The faster you try to do something, the longer you will have to regret it. There are too many stupid things we do that seem like a good idea at the time. Take the latest ill-considered suggestions at Queen’s Park to change the way people vote in Toronto elections. The
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: The poverty of Ontario’s political parties.
What we have in Ontario today are three political parties that have moved to the right of the political spectrum. They will all tell you that there is no meaning to left or right wing politics anymore. They might be correct. And if they are correct, we can assume that
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Better button up Tory!
In more than 30 years of dealing with the news media, you find that you can make all the mistakes you will ever need to make in the first week. If you do not clue in during that first week that the news media are not your friends, all is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Horwath toe-tests minimum wage.
It would be great to have a real left-wing political party in Ontario. This is not a promise to support the party but it would be great for voters to just have the option. And if you think Andrea Horwath and her Ontario New Democrats are going to answer the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: If the Hair is not there, can it be important?
There is confusion across the country. The Hair is sending Foreign Minister John Baird to the Ukraine. Canadians know that if there is an important trip to anywhere, the first people allocated space aboard that big Airbus A310 are the Hair and the hairdresser. But on this trip, the Hair
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: An apology as requested by Mr. Kinsella.
You do not often get shouted at in an e-mail. Mr. Kinsella has requested an apology. He may certainly have it. Please understand the confusion. A column appeared in the Toronto Sun last Sunday in which Mr. Kinsella was declared to be the author and identified him as with QMI
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It is not about you Mr. Kinsella.
If it were not for the egos involved, political campaigns would be far more fun. Most political apparatchiks get their comeuppance early in the game and learn the hard way that the candidate is always the star, not the hangers-on. It is like the old ventriloquist Edgar Bergen was always
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Toronto’s Phoney War begins.
The endurance contest in Ontario that has replaced municipal election races has its own challenges and strategies. The Toronto mayoralty race can be considered launched Monday with the official entry of Councillor Karen Stintz and former provincial Conservative Leader John Tory. And like the period from September 1939 to April
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Wynne’s policy picks are puzzlers.
Maybe some of us are a bit slow on the up tick. An e-mail arrived the other day saying that Premier Wynne now had a way forward. It came from a policy input program on the provincial Liberal web site called Common Ground. If this is the best that the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Justin Trudeau: Not his father’s son.
It is Justin Trudeau’s political instincts that never cease to amaze the older apparatchiks in the Liberal Party. It is remembering a long argument with the late Senator Keith Davey some 30 years ago over Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau just mentioning his family in a speech. If you had sweated
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Tory’s Timmy tempers trades tampering.
The Conservative caucus at Queen’s Park must have got to their Leader Tim Hudak. They made him promise to cool his jets on right-to-work laws. With a broad wink, he is promising not to mention the idea again until after Ontario’s expected spring election. After all there is more than
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The tale of the Hair and the whore.
As you recall the Supreme Court decided that the Conservatives need sex education. Long overdue, you might add. The only problem was that nobody could agree on who should teach sex education to the Conservative caucus. We are not sure but we think it was Peter Mackay who solved it
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Second: Ponder positive policies.
One of the very first lessons of politics is to understand that the average voter does not relate to discussions involving millions of dollars. What people relate to is coffee money. If Torontonians, for example, could just think of the billions their city needs for an upgraded transit system in
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: First: Think like liberals.
It should be the first order of business at the Liberal Party Convention February 20 to 23. How else can we be having a policy convention if we do not know what it really means to be a liberal? We need to define who we are and where we want
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: There is a fourth option for Premier Wynne.
Yesterday, we discussed the branding problems of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. In the discussion, the fourth option for her was deliberately left off the table. The fourth option, under current political conditions in Ontario, requires its own discussion. The premier is fully capable of ignoring those who are telling her
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The branding of Premier Wynne: Loser.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has a problem with Ontario voters. They have taken her measure. She has been found wanting. It is not her politics. It is not her demeanour. It is not her sexual orientation. She simply fails to lead. And she has put the voters in a hell
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Quebec Premier Marois bobbles bigotry.
Quebec Premier Pauline Marois appears to want to have a provincial election based on the bigotry of her charter of values. She sees it as creating conditions for separatism from the rest of Canada. That is an illusion. There might be as many as three or four strategies that could
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Tory immigration minister threatens Canadians.
If Conservative Immigration Minister Chris Alexander does not like this blog, why does he not say so? Here we always thought it was just fair political comment. Given time though, Alexander hopes he can strip people such as the writer of their Canadian citizenship. Despite being born here, sworn allegiance
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A tale of the Hair and the hog.
The Hair and hairdresser are heading for Mexico next. It will be a meeting of the three heads of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Prime Minister Stephen Harper will hardly feel the love that he did in Israel. President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico has every reason to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: And the best of luck in Thornhill.
Today, February 13 is hard lesson day for Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. Despite the reasonably good turnout at advance polls, there is no rationale for neophyte Premier Wynne to anticipate anything good from her ill-timed, ill-considered by-elections. She can probably write off the previously Liberal electoral district of Niagara Falls.
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