It is often amusing in the popular American TV program Criminal Minds when one of the actors, playing the part of an FBI agent, without much script support, out of the blue, says it is time to deliver the profile. They remind me very much of how our political commentators
Continue readingTag: Conservative
Babel-on-the-Bay: Kenney’s Conundrum, Capturing Carbon.
It was in the business news recently. It was about the success of Shell Oil’s $1.3 billion carbon-capture plant, Quest, near Edmonton. The Quest plant is designed to capture and store carbon from the Scotford upgrader, a refinery that upgrades tar sands bitumen into synthetic crude oil. The Scotford upgrader
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ignoring Bernier is bad advice.
It amuses me that people are telling Andrew ‘Chuckles’ Scheer that former conservative MP Maxime Bernier is not a problem. That is bad advice. First of all, you have to ignore the pollsters who are having trouble measuring Bernier’s support. And then you have to understand the people who would
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Scheer would do better if he shut up.
Sure, it is almost five months until the federal election but everyone is out stumping anyway. You would swear that the election was in June and everyone is getting desperate. But there is no excuse possible for the blather we are getting from the conservatives. Who told conservative leader Andrew
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Choosing Chuckles for Canadians?
Of all the ridiculous strategies for the coming federal election! Why should the liberals attack the conservatives when their real opposition in the October election is themselves? To waste time attacking conservative leader and Saskatchewan MP Andrew Scheer is assuming that he concerns Canadians. He never has been the problem.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A crying towel for the Beer Store.
The Ontario government must be serious about Doug Ford’s promise to open up beer and wine sales in Ontario. We have both the Beer Store management (at Brewers Warehousing) and the Beer Store union paying for TV spots complaining about possible lost jobs. I wonder why? This is an opportunity
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Ford folk play high-speed games.
What is a safe speed on a highway? That is a question that the Ontario government is trying to figure out. And they are wasting their time trying to answer it and they are wasting the public’s time. Most drivers have an inflated idea of their driving skills and tend
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Mayor Tory asks the rhetorical.
Asking a question rather than making an accusation is another piece of equipment in the politician’s toolbox. Mayor John Tory of Toronto should be an expert at this form of bafflegab. He would have learned it in his years as a disciple of Ontario premier Bill Davis. Bill never publicly
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Bankrupt Ontario.
You had no idea that Ontario was bankrupt, did you? We find that conservatives seem to have a very different definition of bankrupt than most bankers and economists. The other day Ontario’s deputy premier and health minister, Christine Elliott was on Global TV’s Focus Ontario, being interviewed by news anchor,
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Don’t get too excited Ms. May.
If you want an area of Canada where the Green party runs rampant, go to Vancouver Island. In fact, the entire area around the Strait of Georgia seems overrun with Greens, Druids and other pagan religions. Just standing under one of those magnificent, lordly trees on the Island fills you
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: "A Globe-Spanning Murder-Suicide" I Guess That Sums It Up.
If you’re planning on being around for another two or three decades you’ll be witness to a world like you’ve never known it. What’s in store for you is a darker, more dangerous and, ultimately, dystopian world as nature re-calibrates the biosphere. Talk about death by natural causes only on
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Doug Ford meet Mike Harris.
Philosopher George Santayana told us that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That idea has obviously sailed right over the head of Ontario premier Doug Ford. Despite his father being a back bench MPP for the Harris government, the younger Ford is making the same
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Scheer Madness and Foreign Policy.
They wrote a speech the other day and ‘Chuckles’ Scheer, leader of Canada’s conservatives, read it. At the end of the day, Chuckles’ party had some foreign policy to show off and little was changed. The essentials of it were that Donald Trump and his friends were the good guys
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It’s not a game, Mr. Ford.
Ontario premier Doug Ford has yet to realize that he is not in a life-size game. There are repercussions and blowbacks and consequences for his whims at governing. Like the irresponsible Mike Harris, the premier of two decades ago, Ford has been busily downloading costs on the municipalities in hopes
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: A Green Wave? No, But Possibly a Green Ripple.
It was just a by-election. Even if the governing party had an outside chance (it didn’t, the Liberal brand out here rarely is competitive) voters “punish” the part in power in by-elections or so goes the claim. This is generally reliable NDP territory. Up my way the Conservatives dominated for
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Who runs this country?
Like it or lump it, Canada is a confederation. And that means the parts of the country that created it think they are just as important as the whole. As many wise politicos have noted over the years, it makes the country a bitch to govern. The federal government got
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Doug Ford’s base is into booze.
There. Question asked. Question answered. If you had a bunch of freeloaders such as Ford Nation supporting you in politics, would you not reciprocate by supporting some of their wishes? His base wants better access to booze. All these newspaper people fail to understand why premier Ford is changing the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: On being liberal in disquieting times.
The word ‘disquieting’ took a while to choose. I have been trying to define the times leading up to the October 21 federal election and it reminds us of flying through clouds. You want to break into the bright sunlight, you know is above you, but that oppressive cotton candy
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ford finds friends.
Politicians always claim that they represent the people. Doug Ford ran a successful campaign in Ontario last year with the slogan: Doug Ford – For the People. But the truth is that the voters have little say on laws presented for consideration and discussion. Bills take a long and cumbersome
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Bountiful B.S. for the Beer Store.
When even the Toronto Star gets in line to support the Beer Store’s battle with Ford and Friends at Queen’s Park, you know the fight is on. Just the other day, the Star proposed on its front page that having beer in corner stores could cost Ontario taxpayers $1 billion.
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