It is difficult to explain what kind of an event this will be. It has always been evident that John Baird wanted to make some kind of a statement in his lifetime. Nobody really believed it was his final act when he left the Harper cabinet. He always seemed to
Continue readingTag: Federal Politics
Babel-on-the-Bay: It costs less than a house and you feel welcome.
Huh? Sorry, I might have dozed off there. I was dreaming of running to be the leader of the Green Party of Canada. I will just have to run a “Go Fund Me” page for the $50,000. entry fee. It sure is a lot cheaper than the conservatives. They want
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Can the Tory race get more boring?
This is ridiculous. So far, this is not a race, it is more like a baby crawl. The conservative party of Canada, midwifed by Stephen Harper at the turn of the century, has fallen on hard times. And, so far, only one of the two candidates has ponied up his
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The conservative leadership is no prize.
The problem most people seem to be having with taking on the leadership of the conservative party is the party itself. Jean Charest said it best when he said that the party had changed much since he was involved federally back in the 90s. He was too much of a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The greed that breeds corruption.
It was never a secret that the political parties make a profit on conferences and leadership elections. They need the money for operating costs. It is that simple. In organizing an event such as the upcoming leadership races, provincially in Ontario for the liberals and federally for the conservatives, involves
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: NDP closes ranks around Singh.
‘Better the problem we understand’ seems to be the thinking of the leaders of Canada’s new democratic party. They are closing ranks around the leader who cost them almost half the seats they held in the last parliament. Unlike the conservatives whose leader actually grew their seats by 22, they
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The gravitas of Justin Trudeau.
You do know that prime minister Justin Trudeau used to teach drama, do you not? Given the holiday time he had with family in the Caribbean over Christmas, he had time to work on both the new beard and demeanour. This is supposed to be a new Justin we are
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Big tents are hard to move.
If only we had a nickel for every time someone told us that Canada’s conservative and liberal parties are ‘big tent’ parties. Big tent parties are, as the name implies, large enough to accommodate many different views, as opposed to smaller, narrow interest parties. You can think of the big
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “Enter Laughing.”
So, you want to be an actor? And Canada is the theatre. Nova Scotian Peter MacKay, once more wants to be conservative leader. It reminds us of the semi-autobiographical novel by American humourist Carl Reiner. He turned the book into a successful movie in 1967 and launched his career in
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: When do we get back to the environment?
Between Mr. Trump’s tantrums, the concerns over Meghan and Harry and the disaster in Iran, the prime minister is not getting much done about the environment. And why would we ever be satisfied with just getting to a net-zero emissions target? Net-zero emissions is not a target, it is a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Politics of Oligarchs.
In an interesting opinion piece, recently, the Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt said that both Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau had to reinvent their respective parties to win election. Neither liked the parties they were taking over in their search for power. Similar to Donald Trump in the United States, they
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Where is the vision?
In a recent commentary we complained about the lack of leadership of all Canadian political parties. What Canadians want from their leaders is vision. It is like the vision of Sir John A. Macdonald that ribbons of steel could bind this country together. It is our flag and the international
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ontario offers the bland and the pit bull.
We are still a while from knowing the slate of candidates for the federal conservative party leadership, but there are two Ontario MPs lining up their teams. They are Erin O’Toole from Durham and Pierre Poilievre from Carleton. I think of them as the bland and the pit bull. Erin
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Defeating democracy, drilling down to dismal.
Are Canada’s conservatives making the same mistakes in their June, 2020 leadership contest as gave them Andrew Scheer last time? Some people never seem to learn. We are hearing that they are trying to defeat democracy again. In what should be a one-member-one-vote contest, we understand that they have declared
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: All federal parties need new leaders.
Canadians are going to be seeing a number of national political party leadership contests in the coming year. The conservatives are blowing smoke and fire as they warm up to their winner-takes-all contest in June. The greens are having another cup of green tea and considering who might replace the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Trudeau hears from Harder.
Former government leader of the senate, Peter Harder had some advice for Justin Trudeau as he retired from the senate. He expressed the hope that the prime minister might consider more people with political experience be appointed to the senate. That is the point I have been making for the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Kenney warns “Canada oil, gas sector has no future.”
The Canadian Press quoted Alberta premier Jason Kenney recently on his pessimism about federal approval of the proposed Frontier mine in Northern Alberta. The proposed open-pit mine, north of Fort McMurray, would be Canada’s largest and could produce 260,000 barrels of bitumen per day for processing into synthetic oil. It
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: How much is too much, Mr. Trudeau?
Justin Trudeau has obviously not had a really wonderful 2019. As far back as September 2018, the prime minister asked his justice minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould to reconsider her position on not interfering in the upcoming prosecution of SNC-Lavalin for corrupt practices. Trudeau insisted that the intent was to save jobs
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It’s your turn Jagmeet Singh.
Luckily there was not too much blood spilt when the conservatives divested themselves of the embarrassment of Chuckles Scheer. Surely the leader of the new democrats can now consider what is the honourable thing for him to do. The point has been made that Chuckles did his best. He won
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Our royal watchers are in a tizzy.
Doesn’t it make you feel all warm and fuzzy to know that we have royals visiting Canada this Christmas? Yes, our prime minister welcomed them. He gets a selfie with Meghan and Harry. Why can’t you get a selfie too? Because you aren’t supposed to see them. They are incognito
Continue reading