You know you are a second-class citizen in Ontario if you are a tenant and have moved since last time you voted in a municipal election. The municipal people across Ontario explain it simply: if you are a tenant, you are responsible to register to vote. If you are a
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: Checking back on the Morning Line for Toronto.
This is a repeat of Babel-on-the-Bay’s entry of September 4 this year. It has been an overly long and arduous municipal campaign for Toronto voters and candidates. As we always used to say to our campaign workers: Vote early…and often! This mayoralty contest has been an uphill battle for broadcaster
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Harris helps harass the Hair.
Canada’s prime minister a.k.a. the Hair does not have a large number of friends. And that short list obviously does not include Canadian author and journalist Michael Harris. We hear that Harris’ newly published list of the Hair’s shortcomings is a rather lengthy book. Called Party of One: Stephen Harper
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Meaningless measuring for meaningless media.
When you take a poll to help sell newspapers, how serious can you be? Does the poll even matter if it restates the obvious? It is giving the entire business of polls a bad name. Take the Toronto Star. The Star hires Forum Research to take a poll. Last week
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Justin’s book written by the choir.
Nobody expects that Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s puff piece that has just been published is actually written by him. It comes as a shock though when he describes the process as more like a choral arrangement. It sounds like a process that takes out any spontaneity, edge or passion from
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: This is war Ms. Wynne.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and her so-called Liberal Party are having a love in down in Windsor today. They had better enjoy that group hug inside because the town of Windsor is not feeling all that loving. And neither are a lot of liberals in Ontario. It is a banker
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Hair harvests his hopes.
Canada’s prime minister must be quite happy these days. There is actually a world-wide glut of oil driving down the price of crude oil. The Hair has taken us to the promised land of the oil economy and Canadians are reaping the rewards. They are also watching stock markets plummet
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Entering the end game in municipal politics.
Political apparatchiks can get into endless arguments about how best to handle the end game in a municipal campaign. The key question is in setting priorities. You will never seem to have enough workers to do the ground job. So what takes precedence? It is a question John Tory, Olivia
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: What price for your vote?
Step right up folks. The Conservative Party is ready to buy your vote. If you do not worm your way to the head of the line, you might miss out. After all a lot of Canadians have suffered so that the greedy can get their snout in the trough. It
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: We need more Irwin Cotler’s Mr. Trudeau.
Here we are losing one of the few intelligent and thinking parliamentarians left in Ottawa and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau wants nebbishes to replace him. Trudeau is too wet behind the ears to understand that we have to have mavericks in caucus to keep Liberals honest with themselves and their
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Going-out-of-business sale at Queen’s Park.
There is a furniture store north of Toronto that has been holding going-out-of-business sales for at least the past two years. The store buys heavy flights of radio advertising on weekends that force you to find another station to listen to. It seems that the Ontario government is also having
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Tories work copyright from both sides.
It takes a while to get your mind around it. It seems the government party can use copyright material as they wish but the news media are not allowed to censor. That seems to be the gist of what federal Heritage Minister Shelly Glover said the other day. Since the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The EU can be hypocrites too.
The European Union has changed its mind and is allowing bitumen to be imported to European Union countries. Canada’s Suncor has recently announced that it has sent its first every tanker load of what it calls ‘heavy crude oil’ from Alberta by rail and then by tanker from Sorel-Tracy in
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Imploding media, a failure to communicate.
It takes a while to digest the sale the other day of Canada’s English-language Sun newspapers to Postmedia. All you can say for sure is that the newspaper market in Canada continues to implode. Postmedia President and CEO Paul Godfrey provided the answer at the announcement of the $316 million
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Just days to a Ford-free Toronto.
Toronto has had bluster, BS and bad news for the past four years. There is light though in the distance. It is relief at the end of a long tunnel of trouble. Toronto has endured enough. It is time to end the Ford era. It is time to call your
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It’s High Noon for the Hair.
The Hair is strapping on his six-shooter, saying goodbye to the missus and heading to meet the bad guys on the noon train. He did not wait for the House of Commons vote that might have enabled him to deputize a Mulcair or a Trudeau for some moral support. The
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Mediocrity is a step backward for democracy.
Now the Toronto Star is also trumpeting ranked ballots for municipal elections in Ontario. When Premier Wynne pulled the idea out of her hat the other day, the first reaction was to note that the ranked ballot, as she envisages the system, allows losers to decide the election results. And
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Rogers: An old song for a tired audience.
Hold tight Canada. You are about to be dazzled by the same people who have abused you before. You never learn do you? There is always another generation without the memory. We are talking about Rogers here. Rogers is the communications giant that blocked all communication with the hoi polloi
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Democracy is not hurried for Premier Wynne.
In sending what she calls ‘mandate letters’ to her cabinet, Premier Kathleen Wynne has even sent one to herself as minister of intergovernmental affairs. It seems that she has finally noted the major population shifts in Ontario. She must have been told that the federal election next year will be
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The stateless state of ISIS.
How do you go to war with stateless brigands? How do you bomb the locations of thieves who move about usurping the homes and authority of people weakened with years of oppression and destructive war? How do you bring ill-trained soldiers into an effective force to fight these brigands when
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