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

A Shout-Out for Poilievre.

by Peter Lowry

The former Manning Conference had a special guest this year, former prime minister Stephen Harper. Much of Harper’s effort at the conference was to try to knit together old and new conservative supporters. He even told the audience of conservatives of some of the mistakes that Pierre Poilievre has been making.

He pointed out that the current requirement for the opposition leader is to hold the government to account, not to tell them what he would do as prime minister.  It was also amusing when the former prime minister referred to the NDP as a branch plant of the liberal government.

This was a new Stephen Harper. He set aside his old vendetta with Preston Manning, founder of the Reform Party. The two had argued years ago over the direction of the reform movement. He had also resisted Manning’s control over the back bench but used the same techniques when he was leader of the Conservative Party of Canada which included the former Reform. The two were almost chummy when they did a combined fireside chat shtick at the conference.

The new name of the annual event is the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference. It seems most older conservatives prefer to refer to it by its earlier and simpler name as the Manning Networking Conference.

It seems that Mr. Harper thinks that Pierre Poilievre is scorned in the same way as anti-establishment conservatives such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were scorned in their day. Neither of them had any credentials in economics either.

Mind you, if that is the case, there is no earthly reason for Poilievre to be elected anywhere. Just because he is as confused as those two, is absolutely no reason for him to be elected.

And it should be further noted that Mr. Harper is not as universally loved and respected as he would like to be either.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

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The Confusion of Two Cities.

by Peter Lowry

There was a provincial study ordered by the conservative government when it came into office in 2018 of the organizational needs of Peel Region and other major urban centres. With Peel Region’s unwieldy mix of the City of Mississauga, the City of Brampton and rural Caledon and the services each municipality requires, some serious re-organization is needed. It is regretful that the study came up with nothing as nothing has been heard of the study since.

The awkward problem of concern to Mississauga is that a large part of their municipal taxes is spread across the region by Peel County, paying for some of the needs of Brampton and Caledon.

Mississauga, with a population of almost 800,000, is the third largest city in Ontario. It can no longer be left as a two-tier municipality, with Peel Region providing some of the shared services and also, needlessly, duplicating others. As things stand, Mississauga is making a good case for it to be a stand-alone city.

A good alternative is for Brampton to become part of Mississauga and for the Caledon portion of Peel County to be combined with similar Dufferin County.

This solution solves many of the problems that Brampton mayor Patrick Brown complains about. These two cities having interlocking public transportation services makes a great deal of sense. It improves the economic viability of both with the interchange of skilled help. It also means that Brampton would not have to obtain its own water supply as it already has the service connected through Mississauga.

This absorption of Brampton into Mississauga will add under 700,000 citizens to the city of Mississauga and will give balance to the to the services required throughout the enlarged city. It will also save substantial administrative costs as it will now be operated as a single tier city similar to Toronto.     

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

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A Progressive for Toronto Mayor.

by Peter Lowry

It has been confirmed that MPP Mitzie Hunter is getting ready to officially enter the race for the Toronto mayoralty. In a constantly growing field of candidates, Mitzie is going all in. She will enter the official list late as she has to resign as member of the provincial parliament for Scarborough-Guildwood first.

The good news for Mitzie is that the conservative organizations in Toronto have failed to contain the right wing. They were hoping to be able to focus on one particular candidate on the right. That hope is past, judging by the field of right-wing candidates that have already announced.

There is likely to be over two dozen candidates on the June 26 ballot. It is described by some of the experienced election pundits as a free-for-all. Someone can win with just 25 per cent of the vote. And if less than 50 per cent of Toronto voters go to the polls on June 26, that makes this a crap shoot.

With Mitzie in the race, Queen’s Park’s loss can be Toronto’s gain. She has a BA from the University of Toronto and an MBA from the Rotman School of Management. She has a solid background in Toronto’s needs from serving as head of CIVIC Action and as administrative head of Toronto Community Housing.

There is no doubt that Mitzie can address the current issues facing Toronto and she can make a major impact on Toronto’s future. It is also to Toronto’s advantage to have someone who knows the language and buttons to press at Queen’s Park to correct some of the imbalance in funding for the city. She can also count on a good reception with the current government in Ottawa for some of Toronto’s special needs.

I believe Mitzie has a good grasp of the importance of Toronto to the rest of the province and to Canada. The city has always been absorbing more that its mathematical share of the newcomers to Canada, and it has used their skills and industry well.

Mitzie will be sure to win if progressives from across Toronto get behind her. Don’t wait for her to call you. As soon as her Mitzie Hunter campaign headquarters are announced, call and get out there in your ward to help her.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

A Palace to Profit.

by Peter Lowry

Driving to an appointment with my family doctor the other day, I noticed a new and very fancy building nearing completion down the road from the doctor’s office. The sign was already on the building and it is one of the private clinics that Ontario premier Doug Ford has been promising Ontario. This private clinic is for cataracts and other eye surgery and it has obviously been planned for a while.

Thinking about that clinic near my doctor’s office makes an interesting comparison. Family practices are currently having a hard time meeting their expenses each month and ophthalmologists have been making out like bandits. Obviously, there will be a lot of expensive equipment in that building but that modern equipment enables the doctors to do in minutes what used to be an hour and more of delicate surgery. With assembly-line-like cataract surgery, Ontario’s ophthalmologists are fast-tracked millionaires.

And the problem rests with the government and the Ontario Medical Association (OMA). The stranglehold that the specialists have on the OMA is unfair to the general practitioners. Nobody is saying that specialists do not deserve something extra for the long internships required, but a difference that can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year between the specialist and the general practitioner is not only vulgar but unnecessary.

But it is not just the Medicare payments to these private clinics that are the concern. For too long now, our ophthalmologists have been loading on non-Medicare charges. These specialists have been hawking expensive lens to seniors who can ill afford them and they do little to their benefit. Older people are often of the school that believes in doing what the doctor recommends. And who really wants to say ‘no’ to someone who will be using a laser on their eyes.

It is not so hard to imagine under the Ford government, that we could have private surgeries with an array of extra cost titanium hips and joints for replacement parts on sale. And imagine what you could sell in the way of baby merchandise at a private birthing clinic. Medical doctors can also be entrepreneurial.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Justin’s Downhill Slalom.

by Peter Lowry

It isn’t the ice on the moguls that endanger our prime minister on his downhill run. It is the heat he generates among his detractors.  Even the pollsters are noting that he is having trouble attracting voters among men. In a recent poll quoted by Susan Delacourt in the Toronto Star, we are told he is favoured, as prime minister, by just a third of male voters.

But we have known that he was turning off certain types of men since he told the media in 2015 that he was a feminist. Those of us, who knew what he meant, let it slide, but there are men who did not understand. Those detractors take great delight in calling him ‘Justine.’

The prime minister’s major mistake was to be the most helpful during the worst of the pandemic. He became the face of the pandemic, as an actor on a stage, in front of Rideau Cottage. He ended up with more blame than credit among the anti-vaxxers and small businesses that took the brunt of the closures and lost income and bankruptcies.

The rejection of Trudeau’s help after the crisis, is similar to the rejection of Winston Churchill by the Brits after the Second World War. Change is too often a part of putting those bad times behind us. (In a similar way, it will be interesting to see how the Ukrainians treat their hero Volodymyr Zelenskyy, when peace can be achieved with Russia.)

What might save Justin Trudeau is the appalling vision of Pierre Poilievre possibly replacing him. For the conservative leader is disliked by women. He is a nonentity in Quebec. He promises little and would deliver less. He rejects the facts of global warming. He feeds on anger and envy.  

Setting aside the opinions of our Delphic pollsters, it is highly unlikely that an election right now would resolve anything. We could end up with the same split as we have now, with new democrats and Bloc Québécois holding the balance of power.

It would be far better for Mr. Trudeau to hand in his resignation as leader of the liberal party. The country needs positive change and a new opportunity to build past the pandemic, the world-wide recession and the political bitterness that infects us all. Justin Trudeau has reached the bottom of the hill. His ‘sunny days’ are done.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Poilievre’s Patience Pales.

by Peter Lowry

It looks like the leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition in parliament has lost it. His frustration is obvious. If he is ever going to sit in the prime minister’s office, the best chance is if there is an election in the next five months. In politics, we say he has peaked. All his ducks are in order. His chance might pass him by.

Canadians are concerned. Poilievre has worked at helping foment those concerns. He has managed to blame Justin Trudeau for just about every one of the world’s problems.  World-wide inflation, must be Justin’s fault. The war in Ukraine, obviously Justin’s fault. The ice caps are melting in the Arctic and the polar bears are dying, yep, that must also be Justin’s fault.  It is so easy to blame Justin Trudeau for things that have gone wrong.

Mind you, the conservative leader does not complain about the price of gasoline. The price of gas is set by the American oil companies and the higher it is the more tar sands bitumen can be sold to the refineries to make synthetic oil. His audience in Alberta and Saskatchewan know that. He has many angry voters in those provinces.

And that is the type of voter, Mr. Poilievre counts on. If you are concerned about inflation, Poilievre will tell you that you can solve your problem just by voting for his conservatives. He is counting on Canadians suffering from FOMO (fear of missing out).

I worry about the disappointment to come for the young voters who think they can vote conservative in order to shake things up. I worry about the truckers who joined the conservative party thinking Mr. Poilievre had the answers. I worry about the farmers who are traditional voters for this party, that cares nothing for them.

In a country so in need of working together, Mr. Poilievre wants to divide us. Blaming others is not presenting solutions. Only a fool would want to put crypto currency on the Internet ahead of the controlled currency of a stabilizing central bank. When the strife in Ukraine can be ended, when the world-wide supply chain gets smoothed out, and when inflation eases, we can then look ahead instead of back. Let’s just give it a year and then we can see what an honest and truthful election produces in a country with the potential of Canada.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Conservative Blame Game.

by Peter Lowry

It is difficult these days to have friends or relations who like voting conservative. When I was younger there was a different type of conservative. Some were actually commendable. For example, I liked former prime minister John Diefenbaker. I don’t think I ever said a nasty word about him, until he cancelled the AVRO Arrow. I never voted for his party but I always enjoyed a friendly word with Ontario’s conservative premier Bill Davis when I saw him at Queen’s Park or at functions.

But all that is changing. The current leader of the federal conservatives is changing Canadian politics into a blame-game. He is a mean little man and he has little use for the truth. He would never waste a good lie, if it was against the prime minister. He is vindictive. He carelessly accuses. He delights the separatist leader of the Bloc Québécois, with his spurious attacks on any and all actions by the prime minister. Poilievre cares little that he is damaging our democracy with his vicious untruths.

It is like that stuffed shirt premier Ontario has at Queen’s Park. Like Poilievre, he puts the conservative objectives ahead of the needs of the citizens. They want a government for and by conservatives. One of Ford’s first actions when he came into office was to cut the dole being paid to people unable to work for a living. He didn’t want to waste money on them! Ford knows who his friends are; they are the developers and their lawyers whom he met at Toronto City Hall with his crack-cocaine smoking brother Rob.

But the difference between the federal leader and the Ontario premier is that at least Ford had the experience of working for his father’s company. While he might not have been very successful at that, he at least tried. Mr. Poilievre has dedicated his life to politics and has no experience in the working world.

Watching this Calgary native representing an Ottawa electoral district was an interesting bit of research into Canadian politics. I’ll bet you thought that his welcoming the ‘Freedom Convoy’ to Ottawa was his biggest mistake.

But no. He listened to the anger and ignorance from that mob and he just added to his own arsenal. He welcomed them as newfound friends and newfound conservatives. It was their help that made him leader of the conservative party. They are certainly a new version of Sir. John A. Macdonald’s old party.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

What Leadership?

by Peter Lowry

The one thing for sure in Canada these days that we do not waste time recognizing leadership. Leadership is a political ghost. It is something that politicians talk about but we never see it. It leaves us craving answers, direction, solutions and leaving us with the fear of missing out. It is so prevalent that it is simply called FOMO.

And it seems all our politicians are finding their own solutions. The major example of this is the recent report of Justice Rouleau on the government’s use of the Emergencies Act. What he could have said in much simpler terms was that because of the lack of leadership, the government had to use the act.

If Justin Trudeau had stuck to his true calling as an actor, we would all be cheering him on in his rendition of Hamlet. He did a wonderful solo act in front of Rideau Cottage during the worst of the pandemic. It helped us get through those times.

But in comparison, conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is a terrible actor with his artificial alarms, confusion and spurious accusations. As a leader, he is, at best, a wannabe. He lacks sincerity, truth, trust and common sense. He is a cold fish with no compassion or feeling for the Canadian people. He has no understanding of people’s needs or wants. He applies nasty answers to their desperations. He has no answers for environmental concerns. He demands small, unfeeling government in a cruel world. There is no joy in him.

For joy, you have to talk about Jagmeet Singh. In his bespoke suits from Harry Rosen and colorful turbans, he seems an unusual fit for the new democrats. He is a man caught up in 17th Century Sikhism who liked entertaining children on TikTok. With TikTok defamed as a Chinese intrusion on our politics, I guess the children will have to miss him.

Of course, the Peoples’ Republic of China thinks of leadership in terms of dictatorship. It is impressive to learn that they are taking an interest in our democracy. They seem to have so much to learn.

It would be a waste of space to try to include the appalling lack of leadership in most of the provinces but there is some hope in our bookend provinces of British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Conservative Cant of Doug Ford.

by Peter Lowry

Ontario premier Doug Ford is not particularly well educated. It is highly unlikely that anyone voted for him because of his brilliance. He is not even that good at reading off the teleprompters. The one thing you can count on though is that he believes in small government, unobstructed free enterprise and low taxes. Medicare, for example, is not Doug Ford’s thing. He is a conservative.

Since he grew up in wealth and privilege, premier Ford believes he deserves to live in privilege. People like him believe they belong at the head of the line. If they need medical attention, they expect it immediately. They can pay for it and feel entitled.

And did you know that Doug Ford is going to build 1.5 million homes in the next ten years. Hopefully they will not all be built around golf courses in the former Greenbelt. The premier might not realize that some of these homes need to be geared to income rentals and need to be convenient to public transit so that people can get to work. He probably is not aware there that there is not much public transit servicing the Greenbelt

But he does tell us that there are going to be 18,000 new for-profit long term care beds for Ontario. The only thing that is not sure is if there are enough people willing to work for lower wages to care for the people in those beds.

Doug Ford’s minions run ads in the newspaper telling us that he is “Making it easier to access home care.” They don’t tell us how. They just seem optimistic.

They also promise there are going to be private clinics offering minor surgeries and likely special services for those who want to pay extra.

There are lots of promises from Doug Ford and his conservatives and little in the way of action.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Truth, At Last.

by Peter Lowry

It has really been annoying me. Instead of spending money cleaning up its act, this so-called Pathways Alliance of tar sands exploiters is spending large amounts of money telling us how great it is going to be when, and if, they ever get to zero emissions.  I always assumed that the tar sands people were lying but there is no way I can prove it. It is not like the Ontario government’s self aggrandizing advertising telling us that all is super fine at Ontario hospitals and how great it is. We know that the conservatives at Queen’s Park lie about everything.

But we are a long way from the tar sands operations in Alberta. Only logic tells us that it costs a lot to capture, transmit and store carbon. We can also figure out that for every kilogram of carbon captured there would be more carbon created. Why else would those charlatans keep asking government for funds and tax credits for their effort and thoughtfulness?

If the United Nations thinks our former environment minister, Catherine Mckenna, should chair the United Nations Net-Zero Expert Group, then maybe we should listen to her. She is quoted in the Toronto Star as saying: “If you put your hand up and claim you’re a climate leader, there is a price of admission—you need to do the work.”

The good news is that Greenpeace Canada has filed a complaint with Canada’s Competition Bureau. Of course, in a case such as this, it will be the many, many lawyers who will benefit and the rest of us will continue to watch the extremes of climate change and the dying prospect of long-time life on this earth.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]