There is a television commercial running at this time that is starting to grate. It begins with a totally unconnected part that has something to do with a dry cleaning shop. It abruptly cuts to a shot of New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair in what appears to be a coffee
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: The Hair’s Farewell Tour?
You can hardly blame the Hair for not wanting to hurry home. He and his hairdresser are touring Europe in style—and Bavaria is so beautiful this time of year. There is nothing good waiting for him in Ottawa. With the daily bombardment from the Senate, poison pen memos from the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: You have to admire Toronto’s Mayor Tory.
What do you want Toronto? With an unapologetic news media and an unrepentant collection of councillors ganging up on him, the best mayor Toronto has had in almost 50 years is hardly feeling much love. The poor guy has been doing the best job he can. He has been hustling
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “The good is oft’ interred with their bones.”
There is no brief held here for the Canadian Senate. It is an anachronism. It serves Canada’s past and has nothing new to offer for its future. It has not grown with the needs of the country. The Senate is but one of the many outdated and unneeded vestiges of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Canadians are owed answers on the Senate.
Do you have a mental image of the three major party leaders cowering in their campaign bunkers this year afraid of questions on the Senate? They will all tell you that they are in favour of Senate reform and just what that reform might entail and how they will accomplish
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Justin Trudeau brought his perfect game.
When somebody bowls a perfect game, you have to admire it. In politics a perfect game is a rare event. You have to remember that in politics there are people out there who are lurking to ridicule, there are professional scoffers and there are the people paid to deride any
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Election changes need all-party support.
Announcing proposed changes in Ontario election statutes last week, Premier Kathleen Wynne gave the credit for instigating change to Ontario’s Chief Electoral Officer. If she now moves the changes through the legislature with the support of all parties, we could have some worthwhile legislation. The least contentious change being suggested
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: How history harries the Hair.
The Hair seems to be trying so hard to remake Canada into an image only understood by the Prime Minister and a few of his friends in Calgary. It seems to be an image something like that of 19th Century Dodge City, Kansas without the dust. It is a vision
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Mulcair spends a penny on wrong audience.
The New Democrats expect their leader Tom Mulcair to propose spending another cent of gas taxes on municipalities. This will be proposed to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) at its meeting in Edmonton tomorrow. Despite the New Democrats suggesting that it is a dramatic offer and it will certainly
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Chong’s Reform Bill hardly matters.
Quiet encouragement was the best we could ever offer MP Michael Chong’s reform bill. At its earliest it was idealistic and in its final form it is probably immaterial. Whether the Senate passes it or not, it is really necessary to wait for the next parliament to see if the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Color Justin Trudeau Liberal Blue.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau wants your vote. If you think of yourself as a Liberal, he hopes he already has your vote. And if you are what is called a progressive or Red Tory, he will go out of his way to win your vote. It is likely that as
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Elmer is the politician, Peter is the son.
While the name MacKay might be prominent in Nova Scotia, it is not held in as high esteem today in Canada’s House of Commons. Peter MacKay is leaving the building. With his political career finished as of the federal election, Peter MacKay is taking his family home. Looking back over
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “Will no one rid us of that bother Brown?”
In an erudite e-mail the other day a reader equated Ontario Conservative Party Leader Patrick Brown’s intelligence to that of a barrel of axe handles. He felt that it was a measure of our democracy where “someone as disadvantaged as Patrick can aspire to the leadership of a political party.”
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: An e-mail on preferential voting.
To: tmcmeekin.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org Dear Minister McMeekin: You must have missed reading Babel-on-the-Bay on March 26 this year. That was when one of the postings was devoted to Toronto council’s request to your Ontario ministry for preferential voting in that city’s municipal elections. The posting was about why this might not be
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The two expressions of Joe Oliver.
This is not to imply that Canada’s Minister of Finance is two-faced. It is just that he seems to have only two expressions. One is that dour look that we have all come to hate. He uses it when giving financial news—which is usually bad news. The other expression is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Premier Wynne and the teachers’ Greek chorus.
If you have this Greek tragedy at Queen’s Park figured out, you might be smarter than the rest of us. It seems to be a battle of choruses. And you can only tell the players apart by the masks they present to the audience. We know that this current conundrum
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Simple solutions for simple minds.
It’s tough enough for politicians to get people out to vote in elections without confusing them. Yet here is New Democrat Leader Tom Mulcair telling people that they are being cheated by our First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) election system. That will certainly confuse them. What he wants them to do is to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Bashing Barrie is a provincial sport.
Queen’s Park dashed Barrie’s hopes for a university campus recently and nobody in the city is happy about it. You would swear that bashing Barrie could be made a sport as part of the upcoming Pan-Am Games. Barrie was again among the forgotten as the province announced that only York
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: If trouble comes?
We live a very peaceful life in Canada. It was surprising though the other day when in an interview on Global Television, Tom Clark asked Ottawa’s chief of the defence staff his major concern for Canadians. Without hesitation, General Tom Lawson said his main concern was a natural disaster. He
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It takes a politician to screw up a good war.
Listening to Defence Minister Jason Kenney doing the rounds of the news recap shows on television this weekend one thing was obvious. Kenney probably has not heard a word of what his military advisors are telling him. He set up Canadians as the biggest patsies of all when he sent
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