Ontario’s news media might be a little premature in wringing their hands and writing eulogies for Ontario’s Liberal government. With something like 30 per cent of the voters turning out for the September 1 by-election, the portent is nothing more than the local Liberals need to work a bit harder. But that also applies to […]
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Babel-on-the-Bay: In Ontario there is the Brown Way.
Last weekend Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown was in Barrie to stoke the local loyalties. He reminds us of the busker with the sticks and plates. This is the entertainer who can keep more and more plates spinning on sticks. And if he makes it look too easy, he just adds more sticks and […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Doing Ontario up Brown!
To this long-time political apparatchik, it was an interesting example of the art of remaking a politician. Ontario viewers of Global Television Sunday morning had an opportunity to see the training effort in action. It was almost a before and after—that might have been recorded hours apart. It was new Ontario Conservative Leader Patrick Brown […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Patrick Brown where are you?
Patrick Brown MPP needs to decide whether he is his provincial party’s leader or its chief apparatchik. In politics, an apparatchik is a person who usually toils in the background of a party coming up with and implementing strategies and tactics with which to win power. Watching Mr. Brown at work in politics over the […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: By way of apology to our Barrie Whigs.
This is about as close as Babel-on-the-Bay can come to an apology. For the life of this blog, we have tended to disparage a faction of the local Liberals in Barrie. Calling them Whigs was not a compliment. (Whigs are Liberals about 100 years out of date.) This change of heart needs an explanation. It […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: They say all politics are local.
That might not be the way Americans say it but Americans do not worry much about syntax (such as the use of a plural verb with a plural subject). This thought occurred to us the other evening while sitting in a very uncomfortable students’ chair in a lecture hall at
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Christine Elliott: Thank you for your service.
The Member of the Ontario Legislature for Whitby-Oshawa has resigned. Christine Elliott has served the riding well for the past nine years. She was a progressive in Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party. For the second time, she had lost the contest for the leadership of the party to an extremist. She
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Barrie’s bashful bachelor wins over Wynne.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne must make her daily decisions with her Ouija Board. You would think she could make decisions and stick to them but no such luck. She has now decided that it is no skin off her nose if Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown has a by-election
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Knowing how Ches Crosby feels.
The one thing people in Newfoundland can count on is politicians who rattle the cage. From the late Premier Joey Smallwood and others since, we have always expected controversy and salty comments from Island politicians. Ches Crosbie, a St. John’s lawyer, has been in the news lately for being refused
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Get your program here for Barrie-Innisfil!
You hear the hawkers when going into any major sports event: Get your program here. How else would you know about the players and their statistics? We need the same for political events. The federal Liberals in Barrie-Innisfil electoral district have finally been allowed to call for nominations and the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A potpourri for Sunday.
Babel-on-the-Bay has resisted the urge to do an occasional potpourri of comments. We usually try to stick to one (related at least) topic at a time. If we did a potpourri, it would probably look like this: Ignorance is bliss: In a letter to the editor of the Toronto Star
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: With Patrick Brown you get bupkis.
It seems we are supposed to do some sort of mea culpa in regards to Barrie’s MP Patrick Brown. Yes Babel-on-the-Bay originates in Barrie but we thought we had that covered by calling the place Babel. It just would not remain hidden. In writing the other day about the relative
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Discovering Barrie’s Patrick Brown.
It has taken on all the elements of a farce. The Ontario news media are discovering Patrick Brown MP for Barrie. They are running lengthy, laudatory articles about him with flattering pictures. (And getting a flattering picture of Brown is no easy task.) The media think he has a lock
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Doing without the politicians.
This Ontario resident missed Treasurer Charles Sousa’s budget yesterday. Not that we shunned his budget. The day involved 12 hours at the local hospital. Given a choice we would have preferred to be strapped down and forced to listen to Charles’ budget. Do not get all excited out there: it
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The people wall is uncomfortable.
It is coming to a point where politicians will need to use videos of the right types of people behind them. It would certainly be better than the uncertainty of dragging in whoever is available to make up the backdrop for political announcements. It is the Prime Minister’s Office in
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: ‘Diplomat’ Brown and his friend Narendra Modi.
What is wrong with Canada’s foreign relations is more than explained by the friendship of India Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Patrick Brown MP. Yes, that is Patrick Brown, the most useless member of the Conservative back bench and the candidate for the leadership of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party. With
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Patrick Brown, we hardly knew you.
Ontario media have discovered Patrick Brown MP. Yes, that is our Patrick from Barrie. He has been our Member of Parliament for the last three parliaments. He was barely noticed. He said nothing. He did nothing. He was another mindless Conservative vote. He was your typical Conservative MP. But finally
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “Rules, shmules, we the boss:” says Brother Brown.
Canadians are usually fairly good about not mixing religion and politics. It is one of the less endearing traits of American politicos. That was why it was most unusual the other day when a B.C. member of the Conservative backbench quit his caucus and said he would sit as an
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The summer skater surfaces.
Babel heard from its boy MP the other day. Hockey Night is coming up. This is when the Member of Parliament’s staff and friends throw a fund-raiser for the local hospital and we all pay for it. We probably pay far more than is raised for the hospital but we
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Playtime at the PMO.
Who is running things in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO)? They are acting like out-of-control children and they need an adult hand on the helm. The communications people are not only acting juvenile, careless and gullible but they do not appear to know very much about the news media. Would
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