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

Nothing For Sure in Quebec.

by Peter Lowry

Say it in English or in French, nothing is for sure politically in Quebec. Yet all the talking heads are referring to the upcoming Quebec provincial election as a cake-walk for François Legault’s Coalition Avenir du Québec (CAQ). You would think the pundits would know better.

First of all, it is never safe to prognosticate about what will happen politically in Quebec. The moods of the voters can turn on a dime. There has been many a Quebec premier who has stood there on election night, wondering why a speech for a possible loss had not been written.

I like to think of premier Legault as something like King Canute defying the tides. All this foolishness his party imposes on Quebec about the danger of speaking English is going in one ear and out the other across the province.

It must have come as a shock to Legault and his other bigots when they heard that, according to a recent survey, French is spoken in fewer homes in Quebec. Part of the problem is that they have been taking in more immigrants who speak neither English nor French. The other reason is that French-speaking parents want their children to have better economic opportunities by speaking both official languages. Legault has been trying to suppress those opportunities. His efforts have just led to more lawsuits that the province has to defend in court.

And quite frankly, Legault has gone too far. He knows the anglophones and allophones are pissed with him and he doesn’t care. He thinks his majority is safe with the farmers.

But Legault fails to understand the cycle of life. People age and new voters replace those who have past on. The younger vote is more volatile, more questioning, more eager to try something new.

Legault and his CAQ are living in the past. There is life beyond Quebec. Canada is a big and welcoming country. Those who speak both official languages benefit.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Are We There Yet?

by Peter Lowry

It must be the frequency of conservative party leadership contests that make them seem to go on forever. No wonder Canadians seem bored with politics. In a week when the most exciting political stories are on the east side of the Ottawa River or in the far north, you know that it is still the dog days of summer.

But I bet you think MP Pierre Poilievre has already won that conservative leadership. That could be the bad news for the conservative party.  I think sensible liberals are more concerned about Jean Charest. The former Quebec liberal premier is the kind of guy that the last two federal conservative leaders tried to be. Both Scheer and O’Toole tried to drive their party down the middle of the political road and became road kill.

But Canadians are not about to warm to Pierre Poilievre. He is the high-risk candidate. Sure, he appeals to the people from the truckers’ convoy. He appeals to some of our younger Canadians who fail to understand how divisive he can be. Any Canadian who has paid attention to what has happened in the United States over the past ten years can understand how divided that country has become.

We hope that Canada could never become that divided. It has taken over 50 years of Alberta acting as though it is not the favourite of the politicians in Ottawa. Alberta politicians have made a mantra of blaming Ottawa for everything.

But then, why would any sensible Canadian voter be impressed by politicians who constantly blame others for our nation’s problems without providing any answers themselves. Mr. Poilievre says he wants to make Canada the freest country in the world, when it already is one of the freest in the world. He says he wants smaller government. A smaller government would nor be able to build the high-speed electric train systems we need in this country. How would a smaller government be able to maintain the international trade that our country enjoys? Would a smaller government be able to protect our country? Would a smaller government look after our seniors, our disabled, our sick? The problem is that Mr. Poilievre is spouting hollow political slogans because he has no solutions. He is a fraud.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Writing the B.S.

by Peter Lowry

In a career in public relations, I wrote for many clients. And I occasionally advised against some things clients thought I should write for them. What was critical in every case was whether or not I really wanted that client and whether there was a better answer to suit the client’s need.

What brings this to mind was a full-page advertisement for Rogers Communications. It was structured as a letter from Tony Staffieri, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Rogers. Staffieri works for the late Ted Rogers’ son who is the sole decision maker at Rogers these days. It reads like something a client would ask their public relations firm to write for them.

Rogers was embarrassed recently when there was a serious outage of its Canadian network for Internet, cell phones and business services. I did not know that I was on part of that network for a minor service until I got a small rebate on my last bill.

The rebates, the apologies and the full-page mea culpa are all part of the desperate public relations campaign by Rogers to rescue its takeover of Calgary-based Shaw Communications for a reported $26 billion.

Despite already being given a pass from a friendly Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and agreeing to sell Freedom Mobile to Videotron in Quebec, Rogers is not getting any warm fuzzies from Ottawa over this merger. Which is hardly surprising when you consider that Canadians are being ripped-off enough by the big three, Bell, Rogers and Telus. Why we would ever want to make any of those rapacious companies any bigger is beyond me.

But what was also in the paper the other day was the small article saying that Edward Rogers had told the bond holders for the Shaw takeover that he would like to have an extension for another year. It reads to me that Ottawa is in no hurry to make Edward Rogers the tzar of communications in Canada.

In that full-page ad, Tony Staffieri made five commitments to the readers. He talked about network reliability, quality of service, customer satisfaction, network access and support for our young Canadians. That is all very good but he forgot to mention the need for a break for Canadians in the highest telecom rates in the civilized world.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Ye of Little Hope.

by Peter Lowry

It is being called ‘The Chill on the Hill.’ It’s the assumption that MP Pierre Poilievre is going to win the brass ring on the merry-go-round of the conservative leadership. It has not happened yet. We will not know the answer until September 10 when the results are announced.

And there will certainly not be a bolt from the heavens announcing Poilievre’s ascension. And if 90 per cent of his support comes from Alberta, there might not be an ascension. You have to bear in mind that the conservatives use a very convoluted way of counting ballots. If all 2000 party members in one electoral district vote for one candidate, it goes into the tally as 100 votes. There are probably some electoral districts with less than 100 members and they will take the eventual vote count to less than 33,800. As you can see, in conservative thinking, it is the electoral districts that decide, not the individual members of the party.

With upwards of maybe a half-million votes to count for 338 electoral districts, you need the conservative party’s computer people to tell you the result. You have to win the most votes from the most electoral districts to win this race.

The only two possible winners are former Quebec premier Jean Charest and MP Pierre Poilievre. Before this race got underway, there were about 250,000 paid-up conservatives in the party across Canada. Pierre Poilievre claims to have added some 350,000 names to that and Patrick Brown contributed more than 100,000 before leaving the race.

While logic tells you that Pierre Poilievre is sitting in the cat-bird seat, you are assuming that his temporary sign-ups are as motivated to vote as long-time conservatives. If for example, his numbers from the truckers’ convoy drop as much as 40 per cent, he would have trouble winning. While Brown’s temporary sign-ups are being asked to vote for Jean Charest rather than Brown, it is also hard to say how many will go along.

The conservatives could have a situation on the first count of 40 to 48 per cent for Charest and 40 to 48 per cent for Poilievre. That could leave the final decision to Leslyn Lewis’ second choice votes. Who do you think social conservatives would pick?

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Poilievre’s Petulance.

by Peter Lowry

It’s hard to believe that a person born and educated in the Province of Alberta would not question the past three years of continuous drought conditions in that province. Pierre Poilievre came to Ontario to find an electoral district that would elect someone with a French name. You would think the frequency of tornados and the changeable weather patterns here, in Ontario, would make him wonder.

But it is Poilievre’s petulant support for high carbon fuels from Alberta that must make him want to deny concerns for climate change. It hardly matters to him that the majority of scientific study supports concern about climate change and the need to alleviate the worsening conditions.

It is this petulance that brings into question Poilievre’s suitability to lead the conservative party. It is this petulance that raises the question of his suitability to be a member of parliament.

It is expected that if Poilievre could ever become prime minister, he would follow in the footsteps of Stephen Harper and pull Canada out of the various climate change treaties in which we have become involved since the liberal government took over in 2015. He is already fully committed to the building of a major Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) in the Saguenay region of Quebec. This project has already been denied by both the federal and Quebec provincial governments.

The rule of thumb is if you want incentives to buy electric vehicles, don’t ask Pierre Poilievre. If you want government support for pipelines for an increased output from the Alberta tar sands, Poilievre’s your guy.

What is less clear is Poilievre’s support for the so-called ‘Freedom Convoy’ that came to Ottawa last winter. These people are pathetically ignorant of Canada’s constitution and the charter of rights and freedoms. They demand freedom from the so-called gate keepers in Ottawa without being able to tell us what these gate keepers do.

Yet Poilievre welcomes these people to Ottawa where they became less and less welcome as time went on. We hear that some of them have even joined the conservative party to vote for Poilievre. It seems like a wasted membership fee.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Dougie Did It.

by Peter Lowry

As one of six siblings, I found as a child that blame tended to run downhill. It was not geological but based on age. My youngest brother, Douglas, tended to take the blame for much of the damage done by six rambunctious children. It seemed our mantra when questioned by a parent was mostly; ‘Dougie did it!’

It seems the probable mantra for Ontario over the next few years will also be ‘Dougie did it.’ With the ham-fisted political philosophy of Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, it will hardly be difficult to lay blame squarely on his broad backside.

It is important to remember that Doug Ford’s experience is that of a boisterous sales guy. He is neither well educated nor polished. His introduction to conservatism was through his one-term member of the legislature, father, Doug Ford Senior. His introduction to politics was by his crack-cocaine smoking younger brother, Rob, who served a term as mayor of Toronto.

It seems appropriate that Doug Ford campaigned in his last election as the conservatives will get it done. What it is that will get done remains to be seen.

It seems appropriate that as soon as the legislature got back into session, the conservative MPPs handed premier Ford an important lesson. In the secret ballot to choose the next four year’s speaker of the house, a number of the conservative MPPs voted with the opposition members for a speaker who was definitely not approved by the premier. That loss stung Ford.

It became obvious as soon as the legislature was in session that Ford and his cabinet had no plans in place for the two major and most expensive provincial problems—healthcare and education. The desperation solution for hospitals to move out bed occupiers to long term care homes is a desperation tactic that will bounce back hard on the conservatives while making money for the privately-owned long term care properties in the province.

The war between the teachers and their co-workers against the conservative government is in the early days of skirmishes. It will be the parents who see another lost year for their children who will bitterly say: ‘Dougie did it.’

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Democracy Denied.

by Peter Lowry

It could have been planned or it might be accidental. When it happens, it is wrong. It can deny voters the representation they deserve in the provincial legislature or in the House of Commons. It happened in my riding in the 2012 redistribution in Ontario and has been left in the proposed 2022 redistribution.

It was not until I worked on the recount in Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte after the 2015 federal election that I realized the problem could be best defined as an error impacting both rural and urban voters in the electoral district.

As someone who has worked for both political parties and returning officers in federal and provincial elections, I have always appreciated that the distribution most often attempts to collect urban voters separate from rural voters. This commonality of interest helps our political representatives to better reflect the needs and concerns of their voters.

That is why I was concerned in 2012 when the City of Barrie with a population a bit larger than the average electoral district was split in half and linked to parts of the surrounding rural townships. With the continued planned growth in Barrie over the ensuing ten years, the city is now virtually the only city of its size or larger in Ontario that does not have a purely urban electoral district within city boundaries.

This situation is unfair to the rural areas as the larger population in the city areas tends to determine the representation. In the 2015 federal election, for example, the two Barrie representatives elected were former city councillors who were selected by the larger number of voters in the urban parts of the electoral districts.

It seems to me that the situation can be easily corrected by the solution used in Map 3 of the redistribution for the City of Guelph, which has about the same population as Barrie. The Guelph electoral district is surrounded by Wellington-Halton riding. It would be easy to connect Springwater, parts of Oro-Medonte and Essa Townships with Innisfil Township into a largely rural electoral district. This means most of the south end of Barrie can be included in the city electoral district.

I would encourage all readers in the affected areas give this some thought and maybe you have a better suggestion. We can have our say on distribution. It is an important part of the democratic process. So please speak up.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Things to Come.

by Peter Lowry

When H.G. Wells wrote his science fiction book The Shape of Things to Come in the early 30s he was predicting the Second World War. You can see the influence the thinking throughout the book. There is a similar influence of the pandemic on much of what we write and plan today. We are letting COVID-19 influence our future.

It is certainly influencing our politics. In fact, much of the current anger and frustration with politics is rooted in the problems politicians had with trying to manage answers to the pandemics’ woes. If there was ever a time to measure politicians, it was during the pandemic.

My measure of politicians has always been if the person is faced with nothing but lemons, can he or she make lemonade? I think the classic answer to that was an incident with the famous Mayor Fiorella La Guardia of New York City. During a newspaper strike in the 1940s, the mayor was reading his favourite comics to the kids during his radio broadcasts.

And while I might have made fun of Justin Trudeau, popping in and out of Rideau Cottage like a cuckoo from a clock, I thought he did a good job of communicating with Canadians during the pandemic. Where his efforts failed though was in continuing the messages down through the provinces. Canada’s constitutional snarls really let us down in some key provinces. We can hardly keep the incompetents and narrow minded out of political office but maybe we could pass an emergency law that can take away provincial rights during a national emergency. That way, the provincal politicians would have the choice of getting in line or getting out of the way.

The pandemic is leaving us with mainly inadequate politicians and we are not seeing much coming forward but divisive politicians with their attempts at polarizing. We were witnesses to that happening next door in the United States and nobody promised it would not be attempted here. Pierre Poilievre, the front runner in the far-right wing of the federal conservative leadership race is a case in point.

What Canada so desperately needs in political leadership is someone who can point to a progressive future—in a land of respect for the environment, where a healthy, well-housed and educated population are free to pursue their goals in life.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Political Pitfalls.

by Peter Lowry

It’s a wonder that the way we vote hasn’t been blamed for bad breath. It has been blamed for everything else. Fewer people vote, blame it on first-past-the-post (FPTP). A party wins the election with just 40 per cent of the vote, blame it on FPTP.

Mainstreet Research annoyed Ontario voters recently by having automated telephone calls ask how they would like to exercise their vote. The result was also annoying. According to reports, it appears about a third of us want to vote for proportional representation—that is where politicians are appointed to sit in parliament according to the per cent that we vote for. About a third also opted for preferential voting—where your second, third or fourth choice can help one of the candidates to get over 50 per cent support. Luckily another third of us supported first-past-the-post. You would think that all the ballyhoo about voting, some sort of consensus would start to form.

Back in 2007, Ontario voters chose by about two-thirds to stick with FPTP instead of opting for a form of proportional representation. In that version, only some of the politicians were appointed. I got the impression at that time that our voters were opposed to the idea of having anyone appointed to the legislature.

It has been said that a definition of insanity is the repeating of the same thing over and over and hoping for different results. That is an excellent description of the conservative party’s voting system for leadership. They always use preferential voting—and never seem to like the results. This is the form of voting used with a large number of candidates and you indicate your preference from one to ten to find which one can first reach 50 per cent plus one. The problem is that they drop the poorest performers first. They then add the second choice of this loser to the count. What they are doing is adding the losers’ second choice or then third choice or fourth choice and so on, until somebody adds up to more than 50 per cent. In effect, it is the losers who really pick the winners.

The more reasonable alternative to this is when one candidate does not get more than 50 per cent on the first ballot is hold a run-off vote for the top two. At least this precludes drilling down among the losers.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Hell’s Bell.

by Peter Lowry

It was twelve years ago when we had to get in line to tell the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) why Bell Canada should not be allowed to buy CTV. What I was trying to explain to the commissioners at the time was that the cultures of the two organizations where like oil and water. Neither understood the other. Neither was competent to question the other. It was a marriage made in Hell.

But who am I to question the desires of Bell Canada’s board of directors? Bell got what they wanted. CTV got an interfering and imperialistic boss.

More than a few mistakes and missed directions have occurred since then. How could there not be missteps by a company concerned more with this quarter’s dividend trying to run a company seeking to connect effectively with Canadians.

Bell Canada is a company disliked and distrusted by many of us in Eastern Canada. CTV wants to be trusted. And that is particularly true for the news department. News and public affairs programming are a staple of a television network. You only have to look south of the Canadian border to see what it can do to a country to have divisive news and public affairs broadcasting based on lies. After all, it is difficult and expensive to try to maintain a lie.

It is like the Lisa LaFlamme fiasco that is currently filling the void of social media on the Internet. That is the type of problem that news departments in broadcast media build for themselves. They believe, and rightly, I think, that the credibility of a news reader is based to a large extent on the reporting credentials of the individual.

By building the credibility of their news readers, they boost their audience—and the larger the audience the more money they get from their advertisers. Which is what it always comes to in any business.

I haven’t watched CTV news or public affairs shows for the last ten years. That leaves me out of those who can judge Ms. LaFlamme’s recent performance. I’ll bet she is as good as she was 15 years ago.

But there is a serious falling away from both print and broadcast media. I don’t think they are tapping into Canada’s younger audiences. Hell, I would like to know how many of my regular readers are under 40.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]