If you were to search through my archives, you would find back in 2012 that I did a series of “5 Questions” with Ontario Liberal Party leadership candidates who were running to replace Dalton McGuinty (eventually won by Kathleen Wynne). It is 2019 and we have another OLP leadership race,
Continue readingAuthor: Scott Tribe
Scott's DiaTribes: Election 43 Aftermath: Free Advice For The Conservative Party
Find a new leader that is a bit more moderate on social issues (Rona Ambrose, Michael Chong, Lisa Raitt even) and bring back more progressive policies. Regarding Climate change; if you folks don’t want a carbon tax, you’ll need something more convincing to environmentally conscious voters then basically proposing some
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: The Writ Drops in Canada
Today starts the official first day of the election campaign, with the Prime Minister asking the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament for an election taking place on Oct 21st. With that announcement, I may be a little more active on this blog, although as you see on my twitter feed on
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Still here! (Sorta)
Its been awhile since I posted something here.. so I felt the need to add a blog entry to indicate I’m still alive. (If you read my twitter account at the right sidebar, you’ll see I am indeed around still). Lots of things have happened in a couple of months.
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: The Liberal Party has bungled SNC-Lavalin terribly.
I can’t say I agree with much of my Liberal social media/blogger colleagues who are thinking this is a great thing that former Cabinet Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott got booted over their dissent as to how SNC Lavalin was being handled and the pressure being sent JWR’s way
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Checking in on the US Democratic contenders for President
So it’s getting to that time where everyone is declaring they’re running for president in the US – the election of course is in November 2020… and politics always is in overdrive south of the border – but even more-so with the tumultuous election and reign of Donald Trump. The
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Doug Ford backs down on attacking Greenbelt protections.
It appears that there was a lot of blowback to this plan over the Christmas holidays to Conservative MPP’s. Good – it was a terrible idea: The Ford government is scrapping a controversial plan that would have allowed municipalities to opt out of some provincial planning rules to attract new
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Merry Christmas 2018!
Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope you have a great holiday!
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Doug Ford for the People? More Like For Big Business (Bill 66 discussion)
So, the Ontario government released or introduced Bill 66 today in the Legislature. It does many appalling things under the guise of “opening Ontario for business”. It may open Ontario for business but it strips the public of protections for clean water, health and safety regulations for wastewater and food
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Hamilton’s Power Couple
I’m being slightly facetious.. but a big congrats to my cousin and cousin-in-law JP Danko and Dawn Danko for being elected to Hamilton City Council and School Trustee respectively. Dawn was just named vice chair of the Hamilton District School board as well. Everyone in the family is very proud
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Ontario Conservatives present a “climate change plan” that has been shown to fail.
A follow-up to my last post: The Ontario Conservative government has finally presented its plan for mitigating climate change. No carbon tax! No cap and trade! Sounds great.. until you see the details: “Rather than imposing a price on carbon pollution as a cost of doing business, the Tories are
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Election 1 yr away; Battle on Carbon Pricing Favors Liberals
We have seen Conservative Governments in Ontario and Saskatchewan balk at carbon pricing and the Federal Conservatives basically trying to use the old “tax on everything line” they used with success against Stephane Dion’s Green Shift a decade ago, cancelling climate change fighting programs and/or failing to offer (viable) alternatives.
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Canada signs on to new NAFTA.. er… USMCA trade deal
It’s not a perfect deal, and there are some things in it I’m not totally happy about (ie the pharmaceutical companies getting 10 year patent protection on drugs vs the 8 years it had been), but given who was in the Oval Office, and given what we saved (Chapter 19
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Flawed Ford Logic On NWS Clause
Of all the scenarios out there where I’d envision a provincial government in Ontario invoking or trying to invoke Section 33 of the Charter (the “notwithstanding clause”) to override court decisions based on the Charter… a situation involving a BIll that shrinks municipal government in Toronto wasnt in my top
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Time to walk away from Trump, Ministers Freeland and PM Trudeau
Social media these days goes very fast, as you know from reading Twitter. BLogs can seem a bit slow in that respect. By the time I post this.. it may be outdated or overtaken by new events. That being said, this is an inflammatory a piece as you’ll ever see
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Doug Ford & The Ontario PC Govt hates a carbon tax? Propose a climate change plan
So Ontario’s Environment Minister Rod Phillips met with Canadian Environment Minister Catherine Mckenna. Minister Phillips was rather defiant in his tweet about never accepting Canada’s carbon tax put on the province, while Minister Mckenna was much more diplomatic. The bottom line is: Ontario had a cap and trade plan in
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Mad at Donald Trump? Money talks (to him)
I don’t think I need to go into details again to my readers about Donald Trump’s antics at the G7, or him and his advisers basically equating Prime Minister Trudeau to the modern day equivalent of Benedict Arnold because horrors, publicly stating again that we disagree with and would be
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Ontario Election Post-Mortem. ON Election 2018=Fed Election 2011
Some thoughts/observations on last night’s result; The NDP had momentum 2 weeks ago, but obviously lost it at the end, as their final percentage of votes was 3-5% lower then most final polls had predicted. (I believe Ekos and Mainstreet were the closest in their final polling of NDP numbers.).
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: State of the Ontario Election Campaign
With around 2 weeks to go, Ontario voters are beginning to look more carefully and thinking a lot harder about whether they really want a Doug Ford led provincial government. Some hard questions are now being asked about the promises Doug Ford has made and whether they actually will save
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: The Ontario Regressive Conservative Party.
Voters eventually get tired of governments, and the Liberals have been in power for a long time; combine that with a particularly questionable policy decision on partially privatizing Ontario Hydro which dramatically increased Hydro bills. The government’s attempts to subsidize some of the bill’s costs to consumers did not particularly
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