Have you figured out why Ontario Premier Wynne is looking so smug lately? It has finally occurred to her that she not only has a chance to hold on to power in next year’s election but she is even getting help from Conservatives. Rather than support some of the extreme
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: What is the price of one child?
Children are returning to school at this time of year. In our wisdom, we Canadians have two types of school boards. (This is where our wannabe politicians hang out.) We have a Catholic Board and a public board. The Catholic board must be the junior kindergarten of politics. It is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Fear of Ford.
Is he, or isn’t he? Is Doug Ford running for the mayoralty in Toronto next year or for the Progressive Conservatives in the provincial election? And who cares anyway? Oddly enough that is a matter that is mainly of concern to provincial politicians. Incumbent Mayor John Tory, who wants another
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Onward religious warriors.
A picture said it all. It was of a Buddhist monk, in saffron robes, with his begging bowl, sitting between the cement walls of modern expressway ramps. It makes the point of the problems of the Church of Rome mentioned in yesterday’s commentary. It occurred to me that all religions
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: For love of country.
Travel in Europe, Asia and throughout North America has helped strengthen my love for Canada. When people in other countries tell me how much they admire our country, I rarely try to explain that we are still a work in progress. There is no need to tell them that we
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Morning Line: Canada’s NDP Leadership
Our best advice to the New Democratic Party is that they forget the next Federal election and concentrate on finding a modern direction for their party. And we have no idea whose membership numbers we were looking at when we assumed that the NDP had closer to 200,000 members in
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Trump’s nepotism confounds Palestinians.
American President Donald Trump seems to revel in trying to do things the hard way. He has added his own version of a Children’s Crusade to the peace process in the Middle East. To nobody’s surprise, what did not work in 13th Century does not seem to be working in
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Leadership Lost.
One of many theories in politics is that the aspiring politico needs to pick a cause. Years ago, I heard a newspaper reporter advise a young Liberal to latch on to environmental issues. It was an emerging issue at the time and he took the advice and went on to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: French fuss over makeup for Macron?
In France, they are fussing over the cost of makeup and makeup artists to keep their new president Emmanuel Macron looking good for his public appearances. If they had any idea what it cost Canadians for the Harper hair and makeup during his regime as Canada’s prime minister, they would
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: What’s wrong at NDP HQ?
There was a promise that Babel-on-the-Bay would publish its Morning Line on the New Democratic Party leadership today. That is hardly possible when we have been stalled by the party not yet releasing its new membership figures. Without these figures to analyze and compute along with our knowledge of the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Lottsa’ Luck Senator Duffy!
Senator Mike Duffy already has his payoff. He is still being paid as a member of Canada’s parliament. The report that he wants to sue the Senate and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is an insult to both bodies. And the suggestion that Duffy’s case is anything like that of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: They are rewriting history, again.
Now the revisionists are going after Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister. And what is their problem? They think Sir John was racist and disrespected Canada’s aboriginals. You might also believe he was a drunk and a scoundrel and if you lived in those times, you probably would
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Trump marches up the Khyber Pass.
You sure cannot tell President Donald Trump anything. He must have missed the opportunity to read Rudyard Kipling as a child or he would have known the futility of sending troops up the Khyber Pass. The Pashtun tribes of Afghanistan and Pakistan have feasted on the rations of foreign troops
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Justin Trudeau doesn’t have the chops.
It is often amusing when Canadian writers try to compare Prime Minister Trudeau with American President Trump. They seem to think that Justin Trudeau has been understudying for his current role all his life, while Donald Trump is an accidental politician and is only now learning that the job requires
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Tories’ Brown can’t get traction.
You would think that Ontario Conservative Leader Patrick Brown would be sitting pretty these days. We have Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne clinging to power and the New Democrat’s Andrea Horwath disappearing from the radar. It spells nothing but opportunity for an eager leader nobody knows. But one of our readers
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In the Fascist Fashion.
We should be worried about what happened in Quebec City the other day. It was not just unseemly. It certainly was not funny. They came for a fight, to create and to foster mayhem. For an insular society, these Quebecers brought dishonour to their country and their province. The fascists,
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In Beautiful Barcelona.
Barcelona is one of the finest cities for tourism in Europe. Its excellent hotels, broad boulevards and beautiful buildings also provide an excellent venue for international meetings and conferences. In the time I spent in Spain, the Spanish earned my deep respect for their civility, industriousness and kindness. It is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “My Trump, right or wrong!”
(We are playing a bit of catch-up here.) Not being a regular viewer of Late Night with Stephen Colbert, I had to watch the segment with Donald Trump’s friend Anthony Scaramucci on the Internet. I was still trying to figure out what this guy was doing passing himself off as
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Pollyanna goes to Washington.
They gathered in Washington this week to start renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Canada’s foreign minister Chrystia Freeland took along her plans for a new NAFTA. Just to throw another opinion into the mix, I think we might have sent our Pollyanna foreign minister to an autopsy.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Mad King of America.
You have to admit that it has been a summer of bounty for those who comment on politics. We have started to think of it as the Summer of Trump. The man never fails to suspend belief, never ceases to horrify and has proved conclusively that he has the political
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