Category: Provincial Politics

“Another Fine Mess!”

by Peter Lowry

I like to think of the most recent election in Ontario as something like an ancient Laurel and Hardy short movie. It seems that having the liberal party leader leading from outside the legislature for two years before the election did not work out too well. Having him drive around Ontario in a delivery van did not encourage much enthusiasm either. And obviously, nobody was checking what he was saying out there to the media.

I, quite frankly, wondered what Steven Del Duca was doing in the run-up to the election. You would think he would have built up some momentum for him to win his own riding. He didn’t.

I thought the most ridiculous promise he made before the election was that, if elected, he would resign as premier if he did not change the way we voted in Ontario. I did not know that a premier could arbitrarily change how we vote. It did not sound very democratic not to check with the voters by referendum.

Of course, he got shafted by the conservatives. Here he thought he would have a full month of campaigning. What he got was 15 days of campaigning, before the advance polls opened. Here the conservatives had been campaigning hard over the previous three months, running advertising, making announcements, promising money for this and that. They were winding down their campaign before Del Duca got moving.

There was a nice story in the newspaper a while ago about liberals Ted Hsu, who won in Kingston and the Islands, and Mary-Margret McMahon, who won in Toronto’s Beaches-East York. They had been campaigning in their ridings for about a year. I had told friends in the Beach area of Toronto that Mary-Margaret was a good bet for a hard-working MPP.

I am not sure how well we will come out of another four years of Doug Ford’s inept management at Queen’s Park. Hopefully we will have a strong new leader for the Ontario liberals who, if not an MPP, will soon find his or her way to win a by-election. The liberals in the legislature might not be the official opposition, at this time, but they will find their voices. They have a party to rebuild.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Problems of Polls.

by Peter Lowry

It is amazing how easy we could solve all our problems if we just skipped down the street hand-in-hand with the Toronto Star. If the Star’s editors don’t have all the answers, they can buy opinions from a myriad of writers with the appropriate opinion.

The other day, the Star published an opinion from a gentleman who ran for the NDP a few elections back. It seemed the gentleman thinks that our addiction to polls was to blame for the poor turnout for our recent provincial election. He even had a few thousand heavy words in support of the opinion that publishing the polls was the reason for the problem.

If I had my druthers over the years of working with polls, I would have stayed with the opinion that polls should never be published. The only problem is that I also believe in disclosure and if media outlets want to pay for polls, they should report them accurately to their readers, listeners and viewers.

What I really object to is the aggregators who assemble random published polls, take the liberty of adjusting them for bias and then republishing them. It seems to me that they are really hardening the opinions in them as though they constitute a trend line—which they are not.  

Of course, the question as to whether polls are self-fulfilling always comes up. In the recent Ontario election, there was an obvious stagnation in the reported polls that would be reflected by voters. We have been seeing a trend to lower voter turnout in Canadian elections for the last 50 years. The media is just as responsible for that ‘what’s the use’ attitude as are the politicians. The political parties can forecast it in the malaise they find among their traditional volunteer base at the riding level.

We have knowingly destroyed the democracy in the parties in this country and our ultimate reward is the lethargy of the voters. When you take away the rights of the people at the party’s grass roots to choose their candidates, why should they want to work to elect the appointed candidates? When the benefactors, with the money, call the shots in politics, they also expect to be the beneficiaries. And if you tell the truth about our political parties, they treat you as toxic.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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“What Fools These Mortals Be!”

by Peter Lowry

The hue and cry might now be more complete. The Toronto Star has discovered that only about 18 per cent of our Ontario electorate voted for the Ford government’s majority. And would not Shakespeare’s Puck agree? We did it to ourselves.

Not voting is also a political decision, of sorts. Does it really need a proposition on the ballot for “none of the above”?

And despite the clear proof that the majority of the electors said “a pox on all your houses,” the Toronto Star tells us we merely err in how we select our politicians. They blame first-past-the-post voting for the low turnout. And, just how, first-past-the-post voting is to blame for this low turn-out is never really explained.

The Toronto Star wants proportional representation. The greens and NDP have wanted it for years. Some liberals might agree. Let’s hear it, yay, yay for proportional.

Then it is settled. We will henceforth get people to pick a party instead of a candidate. Party leaders have been choosing candidates for some time anyway. So, why not?

But just a minute. If only 43.5 per cent of Ontario voters went to the readily available polling places in 2022, why would more go, just to vote for a party, in 2026? How would we be solving the problem?

Maybe we should be proud of the 2022 Ontario election. Once again, we have proved that any doofus can be premier of Ontario.

And we do not need the insult from the Toronto Star that discussions about changes in how we vote being dominated by political hobbyists. First of all, it is not true. The last full-blown discussion of voting systems was under the quite incompetent management of Justin Trudeau’s government in 2016. Those committee hearings were dominated by political scientists with rare rays of enlightenment to contribute.

Before that, in Ontario, we had a 2007 referendum on a proposal made by lottery winners that was soundly rejected by the voters. British Columbia tried twice to get a rather confused proposal through its voters and it failed both times.

I could also draw the Star’s attention to the ridiculous proposal of liberal leader Steven Del Duca that he would change the way Ontario votes after the recent election. Luckily, he is not in a position to do that.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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You Jest Sir!

by Peter Lowry

A long-time NDP apparatchik, Robin Sears, writes his opinion in the Toronto Star. And no, I am not jealous. I had my fill of writing for Toronto papers years ago. It is more fun questioning the wisdom of those who do it today.

And, it is certainly questionable when Mr. Sears tells us how premier Doug Ford can build a legacy similar to that of the late Bill Davis. Surely, he is trying to be funny!

Sears seems to believe that Ford has matured during his first four years in office. I will go along that he got fatter and older—maturing is a different subject.

It is as though Sears had never seen a salesman lay on the B.S. before. When I heard Ford saying how much he admired and trusted liberal finance minister Chrystia Freeland, it almost cost me my lunch. Luckily, I had heard that song before and took it for what it was worth—nothing. Hell, I’m a liberal and I am still not sure she knows what she is doing in that portfolio.

And what is this bunkum about a friendship with prime minister Trudeau? Queen’s Park gets a lot of funds from the Ottawa government. Doug Ford would kiss Trudeau’s bare behind on the front steps of Queen’s Park if it would get Ontario more money. The delayed negotiations with the Trudeau liberals over child care was arranged by someone much smarter than Ford. That was carefully staged and planned to gain maximum impact on the provincial election.

I only wish I could ask Doug Ford to parse the comment Sears made about “Ford’s new understanding of the value of greater nuance in perspective—and the limits of a world of only predictable partisan certitude—was double edged.”

I could just see Ford blurting out “What the hell does that mean?”

But what Sears appeared to be attempting in that syntactic labyrinth was to apologize for many of Ford’s stupider decisions related to the pandemic. The premier was just as confused coming out of the worst of the pandemic, as he was going in.

And anyone who thinks Christine Elliott and Rod Phillips were the shining lights of Ford’s last cabinet, hasn’t looked at the current conditions of Ontario healthcare and long-term care. Those ministers had no successes in any portfolio. And, if you see Phillips, ask him how things are in Saint Barthélemy.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Bitumen Bust.

by Peter Lowry

It seems the Oil Gods have looked down on Alberta’s tar sands bitumen and damned it to further discounting. It would seem that at a time when the world needs cheaper oil, Alberta just cannot catch a break.

And, for once, we cannot blame the problem on hard-luck, departing premier Jason Kenney. He brought Alberta bad luck. And that cloud continues over his head.

And if the province did not need those farm silos for increased grain production, because of the conflict in Ukraine, they might be converting silos to hold bitumen.

The American refineries that can handle the highly polluting Alberta product have found lately that they can get lots of easier-to-process ‘heavy oil’ from Mexican and off-shore sources. The Alberta gunk ends up low-man on the totem pole.

And to make a sour outlook bleaker for Alberta, is the news from Washington. It seems President Joe Biden plans to undercut the profiteering by the American oil companies. In the peak holiday time of this July, he is releasing 40 million barrels of reserve crude oil into the American market. This reserve is intended for emergencies and I guess a cost of over US$4 per U.S. gallon of regular gasoline, across the United States, would be considered an emergency.

With that much crude flooding the American market, Alberta would have to start giving away bitumen to stay in full production. With only limited capacity for bitumen in the present Trans Mountain pipeline, only a trickle of bitumen can be shipped to the Far East markets or south to California.

To add insult to the costs of the Trans Mountain, it has now been confirmed that total costs for the planned dual pipeline now exceed $21 billion. With the federal government unable to remain credible in funding the project, the pipeline managers are out beating the bushes for private capital to continue the expansion.

The only problem is that the Canadian taxpayers will no longer be first in line to recover the billions already wasted on this project. It would probably take another fifty years to be paid back.

But with another fifty years of bitumen processing and pollution, there would not likely be much of our population left to spend the profits.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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“There is no joy in Mudville.”

by Peter Lowry

In writing “Casey at the Bat” E.L. Thayer spoke of the depth of disappointment felt by the people of Mudville when their champion is defeated. It is the same disappointment that we feel in Barrie when our mayor of the past 12 years, lost in a close race, in the provincial election.

But we have to agree with Thayer that our champion contributed to his own defeat. Casey let the first two strikes fly by—waiting for that perfect pitch. Our champion had to overcome the gerrymander of our riding. He had to address the predominance of conservatives and gun nuts in the rural area of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte electoral district here in middle Ontario.

It meant little to our country folk that Barrie’s mayor was chair of Ontario’s big cities mayors’ caucus. If anything, his strengths as a highly successful city mayor worked against him.

When I first met Jeff Lehman in 2009, he had been back in Canada from teaching at the London School of Economics for ten years. He had built a successful business advising cities across Canada. He had won a seat on council for my downtown ward in Barrie. He soon let me know that his objective at the time was the mayor’s job.

In a field that included the incumbent mayor, a former mayor, a former member of the legislature, another councillor and some other hopefuls, we got to work on the 2010 municipal election in Barrie. I ran the ground game for him. I was training volunteers, organizing and selecting polls for canvas. We did a lot of canvassing in the city over a hot summer. I saved the condominiums around the city for canvassing on the hottest days, to protect our canvassers from heat stroke.

I went canvassing with the candidate fairly often to help move him along and to get to know the city better. He is a strong canvasser but he could get delayed by voters with serious comments on conditions in the city.

But in the provincial campaign, he seemed to rely on his social media, city door knocking and voter identification for the win. He was some 600 votes short of a home run to the Ontario Legislature.

As Thayer said in the last stanza of Casey at the Bat:

“Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,

But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.”

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Ontario Omertá.

by Peter Lowry

It was somewhere between Thomas Harris’ Silence of the Lambs and the Mafia’s Omertá, a vow of silence. The only difference was that it was Ontario’s electorate that was being bled out. Some how, the conservative managers were able to convince that loudmouth Doug Ford to shut up. They also told the conservative candidates to stay away from confrontational events in their ridings—such as candidate meetings. The conservatives were in the zone and they coasted to victory.

Of course, what do you expect in a province with no discernible leadership in the political offerings. Doug Ford of the conservatives was the incumbent with no fixed IQ. Andrea Horwath of the NDP had aged poorly over too many years as leader. Steven Del Duca of the liberals reminded us of a turtle, without the security of a shell.

And we were really motivated to get out there and vote with all the lies they told us. Ontario voters are not all stupid you know.

And the election was jigged to the incumbent’s advantage. The lead-up to the election was long and the announcements many and heavy. It was sometimes frightening to hear what they had in mind for the use of our money. And the actual election was short, vicious and an insult to the electors. Also, the leaders had their share of daily insults for each other.

But an opportunity is hidden in the four more years of a loudmouth premier. The opposition parties can renew and refund and choose leaders who can lead and can make us proud. Please, let’s make them people of decency and character. They should be leaders whom we can all respect. And who will respect their opponents and will stay above the mud slinging.

We also need to restore democracy in our political parties. We need to recognize that the responsibility of our members in parliament and legislatures is to represent our electors. We need to hear our representatives speak out for us. There needs to be honest accountability to our voters.

Let’s stop this interference by leaders in the selection of our candidates. If we are going to continue our first-past-the-post voting, let’s be sure it is working for us.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Look Like a Leader.

by Peter Lowry

Ontario liberal leader Steven Del Duca made an admirable effort. The liberal leader’s only problem was that to be elected leader of a major political party, you have to look like a leader. And you have to rev up the troops. Modesty is very nice, after you win.

But Del Duca came out a loser. He should have been in the legislature before the general election. You do not campaign from a utility vehicle. You wear a suit and tie. (You can take off the tie north of Highway 7.) You have advance people to ensure the crowds and enthusiasm. A good campaign has punch. A winning campaign builds momentum.

Sitting on the sidelines here in Barrie, Ontario was painful. I had placed my bets on our local mayor beating a carpetbagger from Severn. No such luck. Oh well, our former mayor, and now former candidate, did not ask for my help.

It never was a feel-good campaign. The vote seemed to depend on those angry enough to harm themselves. Self-destruction was the order of the do-nothing campaign. It was obvious that it was a campaign where few bothered to vote. The early figures of only 43.5 per cent of voters going to the polls is shocking.

For an election as to whether we would keep Doug Ford as premier or turf him out, less than 25 per cent of voters made the decision.

The road ahead for Ontario is a rocky road. It will be a time when developers and ministerial zoning orders (MZO) will rule. Build where you want. Farmland will give way to pavement. Greenbelts and wetlands will disappear. Prices will be for excessive profits. The poor of Ontario will stay poor. The rich will get richer. Healthcare will suffer. The aged will be ignored. We will not be proud of this province we call home.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Campaigns Gone By.

by Peter Lowry

This has been both the shortest and seemingly the longest campaign in Ontario history. I felt uninvolved. I was left out. The days of bounding up steps to knock on doors are behind me. The only job offered to me was to do phone calls. I was not interested. In this age when all the creativity seems to go to the Internet media, I could have livened up the print media.

What I saw in print from candidates, in mine and other ridings, was stuff that did not pass Go and went directly to the recycle container. What really surprised me was not much was said in this literature about the candidates. You would think if the party is at all pleased with its candidate, they would tell us why. All we want to know is what this person has done to make them worthy of representing us in the Ontario legislature?

Are all of these people just drones who will run, jump and vote as they are told? You would think the conservative in my riding was modest as the author of Bill 161. That was the act of the Legislature designed to help prevent class-action law suits against long-term care facilities that lost too many of their residents to COVID-19 because of negligence and inadequate care.

(You do know, do you not, that former conservative premier Mike Harris makes over $200,000 per year as chairman of Chartwell—one of the larger for-profit long-term care home providers.)

The paucity today of good political literature is having its effect. We are getting a poorer quality of candidates. Many are appointed as opposed to chosen by the riding. Their literature for the riding is nothing but a series of slogans.

We used to care.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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A Chance to Choose.

by Peter Lowry

We will have a chance to see tomorrow how many of our fellow Ontario voters got to the polls in this provincial election. I might be surprised if more than six out of ten bothered.  It has not been a campaign that generated any excitement.

It was obvious in the ten days of advance polls that the amount of interest in the campaign was limited. If we had reduced the advance polls to two days, there might have been a few short line-ups. The ten days was a waste of money. And the only politicians to benefit from it were incumbents. It freed up election-day workers for their campaigns. The workers could concentrate on getting out the vote on the final election day.

I must admit that I have never really liked the election day effort. I don’t like feeling like a nag. I have heard many hundreds of reasons why people did not make it to mark their ballot. I was always happy to have some other duties for that day. Most often, I would opt for getting the counting of the vote properly organized and displayed at the after-the-vote party.

I think what annoyed me the most on election day were the radio people encouraging people to get out and vote—no matter how they intended to vote. I always thought they were encouraging stupid people to go do something stupid. It has always struck me that we should make voters prove they have seriously thought about it, before they are allowed to vote.

Not everyone agrees with me. A chap I once knew gave a Kiwanis Club speech about stupid people being just as entitled to stupid representation. He was actually alibiing the stupid people who elect stupid politicians. I think, it is likely, this election has proved him right once again.

I have often made the point that good leadership can help alleviate the problems of having stupid politicians on the back benches. Mind you, this current Ontario campaign has not been noted for the genius of our party leaders. Oh well, another four years and who knows?

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]