It seems obvious at this stage that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has still not gained any conviction on electoral reform. He hardly understood what he was promising when he said that the 2015 election would be the last federal election using first-past-the-post. He seemed to have no understanding of the
Continue readingTag: Federal Politics
Babel-on-the-Bay: You told a pollster the truth?
It seems that the privacy watchdog in Ottawa is investigating the Liberal government’s survey on electoral reform. The privacy commissioner’s office is concerned that the Liberals should not have included collecting demographic information in the survey. It might be an invasion of privacy. But since you decided not to give
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The empty chair of Tom Mulcair.
In a much condemned political schtick by actor-director Clint Eastwood at the Republican National Convention in 2012, he talked to an empty chair. The chair was supposed to represent President Barack Obama. We always thought it helped get Obama elected to his second term. We were reminded of it recently
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The impoverishment of Sir John, eh?
There is a very old saying that people who forget the past will probably screw up the future. It has always been very annoying to us that Canadians can be disinterested in the past. They fail to be aware of or appreciate the people who have given so much of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The worst fears of Justin Trudeau.
It is hardly the spectre of Stephen Harper that keeps Prime Minister Justin Trudeau awake nights. It is the spectre of a democratic Liberal Party of Canada. It was something that was very real and credible to his father but for some reason haunts the son. From day one of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In defence of Internet voting.
After more than five decades of working with computers, you would think the writer would know a bit about computers. The truth is that we have never programmed a line of code. Our expertise was always in being able to listen to experts and then interpret what they said for
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In the steps of the Hair or of Trump?
There could be as many as 14 contenders for the upcoming Conservative leadership contest on-stage in Moncton tonight. Which candidates will take their cue from the Hair (Stephen Harper) and who will want to try the President-Elect Donald Trump style is the question? The Moncton event is our first chance
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “Well here’s another nice mess, Ollie!”
Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are probably too young to remember the 1920s to 1950s Hollywood comedy team of Laurel and Hardy but they seem to have a comparable act. It was Monsef’s turn on Thursday to dismiss the work of her own committee on
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Brassard’s charges without answers.
It is interesting reading knee-jerk conservatism these days. The local Sun Media newspaper here in Barrie gets a glance when an occasional free copy comes our way. We particularly like checking on the editorial page where you can read Libertarian, Green or Conservative political views but apparently never Liberal. Last
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The bias of Toronto Star’s Paul Wells.
What is a writer such as Paul Well’s doing at the Toronto Star? Does he provide insight you wonder? Is his writing progressive? Does he know the Ottawa scene as he tries to explain it? We have given him more than enough time to get comfortable. He has been found
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Justin Trudeau betrays the environment.
Babel-on-the-Bay intended to run a very sincere support today of Justin Trudeau’s eulogy for the late Cuban Leader Fidel Castro. It was ready for posting. And then we learned that the damn fool had announced approval of twinning the American-owned Kinder-Morgan TransMountain pipeline. All the kind words are off the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Lord Black lauds buddy Trump.
You get the feeling that there could be another boring book by Lord ‘Cross-the-Pond’ in this. Yes, Conrad Black came out of seclusion on his Toronto estate the other day to promote another book that will look good on your coffee table. He told the news media that his raison
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: That Tory Leprechaun Leitch.
You would swear that woman was a graduate of Trump University rather than a medical specialist. We are talking about Kellie Leitch M.P. here. She is the Conservative member for the next door electoral district of Simcoe-Grey. It is a rural riding of farms and small towns, including Utopia. (We
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A failure to communicate.
After a lifetime of communicating with government, we blew it. We really wanted to help the Trudeau government solve its problems with the leader’s promise that 2015 would be the last federal election using first-past-the-post voting. And dammit all we tried. When we knew that the MP for Peterborough would
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Let’s have a tag day for journalists.
Professor Penny Collenette wrote in the Toronto Star the other day that “all news is not fit to print.” Frankly Penny, your problem is that you need to define ‘news.’ Do we really know how to separate bias, comment, opinion, speculation and reporting from the comic pages? And do we
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Party is Over?
The good news is that we are doing away with organized political parties. The bad news is that we are doing away with organized political parties. And one or both of these statements has the seeds of a problem in it. The bad news is that non-political people with very
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Breaking in the new POTUS.
POTUS is what the U.S. Secret Service, who are charged with protecting the President, call the President of the United States. The service has a long tradition of doing that job. It is a job that can involve four years of excruciating boredom and three seconds of horror. It is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The rise of the exurbanites.
Trump reached for it in America and the exurbanites coalesced behind him. With these new rural voters who have fled the cities and in sync with the traditional American Gothic farmers, he dominated state after state. These people resent and fear our conglomerate cities, the liberal attitudes they promote and
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Watching Justin suck and blow again.
One of our favourite progressive bloggers is on the West Coast and he likes to refer to Prime Minister Trudeau as ‘le Dauphin.’ He actually wrote that the Dauphin’s announcement of a $1.5 billion fund to upgrade responses to tanker and oil spills on the Pacific coast was a good
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Our electoral discontent?
There was an item among progressive blogs the other day that said Canada needed to change how it votes so that what happened in the U.S. did not happen here. The writer seemed confused by the way Americans elect their President. The reality Tuesday night was that Hillary Clinton won
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