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

Forecasting Ford’s Future.

by Peter Lowry

They are starting to measure the balance of premier Doug Ford’s tenancy at Queen’s Park in terms of weeks. The only problem Ontario voters are really facing after the June 2 election is just who will replace Ford. When you mention the nebbish Andrea Horwath of the NDP and the unknown Steven Del Duca of the liberals, a pained look comes to voters’ faces.

As the astronauts say: We’ve got a problem. It is the simple fact that time is short for the liberals to come up with the rational for voting for your local liberal candidates. Yes, getting rid of that guy Ford makes sense but you need to include a positive reason for the votes.

And something as stupid as telling people you will change how they elect future governments in Ontario is not going to make the cut. A simple plan to stop the escalation in housing costs in Ontario would be a possible solution. We hardly want to hurt those who have made large investments in their housing but we have to have housing available for the younger generations in Ontario who want to have a family.

Ford foolishly has promised $45 million to the larger municipalities to make it easier for his developer friends to build new subdivisions. His solution does little for housing costs. Neither do the new democrat’s solutions. They want expanded rent controls and government support for first-time buyers.

The next most serious need for the liberals is name candidates. They need candidates that are already known in their electoral district. We are running out of time for candidates who are not known. It takes many months of work to become known (in a positive way) to local voters.

And you can hardly hope that we will be Covid-free in time for the election. As much as Ford and the conservatives would like to take the credit for an ebbing of pressure on our health system, their hit and miss pandemic approach is doing almost as much damage as the pandemic itself.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Desperate for political news.

by Peter Lowry

We are all desperate. We have had an overabundance of Covid-19 news for the past two years. It has not gone away. Even the federal election in October last year failed to take the pandemic off the front pages. And you would think Toronto never had snow before, the way the media got so excited about more than 30 centimetres of the stuff the other day. We are all desperate for something different.

And that is why the good news the other day was in a heading from the Globe and Mail. The Globe headline writer started off saying the following: “NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh supports vaccination,” which I am sure came as no surprise to the 90 per cent of Globe readers who might be aware of Mr. Singh. The head continued on to add: “but is concerned about Quebec’s proposed tax on the unvaccinated.”  

Wow, that makes three major party leaders all agreeing on something. Not that they want to do anything about it. Canadians should all be pleased that they are concerned. Mr. O’Toole even included that he was all in favour of respecting provincial jurisdiction. And as for Mr. Trudeau, we all know that he not only respects provincial jurisdiction but he seems afraid of it.

These three spineless politicians do not want to annoy any voters in Quebec. Far be it for them to point out the foolishness of Quebec premier Legault to suggest such an obvious contravention of the Canada Health Act. If this is just his way of trying to frighten anti-vaxxers into getting the jabs, maybe the feds are just giving him a little support.

But a little support is too much when Legault returns their support with insults. Even Mr. O’Toole and his conservatives must wonder about premier Legault’s influence when he was supporting them in the 2021 federal election. They ended up with the same number of Quebec seats in the House of Commons as they held before the election.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Best of the Left.

by Peter Lowry

It was sad to learn of the passing of Alexa McDonough the other day. She was one of the three federal new democratic leaders who have earned our respect and admiration over the years. They should be rated as number one, Alexa, number two, Tommy Douglas, and number three, David Lewis. Other than that, it has been a line-up of losers.

I know, I know. I left out Jack Layton. I knew Jack. I enjoyed working against him. I wish I had been in Quebec for the Orange Wave. I have to admit, that was the Jack, I didn’t know.

I was laughing the other day to learn that Jagmeet Singh is taking paternity leave to celebrate his becoming a father. I knew there was something he could achieve if he took off the five Ks of the Tenth Guru.

I was not aware of Alexa when she was leader of the Nova Scotia NDP but she was the perfect solution to the national leadership in 1995. She brought a freshness to the party. She doubled its house of commons representation in the 1997 general election. (They went from 9 seats to 21.)

She also brought a dignity to the house of commons that it so sorely needed. She was missed after retiring from the house in 2008.

Like others I have known over the years, she drifted off into the darkness of Alzheimer’s. I raise a glass in her memory.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Government Giving in to Greed.

by Peter Lowry

It’s the greed that keeps on growing. Premier Doug Ford wants Ontario to step up its gambling. If the pandemic keeps the casinos closed, feel free to try your luck on-line. What is your pleasure? Casino games, blackjack, craps, poker, pai gow, roulette and slot machine simulations or new sports betting, just name your passion. And make sure that premier Doug gets his cut of the take.

And our premier is not thinking small. The Ontario government wants a share of the potential on-line billions. He and his government are betting that we will trust the Ontario-based on-line casinos over the off-shore breed. The government estimates that the on-line market in Ontario is worth at least a billion dollars a year, while the industry downplays it as about half a billion.

With Ontario casinos closed for the pandemic, the government is obviously hurting. Ontario Lottery and Gaming (OLG) cannot do its job. And don’t look too surprised in the next month or so if Rod Phillips, former MPP and long-term care minister, shows up as head of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission or running its new iGame Ontario operations. The job will be to get the gaming gravy train moving again.

And with reputable sponsors such as the Toronto Star operators offering to front for one of the iGame Ontario licensees, there are some positive indicators.

What might also help to swing Ontario to the on-line versions will be the short-sightedness of the large Ontario casino managers. Neither Great Canadian Gaming nor Gateway Casinos and Entertainment are good at customer facing. They seem bent on eliminating many of the dealers and customer services on their gambling floors. Neither company will entertain having fully staffed craps tables despite the proven draw of craps in places like Las Vegas. Both companies will be pushing large electronic versions of customer favourites such as blackjack, roulette, and craps when back in operation.

There is a great draw for people in the noise and excitement of casinos and their table games. If all the government wants is our money, why bother?

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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It’s a ‘Tear Down”?

by Peter Lowry

Oh, how easy it is to cast aside our history. Don’t get me wrong but Ottawa is a nice city. That is all that it is. It is just a nice city. It has interesting neighbourhoods, burgeoning suburbs and some bad architecture. It just fails to impress anybody as the capital of Canada.

Queen Victoria never saw Canada but picked Ottawa as the capital. She was told the city was defensible and was on the border of Ontario and Quebec. It was just an old logging centre on the Ottawa River. Today it is home to more than a million and a half Canadians who either ice skate on the Rideau Canal in winter or flee south to get warm.

It was ten years ago that the wife and I drove down to the other capital city, Washington. After many visits to Washington over the years, I wanted to take a tourist bus and see the monuments and the White House. We spent a week, did the tours and were suitably impressed. To see the impressive sights in Ottawa would take a part of an afternoon.

And yet, the other day, Susan Delacourt of the Toronto Star had the temerity to suggest that 24 Sussex, residence to Canada’s prime ministers and their families for the past 70 years, be torn down. It might be amusing to agree with the current prime minister’s mother that 24 Sussex is “the crown jewel of the federal penitentiary system.” There is no question that it lacks the panache of the White House.

But before the National Capital Commission tears it down, some thought must be given to its functionality. Is it just a residence or is it to be symbolic of this country? After all, is there anywhere in Canada with a serious sign that says: ‘Sir John A. Macdonald slept here’?

When are Canadians going to stop tearing things down and put up something for posterity?

And if we tell the national Capital Commission to build us something emblematic for the prime minister and family, will they come up with something better than an igloo?

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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The Dilettante Departs.

by Peter Lowry

Rod Phillips always struck me as a dilettante in business and in politics. I guess I thought of him as former Metro Toronto Chair and newspaper mogul, Paul Godfrey’s protégé. He was also always on the good side of the Lastman family. He piloted the late Mel Lastman through a few stormy seas as the first mayor of the newly amalgamated greater Toronto. It was really too bad that he could not give himself the same good advice.

Rod Phillips has always seemed to have an inflated impression of his invulnerability. He considered his holiday trips to Switzerland and the Caribbean in 2020 were of nobody’s business but his. When he went to St. Barts for Christmas, against the advice of the Canadian government, he even had premier Doug Ford lying for him. That fiasco cost him the job of finance minister for Ontario.

You can’t keep a guy like Phillips out of the limelight for long. Ford foisted the most thankless job in Ontario on him. Long-term care homes in Ontario have been going downhill for many years. Former conservative premier of Ontario, Mike Harris, is the poster boy for private long-term care homes and is still chair of Chartwell, the largest private sector long-term care provider in Canada.

If you have never seen a fish out of water, you should have seen Phillips at some of the photo ops prepared for the minister at those long-term care homes. It was though he was afraid to touch anything.

(Let me add a personal note here: As president of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada and as chair of public education for the International Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Societies, I have visited long-term care homes across Canada and in many parts of the world. Ontario has nothing to brag about.)

Probably Phillips’ main success in long-term care was to mandate that all staff be vaccinated. And if that was a no-brainer, he also made sure some inspectors were hired so that the province might defend the homes with more knowledge of the situation.

And there he goes, off to his next challenge in the world of business. He left when only half the long-term care homes in Ontario had outbreaks of Covid.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Thanks to ‘Doctor’ Ford.

by Peter Lowry

You have to admit, you pay more attention when Ontario premier Doug Ford or one of the other premiers tells you what to do to ward off Covid-19–Beta, Delta or Omicron. Ford got the idea from the prime minister. He just lacks the self-assurance to do a single such as Justin Trudeau used to do in front of Rideau Cottage. Ford brings along a doctor or two, or, at least the minister of health, for back up.

He even brings along his boy wonder, the minister of education, when speaking about the opening or closing schools. (We do that a lot in Ontario.)

At the moment, our restaurants are closed and the schools will be open next week—maybe. The gyms are definitely closed—unless, maybe, your customer can be certified as having a medical need for a workout.

But where we are really confused is why children sent home for having Covid in Ontario will not be added to the numbers having Covid. Are they really keeping the numbers secret in Ontario? You can bet that Jason Kenney in Alberta will soon pick up on that idea. If you hide the numbers, who will worry about Covid?

But if they end up closing too many schools because there are no teachers left without Covid, the jig will be up. Maybe that is why premier Ford has waited until the teachers can have the better masks, so they might stay Covid free.

Franky, there are likely many Ontario residents who have no clue as to what is happening with Covid-19. It is not that they don’t care. They are the ones who have stopped reading newspapers because they are depressing. And TV news is not as funny as the Big Bang Theory. They get their news from social media along with the latest on the stars in Hollywood.

And we have to face the facts, the provincial premiers and their sidekicks and doctors are not as entertaining. They need to come up with better one-liners.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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‘Today I’m not doing anything.’

by Peter Lowry

It’s that old Bruno Mars chestnut. It’s called ‘The Lazy Song.’ It was running through my mind as I poured some orange juice around 7 am. The song was trying to lure me back to bed. It was still dark and I had no excuse for being awake and wandering.

Other than the fact I had more than eight hours of shut-eye, the bed was singing the siren song of ‘warm and cosy.’ I have no special plans for today. And there was nothing in the coffee or Toronto Star to get the juices flowing.

The headline on the front page of the Star was a silly story about the prime minister and family’s temporary residence at Rideau Cottage. Why they call a two-story Georgian style brick house a ‘cottage,’ I have no idea. I would expect Justin Trudeau to be surprised that they even call it ‘his fixer-upper.’ It just happens to be that he and his family are temporarily occupying Rideau Cottage while the official residence for prime ministers and their families sits dormant across the road at 24 Sussex Drive.

But it is totally unfair for the Toronto Star to point the finger at the PM and accuse him of being a spend-thrift. The house is the property of the National Capital Commission and the commission controls, and spends (lavishly) on Rideau Hall (the Governor Generals’ digs and office.), Rideau Park, Rideau Cottage and 24 Sussex. Who else would casually spend $189,000 on a new roof for a ‘cottage’ to keep the prime minister’s family warm and dry?

And, by the way, Rideau Park is the grounds where Rideau Hall and Rideau Cottage are located. The National Capital Commission might have recently spent more than a million on fencing, landscaping and paving but, again, the prime minister had no hand on the chequebook.

Mind you, at an annual salary of almost $350,000, the already wealthy prime minister and his family would not have to pitch a tent in the park. It is unlikely that he will be moving back to 24 Sussex. (His family lived there when he was born.) The National Capital Commission has claimed that it will cost over $36 million to repair the official residence.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Try Tyranny.

by Peter Lowry

If Canada ever disassembles into its individual provinces, would you expect Quebec to be the first to opt for a dictatorship, or the last? In the province of Camillien Houde and Maurice Duplessi, it is a question. After all, it took Quebec 300 years to shake the shackles of the Roman Church.

This question arose as we were contemplating Quebec premier François Legault’s announcement the other day of what he calls “a health-care contribution.” It seems that he wants anti-vaxxers to pay a substantial fine if they catch Covid.

And you can stop laughing now. He’s serious. You might start to wonder though about smokers who get cancer or car drivers who get injured when travelling a few kilometres per hour over the posted speed limit. Is there any limit to these types of fines?

Wouldn’t it be better to just mandate that everyone gets vaccinated? We do that for other vaccinations. Your kids routinely get their shots. Objections based on religion or moral objections be damned. Who gives the anti-vaxxers the right to roam free and cause death and destruction in their wake? Either get your shots or get sent to the new version of a leper colony.

And you should be aware that Legault is not just horsing around. This is the same guy who defends his discrimination about religious symbols. He thinks it is okay to fire an employee of the province who dares to wear a cross or a turban or a yarmulka. So much for freedom of religion in Quebec!

It will soon be the same for anyone with the nerve to speak English in Quebec. Legault’s quasi-conservatives think it behooves them to protect the French language from any and all comers. It must annoy them that the language police in France do not seem to share all their concerns.

But after all, English-speaking Canadians have to listen to what Americans are doing with their language.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

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Where is Boy Wonder?

by Peter Lowry

He used to be Stephen Harper’s Boy Wonder but today he is supposedly guarding Gotham as sidekick to Ontario premier Doug Ford. His role is that of minister of education. He is probably taking a holiday from the criticism and condemnation he gets in that job. Maybe he took one of those Sunwing Airlines’ fun-filled one-way flights to Mexico. We have no idea.

Mr. Lecce seems to be missing in action at a time when Ontario parents would like to have a properly functioning education system teaching their children the Three-Rs. There is a need for two million children to be in school and there is very little being done about it.

A low-level person from Mr. Ford’s office issued a statement from him that schools would not re-open until January 17. At the same time someone from Mr. Lecce’s office informed the media that retired Ontario educators will be allowed more teaching days so that they can fill the gaps for teachers with Covid. We will not be told how many teachers or children have Covid from now on as no statistics from schools are being announced to the public. The exception will be when a school has to close.

But announcements from the minister of education’s office are not going to cut it when children are suffering under the confusion. And the parents, and, in some cases, the grandparents, are trying to pick up the slack for an education system that seems to be functioning on the whims of people who do not understand the system.

It seems that some communications experts are telling the politicians that they should not always take the direct blame for the problems. Maybe their advice is the same as when the federal conservatives were involved in an election and did not want to be seen with their provincial counterparts. They were probably told to hide.

And maybe Mr. Lecce is hiding. There is no excuse for someone who has no understanding or sympathy for the public school system to be in his position. It has been said that communications people seem to have big egos. Maybe that is Mr. Lecce’s problem.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]