It used to be that if you donated enough to the American President’s political party, you could get an invite to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom at the White House. There is a possibility that is where President Trump is trying to sleep when in Washington. And Honest Abe is
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: Where our New Democrats are headed?
Now that Canada’s New Democratic Party has some thinking and articulate players running for the national leadership, we better pay some attention. The hope is that Canadians will find out where the former Co-operative Commonwealth Federation—the party of Tommy Douglas—is headed in the 21st Century. The not so subtle nudging
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: What would Dr. Goebbels say?
Did you miss the new lie from Donald Trump? He dreamed up a complaint that President Obama had his phones at Trump Tower in New York tapped during the campaign last year. It seems a novel suggestion but nobody can come up with any idea why Obama would bother. If
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A liberal look at leadership.
Ontario Liberals are finally realizing that there is a problem at Queen’s Park. It appears to be endemic. It affects every political party on the premises. It is the serious lack of leadership. Even the Liberal Party backbenchers are drawing lots to see who will be the Cassius who drives
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ontario is billing it forward.
If you have heard of paying it forward, you should have no problem with the concept of billing something forward. It is the reverse of paying it forward. It is when you take a bill, you had put off for tomorrow and you stick it in a drawer to pay
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: And we thought Harper was an autocrat?
It was Pierre Trudeau in 1970 who said “Just watch me,” and showed us the real power of the Prime Minister’s Office. Later it was Stephen Harper who showed us how a Prime Minister can abuse that power to use it to his own ends to keep his sheep-like party
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Asking the right people.
The report from Ottawa is that the Liberal government wants Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE) to advise politicians and Elections Canada on computer security. Just why these should be the people to ask is the important question? And since the listening agency is no longer so secret, one can now
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Canada’s Conservative Conundrum.
It is fascinating studying the 14 aspirants in the race for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. It is also hard to believe. Just where would any of these people lead the party? There is certainly no John George Diefenbaker in this baker’s dozen. Yes, a baker’s dozen
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Trump’s Throne Speech.
Americans would not necessarily recognize what President Trump was doing in his speech to Congress the other night. It was easily recognized by any Brit or Canuck as a typical Speech from the Throne. It is a speech read by the Queen or the Queen’s Representative telling the assembled legislators
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Brown and Kenney: Contemporary Conservatives.
Conservative Leader Patrick Brown in Ontario and his friend Jason Kenney who is considered the front-runner in the race for the Alberta Conservative party leadership are surprisingly similar. They both lack political scruples, their lives are dedicated to their ambitions and they are not about to let anything stand in
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ralph Goodale: The Great Obfuscator.
One of the secrets of individual longevity in politics in Saskatchewan is that nobody in the province can tell a Conservative from a Liberal. This came to mind last weekend watching Global Television’s program The West Block. The new program host, Vassy Kapelos, asked Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Repeating Ontario’s Train Wreck.
You sometimes wonder about politicians who get in trouble and keep going back to the guru’s who helped get them into trouble in the first place. It is like having a train wreck and continuing to send locomotives down that same track, hoping one of the locomotives will make it.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Trumping the News Media.
The other day one of our American relatives asked: “Why are you writing so much about Trump?” The simple answer is that President Donald Trump is an ongoing saga of the worst of things that can happen in politics. There are also the greatly increased readership statistics when writing about
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is that Mainstreet or Elm Street?
Having started out as a young man writing scripts for telephone co-incidental research, we are not about to easily buy into Interactive Voice Response (IVR) polling. This is mentioned in that some recent political polls in Alberta and B.C. have the politicos excited. The polls were done with IVR by
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Nobody gives a damn about English.
It is only when you note the time and money devoted to preserving the French language in different parts of the world, that you start to wonder. Is the English language so pervasive that nobody worries about it? Only the dictionary publishers seem to have a vested interest so they
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Does President Trump have an agenda?
It is hard to get your mind around this one. There was an opinion piece in a major Canadian newspaper by a political science professor who posited that President Donald Trump and his henchman Steve Bannon have a plan to split the world with Vladimir Putin. You would have a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Of politicians and sleeping dogs.
It is hard to believe that anyone would want former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to be brought out of retirement—even just to sing an Irish ballad! And for those of us who have always considered Mulroney the epitome of sleaze in Canadian politics, he should be right at home in
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is the political middle just one?
Nobody seems to be able to nail down this middle ground in politics. It is like the middle class that Justin Trudeau chased in the last federal election. Did Trudeau even suspect that they would add up to almost 40 per cent of the voters? And were they all centre-right
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Watch out, the bigots are out.
The problem for the pundits today is the presence of bigots in the Conservative Party. They are not the majority. They are barely a faction. They exist. They hurt the cause. They are something of a wild card. But some of the candidates for the Conservative Party leadership will cater
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: That political instinct.
One of the key measurements of budding politicians is their political instinct. You measure this in how these people interact with voters, fellow politicians, the news media and with the apparatchiks who work with them. At the same time, it would be an asset if they are articulate, charming, intelligent,
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