Toronto Star reporter Susan Delacourt wrote a column recently on the changing work hours of our federal parliamentarians. It seems they are finally recognizing that spending any part of Friday in Ottawa is largely a waste of time. Many MPs used to be part of what was called the Tuesday to Thursday club and they […]
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: Positioning the Liberal Party.
It is nothing unusual today when the Prime Minister sends you a note, calling you by your first name, and asking for your help. What is unusual is the e-mail is not a plea for money but asks you to send ideas to help fix the Liberal Party’s constitution. And after searching out and reading […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The meanness in means tests.
Neither Finance Minister Charles Sousa nor Premier Wynne really understood what they were doing in the recent budget. They were offering half measures. They insulted both students and seniors. They tried to buy votes with lies. They thought they could buy support with half measures. The most grievous insult was to our young. These are […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ontario Conservatives look for leadership.
They can scrub him, fix his hair and dress him properly but it hardly adds to his ability to lead. Patrick Brown might hold the title of Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader but does not make him one. Leadership is more than winning the leadership job by signing up more people from the Sub-Continent than […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: PM’s Job: Making the tough calls.
Sorry Prime Minister, the honeymoon is over. It is time to decide whom to please and whom you are going to piss off. And you can hardly please both the pipeline people who want to push tar sands’ bitumen to our ocean shores and those who care about our planet. Look at what sucking up […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: We have heard from our MP.
It was cruel in a way. The uncaring Conservatives of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte sent a boy to Ottawa. They threw him to the wolves. He was unprepared and unknowing. He was hardly ready for the task. But he has been heard from. He has found his way to Ottawa from the backwaters of our electoral district. He […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: On political suicide.
It is not that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is not smart. Never having the opportunity to meet her and talk with her, it is not even fair to say she is politically stupid. It just seems that she comes at political questions from a very narrow perspective. And that could be because of limited political […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In search of Ontario’s liberalized beer sales.
It was a pilgrimage. The objective was to experience booze in an Ontario grocery store. There was no such grocery store in Barrie. Our city is too unimportant to the Ontario government to have beer in grocery stores. Last weekend we stayed in Toronto and early Sunday morning set out to see beer in a […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Donald Trump: Master of the Free World?
Some readers assumed we were sampling liberalized pot when we suggested that Donald Trump could win the American Presidency. Frankly it is not something we care to bet on. We just accept the logic. There are too many factors that can weigh in favour of a Trump win and it is too early to quantify […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Political parties promote populism.
There are people who actually fear for the future of political parties as populism grabs more of the attention in the current American primaries. It is not something you need to worry about. Political parties need the periodic peak of populism to bring them up-to-date to the reality of the times. In Canada populism was […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A conservative budget from Premier Wynne.
Patrick Brown, eat your heart out. As leader of Ontario’s Conservative Party, it is no fun having all your good potential tax moves made by conservatives in liberal clothing. The Ontario budget read so dutifully by Finance Minister Charles Sousa the other day made a mockery of liberalism and usurped traditional Conservative space. Imagine if […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Finding out the truth on Cap and Trade.
It is like you are saving the world one added tax at a time. Only politicians would believe that the refineries and gas providers would be constrained from polluting by a tax on the end users. And why is the consumer tax imposed before the supposed industry caps are even attempted? Ontario’s new Cap and […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Measuring Mr. Morneau.
Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau is a political newby. While he carries solid credits from the Toronto financial community, the gloves and all bets come off on March 22. First budgets are like that. He had better be wearing Kevlar undershorts as well as the traditional new shoes when he brings in that budget. He […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The terror of Trump.
If you really do not understand Donald Trump, your favourite psychiatrist might be able to help. You can also just think of Trump as another cathartic solution to the American condition. He is not that unusual a happening in politics. Trump is not even the first billionaire to have delusions of the power of his […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It’s leadership that builds our future.
This is just an idle thought for a bleak February in Barrie. It is what a difference leadership can make. This comes to mind with the sour grapes announcement by Laurentian University that they are dumping their partnership staff and students at Georgian College. It reflects the abysmal failure of the Ontario Ministry of Training, […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It’s a Wynne-Wynne for wine in Ontario.
It was like a fanfare of trumpets and drums for the announcement of the coming of some decent wine to Ontario grocery stores. Not immediately and not all at once and with a myriad of confusing rules but foreign and domestic wine will be available in some grocery stores this fall and more in the […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Does a Pope trump a Trump?
This must be the divine intervention that American Catholics have been praying for. Having a younger brother who is (in his order of importance) Republican, Roman Catholic, an American citizen and a retired business professor, we have absolutely no sympathy for the current conundrum he faces. It seems that he has been struggling with choosing […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is Ottawa thinking outside the box?
We should send an ‘Attaboy’ to the Trudeau Liberals in Ottawa. It seems they are trying to stretch the thinking in the Finance Department to find new ways to fund high- technology start-ups. They are giving serious study to a report recommending ways to support Canada’s weakened high technology sector. The hope is to move […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: An Honourable Member from Barrie.
In writing about the honourable members we elect to our legislatures and parliament yesterday, an image kept coming to mind of our new Member of Parliament for Barrie–Springwater—Oro-Medonte. It is not a positive image. The honourable gentleman who now represents the riding is an acolyte of Patrick Brown, the new leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Honourable Members All!
A reader brought up what he considers a serious weakness in first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting yesterday. It is the assumption that we elect “honourable members’ to our legislatures and the House of Commons and select the same for our Senate. The member we elect with at least a plurality is assumed capable of representing all voters […]
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