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 Web We Weave.

by Peter Lowry

The wife’s health has not been the best lately and she spends much of her time in her electrified Lazy-Boy chair. It is where she keeps two Apple I-Pads in use. She alternates the I-Pads for charging. She will frequently want to show me something that she thinks will be of interest to me.

This morning, there was something political that she thought would be of interest. She knows how I despise conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and this was a picture of Poilievre in parliament and the headline said that he had been indicted for something.

I quickly identified it as fake news but I must admit it was well done. The person who created this amusing piece of garbage might have known some things about Mr. Poilievre but was woefully ignorant of some of the differences between how American and Canadian laws operate.

It was something of a coincidence that I had just read an opinion piece in the Toronto Star by a senior apologist for the conservative party, Jaime Watt. Watt heads up a public relations firm and seemed to be chortling over the purported successes of Mr. Poilievre as a guru of social media advertising.

He also seemed to be chortling over the potential demise of the CBC and Radio Canada if Mr. Poilievre ever gets to be prime minister of Canada. That annoys me.

I was born the year parliament created the CBC and as a youngster I delivered Globe and Mail newspapers to homes and apartments in the area of the Jarvis Street headquarters of the English language CBC in Toronto. I also spent many learning hours there thanks to an older brother who became a CBC producer in the early years of Canadian television.

Maybe Mr. Watt missed the revelation from the late Marshall McLuhan that the medium is the message. And what is your potential if you are the kingpin in a garbage dump? Of what value is your audience if you only reach the semi-literate?

Mr. Watt compares Poilievre to conservative Michael Harris of Ontario’s Common Sense Revolution of 1995. Michael Harris was a disaster as premier of Ontario as Pierre Poilievre would be a disaster as prime minister of Canada. He is an egocentric personality in the robes of Cassius.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

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The Social Media Weapon.

by Peter Lowry

After 12 years of writing Babel-on-the-Bay, I find it energizes me and gives purpose to my days. I enjoy the approbation of some readers and the criticisms of others. My only connection with Facebook is when the wife points out some interesting pictures of our far-flung family. I tested Twitter years ago and found it wanting. Other than that, I fear for the Internet as it is absorbed into the ever-deeper troubles of a dystopian world.

What brings this spurt of insight into the Internet world is an admired writer from Ottawa telling us about the weaponizing of social media by our parliamentarians. She sees it as a war zone. My problem is not knowing how she finds time for sorting that trash.

She reminds me of Canada’s famed Pierre Berton. Berton was best known for his many, many books about Canadian history. He was accused of trying to make Canadian history a popular subject. We also used to kid that he was not a writer but a factory. He would joke in his Toronto Star articles, once in a while, about the team that assisted him in doing his research. And as a writer myself, I knew that there was always good research backing up what he wrote.

I always wanted to meet Pierre Berton and I think it was our mutual friend Charles Templeton who once kept us apart. That was a time when Chuck and Pierre were doing their popular CFRB radio program from Maple Leaf Gardens while I was working for a different radio station reporting on the same conservative leadership convention. A friend was listening to them on air and told me that Pierre mentioned that I was across the arena from them and would make an interesting guest for their show. I was told that Chuck ignored the suggestion and changed the subject.

I guess I forgot about it next time I saw Chuck. He was standing in front of the orchestra section at the O’Keefe Centre hugging my wife. It’s funny that I remember that scene and I cannot remember what it was we were at the O’Keefe Centre to see.

I often wonder if that old saying about living in interesting times is really a curse or a blessing. I cannot answer that. All I know is it sure keeps me interested.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

Hold High in Honour.

by Peter Lowry

Honouring people for their contributions to our society is a timeless human tradition. There have also been those times when we have taken down the statues or have erased the names of those we determine to have erred in their responsibilities. I mention this at a time when people are talking about honouring former Toronto mayor Rob Ford who loved football and also loved smoking crack cocaine. They want his name attached to the current Centennial Park Stadium in the formerly Etobicoke area of Toronto.  Let’s just hope, that in years to come, we do not realize that the two loves are not equal. Does one excuse the other?

Would we, for example, seek to obliterate the memories of John A. Macdonald because of his fondness for whisky? Did he not still accomplish the task of creating this Canada? And did he not succeed in his duties to accomplish this new country’s rails of steel from coast to coast? Sir John has been dead these many years lying in a long- neglected family plot. The debates on his accomplishments run on. He can have the credit for bringing this country together but he was also here for the attempts to take the native out of our aboriginal peoples. It was a common direction in his time.

And who would want to honour the former Toronto mayor’s older brother whom the younger tutored in politics. Doug Ford got into politics as a replacement city councillor when his younger brother ran for mayor. The older brother lost his subsequent bid for the mayoralty after Rob Ford’s death.

And yet, when he lucked into the leadership of the provincial conservatives and ended up as premier of Ontario, his first act in office was to vent his anger at his former enemies at Toronto city hall. His administration restricted the salaries of those in medicine and education. He was caught up in the pandemic and struggled through his first term. His second term saw him caught up in inflationary pressures, unexpected and concerning. And yet he has still cut the spending by the Ontario government at a time when government has to make sure that it is looking after its responsibilities. While Ford has been very generous in his help for his developer friends, we have seen our universities starved for the funds they need to do their critical job for the province. Doug Ford is always a salesman, never an academic.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

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Liar, Liar.

by Peter Lowry

One hates to see the scion of the Weston family lying to our parliamentarians.  He blames his international suppliers now for his stores’ unconscionable profits. He says that his giant company is performing the way it should, with record profits every year. I do not know how he became so facile with the workings of a grocery empire such as Loblaws.

I also was taught about the grocery business as a young man. I had come home from the Canadian air force, trained in the use and care of weapons and munitions. I was looking for something more peaceful as a career. It happened to be a time of rapid expansion of grocery chains in Canada and there was a need for store managers and area supervisors. All I had to survive was some rigorous training while earning my salary by working in every department of some very large supermarkets.

I think I was shocked at the time with the waste in produce that demanded a 40 per cent mark-up across the board in that department. I learned more about meat than I really wanted to know when learning the basics in that department. Unloading trucks of canned goods was a very basic muscle-building job. Frozen food was only starting to come into the stores at the time and other departments had to pay for the new freezers. I think my favourite learning time was as a cashier and I learned a lot there.

And to this day, I enjoy taking the wife to the grocery store and checking out the prices and doing the math for her on which deal is the better. Two of my favourite stores here in Barrie are Metro and Zehrs. They are the best run and probably most profitable stores in the city. For value for your dollar, you cannot beat No Frills, which is part of the Loblaw empire.

And that is why I know that the Weston heir was lying to our MPs the other day. I have mentioned before that I have a favourite orange juice that we buy every week. It is the 2.5 litre jug of pure orange juice packaged in Quebec for Del Monte Canada. I get it on sale at No frills for $4.49 and regularly at up to $5.29. I was in Zehrs just last week and the price of exactly the same product and packaging was priced at $9.99. There is absolutely no rational way that the Del Monte company would have any part in the setting of those stores’ prices. Personally, I think there should be jail terms reserved for those who lie to parliament. And I am even more convinced that there should be heavy fines for companies that exploit Canadians at a time of extreme inflationary pressures.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

How Shallow These Mortals Be.

by Peter Lowry

It tells a story. All by itself, once more, the talent of Time magazine comes to the fore. It tells tales of these terrible times. Yet it ignores the wars, their rape and pillage, their lack of decency or honour. It tells you that the person of the year is Taylor Swift. Could they have been more appropriately shallow in their assessment?

But are these not shallow times? Could we tolerate the brief dictators and right-wing politicos who ravage and destroy their neighbours. Is the destruction of Gaza such a trivial event? Is the bloodletting in the Ukraine just last year’s horror? The bombs and rockets and drones are targeting civilians, the working man and woman who seek but a decent life for themselves and their children? Must the next generation be killed at the same time?

And have we succumbed to the indecency of letting our elected leaders take second place to the prurient symbols of Hollywood—where the writers went on strike. And in these times of artificial intelligence, nobody noticed.

Are we using care in selecting our politicians?

Is Vladimir Putin to continue to stand on the bodies of his country. Who speaks for the Russian people—praying for those relations dying to please Putin? Who stands tall with Volodymyr Zelenskyy to deny Putin his land grab, his one-upping of the Holodomor of Josef Stalin.

And who cries out to the Sheiks and Mullahs and Emirs and other pretenders of the Arab world to stop funding the crazed Muslim extremists such as Hamas and Hezbollah. And what will become of their peoples when the desert sands cease to give up their oil riches? Will there still be pilgrimages to Mecca by the world’s Muslims and guilt trips to Jerusalem by the Jewish diaspora?

And who can rein in Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu? Will there ever be an Israeli prime minister who can convince the Arab world that Jews can live peacefully side by side with their neighbours.?

It certainly would not happen in another regime of Donald Trump in America nor the growing strength of the right-wing loonies in Europe. The Christian Christmas is a time of love and peace and understanding.

And who the hell is Taylor Swift?

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

Ford Wrong Twice.

by Peter Lowry

Anyone in Ontario who has voted for premier Doug Ford should be embarrassed. This guy can’t get it right, no matter how hard he tries. Did you hear that he is trying to find a way to get out of dissolving Peel Region. He promised my friend Hazel MacCallion on her death bed that Mississauga would be separated from Peel Region.

But now he wants out. Separating Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon creates impossible costs for each of the three new municipalities. That was obvious from day one. What seems to be missing in all these political shenanigans is some common sense. The only way there are major cost savings to be seen is to amalgamate Brampton with Mississauga and return Caledon to the status of a rural municipality as part of one of the bordering regional jurisdictions—either Dufferin or Wellington.

The worst problem in this situation is mayor Patrick Brown in Brampton. He obviously saw the split up of Peel as a possible win for him. What he is finding out is that for the first time in his life, he would have to do some hard work. The reality is that Brampton has been growing over the years through its proximity to Mississauga. It is now, become an integrated community with Mississauga. And amalgamation with Mississauga is the only practical answer. That is where efficiencies are possible.

My only concern in this situation is that Bonnie Crombie has taken on the task of rebuilding the Ontario liberal party. The thought of Patrick Brown becoming the mayor of the newly integrated city of Mississauga/Brampton is frightening.

I first met Patrick when I had moved to Barrie in 2004. He wanted to shake my hand and I wanted to know what he wanted. As a do-nothing conservative, he did not impress this progressive liberal. It turned out that he was what is known as a retail politician. All his effort goes into getting elected. It was how he finally got elected to the Harper conservative government where he embarrassed Barrie as a do-nothing member of parliament.

But I have followed his career closely over the years. I was one of the few who recognized that his contacts with the Indian diaspora could win him the leadership of the Ontario conservatives. It was obvious to me that those who encouraged those young ladies to complain about him and brought about his downfall as Ontario leader were from within his own party. They knew what a bad leader he would be.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

The Common Man?

by Peter Lowry

As the farmer who spreads manure over his fields, Canada’s federal opposition leader lays it on for his party’s right-wing supporters.  It is why Pierre Poilievre would feel at home with the right-wing C.D. Howe Institute in Toronto. While there would be no doubt that Clarence Decatur Howe helped Canada’s Mackenzie-King liberals launch Trans-Canada Airlines (Air Canada) and get through the Second World War, the institute named after him caters to the business interests to whom the MIT trained Howe paid homage.

What was incongruous in Poilievre’s address to the institute recently was his posturing as a man of the people. He does not know those whom he pretends to hold dear. He might have left the business people in the audience in the dark about how he would do it, yet, he promised them a pared down government that would cut government spending.

He made it clear—to the delight of his audience—that he is on-side with free-market capitalism. He was, as usual, down on the economics of the Trudeau government. He told the audience, hopefully to some surprise, that life in Canada today is a “living hell for working class Canadians.”  He forgot to point to the food industry people in the audience as part of the reason that the current demands on food banks were exceeding the food banks’ capabilities to satisfy.

It was surprising though that he made his usual spurious attack on the liberal government’s carbon tax. He accused the institute supporters who pay the tax of carelessly passing it on to the working class. Since the tax is not a tax in the usual sense of the word, it is returned in its entirety to the working class to provide them with some lessening of the pain of the prices effected.  Poilievre promised the business people that he will quickly put an end to that nonsense, should he become prime minister.

He further told the business people that a government under his direction will put an emphasis on accelerating access to Canada’s mineral wealth. That is the same hollow promise you can hear in any party’s platform.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

Seeds of Civil War.

by Peter Lowry

Recently I wrote that I was tired of writing about Donald Trump. He was boring everybody. That was until he started entertaining his followers with how he intended to use Americans against Americans. This man might be a compulsive liar and a damn fool but the prospect of a second American civil war is not good news. It is when Donald Trump refers to New York and Chicago as “crime dens.” He promises to treat those cities differently if he can get back into the White House. He intends to use the U.S. Army—and not to give shooting lessons.

What was surprising in Trump’s complaint about the two major democratic cities was that he was complaining about the number of shootings. He told his audience about the number of shootings that took place and the number of fatalities. At first, I thought he was complaining that the shooters were not very accurate. It was just surprising how few of the shootings were fatal.

But any military expert can tell you that wounded enemy soldiers are even better than dead as they become non-combatants and take up medical resources.

And since the United States already has more guns in civilian hands than the military—and, in fact, by a factor of almost 20 to one, it could be a very bad scene.

Mind you, judging by the mental acuity of your typical Trump supporter in America, I would not want to be the bookmaker taking odds on the outcome.

Looking at the logistics for the Trump side, would be the problem of militarizing the American borders. Wide spread rioting and looting in major cities could be out of control very quickly. Elements both north and south of those borders would want to get in on some of that action and the situation would get quickly out of control.

But that is Donald Trump for you, always out of control.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]

Co-opting COP.

by Peter Lowry

We should not be amused. This year’s United Nations conference on climate change has brought the foxes into the hen house. Whomever chose Dubai in the United Arab Emirates as a place for the conference must have a strange sense of humour. It is like getting the foxes to set the price for eggs.

And just how much do these members of the Organization of Oil Producing Countries (OPEC) know about global warming? Maybe the global warming is not as serious in the desert countries of the Middle East. Floods and wildfires might not be much of an everyday problem. And why would another degree or so of temperature extremes bother a Bedouin?

They probably think those of us of European origin as wusses who should stay out of the kitchen.

But what the Hell are all those oil company people from Alberta doing in Dubai?

I have to compliment David Climenhaga of Canada’s Progressive Bloggers for his efforts to explain why that dingbat, Alberta premier and her entourage are enjoying the scenic sights of the United Arab Emirates this December. Taking that bunch of Neanderthals from their reserved seats in Calgary and Edmonton Petroleum Clubs is the most egregious waste of public funds I have heard of in many a day.

I used to enjoy Alberta, not only when I was stationed there in the air force, but of the many fun times when visiting the province on business and pleasure and for the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. I will never forget one time when visiting Calgary, I was doing some late-night editorial work at the Calgary Herald offices and being unable to get a cab back to the Calgary Inn. It was a long but brisk walk at minus 35 degrees.

Another memory of Calgary was a conference of business executives at the time that John Turner had left the Pierre Trudeau cabinet in a bit of a huff. They had shut the door on the meeting room so that John could tell us how he really felt. After he, as expected, maligned Mr. Trudeau and most of his staff, I walked up to John at the podium, waved a reporter’s pad at him and asked him if I should give it to my friends in the Calgary media. It was the first time in years of knowing John, he was speechless.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

Crowning Cinderella.

by Peter Lowry

It took time. It took patience, but Ontario has a new party leader for its liberals. The television networks missed some great programming opportunities in the finale. For all its weaknesses, the stupid balloting system played into the party’s hands. It proved that the liberal party is a progressive, centre-left party.

If you didn’t hear Bonnie Crombie’s acceptance speech, you missed a good one. It was light, it was homey, it was appreciative and it looked at the road ahead. What she told the liberals is that there is a lot of work to do and she was there to do the job.          

The bad news of the finale in the race was that Crombie was only a few points ahead of the somewhat maverick Nate Erskine-Smith. It told her she needs to be freer in her leadership style. It told her that old style politics was not going to cut it. It told her that there was a need for new approaches to the old questions.

Of major concern was the fact that some 30,000 votes were cast out of a potential of over 100,000. That is bad news and the lady has a tough task ahead of her. First, she has to get the party to change its approach to fund-raising. She knows that there is nothing better than direct fund raising to those with the money. You cannot use the party worker lists as your political automated teller machine (ATM). That does not work.

Second, the party has to start training its supporters in door-knocking. They need to start as soon as possible in the new year. It is great if the members want to support the party with some money but they are really needed out there selling the party and its plans and what it offers our citizens. And they need to be trained in door-knocking in the coming election.

Third, the party has to work with its present and potential electable possibilities. They need to be assuring their voters in the coming election of their working for them.

They hardly need to be showing the voters that the Ford conservatives will keep making mistakes. They can do that without anyone’s help. The new leader and her party have to get the voters excited about the possibilities.

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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry            

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

[email protected]