Author: Peter Lowry

With parliament paused for summer recess and the prime minister off, playing with prime ministers and presidents in foreign climes, we hear more bad news about our government’s favourite pipeline. It seems that the parliamentary budget office is now estimating the value of the Trans Mountain pipeline at minus $600,000,000.

When parliament broke for a summer on the barbeque circuit the other day, the MPs did not get high marks for civility or decorum. And to my surprise, one of the most boring people I have ever seen in politics was in line for criticism. It appears that the current

It never takes premier Doug Ford long to display his ignorance. I expect whomever in his office reads the comics to him had to explain the meaning of ‘nepotism.’ Giving newly-elected nephew Michael Ford a cabinet post was not just the same-old Doug Ford but it was a finger in

Our parliament is getting a bad reputation. I always considered Michelle Rempel Garner the exception to the rule on the conservative side of the house. She has always been picked by the media for having a great career ahead of her. The trouble is that potential seems to be eluding

They are at again in Alberta. The lunatic fringe is getting worked up for a new conservative leadership contest. And they are playing familiar tunes for the crazies. I guess Jason Kenney was just not odd-ball enough for them. I thought Brian Jean, playing his John Wayne Quiet Man role,

We spent most of the past week in the Ottawa area. We stayed with family in the middle of Carleton electoral district. We visited in downtown Ottawa and out past Carp. After two years of restricting ourselves due to the pandemic, it was wonderful to be with family of different

The most ridiculous statement from the boy conservative, MP Pierre Poilievre this week was the promise that he made about new legislation. He said that, if he was prime minister, he would introduce legislation to offset every dollar of new spending with a cut to old legislation. What he was,

The world needs a booming voice from on-high that can look down on pitiful humans such as Donald Trump in America and Vladimir Putin of Russia and tell them they have been found wanting. We will have to start with Donald Trump. He is the miscreant that courts can get

Welcome to the Empire Club of Canada—over 100 years of pandering to profit. It is where Canada’s finance ministers go to seek approval and deny progress. It is where the leaders of banking, business and industry gather in mutual admiration. I have always thought the Empire Club served as a

Is this what Ontario voted for? Over the next four years, the Ford government is going to spend more than a billion dollars getting things ready to start building Highway 413. And once it gets started—if it does get started—it will likely take another ten years to build. You could

It is almost impossible to believe that 90 per cent of Canadians use a smart phone. That figure must come from Bell, Rogers, Telus and Vidéotron. Those companies have been ripping off Canadians for years—cheerfully aided by the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). We have been paying too much, too

I like to think of the most recent election in Ontario as something like an ancient Laurel and Hardy short movie. It seems that having the liberal party leader leading from outside the legislature for two years before the election did not work out too well. Having him drive around

It’s a poisoned chalice. It could tear apart the conservative party of Canada. And it would benefit nobody. It would be Pierre Poilievre winning the leadership of the federal conservative party. And this is not a partisan concern. Canada needs a healthy conservative party. It does not need one built

Do you hear it? It is the useless plaint of those who would unite the left-leaning parties to fight the rogues of the right. It is a bit more strident when you play with figures and reveal that only 18 per cent of Ontario voters actually voted in favour of

We have obviously been underestimating Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre. He has paid attention to the style and successes of former U.S. President Donald Trump. Along with many other political observers, we failed to see the ability of Trump to utilize the ‘deplorables’ as Hilary Clinton described them. Clinton was criticized

It is amazing how easy we could solve all our problems if we just skipped down the street hand-in-hand with the Toronto Star. If the Star’s editors don’t have all the answers, they can buy opinions from a myriad of writers with the appropriate opinion. The other day, the Star

All is not too friendly in the federal Conservative camp these days. Patrick Brown is bad-mouthing Pierre Poilievre. And this is not friendly banter between two gentlemen who both served their party in Stephen Harper’s conservative government. In fact, if the conservatives manage to arrange another leadership debate, they might

The hue and cry might now be more complete. The Toronto Star has discovered that only about 18 per cent of our Ontario electorate voted for the Ford government’s majority. And would not Shakespeare’s Puck agree? We did it to ourselves. Not voting is also a political decision, of sorts.

It started out with a title drawn from the Uncle Remus tale of the Tar-Baby from the late 1800s. I had not got past the title and the wife was accusing me of a racial slur. It’s not,” I replied. “The tale is a metaphor for entrapment by what you

A long-time NDP apparatchik, Robin Sears, writes his opinion in the Toronto Star. And no, I am not jealous. I had my fill of writing for Toronto papers years ago. It is more fun questioning the wisdom of those who do it today. And, it is certainly questionable when Mr.