November 2017 – Page 3 – Babel-on-the-Bay

A travesty of travellers.

November 10, 2017 by Peter Lowry

The dynamic duo of Trump and Trudeau are meeting in south-east Asia this weekend. Neither has the other on their agenda. And neither has a similar agenda. They have different needs and different objectives.

U.S. President Donald Trump has the shortest list to match his short memory. His top-of-mind concern is North Korea. He is looking for answers and he is seeking support. He has already pressed the critical players such as the Chinese, Japanese and South Koreans. At the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit in Da Nang, he will have all the side players including Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Trump will use his heavy-handed approach to try to get the lesser players in the Asia-Pacific area to strengthen their resolve to sanction North Korea. We will hope he gets more co-operation there than he seems to have gotten from China’s Xi Jinping. If we got one impression from the footage sent back from the meetings between the two leaders in China, we would say that Mr. Xi’s expression was not inscrutable: it bordered on boredom. If we have noted one thing about the Chinese leader over the years, it is that he does not suffer fools. Putting up with Trump is a lot to ask of a guy.

And since President Trump has already given APEC the finger in rejecting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), it is not on his agenda. That is despite the TPP having the possible geopolitical effect of drawing the signatories away from China’s influence and into the American sphere,

Nor is TPP seemingly on Prime Minister Trudeau’s agenda. He is stalling. Trudeau is trying to influence a more environmentally friendly and human rights based agreement. He will sign fast enough if and when Trump dumps the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) but until then Trudeau can play to the bleachers.

Just where the East Asia Summit in the Philippines fits into everyone’s agenda is not clear. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will have a special request for President Trump to return of the Balangiga Bells to the Catholic church in the Philippines. And if you want to know what the heck that is about, you can look it up on the Internet. (And if you believe what you read, remember that history is written by the victors.)

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The ‘Who’ of colonization?

November 9, 2017 by Peter Lowry

When struggling through the Interim Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, it became confusing as to who was supposedly doing the colonizing? The confusion was taken even further after watching Chief Commissioner Marion Buller on Vassy Kapelos’ West Block program on Global Television last week.

Leaving aside Commissioner Buller’s re-assuring words, I was surprised at her insensitivity to the origin, purpose and placement of the November 11 poppy. She was wearing what looked like a ceramic poppy on her left shoulder. Without explanation, it appeared to be a piece of costume jewelry. It was, we found, to be a hand-made poppy made to recognize Canada’s indigenous peoples who also served and died for this country.

And that might be emblematic of what is wrong with this inquiry.

What these commissioners and the politicians who appointed them do not seem to understand is that the commission is headed in a direction that will solve nothing. It needs to be an opportunity for healing between our disparate societies. It is understanding and empathy that breed respect, not separation.

The basic problem with this inquiry today is that our indigenous people want to rely on an oral history that honours and recognizes the missing and murdered persons.

But for them to share this understanding with the rest of Canada, they have to recognize the communication needs of the non-indigenous. They have to allow cameras to record their oral presentations. It goes against all they believe but it is the reality. Truth will be known and real reconciliation will be possible as we all come together in understanding. And if that is not the purpose of this inquiry, tell us now and stop wasting our money.

In the interim report, I kept stumbling over the concept that the non-indigenous were in some manner trying to colonize these people who came so much earlier to this continent. We share this beautiful and bounteous land and we bring in more people every day to share with us. Nobody wants to deny the indigenous their lifestyles, their choices. Nor should we fail to offer them the opportunity of today’s technology or education or medicine or better living conditions.

Canada is a country enriched by the knowledge, the customs, the lore that people have brought here from many lands. We are richer for it. It is important that we all can share in it.

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The President who would be King.

November 8, 2017 by Peter Lowry

If U. S. President Donald Trump could just live up to his tweets, he would be more interesting—and maybe deadly. Since winning the American presidency, he has been creating a cottage industry among writers trying to understand him. He makes the understanding more difficult, because he himself has no idea how to handle his job.

The truth seems to be that Trump would rather be king.

His spare time role as an insomniac allows him to use his thumbs to type his royal proclamations. He twits about what he would like to do. When he can type “off with their head” he is happiest. His staff ignore him. When he tells us that he is going to war, the generals have a chuckle.

The twits Trump tweets are more for his followers than the nation. They please the uncouth and uninformed and stun the news media. And nobody seems to take them seriously.

Not that he has not noticed. He has been complaining lately about being ignored. He does not like it. He wants the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party and not waste its time on Russia and the help that country might have given his campaign. He seems to have a disconnect in his mind that his loyal friend Jeff Sessions is Attorney General and the FBI reports to him. We will probably see the “Off with his head” twit first because Trump does have the power to fire Sessions.

The Trump Presidency will be an unusual bump in the history of the United States of America. He moves his royal entourage from castle to castle up and down the U.S. East Coast at whim. He needs a bigger plane for his foreign forays. He wants to take his armies with him. Those foreigners would have to listen to him then.

It is getting a bit dicey for Trump when he interferes in the American judicial system. It is probably alright in the case of the sick man who ran people down in New York as he is unlikely to ever be released from whatever type of institution in which he needs to be incarcerated. It was the judge in an army deserter’s case who cited Trump’s interference for suggesting the soldier be shot. The judge let the guy off with a discharge from the army.

Maybe he might be less bellicose if everyone shouted, “Hail Donald!”?

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The withering world of Premier Wynne.

November 7, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Most successful politicians feed on their egos. It is what carries them through the tough times, the questionable times and eases their doubts and concerns. It also blinds then to the disasters of their own creation. For Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, it is her ego that prevents her from realizing that she is head of a less and less viable political party. Little is left of the Provincial Liberal Party structure she took over from former premier Dalton McGuinty.

And the dry rot of the Ontario party that is so evidenced in constituencies across the province has finally been discovered in the heart of Toronto. It took a wake-up and a shake of his head for former deputy premier in the McGuinty government, George Smitherman, to find that his once vibrant party organization in Toronto Centre is now moribund.

Not that it matters for George! When some of his supporters suggested him as a provincial candidate again in his Toronto-Centre constituency, they were told that he is unacceptable as a candidate. It seems no has-beens need apply.

The reason, we hear, is that the riding, which is centred in Toronto’s gay community, is being offered by the premier to Toronto councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam. A publicly declared lesbian, Wong-Tam is better known as a New Democratic Party supporter and she most often votes with the downtown NDP councillors. It is hard to imagine Wong-Tam running for the same political party as the right-wing Liberal councillor Shelley Carroll. Carroll has been appointed as Liberal candidate for Don Valley North in North York.

You will note that the Liberals seem to appoint their candidates in most ridings today as the Liberal party continues to deteriorate under Wynne’s leadership. In Barrie, we have the embarrassment of the provincial party not even seeming to have a constituency association to support a candidate in the Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte electoral district. Maybe some sacrificial lamb will be chosen closer to the election to put up a few signs and serve as the Liberal candidate.

The fact that it is the electoral district chosen by Conservative leader Patrick Brown makes it seem doubly foolish. Many Barrie residents are in a mood with Brown to reject him as a candidate and the Liberal Party, if it were run properly, would accept the challenge of encouraging the best possible candidates to contest an open nomination. Patrick Brown can be beaten.

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The Hair harasses NAFTA hopefuls.

November 6, 2017 by Peter Lowry

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is still on life support. The end of his first year in office and President Donald Trump has not yet ended the more than US$ one trillion in trade between the three countries. Maybe he was waiting for some help from critics of the Canadian Prime Minister to help him make his case for canceling.

The ally, he must have been waiting for was The Hair: Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Not that we would recommend the Hair for successful trade negotiations. His help in these circumstances is to pour oil on an already tense situation. The Americans are making outrageous demands on our negotiators and Harper tells clients of his consulting firm that the Trudeau Liberals are too quick to reject some of the demands. It should be noted that Harper never completed a successful free trade agreement—he kept claiming the European Community Agreement was completed but it was only finalized after the Liberals took over in Ottawa.

The Hair actually complains that Canada is aligning itself too closely to Mexico to the consternation of the Americans. (Maybe he has never heard the old adage about divide and conquer.)

And true to his extremist right-wing principles, Harper claims that Canada is wrong to put labour rights on the table along with such subjects as gender equality and Indigenous rights and concerns for environmental protection. Obviously, he seems to consider these unimportant matters.

A commentator such as myself is expected to take pot shots at those negotiating NAFTA for us but it is considered very bad manners for a previous Prime Minister. And when you consider that Trudeau even hired former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to help out with the negotiations, it gives you an idea of the seriousness with which the situation is being handled.

Mind you, it is obvious that nobody thought of calling on Harper to help with the current negotiations. This is the guy who bickered with President Obama over the Keystone XL pipeline through the United States. As soon as Trump was in office, he put out an executive order telling TransCanada to build its Keystone pipeline. Mind you, it is likely that it will never be completed under today’s oil economics.

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‘Chuckles’ chooses chaos.

November 5, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Have you ever wondered at how Members of Parliament can keep on speaking while being constantly heckled? It seems it is all part of the theatre that parliament provides and is a big part of the daily question period. There will always be exceptions but the chaos heckling creates can be easily quieted if just three of the players in the House said “Enough is enough.”

The guy with the most power to quiet things does not have the largest problem. Prime Minister Trudeau, through his Liberal House Leader, MP Bardish Chagger, can easily insist on bringing the Liberal side of the House’s noise levels down to reasonable. The question is whether they would want to—given the heavy heckling to which they are under every day?

Smaller parties such as the New Democrats have to really speak up if they want their heckling to be heard. These MPs tend to be the most vocal when they feel they are being mislead or not being given an answer they consider truthful. During the recent leadership race, there was little attention paid to the NDP’s performance in the House and it will take MP Guy Caron, new party leader Jagmeet Singh’s choice as house leader, time to assert some authority.

The largest problem in the heckling chorus are the 96 Conservatives who are the official opposition in the House of Commons. With their new leader this year, Andrew ‘Chuckles’ Scheer MP and his shrill house leader, MP Candice Bergen from Manitoba, we are certainly hearing from the pack.

And when you consider that “Chuckles’ has served as Speaker of the House, he knows very well the chaos that heckling creates for the House and the spectators. He also knows how the television cameras are directed to focus only on the speaker and people watching on the parliamentary channel across Canada have no idea which party is creating the noise behind the camera.

While the majority of parliamentarians feel that the heckling in the House is out of control, it is these opposition members who keep the practice alive.

Part of the shame is that even female members of Scheer’s party have complained about the sexist and inappropriate heckling. The truth is that this party has no intention of giving up on heckling. They seem to believe that: when in doubt, you should shout.

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Fleeing to Florida.

November 4, 2017 by Peter Lowry

We are in November and many Canadians are contemplating their trip to Florida for the winter. Why, we do not know. Are you not aware that Floridians hate Canadians? They voted for Trump you know. And why Canadians think they have some God-given right to go waste our Canadian loonies on the soft life at the buffet tables of that state is beyond reason.

And who wants to play golf in a muggy climate on alligator and snake infested fairways? There is damn little else to do in that state. It is hardly a haven of intellectualism.

All you so-called snow bunnies or snow birds need to suck it up and keep those loonies in Canada. Learn to enjoy our winters. Stay and contribute to the collective warmth. You must be aware that the only reason we do not all freeze to death in our hockey arenas is all the shouting and screaming and jumping up and down. And why would you give up all that fun for vegging out in Florida? And, if you did mention your trip when you get home, one of your neighbours might punch you in the mouth.

Besides, what these turncoats do not realize is that every penny spent on cheap Mexican-made clothes in Florida is credited to the U.S. trade account, not ours. The loonies you are leaving in Florida are the reason the loonie is only worth 80 cents on the American dollar.

And how are you supposed to get to this purported land of milk and honey and sunshine? If you go by plane, you are putting yourself in a long aluminum tube with thin, less oxygenated air so your heart can do extra duty all the way there and all the way back. And in that uncomfortable aluminum tube, for hours, you can exchange your germs and microbes with all those other snow birds.

You can always drive of course but then you get to help pay for the questionable law enforcement in all those quaint byways and towns between your home and Florida. And if you think this is just southern hospitality, you should never be caught short around Carrolton, New York. This town near Buffalo has been clipping Canadians for $200 and $300 tolls per trip for years and the state legal community thinks it is amusing.

The closest I ever want to get to Florida for the rest of my life is to drink some orange juice.

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The anti-women legacy of Patrick Brown.

November 3, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Patrick Brown was first elected to the ultra-Conservative Barrie, Ontario city council at age 22. As a Barrie councillor, he fit right in. It took him another four years to win election in the local federal electoral district and be part of the back-bench yes-men for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It was in Ottawa, that he showed his true social conservative colors and voted against women’s rights and same sex marriage. His legacy in Barrie is that of a repressive environment that makes Barrie one of the worst cities in Canada for women.

A recent assessment by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives places Barrie as number 23 of a list of 25 Canadian cities in their addressing women’s needs. The study measures local concerns such as economic security, health care, community leadership, educational opportunities and security within the community. Barrie is a sorry case.

While you can hardly blame it all on Patrick Brown, his lack of interest in women’s issues, his social conservative upbringing and the apparent dislike of him on the part of single women tend to mark him as part of the problem, instead of a solution.

The basic conservatism of city council does not help either. It hardly matters if the mayor wants to show leadership or not. The mayor alone cannot fight recalcitrant attitudes among city staff nor continually pit his or her one vote against the rest of council. Leadership takes a lot more political smarts than we have seen in the last three mayors of this poor benighted town.

One of the efforts in which Patrick Brown thinks he can claim Brownie points is the serious problems the city has had in providing doctors for a rapidly growing population. His solution was to allow doctors to cherry pick their ideal patient list and if those selections did not include the aged or chronically ill, that was tough on those people—the last ones who should be left to walk-in clinics.

Where Barrie has suffered the most is that nobody is taking a serious look at the type of businesses the city is attracting. Call centres and retail work do not contribute many high paying jobs. The council think that financial companies’ computerized back rooms are a big deal but they contribute only about one well-paying job per 100 square metres of space for the computers. Well-paying jobs for women take considerations such as day-care opportunities and after-school activities. These are not concerns, politicians such as Patrick Brown worries over.

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Does Donald Trump even like America?

November 2, 2017 by Peter Lowry

If President Donald Trump takes any pride in the United States of America, he has a funny way of showing it. Did he run for the presidency as a joke or to get even? Maybe he was tired of being considered a joke? In his ignorance, Trump is giving the bird (as only a New Yorker can) to America’s two best customers and friends. You might think that is stupid. I might think it is stupid. What it can be is also a long-delayed reality for America’s friends.

Trump is trying to bully America’s two best customers over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The two countries combine to buy more than a third of America’s exports. If Trump thinks this is a bad deal, nobody has explained to him what it means in terms of the balance of payments. He is setting a phenomenal record as the first person in the world to gamble US$500 billion. And that is just the goods sold each year.

He insults the intelligence of Canadians. To Mexicans, he adds racial slurs. It will take a long time for Americans to repair the harm Trump is doing in race relations with many peoples.

Trump seems to be oblivious to the trade deal Canada has already arranged with the European Union, the ongoing relationship with the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth and the ease with which Canada can make deals in Asia.

And if Trump starts to play fast and loose with the automotive sector, he will find himself in more trouble with the automobile companies and their unions than he has ever expected. It would be very interesting to know what those companies intend to do if they are faced with drawing back all manufacturing to the U.S. Would Americans stand back and be quiet as Trump bankrupts General Motors?

But for Canadians, this is not only a wake-up call but a new-found freedom. Up-front, Canada can save a billion dollars in not twinning that bridge at Detroit. Niagara Falls, Ontario can have its own outlet malls for price cutting on European and Canadian goods that Americans cannot resist. The best price winter holidays for Canadians will be in the south of France and Spain and for a little more, there are the Greek Islands.

While Canada could take a hit as hard as 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product in the first year without NAFTA, there would be a long line of American manufacturers wanting to bring some of their manufacturing plants back to Canada to take advantage of relations with markets in Asia and Europe. Trump can have his introverted Buy America, Canadians can sell to the world.

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

Ten reasons for first-past-the-post voting.

November 1, 2017 by Peter Lowry

The following has been retrieved from the archives of Babel-on-the-Bay. It is part of the Democracy Papers and has been the most read item in our web site. Thousands of readers have searched for and presumably read the content. It was originally written for the Ontario referendum on mixed-member proportional voting in 2007. Co-ordinating the ‘No’ side in Central Ontario was one of the easiest tasks I have ever had in politics. Ontario voters voted ‘No’ by about two to one. The article has been edited for length.

First-past-the-post (FPTP) voting is an awkward name for simple, single-member constituency plurality voting. It is almost too simple: you just go to the polls, vote for one person, the votes are counted and the person with the most votes wins.

And that gives you reason number one in favour of FPTP: There is no confusion. What you vote for is what you get–if enough of your neighbours agree. If your candidate loses, you tried and you have nothing of which to be ashamed. Your vote was counted and you made a contribution to democracy.

It is the matter of democracy that gives us reason number two for FPTP: it is the most democratic method of electing members to government. Whether there are two candidates on the ballot or 20, FPTP means that in your constituency you elect the person preferred by the most voters. If it is fair when there are two candidates, why would it not be fair with 20? If you would prefer that the person be the choice of more than 50 per cent of the voters, it is a simple matter today to have a run-off election.

But ideally, we want to keep the voting simple, which is reason number three for FPTP: it is very easy to keep honest. There are no complicated formulas, no mathematical manipulations, just a simple, easy to understand, count of ballots for candidate ‘A,’ candidate ‘B’ and so forth. The one with the most votes wins. No questions. An occasional recount is needed when the vote is close but that can be fun to watch.

We cannot compare our politicians to horses but if we learn one thing at the racetrack, it is that training and past performance are critical factors to consider before we place a bet. And people need to find out something about the people on the ballot before placing their trust in them as politicians. There is far more than money at stake.

That is reason number four to support FPTP: You are putting your trust in people. You do not have to vote for a party. You can vote for a person, a person you trust, one who works on behalf of the people in your constituency. Parties do not have to keep their word. It is difficult to hold a party accountable. A person comes back for re-election and is accountable.

When you think about it, politics is about people. That is reason number five to support FPTP: It serves people. Elections are not about political parties, or party platforms or any of the parties’ broken promises. To put parties ahead of the people we choose in our constituencies is to give political parties control of our lives. Political parties deal with ideology, broad solutions and holding power. It is people who can deal with our concerns as individuals.

In that vein, you have reason number six to support FPTP: It gets things done. An election is a call to action. It is when we sum the activities on our behalf of the previous government and our member and consider our collective needs for the coming term. It is a time for change or a time to consolidate and it is the voters’ decision to make.

That leads us to reason number seven to support FPTP: It gives the voters control. It means, voters can quickly remove a government that becomes so convinced its ideology is right that it ignores the needs of voters. The ability to change governments is one of the most important capabilities of FPTP.

When our votes are counted, we have reason number eight to support FPTP: We know who to call. Your politicians are there to represent all the voters in their riding. They can ignore you, if they dare. They can even disagree with your ideas. They might tell you why they cannot support your ideas, but, if they are good at their job, they might have an explanation that satisfies you.

That is reason number nine for FPTP: Our politicians are accountable. They cannot get away with an answer such as ‘my party leader said I had to vote for it, so I did.’ There are no excuses. The record of our politicians is there for us. They have to meet our expectations.

And, finally, reason number ten for FPTP: It is hard to get elected and hard to stay elected. To be the first past the post in an election is no easy task. The voters are demanding and ruthless with those who think there are shortcuts to earning our trust. Should we ever ask for less?

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