to join Doug Ford of Ontario, Scott Moe of Saskatchewan and Andrew Scheer leader of the federal conservatives in tearing into the Trudeau liberals in the federal election expected in October. If Mr. Moe, Mr. Ford and Mr. Kenney were honest about it, you would expect the gentlemen to be resigning their provincial jobs and finding an electoral district that might have them as the conservative candidate. There is no doubt but that Mr. Scheer will need all the help he can get.

But for the three provincial gentlemen to interfere in the federal game with slander, false news and hyperbole from the sidelines is bad politics and a betrayal of the people they purport to represent.

First of all, the liberal government has made it clear that the carbon pricing to be charged on major polluters selling fossil fuels in their many forms, will be refunded to Canadian taxpayers in their taxes. The objective is to show people the real price of these fuels and the need to fight global warming. Mr. Scheer and his chorus can keep denying global warming and the increasing danger to our planet and they might eventually join the fight, but by then, hell will likely be frozen over.

But that nasty bastard Kenney has been lying to people since he was in college in San Francisco telling Catholic co-eds that they could not learn about abortion. He certainly does not admit to the highly polluting problems with the products of the Alberta tar sands. He resents that the prime minister bought the Trans-Mountain pipeline to help solve the problems for Alberta and says that the PM is now blocking the pipeline.

The problems with the Trans-Mountain pipeline are far more serious than the whims of the prime minister. The problems have far more to do with the sloppy job the Calgary-based National Energy Board (NEB) used to do on pipelines for Alberta. The NEB is no longer a lap dog for the oil industry.

And what is particularly outrageous is Kenney blaming Quebec for blocking the Energy East pipeline through that province. The proposal was nothing but a tissue of lies for the tar sands people and it was legitimately stopped. Kenney wants Albertans to hate Quebec.

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Wynne can stay put for a while.

January 7, 2019 by Peter Lowry

All commentators do it. They give advice. The quality of that advice is something for you to decide. This thought came up recently when Bob Hepburn of the Toronto Star suggested that former liberal premier Kathleen Wynne “will have to go.” His reasoning is interesting but believe me, her position today is neither an embarrassment nor a matter of any concern.

As much as Ms. Wynne was an annoyance in her final days in office, it is helpful right now for the party to have a member handy who understands the levers available to somebody in the premier’s office. The cut-down caucus also needs all the help it can get. She is doing the right thing, for a change

Bob Hepburn is an astute observer. He would have no idea of the problems facing a cut-down caucus. And Wynne will be long gone when the next election comes around in 2022.

The point is that the real changes that need to be made in how the liberals run their party, pay the party’s bills, defines its policies, chooses its leadership and its candidates have to be made by the party as a whole. It can no longer be a top-down party. It cannot be run autocratically by its leader. Ontario voters will have had enough of that style of leadership from Doug Ford and his conservatives.

After four years of Doug Ford incompetence, Ontario voters will be ready to switch to a democratically run liberal party. After all, if you want a government that is run “for the people” why would you look to a leader who is a tyrant.

Voters in Ontario have a right to a government that pledges clear and positive programs for its citizens. This includes health care that is fairly funded for all concerned, pharmacare that is hand in glove with Medicare, free education for all and a worry-free life for seniors. The opportunities are for the citizens in Ontario, not for the politicians and their friends.

Ontario is the engine that drives the Canadian economy, it has to be strong for the country to be strong.

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