And we thought Harper’s empty prisons were a problem,

Fantino’s got seniors, just guess where he will put them!

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As a cabinet maker, Harper’s a faker,

One thing for sure, he’s no risk taker.

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While living a relatively idyllic life in Babel, there is the occasional minor glitch in an otherwise perfect environment.  Not that we want to complain mind you.  We only mention them so that we can be more diligent in avoiding them.  Stressors are those things in life or people who bring stress with them wherever they go.  Al Capp the creator of L’il Abner in the comics had a character who travelled around the mythical community of Dogpatch with a dark cloud over his head and left a wake of mayhem and chaos in his passage.  Now that guy was a stressor.

There are people in Babel like that. For example Babel auto drivers can be stressors.  Consider the chap in his pickup truck who came to the farmers’ market one day, sold his produce early and with time on his hands and a jingle in his jeans discovered the delights of Dunlop Street.  He decided that city life was for him and he sold the old homestead and moved into town.  He works at Costco now and still drives that old pickup to and from work each day.  Nobody ever taught him how to drive, he has never bothered with a driver’s licence and he thinks the Canadian one-fingered salute is just how townies say ‘hi, how are yuh today.’  Well, he’s a townie now and he is very friendly about waving that finger right back at you.

It must be Babel’s potholed and patched streets that make him think he is still out driving behind the wood lot.  Mind you driving in Babel is also a stressor.  If you know the name of the street you are on, it will change in the next block, if the street is still going in the same direction.  Everyone is lost in Babel.  Did you know that all the police cars in Babel have to be supplied with global positioning systems (GPS).  Police dispatch uses GPS coordinates instead of addresses.  It helps a bit.  You know how a GPS will say ‘recalculating.’  In Babel, they say ‘Oh shit.’

Speaking of stressors, did you know that Babel works to an entirely different schedule of time?  This town is out of step with just about every country in the world except Jamaica.  You have heard of Jamaica time, have you?  It is supposed to be the only part of the world where ‘right away’ means ‘tomorrow’ or maybe the next day.  When trying to arrange for a workman to do a job at a specific time for us in Babel the other day—and being cognisant of Babel time—we tried to pick a specific week but had to settle for a commitment to a particular month.  It seems no job in Babel is ever completed on time.  We think the city has passed a by-law to enforce that.

Illustrating this unusual work ethic, we said an overdue farewell to the guys and gals working on the sewage works early in the summer because they were packing up their lay-down yard and seeding the area with grass.  They promised us they were heading on to the next great challenge of the sewers.  Do you know their lay-down yard is now a mess of frozen mud and broken pipes and their squatters’ huts are being held over for a winter of ice fishing?

Maybe it is the planning—or lack thereof—that causes it.  Or just maybe, and this could be the stressor, there is too much planning.  The Allandale train station is an excellent example.  In their infinite wisdom, the city fathers (and mothers) of Babel have been screwing around with the historic Allandale train station for quite a number of years.  The Allandale station is that thing at the south-west corner of the bay that currently looks like it is wrapped in a giant condom.  They are spending millions of dollars on the restoration of the old station without a clue as to what they will eventually use it for.

This year (maybe, in Babel time) the city will finally build a multi-million dollar train station (and tunnel) at the back of the train station site on Gowan.  Now, just why a very expensively restored Allandale train station cannot be used as a train station, for which it was originally designed, is a total mystery.

But Babel is not a place of logic.  And that is why we say that Babel is a place where planners come to die.

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

How can you budget for a 10-month campaign?

It’s not easy, the election professionals explain,

Just keep a good reserve for when feeling pain.

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I think we should often bring to our readers’ attention,

That what I write in this blog has copyright protection.

© Copyright Peter Lowry 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011

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With the wet arrival of 2011 here in Babel, we are launched into another ten-month long election campaign.  Last year it was the turn of the municipalities.  This year, it is the turn of the province.  The provincial government did this to itself.  The government made it law that there will be municipal elections every four years and—on a subsequent year—there will be a provincial election every four years.

This will make the second time Ontario has gone to the polls on a fixed schedule since the new election act was passed in 2005.  The first time was a walk in the park for McGinty’s Liberals.  Despite some confusion caused by the ill-advised referendum on how voters elect members of the legislature, McGinty was given an easy four-year renewal on his mandate.

It will not be as easy this time.  And the length of time building up to the election will be a major part of the problem.

We have seen it in the two year build up to American presidential elections and we witnessed it last year in the municipal elections in Ontario, there are many shifts in positioning over an overly long election period.  Newer, younger candidates have an opportunity to become known while older, more experienced candidates have time for test skirmishes and feints at their opponents’ supposed weaknesses.

In the last provincial election, Provincial Conservative Leader John Tory shot himself in the foot early in the campaign when he proposed extended funding to Ontario’s faith-based schools.  This gave the Provincial Liberals a chance to revamp their lame run-on-our-record campaign into something fresher to take advantage of the Conservative Leader’s error in political judgement.

In the Babel last year, we saw a relative newcomer start the long campaign for mayor with a potential base vote estimated at just 12 per cent or less.  Throughout the hottest summer on record, he and his team doggedly drove hard at raising his profile around the city.  In a campaign effort never seen before in Babel, he won in late October with 42 per cent of the mayoralty vote in a field of eight candidates.

Out of a larger field in Toronto, Rob Ford emerged over the summer as unbeatable.  Nothing his opponents could do, could shake loose the reality of his coming victory.

It is far too early to tell what way Ontario will go this year.  One of the factors that will weigh heavily is the strong possibility of a federal election early in the year.  If Michael Ignatieff’s federal Liberals can topple Harper’s government, it will be safe to assume the voters will be more open to dumping McGinty’s government in Ontario.

Who would replace McGinty is the question?  The Liberals will make it very clear that Tim Hudak of the Conservatives is just a callow version of Mike Harris.  How they intend to attack Andrea Horwath, leader of the NDP, is a good question.  She stands ready to benefit the most from the length of the campaign and can make the best advantage of the phony campaign throughout the summer.  She has registered no persona yet with the voters and they will be surprised to find that she has more substance than McGinty and is less of a pit bull than Hudak.

There will be much more to say on this subject as the campaigns get underway.

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

The New Year dawns in mist and rain,

It will be a year of challenge to attain.

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The year 2011 will be a year of opportunity,

Let us begin by having initiated world unity.

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See the freezing fog of night,

Makes trees a dazzling sight,

Shimmering by dawn’s light.

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In politics there are few giants.  Yet, in a land of Lilliputians, the average person stands tall.  Looking at the political spectrum in Ottawa today, it is hard to find even that average person. Examination of the political parties leaves a hollow feeling as you realize that all the parties come up short.

The safest incumbent on Parliament Hill is, of all people, Gilles Duceppe, the long-serving leader of the Bloc Quebecois.  While many in his separatist camp want him in Quebec City to take on the provincial Liberals, he does more for them in Ottawa than he could ever accomplish in the National Assembly.  He also does the rest of Canada the valuable service of keeping Stephen Harper’s Conservatives from a majority government.

The other side of the coin is the New Democrat’s Jack Layton.  A repository for parked votes, Layton is no leader.  In the party of giants such as Tommy Douglas and David Lewis, Layton is a careless caretaker.  Earlier this year, he was referred to by a Conservative cabinet minister as part of the Toronto elite.  Torontonians who know Jack and his wife, Olivia Chow, could not stop laughing.

What Layton cannot admit is that the future of the New Democrats is locked to building a relationship with the Liberals in the development of a new left-of-centre political party in Canada.  It means breaking ties with the unions that have held the New Democrats back from making progress as a party.  Unions are the antithesis of a progressive left-wing.  They are too often built on a hierarchy of ideological conservatism to protect their members from any and all reform.

Joining with the New Democrats also means the loss to the Liberals of the hard core right wing of that party.  What the new party loses to the far right, it wins back from socially conscious conservatives.  It will likely be the first party to elect a balance of women candidates.  It can be the first truly socially conscious party.  It might even be the first political party to keep its promises.  That will be a rare treat.

Where that leaves Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff—at average height—is a good question?  It depends on what kind of a party he wants to lead.  One of the keys to effective leadership is to know where your followers want to go.  He has to understand that liberals want a democratic party.  He has to stop appointing candidates.  He has to start hearing what people in the party really want.  He has to stop the phony consultations.  And then the party can make the hard decisions about leadership.

There is a new generation of taller politicians emerging in the Liberal Party and by the time the coming election is out of the way, they will be ready to make their moves.  If Michael Ignatieff can lead the party to at least a respectable minority, he will lead for the following three to four years.  The new generation will give him that time.  If Harper is still in power after this election, the Liberal Party will be awash in failed dreams.  Anything could happen.

If you noticed that Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was left out, we can cover him in few words.  Like Prime Minister Brian Mulroney before him, Harper is too self-centred to allow any growth for his team members.  After Harper, the Conservative Party will head back into the political wilderness for a time of reconstruction.

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

Some Canadians trust Mr. Harper with the economy,

Most trust him just as much as they do his bonhomie.

Some Canadians think that PM Harper is quite right,

But we admit, some Canadians are not overly bright.

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