It is Halloween and the Conservative Party of Canada is gathering in its spiritual home of Calgary to pay obeisance to its liege lord and to drink of the wine of power. The keynote speech will now be Friday evening. Prime Minister Stephen Harper will take the floor sometime after
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: Voters hardly deserve our governments.
It is a mindless statement of politics that the voters get the government they deserve. That is such a false statement that it should be declared illegal to even say it. What we most often get across Canada at all levels of government is the government that is the least
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Choosing challengers for Ford’s job.
It is far too early for a morning line forecast on the race for the Toronto mayoralty but the key apparatchiks are in play. While nobody can legally be campaigning until they formally file early next year, there is a lot for the teams to do. The Toronto Star City
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Will Harper weather his winter?
Calgary, at this time of year, already tastes of winter. And as the Conservative Party gathers for its Halloween convention, there is a bite in the air. The real question of the convention is not whether the Prime Minister can handle the chill but what the convention foretells for his
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ontario, Quebec can do it better together.
Two provinces with the resources are better than one. Two provinces with the ideas are better than one. And two provinces working together can rebuild Canada’s economy to make the country the most dynamic in the world. People have talked about this idea for many years but ignorance and caution
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A $100,000 dinner not part of democracy.
The other day, Premier Kathleen Wynne defended a $100,000 fund-raising dinner for the Ontario Liberal government. She said that fundraising such as this is all part of democracy. What it is, in fact, is a corruption of democracy and should never be allowed. It is indefensible. The money should be
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Justin Trudeau on the fence.
One of the fun aspects of politics is watching the dance of a politician trying desperately to stay on both sides of an issue. It would have been especially interesting yesterday to watch Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau try to balance himself on the Keystone XL pipeline in front of an
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A lame duck Harper limps home.
If you have been wondering what Prime Minister Harper is planning for the Conservative Party’s Halloween Convention in Calgary, here is a suggestion. The keynote address is currently scheduled for five pm, Calgary time, on the Saturday. In the East, that means we will miss some of Hockey Night in
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: What is Wynne doing in politics?
Did you see the announcement of Kathleen Wynne’s new super committee to solve all her problems as Premier? If you wait long enough, you too might find yourself on one of her growing lists of committees. The only membership requirement appears to be that you should not be mistaken for
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Hair hypes his legacy.
Is the door to the Airbus A310 wide enough? Is it high enough? Did that inflated head of perfect hair find an easier way to get on the airplane for the trip back to Canada from Brussels? You could see the glee and the pride when he said at the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Feeding the Energy Board PAP!
The Enbridge pipeline people have an unfortunate acronym for their public awareness program: PAP. The only problem is that pap is defined in our dictionary as the soft or semi-liquid food for infants or invalids. The word is further defined as undemanding reading matter. And that has been what Enbridge
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Hair and hairdresser having fun in Brussels.
With the Throne Speech a one-day wonder, the Hair had nothing left to do but head for Brussels. The home of the European Union, Brussels today is more than a Mecca for tourists. It is here that the Hair has signed a tentative European trade treaty. Nobody seems to care
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ontario’s patchwork Premier at Play.
Did you miss the announcement last week that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has solved the problem with Ontario’s harness racing industry? You can just see her coming out of her Queen’s Park office at the end of the day, dusting off her hands and saying: “another problem solved.” The truth
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A government out of gas.
Listening to the budget reading by the Governor General yesterday was a sad occasion. It reminds you of one of your youngsters who had so much relaxing to do over the summer that he never did get around to that one school assignment. The government prorogued Parliament for an extra
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A letter to our Member of Parliament.
Dear Mr. Brown: This is to thank you for sending us the Brown Report, Fall 2013. There is little question that it is from you—in four pages, your picture appears 16 times. It makes one wish that you were a little more photogenic. What is of concern to us is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “The shape of things to come.”
One of the worst forecasts we ever saw was a Canadian-made, low budget science-fiction movie released in 1979. It was loosely based on H.G. Wells’ book by the same name. What was really wrong with it was that the 1936 version of the movie when the screen play was written
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Be it resolved to rebuild Canada.
Thanksgiving Day in Canada is a good day to talk about our hopes for renewing our country. To this end, we are taking Justin Trudeau at his word that he wants the Liberal Party of Canada to develop the policies that Canadians want. We have therefore contributed a resolution to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A wonderful story about ‘Zoo poo.’
Apropos a recent Babel-on-the-Bay story about our backward burghers of Babel who run our small city, there was a delightful story in the Toronto Star the other day about a different kind of poop. And if you think poop is poop, you have never wandered too far at the Toronto
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Meet Premier Marois’ pet pitbull.
There is little that is complex about Pierre-Karl Péladeau. He is as basic as the daily content of Le Journal de Montréal. He is his father’s son. He preaches conservatism and separatism without qualms. He is Sun Media. He is the pitbull of Canadian news media. He is making the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: What’s a billion Premier Wynne?
No doubt Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne would very much like to close the books on the gas power plants in Mississauga and Oakville. It is just that there is a bad smell here that is something more than the rotten egg smell usually associated with domestic natural gas. And we
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