It was a common event the other day as I sat in the barber’s chair, the barber wielding scissors and comb. The barber knew of my interest in politics and quickly turned the usually desultory conversation to the October election. Those awaiting their turn chimed in. You could quickly determine
Continue readingTag: Federal Politics
Babel-on-the-Bay: They’re At Post!
Finally. This never-ending scrabbling for political position has a finite finish line. The free-for-all has focus and Elections Canada is in charge. Like with stewards at the track, there are rules to be observed. It is an election like no other in Canadian history. It is not the politicians who
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Some of us have fun with politics.
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
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Substitute.
It happens. You have all your nominations completed and one of your candidates drops out. That happens for any of hundreds of reasons. It could be anything from illness, bankruptcy or just cold feet. Your party needs a substitute candidate and there is no time left to be democratic about
Continue readingBabel-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 Good Ship Singh is Sinking.
Today’s comments were supposed to be a scholarly discussion about understanding political speeches. Maybe we can leave that for another time. Instead, we can have fun critiquing the new democratic party’s present-day prat falls. Good grief folks! This election isn’t even ‘At Post’ yet and the NDP is falling apart.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The secret lists of our political parties.
They are like the lists Santa Claus is supposed to keep at the North Pole as to which children are naughty or nice. With millions of listings for the voters of Canada, the raw data of name and address is provided to registered political parties by Elections Canada. It soon
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Left, Right and In-Between.
Labelling people is always a mistake. Even in psychiatry, people show tendencies down different pathologies. You hesitate to label them. In politics people are often confused by the parties in an election making promises outside their usual right or left-wing stance. During an election is no time to be doctrinaire.
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: Senator Peter Harder tries harder.
Former civil servant, Peter Harder really likes his new job in the Senate of Canada. As an independent(?) appointee to this body, he is also the government representative in the senate. Whether he is really an independent seems to be something of a wink-wink-elbow-jab condition open to interpretation. And as
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Our political parties fail democracy.
The party members have no one to blame but themselves. They have let the top-down party system run their parties since the Chrétien era. It was the simple change that required the party leader to sign off on the party’s candidates. It gave the party leader total control of the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: There is an App for door-knocking?
Having trained thousands over the years in the fun and accomplishments in knocking on doors for your local politician, I still know a bit about the art of identifying your vote. And that is what you are doing at all those doors on which you bruise your knuckles. You are
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: On running a national campaign.
My late friend Senator Keith Davey used to start every day at his office with a ruled pad on which he would make all his notes for the day in amazingly small scribbles. Whether checking on perceptions of a current proposal by Pierre Trudeau’s government or reviewing a day’s progress
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Singh is preying on fears.
New democratic party leader Jagmeet Singh seems to think that the big and uncontrolled world is too much for our young people. He tells them life is ripping them off. He tells them that the world is a place of low-paid, menial jobs. He warns them of escalating tuition costs,
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Funny Farm runs the election.
It is that time of year. Mid-summer is no time for serious. Even Elections Canada has joined the fun. In a television interview yesterday, an Elections Canada spokes person said with a straight face that she did not know what is being told to environmentalists about the rules of arguing
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: 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
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