Category: World Politics

The Bundestag teaches little.

by Peter Lowry

It came as a surprise the other day when the Toronto Star’s opinion writer for the new democratic party, Robin Sears, lauded the German government’s electoral system. While the German electoral system does confuse outsiders, it is basically an electoral system known as Mixed Member Proportional. (A similar electoral system was rejected by Ontario voters in a 2007 referendum.) The states in the German federation elect the 299 first-past-the-post members, according to their population and then party lists are used to expand the size of the house according to party vote. (There are 736 members in the current Bundestag.)

What would concern Mr. Sears is recognizing that the Bundestag is a surprisingly conservative organization. It has been under the leadership of either the Christian Democratic or Social Democratic parties for the past 50 years. The fact that no one party has had a majority creates a defferential parliament that caters to economic concerns first.

Instead of complimenting the Bundestag on its progressiveness, Mr. Sears should be aghast that they are only now proposing a minimum wage of the equivalent of $17 per hour. This country of about 80 million has the strongest economy in Europe and $20 per hour or more would be a more realistic level for its minimum wage.

Sears was impressed by the Bundestag version of our throne speech. He thinks the idea of giving all parties copies of the planned government program to study before voting on the specifics makes a lot of sense—and it does.

But what works for another country is not always the ideal solution to our needs. I find the scurrilous name calling and rudeness of our MPs detracts from the respect that our parliament deserves.

But that is a two-way street. I have come to the conclusion that neither Steven Harper nor Justin Trudeau have showed any respect for parliament and that is reflected in how the House behaves. It needs better leadership.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Blah, Blah, Blah.

by Peter Lowry

I have never paid much attention to that young Swedish environmentalist, Greta Thunberg, but she certainly has good writers. The other day there was a clip on the news about her announcing the upcoming world environmental conference in Glasgow. All she said on the clip was: “Blah, blah, blah.” And that will likely be the sum of what is to be said.

And why are we wasting our time? We all know that prime minister Justin Trudeau is a hypocrite. He is going to Glasgow on another holiday. He will hob-nob with his betters among the world’s elite. He has no meaningful contribution to make.

In the meantime, before heading for Scotland, he has to reconstruct his cabinet. And if Trudeau places gender equality ahead of competency again, we will know, he is a damn fool. Canadians would not care if he had an all-female cabinet, as long as it did its job.

Which reminds me. This is a bit off-topic but I would love to know who is the humourist in the prime minister’s office. I was sending some material to the Canadian Radio Television-telecommunications Commission (CRTC) the other day and I looked up the current chair and commissioners to see who I was sending it to. Would you believe that the male chairperson is the typical long-time bureaucrat and all the regional commissioners are women? They are mostly lawyers, of course.

But back to the climate conference. While Mr. Trudeau is in Scotland, might be the right time for cabinet to cancel the twinning of the Trans Mountain pipeline. Just think of the tonnes of carbon that would not be sent off-shore to help destroy our planet. By not sending those millions of barrels of Alberta tar sands bitumen around the world, to be turned into ersatz oil and its by-products, our world might have a few more years of life left to it.

Maybe if Greta Thunberg’s writers find out about our prime minister’s pet pipeline project, they might get some people to pay attention. Nobody seems to listen to the usual environmentalists.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Keep Enemies Closer.

by Peter Lowry

A friend was railing against China the other day. His stock broker had suggested that he invest in some Chinese share investment opportunities. He ended up lecturing the poor guy instead of politely saying, ‘no thanks.’ He had some strong words about the extent the Chinese government and its army get involved in common-stock companies.

In North America, the military-industrial complex might be in cahoots but we do it differently. A good example is the $613 million that Canada has contributed to the Lockheed Martin development of the F-35 fighter aircraft over the past 27 years. The rationale for this is that the ongoing investment entitles companies in Canada to participate in bidding on contracts and maintenance needs for the stealth fighter. To-date, these contracts are believed to be worth over $2 billion to companies located in Canada.

While we would get a discounted price, I can think of no logical reason that Canada would ever want any F-35 fighters. This is a single seat, single engine fighter aircraft that could not fly from a major base in Canada such as Cold Lake in Alberta to Nunavut in the Arctic and back without refueling. And why would we need a stealth fighter to patrol our own airspace?

And besides, we would be very wise to stick with smart diplomacy with the Peoples’ Republic of China. We certainly are never going to want to go to war with that country. If Canada was in the middle of a shooting war with China or Russia, all we could do is duck. We could only hope that the Americans had enough anti-missile missiles to shoot down the invading missiles. And we might further hope that the Americans do not shoot down those missiles over our heads.

But it was the stupid Trump government in the United States that helped sour relations for us with the Chinese government. The Chinese neither understand nor care about extradition proceedings. The amount of time that it is taking for the extradition of the Huawei executive is a puzzle to Canadians and an annoyance for the Chinese. Let’s hope they don’t get too annoyed.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Bring out your dead!

by Peter Lowry

During Europe’s bubonic plagues in the Middle Ages, the tumbrils being hauled down cobblestone laneways were accompanied by calling out: Bring out your dead. And if there was anyone still alive—and capable—they did.  It might be the system to bring caution to U.S. states such as Florida.

But stupidity during the 21st century’s covid-19 pandemic is not reserved for Florida. It is evident elsewhere. It is evident in states where vaccines are available and underutilized. It is there for people who think they are immune. It is available to the anti-vaxxer—yes, even the most stupid of all. They think they are immune until they catch a variant of the virus and die.

But that is what is stretching the medical resources in some jurisdictions beyond reason. It probably costs less to capture, inoculate and release than to let this species of sub-human cause more death and destruction. Yet, God forgive us, we do not deny them the human right to die. They can drink themselves to death. They can go play on the freeway. They can refuse a vaccine. They think they can jump from tall buildings at a single bound.

There is no criminal law that denies them the right to be ignorant, to follow their own drummer and to piss into the wind.

We have to face the fact that people like to choose their own leaders so that they have someone to blame for their own stupidity.

If they believe that if there really is a pandemic, they probably believe that it has come to cull the herd and that the vaccines will not give anyone herd immunity. They throw themselves at the feet of their God or Donald Trump, whichever is current, and ask for a blessing.

And it is not just Americans who are jerks. Take that guy, who must cut his own hair, who is running things in the United Kingdom. That guy is standing Canute-like and defying the tides of the pandemic. He might yet get to kill more Brits than that fellow Hitler did in a world war. He is standing on the shores of the English Channel, no mask, no restrictions, defying the deadliest variants of covid to do their utmost. It might be best folks to hunker down for a while longer and reject any foreign travel, until all these braggarts are dead.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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While the World Burns.

by Peter Lowry

It’s a puzzle that there are so many people who do not care or do not recognize the trouble in which our world struggles. To deny that climate change is happening is ludicrous. To not care is even more serious. There might not be an app for that on their cell phones but caring is a critical step towards possibly alleviating the problems.

Wild fires are destroying the west coast of North America. And those trees are not falling just in the forests. The fires are attacking our towns and homes and businesses. We are just starting to realize the costs of protecting our people.

And the pain is moving across the continent. If you are not being burnt, you are being flooded. The tornado season is extending. The hurricane season is reaching. The long-frozen poles of the earth are melting.

And, oh, what fools we mortals be!

Talk to people and learn. A mother of young children shrugs when asked about her children’s future. “That is their problem,” is the answer. A young person, tripping on some mind-altering potion, tells you “Who cares?” A politician tells you that only smaller government and lower taxes can help. The homeless person cuts off your concern with “Great, but have you got any spare change?”

We have not even begun to penetrate the conscience of many. They are too busy putting food on the table for their family. They have a plane to catch to take them to a new adventure. They are heading to another protest. There is free meatloaf tonight over at the mission. They have business meetings to attend. Projects need to be completed. There is a new movie to see. There is a new app to try on their phone.

And are we paying blackmail to cyber thieves? Are we too busy pulling down the statues of the past? Are we digging at the graves of those who have already returned to dust?

And all the time, people are crying out for newer and better leadership. Leaders who can respond to 100-year events. We’ll do better with the next pandemic?

Oh, will we?

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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In the Orthodoxy of the Right.

by Peter Lowry

Have our politicians really dismissed the orthodoxy of the right? Have we realized the dismal future of countries ruled by the cult of American president Ronald Reagan and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher? It comes as a surprise to those of us that lived through the 1980s of Reagan and Thatcher’s reigns that an actor and a chemist could have had the impact they did on economic theory.

Nobody ever accused either leader of deep thinking. Reagan’s departure from the White House was accompanied by his mind dipping deeper into the mists of stages of Alzheimer’s. Thatcher spent her last years as prime minister fending off revolts from within her own political party. And yet their legacies live after them.

Today, Reagan is still an icon for republicans in the U.S.A. They call it Reaganomics. Many still believe that his slashing of taxes while building up the military was the right approach for the times. All he really accomplished was larger deficits

Thatcher was also a militarist but her tax cuts were less effective and she put too much effort in trying to bend U.K. unions to her will.

Where their economics did not work well was in Canada. While their friend Brian Mulroney was prime minister of Canada for the last half of the 1980s, his regime was reviled and decimated in the liberal return under Jean Chrétien in 1993.

But Reaganomics lived on in Canada under Chrétien’s finance minister Paul Martin. Shipping magnate Martin and Chrétien were not friends and the enmity between them sent many mixed messages to Canadians. It was not until Martin got his chance to become prime minister that Canadians could reject him at the polls. It was as though, if you were going to have to conservatives in power, why not opt for the real ones?

Canadians were inflicted with conservative economics for the next twelve years and were offered sunny days again in 2015 by Justin Trudeau and the liberals. They are still waiting for those sunny days to materialize.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Politicizing the Pandemic.

by Peter Lowry

There is nothing political about the Coronavirus and the pandemic. Each country, in its own manner, has had to deal with the spread of the virus, the sickness and the deaths. Yet it was the politicians, the democratically elected and the dictators, the leaders who showed their stuff. The comparisons were dramatic.

Take China for example, the canary state in our coal mine. The world should have paid more attention to the lock downs, the barriers to travel and the terrible lack of information provided from behind the barricades. Think of the difference if we had understood earlier.

Think of the difference in a country that poses as the heart of democracy such as the United States of America. In the time of the Trump, all we got was denial, ignorance, false info and lethargy. It was an invitation for the deaths of millions. With the arrival of the Biden administration, we saw an America-first attitude for the American-made vaccines.

Great Britain also had locally produced vaccines but also ordered large quantities of other brands in case of production or efficacy problems. That elected leader, so desperately in need of a good barber, did a good job of getting every one to queue up for their shots The Brits are famous for their ability to form an orderly queue.

Canadians, not so much. Our problem was that we had let earlier politicians sell off our vaccine producing company. We had no experienced local supplier. We ordered large quantities from the potential winners—and had no control over their delays in production or export permits.

But Israel also lacked production capabilities. It solved the dilemma by bribing the vaccine supplier—doubling the price. It is too bad Israel’s right-wing leader, who might not last as leader much longer, did not share with his neighbours. It would have helped prevent a war.

The time of the pandemic of covid-19 has become a time of tensions, political unrest and discontent. Change is in the air, everywhere.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Do we really understand China?

by Peter Lowry

They are known to most Canadians as ‘the Two Michaels.’ They have been in prison in China since before the pandemic. Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, were arrested in China just days after the RCMP arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, in Vancouver on a warrant from U.S. authorities. Many Canadians think we should get tougher on China but if we do, we might get both of the Michaels executed.

It all comes down to the quaint Oriental custom of saving face. During the 1970s and early 1980s an interesting aspect of my job with a computer company was hosting delegations from countries around the world. These delegations came to better understand the large-scale computers we were manufacturing in Mississauga at the time. Many of them were from the Peoples’ Republic of China.

The Chinese usually came in groups of four or five. It did not take long to figure out who was the party cadre and who were the technical experts. The party person was usually the official interpreter despite some of the technical people being quite fluent in English. When the groups were larger, we would often have an additional interpreter from the Canadian government.

And these visits produced millions of dollars in sales—mainly in support of seismic analysis for China’s oil industry. And there was never any direct selling involved. We treated these visits as information exchanges and no sales pressure was used.

As the sales indicated, the technique worked well with the Chinese. I also found that it led to invitations to functions at the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa and when there was an important delegation coming to Toronto.

I remember one time I was at a function in the Royal Bank board room high up in that gold-colored building in downtown Toronto. I was standing looking out a window during a washroom break and the head of the Chinese delegation came over and joined me. He was just as bored with the proceedings as was I. He was quite intrigued as I pointed out the different parts of Toronto around the Hearn Generating Station—with its towering smokestack. He asked about the fact it was not emitting smoke and I explained that it had recently been decommissioned to improve the air quality in the city. He thought that would be a good idea for Beijing. I only mention this because he looked very much like a younger version of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

Does Singh know why O’Toole’s nice to him?

by Peter Lowry

It might have been the annual event celebrating Saint Valentine, but Jagmeet Singh of the new democrats should be suspicious of all the cards he received from conservative MPs. The rationale for all this lovey-dovey, kuchi-koo business from the conservatives could only be that they need Jagmeet and his NDP caucus to support them if they call for an election in the spring.

The Bloc Québécois have already blown them off. The Bloc are hardly likely to encourage an election when Trudeau and his liberals are riding high. And that would probably include the greens and independent MPs.

The election, that could happen in June, could be a desperate attempt by conservative leader Erin O’Toole to save his neck and that of his party before the liberals get too high in the polls.

It could happen. Was it not Trudeau who did the end-run and ask his friend Narendra Modi, prime minister of India, to facilitate getting some life-saving vaccines from India? After all, when India needs to vaccinate 1.3 billion people, you can always slip 20 million or so doses to your buddy in Canada.

The Serum Institute in India is already licensed to produce a billion doses of the U.K.’s AstraZeneca vaccine, developed in cooperation with Oxford University. They are committed to use half of those billion doses in India and the other half to be supplied to low-income countries without the funds to acquire vaccines. There are two other vaccine producing operations in India, so, technically, the doses sent to Canada could come from these producers.

The only problem is that the AstraZeneca vaccine has yet to be approved in Canada. What counts most though is the needles in arms in time for an election and the end of these lock-downs.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

We are coming back.

by Peter Lowry

Yes, we are starting to get the urge to write. It has been a longer hiatus than intended. Today we are just doing a test with one of our favourite commentaries from 2016. I expect the discouragement in writing political commentaries is the short life of many of the comments. Occasionally one has a long life—an excellent example is the following which was written in response to one of our less complimentary comments about the U.K.

 

While Babel-on-the-Bay was urged to produce a morning line on the Brexit vote, the decision was made that it was far too close to forecast. And it was. Along with the disappointment of the morning after, the in-box contained a 1900-word diatribe on our ‘pompous’ Brexit commentary. Never has 400 or so words of comment produced so much vitriol.

It is freely admitted that the Brexit commentary was far too casually handled and poorly edited. We all need a good editor. And it is also admitted that this ignorant colonial can never get the names of Great Britain, the United Kingdom and its various subjects and components right but who cares that much? Canadians learn all that stuff in grade school and quickly forget about it. You have to also swear allegiance to the Queen when you join the Canadian military but you forget about it after you leave.

We were also accused of taking liberties in using the royal ‘we.’ In years of teaching writing to business people, the point was always made that only a child writing to Mommy from camp starts sentences with ‘I.’ The point is that Mommy cares about you; people receiving a business letter from you do not. If you write about what others care about, you will get their attention.

Obviously, we did that with this gentleman. He told us he was annoyed as hell. He disagreed with our opinion. Oddly enough, that is also our objective. While reasonably confident in our opinion, we do like to receive comment from readers to keep us on our toes. This gentleman showed us how angry older men can get. He wanted to put a trapdoor under our toes and a noose around our neck.

He sees corporatism as the problem and the neoliberalism of the politicians as the support structure that maintains the corporatism. A former Brit, he sees his adopted country of Canada as being ruled by foreign corporations and decries our politicians’ desire for mounting numbers of free trade pacts. He just does not recognize that the problem is more about political laziness and carelessness than plotting.

The writer sees Babel-on-the-Bay’s ‘lordly’ take on Brexit and the Brits as an example of our failure to understand that everything was going down the drain for the average person in the UK. Frankly we also read a lot of bigotry and ignorance in the scenario. The entire fiasco could not have been better directed by England’s famed Boulting Brothers.

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Copyright 2016 and 2021 © Peter Lowry

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