The problem is that we sometimes get what we ask for. On February 10 this year Babel-on-the-Bay was pleased to note that John Tory would be running for mayor of Toronto. The tell-tale signal was that he was sporting a new toupée. That was a most worthwhile investment. It carried
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: Here comes Santa Péladeau.
Have Quebec’s little péquistes been good boys and girls this year? Has Santa Claus ever got a treat for them! While you almost wet your pants laughing at Pierre-Karl Péladeau’s news conference with Pauline Marois early in 2014, what can you do when the irrepressible PKP really does decide he
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The hard heart of the Hair.
You could barely hear over the running up of the A310 engines at Ottawa Airport. The Hair and his chatelaine stood at the door of the giant aircraft waving goodbye to their adoring throng from the Prime Minister’s Office. It sounded something like: “Suck it up folks. I’m going where
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Mainly because Wall wants EnergyEast.
Ontario and Quebec Premiers Wynne and Couillard are welcoming Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall. He is making sales calls on behalf of TransCanada’s EnergyEast pipeline. He will probably be wearing one of those big white hats that most oil men like to affect. Not that Wall is really an oil man
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Why does a culprit pick the judge?
It must be one of those anomalies you come across in the Canadian judicial system. It is justifiable curiosity to wonder why someone as guilty as Chief William Blair of the Toronto Police Service gets to pick the judge to try his co-conspirator Police Superintendant David (Mark) Fenton? The first
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Okay, Global’s Tom Clark has been redeemed.
After receiving various complaints from readers about the recent critical posting about Global Television’s Tom Clark, it is time to recant. The truth is that this writer has always been a solid fan of Tom’s work. It also helps that his late father, Joseph A.P. Clark was not only a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Which twin has the Toni?
During a career in public relations in Canada, you kept an eye on what was happening in PR south of the border as well as the Canadian market. You always wanted to be aware of what firms were doing for their clients. A firm watched over the last 60 years
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Please come back Curmudgeon.
This is like a plaintive cry in the night across the prairie. A fellow blogger who goes under the pen name The Curmudgeon, a.k.a. The Mound of Sound, says he has had too much and he is giving up on Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. But the problem is that
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is EnergyEast Justin Trudeau’s Waterloo?
How often have we seen a single issue become the real turning point in an election? It hardly matters how tired and out-of-touch the party in power might be, you still need that one idea that makes the turn-over happen. Nobody wins if all you say is that it is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Sometimes, you cannot choose your friends.
A casual observation made in a commentary the other day about the difficulties of having Americans as neighbours and friends evoked some questions. It comes down to the fact that Canadians have little choice. You might think we Canadians get kicked around now but just think of what it would
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: What about Blair’s role at the G20?
Are Canadians supposed to believe that Toronto police Chief Bill Blair is just an unindicted co-conspirator in the illegal actions of the Toronto police during the G20 in Toronto in 2010? It is somewhat late for him to claim that he did not know that he was breaching the rights
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The rich are different, Mr. Clark.
There is something irrepressible about TD Bank’s Ed Clark. He wants to give advice in areas beyond a banker’s experience. The other day, he handed in another seriously flawed report to the Ontario government and now he is giving advice to the rich. Being one of the rich himself, he
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The dubious diplomacy of the Hair.
Was there a sign at the Brisbane Airport last week barring diplomacy or diplomats entry to Australia? The way Vladimir Putin was treated at the G20 conference there was a disgrace. He is the leader of the Russian people and as their representative he deserves to be treated with courtesy.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa might not have been born a banker. He probably decided on that profession when the other kids picked on him in the school yard. He determined to get even. In a strange new ritual called the Fall Economic Statement, Charles sounded like he still had
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Le Dauphin, with two speeches ready.
It is a tough job. When you have to have two speeches ready, you are likely to have to use the losing one. Writers hate them and politicians hate them. Your first one tells all about how you knew you were going to win. Your second one admits the loss
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Does the NDP know where it’s going?
Wow, it says here that 77 per cent at the Ontario New Democrat convention in Toronto this past weekend liked Leader Andrea Horwath. Were they given a choice? Did they have someone else in mind? It seems silly to read anything into these figures. If the New Democrats had an
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Can TD Bank help Ontario’s deficit?
If you are a TD Bank customer you should be concerned. Another interim report to the Ontario government has been received from TD Bank Chair Ed Clark. He and his panel of former politicians are supposed to be telling Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa what assets should be sold or
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Newspeak of Tony Clement.
Canadians now have an “Open Portal” to an “Open Government’ according to the “doublethink” of Treasury Board President Tony Clement. You get the impression that the Parry Sound-Muskoka Conservative Member of Parliament took his script directly from George Orwell’s 1949 book Nineteen eighty-four. Even a Toronto Star editorial writer referred
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Hair is home as Obama cooks his goose.
It was obvious that nothing good would come of the Hair rushing back to Ottawa from Beijing to be at the National War Memorial Ceremony last Tuesday. Hobnobbing with a princess was hardly worth the trip. And it was not as though he said or did anything more than lay
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Waiting for Premiers Ford and Péladeau.
Imagine if we had former Toronto Councillor Doug Ford of Toronto as premier of Ontario and Pierre-Karl Péladeau of Quebecor as premier of Quebec. Both of these gentlemen are standing at the sidelines at this moment waiting for the coaches to call them into the game. They are both considering
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