Goodness! Is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau being criticized for not living up to his promises? Is he just a poster boy? Why is he not living up to his billing? He will have two years as prime minister in his pocket this October and some people are starting to have
Continue readingTag: Federal Politics
Babel-on-the-Bay: Chasing ghosts with Chantal Hébert.
In the pile of books set aside for summer reading was Chantal Hébert and Jean Lapierre’s analysis of The Morning After. It is supposedly their take on the 1995 Quebec Referendum. By starting with their book, this might become a long hot summer. The book had come to the pile
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: How would Harper have handled Trump?
When listening to Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland give her very important speech on the new world order, there was one disturbing thought. It was a silly question as to how would our previous prime minister have handled the situation? The one thing for sure was that Stephen Harper
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Tasking Tenuous Think Tanks.
A friend sent an e-mail recently, attaching a 25-page report from the Broadbent Institute. This study supposedly refutes other think tank reports that say Canadians are overtaxed. He says that I am (inexplicably, he claims) adverse to Ed Broadbent and his institute but I should read the report anyway. In
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Planes and Trains and…
Flying used to be glamorous. Not any more. It has become a demeaning and uncomfortable experience. Those people in line for security in their smelly stocking feet should bleat like sheep as they are fleeced by money-grubbing airlines. They are shoved into uncomfortable seats only to be abused by airline
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Choosing a Conservative caretaker.
The Conservative Party hierarchy could not have the better fall guy for the next federal election. Whomever came up with the convoluted voting system that was used to choose this poor guy last weekend might have saved the party years in the wilderness. It will likely be 2023 before the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Infrastructure Bank Conundrum.
It has been surprising just how many writers are interpreting the Liberal Government’s Infrastructure Bank as a prop for public-private partnerships (P3). It has also not helped that the government included the legislation in the larger budget bill and that finance minister Bill Morneau has been slow to defend his
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The parade of the Conservative losers.
A political movement died out near the Toronto airport yesterday. It was the once powerful Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. The new Conservative Party of Canada, heir to the Reform Party, struggles on. It was a time of bad television and bad politics as the surviving party chose a new
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: We can blame Cousin Oliver.
It is all Oliver Mowat’s fault. The myopic Father of Confederation had a mainly rural and agrarian Ontario to oversee in the early years of confederation. His picture hangs over our desk today, not as a distant relation but in the form of a preserved and framed, full front-page of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: With thanks to Rona Ambrose.
Rona Ambrose M.P. is cleaning out her desk. With a new leader to be chosen this weekend, Ms. Ambrose is packing it in and going home to Alberta. It is a smart move for her at the right time. And Canadians owe her special thanks for the job she did
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The infrastructure bank argument.
As a general rule, it seems useless to respond to e-mails from readers that are longer than the original commentary. It also seems useless to try to correct someone’s misconceptions on the subject. Besides, if federal finance minister Bill Morneau is not interested in better explaining his new infrastructure bank
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Why progressive elites are losing.
The disappointment progressives have felt with the New Democratic Party over the last couple decades has been something we have argued about but maybe not understood as well as we should. Maybe Robin V. Sears of the NDP put his finger on it the other day when complaining in print
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: On the road to mediocrity.
Do you know who will be the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada on May 27? With a third of the votes already in and more trickling in every day, it is a very frustrating guessing game to determine who will win. The problem you are facing is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The poster boy and the NDP.
Charlie Angus meet Jagmeet Singh. No doubt Charlie Angus MP, candidate for the New Democratic Party leadership has met Jagmeet Singh MPP, the newest candidate for the NDP leadership, before, but not likely as a competitor. The only surprise about this meeting is that both these gentlemen are in the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Infrastructure bank belongs in Toronto.
The good news is that Canada’s new infrastructure bank will be in operation by the end of this year. Despite the complaints of other centres, Toronto is the city where it belongs. The bank will be launched with $35 billion in capital from the federal government and will seek Canadian
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Taking back our civil rights.
You hate to have to remind our Liberal government in Ottawa that one of the basic tenets of liberalism is human rights. It is as though the cabinet members get elected and then forget what party supported their election. It is even worse when the Liberals on the parliamentary committee
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Conrad Black on Donald Trump.
“He knows what he wants,” was the message by Conrad Black to a parliamentary committee examining the current situation on trade relations with the United States. The former Canadian and now an ex-convict and Lord Cross-the-Pond or some such title, was telling the committee about his friend Donald Trump who
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In the Senate: “Some are more equal.”
In George Orwell’s Animal Farm we were told that some animals are more equal than others. This makes it an appropriate analogy for the institution in Canada known as the senate. The senate was created 150 years ago as a chamber of sober second thought to rein in any excesses
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Speechwriters and old soldiers never die.
This writer would have serious doubts taking on writing speeches for an old soldier such as Canada’s defence minister Harjit Sajjan. There are a series of problems involved, not the least of them being the mistake of trying to present an apolitical Sikh in the guise of a politician. There
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Kevin O’Leary was never in.
When TV personality Kevin O’Leary declared himself out of the federal Conservative leadership race the other day, it was a race he had never really been in. He came late to the party and left early. He brought nothing to it, he learned nothing from it and he left nothing
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