Provincial Politics – Page 86

Leitch and Brown Trump Ontario.

September 5, 2016 by Peter Lowry

It is the unwise politician who adds to the silences of their eulogy. The silences are caused by those things you said or were said on your behalf for which apologies were demanded, delivered or denied. The smart politician knows where the line is drawn and keeps away from it.

Ontario PC leader Patrick Brown and federal MP and Conservative leadership hopeful MP Kellie Leitch think they can dance on that line.

It is a practice becoming known as the Trump Syndrome. It pushes the line hard on decency and fair play in politics. You say it to one audience and deny to the next. It confirms the low opinion many people hold for politicians.

In Kellie Leitch’s defence, she can claim a lack of political smarts. The second-term Conservative MP for Simcoe—Grey is not ready to play in the high-stakes race for her party’s leadership. Her and another new Harper cabinet member Chris Alexander were the dupes who announced the RCMP tip line for “barbaric cultural practices.” This Conservative ploy was used to fan the flames of anti-immigrant sentiment in the 2015 federal election.

But it worked in Kellie Leitch’s electoral district and next door in Patrick Brown’s new provincial riding of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte where he plans to run in 2018. Both Conservatives are social conservatives with no compunction but to take hard lines against abortion and other social issues.

The only difference is that Leitch might have principles that will keep her out of main stream politics in Canada. She will try to defend her position. Brown knows that he has to find more middle ground for his provincial party and that is why he is currently confusing his supporters. Marching in the Pride Parade in Toronto hardly wins him votes among the rural Ontario Landowners and Right to Life members but he has to make inroads in Toronto to help him win the province.

Brown’s flip-flops over sex education are the typical vacillations of a person without principles. He knew exactly what the risks were when co-campaign manager Doug Ford sent out that English and Chinese letter to households in Scarborough—Rouge River. So he was caught? So what—he only had to apologize in English-language media..

Brown knew that the letter would not change anyone’s mind. What it did was get a few more Conservative voters to the polls and discouraged a few Liberal voters. That is all that needs to happen when less than a third of the eligible voters go to the polls.

Obviously Mr. Brown knows far more than Ms. Leitch about the Trump Syndrome. Brown’s challenge is to win for the Conservatives in Ontario in 2018. There will be no quarter if he loses. He loses and he is gone.

Kellie Leitch should stick to her rural electoral district. Lots of those right-wing voters will tolerate bigots, prudes and racists. She is just wasting time and money on the Conservative leadership.

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Patrick Brown: Manipulator.

September 2, 2016 by Peter Lowry

Why was Conservative Leader Patrick Brown getting all the attention in the final week before yesterday’s provincial by-election? It was while his party’s candidate in the Scarborough—Rouge River was convincing ethnic Chinese in the high newcomer ratio electoral district that their concerns about their children’s sex education would be addressed.

We did tell you that he is a manipulator did we not? Watching Patrick Brown in politics for the past nine years, our opinion is that he is neither a nice person nor a fair campaigner.

In nine years in Ottawa, he never made a substantial political contribution to his riding or for Canadians. He was a drone in the House of Commons. He was a lackey for his favourite cabinet ministers. The only times there was a free vote in the Commons, he voted against women’s rights on abortion and against same-sex marriage.

In his electoral district of Barrie, Ontario, he attaches his name on the coattails of charities supposedly helping them raise funds. His big effort each year is a hockey event to promote himself and his party. There are always conflicting claims and figures and there never seems to be an audit of the funds raised.

But now he finds himself in the deep end of the pool swimming with the big kids. He stole the Ontario Progressive Party leadership with a trick learned from the former Harper cabinet minister, Hon. Jason Kenney. He aligned himself with more than 100,000 people from the Indian Sub-Continent who emigrated to Ontario in recent years. His organization signed up tens of thousands and paid the party memberships for most of them. He swamped the provincial party’s regular membership which was at a low ebb after the years of Harris and Hudak leadership. He beat an honest and progressive candidate who campaigned according to the rules.

Mr. Brown has had an on-again, off-again relationship with the anti-abortion Right-to-Life organization for many years. They like his social conservative stand against abortion. He won those votes among the Ontario Conservative voters last year.

When Brown and his insiders sent out that letter to Scarborough—Rouge River a week before the by-election, it was in English and Chinese. They knew there was a possibility of being exposed but they only had to apologize in English. There was no effort made to tell people whose principle language is Chinese that he was recanting.

We have been telling the Wynne Liberals about Mr. Brown since he decided to try his hand at provincial politics. He might look like a small-town nerd but he plays really nasty. Premier Wynne had better think about it after losing last night in an electoral district that, until now, was always Liberal.

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Strike while the lane is HOT.

August 30, 2016 by Peter Lowry

The Wynne government in Ontario leaves no stone unturned in its pursuit of taxpayers’ dollars. In a novel break from their usual attitude that they can always just do as they want, they actually asked our opinion the other day. It seems they took our picture recently while driving on the Queen Elizabeth Way past the Fourth-Line at Oakville. It got us a survey questionnaire.

If we knew they were going to take our picture on the highway, we would have washed the car. Who else but the provincial government could have so easily connected licence plates to addresses? Since we were stuck in heavy traffic on that highway for several hours, it was a memorable trip.

The survey itself was interesting in that it is seeking opinions on the upcoming lotteries to drive in the new HOT lanes. These are the same-old-same-old high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes but the idea is for the government to make money off them. The original idea was to encourage car pooling—thereby reducing the number of vehicles on the road and moving traffic faster.

But we have a hot flash for the folks at the fumble farm at Queen’s Park. On that day they took our picture, we were using both HOV and non-HOV lanes and none of them was moving very fast. On that trip, we averaged less that 50 kilometres per hour on the QEW. This is an eight-lane restricted access highway—with one lane on various stretches each way for HOV traffic.

And we could not help but notice that the HOV rules were not necessarily observed nor enforced.

The one thing we have observed about HOV lanes on Ontario highways is that when they work, you set your speed control at 120 kph and go. What you have to remember is that in a single lane, you only travel at the speed of the slowest vehicle. And slow drivers and back ups in the HOV lanes can cause frustration, road rage and accidents.

But in turning the HOV lanes into the more contentious HOT lanes, the Liberals in Ontario are just asking for trouble. While there is little respect for the system as it exists, you have to think of how people are going to feel if those with the money to spend whiz by them. Maybe some of the denizens at Queen’s Park who read these commentaries noted the other day when we quoted from George Orwell’s Animal Farm that some pigs might appear to be more equal than others.

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Mr. Brown is no chess champ and no leader.

August 24, 2016 by Peter Lowry

There is a big difference between a manipulator and a planner. Mr. Brown, the current leader of the Ontario Conservative Party, is a manipulator. He uses the system to his advantage. Maybe he does not play chess as that is a challenge that requires you to think ahead of your moves. Watching Patrick Brown in politics for the past nine years, it is our opinion that he is no long-term planner.

The recent fiasco at a Conservative Party training session was a good example of his inability to see ahead or lead. Having been involved in what the Liberal Party called Campaign Colleges for many years, we always had good crowds for our sessions on campaign tactics. (Using von Clausewitz’s On War as our text helped.)

But as much as some people thought they were going to hear about dirty tricks, the grim reality they discover is that winning in politics requires a lot of hard work. These are motivational events where you hope to meet and train the campaign managers, candidates and party organizers for years to come. Nothing can be left to chance or an individual’s ego. And the province-wide events require the party leader to close off by schmoozing the faithful.

Obviously at the recent Ontario Conservative Party event, Mr. Brown failed to do his job. There seem to be too many complaints by the participants. And for the price they paid to participate, they have a right to complain.

What we cannot compute is that after all the trouble people went to last year to get this guy Brown a Toronto hair style and some decent clothes, he has gone back to the nerdy look that we know so well.

But we also know that the party did not really choose Mr. Brown. He bought the party with South Asian immigrant memberships that swamped the party’s existing province-wide membership. Nobody in the party called him on the obvious breaking of the rules and the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party is stuck with him.

They now have a leader who is an unattractive small-town nerd, got his leadership lessons from former Prime Minister Harper and is only interested in how to manipulate the system. In the tradition of Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne says: “What, me worry?”

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What’s up with Wynne?

August 22, 2016 by Peter Lowry

It is certainly easy to forget about Kathleen Wynne’s Ontario Liberals during such a beautiful summer. They hardly do anything worthwhile the rest of the year but then they take the summer off and do less.

The only member of the Liberal cabinet who has been putting in some hours has been Health Minister Erik Hoskins. His desultory negotiations with Ontario’s doctors over the past two years finally produced some results. His offer was rejected by dissident doctors. As a doctor himself, he should have known that the deal he negotiated was with a moribund organization.

You would think Hoskins would have an inkling of what he was facing when the Ontario Conservative leader’s brain trust were working so openly with the dissident doctors. It left PC Leader Patrick Brown on the inside of what was going on and made him a hypocrite to call for the province to concede to using arbitration to settle the dispute.

You would also think that Hoskins, with his extensive experience, would do a better job of dealing with escalating health care costs in the province. And you would certainly expect him to realize that radiologists were going to take it personally if they were the ones being cut back to provide raises for other medical specialists.

Mind you the Wynne team are hardly going to let the current polls upset their idyllic summer. No matter how high a rating people give the Conservative and New Democratic leaders at this time, the main preference of Ontario voters is still “Don’t know” or “None of the above.” Nobody knows the Conservative leader and while he did nothing as a Conservative back bencher in nine years in Ottawa, he is achieving less in Ontario.

And that leaves Andrea Horwath of the New Democrats. Her own party made the mistake of not dumping her after she did such a bad job in the last provincial election. There is no confidence building there.

But polls such as the one published last week by Forum Research are meaningless until people start to pay attention to what is or is not going on at Queen’s Park. Two years from now when there is a provincial election in the offing, the chickens will come home to roost. What the voters will make of their choices is frightening to consider.

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Death wish of the Wynne Liberals.

August 10, 2016 by Peter Lowry

Some observers consider it just arrogance but the problems of Kathleen Wynne’s Ontario government could be based on a subconscious desire to end the sham. And they could end it if there was any plausible replacement government to them at hand.

But maybe that is why it comes across as arrogance. Take this new Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault. For all the political machinations and police investigations and other embarrassments over getting that guy elected, you would think he would have the decency to do a better job. He could also stop lying about having no control of the Ontario Energy Board. Just who the hell does he think we should blame for appointments to that board?

He thinks consumers have no right to complain when carbon taxes are added to consumers’ bills as a ‘delivery’ charge—and the gas user is supposed to pay the harmonized sales tax (HST) on top of the damn carbon tax.

Carbon taxes have nothing whatsoever to do with delivery of gas to the consumer. They have to do with the usage of the gas as a carbon tax is supposed to represent a penalty for the expelling of carbon into our fragile environment.

But from the beginning of all the silliness over carbon taxing, it has been nothing more than a cash grab by governments. If we are supposed to think carbon taxes are revenue neutral, just where the hell will we find our money?

The pitiful part of all this is the childish tantrums of Ontario’ useless opposition parties over the constant increases. They continue to wail crocodile tears on behalf of the poor consumer when they have no clue as to possible solutions. Those losers just want to get their grubby hands into the cookie jar without having any better ideas than the Wynne government.

It all comes down to the Minister of Energy getting his facts straight and representing the people of Ontario. Instead he seems to be working for the energy companies that sell energy at outrageous prices that are being inflated by added charges from a government obsessed with taxing itself out of debt and out of office.

And one other conclusion occurs to us in following these machinations. The Premier must hand out song sheets to each of her cabinet members every day. It is so the ministers and the premier can be in sync when questioned by the news media. At least she and Mr. Thibeault seem to use exactly the same words to respond to the same question. Maybe ministers are not allowed to think for themselves.

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Are we the happiest taxpayers?

August 7, 2016 by Peter Lowry

According to the Ontario government your choices of booze, beer and wine are now at your finger tips. “We deliver” we are told. It all seems to be designed to sell more booze in a faux atmosphere of responsibility and restriction. What is annoying though is that it is all designed to add to the government’s coffers and forget convenience for the consumer.

That is unless you want to pay Canada Post to deliver your booze. And all they want is a 24 per cent surcharge (plus 13 per cent tax) on a $50 order.

To add insult to injury in their booze machinations, the Wynne Liberals have brought in a heavy hitter in retailing to take over as chair of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). A lot of people will be timing former Hudson’s Bay Vice-Chair Bonnie Brooks in the job. She will soon find that what the LCBO needs is better merchandising, smarter pricing and recognition that the customers are not all wine aficionados or gourmet cooks.

But as much as she might like to get her teeth into the merchandising problems, she will find the chair’s role is political. Protecting her back is her only hope of survival.

She is joining a bureaucratic and calcified organization that has not had a good merchandising idea since 1967. It has been noted for telling wine producers to raise their prices. Its idea of a feature is a dollar off on a $20 bottle of swill. And the only reason that some people like the LCBO is because it is not as mind and taste-destroying as those disgusting beer stores.

The novel idea that beer and wine go with food has led to the Wynne government letting some 60 of the very large grocery stores, out of about 1400 in that category in the province, sell beer, wine and cider. It really does broaden the shopping experience in those few stores if you stumble across an end aisle display of a few brands of warm beer. Just do not expect a bartender or sommelier to appear. And in those stores, you really have to be sober to find that cache of booze. There will be limited brands of beer, some cider and some real wine might make an appearance this fall.

Brooks will not have to worry about the competition from Loblaws and the rest of the grocery stores.

What Brooks really needs to worry about is the political football that the LCBO has become. Convenience in beer sales can include convenience stores and there must be millions of Ontario consumers who would delight in the ability to walk to the corner store for a cold six-pack. That change would have less impact on the LCBO than privatization of liquor and wine sales. Bear in mind that the LCBO is already the largest single importer of wines in North America and if it was privatized and properly run, it could dominate wine sales throughout the Americas.

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Jason Kenney’s double duty summer.

August 4, 2016 by Peter Lowry

Do super heroes ever rest? Not super heroes such as Calgary’s Honourable Jason Kenney MP. He is doing double duty this summer with the challenges to save Ottawa for democracy and to save Alberta for right-wing politicos.

The work of a super hero is obviously never done. In Ottawa this summer the fat and 48-year old Conservative is representing his Calgary constituents as a member of the House of Commons Special Committee on Vote Reform. At the same time, he has launched a truck trip to visit every provincial electoral district in Alberta. He is intent on winning the right—not only the leadership of the Alberta Conservatives but he also wants to unite the right and save Alberta from the perdition of Alberta socialism.

Meanwhile back in Ottawa, the superhero is trying to find a telephone booth where he can switch into his super hero costume. He is sitting as a member of the Conservative team on the special vote reform committee to be sure that any and all reforms are subjected to a referendum. Obviously he has been using his special vision into the future to show him that anything new found by the committee will need a referendum. That will surprise others who believe this committee will have fun but will get nowhere.

But what is a super hero also doing trucking around Alberta on a predictably lost cause? The Wildrose Party in Alberta has already told him to take a hike. They do not want any truck nor trade with patsy provincial Conservatives.

And what is a super hero doing in a truck anyway? Is it not enough that he is willing to take off his tie when campaigning around rural Conservatives? He certainly does not want to show off his broad behind in a pair of Levies.

In any event this observer of things Albertan thinks our super hero has the entire scenario backwards. Sure, the provincial Conservatives need to hold a leadership convention and that needs to be soon. The important challenge is the position of Wildrose leader Brian Jean. While it might be bad timing due to the MLA having his hands full this year looking after his electoral district of Fort McMurray-Conklin. Since the Wildrose leader is also a native of Fort McMurray and lives there with his family, it is not as though a super hero from Ottawa can just brush him aside.

Whether when flying Air Canada or taking just one giant leap going back to Ottawa, our super hero needs to rethink his strategy. Sure out-going federal leader Stephen Harper might endorse him to lead Alberta back in the path of the righteous but what has Harper got to lose?

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Black Lives Matter organizers should get stuffed.

July 28, 2016 by Peter Lowry

People who have worked with pop-up organizations over the years have learned to be wary. There are just too many that work the “poor-me” street and trade on Canadians’ instinctive succour of the underdog. While we have been trying to stay away from the subject of these people, it is clear that group calling itself Black Lives Matter in Canada has an agenda that goes beyond the black community.

This group is working the political angles. It is targeting exposure and media interest well beyond its natural territory. It is doubtful that they have much interest, concern or involvement in their own community.

They speak about police brutality with an American accent. They take their name and measure from the American Black Lives Matter. They seem to take no heed of Canadian attitudes and concerns. They are users, not contributors.

This group must be blind to the border between Canada and the U.S. They accuse Canadian police of the same brutalities as American history has bestowed on that country’s excesses. Nobody denies that Canada has had its own excesses. Carding, racial profiling, bigotry and police brutality have to be recognized, exorcized and stopped if and when and any time it happens.

But what happens in Canada can be solved in Canada. Nobody is perfect but it is by all communities working together that we improve our policing. Our communities do not want to be divided into black, brown, yellow, white or any other colour or religion, beliefs or country of origin. Our strength is in our diversity. We are always at our best when we work together.

Black Lives Matter is a false challenge in this country. It implies that the black community has been targeted in Canada. It implies that the black community are somehow apart from the mainstream. And that is an insult to this country. It was Canada that stood firm as beacon when blacks were still slaves in the U.S. It was the terminus of the Underground Railroad.

It would be silly to suggest that Canada has less prejudice than America nor should we take any pride in it being less. We must always strive for zero intolerance.

When Black Lives Matter used the Pride Parade in Toronto to try to make a statement, it was an insult to every black member of the LGBT community. They do not need to be patronized by these users who call themselves Black Lives Matter. Neither does the rest of the Canadian community.

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Going ‘All In’ on bitumen.

July 24, 2016 by Peter Lowry

There were two stories in the Toronto Star the other day from Canada’s western oil patch. The major story was the one by business writer David Olive on Suncor’s gutsiest bet yet on Athabasca bitumen. The other story never mentioned bitumen. It is a Canadian Press story out of North Battleford, Saskatchewan where the city has had to shut down its water supply from the North Saskatchewan River because of a pipeline spill.

Olive’s story was bigger because it was about Suncor betting its $14.5 billion of debt to increase its output of bitumen over the next few years to more than 800,000 barrels per day. This is in the face of the current world crude oil glut that has driven the price of crude below the reasonable profit level for ersatz crude from bitumen. When others are deserting the tar sands, Suncor is buying. And it is buying at a time when the availability of pipelines to the oceans cannot be guaranteed.

It really makes one wonder though when the Canadian Press news story does not mention bitumen but describes a diluted bitumen spill. It seems Husky Energy admitted to spilling between 200,000 and 250,000 litres of what they refer to as “crude oil and other materials” more than 40 kilometres up river near Maidstone, Saskatchewan.

As they said that there were lighter hydrocarbons mixed in as a diluent (which is how bitumen is able to be pushed, along with heating and higher pressure, through a pipeline).

It is amazing to hear Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall’s reaction to the spill. He remains a supporter of pipelines as he says it is much safer than railway transport. He thinks rail transport creates more greenhouse gases.

The reporter probably forgot to ask Premier Wall what he thought of the recent fine imposed on Canada’s Enbridge under the Clean Water Act in the United States of US$67 million and the additional US$100 million required to improve Enbridge’s pipeline in Michigan as a result of the Kalamazoo River spill in 2010.

As a note of caution to the North Battleford city fathers, they should be aware that the State of Michigan will never be able to restore the Kalamazoo River to its previous environmental condition. While the river itself will eventually ‘flush’ out the oily sheen on the water caused by the diluent, the bitumen itself sinks to the bottom of the river and becomes a ragged but permanent paving of the river bottom.

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