Immigration Minister John McCallum sounded a bit testy with the news media the other day. They had probably forced him to give the same answer to the same question more than five times. McCallum has shown that weakness before. He is not long on patience. This media approach gives the news editor for the television […]
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: Two thumbs up for the Charbonneau show.
As Cole Porter put it in “Another Op’nin’, Another Show” to open his hit musical Kiss me Kate, there really is no business like show business. And there is nothing more insidious than the omertá of the Mafia and the corruption of politicians. Madame Justice France Charbonneau’s enquiry into construction in Quebec ran an extra […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Would they also kill the first-born?
It seems many liberals were outraged when somebody suggested that we only accept Syrian women with children as refugees. Now we find out that fathers are included. Maybe we should be concerned about the Pharaoh’s troops going out to kill the first-born? That is the kind of fear that has been exhibited across North America […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Can the provinces keep the money?
It seems that the point has been made about climate change: Industry can destroy the environment if they pay a tax on it. And that is why the provinces are so eager to cooperate with the Trudeau government. It is all determined by who gets the money. It makes you wonder how the federal government […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is America destroying the dream?
A reader asked recently why we were ignoring the current American political scene. It is not that we are not following what is going on. We just feel sad about it. It is a travesty caught up in the guise of democracy. In our book My American Mother (written in 1992) the principle character gives […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ontario: Socially responsible or greedy?
Fear not fellow Ontarians, we will soon have some beer in some of our supermarkets. We are told that this is all being done to be socially responsible about booze. What it looks like is one huge cash grab. Step one in the process of making this new(?) liberalized(?) event happen is to have a […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is the media the measure?
Commentator Chantal Hébert worries that Justin Trudeau lacks the gravitas of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. Thomas Walkom fears Trudeau is out of touch with the world leaders who have decided Russia’s Putin is a good guy after all. And we discussed Rosie DiManno yesterday who thinks Justin is juvenile. And those people write for […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Don’t have a cow DiManno.
Toronto Star writer Rosie DiManno is the reason better publications have the best editors. And the reason many people do not waste their time on her stuff is that the writing is excessive and pedantic. She must be one of the last newspaper writers around who thinks the one who writes the most words wins. […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Canada’s new PM is entitled to a victory lap.
When the victor in a gruelling race gets up from the finish line and gamely trots around the track one more time, nobody begrudges them their victory lap. It is the honour of the victor. It is the same with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He did what only some of realized he could do. He […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “Fear us,” said ISIL. But should we?
“Fear us,” said bin Laden’s al-Queda. And the Americans feared them. They involved the West in foreign wars that nobody has won. The people who call themselves an Islamic State say “Fear us.” And they have involved the West in foreign wars that nobody can win. Did we learn nothing
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Marc Garneau blots his copy book.
Why is it the people you like who can really screw things up? And what could be a safer job for MP Marc Garneau than Minister of Transport? You would think the former astronaut and head of Canada’s space agency would have more smarts than to pander to the juvenile
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: No pirouettes for Justin.
There will be no pirouettes to mock the Queen when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stops over in London to meet the Queen on his way to the Malta meeting of the G-20. Justin Trudeau might be as ambivalent towards the Royals as his father was before him but he has
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The makeover of Brother Brown.
The best thing you can say about Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown is that he is a real piece of work. He is a person who works very hard at being what he is not. And if you think it only cost him $2 million to take over the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Advice for new (and old) politicians.
Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose made her first mistake last weekend. It was in a reply to something Tom Clark asked her on his West Block show for Global Television. She started her answer with “Well look.” That was former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s favourite phrase throughout his overly long
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Pick your preferred pollster.
They say that if you cannot beat them, you might as well join them. Obviously nobody has learned their lesson about pollsters. Through most of this past year, we had to put up with polling reports that seemed to have every federal politician except Elizabeth May in the Prime Minister’s
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Fix policing by fixing police boards.
It seems there was an attempt recently to get the Toronto Police Services Board thinking about reform of policing. It is reported that the board spent $200,000 of public money to have a management consulting firm report on suggestions for reform. It is likely that the money might have been
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “You can’t get to Heaven on the Yonge Streetcar”
While the song might have had its origin in the U.S. Bible Belt, the guys in our Canadian Air Force barrack seemed to know at least a dozen verses, including the scatological. Mind you there were advantages for a kid who had been hauled by his mother through four-foot snow
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “It is your friends who bring you down.”
That headline was a casual comment by Susan Delacourt of the Toronto Star on Tom Clark’s West Block show on Global last Sunday. She was, of course, talking about politics. It was the old truism that in politics that you do not worry as much about your enemies because you
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Practicing polite politics.
If there was a single fixed point of departure from the Harper era to the new Trudeau government, it would be in foreign affairs. The choice of former Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion was a clear criticism of Harper’s people and actions. And it all boils down to Dion being a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is politics really a team sport?
In the Pearson-Trudeau era of Liberal politics in Canada the chief political apparatchik of the times was the later Senator Keith Davey. He was a friend and a mentor. He often told us that the greatest political failing in politics is loyalty. It was only after he departed into the
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