Category: Provincial Politics

A leader with no teeth?

by Peter Lowry

Watching a recording of an interview with Ontario liberal leader Steven Del Duca the other day, it seemed that he talks without showing any teeth. Never having read of any affliction or medical cause for this in humans, it seemed to be a metaphor for the man—or a turtle. In 14 months as leader, he has not seemed interested in being in the legislature. Nor does he seem eager to go mano a mano with our hapless conservative premier Doug Ford.

Since it is hardly likely that anyone on the conservative side of the legislature will call for the resignation of Ford, we might wonder why Del Duca is so reluctant. The corporal’s guard of liberals in the legislature is muted by procedures and Del Duca is in loose lock-down in the City of Vaughan.

He reminds me of the old chestnut former prime minister Stephen Harper used to use about his mother wanting him to be an accountant. The punch-line was that he felt he lacked the necessary charisma.

It all seems in defiance of the opinion polls showing the liberals hot on the heels of the provincial Tories. The provincial new democratic party hardly seems to be in the race.

But then, as it has been said before, the provincial conservatives have no concern for the struggles of the NDP.

And frankly, Ford is viewed by the public as incompetent and the pollsters are being fed the ‘anyone but Ford’ line.

But in the 13 months ahead, our turtle of a liberal leader has to shake off his shell and move more determinedly into the spotlight. Ontario citizens are looking forward to a new beginning in the aftermath of the pandemic and that requires new thinking, new ideas, new leadership and new dialogues.

It is sometimes surprising where leadership can come from. It might be a bad idea to write off Steven Del Duca too soon.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Following the money.

by Peter Lowry

You can’t track the money trail to Canadian politicians as easily as you can to American politicians. I finally have a theory on what is driving Jason Kenney in Alberta.

I have kept an eye on Kenney since he first appeared in Ottawa as a member of parliament for Calgary in 1997. He went through the iterations of reform, alliance and finally the conservative party of Canada. As a fat and forty, career politician, at the time, many thought he was gay but my opinion was that he was just dedicated to his profession. It seemed to be coincidental that he disliked women as a life-long misogynist.

When the conservative government was defeated in 2015, I was of the school that thought Kenney was assessing his chances in replacing Harper. When he set out to unite the right in Alberta, I was as surprised as anyone else. When I did not hear of him passing the hat in Calgary’s Petroleum Club. I got curious. I could not see where the money was coming from.

It was not until a few things came together, that I realized there was a logical source. Mr. Kenney was on course with the interests of Koch Industries in Canada. It started with a combination of factors. They try to be low key in Canada but there was the money Koch Industries invested in the Fraser Institute, their reputed million plus acres of Alberta’s oil sands as well pipelines.

Koch Industries are the second biggest oil company in the world. They are not just a New York-based family that pours hundreds of millions every year into extreme right-wing politicians, lobbyists and radical groups such as the Tea Party in the United States. They are also big men on campus in Alberta. They have tar sands to exploit, storage tanks to fill, pipelines and refineries such as the huge Pine Hills Minnesota refinery reachable by those pipelines. They were heavy investors in the Keystone XL pipeline.

It makes me curious when Jason Kenney also invested $1.5 billion of Alberta taxpayers’ money in Keystone XL in addition to guaranteed loans to the pipeline company for another $6 billion. He is obviously not as good at managing a pandemic for Alberta. That seems to be something outside his objectives.

But Koch Industries can buy what it wants. They invested heavily in Donald Trump in the United States, so they would hardly think small when they need political help in Canada. It makes you wonder what they might be promising someone?

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

That pessimist Hepburn.

by Peter Lowry

It is not that often that I argue with Bob Hepburn of the Toronto Star. He is a very knowledgeable commentator. He gets the big bucks! It is just that he recently wrote a column for the Star headlined “Five reasons (Ontario premier) Ford may get re-elected.”

That is a sad, sad thought. The fact that Hepburn might be right is even sadder. And I say this with the confidence that both Hepburn and I know that Ford is a horse’s ass. Ontario voters did a terrible thing when they elected him and decimated the long-serving liberals. We are paying a terrible price during the pandemic for that colossal stupidity.

But the liberals deserved a lesson in humility. I agreed with the voters that Kathleen Wynne’s government was autocratic and useless. The liberals needed a time-out. We just did not know there was a pandemic around the corner that was going to crush us. It was not a good time for such incompetence in the premier’s office.

I think some of Hepburn’s rationale for his comments was specious. For example, I will ignore the old chestnut about Ontario voters preferring liberals in Ontario when there are conservatives in Ottawa.

But I will agree that the after affects (hopefully) of the pandemic will leave us with some major questions that might not be clear even as the pandemic memory fades.

I see just two factors that could help Mr. Ford in the June 2022 election. The first helper is a lady named Andrea Horwath. How the hell could anyone view her as a contender? Horwath has made Ford look almost reasonable. Her opposition to Ford and his government has been pathetic. The new democrats should have dumped her four years ago.

The second factor in the election is the question mark of liberal leader Stephen Del Duca. He was my last choice in a limited leadership field. The only liberal with any brains in that contest was Michael Coteau, MPP for Don Valley East. Michael appears to have given up on Queen’s Park and is hoping to win a federal seat in Ottawa.

Del Duca’s actions as leader remind me of the failure of Julius Caesar to bring his troops with him across the Rubicon. Ask me around the Ides of March next year just where Del Duca is headed.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Trumpeting for the Trumpers.

by Peter Lowry

Those provincial premiers from Alberta and Ontario must be taking all their cues from former U.S. president Donald Trump. They have both got their asses in a sling as they lead their provinces from confusion to catastrophe. They are both on a slippery slope to impeachment before they can do any more harm. While both have about a year left on their party’s mandate, their parties owe it to their voters to get rid of them.

I am surprised to be saying this about Jason Kenney in Alberta but that guy has really screwed the pooch. We can just see former prime minister Stephen Harper shaking his head in horror at the depths to which his acolyte Kenney has sunk. He went back to Alberta to save it from socialism and has taken the province and its people on a dangerous downhill ride ever since.

Like his hero Donald Trump, Jason Kenney is an autocratic, misogynistic blowhard. Kenney’s questionable use of public funds to try to salvage the pipeline economy of Alberta has thrown away billions the province could ill-afford. His attention to the scientific advice about covid-19 seems limited to the attention span of a four-year old.

It looks as though Doug Ford in Ontario is close behind his friend Kenney. The difference between the two is that Ford is what the kids mean when they call someone a dumbass. This guy is so ignorant that we can all pin our own tail on that donkey. He just has a bigger playpen, with more voters, than his buddy in Alberta. His government can cause more to be killed by an out-of-control virus.

And it is largely because of Ford’s ignorance, his failure to follow the science, his use of the blame game. In the past two years, I think he has aged his health minister by thirty years. His science advisers all want to quit in protest but they are not sure how bad things might get then.

The other day, that pathetic minister of Ford’s who is responsible for long-term care facilities in the province, looked liked she was about to burst out bawling in the legislature. I think Ford was hiding, at the time. All he wants is for the pandemic to get over with so that he can get back to his right-wing mission.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Doug Ford: Ideologue.

by Peter Lowry

This is an open and shut case. Ontario premier Doug Ford is obviously an ideologue. His beliefs and actions in government prove that he is committed to extreme right-wing political ideals. His actions from day one of his winning the premier’s job where to change the Ontario government from a caring and responsible administration to a cheap and small-minded government that panders to the rich. He can shed all the crocodile tears for the poor and downtrodden he wishes but he is still an uncaring phony.

Among his first actions when he took office in 2018 was to cancel the liberal start at mandating paid sick days by Ontario-registered companies. He also canceled the plans to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour. He told us that these programs were “job killers.” He never told us what jobs he helped create by that foolishness.

And in a pandemic, the lack of sick days can kill people. Without paid sick days, desperate people, living on inadequate wages, are going to work sick. At work they become the super spreader of whatever it is making them sick. If it is covid-19 and its variants, it can kill fellow workers. The pandemic is filling our hospitals, usurping our hospitals’ intensive care units. It is costing our taxpayers millions of dollars every day and that ignorant man thinks he is saving money?

The federal government had recently mandated a $15 per hour minimum wage for federally incorporated companies and established a temporary federally-funded pay system for time off because of illness. It is a hastily created program and is awkward in its implementation and slow in payments. It will not last for long. And yet Doug Ford tied his totally inadequate plan for Ontario to the federal plan that few are using.

Do you remember when Ford was standing there in his late mother’s backyard? There he was, all teary-eyed about how great the Ontario plan was going to be. It became obvious over the following week that he had no plan at all. All he wanted to do was send the news media away with something positive to chew on. All we got was Doug Ford—friend of developers and millionaires—spouting his usual bullshit.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Doing the cha-cha with Mike Harris.

by Peter Lowry

Get into the rhythm folks. It is one-two, one-two-three when you do the Chartwell Chair cha-cha with former Ontario premier Mike Harris. If you have a mother-in-law you hate, convince your wife that dear-mom should be stowed away at a Chartwell long-term care residence. With Mike Harris in the chair of Chartwell, it is unlikely to be the loving care a dear mom might deserve.

But, to be fair, you had to live through Mike Harris’ common sense revolution in Ontario from 1995 to 2002 to really appreciate his right-wing theories. It is Canada’s Shareholder Association for Research and Education that is calling for Harris’ head over concerns for the safety of Chartwell inmates and the company’s employees. The shareholder protection association is asking Chartwell for a “human capital disclosure” on how it protected its customers and employees through the worst of the pandemic.

The concern is that even as premier of the province, Mike Harris earned a reputation for not being concerned enough about human life. He was famously criticized by the superior court investigation into the killing at Ipperwash Provincial Park of an aboriginal named Dudley George. Harris was reported to have said, “I want the fucking Indians out of the park.”

That matches Harris’ disregard for safety in Walkerton, Ontario where seven died and many more made seriously ill from an e-coli contamination in the water supply. It was just an example of his dismissal of safety measures. He thought safety cost too much.

His record as premier is probably missing the deaths of those welfare recipients who ended up on the streets because of his slashing and then downloading welfare costs on Ontario municipalities.

It is particularly interesting that, as premier, Michael Harris oversaw the deregulation of long-term care facilities in Ontario. After Harris’ conservatives were defeated in 2002, he became Chartwell chair in 2003. He has held the position of chair ever since. As chair of Chartwell, he is reported to have earned $223,000 in director fees in 2020.

Chartwell told the Globe and Mail that 44 per cent of its residence employees responded in a survey last year that they strongly agreed with the statement “I am satisfied with Chartwell as a place to work.” It makes you wonder what the other 56 per cent of employees said.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

B.S. for the Beer Store.

by Peter Lowry

You wonder sometimes if anyone is ever going to tell the truth about Ontario’s Beer Store. For more than 90 years, this restrictive system of selling beer has been foisted on the province’s beer buyers. It has provided profits for brewers and sinecure for our politicians and nobody has ever shed much light on the profits and the cashflows.

It must have been someone’s idea of an April Fool’s joke a few weeks ago when it was reported by the Beer Store headquarters that the beer retail operations had lost $50 million last year. I must admit that as a public relations professional in my business life, I never lied. You hardly need to—as there are so many ways of telling the truth. I expect the Beer Store operation did sell less beer last year. It would hardly impact the Beer Store masters—the brewers—who would have more than filled the gap with increased prices and sales through the liquor control board outlets and large grocery stores.

And no doubt the members at Queen’s Park got their political donations. It is only politicians on the outside, looking in, who promise voters that they will be able to buy beer at convenience stores. Your corner store is in the business of convenience, elected politicians are not.

But it seems the Beer Store benefits can also mean largess for others. In an op-ed in the business section of the Toronto Star the other day, we found out that the Beer Store has four independent directors—people not on a brewer’s payroll. This opinion piece was signed by the chief operating officer of the Ontario municipal employees’ retirement system (OMERS).

It read to me as though some public relations person had written it for him and all he did was take the credit. The op-ed discussed the accounting losses and how the Beer Store revenues were really fees charged to the brewers. It also lauded the Beer Store’s environmental stewardship for collecting some two billion used beverage alcohol containers from customers. It claimed that the stores took back 95 per cent of the refillable beer bottles and about 70 per cent of the 602 million wine and spirits containers sold by the LCBO and grocers.

Maybe the Beer Store should change its name to the Used Beer Bottle Place. They obviously do a much better job on recycling than selling beer.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Ghosts of Pandemics.

by Peter Lowry

It had been another hard day for Ontario premier Doug Ford and he drove his truck to his late mother’s house. The doctor had told him to self-isolate because one of his worker bees had come down with covid. Feeling sorry for himself, he got into an old pair of jammies and burrowed down in his mother’s old bed.

But he was awakened at the first dong of midnight from the grandfather clock. Was that chains he heard rattling outside the door? And, to his amazement, his late brother Rob walked through the door. Good ole Rob did not even have to open the door. He just rattled his chains, floated to the foot of the bed and stared down on his older brother.

“Listen up jerk,” he said fondly. “I’m here to tell you that you are going to be visited by a trio of spirits tonight. The first will be the ghost of the Spanish Flu that wiped out a lot of Ontario taxpayers a hundred years ago. Obviously, nobody ever learned anything from that.”

“Hey, we got vaccines now,” Dougie responded.

“Yah, but they’re too late, dummkopf,” replied the ghost. “Your vaccines are too late to help you.

“The next ghost will be of pandemics present,” brother Rob went on.

“That ghost is going to show you just how bad this pandemic is for the unemployed, the poor, and the people who have to work to survive.”

“But its their own fault,” Dougie responded, “We conservatives only help the guy who is helping himself to the profits to be made. Look at all the money we are making for millionaires today.”

Ghost Rob just glared at his brother. “Look stupid, you kept saying you were there for the people. The only thing you have convinced them of is that you don’t give a damn for them.

“Anyway, it hardly matters. The third ghost is the removals guy who will take your body to a freezer where you will wait for a lonely burial, when there is time,” he told him.

“But I’m alive,” shouted Dougie. And woke himself up.

That was when he called his office and arranged for the news conference to apologize and shed a tear for the people his clumsy orders were hurting.

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With apologies to Charles Dickens.

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Leadership Lacking.

by Peter Lowry

We are not getting much provincial leadership in Canada these days. Despite liking both Andrew Furey in Newfoundland and Labrador and John Horgan of B.C., I cannot say much for the premiers in the mushy middle. I must admit that I really dislike Doug Ford of Ontario and Jason Kenney of Alberta. They are interesting from a leadership training point of view. Doug Ford has absolutely no training for a job that has overwhelmed him and Jason Kenney’s training must have been too much.

Jason Kenney’s training began when he was elected from Calgary as a Reform candidate to Ottawa in 1997, re-elected as an Alliance MP in 2000 and then as conservative MP in the next four elections. He spent 19 years in total in Ottawa, mostly under the tutelage of prime minister Stephen Harper. It is a period that we still think of as Steve’s reign of terror.

But it was what Kenney spent the most time doing for Harper that intrigued me. As a political communicator in Toronto, I spent a sizeable portion of time learning about and working with the ethnic news media. It taught me a lot about our broad mix of cultures. I found Kenney doing the same research for the conservatives that I had done 30 years earlier.

What bothered me with Kenney, he was using the information gained to further the careers of some conservatives that were not worth it. He showed Harper how to speak in front of a wall of people in an ethnic mix instead of white men in suits. He sent people such as Patrick Brown, my MP from Barrie, to learn about the Indian Sub-Continent. Kenney made inroads for the conservatives with ethnic groups.

Interestingly, it is the pandemic that has shown how bad both Ford in Ontario and Kenney in Alberta are at leadership. Neither man has the life experience to lead people. Jason Kenney is a social conservative. He is a lackey of the oil industry. He is a schemer, a user and a misogynist. He is no leader. And his knowledge of ethnic Canadians is not as helpful in Alberta.

Doug Ford was always more interested in his father’s label printing business than his dad’s stint as an Ontario MPP. His younger brother Rob taught him some moves in the municipal arena of politics but he came into the premier’s job with little or no idea what it was all about.

Both Ford and Kenney could be history after the next provincial elections in their provinces.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

A Mea Culpa on Small Nukes.

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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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]