It was sad the other day to read both Susan Delacourt and Chantal Hébert of the Toronto Star and their dour take on the upcoming federal election. The ladies are two of Canada’s most astute reporters on things political and here they were being pessimistic this early. I was particularly
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Babel-on-the-Bay: Slipping in the Slogan.
It might surprise regular readers but this blogger does not believe in slogans. Oh yes, I use them, but more in sarcasm than in concurrence. It is just that I see an election as a sequence of events that can only become a slogan close to the end point: the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Can Kenney, Curly (Ford) and Moe pull it off?
Conservative leader ‘Chuckles’ Scheer might not offer much of a challenge to Justin Trudeau but when you consider the three stooges running in the back field, it makes you think. Canadians, outside of parliament and his Regina riding, have little reason to have an opinion of Chuckles. Very few of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Change in Chuckles.
Did you notice the change in conservative leader Andrew Scheer? I was watching a Blue Jays game the other day and they had a political commercial between innings featuring him. It was not smoke and mirrors but make up. His prominent cheek bones had seemingly disappeared. I walked over to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Repeating history with Doug Ford.
The worst of the mistakes made by Mike Harris, conservative premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002, was the downloading of provincial government expenses to municipalities. It was a stupid and ill-advised. And despite the lessons learned, we now have premier Doug Ford following in Harris’ draconian footsteps. Where the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Why listen to Bernier?
Chantal Hébert made an interesting case the other day. She wrote in the Toronto Star that Maxime Bernier of our new People’s Party of Canada should be allowed to be part of the leader debates for the October 21 election. Despite it being doubtful that Bernier will retain his own
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Jason Kenney: Alpha Male?
When Gillian Steward from Calgary wrote in the Toronto Star recently about Alberta’s Jason Kenney being the federal conservative alpha male, it had to be another example of her wonderful sense of humour. Quite frankly, by no definition, that I can think of, can you consider Kenney an alpha male.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Big Brother baffles business.
Ontario premier Doug Ford claims he is really just a businessman. Prior to becoming premier, his only claim to fame was his second banana role for his late brother when Rob Ford was mayor of Toronto. Before that Doug was just a salesman for his father’s label printing company. Where
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Waiting for Doug Ford.
C’mon Dougie, Let’s see some action here in Ontario. You talked the talk. You walked the walk. Now, when do we see some action? A populist makes promises and people expect things to happen. We were promised beer in the corner convenience stores. Make it so! You might not have
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Diogenes, Leadership and SNC-Lavalin.
There is no time left for what might have been. Canadians are going into an election when what we so desperately want to say is ‘None of the above.’ Are we condemned to face a future of failure? Are we helpless? Have we found there is no honest man? Justin
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: When the real campaign begins.
They remind me of a bunch of outlaw bikers, warming up their hogs for a race. They have all taken off their mufflers for that extra bit of speed. The full-throated roar of those bikes makes the ground seem to tremble. And the clouds of exhaust fumes obscure the start. When
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Who is this guy Scheer?
The conservative party has been working hard over the summer at getting ‘Chuckles’ Scheer better known. It reminds me of that old Rodgers and Hammerstein song, Getting to Know You, that Julie Andrews made famous in The King and I. What should be remembered about the song is the point
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: From small creeks do mighty rivers flow.
From the Manchester Guardian to the Toronto Globe and Mail, there have been reports of our federal government scientists testing spills of diluted bitumen from Alberta’s tar sands. As one source pointed out to me, this was the government laboratory that former prime minister Stephen Harper forgot to shut down.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Trudeau’s Secret Weapon.
You have probably been wondering why prime minister Justin Trudeau is so cheery and ebullient these days. It is probably not just the fact that his pal Gerald Butts is back to back him up in the campaign. Nor is it the pollsters who are saying that the conservatives and
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Chuckles Chooses Cheap.
Conservative leader Andrew ‘Chuckles’ Scheer was not out to look cheap the other day. It was just the effect when he again announced that the conservatives would guarantee Canada’s health care system a three per cent increase per year. It seems that the Trudeau government made a deal recently to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It started with John D. Rockefeller.
It was John D. Rockefeller in the 1800s who put together Standard Oil of New Jersey and created ‘Big Oil.’ He created the power house that to this day is destroying our environment, launching wars and feeding much of the corruption of North American politics. And it is the same
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Trudeau does a Harper.
There was a strong sense of déjà vu as our prime minister headed to the far north to kick off his election campaign. It was just four years ago when prime minister Stephen Harper headed for Iqaluit, Nunavut, to kick off conservative Leona Aglukkaq’s bid for re-election. This is despite
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The gang that can’t even sell pot.
It is hard to believe that Doug Ford’s gang in Ontario cannot even get a handle on the pot business. Is there no part of government in which they have some expertise? Did the late Toronto mayor Rob Ford fail to pass on some tips in drug marketing to his
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Making Canada(?) Great Again.
It is not art. It is campaign literature and it always feels like a race to the lowest common denominator, free from the rules of grammar, where less is more and yet an essential part of the democratic process. After many years of producing better quality campaign literature for political
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Grand Scheme and the Ocean Drift.
At this time of the phony election that precedes the real election, we are not really concerned about where pollsters think people are at but where they are headed. It is more of an oceanic drift than a positive direction but some of the flotsam will make it and some
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