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

Did the Fat Lady Sing?

by Peter Lowry

The on-going comic opera in Alberta is running pell-mell towards the finale. With Jason Kenney’s arch enemy, Brian Jean, now back in the united conservative caucus, the provincial party meeting of April 9 is looming larger and darker for the premier. Jason Kenney is running out of friends in Alberta.

And you would think that the federal conservative leadership contest would be his savior. It is the convenient escape hatch. That race needs somebody smarter than Pierre Poilievre and with a better knowledge of the conservative party.

The race certainly needs someone better than retreads such as Jean Charest and Patrick Brown. And there are people who really like Jason Kenney—outside of Alberta. And, don’t forget, Albertans would vote for a prairie dog, as long as he came from Alberta.

Jason Kenney can tell anybody who will listen that he is just misunderstood in Alberta. It is all a conspiracy fomented among the former wildrose party members. After all, he kept telling them that the pandemic was over. He was going to get it right eventually.

And maybe he wasted billions on his pipelines. Yet Kenney is a piker compared to Justin Trudeau. The federal liberal leader is now up to up to an estimated $21 billion in costs to finish the Trans Mountain pipeline. The experts are now predicting that the federal government can never recover that much in shipping the products of the Alberta tar sands.

Kenney is probably worried that both Poilievre and Brown are his acolytes. He curried them for their current run for the roses. He taught them most of the slimy tricks they know. Poilievre might not appreciate being identified with someone as maladroit as Brown but he has to admit that Kenney was very much a role model for him.

And we have the perfect song for Kenney as he hitches up the old chuck wagon and moseys down to the Ottawa corral. It’s an old Neil Young number, with a minor gender change. It would have all kinds of interesting connotations if sung by Dolly Parton.  It’s ‘He’ll be coming around the mountain when he comes.’

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Reaching Out.

by Peter Lowry

Some politicians despair today at the difficulties they see in reaching out to their voters. Yet, there are many more opportunities today than there used to be. For example, my local liberal candidate in the first two days of being the official candidate took part in a webinar and a telephone town hall. He probably thinks I know little about the technologies but the truth is we were working on those ideas more than 40 years ago.

Webinars are based on computer-aided learning. Many of our current parents will be quite familiar with this as their children have bounced in and out with this technology during the pandemic. They probably saw some very bad methods along with some good.

For webinars, you can start with good technology. They have to have professional level sound, lighting and graphics. You would swear that some efforts are broadcast from the bathroom, by the way the sound bounces off all the porcelain. Good lighting can make a considerable difference in how people perceive the speakers. And you really need to check the clutter behind them.

Good telephone town halls are just as critical. You need good scripts for the intros and any prepared questions. You need to check the sound quality constantly. A professional master of ceremonies can make a good event better.

Frankly, I have been appalled at the lack of understanding of social media. This is an opportunity not envisaged 40 years ago. Social media is a form of creative media. It requires planning. It requires an on-going story line. It needs to build audience and interest. It is definitely not something the candidate dreams up daily.

And what are you doing about the ubiquitous lawn sign? You will probably have to Google it but you should look up the idea of the Burma Shave signs. This was a series of signs you saw on American highways back in the 1920s and 30s. They were small signs that were in a series of four or five that were funny and entertaining. You really do not have to compete with the local real estate agents for attention.

Creative approaches can help you win.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Ontario’s Options.

by Peter Lowry

There will be an election in Ontario on June 2. It will be an election that is really about leadership. You will be hearing much about it as election day gets closer. It would be very wrong to assume anything about this election. People who live in Ontario, care about Ontario and are concerned about the province’s future, will want to think about it and vote in the election.

An election about leadership is the simplest way to look at an election. It is as simple as ABC. You have Doug Ford, conservative, Steven Del Duca, liberal, and Andrea Horwath, new democrat. If you always vote for one of those parties, you might not think you have a problem.

But nobody is perfect.

Mr. Ford has been a disaster. His bombast, his erratic leadership in the pandemic, the desertion of his sinking ship by key members of cabinet such as the healthcare minister and the long-term care minister make you wonder. Also, people are very skeptical of his reasons for promoting highway 413 when developers have bought the farmland around all the proposed highway interchanges before it was announced publicly.

And after ten years of Ms. Horwath leading the new democrats, we know she is not even an effective opposition leader. After the past four years as the official opposition, the new democratic party leader failed to have any impact on the Ford government or prove to be a viable alternative.

Mr. Del Duca of the liberals, has a different problem. Nobody really knows him. He has been leader of the liberals for the past two years and has made some promises to try for attention. He needed to be in the legislature. It will be his performance in the election that will decide.

The alternative is to pick the best candidate in your riding to represent you. A good candidate is one who knows your riding—knows its needs and knows how people feel. You want to be proud to have this person represent you.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Genocide in Ukraine.

by Peter Lowry

The world quivers in its warm foxholes while Vladimir Putin commits genocide in Ukraine. He tested the world on the Crimea. Nobody did anything. Words were wasted. Protestations were not enough. And what will happen when he comes for you?

The world must awake. Putin is a psychopath. He cares not how many he kills. He will not hesitate to use atomic weapons. He is but a blemish on the body politic. If the Russians will not contain him, then they will also suffer the blame for his actions.

The world must say ‘No.’ Putin lies to the Russian people. He brooks no criticism He threatens all. He deserves the same treatment as a rabid dog.

Is our world leadership so weak as to believe that sanctions are effective against lunacy? Is the United States of America so torn with political strife within its own borders not to recognize that Putin threatens mankind?

There are only two things that give us any hope. The first is the ineptness of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Russians have broken every rule of war. The Russian generals seem to have never read On War by Carl von Clausewitz. Based on reports from inside Ukraine, the invasion seems disorganized. To send tanks from the east to where the capital city is located, takes a great deal of fuel. Every day those tanks advanced used more fuel. Finally, the supply lines were too long.

While von Clausewitz never envisaged aerial warfare, the strategies he suggested are still pertinent. He never suggested demoralizing the population by bombing apartment buildings and hospitals but he would recognize the objective. The only problem today is that these tactics, borrowed from the Bassar al-Assad playbook in the Syrian civil war, are strengthening the resolve of the Ukrainian defenders.

The second cause for hope is the leadership of Ukraine president Zelenskyy. He knows how to address the world leaders and he is he is highly effective in reaching out. He uses modern communications. He remains in Kyiv, the capital city. His leadership has changed all considerations in this invasion. He continues to create reason for hope.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Brown’s Broader Bailiwick.

by Peter Lowry

Patrick Brown is in the race for the conservative party’s federal leadership. He told the media and some supporters the other day that he is going to restore the credibility and connections of the conservative party with a broader swath of Canadians. You can expect that broader swath to be mostly from the South Asian diaspora in Canada.

That was how Brown won the Ontario conservative leadership. It was the same immigrant group who won the national new democratic party leadership for Jagmeet Singh. Nobody has explained to these new Canadians that you should not be a member of two different political parties. Yet, if the organizers for candidates are willing to pay your membership fee for you, why not?

Brown’s most serious problem is the early cut off of memberships by the conservative party. It is only two and a half months to the June 4 cut off. Even starting with those he signed up in Ontario in 2015 and the concentration of votes in Brampton, he is unlikely to have much more than 100,000 new voters by the cut off. That is about half of the expected new sign-ups. The conservatives will again be bragging about the largest membership of any party in Canada if the total exceeds 400,000.

Brown is a hands-on organizer. He does not rely on others to do that job. He knows how the game is played and he works hard. I would expect him to come third in the present field of candidates.  He will likely follow Charest and Poilievre. Jean Charest will be the guy promoting the middle of the road route to a conservative government. Poilievre will appeal to the hard right and the fiscal conservatives in the party.

I really think Brown has to target the conservative caucus. He understands them and knows what buttons to push. They will be the ones that the rank and file in the ridings turn to for advice on second and third votes. He needs the second and third votes from losers such as Lewis and Baber.

It seems to this observer that in the race with the current candidates, Brown can only be the king-maker for Charest. That would give him an assured appointment in a Charest conservative government. We can only hope he does not come back to Barrie to run in the next federal election.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Jason Kenney is no FDR.

by Peter Lowry

It was in 1933 that American Franklin Roosevelt started his series of fireside chats on radio that won him two more elections as president. If Alberta premier Jason Kenney and Corus Entertainment think they can duplicate that record, they are dreaming in technicolour.

Jason Kenney and Corus Entertainment are many years too late if they think that a series of fireside chats on radio could save Jason Kenney’s ass. You can also be assured that the Alberta premier is no recreation of former Alberta premier ‘Bible Bill’ Aberhart, who got his start on radio in the 1930s.

The current show, called Your Province, Your Premier, is scheduled to be aired on Saturday mornings live on Corus’ AM stations in Edmonton and Calgary. The first show aired On Saturday, March 12 to less than rave reviews. Whether there will be a second show, we have no idea.

One of the questions asked about this show is whether it could be considered somewhat one sided? Or, to put it squarely, is it unpaid advertising for premier Jason Kenney?

If you are going to complain to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) about this free advertising, I should warn you that it might be a waste of time. I banged my head on the door of that agency about Corus Entertainment airing patently biased shows in the last federal election. I was annoyed about the conservative party bias of the broadcaster in the week before election day. The response I got was that the bias had to be consistent throughout the election campaign.

To make that allegation, I would have had to have a recording of every political show and news show on the network for the entire election. I have no idea just who that agency thinks they work for these days but it is obviously not the Canadian public.

Maybe we will get an answer when we see how that commission votes on the takeover of what is left of the Shaw empire in Calgary by the high-flying heirs of the late Ted Rogers.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Einstein and the Tories.

by Peter Lowry

It is said to be Albert Einstein who claimed that insanity was when you kept doing things the same way and expected different results. That sounds like a reasonable description of the conservative party of Canada’s current Leadership Election Organizing Committee (LEOC). There might be some different members of the committee but they must be insane to continue to use ranked voting in the party’s leadership selection.

Ranked voting is often considered the lazy person’s run-off balloting. When there are only three or four candidates and a candidate gets a majority of votes on the first ballot, it is the same as first-past-the-post balloting.

But when there are five or more names on the ballot and nobody gets a majority of votes on the first ballot, the insanity takes over. The system dictates that the candidate with the least votes be dropped from the count and the second choice on those ballots be counted in the totals.

What makes anyone think that the second choice of these loser ballots will be any more astute than their first choice?

What I have always said about ranked ballots is that the more candidates there are, the worse your final choice can be. You are actually drilling down in the appeal of the candidates.

One of your problems in these multiple counts are the voters who did not make a second, third, fourth or fifth choice. You find that the total votes are decreasing as you work your way through the ballots.

One of the ways of hiding this decreasing vote, LEOC has found, is to apply equal weighting to all 338 federal electoral districts across Canada. This takes away votes from your strong ridings and adds weight to your weak ones. Maybe that is just another touch of conservative insanity.

While I have always been a supporter of run-off elections—with some time allowed for reflection on the question—it would require more trust in computer network voting to keep costs within reason. Until then, first-past-the-post voting remains your trusted system.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

Ford’s ‘400’ Focus.

by Peter Lowry

It really is annoying that Ontario premier Ford has started his election campaign with emphasis on the ‘400’ series highways. We all know that it takes years and extensive planning and modelling before the first truck load of concrete is poured. When you do the planning on the fly to improve on your re-election chances, you are sure to get it wrong.

And typical of Doug Ford, he listens to all the experts and then does what he intended to do.

One example was that in an attempt to win back the Durham provincial riding for the conservatives, the premier cancelled the tolls charged on highways 412 and 418. Both of these highways are less than 10 kilometers long and currently connect the 407 Electronic Toll Route (ETR) with provincial highway 401. Highway 412 goes through Whitby and highway 418 connects just east of Oshawa. Mind you, he forgot to cancel the more profitable tolls on the Ontario-owned portion of highway 407.

But the main problem with Doug Ford’s enthusiasm for highways are the proposed new highway linking King City and Milton (known as highway 413) and the Bradford Bypass designed to link highways 404 and 400. The problem is that highway 413 is a special prize for the premier’s developer friends who knew to buy up all the available farmland around the proposed interchanges for future development. Most Ontario residents are trying to figure out why we need three controlled access highways (401, 407 and 413) in parallel across the valuable farmlands, wet lands and aquifers of that part of rural Ontario?

The problem with the Bradford Bypass (also known as the Highways 400 and 404 Link) is that it has been needed to ease traffic on both highways for the past 30 years. At present, the north and south bound traffic have only three roads through the Town of Newmarket to connect the two highways.

Any Torontonian with a cottage in Muskoka can tell you that the province has been putting in new six lane overpasses for highway 400, north of where the 404 will connect, for the past six years. Planning and implementation of highway projects take many years. Hopefully Doug Ford will not be around long enough to get them screwed up.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

A Path to Power for Tories?

by Peter Lowry

As the federal conservative leadership race starts to gather some interest, the question of where the party is headed becomes critical. Regrettably, it will be the role of the contenders to define Canadian conservatism and where it should be going. And that is a very broad subject.

Obviously, Jean Charest, the retread liberal from Quebec, will preach winning by sticking to the middle of the political road. He offers nothing to the extremists. He offers little to the West and little more than hard times to his own province of Quebec and Atlantic Canada. Charest is out of touch and a conservative from the party’s past before it merged with the Reform-Alliance.

But if the range of contenders does not grow, Charest is in a position to win.

Despite his early entry, Pierre Poilievre, the MP from Carleton, is in a box. As the advocate for fiscal responsibility, he wants to take the party on an austerity trip. He is currently fighting rising gasoline prices, Justin Trudeau and deficits. He will get the hard-line conservatives and is probably close to a first ballot win but is unlikely to get the second votes needed to be a winner.

It appears that there is an attempt to block MP Leslyn Lewis from running in this race. It might be because she looks like the king-maker, if it stays just a four or five-person race. She is the darling of the social conservatives. There is a chance that Roman Baber, the Ontario MPP, could replace Lewis in the affections of the extremists but there is no movement yet.

Brampton mayor Patrick Brown is also studying the current political situation. Much depends on how he intends to handle the extremists. There will be a lot of second votes available to the contender who can pacify the social conservatives and the libertarians. The libertarians are the extremists who do not like Maxime Bernier’s Peoples’ Party and are still paid-up conservatives.  

But it is far too early to place any bets. This race needs more breadth and more talent. If the conservative party cannot attract more than these four or five to the race, there is little hope for the party’s future.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

The Useless Pipeline.

by Peter Lowry

The news that the Trans Mountain pipeline will cost Canadians $21.4 billion should not come as a surprise. At those costs, more analysts are considering it a bad investment. Did you think we haven’t been lied to? Did you listen to that crap from Alberta that energy self-sufficiency was Canada’s ace in the hole? Filled your gas tank lately? 

Canadians are paying the same world-wide surcharge on oil as everybody else. Alberta oil—better known as tar sands bitumen—has nothing to do with it. Some of what we pay at the gasoline station is likely profiteering, some is carbon tax and some is federal and provincial taxes, And the excuse for the serious escalation in price is Russia invading Ukraine.

And the problem is that Europe cannot switch its dependence on Russian oil and gas in the middle of the winter. The Russians are the experts in using winter as a weapon.

But there is only one rationale for the continued twinning of the Trans Mountain pipeline. The old pipe has been delivering refined automobile and airplane fuels to B.C. and the State of Washington for many years. The $21.4 billion buys the second pipe and the high-pressure pumps and heaters for both pipes to pump tar sands bitumen at high pressure across the Rockies to ocean tankers in the Burrard Inlet. From there, it is to be shipped out across the Pacific Ocean to customers mainly in China and South Asia.

Of course, prime minister Trudeau takes no responsibility for the carbon released by the refining processes or the eventual carbon release when used to heat homes or fuel internal combustion engines in other parts of the world. Oh no, Mr. Trudeau does not think he is to blame for bitumen processed outside our country.

Our prime minister lies to the world that he is protecting the environment. He makes green-house gas emissions promises that he knows he cannot really keep. The promises are all into the future—when he is unlikely still trying to breath the air of a dying world. He leaves it for our children’s children to revile him as a destroyer.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]