We hear that Prime Minister Harper filled his A310 Airbus for his historic trip to Israel. This marks a new trend in tourism for the Prime Minister. Until the trip to Nelson Mandela’s funeral, he was content to take his hairdresser and a few lackeys to help carry his luggage.
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: Ontario needs a dose of reality.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has committed. She has called for pointless by-elections in the electoral districts of Thornhill and Niagara Falls in February. It is a waste of time, money and political capital. She could have done the right thing as a politician by calling a provincial election. But, frankly,
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Who can afford what tar sands offer?
It was a headline in the Toronto Star Business Section: “Now or never for oilsands, executives say.” The answer that came immediately to mind was “How about never.” The Toronto Star story was quoting Brian Ferguson, chief executive of Cenovus Energy and Russ Girling, chief executive of TransCanada, the pipeline
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Better a random act of kindness.
In a rushed lead written in Twitter yesterday, there was some unnecessary meanness. It was not intended. It just appeared in the Twitter space and was carelessly left there because there were other things needing attention. What started as humour became something else. It is a very human fault. The
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Causing Conservative Controversy.
Is a Conservative Party uprising in the offing? No. Is there dissension in the ranks? Yes. The importance of this for their opponents is that we have to pay attention and help keep the scabs from forming over these tears in the fabric of Canadian Conservatism. Nobody wants to smooth
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Tory’s Hudak is now an illusionist.
Ontario Opposition Leader Timmy Hudak has a new career in mind. He wants to be a carnival illusionist. In an op-ed opinion page article yesterday in the Toronto Star, he was proposing a Million Jobs Act. This act, as he describes it, would be a masterful illusion in the category
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In this star-struck age?
It was back in the 1970s in an advertising agency boardroom in New York, the president of the Canadian Multiple Sclerosis Society was being given a preview of that year’s proposed advertising campaign for the U.S. Multiple Sclerosis Society. The ads, headlined by Frank Sinatra and similar luminaries, were slick
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Choose early, repent longer.
It really is foolish. There was a commentary the other day by Bob Hepburn of the Toronto Star that Toronto liberals are in a quandary about this year’s mayoralty race in their city. Bob is a bit early in suggesting that liberals need to make any decision. The problem for
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: If you believe in true, can you sell bitumen?
A news story yesterday told us that an international public relations firm has won the first stage of what will be a $22 million contract to promote the output of Canada’s tar sands. Natural Resources Canada has announced that the Ottawa office of Fleishman-Hilliard has been awarded an initial contract
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Fixing The Best Laid Plans.
Reading Terry Fallis’ book, The Best Laid Plans in 2008 was a chore. Not writing the requested review was diplomacy. It seems to be an ideal book for people who like their humour about three metres wide and a centimetre deep. We can hardly advise it for people who seriously
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Looking for Mr. Mayor for Toronto.
In the 1977 Richard Brooks movie Looking for Mr. Goodbar, the character played by Diane Keaton might as well have been looking for a mayoralty candidate as for someone to share her bed. Either way, it seems to be a self-destructive quest. In looking for a mayor for the city
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Why are Lac-Mégantic murderers at large?
Is Canada some third world country where people can break the law and nobody seems to notice? Can a business knowingly break the law and kill Canadian citizens? When a train rolled free into Lac-Mégantic last year and killed some 47 residents of that picturesque Québéc town, it seems the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: What’s a true Tory to do?
A surprising number of Conservatives read this blog. And sometimes it upsets them. Talking to one of these upset people this morning, he admitted that he had run out of alternatives for the coming Ontario election. The recent blog on Premier Wynne’s worries had convinced him that he had nowhere
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Mulcair previews his 2015 campaign.
When New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair was on Tom Clark’s West Block show on Global this Sunday, the wife remarked that the Opposition leader seemed to be testing campaign lines for 2015. He was. Tom Clark even thanked Mulcair for the preview. The only problem for Mulcair is that the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Stephen Harper’s legacy is his ego.
If an historian a hundred years from now writes a book about Canada’s 22nd Prime Minister it is more likely to be on the man’s ego than any accomplishment while in office. That is too bad. Stephen Harper had it in him to do much while in office but it
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Why Horwath has Wynne’s Whigs worried.
It has not been a well kept secret. The Queen’s Park Whigs are worried. They cannot seem to understand why Ontario voters like New Democrat Andrea Horwath more than the Whig’s Wynne. And if they do not figure it out soon, the Whigs days are numbered. Ontario has now had
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Mastering the mayoral marathon.
The most daunting marathon in the New Year is the long-running campaigns for mayors and other municipal candidates in Ontario cities. Technically, your campaign cannot start before registration, which opened January 2. It ends on election day, October 27. There are those such as Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford who are
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Selling the LCBO: A primer for MPPs.
This is not ideological. It has nothing to do with right or left wing politics. Selling the Liquor Control Board of Ontario to private citizens has nothing whatsoever to do with the private versus public sector. It is a simple question of good economics and what is the best system
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Some political thoughts on 2014
You don’t need a crystal ball to guess, That 2014’s gonna be a political mess. Those city, province, federal hopefuls, Will make promises by the bucketfuls. Years of campaigns don’t reveal it all, You never know who will win or fall. Nor do we come last amongst fallible. Pollsters
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Sex education for the Harper government.
The Supreme Court gave a gift recently to the Conservative Government that will keep on giving. It is the opportunity for Stephen Harper and his friends to learn about sex. They seem to be a very repressed bunch of people and any new learning on this subject should be welcome.
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