A mainstay of our parliamentary democracy in Canada is the tradition of question period. This is when the opposition parties have a chance to tackle the premier or prime minister and the cabinet to ask what is going on. Over the years we have seen premiers and prime ministers who
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: Mr. and Mrs. Trump go to war.
In the last half of the 20th Century, Hollywood star Bob Hope was famous for his Christmas shows for American military. These shows took place in areas of conflict where Americans where deployed around the world. Hope’s compensation was that he could edit the recordings of the shows and run
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Down the Yellow Brick Road in 2019.
We have a long journey before we arrive at the Land of Oz. We have much to ask of just one small wizard. When L. Frank Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (published in 1900), he had no idea how appropriate it is to the Canadian election slated for
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: All are visitors at Stornoway.
Welcome to Stornoway. May your visit here be brief. Think of it as a stopover on the road to success or on the road to oblivion. It is a 34-room house built in the colonial revival style in 1913/14 in Ottawa’s Rockcliffe Park area. Stornoway is owned by the Crown
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: To Brampton Town with Brown.
Barrie’s sorry excuse for a newspaper, the weekly Advance, has announced that Brampton mayor Patrick Brown is its newsmaker of the year. Coincidently the Barrie library had a copy of Brown’s tell-all book Take Down: The attempted political assassination of Patrick Brown—by none other than Patrick Brown himself. It was
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A Christmas Tale for Doug Ford.
Doug Ford tells us he is something of a Christian and that might mean he has been looking forward to this Christmas. He has been on a roll since January this year when the gates to the premier’s job opened up to him. He was even anointed by the controversial
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: For want of a wall.
About a quarter million Americans can now be classified as slaves. They are not being paid for their work. They have to do their jobs anyway. You will understand this better when you realize that they work for an organization that has Donald Trump as its chief executive officer. These
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Who’s left at the Trump White House?
OK, so it is hard to get good help these days. The problem is that the revolving door they put on the employee’s entrance at the White House is getting far more traffic than even president Donald Trump’s detractors expected. The question is, is the atmosphere just getting more toxic
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: And a Very Merry to B.C.
And here we were worried that our friends out on the Left Coast were being had! They got a really nice pre-Christmas present the other day. They got rid of one of the worst suggestions we had seen for a form of proportional voting. The citizens wisely said “No” in
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: All we got from Trudeau was a Ho-Ho-Ho.
How do you like that bunch of ingrates in Alberta? Prime minister Trudeau comes up with a $1.6 billion Christmas present for them and all they do is complain. Bet you just love the mental picture of premier Rachel Notley sitting on Justin Trudeau’s lap last time she was in
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Imperial Trump is the problem.
The Emperor of Twits was using his Twitter Throne to criticize the Fed last week. It seems that president Trump is unaware that he might just be the problem and certainly not the solution to the turmoil over interest rates and the tumbling of the markets. The leader of the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Toronto’s Tacky-Town Casino.
Had a weekend of fun with friends in Toronto last weekend. The entertainment was varied, the food ranged from perfectly grilled steaks to the excellent buffet at Woodbine’s Favourites dining room to pizza and beer and just talking. The entertainment ranged from the circus atmosphere of Circ du Soleil to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Hold your bets on the 2019 election.
Got a call from a call centre the other day looking for funds for prime minister Trudeau’s liberals. It is likely that they have to push harder these days. It is also unlikely that the conservatives are having it all that easy to get money to support ‘Chuckles’ Scheer’s conservatives.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The conflicts of Kenney’s UCP.
How any openly lesbian, gay, bi-sexual or transgender (LGBT) person can have anything to do with the united conservative party of Alberta would come as a surprise. Mind you, I am also surprised that there are women involved with that party run, as it is, by misogynists. And Alberta is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Finance ministers can also lie.
Canada’s provincial finance ministers met last weekend for a play date with their federal counterpart. This was a follow-up to the first ministers meeting on the Friday. When Alberta finance minister Joe Ceci found that Quebec premier François Legault had left him a lump of coal, he got a bit
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Rules of entitlement.
The recent troubles in Paris have brought to mind a week I spent in Paris on business back in the 1970s. My business ‘host’ and tour guide for the week was part Vietnamese and he provided an unusual but perceptive insight into the Parisian sense of entitlement. Working for an
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Dougie’s second stupidest stunt.
In many years of running major political events, one of the automatic considerations is always security. There is no question that well publicized events of that nature can attract the less mentally stable of society with their real or imagined complaints. And because you never know what can happen, you
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It is the door on the left that is open wide.
We keep waiting for signs that there is some life left in the Ontario liberals. It has been a while now and we can hardly wait for Doug Ford to stumble more than he already has. It is already obvious that the Ford government is going nowhere at his usual
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Our 400 MPP.
There is no point in complaining that our Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte member of the legislature is never in the electoral district. He obviously drives through it every time he goes to or from the legislature in Toronto and his home. When you live where MPP Doug Downey lives you still have a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ford fast-tracks the slippery slope.
One of the problems with being a bit older is that you have seen it all before. Premier Doug Ford, for example, might be just a reprise of Mike Harris, conservative premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002. One of the reasons for the longevity of the McGuinty-Wynne liberals after
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