Provincial Politics – Page 81

When in doubt do nothing.

April 3, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Is this the new political mantra? At all levels of government, we are seeing variations of stalactites and stalagmites frozen in their political positions as the world revolves around their caves.

From their superior position hanging down from above, the stalactites in Ottawa are the most obvious. With the government digging into a ‘wait and see’ attitude with Donald Trump. Will he swing right or left in his journey of mayhem in the American presidency?

Or is that an excuse that adds nothing to this game of musical chairs that is politics? It must be the case in Ontario. In that province, we have three political mice eying the cheese of victory at the polls. The first mouse will be the one to spring the trap and then the other two will feast on cheese and fresh meat.

Even at the lowly level of beginner stalagmites hugging the floors of the long-ago etched caverns of politics, cities such as Toronto are calling for attention. Will the Scarborough area ever get its foolish subway to nowhere? Or will it reach out with properly distributed transit across its urban sprawl?

And all of these spurious promises deal in the billions. What is a few billion in promises? They are all just echoes in the caverns of political shouting.

There are four more years for our federal ball boys (and girls) to quiver in anticipation of Mr. Trump’s next serve—hopefully another net ball. Will he insist on changes in our trade agreement? Or will we just watch while he expends his careless bigotry south of the Rio Grande?

By the end of this year we should see some more focussed and longer term opposition in Ottawa. The attention will not be as dominated by our poster-boy prime minister.

Next spring will bring more than flowers to Ontario. Expect a cat fight and you will get a cat fight. We can only hope that it is not just between the Conservatives and the New Democrats.

There is also a political event in British Columbia as our fun-loving citizens of the setting sun go to the polls. They have a government of pipeline hypocrites to defeat.

Come to think of it: was it not our environmentalist hero, our prime minister who approved that twinned pipeline abomination across the Rockies?

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Did April Fool come early this year?

April 1, 2017 by Peter Lowry

We read in the Toronto Star the other day about some ‘go-bold’ re-election strategy being used by Premier Kathleen Wynne. We practically wet our pants laughing until we realized the item was written by Bob Hepburn. Bob has always been a quite astute observer of things political for the Star over the years, so we read it carefully.

He confirms the sagacity of his views when he says up front that Kathleen Wynne has a snow-ball’s chance in Hell of winning re-election in 2018.

But. And it is always in the ‘But’ isn’t it? Bob believes that Wynne is going to brave it out, stick around, and lead a dispirited party into its Armageddon in 2018. And that is just about the stupidest advice we have ever seen given to a sitting politician in all our years in politics.

To make matters worse, Bob thinks Wynne is considering a bold and aggressive and even ‘progressive’ strategy. He thinks she has been told to ‘Go bold, or go home.’ That would certainly be a novelty for her. It is a strategy of winning the ‘middle class.’ It worked for Justin Trudeau, we are told..

Bob thinks the first sign of this strategy will be in the budget this April. He believes the Wynne Liberals will announce an increase in the minimum wage for Ontario to $15 per hour. That will probably be scheduled to start at the same time that we find that pigs can fly.

We already knew about the mock test of a guaranteed annual income in Ontario that is being proposed but we have heard of those fantasies before. They come and go at the whim of desperate governments. They are only mentioned when the party in power is in serious trouble.

But Bob says that the Wynne Liberals will also attempt a sweeping modernization of Ontario’s labour and workplace laws. Since these are only about 75 years out of date, we might have to wait a bit. It is quite likely they will have to wait until those damn flying pigs agree to either potty training or to wearing diapers.

By the by, all of this business of pigs and pie in the sky planning is part of Charles Sousa’s first balanced budget. And we all know how determined Charles is to do this, do we not?

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The silliness of slagging Sorbara.

March 25, 2017 by Peter Lowry

This could have run Wednesday but there is really no point in running more than one commentary per day. The problem here is that it does not matter if someone has managed war rooms or washrooms there is absolutely no point to slagging former Liberal MPP Greg Sorbara for telling the truth.

This writer has never been a fan of Greg Sorbara. To us, Greg always seemed autocratic, right-wing and elitist. That is a tough mix for a guy who calls himself a liberal.

But never knowing him that well, we have kept our feelings muted.

After listening very carefully to what Greg said on TVO’s The Agenda show last Tuesday, we could not understand the fuss. He lauded the Wynne government for the growing Ontario economy, its accomplishments in governing and what he saw as good government. Frankly, it came across as apple polishing. Yet what he is being criticized for is suggesting that there is some dissatisfaction with Kathleen Wynne. Her service does not seem to be overly appreciated.

Well, we are certainly pleased that some other scapegoat has noticed. This commentator has been calling for her resignation for quite a while now. It was bad enough that she won the Ontario leadership through deceit and duplicity but she is entirely the wrong kind of premier for this time in this province. Ontario does not need a grandmother. It needs a leader. It hardly needs to rejig failed Conservative plans like selling off Hydro One. It does not need the water torture method of bringing beer and wine to grocery stores.

The province definitely does not need a premier who governs by moving from one mea culpa to the next. She has apologized far more often than she has been pro-active.

A year ago, the Ontario Liberals needed to take stock. They needed to look at their position and what this province needed. They needed to realize that the inadequacies of their opponents are no justification. There is no excuse for providing bad government just because your opponents would give worse.

But if Greg Sorbara was as honest as he could be, he should have advised Kathleen Wynne a year ago to go. She needed to be told that when you are no longer doing anybody any good and your time as premier has expired.

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Kenney is running on ‘Empty.’

March 23, 2017 by Peter Lowry

The new and unsurprising leader of the Alberta Conservatives is taking a trip to nowhere. He tells Albertans he is there to unite the right but there are two rights and those two rights do not necessarily make a new right or even a better right. And neither of the possible leaders, Jason Kenney or Brian Jean, are worthy of taking Alberta anywhere.

Nor does either have a slam dunk case to get chosen leader of a combined right. There was nothing new about Jason Kenney’s effort to win the Conservative Party leadership to enable him to dissolve the party. It was the same old Alberta-centric hokum that Alberta knows best—wrapping up carbon taxes and deficits and the new Democrats and disposing of them.

Frankly neither Jason Kenney nor Brian Jean bring anything to the table. Neither is a leader. They bring no new ideas, charisma or following to the job. Jason Kenney was nothing more than a ‘Yes-man’ for Stephen Harper. Brian Jean’s success is as a good constituency M.P. and M.L.A. They are henchman and ward healer.

The scary part is that they are both extremists. Jason Kenney is an anti-abortion ideologue on the extreme of the religious right. Brian Jean is on the far right as an economic extremist. Neither felt at home in Ottawa going along with Stephen Harper’s middle ground conservatism of the Conservative minority governments.

What Brian Jean knows and Jason Kenney does not seem to understand is that a race between the two of them for the leadership of the Wildrose and some party-to-be-named-later is going to be for a party dominated by Wildrose. It will be no centre-right party. It will be drained of many of the progressives who will be trucking over to the revived Liberals and the New Democrats. Jason Kenney has already demonstrated his suffrage of women in politics in the treatment of the two women in the Conservative leadership.

Two years ago, Alberta was bloody lucky that there was a viable party available to help save the province from itself. While the voters will deny it, Notley has taken herself and her party to the limits of catering to voters who seemed to have no understanding of the economic mess the province had created. Alberta has been in living high off the hog of resources for too long.

The truth is, Jason Kenney and Brian Jean are pitching a pipe dream.

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Branding the PC’s Patrick Brown.

March 22, 2017 by Peter Lowry

The Ontario Progressive Conservatives are trying to sell Patrick Brown. Since few Ontario voters know the Conservative Leader, they think it is important to introduce him. They call a recent series of YouTube ads, ‘Brand Brown.’ Mind you they want to paint him as something other than we know him in Barrie.

Brown is a person who has devoted his life to politics. And we are sorry to note, his is not an altruistic quest. Brown is a user. He tells you what he thinks you want to hear to support him. He does not seem to like women. They certainly appear to be uninterested in him. During the time he represented Barrie in Ottawa, he kept his name in front of voters by using taxpayer paid mailings to promote different charities. The few speeches we heard him give over that time were obviously written for him by various writers in training.

But how does a political party introduce a leader who took over their party through deceit? Do they run ads saying: ‘This is our Leader Brown. Let him lie, cheat and steal for you too!’?

It seems they are trying to humanize him. It is sort of like saying: ‘Brown may look like a nerd. Just give him a chance. He will prove it.’

One thing you will find out about Brown: this boy is always campaigning. He is always running for something. You might wonder who is chasing him?

If you hear the news from Queen’s Park these days, you will know that Brown has the answers to everything. He will of course solve all the problems with Ontario Hydro and he will reveal his plans for cheaper electricity for the province after he becomes Premier. He will lower taxes and pay doctors much more. He will throw out the sex curriculum from schools so that teachers can concentrate on teaching the three R’s.

It is interesting to note that Brown started out in the Ontario Conservative race with the support of the extreme right-wing Ontario Landowners Association. These are rural voters who hate wind turbines, government and taxes. He was also the darling of Campaign Life. Since then, it seems the anti-abortionists have declared war on him. It is hard to say what the Ontario Landowners are thinking of him and his party after seeing pictures of Brown and some of the Conservative caucus in Toronto’s Pride Parade.

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What will an Ontario pilot prove?

March 19, 2017 by Peter Lowry

The possible acceptance of a pilot project in Ontario of the idea of government providing a basic guaranteed income to its citizens is long overdue. There have been previous pilots—opened with great ballyhoo and then quietly dropped when the political will failed us.

But like all such pilots, they are dramatically over-managed, over-promoted and are virtually guaranteed to fail to meet over-inflated expectations. What is important to realize about these programs is that they replace a myriad of government band-aids for the unemployed, the unemployable, the handicapped, the marginalized and those families locked in a cycle of poverty because of mental or physical health.

One of the keys to simplifying the program is to have the individuals and families to be assisted make their own application. In some cases, this application might be made on their behalf by a government agency or a non-government charitable agency. Those not needing some or all of the support money will have it taxed back to the government. Ideally this type of program allows for graduated taxation on earnings to encourage self-help.

One of the more interesting results noted in the Manitoba “Minicom” guaranteed income test years ago was the reduction in hospital visits and stays. Keeping people from worrying about money seemed to help keep them out of hospital.

But, by any measure, a guaranteed income makes a dramatic change in attitudes for the entire population. It redirects a major part of the government social services agencies that interface with the public, enabling them to do their jobs more effectively and providing better service to the public. Over time, it could also reflect in a realignment of these agencies and cost savings.

There are the usual arguments going on across Ontario about this test. The main concern is that the guaranteed amount has to be high enough to sustain an individual or family in today’s society. Welfare rates in Ontario today are a disgrace and we have to get ahead of the poverty curve. You cannot expect an Ontario resident to have any quality of life today on an income of less than $1500 per month along with full medical and dental coverage. If the government thinks it can do the test for less than what people can live on, they are only doing the test to ensure failure.

We will be watching.

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Could Chantal Hébert be so diabolical?

March 18, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Is it whimsy or a diabolical intent? Is Toronto Star political guru Chantal Hébert really that devious? She recently proposed that Rona Ambrose, the federal interim leader for the Conservatives as the ideal person to step in and take over the reins of the combined provincial Conservatives in Alberta.

That is a wonderful proposal and we should all get behind it. Maybe we could excuse New Democrat Rachel Notley for not participating but Conservatives and Liberals can appreciate the irony. It would be justice writ big.

First of all, it would relegate that blow-hard Jason Kenney to the position of second fiddle. That is the most he deserves. And what would really feel good would be the fact that a woman put him in his place. After what happened to the women in the Alberta Conservative leadership race and the way they were treated by Kenney’s supporters, he deserves to be walked on by a lot of very sharp high heels.

And surely nobody is going to shed a tear for Wildrose Leader Brian Jean. Where the Hell is he taking that bunch of malingering malcontents? While we might have had a lot of sympathy for the Wildrose leader last year during the wildfire in his electoral district, it is time to face the facts. He would be taking on far more than he could chew to fight Kenney for the combined party leadership. He would need a lot of help to take on Stephen Harper’s go-to guy.

And we would strongly advise anybody to not take on Jason Kenney down some dark alley. He has probably never heard of the Marquis of Queensbury’s or any other rules of engagement.

But the suggestion of getting Rona Ambrose to challenge both Jean and Kenney for the combined conservative leadership is delicious. Rona is far tougher than either and she has proved it in her handling of the Conservative Party of Canada since the 2015 rout in parliament. She calls it as she sees it and she has kept the Liberals’ feet to the fire in an otherwise docile House of Commons.

And while we all know that polls taken today will be meaningless down the road, an Ambrose versus Notley battle for Alberta might just be a fair fight. What would make it even more interesting would be the resurrected Alberta Liberal Party with the fallout of progressive conservatives from a more right-wing Conservative Party.

We all need to face the facts that the days of narrow-minded Alberta-centric governments is coming to an end. All of us, as Canadians, have a responsibility to the entire country. We have to live together and build together. We have to care together. We have to share responsibility for our environment. It builds our future.

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A liberal look at leadership.

March 7, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Ontario Liberals are finally realizing that there is a problem at Queen’s Park. It appears to be endemic. It affects every political party on the premises. It is the serious lack of leadership. Even the Liberal Party backbenchers are drawing lots to see who will be the Cassius who drives the first (rhetorical) knife in the back of Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Wynne has done what she could. She has been driving a tired and worn-out Liberal horse and buggy for too long. It needs to be refreshed, re-challenged and recharged for the good of the province. It is a party that desperately needs to see a new future.

But the future is not a feature with Wynne. She is a North Toronto right wing reactionary. She won the leadership of the Liberal Party by trickery and manipulation. Her deal with the devil seemed to have been with former Ontario Premier David Peterson and fellow candidate Glen Murray, MPP for the adjoining Toronto electoral district.

Looking at the news media’s selection of possible replacements does not fill our heart with cheer. MPPs such as Eric Hoskins and Charles Sousa could not dump their campaigns fast enough in the last leadership convention to climb aboard the Wynne bandwagon. They were looked after; not the voters.

At the same time, MPPs Steven Del Luca from Vaughan, Yasir Naqvi from Ottawa, Michael Coteau from Toronto (East York) and Mitzie Hunter from Toronto (Scarborough) are all fresher cabinet faces with potential. Each of the them might be able to talk about their vision for Ontario if out from under the oppressive leadership of Kathleen Wynne.

And, do not forget Sandra Pupatello. She is not to be confused with the lacklustre regime of Kathleen Wynne as she was not in the Legislature at the time. She has the experience, the drive and the ideas that could work for us.

In the meantime, Kathleen Wynne is saying that her reduction of costs for electric power will pay political dividends next year. What that remaining time means for this government is more time for the opposition parties to develop their strategies. While few are impressed with the leadership of either party, nobody says Conservative Patrick Brown or New Democrat Andrea Horwath are stupid.

Without concrete and visible action by the Liberals over the next 12 months, they will be going into an election campaign bound and ready for slaughter. The best action might be an entirely new leadership, new direction and new faces on the firing line with the voters.

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Ontario is billing it forward.

March 6, 2017 by Peter Lowry

If you have heard of paying it forward, you should have no problem with the concept of billing something forward. It is the reverse of paying it forward. It is when you take a bill, you had put off for tomorrow and you stick it in a drawer to pay next year. It is the same as remortgaging your home for a longer period. You make smaller payments and pay for another ten years.

The Ontario Liberals under Kathleen Wynne have taken this desperation route to solving the province’s current mess in electricity billing. It might be the equivalent of doing business with payday-loan shysters but the Liberals are counting on it to save their bacon in next year’s provincial election. They might be whistling past the graveyard.

While long term, no Ontario political party has ever solved the problems with financing Ontario’s electricity generation and distribution. None of them are that smart. Between contracting to pay what clean energy really costs, canceling half built gas generation plants and trying to sell off the electricity distribution system, the Ontario Liberals have had entirely too much time to really screw things up.

But, let’s face facts, this leaderless Liberal party with its foolish sense of entitlement has really run its course. It is only the fact that the opposition parties are in worse shape as far leadership and ideas that gives the Liberals the nerve to say “Vote for us. They are losers too!”

It is not that Ontario voters do not deserve this problem. The facts are that any idiot politician can promise cheaper electricity and none can deliver. Ontario long ago ran out of places to build hydro dams. Instead of making sweetheart power deals with neighbouring Manitoba and Quebec, Ontario went nuclear—to the dismay of many of its citizens. And who said that clean energy was cheap?

The hard news to swallow is that with the continued loss of manufacturing in Ontario is freeing up electrical capacity. There are many times now when we do not need the power we are producing. We should be building the infrastructure needed today to electrify the rail lines across Ontario as well as the commuter lines.

What Ontario so desperately needs are leaders who can lead and politicians with vision. Oh, how we would if we could!

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Brown and Kenney: Contemporary Conservatives.

March 1, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Conservative Leader Patrick Brown in Ontario and his friend Jason Kenney who is considered the front-runner in the race for the Alberta Conservative party leadership are surprisingly similar. They both lack political scruples, their lives are dedicated to their ambitions and they are not about to let anything stand in their way.

Neither of the two bachelors appear interested in women. It is believed that it was Kenney supporters in Alberta who drove the two women in that race to withdraw as candidates. They could not handle the misogynistic attacks against them. And they were not about to be attracted to Jason Kenney’s ‘Unite the Right’ campaign.

Brown defeated a strong woman candidate in the Ontario race by signing up tens of thousands of Hindu and Muslim Immigrants from India and Pakistan as temporary members of the party. Nobody in the Ontario party seems to care whether or not these people paid their own membership fees.

Both Brown and Kenney were raised Roman Catholic and are at home with the social conservative right. In Ottawa, neither ever voted for women’s rights. Brown is currently on the outs with the social conservative factions in Ontario. He deserted them because he knows he has to appeal to the more centrist Conservatives in that province to win. Kenny can stay to the social conservative right.

Kenney’s pitch in Alberta is that he wants the leadership of the Conservatives so he can wrap the party into the more radical Wildrose Party and create the united right that he thinks can win the province. This is also a more extremist right than some of Alberta’s current progressive conservatives are willing to support and a possible outcome of this is the rebuilding of a stronger Alberta Liberal Party.

The only difference that we are seeing in Ontario is that Brown is already flailing away at the Ontario Liberal government. While he has absolutely no idea what to do about the electricity production and distribution problems in the province, he hopes it is the Liberal’s Achilles’ heel. He has also helped bring Ontario doctors to the point of destroying their medical association. The cancer currently ravaging the doctors’ organization is caused by the greed and lack of cooperation among specialists. And the hierarchies among the profession could use lessons in democracy—that they will not get from Patrick Brown and friends.

But Kenney has no worry about that situation. Alberta doctors are already the highest paid in Canada.

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