Hey it won an election for the Liberals did it not? It shows how rarely we hear a good budget read in this country. It also shows how ignorant those people are who go on and on about the deficit. Finance Minister Charles Sousa’s Ontario budget of May 1 and
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: Prohibiting political parties!
People should be careful of what they wish. Now they want to abolish political parties. They make very serious complaints about them. Some of the complaints are quite valid. Some are just smoke. The only problem is that they need to think long and hard about what replaces them before
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Political polls past their prime.
Seen any political polls that you believe lately? If not, just wait, one to meet your bias will be along shortly. The only problem is that you have no trust in the sample, the methodology or the laughable chance that it might be right 19-out-of-20 times. It is not just
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A choice for Babel Conservatives.
The Babel Conservatives thought they had everything organized. When the Barrie riding was split, the south half of the city had lots of reliable conservative country voters from south of the city added. It was the same for Barrie’s north half. The new riding of Barrie, Springwater, Oro Medonte comes
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In the ignominy of ignorance.
Can you imagine? At a time when a young man’s fancy is to indulge in a summer hockey camp, our Babel MP has spent the past week talking about prostitution. Not that he has necessarily found it a learning experience. He is likely to be as ignorant on the subject
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Hair’s letting it all hang out.
Did you see the news clips of the prime minister the other day? They had him dressed in casual clothes to check out the flood problems out west. And with an open jacket, he was letting his growing corporation hang out. It shows the soft life he has been living.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Thomas Mulcair, by Agatha Christie.
New Democrat leader Thomas Mulcair comes across as another character created by famed Brit mystery writer Agatha Christie. Like Christie’s prolific series of books from 1920 to 1975 featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, the politician is from another time, another era. It might explain why Mulcair is out of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: We must save CBC News.
Many of us have been watching in horror as the Conservative government has casually and constantly whittled away the funding of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is a death of a thousand cuts. Yet there are those concerned that the CBC’s priority for news coverage is at the expense of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Politics is not a business.
We all struggle with metaphors to explain politics but the recent Toronto Star effort by Susan Delacourt of the paper’s Ottawa Bureau missed by a mile. She should leave business analogies to Star Business writer David Olive. To try to explain the recent federal by-elections in business terms seems to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Snake at seventeen.
It was the Snake’s birthday the other day. It has been a long time since Babel-on-the-Bay told you about him and his brother, the Corporal. It might not be political. But Snake at seventeen is something. Tall, tanned, tapered and talented, he might be the answer to many a maiden’s
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Are Wynne’s Liberals in the ‘activist centre’?
A commentary in the Toronto Star on the recent Ontario election written by a member of Kathleen Wynne’s election team is puzzling. The article is by Tim Murphy, a partner at the law firm of McMillan LLP. A former Liberal MPP when Bob Rae was NDP premier and then chief-of-staff
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A kinder, gentler Ontario PC Party?
It is likely Whitby-Oshawa MPP Christine Elliott is serious this time out. She wants another try at being leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. She has disappointed Prime Minister Stephen Harper in her quick decision. Harper had hoped she would replace her late husband Jim Flaherty in Ottawa. She
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Feeding the beast.
Babel-on-the-Bay promised a month or so ago to ignore the municipal scene until it becomes relevant. That will be after Labour Day. In the meantime, we have two more months of glorious summer in which to revel. Why spoil it? And why is Toronto’s soon-to-be-former mayor getting all the newspaper
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is this the “New Way” Justin Trudeau?
While it might seem a churlish comment to some, there is regrettably no honour for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau in the win in the Trinity-Spadina by-election. Running up to the vote on June 30, the Liberal Party ran television ads in which Justin talked about a ‘new way to do
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: O’ Canada, O’ Canada, Oh God!
Happy Canada Day. Canada is 147 years young and we still need to grow, develop, mature and grasp the reins of nationhood. There is so much to admire in Canada. There are Canada’s peoples, its beauty and its natural wonders. There is also its future. We need to share our
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The cabinet making of Premier Wynne.
It is hard to say whether Premier Wynne used delicate chiselling tools or just a Shop Vac to fashion her new cabinet. Either way, it would be wise not to expect all its members to last the four years of her mandate. There is some testing going on in that
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: All Andrea Horwath has is her hubris.
When New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath finally came out of hiding after the Ontario election, her pride (hubris) was all she had left. She has a caucus to lead and since they have nobody better, Andrea is still their leader. But Andrea’s decision to force an election produced no victory.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: We gotta get behind this leadership candidate.
The truth is that it was hard to stop laughing when the news was first announced: Patrick Brown MP is considering running for the leadership of the Ontario Conservatives. It is just that the more you think of it, the more you see the irreparable damage it will do to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Russian recognizes Baird’s botching.
Georgiy Mamedov, the dean of the diplomatic corps in Ottawa is returning to Moscow. After 11 years in Canada, the Russian Ambassador seems to have become less and less diplomatic. He is calling a spade a spade and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird a sham. On Tom Clark’s West Block
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In by-elections, you have to be there.
No, Babel-on-the-Bay has no morning line or prediction for the current by-elections in Toronto and Alberta. Readers have been asking for a forecast of what will happen in the four federal by-elections called for June 30. What they need to understand is that all by-elections are local. They are decided
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