At a recent meeting of the Broadbent Institute supposed communication experts were telling the New Democrats that they should not keep up the incessant attacks on the Conservative government. It is not that they are feeling sorry for the bastards. They just feel that those who oppose the Conservatives need
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: Who leads Canada’s progressives?
Canadian media are a lazy bunch. They follow the paths of least resistance and false assumptions. Take this past week when some supposed progressives were gathered at the Broadbent Institute in Ottawa for its Progress Summit. The one question that was never answered was ‘Who were the Liberal Progressives at
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Democracy Shrugged.
Could 20th Century writer Ayn Rand have imagined Canada’s Stephen Harper? Would she have lauded him for his Objectivism or would she have scoffed at his failures? At best guess, were she alive today, Rand would have been but another apologist for our failed prime minister. He certainly has his
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: If you cannot change FPTP, annoy!
Nobody has ever accused the Internet Intifada of being smart. Nor are all bloggers brilliant. The twits on Twitter can be quite antisocial and FaceBook denizens are like Adonis searching the vastness of the digital pool for their reflected self. And in all of these public venues uninformed opinions rage.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A paean for once-great Montreal.
Political writer Chantal Hèbert recently wrote a requiem for Montreal in the Toronto Star. She described the city as a political orphan. It is no surprise. Montreal has become insular. It is a city that has forgotten its wondrous past and searches for a future. It is a city that
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Are you mad? Are you going to take it any more?
Have you been following the stupidity of Bell Canada owning CTV? Is has been a steady downhill slope for CTV news under their masters at Bell Canada for the past five years. Former CTV boss Ivan Fecan really stuck it to Bell and his network when he sold CTV to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: When losers are choosers.
Somebody needs to rap knuckles around Toronto. People who should know better keep coming up with really dumb ideas and nobody tells them to stop being stupid. Once again the gremlins are trying to screw up the way people vote. It is so bad that even Mayor John Tory wants
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “The enemy of my enemy is …”
There is something that needs to be understood by people afraid of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL): It is neither a state nor a country. It is an Internet and public relations savvy band of brigands and thieves feasting off the current civil war in Syria
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A requiem for our Democracy?
The other day, one of the more interesting progressive bloggers was discussing what he perceived as the three eras of Canada’s democracy. To discuss the three eras that interested him, he really needed to start with Canada at the end of the First World War. The reality is that Canada
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is there nothing left for the finance minister?
Finance Minister Charles Sousa must have the easiest job in Ontario. He has Premier Kathleen Wynne making all the big decisions for him and TD Bank’s Ed Clark telling him how to handle the details. Which all goes to prove that in politics three wrongs do not make anything right.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Does the Hair want us to get a gun?
Canadians are getting mixed messages from their Prime Minister. His message last week to a gathering of rural municipal leaders in Saskatchewan was that there was a certain level of safety in having a gun in the home “when you are a ways from immediate police assistance.” Other than it
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Brown and Pèladeau, a political pair.
You really have to wonder at people in Quebec thinking of Pierre-Karl Pèladeau as being the person to lead the Parti Quèbècois. That is like the prospect of Barrie MP Patrick Brown becoming leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. It is a very bad choice but for entirely different
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Lessons for Canada in Israel’s elector impotence.
It looks like Benjamin Netanyahu has once again used the Israeli form of proportional representation to cling to power in the Israeli Knesset. Israel uses proportional representation that only allows the voter to select a political party. The representatives are then appointed according to each party’s closed lists. What it
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Why Photoshop Brother Brown?
It is hardly going to work. Artfully enhancing his photographs is not going to solve the problem. Patrick Brown looks like he looks. We have always considered his appearance to be a mixture of somewhere between adenoidal and nerdy. Adenoids can be fixed but we have to assume that being
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The NDP’s Mulcair discovers Toronto.
If there had not been so much ice in the harbour last week, they could have got some great shots of the New Democrats’ Tommy Mulcair arriving in Toronto. He could have been dressed in buckskins, cradling a musket and standing in the prow of a Voyageur canoe. He could
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Bowing to Brother Brown’s bluff.
The only conclusion that seems to make sense is that Barrie’s own MP Patrick Brown is running a bluff. He is working far too hard at winning over long-time Ontario Progressive Conservative members to be ahead in the provincial leadership race as much as he claims. He might have acquired
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The word is “convenience” stupid!
Ontario beer drinkers are foiled again. Now the Ontario government wants to sell beer and wine in large grocery stores. It should have been easy to predict an outcome such as that. After all, everyone knows how much the Liberal’s friends, the Weston family, owners of Loblaw Companies, need the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Common-sense thinking at Toronto City Hall.
What is this we hear about an upgrade of Woodbine Entertainment Group to a full-fledged casino? The operation deserves it. It was a bad move when Woodbine got caught in the battle between former Mayor Ford and the downtown cyclists. It was almost as though those downtown councillors had never
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: If this is not corruption, what is?
It seems that the foreign-owned big breweries took a pass on purchasing tables at the Liberal Party’s major fund-raiser this year. Of course, they tell us that it is not corrupt nor payment for services rendered for those breweries to always step readily up to the bar for tickets to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Principled politics are hardly passé.
Bad legislation is bad legislation and to approve bad legislation even temporarily is a denial of principles. The Harper government’s Bill C-51 supposedly to end terrorism is bad legislation beyond any possibility of repair or amendment. It is time for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau to get up and speak for
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