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

Assaulting Assault Arms.

by Peter Lowry

It seems to be a regular song they sing in the United States Congress. Once again, they want to ban assault rifles. It seems useless but you have to give them credit for trying. It happens most often when there is are outbreaks of murdered children.

And yet, they can only estimate that there are between 10 million and 20 million assault rifles running free across the country. The most popular of this type of weapon is the Armalite AR-15. This is not a hunting weapon. Its only purpose is to inflict the most damage to the most humans within a range of about 400 metres.

The AR-15 is an excellent assault rifle. It is not too expensive, relatively easy to maintain and service and was designed for use by soldiers who are not a very good shot anyway. A squad of soldiers armed with these weapons can lay down a layer of lead to make a force five times their number to keep their heads down.

But when the National Firearms Association (NRA) folks in the United States tell the politicians, they seem to own to fight back, it doesn’t make sense. If the weapon is useless for hunting, since you are not required to provide your own gun in your state’s national guard and would be wasting your time trying to improve your accuracy with it, why would you waste your money on it? All I have to note is that the people selling those assault rifles must be damn good salespeople.

What would make more sense would be to have those sales people help save the children from crazies with assault rifles.

And please do not argue about the size of the hole that an AR-15 makes in a human. There are many types of cartridges, many types of bullets and different loads. Military cartridges are often the least expensive and if they are practice rounds, they are designed to break up on impact to help prevent ricochets.

And if you want to know the stupidest statement ever heard from an advocate for the NRA. The person said that the best protection for children in their school is a teacher with a gun. That is a strange way of thinking.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Poilievre’s Poison.

by Peter Lowry

It’s a bad combination. Conservative party leader, Pierre Poilievre has been considered an ideologue. Yet, he appears to treat his ideology as dogma. He seems to accept theory as belief. In this, he is a danger to himself. When rank and file conservatives expect him to try to broaden his appeal to Canadians, he is maintaining the approach he used to stand apart from his opponents as leader. It is more of a libertarian approach than conservative.

Poor Poilievre is already learning the hard lesson of supporting crypto-currencies against government supported currencies. Some Canadians believed him when he said Canada could be the blockchain capital of the world. Now, was that before or after Bitcoin lost 75 per cent of its value? It must have been a fun day in the house of commons when the liberals, NDP, Bloc and others got to debate a conservative ill-thought-out motion supporting crypto-currencies.

Despite Poilievre’s rants against the Bank of Canada and the liberal government’s attempts at softening the blows of the pandemic, he is no economist. He accused the Bank of Canada of creating billions of dollars out of thin air to deliver on the government’s promises. The truth was that it was an opportune time to borrow the money at very low rates. It is that very critical ability of government to help its citizens in times of trouble, that helps stabilize our economy.

What is even more frightening about Poilievre’s financial ideology is his promise that should he ever be prime minister, he would ensure the any new government programs would be required to bring to end older programs of equal cost. That is probably the most destructive stupidity of any politician. The ability of government to fund infrastructure that lasts for many years that we count on to help grow our gross national product, year-in and year-out.

If Pierre Poilievre had ever held a real job, other than politics, he might have a better idea of what Canadians really need in a prime minister. He promises nothing but harsh right-wing conservative ideology.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Ignorance Abounds in America.

by Peter Lowry

For a while now, I have been wondering why I have been getting so many strange e-mails from the United States. What idiot thinks I am interested in writing a story about the supposed usefulness of the second amendment to the American constitution? This has obviously gone beyond stupid. Today I get four pages of crap saying that you need to carry a gun to ward off carjacking.

I gather in this, that the next time I am in New York or Philadelphia or Seattle, I am expected to carry a gun to help thwart the carjackers who will try to steal my car while I am putting gas in it. With the current gas prices, I guess they will wait until the gas tank is full before they jump me. They assume I will be too busy playing with my smart phone to notice them moving in on me.

We are told that all this information has been discovered and reported by Fox News. They tell us that more heroes are needed as there are three times the carjacking incidents over the previous year.

In Philadelphia, most of the blame for this increase is placed on the faulty policies of a former Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner. (He must be one of those radical left-wing Democrats!)

What made me laugh at this document in the beginning is that the first sentence said several states are seeing “a massive increase in criminal activity” and then named three cities: New York, Portland and Seattle. It went on to say that “Constitutional-Carry is necessary.”

My problem is this: Despite being trained in weapons by the Canadian military, there is no logical reason for the Canadian police to issue me one of those very rare carry permits for a weapon. They would look at me oddly if I even asked.

And if I took a weapon with me across the U.S. border, I would probably end up in jail in the first state that found I had it.

Can you just imagine what a judge would make of it if he or she was told I was part of an advance party of a Canadian invasion of the United States of America?

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

A Policeman’s Perception.

by Peter Lowry

Justice Paul Rouleau of the Ontario Court of Appeal is listening to a concert of cabinet members this week at his Emergencies Act inquiry. First minister up was super cop, emergency preparedness minister Bill Blair, the former Toronto police chief. Blair is something of an expert in how police can mistreat citizens.

While I might have missed some of the process of Blair’s testimony, it seemed to me that he was getting the softball questions. It was Blair who brought up his handling of the G20 summit in Toronto in 2010. He used it as an example of a planned event where-in the police had control everything from day one of the event.

Exactly why he, as the responsible police chief, let anarchists rampage in Toronto’s downtown one day and then had his force kettle innocent residents, out for an evening stroll the next, has never been explained.

But, strangely enough, Blair was less concerned about the visitors to Ottawa who were in no hurry to go home last February, than the Ambassador Bridge blockade in Windsor, Ontario. He saw the Ottawa visitors as more of the anchor for the groups causing border problems across the country. He was more concerned about these blockades causing problems for Canada’s manufacturing industries. He claimed it was a serious threat to our national security and became a national emergency.

Blair said more than a few times in his testimony that the Ottawa police made a mistake in allowing the ‘Freedom Convoy’ trucks into downtown Ottawa. He must have watched with pride as Ottawa and police from across Ontario as well as Ontario Provincial Police and RCMP used mob kettling techniques to move the truck owners out of the way as commandeered towing vehicles started moving their trucks.

I remember the wife and I watching the process of clearing Ottawa streets on that February weekend. The only time we were concerned was when the Toronto Police horses were brought in to break up the crowds in front of the Chateau Laurier. That mob was so dense that we were concerned that some of the horses could be hurt. It is the first time I have seen horses withdrawn from participating in a crowd situation because of concern for the horses’ safety.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Who Rogers Hurts.

by Peter Lowry

It is unlikely that the acquisition of Shaw by Rogers will affect my readers to any serious degree. Knowing this sometimes bothers me but I have good news for the few who can see the problem: Help is on the way. When academics such as Lars Osberg of Dalhousie come forward, you are getting a carefully considered opinion. He makes the point that lower income Canadians are being left out of our society because of the outrageously high costs for telephones, television and Internet services.

And speaking for the seniors among us, I see no reason why they should be forced to pay the higher Canadian rates for modern communications. If Rogers ever tells me that they give better rates to seniors, you will find me rolling on the floor laughing.

Frankly I have no need for a smart phone. I have never taken a picture with a cell phone and probably never will. When my oldest brother was in his 90s, one of his kids gave him a smart phone. He found it had more computing power and communications capability than many of the computers he used in his years in business and he had fun with it. It is just an expensive toy.

There is no reason though to assume that everyone flying out of the country is carrying a smart phone with them. I also think it is foolish to use your smart phone as a wallet. You are just giving the unscrupulous more reasons to steal it.

And if I ever had a smart phone, I sure as hell would not be so careless as to walk down the street with my nose into my smart phone and not paying attention to what was going on around me.

But back to the B.S. that Rogers is feeding the government agencies, who are supposed to protect our interest. The impact of two giants in the industry merging worries me. When Rogers tell other agencies that the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved the Rogers-Shaw merger, I think you would get a far shorter answer if you just asked what the CRTC has not approved lately for the big three telecoms?

I have already got the word from Bell Canada that they want more money for my Internet service. I have checked with the supposedly low-cost providers and for the type and level of service that I know can be provided, I am stuck with Bell.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Ford’s Super Mayors.

by Peter Lowry

Heh, wannabe one of Ontario premier Doug Ford’s super mayors? The line forms to the right—the far right. And you might not be quite as enthusiastic when you find that part of the inaugural process involves kissing Ford’s fat ass on the front steps of the Ontario Legislature. Besides, your idea of a super mayor might not jibe with what Ford has in mind.

Like all bills being brought forward at Queen’s Park these days, the titles they dream up are often the opposite of what Ford and his henchmen have in mind. It is like when trying to force the custodians, secretaries and teaching assistants back to work, they called their use of the ‘Not Withstanding’ clause in action something about keeping children in classrooms. It almost caused a general strike across Ontario.

Ford’s idea of a super mayor comes across as something his late brother Rob dreamed up while high on crack cocaine. This version involves a mayor who does what the premier tells him to do. It is all in aid of getting swift passage of permits needed for the premier’s developer friends. He is drawing all that money from developers away from the cities and over to Queen’s Park.

While John Tory might really enjoy his final term as Toronto mayor under this arrangement, he still likes to think he is his own man.

But what self-respecting mayor would not want to be guaranteed control of his council with as little as a third of the votes?

Ford might have sold the idea of super mayors by touting the American model. I am not sure if I need to tell you the American model is based on party politics up and down the line. And it is the budget and appointment controls that the U.S. mayor’s often have, that helps them keep their councils in line.

Frankly, I would hardly worry about mayors such as Toronto’s John Tory or Mississauga’s Bonnie Crosbie, Of course, John Tory’s third term as mayor of Toronto is just a victory lap. I start to worry when I see Brampton’s Patrick Brown licking his chops at the prospects.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

The Tarnishing of an Icon.

by Peter Lowry

In the news media across Canada, the Toronto Star is an icon. It is a newspaper created for the working man 130 years ago and it is today, the largest circulation broadsheet newspaper in the country. And, like other news media today, it continues to re-invent itself and struggles on in its tenuous existence in a constantly changing market.

When the first non-newspaper people to take on the known risks bought the Star two years ago for a reported $60 million, I was amused. I did not know Paul Rivett but, as a Torontonian at heart I know of and respect the Bitove family—though I think Jordan Bitove is a couple generations behind me. What amused me, was that they supposedly working on the advice of their lawyer, former Ontario premier David Peterson. Not one of the three knew anything about the newspaper business and how it has evolved in recent years.       

While my earliest commentaries were written for the now defunct Toronto Telegram, I also worked for the Globe and Mail and contributed quite a few op-eds to the Toronto Star over the years—until I was black-balled by the Star in the early 1980s.

(That was an interesting story. I was doing a study for the government in Ottawa on government-industry programs and I thought it would have some legs if the Star got behind it. I got an appointment with the then president of TorStar to make the pitch. I could not understand why he was being so negative. He finally admitted that his brother-in-law, whom I didn’t know, also pitched to do the same study. I guess he wanted part of the $350,000 the government was providing. I didn’t have the heart to tell the TorStar guy that I was doing the study on an expenses-only basis.)  

But I still pick a good commentary occasionally to test on the Star. I don’t believe in what the Star is doing with lengthy stories in almost all categories. Not all of us can write 2000 words at the drop of a hat like Rosie DiManno. It looks as though the few people kept on staff are told to ‘write long’ to hide the fact that there is really less in the paper these days.

I expect the disagreement between Paul Rivett and Jordan Bitove will be solved soon. I just hope it will not result in trouble for the Star. It has always been a great paper and today, we need its voice.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Welcome Back Trump.

by Peter Lowry

This is not good news. Former president Trump is only good to write about after the fact. I like writing about politicians because, being politicians, they are predictable. Donald Trump is not a politician. Ergo, he is not predictable.

Maybe, if I were a bookie, I would be happier. There are so many possibilities as to how long he will last this time around. I think the odds would be about one in three that he might make it all the way to election day, November 5, 2024.

More immediate is the question as to whether he is indicted. Take what you want from that speech by Trump on January 6, 2021 but if he is not indicted, I have no idea of what more you would want him to say. I would indict him just for the lack of coherence in what he was saying. Mind you sending that leaderless mob into the Capitol was malicious and stupid. They were just lucky that more did not hurt themselves getting into the building.

And I would certainly expect more competition for Mr. Trump as presidential candidate than just Florida governor Ron DeSantis. I must admit that I have never seen a political party so eager to self destruct. Mind you both political parties in America need to take long hard looks in the mirror. If you think Joe Biden is from the radical left, you have an amusing view of politics.

And guys like DeSantis do more damage to Florida than the seasonal hurricanes. It makes me wonder who are the adults in these political parties? Growth in politics should be something other than a steady stream of ideologues. Politics needs to grow, it needs fresh ideas, it needs opportunities for people under 70. It has to stop being a meat market for buying and selling politicians. This is not a democracy, the way it is being run in America. And Canada is not far behind.

What needs to be understood is that politics has to reflect caring. Listening to Trump and others, you wonder whatever happened. These people are self-centred, egoists who have no empathy for their fellow citizens. A Trump speech is a barely articulate stream of self-centred whines. Politics is not a monologue. It requires listening.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Inflating Inflation.

by Peter Lowry

When do the pressures of inflation take major retailers from legitimate profits to price gouging? I ask this out of deep concern. I watched recently when chairman and president Galen W. Weston Jr. who runs the Loblaws food empire, with annual revenues of over fifty-three billion, made the claim that he would freeze prices on all Loblaws ‘No Name’ products. In many cases these products are staples that are produced for the Loblaws’ stores by a manufacturer who is discounting a regular product line in exchange for a substantial contract that can run for years.

In effect, the offer by the Weston heir was nothing more than a publicity gimmick. Loblaws has been reporting higher quarterly profits recently to the point that the competition bureau in Ottawa has finally taken an interest.

But I would like to tell you a short story about how they do this.

I should state up front that I love supermarkets. I was trained as a young man in the ins and outs of managing these stores.

There was a time, when I was young, that it was questionable if the Loblaws chain would survive. As part of the Weston conglomerate, it has flourished. Today it’s the largest food, drug and financial operation in Canada.

And, as much as I like Loblaws’ Zehrs and Fortino stores, my wife knows she gets the best prices at Loblaws’ No Frills stores. And even there you need to be really tuned into prices and what is on special.

I always like to have orange juice in the fridge and in the past year I have been buying Del Monte orange juice in 2.5 litre jugs for $4.49 at No Frills. The other day I was picking up the wife from an appointment at Georgian College and dropped into the Zehrs nearby to get something she thought might be on special. It wasn’t, but while there, I recalled I was low in orange juice. They had the same Del Monte juice, only the dairy case guy told me it was $4.99. I figured I had saved a litre of gas not having to drive to No Frills and I bought it.

It was when I got home that the wife showed me the bill. They had charged me $7.49 for a 2.5 litre bottle, I could have got at No Frills for $4.49. I might have bought it at a classier store but the orange juice all came through the same warehouse.

I guess that is why Weston is being investigated by the competition bureau.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Conning Cohn.

by Peter Lowry

Columnist Martin Regg Cohn of the Toronto Star refers to Ontario premier Doug Ford as a populist. Well, he might have Cohn convinced, but you really can’t read sincerity off a teleprompter. The truth is, Doug Ford is a phony. He is a conservative with a heart of stone.

Cohn is absolutely right that Ford has picked a counter-productive way to win friends among Ontario voters. Reducing the price of gas by five cents a litre is about as impressive as a fart in a snow storm. And if it is noticed, nobody cares. All Ford proves is how stupid, he is.    

But the really stupid people were the Ontario voters who voted for him and his conservative friends in the last provincial election.

Conservatives will tell you how generous they are with tax credits. You need to remember that tax credits are only for people who can afford to pay now and get their money back next year. If you are earning nothing, you get nothing from the Tories.

Doug Ford is the proverbial bull in the China shop. He is a politician who failed in municipal politics and falls back on provincial politics. And there, he can really fail us. The two most important and budget-dominating ministries in any province across Canada are education and health. And just look at what he has done: It will take many years to repair the damage the conservatives have done to our Ontario hospitals. They chased nurses and doctors to sunnier climes where they can get the respect they deserve.

And just look at what he is doing right now to the helpers, secretaries and custodians in the education system. He tried to force them back to work with threats and found he was facing a province-wide general strike. And then he promised to take away the threats if they came back to the bargaining table. He never intended to improve his offer. Now they are really mad and have announced that they will go back on strike.

But never fear, you can get a tax credit if you send your kid for remedial help. Of course, if you are poor, you and the kid, get nothing from ‘populist’ Doug Ford.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]