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
Continue readingTag: Federal Politics
Babel-on-the-Bay: When a tax is a better answer.
Canadians have not really joined the dispute between carbon tax and ‘Cap and Trade’ yet. It is of increasing importance that they do. And while nobody really wants to choose taxes over industrial deals, there are good reasons for us to choose carbon taxes. The primary reason why a carbon
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Those who forget the past…
Those who forget the past are going to screw up our future. Those are not the exact words of the old cliché but they certainly fit. This occurred to us the other day when Transport Minister Marc Garneau announced the Trudeau government’s solution to cheaper air travel—let foreigners own a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Public-Private Partnerships revisited.
Canadians have had limited experience in public-private partnerships over the years and while one government can launch a public-private project it only takes the next government to destroy the value achieved. The two projects (other than the Canadian Pacific Railway) that immediately came to mind listening to Finance Minister Bill
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Revisiting electoral reform.
As the special commons committee on electoral reform finishes hearings and prepares to enter into its deliberations, there is a sense of deja vu. Canadians in six provinces have already had a variety of commissions and citizens’ forums study different voting reforms. British Columbia, Ontario and Prince Edward Island have
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The silence of Trudeau’s lambs.
You wonder what a writer such as Thomas Harris (The Silence of the Lambs) would make of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s most recent elitist appointments to the Senate of Canada. What is really different in this circumstance is that these people are reported to have actually applied to be appointed.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: CETA: The devil is in the details.
Tried the other day to reread the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) and finally gave up in disgust. Maybe this deal between Canada and the European Union is just too comprehensive for this non-trade expert to comprehend. And when you find the mainly French-speaking Wallonia area of Belgium is the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Trudeau tests veto on vote reform.
This scenario has taken place before. He does it in Quebec thinking nobody in the rest of Canada is going to hear about it. Justin Trudeau is hardly the first politician to test the waters before diving into the deep end of the pool. In this case the prime minister
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: What’s in it for us?
That is not a selfish question. It came up the other day when reading another boring presentation to the House of Commons special committee on electoral reform. “What is in it for us” is likely to be the cri de coeur of Canadians when they see what the months of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The one shouting loudest tells the truth.
What? You do not believe that? Why just the other day, we received a large envelope from the Liberal Party of Canada. In big capitol letters across one side of the mailing were the words “Transparent. Open.” and “Real.” And if you believed that you were deluding yourself. Inside the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Justin’s honeymoon rolls on.
The other day columnist Bob Hepburn of the Toronto Star gave Justin Trudeau’s Liberals an ‘A-‘ for their first year grade in office. Bob is a fine gentleman and a good writer but much too generous in his assessment. The truth is that much of this first year in power
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: What gender wars are these?
It is among the usual platitudes of those proposing proportional voting systems for Canada that more women will be elected if we just switched to a proportional voting system. Nobody can tell you why this is supposedly the case but they point to countries such as in Scandinavia that have
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A nugget among the dross.
When you find you have been panning the provincial and federal Liberal parties, it is wonderful to come across someone who just might be a nugget of real gold. This is a liberal who thinks for himself, invests time in research and speaks out with truths as he sees them.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Patience: Elites at work.
It seems we might be seeing more of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s elitist senate. A committee of senators think they should have their own television channel. It is just a recommendation at the moment but you never know with these things. After all, who would have believed a TV channel
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: How green is my gas?
There has been another example of how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can suck and blow at the same time. It took three federal cabinet members to burst the environmental bubble in B.C. They travelled from Ottawa unnecessarily to provide word that the government would allow the building of a gas
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Another redneck heard from.
You would think in this era of instant communications and extensive broadcast media coverage throughout rural Canada, there would be little excuse for rural politicians to have so little understanding of their country. And yet, Leamington, Ontario Mayor John Paterson has joined Conservative MP Kelly Leitch in demanding that newcomers
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Oh, what wimps these Liberals be!
This would have run sooner if we had not written the weekend’s commentaries earlier last week. Have these Liberals learned nothing from watching former Prime Minister Harper over the years? Those hypocrites on the Conservative benches ridiculed the new and experimental House Leader who gamely tried to stick her fingers in the dike. The neophyte […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Dullness Reigns.
It was during one of the overly warm days in this past August that are often referred to as the dog days of summer. It had to be a dog day because a reporter with a major Canadian newspaper got away with comparing the royal offspring of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to pedigree […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Selling Canada or just selling PR?
Found in the pile on the desk today was an op-ed written a few weeks ago by a former communications director for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. A quick re-read had us smiling. It reminded us too much of being a young public relations person almost 50 years ago. Back then Hill + Knowlton Canada did […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The pride in losing.
The submission by Fair Vote Canada to the special parliamentary committee on electoral reform recently claimed that 9 million voters in the 2015 federal election were unable to make their votes count. This assumption was made because they voted for losing candidates. And they did not even get a lollipop for their trouble. That is […]
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