Category: Provincial Politics

Let Me Entertain You.

by Peter Lowry

Listening to Mississauga mayor Bonnie Crombie the other day was a surprise political event. It was the first time I had seen her give a speech to an audience. She was working without notes and she had that audience of liberals in the palm of her hand. This lady is an entertainer.

And her audience of Barrie, Ontario liberals loved her. It was the largest gathering of liberals I had seen in one place in Barrie in the last eight years. Ms. Crombie reminded me of the Cinderella character who greets visitors at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. That was probably because she worked in communications with the Disney Company at one time while she was married. That Disney experience is golden.

But she also reminded me of the late Bill Davis. The former conservative premier was a politician who could hold an audience with charm and humour. Since the time of J.J.  (Joe) Greene, who was prime minister Lester Pearson’s Minister of Agriculture, from Renfrew, Ontario, we have seen few liberal politicians who can enthrall an audience. Bonnie Crombie might just be one of those elite.

Bonnie had a simple message: The Ontario liberals are back. People are proud to be liberal again. She is particularly reaching out to all the small towns in Ontario, telling them that they no longer need to feel isolated and neglected by liberals. It was a very smart pitch as the liberal backroom boys and girls on the executive of the party had decided that all electoral districts are created equal and each would only have 100 votes no matter what their real membership might be. That means that a rural riding with a few liberal diehards could have 10 to 20 times the voting strength of a liberal in a riding with a thousand or more members.

It was also impressive that Ms. Crombie wasted little of her time on the incumbent conservative government. Her comments on the way the conservative government is trying to fix our healthcare were amusing and very much to the point. She has no good words for their opening up clinics that are hoping to make money with their additions to Medicare costs.

I can see now why my old friend Hazel McCallion endorsed Bonnie Crombie to replace her in the mayor’s chair in Mississauga. This lady has the skills.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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No Rest for the Wicked.

by Peter Lowry

No, premier Ford, the Greenbelt fiasco is not going away. Firing Ryan Amato was just the first of many steps back you need to take. Not that you hurt his feelings by saying he was fired. He was probably the recipient of some unexplained miscellaneous funds from the premier’s office, in addition to the legal severance pay. You also opened broad avenues of lucrative employment for Amato in the housing industry in Ontario.

It was premier Ford himself who blew it. He blotted his copybook the first time we heard through the news media that he was having meetings with developers about Greenbelt lands. He was like the deer in the headlights.

“Oh no,” Ford said. “I love the Greenbelt. I will protect the Greenbelt.”

Premier Doug Ford lied.

And the Ontario provincial police have kicked the can on this case down the road to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Did you think for a minute that our politicized OPP would want to take on that can of worms? Anybody who had seriously watched commissioner Thomas Carrique at the inquiry into the Ottawa convoy could guess the servile position he held for the Ford government.

The news media in Ontario are holding on to their demands for the resignation of Ford’s housing minister, Steve Clark. He is hardly the first cabinet minister in Ontario history that claimed to be unaware of what his chief of staff was doing. Proving Steve Clark’s hypocrisy is low hanging fruit when the real target should be Doug Ford.

There are 79 other conservatives in the Ontario legislature and they all appreciate their well-paying jobs. Many of them will freely admit that it was Doug Ford who won those jobs for them. And they will continue to support Doug Ford until there has to be an election. The likelihood at that election is that there will be a surprising number of early retirements.

Even conservatives can have a conscience. And voters can have long memories.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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Ford Fails Fallacious.

by Peter Lowry

He cannot win his Greenbelt argument and he doesn’t know when to shut up. Every time the Ontario premier opens his mouth in public, he sticks a foot in his mouth. Mind you, what we are hearing from him is grade school sophistry. He can hardly tell us that the only available land for building on in southern Ontario is in the Greenbelt. And he is embarrassing himself when he sticks to his lie.

The basic problem is that Doug Ford has never had any mentoring in politics. His late brother Rob tried to instil some political savvy in Doug when they were both in city hall in Toronto. The problem was that Rob was self medicating on crack cocaine at the time, and leaving his brother to the sycophants among the lawyers and other builders’ representatives.

Ontario is not going to have a housing problem because we don’t want to build in the Greenbelt. We have a housing problem now. Toronto has been trying to build more infill for the past 40 years and has been battled to a stand-still by the NIMBY’s and their over-paid councillors.

What people don’t seem to understand in Toronto is that if you want a world-class city, you damn well have to pay for it. And they had John Tory holding the line for them for the past nine years. John Tory was a pretty damn good mayor, for a conservative. He was living in the past. He did not build any future. Ask me of his legacy and I will try not to laugh too much.

And let me remind you: A world-class city does not have people living in their parks and on their streets. And remember that a panhandler is just a lost boy who is looking for his Peter Pan and Wendy.

I will try to remember that Toronto’s major problem these days is that asshole at Queen’s Park. Doug Ford should have grown up in my part of York Township instead of down in Etobicoke—both integral parts of the Toronto of today. I thought my family was coming up in the world when we moved in 1946 from Sherbourne and Wellesley to north of the stockyards. It was a world that Doug Ford never knew existed. All the homes on streets around ours had their basements finished first so that people could have a place to live while the rest of the house was finished.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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Ford’s Fall Guy.

by Peter Lowry

In the time-honoured tradition of sleazy politics, Ryan Amato, who, until the turfing, was chief of staff to the Ontario housing minister, got turfed out the back door at Queen’s Park the other day. I would suggest though, you save your tears for his supposed disgrace. He obviously got the golden handshake. He might also have got some hush money. Ryan Amato might have a book he could write or some more interesting interviews. Yet he has proved to be a stand-up guy. He can also take his time in picking just the right job in Ontario’s home building industry.

Which one of the companies, who want to build homes in the Greenbelt, will make Amato the best offer? Don’t forget folks, this guy knows the premier and the minister of housing’s phone numbers. Amato will have two years to ingratiate himself to his new masters. Even when Ford is no longer in Queen’s Park, Amato has the key to behind the scenes in the ministry of housing. The pay off at Queen’s Park might be healthy but the payoff over the next two years will set the boy up for a life of luxury.

It was Bonnie Lysyk’s report on the $8.28 billion deal for Greenbelt land that led to Amato’s resignation. And unless Doug Ford feels some easing in the complaints, his municipal affairs and housing minister Steve Clark will be the next head on the chopping block.

The only problem is that Clark is a member of the legislature and would be expected to sit with the other outcasts in the corner of the legislature. He would, of course be expected to return to the cabinet when the dust of the Greenbelt fiasco settles.

What you cannot expect is for Ford to resign. He insists that the buck stops at his desk but like any school-yard bully, he only talks the talk. He doesn’t walk the walk. Ford will be there for the 2026 provincial election. The Greenbelt will still be the main topic despite all attempts by Ford to change the dialogue. Some things, politicians cannot survive.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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Danielle Smith Selects.

by Peter Lowry

If you were wondering who else might support the Ottawa cowboy, Pierre Poilievre, as leader of the federal conservatives, you can certainly add the Wicked Witch of the West, Alberta premier Danielle Smith, to your list.  She is no Doug Ford. The Ontario premier seems a little lukewarm on the Ottawa cowboy and he is definitely on Team Trudeau when it comes to the new energy plan for electrical systems across Canada. 

The Ontario conservative solution to energy for the future is nuclear. There was a short term there when the Ontario conservatives were headed for increased use of natural gas. After the outcry to the natural gas solution, they found that the nuclear option was the best long-term and economic answer. And it was not causing mother nature to fight back. It is an answer that nobody really likes but it works.

While the Ottawa cowboy scoffs at anything proposed by the Trudeau government, he has no solutions either. It seems a bit tragic that Poilievre’s party can raise more funds than the liberals when the conservatives have no solutions to climate change, housing or inflation. It is as though the dumbest among us, don’t know what else to do with their money.

The wicked witch and her friends should listen to themselves sometime. Instead of cutting back on the emissions of greenhouse gas, their solution is to promise improved carbon capture. The one problem with carbon capture is that it can never reach 100 per cent, it becomes much more expensive when the carbon has to be trucked or transmitted by pipeline to a storage site. And carbon capture does not apply when the final oil product is used. That is when the most greenhouse gasses are emitted.

Where Danielle Smith and Pierre Poilievre fail Canadians and particularly Albertans, is they have no direction beyond non-renewable resources. They want to continue to rape our environment. Smith recently put a moratorium on wind and sunlight electrical generation in Alberta, out of pique or anger at Ottawa setting those environmental goals on electrical generation. Luckily, provinces such as Ontario and Quebec can meet those targets and are well ahead of the challenge.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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A Tip Too Far.

by Peter Lowry

The growing arguments about the practice of tipping for service deserve some decent airing. Having experienced the attitude towards tipping in Japan, I admit that I would be happy to see it banned in North America. It is demeaning to the people receiving the gratuity as it is for the person paying for it.

I think most of us in Ontario are caught off guard enough when we forget the 13.5 per cent Harmonized Sales Tax that is being added to our bill. If you want us to add another 15 or 20 per cent to that, you are just being generous with our money. And the very idea of raising tipping to 30 per cent is ridiculous.

The practice of tipping for service was corrupted a long time ago by the practice of pooling them so not only the wait staff shared them but the cooks, maître d’, busboys and dishwashers all came into a portion. Casinos get into the action with the tip boxes at table games that are shared with all casino staff. And why we tip people delivering food or anything else to our home is beyond me?

What this practice tells us is that these people are not paid adequately by their employers and we, the customer, are expected to supplement their income. Why? That seems like a precarious way for these people to live. And it gets them in trouble with the tax people when they skim off too much so as to not pay their full tax load.

What gets me annoyed with the practice is when a company adds a tip automatically. And when annoyed enough, I have been known to demand a company reverse that tip. A good example of this was the other day when the wife and I felt like some Swiss Chalet chicken for supper and we stopped on the way home to pick up dinner. As a hangover from Covid rules, they did not want you to wait inside for your order. They asked us to wait at one of their numbered signs outside. An employee brought us our order. It was when I looked at the detailed copy of the bill later, that I noticed we had been charged $4.49 for a tip for the employee who had brought out the food. That just annoyed me.  

Ontario would be very smart to phase out tipping whether the rest of the country did or not. It would be a novelty for North America and a shot in the arm for the province’s tourism, convention and hospitality industry.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

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Modern Meetings.

by Peter Lowry

If there were a few things we learned during the coronavirus pandemic, one of them is how to have better computer to computer meetings. I’ve watched the progress in this field with great interest. We have come a long way since I was running national meetings with people connected to the boardroom by telephone. I must admit though that not everybody understands the image they are projecting to people during these Internet events.

There are more than couple dozen of these programs offered these days and I expect most offer an opportunity to check your image on screen before being connected to the meeting. You should. I remember a remote meeting of a parliamentary committee one day when the chair of the committee looked like he was working from a closet. I was particularly concerned watching that meeting when I thought one of the members in Toronto looked like she lived in a slum.

And yet, that weasel Pierre Poilievre saw the opportunities from the beginning. He always looked like he owned the finance committee when he was a member. He had the perfect (false) book-lined background, wore his trademark glasses, white shirt, red tie and the perfectly pressed blue suit. In comparison, there was a chairman once who looked like he had been waylaid on his way to work in his garden.

Please people, think about the impression you are making.

But before you do anything else check your lighting. There was recent meeting where I was worried about this lady in the semi-dark who seemed to be struggling with something. I finally realized that she was doing her nails. Tell me, would you want to hold a meeting in your bathroom? Proper lighting can be as simple as moving a lamp to make sure you look alive.

The one thing that does not change though is the role of the chair. It was a Zoom program we were using the other day and I was delighted with how simple it had become to join in the discussion. It was also obvious that the chair’s job had become much easier. If your program does not make notes for the chair though, a piece of paper and a pencil can help keep you advised as to your next speaker.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

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Promise Denied.

by Peter Lowry

When the Ontario Liberals last met in conclave in Hamilton this year, the attendees were told that the upcoming leadership vote would be one-member-one vote. No doubt many of us were delighted with that. I was not there for the announcement. As a senior, I could scrape together the $250 registration fee but at least $500 in meals and hotel in Hamilton was out of the question. It was not in the budget when facing food inflation at its most virulent stage.

But the executive of the liberal party broke their word. I only found out earlier this week that these dummies are artificially weighting the electoral districts. It is the same as the stupid conservatives. They give every riding a weight of 100. If your riding has more than 100 voters, you become a percentage with your vote. If your riding has less than 100 voters, then you are counted as one.

What they are doing is penalizing ridings that keep their membership up and adding legitimacy to the ridings that do little. If those Ontario liberals had paid attention to the last three leadership races of the federal conservatives, they might have had an inkling that there was something wrong with the procedure. Combined with a ranked ballot, it is a system guaranteed to produce a leader who can only be described as the lowest common denominator. In their last go-around, they probably dumped Patrick Brown from the race for fear that he might keep Pierre Poilievre from winning on the first ballot.

What I really cannot understand is why people who are supposedly supporting democracy can then accept the ballot counts reported by some computer nerds? Have you ever seen the actual results, by the numbers, of ranked ballots? The truth is that not everybody ranks any or all of the possibilities. Nor do many people study all of the possibilities and do an honest ranking?

A ranked ballot is a strange animal. The least contentious ranked ballots are when there are six or fewer candidates. These are easy to rank and usually take less time to count. You tend to trust the count. Try a ranked ballot with 20 candidates some time and follow the bouncing ball—because where it lands is anybody’s guess.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

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Tagging Team Nate.

by Peter Lowry

It was fun meeting with my local Nathanial Erskine-Smith committee (otherwise known as Team Nate) organizers earlier in last week. I did tell them I write this blog, so it should not surprise them if they see it. They might think of me as that cranky old man but I found it very interesting. This Team Nate group seems to span the central Ontario city of Barrie, towns of Orillia, Bradford and Newmarket and the rest of Simcoe County provincial electoral districts. Luckily, we used one of those new computerized group meeting programs and I was pleased with the ease of use, the excellent quality of the pictures in the rooms (that were adequately lit) and the ease of managing the meeting. Probably, the only discordant voice was mine.

Not that my decision to support Nate Erskine-Smith for the leadership of Ontario liberals has changed. I neither make those decisions too quickly, nor forego them if something does not necessarily, please me. My only caveat at the moment is that I still have not met Nate. I have followed his career in politics and I don’t think I am wrong to give him some support.

What Team Nate is targeting at the moment is party memberships. That would be no secret. Any of the teams that are not targeting membership at this time are not in the race. This is not where many groups shine. I have noticed over the years that if you don’t make it fun, rewarding and a whole team effort, it will fall flat on its ass.

I was a member of the York Scarborough group of ridings during the last half of the 20th Century. We made a rule at one point that for the first half-hour of gathering before a public meeting, no member of the executive was allowed to talk to another. You could only talk to people you had never talked with at a meeting before. We were always numbered in the thousand or more and we always had a great esprit de cours.

I guess that the pandemic has changed that now that we have meetings via computer. It worries me that we are losing the physical contact. I am looking forward to meeting Nate in person when he is in Barrie this week.

What I gleaned from the meeting was that one of the young ladies considered her working on her nails on a par with the meeting. Maybe that was why her background was particularly dark. She really worked hard on her nails.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

Ford’s Fall Guy.

by Peter Lowry

It does seem strange that Ontario municipal affairs and housing minister Steve Clark’s chief of staff Ryan Amato is currently reported to be vacationing in Italy. He might have a reason to not be enjoying a ‘staycation’ in Ontario this year. It appears that his boss Clark and premier Ford have thrown him under the bus in the time-honoured tradition of politicians everywhere.

Finding a scapegoat is the first political step when putting the fix in. And it seems Mr. Amato is the hand-picked choice of premier Ford to front for the phonies. It makes you wonder just where the tickets for Italy came from? Where they one-way?

I can just imagine Premier Ford’s reaction when he first saw the winsome tale of the envelopes Mr. Amato collected from the premier’s developer friends. It seems he got a couple here at a party in Woodbridge.  There were more. He mentioned the piles of them to the auditor. She must have been sitting there with her mouth agape listening to how this play was made.

The real beauty of all this is that Mr. Amato did not appear to think he was doing anything wrong. The only question that I would like to hear answered by him is who the hell told him to do this? I have never met Mr. Amato and I do not know him, but I do know lots about the so-called job he was doing. He would not be doing all of the things he told the auditor he was doing without someone, in authority, telling him to do it. It is not his scheme.

And Amato was not dealing with friends of the housing minister. The people he was dealing with were people with ties to Doug Ford back when he was with his brother Rob at Toronto city hall. Many of those developers and their lawyers liked Doug Ford. They saw him as a brash, uneducated, bluff salesman. He was meat for their dinner.

What is mind-boggling about all of the Greenbelt BS is that Doug Ford is holding the line. He states bluntly that nobody had preferential treatment. The only money that has changed hands anywhere in this arrangement is the, maybe, always legal money to the conservatives in Ontario. It could be that Doug Ford might just have his own card for their ATMs.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]