Category: Provincial Politics

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.

-30-

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.

-30-

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.

-30-

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.

-30-

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.

-30-

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?

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

The Ford Agenda.

by Peter Lowry

It is hard to tell if the pandemic is helping hide premier Doug Ford’s agenda for Ontario or just slowing it down. His plans seem to be everything except the stuff you would hear in a speech from the lieutenant governor. It is enough that he keeps confusing Ontario residents on how to handle covid-19. His real agenda seems to keep coming out with surprise packages for us.

When he first took office, it was all about him. He got even with his old enemies on Toronto city council by cutting the number to be elected in half. He stopped former conservative leader Patrick Brown from running for the top dog role in Peel County. He asked the provincial police to provide him with a ‘comfort wagon’ for his trips around his province. He even picked an old friend to run the provincial cops for him.

It seemed he was also picking the least qualified people to do cabinet level jobs. The classic was the initial choice of Caroline Mulroney as attorney general. All her legal training and experience was in New York State. That did not last long. She is currently transportation minister and minister of francophone affaires. I assume, she can, at least, speak French.

Another example of his curious choices is political publicist Stephen Lecce, a graduate of a private school—St. Michaels in Toronto—as the replacement minister of education. His parliamentary assistant in this is a very young Sam Oosterhoff MPP who is a product of home schooling.  It is difficult to guess what Mr. Ford had in mind here but he would do almost anything to get rid of all those expensive teachers. Watch for more remote learning by computers when the pandemic is over.

Mr. Ford must also be less than impressed with a university education. He certainly is not rushing to save Laurentian University in Sudbury from bankruptcy during the problems created by the pandemic.

His plans to cut costs in medical care in Ontario also seem to have been upset by the pandemic. The people in the local health units around Ontario are scrambling to try to save their jobs while the actual costs of the pandemic are escalating every day.

But it is plans for his friends who have invested heavily in land around the proposed new Highway 413 that is even more concerning for him. It is a highway that makes no sense unless you own lots of land in the area and want to develop it.

Maybe, sometime, before the next provincial election, Mr. Ford will tell us what he has in mind.

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

Small Nuclear? Think Ships.

by Peter Lowry

Anyone who is worried about small nuclear reactors being promoted by four Canadian provinces should check out the nuclear ships using nuclear reactors. The world has had nuclear ships now for over 65 years. The four countries who use nuclear powered ships tell us that they have about 160 ships currently using this form of power. Nuclear is mainly used in submarines because it allows the submersible to stay under longer and move much faster than previously. The importance is that nuclear in ships has proved to be safe, clean and efficient.

And it is the efficiency of small reactors that is a strong argument for this type of power generation. The small reactors are safer, give a better power output ratio than previous nuclear systems, producing less nuclear waste per megawatt, eliminate greenhouse gases and can be modular to fit a variety of needs in remote parts of the country as well as industrial areas.

I mention this as because I have done studies on Canadian attitudes towards nuclear power for electricity and the answers are always negative. In one study I asked what would be the reaction to having nuclear power generation in the high arctic. Even the Toronto respondents turned thumbs down.

But folks, if the sun don’t shine, the wind don’t blow and the cricks dry up, we are still going to have to have clean electricity.

What worries me the most about the current proposal for small nuclear generators is being sure that there is adequate and plentiful deep storage for the nuclear waste.

And I try not to be turned off by the four conservative premiers promoting this form of electricity generation. The fact that the Alberta premier has joined with his buddies in Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick has not turned me off the reasonableness of their proposal.

We all have to realize that we have to have cleaner fuels to generate electricity than coal or natural gas.

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

Requiem for the Beer Store?

by Peter Lowry

It was mentioned yesterday that the Beer Store in Ontario is supposed to be losing money. Well tough cookie! If you follow the bouncing ball of this story, you might be as curious as I, as to how this company can lose money by selling its product: Beer?

All we are told is that the Beer Store, the retail outlet for the brewers in Ontario—you can think of them as the three foreign-owned giants and the 30 or so Ontario craft breweries—are losing money. They claim their Beer Store sales have dropped by 20 per cent.

I think this is one of those situations where we need to follow the money. For example, when I buy a bottle of scotch at the liquor control board, I pay 20 cents deposit on the bottle. If I return that bottle to the Beer Story, they will give me back the 20 cents. The questions remain: Who keeps the money for bottles that do not get returned? Who gets the cash for bottles that can be recycled? You see where this is going do you? We are not getting the full story.

The one conclusion we can make is that the Beer Store is not losing money on the recycling business. It is getting money. It is how it accounts for that money that makes us wonder.

Our next question is about selling beer. Do the breweries sell directly to the liquor control board, grocery stores and restaurants or is it all or partly channeled through Brewers Warehousing Company Ltd. (the legal name of the Beer Store)?

And if there really was a dip in sales through the Beer Store, why have not the excessive price increases in the past year not mitigated that lower sales figure?

It also seems to me that the triumvirate of foreign-owned breweries who really own and run the Beer Store can set both their prices and the prices for the smaller packages at the LCBO and grocery stores. In any other jurisdiction than Ontario, these people would be in court for screwing beer drinkers.

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

Recriminations: We have a few.

by Peter Lowry

At finger-pointing time, politics in Canada slips away into a morass of regrets. Wending your way through the reports on the pandemic, you have little to console yourself. We think of our politicians as the bickering class. There has got to be a light somewhere down damn dark tunnel.

What about the promise of science? Is covid-19 that much worse than the Spanish Flu of a century ago? Is it not just facile to lay the blame for this pandemic at the doors of the unprepared politicians?

Is it really a race between new strains of covid and vaccinating the population? When does herd immunity kick in?

I would rather be at a casino, showing off my expertise at the game of Blackjack. Yah, that is what I miss the most. I could kid you that I would rather be down in Toronto in that concrete convertible where the Blue Jays play. Quite honestly, I would not waste my time with that between-seasons bilge by sports writers who think they are talking about something important. Baseball is a game for a sunny summer afternoon and gentle breeze, with the roar of the crowd drowning out the vendors with their wares.

And by the way, save some crocodile tears for Ontario’s no longer omnipotent Beer Stores. Did you know that the Ford conservatives have slipped them a mickey while everybody thought they were fighting the pandemic? We now have beer and other booze on off-sale from our bars and restaurants. That is in addition to the beer and wines in the grocery stores. Mind you, you still have to go to the liquor control board stores to get any decent French wines at half-way reasonable prices. If I am going to pickle my liver in alcohol, it will be with something fit to drink.

They tell us now that the Beer Store lost $50 million last year. At what? The Beer Store are the poorest merchandisers in the province. They are dedicated to beer and have no clue of how to find an attractive way to sell it. I like to think of my local beer shoppes as recycle places that will conveniently sell you some beer when you take the time to drop off your empties.

-30-

Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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