Babel-on-the-Bay
Babel-on-the-Bay is the personal website of Peter Lowry. It is a vehicle for political commentaries.
Babel-on-the-Bay

The Ignorance of Mr. Poilievre.

by Peter Lowry

Is it better to malign others than to stand on how we might do things? Is it better to use silly slogans of derision than to delve into the mysteries of leadership? Is it better to see the mote in another’s eye? Canadians have a problem with conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. It is not just that he is so phony. It is just what would we ever do with a prime minister that only saw the problems of others?

Pierre Poilievre is an ignorant, small-minded person. What point does he make by insulting a man such as former governor general, David Johnston? Johnston hardly chatted with his ‘neighbour’ Justin Trudeau over the back fence when he lived in Rideau Hall as governor general and Justin Trudeau’s family where later installed at Rideau Cottage on the Rideau Hall grounds. Johnston was appointed on the recommendation of Poilievre’s friend Stephen Harper, when Harper and Poilievre sat in the same federal cabinet.

Thankfully, not all Canadians are as ignorant as Pierre Poilievre. Mr. Johnston is a noted Canadian. We also know that Justin Trudeau is an elitist. It was logical that Mr. Trudeau would choose an elite such as David Johnston as rapporteur on this question of Chinese interference in Canadian elections.

I, for one, think Mr. Johnston did the best job possible, under the circumstances. It would hardly benefit Canada if he had torn a strip off the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and exposed it as a bunch of useless paper pushers. Nor are the foolish shenanigans of the past-the-due-date mounted police force appropriate in a modern Canada.

I am not sure what Johnston hopes to achieve with his proposed hearings. It is obvious that there is a breakdown of communications between the political arm of the government and the civil service. And Mr. Justice Paul Rouleau in his Freedom Convoy hearings has already showed us the shallowness of CSIS and the highly politicized nature of the RCMP and Ontario provincial police.

There will always be some outside interference in Canada’s electoral process. It would be a shame though to have someone as ignorant as Pierre Poilievre dealing with it.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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A Progressive Mayor for Toronto.

by Peter Lowry

There is only one real progressive in the top ten candidates for mayor of Toronto on June 26. I base this on looking at the candidates who have shown themselves to be progressive in their thinking and their actions while working in the interests of people and while in politics. Maybe I am too rigid in my assessment of others but they are the same standards that I expect of myself.

Some people tend to identify with progressives when it is convenient. And in the same way, I do not assume that membership in the new democratic party entitles one to angel wings. I have now spent more than 60 years in the liberal party and must admit there are damn few of us who have earned the right to call ourselves progressive. Politicians such as Lloyd Axworthy in Winnipeg or the late Herb Grey from Windsor are few and far between. It was not that I did not respect some of the less progressive. There are those who will listen. There are those who appreciate a better way. And there are those who seek the easiest way.

Take Josh Matlow for example. He seems to go with the flow. He can call himself progressive but we have seen no actions to prove it. He was part of the team with John Tory which means he was less progressive. I also like John Tory. He not only listens but puts himself out for people. It does not make him progressive. Tory used those super powers offered by the premier only once. It was like a teenager trying out his dad’s car for the first time. Super powers are not so super if you need the permission of a parent to use them.

I have followed the career of Olivia Chow for many years as she made her way up the broken ladder of the new democrats. I particularly disliked her representation of the Toronto Islands when that part of the city was in her downtown ward. The islands belong to all Torontonians. They are part of our heritage. Her attitude was hardly progressive.

I also think she leans too heavily on the mystique of Jack Layton. It was a lovely funeral but politically motivated. Stephen Harper got more out of that state funeral than the NDPers recognized. Even for the dead, Harper showed his dislike of people.

And, oh yes, if you really want a progressive mayor in Toronto, the only possible winner for you is Mitzie Hunter. She is the progressive candidate. She knows housing, she knows where the cash controls are in Queen’s Park and Ottawa.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

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The Midwifery of Premier Ford.

by Peter Lowry

It sometimes appears that Ontario premier Ford has a long-held hate for Ontario cities. It reflects on his experiences as a councillor in Toronto during the final days of brother Rob Ford’s life and mayoralty. The crack-cocaine smoking younger brother taught brother Doug about municipal politics and turned him loose before all the lessons were learned and tested. And the oddities of fate could never again repeat the steps that took the older brother into the premier’s office at Queen’s Park.

But in that position of power, Doug Ford continues to baffle us all with his un-studied, erratic manipulations of the municipal scene in Ontario. His latest has given Peel Region of Ontario less than two years to disassemble the solutions of the last 50 years in the fastest growing region of Ontario. One commentator on provincial politics in the Toronto Star questioned recently whether Ford was acting as a divorce broker or a municipal midwife?

Peel Region has had a confused gestation and Doug Ford has more than confused its future. It is though he was the midwife who dropped the child on its head before swaddling it and dumping the problems on the three new municipalities.

Bear in mind that Peel Region is the old County of Toronto with its many sleepy small towns west of the city of Toronto. When those small towns woke to their rapid growth as parts of Peel Region, they fought back. Those were well-established and affluent towns down by the lake that were the new base of the City of Mississauga. They picked a winner when they got behind Streetsville’s Hazel McCallion. She built a unique and quickly identified downtown Mississauga as an aggressive and street-smart mayor.

Brampton was the other city of the region and it originally lived off provincial benevolence such as the Ontario Provincial Police regional facilities. The years of Brampton’s Bill Davis as premier of Ontario hardly held Brampton’s growth back. Brampton soon won the accolades as the fastest growing municipality in the fastest growing region.

While I still tend to question Doug ford’s motivation in his changing Peel Region, it is more obvious that Brampton and Mississauga combined would make a major contribution to Ontario and Canada. A Mississauga of more that 1.4 million people has more leverage and is more practical than two cities of about 700,000 each.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

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No Debutantes’ Ball in Alberta.

by Peter Lowry

They both showed that they had been to that rodeo before. Both challenger Rachel Notley of the new democrats (NDP) and incumbent premier (briefly) Danielle Smith of the united conservatives (UCP) looked softer and younger than their years. They were painfully polite and nobody had a scratch to show from the performance. It was a disappointment. It was no love-in but both walked away unbowed and unbruised.

What surprised this easterner was that the Alberta ethics commissioner had all but crucified Smith earlier in the day. Danielle Smith had a walk-around story ready for her political opponent and the journalists. Just where those horseshoes came from nobody seemed to know.

No matter where that debate was intended to lead its viewers, Danielle Smith was just as much a screwball at the end as she was at the beginning. Nobody can be that loyal to a Donald Trump or to a Danielle Smith so they can ignore the fact that they have absolutely no use for the truth.

I, for one, do not believe that all Albertans need a mental health check but if Notley and her NDP are not returned to power at the end of the month, I would be inclined to wonder. We knew when Jason Kenney threw his saddle and white hat into his pickup and headed west from Ottawa to unite the right in Alberta, that interesting times where coming.

It was hardly a surprise that by dint of subterfuge and chicanery that Kenney got as far as he did. I hardly think he considered what a world-wide pandemic would do to all his plans. He’s toast.

But then we got Danielle Smith back. This woman is no conservative. She barely makes it to the far right of the right. She is a libertarian with a dose of megalomania in the mix. It was not so far back that we can forget how close she came to taking what was left of the Wildrose into the wilderness to drink Kool-Aid together.

But I sure hope there is another debate before election day. And please, don’t be nice!

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

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P. Poilievre is No Lawyer.

by Peter Lowry

We should not be overly impressed with federal conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s ability to come up with poisonous slurs against political opponents. They are coming to the point where he should be challenged for his lack of concern for the truth. The prime minister of Canada can hardly be accused of causing world-wide inflation. It is just political hyperbole to suggest otherwise?

But saying that Justin Trudeau is the architect of some “Catch and Release” scheme for criminals is both stupid and a deliberate lie.

The conservative leader has convinced us that he is no economist when he promotes cryptocurrencies to help Canadians fight inflation. He has been around parliament long enough now to know that the Bank of Canada is independent of parliament. That means it is unlikely that he can simply fire the governor of the bank, even if he could somehow become prime minister. Now he is showing that he is no lawyer with this catch and release nonsense.

The Canadian system of justice is based on the assumption of innocence. In this country, you have to be proved guilty. If he is going to run for election on a guarantee of “jail, not bail,’ he is going to have to eliminate Canadians’ charter of rights and freedoms first. He might have difficulty getting criminal lawyers to vote for him.

A recent bill presented to parliament by the government attempts to tighten some of the rules in regard to granting bail but, of course, this does not meet Mr. Poilievre’s demands. He seems to want to stick with his ignorance.

It is like his claim that the government is killing people by allowing provinces to arrange for safe consumption sites. You have to wonder sometimes that maybe not all of his staff people are as ignorant. Are they afraid to correct him or do they just share his position like dumb followers.

What worries us though is that there are young people across the country who might welcome some of these cliches as simplistic ways to deal with issues.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

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‘What Fools These Mortals Be.’

by Peter Lowry

It hardly needs William Shakespeare to know how foolish we can be. All you have to do is follow the bouncing ball from Queen’s Park in Toronto. If you ever believe you can trust anything you hear from Ontario premier Doug Ford, you are just another damn fool. I still cannot understand why anyone would believe anything that would come out of his mouth.

And to add insult, he has used the name of the late mayor of Mississauga, Hazel McCallion, on the provincial bill that will separate Brampton and Caledon from the City of Mississauga. Sure, Hazel was always eager to see Mississauga out of the trap of supporting Brampton and Caledon but who are these conservatives on the ‘transition board’ the premier is going to appoint to do the separation surgery? They have less than two years to get the job done.

The only possible way to save a nickel on this Peel-less arrangement is to merge Brampton into Mississauga. That would leave Caledon out in the cold but it would be the least serious financial problem for the province. With luck and good management at the helm in the new enlarged City of Mississauga, there would be some major cost savings. And this would be substantially more than the Brampton Mayor’s salary.

Mississauga would not have to recompense Brampton for water services. The Peel regional police headquarters is already in Mississauga and it can probably serve the enlarged city quite satisfactorily. The loudest arguments you would hear would be from old timers in Brampton who will not like the name change. You would have to explain to them patiently that the Mississauga aboriginal tribes predated the Flower City of Brampton by many centuries.

And let’s face it, there is the tradition of merging in the area. While Hazel McCallion fought hard against her Town of Streetsville being merged into Mississauga in 1974, she accepted the situation and ran to represent her town on the new council. She soon proved to both council and the voters in Mississauga that she could run their city.

This might not be the case with Brampton’s mayor Patrick Brown.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

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A Brown Stain in Brampton.

by Peter Lowry

Did we hear rumblings from Hazel’s grave the other day?  I am sure we can have every confidence in current Mississauga mayor, Bonnie Crombie that everything will work out all right. What would upset the late Hazel McCallion though is the thought of giving anything to Brampton’s Brown.

It was when Doug Ford first suggested that he had every confidence that an amicable divorce could be conducted in separating Mississauga from Brampton and both municipalities from Peel County that I knew, if Hazel were still alive there would be none of that BS.

The first thing we all need to understand is exactly when Doug Ford kissed and made up with Patrick Brown? The former member of parliament from Barrie was hardly in Doug Ford’s good books back in 2015 when he won the Ontario conservative leadership with all of his signups from the India diaspora (immigrants from India).

How and when the deal was hatched to bring Brown down with allegations about inappropriate behaviour was obviously from within the conservative party in Ontario. Liberals in Barrie had been studying Brown from the time he won the federal election in Barrie in 2006. They decided that Brown had got lucky as a retail politician and could be defeated in a subsequent election.

That did not happen because of another conservative politician named Jason Kenney from Calgary. Kenney (already a cabinet member) took the young MP from Barrie under his wing. He showed him what could be achieved by earning the devotion of blocks of new comers to Canada. Then there was the first of many flights to the Indian sub-continent, at the expense of Canadian taxpayers, which greatly influenced the MP’s importance with the Indian diaspora.

It was the help of the Indian diaspora that enabled Brown to swamp the membership of the progressive conservative party of Ontario and win the leadership of the party.

Not all conservatives in Brown’s Barrie riding considered his tactics fair in winning the leadership. They used some very old and well proven tactics to unseat him—they accused him of improper behaviour with supposedly under-age females. (The subsequent refuting of these allegations did not restore him to the position of party leader.)

Looking for something political to do, Brown found that Doug Ford would not accept him as a provincial candidate for the conservative party. He therefore put his name forward for chair of Peel Region. (The county that includes the cities of Brampton and Mississauga, and the municipality of Caledon.) The conservative leader also blocked that attempt by cancelling the election of a Peel chair.

But Ford found no way to stop Brown for running for mayor in Brampton. In the same way as he had won the conservative party leadership, Brown got together with his organizers in the diaspora and told them to promise the Sikh and Hindi residents of Brampton (of which there are many) and promise them that more of Brampton’s parks would be converted to cricket pitches. He won easily.

If the premier had still wanted to mess with Patrick Brown’s political career, he needed to amalgamate Brampton and Mississauga. It would not only have solved the political problem, cost less for the taxpayers, but there would be a better balance of baseball diamonds and cricket pitches in the new city’s parks.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Sacrificed on the Language Cross.

by Peter Lowry

Don’t you love these hypocrites in Quebec who will sacrifice the future of the province’s youth on the cross of linguistic purity? Take Pierre Karl Péladeau, the denizen of Quebecor and Freedom Mobile whose publications tell Québécois what to think. He connives with premier Legault to insulate the province of Quebec from the siren songs of a world where the lingua franca is English.

Their problems are obvious to all—yet there is little truth told in French. They do not want the immigrants who are eager to leave North Africa and the fighting and trials among the French speakers there. The problem is bigotry. Quebec passes laws telling people how they can dress to serve the public on behalf of the province. It suppresses availability of opportunities to learn English. 

And don’t look to Justin Trudeau for help. He ignores the efforts his father made to spread a bilingual attitude across Canada. And in many ways, Pierre Trudeau was successful. Despite the elites of Quebec ignoring the increased availability of French-language-services across the country, it is a fact that these services are there and are used by an increasingly bi-lingual population in the rest of Canada.

What worries the Quebec elites is that they, as people of power and importance in Quebec, are losing importance in a Canada that continues to grow and thrive with a robust immigrant population learning to blend into an expanded economy.

Most Canadians recognize the importance to Canada of a continued effort to attract skilled and trainable workers to help in the continued growth of our country. To do this, we have to continue to build homes for their families, schools for their children.

And yes, there will be tensions occasionally between those whose taste in clothing are in styles connected to the land of their birth. There needs to be compromise, tolerance, understanding and patience.

It seems to be mostly in Quebec that we are seeing the rising tide of intolerance and unwelcoming attitudes. Quebecois should demand that their politicians give their children the future that they want in a growing Canada.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Who Are Bike Lanes For?

by Peter Lowry

I guess bicycles are not for children any more. When we were children, my younger brother and I explored our city of Toronto from end to end on our bicycles. It was my oldest brother and I who had autos take us off the road. I was hit from behind by a driver blinded by the sun. I landed in a ditch and was bruised but unhurt. My older brother landed face down on asphalt and carried the scars from his glasses for the rest of his life.

But why is city council promoting bike lanes in a city so obviously planned for automobiles? Why would they not relegate bike lanes to parks, ravines and other less traveled routes?

Are bike lanes only for the aggressive bicycle couriers taking shut-ins their dinner?  Is this the price Torontonians have to pay to have cheap delivery. There are many days in the year when snow, sleet, hail and heavy rain challenge the most determined cyclists. Smart cyclists park their bike for the winter and wait for spring.  

How are these bikers paying their share for these generous and protected bike lanes?

Do we have this backwards? Are bike lanes only paid for by the automobile drivers? Are our city taxes to pay for reduced access to the city by auto? Where is it that we collect the tolls for automobiles from elsewhere coming into our city?

Do we want our city to be a welcoming place for people to come to do business? To see a play, a baseball, a hockey or a basketball game? This is a city with wonderous entertainments, magnificent places to shop and the fine hotels and restaurants, for all pocket books.

Toronto is a great city today. It is no longer the slow quiet city of churches that it was in the 1940s and 50s. It is cosmopolitan, it bustles. It waits for no one. We no longer encourage our children to bike outside their known neighbourhood. We warn them off from areas where bicycles are stolen. The rule is, if you leave it, you lose it.

And they might as well learn that the bike lanes in Toronto are not for kids.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

It’s Democracy Stupid.

by Peter Lowry

It is surprising that only 102 people signed on to be mayor of Toronto, in this by-election. There are probably some people in the also-ran category who would make a pretty good mayor. Hey, I would run but I don’t want to waste the $200. I know that elections are fun. Campaigning is second nature with me. It is just that there would be very few people at my age in the race.

But it is not a bloated ballot. There are people who sincerely want to help. They have solutions for our city that should be listened to. My biggest laugh is in imagining marking a ranked ballot with 102 candidates on it. It is mind boggling. It would be mining the middle ground for sure. There were only 30 some candidates in the race when I wrote my morning line. Handicapping the top ten was difficult enough at that time. A ranked ballot with 102 names would be nothing but a name-recognition game.

To try to rank a ballot with that many names on it would be a disaster. It would probably end up electing someone with a name, voters are generally confident they could pronounce.       

I guess I can never argue against ranked ballots enough. If there are only five or six candidates, most ranked ballots are counted once and the winner is declared. The result is the same as first-past-the-post.

It is when you have ten or more people on the ballot that you are in danger of mining down to the least obnoxious candidate that very few people voted for as number one. What you have done through ranking is bring up the candidate who most voters rated as number three or four. It is when those voters realize how few wanted the person in the first go-around, there is dissention in the ranks.

With the conservative party proving my point in two out of three of their last leadership contests, it is hard to believe that the liberals in Ontario chose to use a ranked ballot. That is stupid following the dumb.

But when you charge a $100,000 entrance fee, it is hard to believe that more than a few potential candidates would be interested.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]