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

Canada’s Care Concerns.

by Peter Lowry

It seems fairly clear to Canadians that our battles with the Coronavirus are not over. As alarms spread over Covid-19 variants and the arguments with those who do not trust the vaccines become more vehement, political questions still have to be taken into account. Many questions need be answered about the kind of nation we want to be.

The first obvious observation has to be that Canada is a caring nation. While our American neighbours still argue about universal medicare, it is a done deal in Canada. Despite the efforts of some provinces to extort additional funds from the feds, there is no question but medicare is a fixture in our society.

That creates the logic and forethought that is now going into our other care concerns. Pharmacare is something on the horizon. Dentacare will be a logical follow-through. Long-term care has become a red flag. Child care is becoming a process and not a barrier to parents being able to work.

And, in our northern climate, we cannot ignore the plight of the homeless. We are not that cruel. Governments, at all levels, have a role to play in ensuring adequate, safe, non-polluting and reasonably priced accommodation for all.

And the most important caring of all is the care to make sure climate change is not the earth’s farewell to humankind.

But we have to recognize that there are those who will deny our care concerns.

They start out concerned about costs. They say they are concerned about our country’s debts. They rebel against taxation. They object to being taxed to support the less fortunate in our society. They confuse their rights with the need for mandated vaccine usage. Nobody has the right to infect others with their diseases.

It is a basically selfish attitude. It is a ‘me first’ view of the world we live in. It is on the right of conservatism. Conservative politicians will tell you how caring they are before an election but afterwards they seem to forget.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Not to Reign Over Us.

by Peter Lowry

Not that Canadians would have noticed. It was an historic moment for Barbadians. Barbados became a republic the other day. Prince Charles was there to say ‘goodbye.’ It was all very civilized. And, of course, the island country will continue to participate in the Commonwealth.

But what was wrong with this major step in Barbadian history was that it was all decided by the politicians without full participation by the people. They had been talking about becoming a republic for the past 50 years.

Compared to Canada, Barbados and other island nations have far less trouble with severing ties with the British monarchy. They do not have the complexity of being a nation of different colonies uniting in a confederation of states. Canada’s constitution locks the nation in conflict between its provinces over their various responsibilities and the small-mindedness of the politicians.

Canada needs to address the questions of its nationhood from the bottom up. It has to start with a constitutional parliament. This would be a parliament of citizens elected in their respective federal electoral districts on a non-partisan basis. It might start by developing a vision of what Canada should become and then plan on how to get there. The only proviso is that whatever the parliament decides, has to be approved in a referendum by the Canadian people.

There are many who would fight this suggested path. They are the small minded of the provinces. They are federal politicians with their own agendas. They are those who instinctively fight against change. There are even those who like having a privileged monarchy.

But Canada has never had the opportunity to decide on its own destiny. Of course, it is easier for smaller countries throughout the Commonwealth to make these decisions but Canada is due. We have come a long way from our original French and English origins. We have welcomed people from the world. We are long past the point when we should have made better arrangements with our aboriginal peoples. It is our country’s future that is at stake.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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The Bundestag teaches little.

by Peter Lowry

It came as a surprise the other day when the Toronto Star’s opinion writer for the new democratic party, Robin Sears, lauded the German government’s electoral system. While the German electoral system does confuse outsiders, it is basically an electoral system known as Mixed Member Proportional. (A similar electoral system was rejected by Ontario voters in a 2007 referendum.) The states in the German federation elect the 299 first-past-the-post members, according to their population and then party lists are used to expand the size of the house according to party vote. (There are 736 members in the current Bundestag.)

What would concern Mr. Sears is recognizing that the Bundestag is a surprisingly conservative organization. It has been under the leadership of either the Christian Democratic or Social Democratic parties for the past 50 years. The fact that no one party has had a majority creates a defferential parliament that caters to economic concerns first.

Instead of complimenting the Bundestag on its progressiveness, Mr. Sears should be aghast that they are only now proposing a minimum wage of the equivalent of $17 per hour. This country of about 80 million has the strongest economy in Europe and $20 per hour or more would be a more realistic level for its minimum wage.

Sears was impressed by the Bundestag version of our throne speech. He thinks the idea of giving all parties copies of the planned government program to study before voting on the specifics makes a lot of sense—and it does.

But what works for another country is not always the ideal solution to our needs. I find the scurrilous name calling and rudeness of our MPs detracts from the respect that our parliament deserves.

But that is a two-way street. I have come to the conclusion that neither Steven Harper nor Justin Trudeau have showed any respect for parliament and that is reflected in how the House behaves. It needs better leadership.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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The challenge in the choosing!

by Peter Lowry

We were puzzled the other day to hear that Ontario liberal leader Steven Del Duca has pre-picked ridings that will have a female liberal candidate in the coming provincial election. Having worked with both male and female candidates over the years, I certainly agree that our female candidates often need that little extra bit of encouragement. And there are many ways of doing it, without designating the sex of a candidate before the person is chosen.

There is much to be done before choosing a candidate. Steven Del Duca’s job since becoming liberal leader was to rebuild the liberal electoral district associations throughout Ontario. Maybe he knows more about those ridings than he has chosen to tell us. At least, let’s hope he did not draw the names of the ridings out of a hat.

There is a lot I would like to know about a riding before suggesting that it would be a suitable riding for a female versus a male candidate. And you know that by being in constant contact with people there. Is there a trained and well organised team ready to support a good candidate? Do they know how to build a winning campaign? Do they understand the political history of their part of the province? And do they have good intelligence about who they will be up against from the other parties?

And here we are seven months from the coming provincial election. Any well-organized riding association should have at least three to four potential candidates with whom the executive is talking. Any riding without that many prospects had better get to work. And any sudden decision that only a Ken doll or a Barbie doll will do borders on the ridiculous.      

And yet, my riding, which is not designated as for a female, would have little problem with having a female candidate. This area of Ontario has had winning female candidates in the past. What we do not have is a trained and motivated campaign team.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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Ford’s Phantom Freeways.

by Peter Lowry

I remember when I was in public school and I was out picking strawberries on a farm that was in the path of Ontario’s planned highway 400. It was many years before that highway became a reality. The point is that these highways take years of planning, design and approvals before the actual construction. And Ontario premier Doug Ford is out selling them like labels to be printed at his father’s printing plant.

And highway 413 should never happen. The reason is that the more you study highway 413, the less logic it makes. It parallels a lightly used portion of the 407 toll-road. If they stopped the tolls, the traffic would take that route. And there is absolutely no logic behind a highway from Milton on the west at highway 401 running 60 kilometres east to Vaughan and highway 400. This is just spreading urban sprawl across good Ontario farmland and critically needed wetlands.

But Doug Ford wants to look like a pro-active premier. He wants his government to run for re-election next year as a party that gets things done. He needs those votes in the urban developments around Toronto. And if you are foolish enough to buy that, you can forget the highway building until the next election cycle.

Which would be a shame. The problem is that we do need the Bradford by-pass. This is a 16.2 kilometre four-lane highway connecting highways 400 and 404 just north of the Town of Bradford. What is happening now is that the traffic that needs this piece of highway is streaming through the Town of Newmarket on three different routes including highway 9.

The province already has most of the new overpasses built, or well past the planning stage, to take the increased traffic around Lake Simcoe.

What Doug Ford’s conservatives are missing on are the plans for the electrification of the GO Trains in Ontario. This plan will speed up the commuter systems, handle more trains and get commuters to and from the major cities much faster than before. Without this better commuter system, our highways will stay clogged.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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Singh Wimps on TransMountain.

by Peter Lowry

So much for new democrat leader Jagmeet Singh. He betrays his caucus and his party and his British Columbia voters. He has said he will not back long-time NDP stalwart Peter Julian in his effort to stop the Trudeau government’s TransMountain pipeline expansion.

There is only one reason for expanding the capability of the TransMountain pipeline (from 300,000 barrels per day to almost 900,000). The government is spending upwards of estimated $16 billion on twinning the pipeline and increasing pressure to almost triple its capacity. It has already accepted contracts worth about $20 billion from Alberta oil sands companies to ship diluted bitumen to Burrard Inlet at Vancouver for loading on ocean tankers.

Now, does that sound like a government that gives a damn about global warming? Does Singh’s approval of the pipeline expansion sound like he gives a damn about global warming? He should visit his riding in that province sometime and see what global warming has been doing to our beautiful British Columbia?

This is not to say that the more than 60-year-old pipeline should not be fixed after the recent washouts of the line. B.C. gets its refined gasolines and jet fuel through that pipeline and it can continue to meet that need as long as it is needed. It is the twinning of the line that needs to be stopped.

The twinning of the line is all on prime minister Justin Trudeau’s shoulders. He bought the line for $4.4 billion in 2018 and it has hung like an albatross around his neck ever since.

But it is not an albatross for Peter Julian. His position is clear. This is not the first time he has tried to do something about Mr. Trudeau’s pipeline. He can cite many authorities on why the line does not need to be twinned. Some are just realistically of the opinion that the line is hardly needed in a rapidly decreasing market for fossil fuels with high carbon content. The tar sands exploiters can keep bringing bitumen to the surface but what is the point as the world decides that greenhouse gases are destroying our planet?

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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The devil is in the details.

by Peter Lowry

They are pealing back the Christmas wrappings on the Rogers deal for Shaw Communications. We held little hope for these hearings at the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) this week but what little is learned is appreciated. After all, a $26 billion deal can hold many secrets and ‘oopses.’

The first ‘oops’ is the potential loss of more television news room capability across Canada. It seems that Rogers is enthused about its limited news rooms and not likely to merge the two networks ability to cover Canadian news and events of importance to Canadians. The $13 million that Shaw recently put into Global’s news rooms could be just a bit more profit to Rogers.

Not that Global is that that much better at running news rooms. The three news programs at 5:30, 6:00 and 6:30 pm from the Toronto hub for the Ontario Global is a guarantee of three times the repetition. That does not include the public affairs programs that are promoted continuously and are just more repetitive use of news clips.

Mind you, City News, as promoted by owner, Rogers, reminds me of CP24 (the CTV news channel) on the cheap.

But then the thought of Rogers becoming the majority owner of the Canadian Public Affairs Channel (CPAC) leaves me cold. If any other channel decided a public event needed at least three cameras to cover the event properly, you could always count on Ted Rogers’ people showing up with a single camera.

And the first time I saw a television studio set up by the Rogers organization, I could not believe how they had cut the personnel and equipment costs. They had a fixed camera set for just the wide shots and a camera switcher that must have been made in someone’s garage. When I found that the director had to also operate the switcher while calling for the shots, I should have gone home.

But then Ted Rogers was a pioneer and we used to go out of our way to assist those people. They were helping build this country. It is too bad their heirs seem to just be in it for the money.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Peeving the PM.

by Peter Lowry

Canadians now know how to get into the throne speech. All you have to do is annoy the prime minister. Yes, it’s that simple. One of the first acts of the new parliament will be to enable a pissed off PM to settle a score with some anti-vaxxers who were insulting his wife. While I am sure that more than a few Canadians would take umbrage at anyone insulting their wife or husband or child, or any other family member, there is no need to launch a law against such rude activity.

At the same time, I appreciate that the PM restrained himself from giving the malefactors a punch in the nose. It would never do for those receiving the punch to be suing the PM for personal injury.

Yet, since the troublemakers in this case were identified as anti-vaxxers, there would unlikely be many Canadians springing to their defence.

Besides, their being anti-vaxxers, my preference would be to banish them to some hot-bed of anti-vaxxing such as Miami, Florida. The few that return in a few years might be suitably chastened.

But what does our PM choose to do with them? He is going to deny them the fun they have picketing hospitals. That’s all folks! The liberals are going to bring out a bill making it illegal to promote anti-vaxxing where it might be seen by doctors, nurses and other health professionals. There will be no more of this picketing where it might be seen by people who are fighting this pandemic battle for us.

We hear there might be a few conservative supporters among those antivaxxers who tried to disrupt liberal events and threw pebbles at the PM. The liberals are certainly going to check out these conservatives MPs who are claiming they are allergic to vaccines.

But before the liberals can act on these claims, the conservative leader’s office wants to check out how the unvaccinated will vote in a leadership review. Mr. O’Toole needs all the conservative votes he can get.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

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To be in Gatineau this time of year.

by Peter Lowry

As the first bite of winter streams through the Ottawa River cauldron between Ottawa and the old city of Hull, the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Committee (CRTC) is meeting at Les Terraces de la Chaudière in Gatineau, Quebec. One of four bodies to consider the application of Rogers Communications to take over Shaw Communications, it will likely be the least important. All our hopes for the CRTC have come to naught.

Over the years, I have been a participant in some of the CRTC’s deliberations. I was there for the birth of the CRTC in a policy workshop of a liberal party meeting in Ottawa. The young Turks of the party wanted to wrest the emerging networks from the control of the Board of Broadcast Governors, who, at the time, also ran the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Prime Minister Pearson chuckled at our antics but it was under Pierre Trudeau that the CRTC became a reality.

Those were the learning years for the CRTC. Cable was happening piecemeal in Canada’s cities. Broadcasters were aligning themselves. The CRTC was there to help build the bridges, the infrastructure, and to create a truly Canadian system. The committee faced the powerful and the entrepreneurs. It never lost sight of its mission over those early years.

But the political pressure was too intense when Bell Canada decided to buy CTV. The CRTC caved in to the politicians.

And what the politicians had in mind when coincidentally chair Ian Scott and his eight, all female(?), commissioners are hearing this current plan to exploit the public, we cannot fathom.

The one thing I might observe, were I there, until the current chair of Rogers Communications learns the purpose of a board and the operating officers of a large corporation, he should practice on something smaller than a multi billion-dollar corporation with thousands of employees. The late Ted Rogers created the corporation by the skilled exploitation of new technologies. It does not seem that Rogers’ son has that same skill. He must be there for the money. Luckily, there are three more hurdles for this nascent mega-corporation. The competition bureau and the federal department of innovation will also have a say. And then it is a decision for the federal cabinet.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]

Redux Alberta.

by Peter Lowry

They are at it again in Alberta. Out-of-touch politicians are fighting over the spoils of an Alberta that no longer exists. They are fighting over the tar sands bitumen that has to be left in the ground. They are fighting to continue to exploit the coal under the foothills of the Rockies. They are exploiting the ignorance of the voters who think it’s that old-time politics.

But it’s not. The world is changing too fast for that old-time politics of earlier years. Bill Aberhart and Ernest Manning are long gone. We can no longer accept talk as action. Words are the ammunition of those only who want your vote.

And Brian Jean is back. He wants his former party back. He was the leader of the Wildrose Party with which Jason Kenney merged the conservatives to create the united front to the new democrats.

And when Jason Kenney achieved his dream of leadership, what did he do with it? Did he lead Alberta in the face of the pandemic? Did he strengthen the medical preparedness? Did he encourage Alberta’s medical workers? Did he and his conservatives heed the advice and concerns of health professionals?

Jason Kenney is known for losing Albertans’ money in failed pipelines. He is known for railing against the liberals in Ottawa who are twinning a pipeline for taking Alberta’s tar sands bitumen to ocean tankers at Vancouver.

Kenney slyly alludes to Alberta as a country separated from Canada. Kenney is your typical climate change denier as wild fires denude the foothills. Kenney entertains on a rooftop as the horsemen of the apocalypse ride free across the Alberta prairie. He led Alberta into the pestilence.

Will Brian Jean do better? Who are we to say?

But we worry about Alberta and we watch with concern and caring.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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

[email protected]