Babel-on-the-Bay – Page 54 – Babel-on-the-Bay is the personal website of Peter Lowry. It is a vehicle for political commentaries.

Coming to Hamilton.

July 29, 2022July 28, 2022 by Peter Lowry

Most of us probably think of Hamilton as the lunch-pail city of Ontario. Maybe we do but it doesn’t deserve a lunch-pail mayor such as former MPP Andrea Horwath. The city deserves better.

It is probably because I have always admired Hamilton. You can hardly drive over the Burlington Skyway and not be impressed by the vast and busy Hilton Works of Stelco. This is a company that helped build Canada throughout the 20^th Century.

Hamilton is a complex city. It is the east end with its homes of workers and of management for the steel plants, the downtown with that rusty steel building as a centrepiece and the mountain homes with shopping plazas as an afterthought. It hardly needs someone as inarticulate as Horwath as its chief salesperson.

We have really seen enough of Ms. Horwath at Queen’s Park.

She was elected to Queen’s Park in 2004 and became leader of the new democrats in 2009. She sat in place for the Wynne liberal years and blew her chance for power against the braggart Ford in 2018. The liberals self immolated that year and Horwath found she was leader of the opposition. It was another opportunity lost.

It was during the pandemic that I was trying to help someone in her town with a problem at a Hamilton hospital. She answered my e-mail about it by saying have the person call her Hamilton office. The person got nothing but busy signals. I tried to call and also got busy signals. It looks busy when you take the phones off the hook.

It looks like Ms. Horwath is following former federal candidate for conservative leader Patrick Brown’s lead. If it looks like you are at a dead end, you can always go back to your municipal roots.

The only problem with that is that Hamilton hardly needs a retiree from Queen’s Park for mayor.

Hamilton needs a mayor like John Tory in Toronto. He is always there. He is out where the people are. He is pro-active. Hamilton needs a champion. Ms. Horwath is no champion.

-30-

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

[email protected]

Harper’s Heir.

July 28, 2022July 27, 2022 by Peter Lowry

This might not surprise many. You did know, didn’t you that that MP Pierre Poilievre is Stephen Harper’s choice? Poilievre has amused Harper since he sat at Harper’s cabinet table. He will do far more for the far right than Harper had in mind. Now we all know he is betting on Poilievre in this year’s conservative leadership race.

It all ties back to the last four years of Harper’s prime minister’s office. It was when Harper finally had the chance to show how right-wing he really is. It was when he did the most damage to our country. It was why the advent of “sunny days” in 2015 was a brighter day for Canadians. There was hope. Yet, there was rain on some of those sunny days. And then there was a pandemic to smash those hopes. Trudeau promised too much. It took us all time to realize that the young Trudeau was but an actor and he wanted the world for a stage.

And if you thought a weak democratic party in the United States suffered under the divisiveness of Donald Trump, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Pierre Poilievre’s strategy against Canada could drive a knife down the middle of this country. Poilievre doesn’t want to rule from Ottawa, he wants to destroy Ottawa.

I think it came a surprise to Donald Trump that he could not rule from the White House as autocratically as he desired. In Canada, Poilievre would not have the same constraints. In Canada, with a majority government, he could disband the RCMP and turn the Canada Pension Plan and the federal tax base over to the provinces.

And did you think that suggestion by Poilievre the other day about the Toronto Island Airport taking jets was a casual ‘maybe?’ If Poilievre was PM, the province and the city would either agree to jets or the airport would be closed to all traffic.

And in the same manner as conservative premier Ford ignores climate change in Ontario, the Canada weather office would toe a new line or look for new jobs.

And you could kiss the Bank of Canada good-bye. The attitude would be that climate change does not exist and neither does inflation. Good luck working for bitcoin.

-30-

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

[email protected]

Ford is Cock of the Walk.

July 27, 2022 by Peter Lowry

He sure showed them all. He quit university to get out there and sell for his dad. He took the show on the road and tried to open the market for Deco Labels in Chicago. Salesman Doug Ford then followed younger brother Rob into Toronto city politics. It was four years of surprises and heartaches. Doug had not yet found his niche.

But he is convinced he has found it now. Doug Ford is in his second term as premier of Canada’s most powerful province. He is cock of the walk.

And the cock of the walk can get that bus with a bed, he so foolishly asked for four years ago. He now knows how. The cock of the walk has his way.

Ford has an agenda. He can finish the Bradford Bypass during this term. What else was it he ran on? “Conservatives get things done.” He can maybe get started on Highway 413. It runs from nowhere to nowhere but his developer friends are excited about it. They can pave over the wetlands.

But how do you pave over the ruin of Ontario’s healthcare system? Blame it on COVID. Blame it on Christine Elliott. Blame it on the federal government. You can always blame it on others when you are cock of the walk.

And what about Ontario’s vaunted education system? If the cock of the walk thinks that young guy with private school education is going to pull that system back together, he has a surprise coming.

There are many surprises in store for someone who thinks they are cock of the walk.

First, you have to realize how you got to be cock of the walk. You had no opposition. Neither the NDP nor the liberals had a leader more colorful or known than Mr. Ford. The conservatives ran the longest campaign before the election was called and the shortest after the election was called. The opposition never got off the ground. Ford ran circles around his opponents in a well-funded campaign. The election also showed the poorest turnout of voters in Ontario’s history.

And the cock of the walk needs to remember: you can fool some of the people, some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

-30-

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

[email protected]

Where’s God in this?

July 26, 2022July 25, 2022 by Peter Lowry

The Pope of Rome is in Canada this week. And if you are a devout Roman Catholic, you should be pleased. And if you are not a religious person, you are probably already bored with it. And if you have some aboriginal ancestry, I can imagine the mixed feelings that could be involved.

While residential schools for native Canadians might have offered a potential to proselytize for religious orders, it obviously opened the door to carnal desires. It led to mistreatment and abuse of children for whom the government had accepted responsibility. It led to deaths from diseases to which the children lacked inherited immunity. It was a wrong that we were talking about, to my knowledge, as far back as the 1950s. It took a long time for what was wrong to come into focus.

As someone who spent many years in the business of communications, it was clear to me that Canada’s aboriginal peoples had an oral culture. They passed down the stories of their people through generations. There was little pictorial language.

They went to war with other tribes, took slaves and wives. They were nomadic and followed the seasons. Survival over the winters was the biggest challenge. The best hunter was the natural leader and the woman best invested in midwifery was the natural leader among the women.

When the Europeans came with their blunderbusses and gunpowder, the aboriginal’s world changed, whether they liked it or not.

And, on the whole, the Europeans were poor colonists. They brought with them the bad habits and prejudices of their mother countries. Interaction with native North Americans created new prejudices. Offering to teach aboriginal children to think and act like Europeans was not a good idea. Taking the children was an even worse idea.

And then they let religious orders run the residential schools, which was another very bad idea. Errors compounded and voices of caution were muted.

Which brings us to today and the visit by the head of the Roman church. He says he is here to apologize on behalf of his church. I thought he had already done that. His church believes in absolution. I don’t.

-30-

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

[email protected]

Conservative Kangaroo Court.

July 25, 2022July 24, 2022 by Peter Lowry

Wow, would it ever speed up the processes through our courts if the conservative party’s minions were running things. I will freely admit that I have absolutely no use for Patrick Brown, former MP, former Ontario PC leader, and former candidate for federal conservative leader. It is simply that I believe if you accuse someone of doing something wrong, you should prove it.

Mr. Brown has broken the rules in the past and I would suspect that he has done it again. As I understand the conservative party rules, a new membership in the party is required to have a personal cheque attached or valid credit card information that is issued in the applicant’s name. I would assume that rule would preclude money orders being used, as you can buy those for Santa Claus. And Patrick Brown should know better.

It seems to me though that the charge that Brown had contravened the election act is much more serious. It should be easy enough to track down that story and find out if it really took place.

What concerns me the most is that the citizens of Brampton might be stuck with Brown in the mayor’s chair for another four years. I am not sure that Brampton deserves that.

There have been repeated reports from Brampton of ruction at city hall. I have no idea what is going on there but it sounds to me that Brown does not know how to work with his council. It has been reported that when he was leader of the Ontario progressive conservative caucus, he had problems with an unruly group of conservatives. City councils are rarely all members of the same political party and you really do have to be a persuasive person to keep them all working in the best interests of their community.

While Patrick Brown has been active in politics since a very young age, he has not learned much about working with others. It seems to me that politicians who get the urge to get into politics later in life, after a successful business career, do a much better job for the local citizens. Brampton might be best to consider alternatives.

-30-

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

[email protected]

Poilievre Prefers.

July 24, 2022July 23, 2022 by Peter Lowry

Why doesn’t Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre want a third debate among the remaining conservative leadership hopefuls? With two-thirds of party members preferring a third debate, you would think the obvious front runner might oblige.

But the answer is “No.” Poilievre gave the party leadership committee a scathing answer. He not only said no, he enlarged on his answer by calling the first debate an embarrassment for the party and saying both French and English events got in the way of selling temporary memberships in the party.

You would think that now the selling is done and with maybe 100,000 temporary memberships sold by Patrick Brown open for change, a third debate would not be such a bad idea. With a total of over 600,000 people available to vote, there would be no harm in enticing a few more into your camp.

But it sure is tough to try to shake the over-confidence of Mr. Poilievre.

This is a guy who wants his ‘convoy’ converts to conservatism to know how obnoxious he can be. He is promising them ‘free-dumb’ to block entry points to Canada and to party around the clock in the nation’s capital.

But the supporters that we really feel sorry for are the young people who like the idea of someone controversial in the conservative leadership.

But like the Republican Party in the United States will be a long time ridding that party of the image of Donald Trump, the Canadian conservatives will spend quite a while getting rid of the odour of Pierre Poilievre.

Poilievre has the problem that he shoots from the hip. The other day, for example, he said that he would have jet aircraft flying out of Billy Bishop Airport on the Toronto Islands. That will cost his conservative candidate a hell of a lot of votes from the masses of condos facing the islands in downtown Toronto. The noise level of turbo-prop aircraft landing and taking off from Billy Bishop can be handled. Jet aircraft, that close to downtown, would not produce happy voters. The promise is like his idiotic promise to support cryptocurrencies against the advice of the Bank of Canada. Poilievre is a high-risk possibility for Canadian conservatives.

-30-

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

[email protected]

What’s Democratic About It?

July 23, 2022July 22, 2022 by Peter Lowry

Ontario premier Doug Ford’s proposals for ‘super mayors’ in Toronto and Ottawa have nothing to do with democracy. What he seems to be trying to do is make sure that the developers keep working with city hall. It is probably the only way that those cities will ever have close to enough affordable housing.

As I understand it so far, the idea is to give the super mayor a veto over any motion by council but council can overrule the mayor with a two-thirds vote. Giving the super mayor control over budgeting as well as department appointments could also be part of the package. Knowing how the progressives and right-wing members break down on council, such a formula in Toronto would give the mayor a virtual control of the current council. While there is not a clear-cut right-left breakdown of council, you do see more left-wing councillors downtown and more right-wing suburban council members.

While there is general consensus that the more powerful mayor system would be more efficient, that does not mean that more meaningful work would be done. A powerful mayor might be able to negotiate more geared-to-income rental housing being built in the city but the mayor would also need to be motivated to use the power in that direction.

And there is still the not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) attitude to geared-to-income in individual wards. No councillor wants to be drawn into battle with his or her voters.

Ideally the super mayor would have the ability to negotiate with developers to include a ratio of geared-to-income in any major project.

It is amusing to realize that a similar super mayor concept was proposed by the McGinty liberal government back in 2008 and David Miller, mayor at that time, thought the system was unnecessary.

Obviously, the imagination of the municipal affairs experts at Queen’s Park have yet to be challenged by this proposition. We will await developments.

-30-

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

[email protected]

Ford’s Advice from Afar.

July 22, 2022July 21, 2022 by Peter Lowry

Ontario premier Doug Ford needs to stop taking advice from his dead brother. We hear that he is thinking of giving the mayors of Ottawa and Toronto powers similar to those of the U.S. ‘strong mayors.’ Ford seems to get all of his ideas from séances.

The older brother, Doug Ford served as a city councillor in the four years that his younger brother Rob was mayor of Toronto. With the younger brother’s use of crack cocaine and then falling ill with the cancer, that ultimately killed him, it was a turbulent time in Toronto City Hall.

It was assumed to be ‘get even’ time when the elder Ford became premier and one of his first acts was to cut the number of Toronto councillors from 47 to 25. This was despite the fact that the election was already underway.

Doug Ford, coincidently, was based in Chicago for his father’s label printing company during part of the reign of Richard M. Daley as Chicago’s super mayor. Ford never got the label business off the ground in Chicago but he should have understood why the Ontario approach to mayoralty is more challenging than the American system.

I have never known a mayor in Ontario who did not complain at one time or other that they only have one vote on council. What you need as mayor is something most good mayors—such as Toronto’s John Tory has—panache.

As chief magistrate of their community, our mayors are well-paid greeters and honours dispensers. The smarter mayors use their appointment privileges to strengthen their clique and to get objectives through the council agenda. The lazy ones leave the heavy lifting to the city clerk and often have to settle for a single term.

The most annoying problem that our mayors face is that they have to go ‘hat in hand’ to the senior levels of government to get the money required for large expenses such as subways and other high debt load projects.

Toronto is one of the five major cities in Canada recognized as a Charter City. That means it gets additional funding sources in addition to property taxes. Yet, as is always the case: The more you give them, the more they want.

-30-

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

[email protected]

Brampton Brown Bifurcates.

July 21, 2022July 22, 2022 by Peter Lowry

It is amazing how Patrick Brown always seems to find the fork in the road of least resistance. For someone who has never held a real job, it seems he can always weasel his way out of one mess and get into another. His only problem seems to be, whenever he gets where he is going, he does nothing.

It was seven years ago, that Brown went from being the apparent do-nothing member of parliament for Barrie to leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative party. There are various versions of what went wrong there. Needless to say, he was soon applying for the regional chair position in Peel Region. When Doug Ford arbitrarily cancelled that position, Patrick took the fork in the road to the mayor’s role in Brampton. It took some promises but with the aid of the South Asia diaspora in Brampton, the MP, come party leader, became mayor of Brampton.

I have been meaning to stop by some of Brampton’s parks to see how the big change is coming. Patrick promised members of the South Asia diaspora in Brampton that he would turn some of Brampton’s lovely parks into cricket pitches. South Asians dearly love their cricket games.

If there is one thing that Patrick knows, it is politics. He made quite a show of announcing that he was quitting the conservative leadership race (since he was already kicked out). That was a carefully chosen crowd that he had assembled—probably from lists of people who wanted something from the city. They all seemed pleased that he was running for mayor again.

And he even brought along his kids because they are at the cute stage. After all, who would want a picture of Patrick.

If there is any progressive running who thinks he or she can beat Brown, I would be pleased to come down to Brampton for a day and discuss how he can be beaten. Mind you, the gas is on you. Just once, I would like to see Patrick have to get a real job.

-30-

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

[email protected]

As Good as it Gets in Alberta.

July 20, 2022July 19, 2022 by Peter Lowry

Oh, to be in Alberta when the politicians are in heat. There is nothing more galvanizing than when all those narcissists come out to play. Once again, we have a competition between the libertarians of the united conservatives and the libertarians of the Wildrose. And the enemy of all resides in Ottawa.

The most disconcerting situation for the united conservatives is that the candidates who are stealing all the air in the contest to replace Jason Kenney are Wildrose retreads. While these wannabes are blaming Ottawa for bleeding Alberta dry, they sure have a lot of spit left. And Jason Kenney has not even left the province. And who will deliver his eulogy?

And how hollow will be the blame game in Alberta be when the province reaps the rewards for the rapacious price of oil? The province is going to get more than $10 billion in windfall profits from the greed of the oil barons this year. Yet they vilify Justin Trudeau who loses more and more support in the east every day for pouring $21 billion into an expanded bitumen pipeline, across the Rockies, that will bring even more environment destroying profit to a greedy Alberta.

Can you believe the colossal stupidity of the leading contender for the leadership of the Alberta conservatives, Danielle Smith? The former Wildrose leader who crossed the floor of the legislature with most of her Wildrose caucus to join the conservatives is now the love child of the “Free Alberta” lunatics.” These are the people who want to fire the RCMP and have an Alberta provincial police and their own pension plan to invest more of their money in exploiting the tar sands. The only problem is that these ‘constitutional experts’ think they can pass laws to refuse federal transfer payments and ignore any federal law that does not please them.

It was the fond hope of some Alberta moderates recently that well-respected MP Michelle Rempel Garner would bring some common sense and trust to the UCP leadership race. It seems that she looked over the field and decided it must be a race between losers and lunatics. She headed back to Ottawa.

-30-

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

[email protected]