With at least 14 months to go before the expected federal election, you would be wise to hold off placing bets. And it has little to do with the pollsters who see Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau leapfrogging his way ahead of both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and New Democrat Leader
Continue readingTag: Federal Politics
Babel-on-the-Bay: Fraser Institute spreads alarm on taxes.
There was a news flash from the Calgary based Fraser Institute the other day. Researchers there found that the tax portion of the income of an average Canadian family had gone up more than any other necessary expenditure since 1961. As the Fraser Institute only sends out tax information to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Bad math trumps bad science in bitumen battles.
Following the battle over bitumen is like following a small car full of clowns. You never know what will happen next. The latest on bitumen is that a study published in the U.S. science journal Nature Climate Change has claimed that the U.S. State Department figures on greenhouse gasses from
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Hair that roared.
For Prime Minister Harper is the Hair. Hear him roar! Can the Hair not roar at the Russian bear? Can the Hair not send a token planeload of supplies to aid the Ukraine in its efforts to assert control over its own country? Can the Hair not stand foursquare behind
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: When the bitumen bubble bursts.
The last time Canada had a real leader, it was Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. The least understood and the most vilified of the actions he took on behalf of Canadians was the National Energy Program (NEP) of 1980. It was an attempt to ensure Canadian control, self-sufficiency and sharing of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The dystopia of the CRTC.
One of our favourite movies from the 1930s was the British-made H.G. Wells Things to come. The movie starring Canadian Raymond Massey was considered dystopian at the time as it was the opposite of utopian in a pre-War II world. And yet it was the immediacy of the televised images
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Babel Conservatives have a candidate.
You have to admit, the Conservative Party of Canada makes it look easy. You want a Conservative candidate for the coming federal election? You get one appointed from Ottawa. It could not be simpler. No fuss, no muss, no lawsuits, not like the Liberal Party. Our new federal riding of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Inquiring minds want to know.
The American penny dreadful National Enquirer must have been named before Fowler’s Modern English Usage encouraged people to say ‘inquire’ for asking and ‘enquire’ for an investigation. Or maybe not. Nobody cares about the proper use of English anymore. But something that caught our attention last week still has us
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The lies we sew come back to haunt.
Having at one time tried swimming off the government dock at Cold Lake, Alberta, we can assure you that the lake is accurately named, year ‘round. There is not much in the way of entertainments around the air base located near by and it did not take many ‘Dare yah’s’
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: We need a broader ‘Do Not Annoy’ list.
If we can have a ‘do not call’ list, why can we not have a do-not-mail list? It does no good to put a ‘no-junk mail’ admonition on your mailbox but even if Canada Post is not very automated, surely it can handle a ‘Do not mail’ list. All we
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Conservatives inciting to hatred.
Those Harper Conservatives really know how to turn up the rhetoric! First of all some dimwit thought it would be appropriate to have a rally in support of Israel on the lawn at Queen’s Park. The participants would have been smarter to stay in their comfortable rocket-free homes in Toronto
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The real Tragedy in the Commons are the MPs.
By the time you finish reading Alison Loat’s book for the Samara Institute Tragedy in the Commons you are in a state of despair. You wonder why collectively these former Members of Parliament who were interviewed for the book ever ran for office. Eager or reluctant, they chose their own
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Conservatives are covering their causes.
There must be an election due in the next year. Why else would the Harper government minions be running around in the heat of the summer pandering to Conservative interest groups? Take the inappropriately labelled Public “Safety” Minister Steven Blaney, for example. He showed up at a Northern Ontario gun
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Political parties never die. They merge.
Some of our kindly readers have send notes asking what happened to Babel-on-the-Bay’s forecast in May of the immanent demise of the Ontario New Democrats. Yes, there were some brazen forecasts of such departure and logically we could show you where we were right and where we might have been
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Yes, charities can harangue governments.
There is nothing new about charity chill. No party in power wants to be harangued about what they are doing wrong. Mind you the Conservative government has definitely gone overboard in forcing Canada Revenue Agency to conduct expensive audits of charitable organizations that annoy the government. Over thirty years ago,
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Are bloggers lower than politicians?
There is an interesting facial reaction when you tell people you write a blog. Maybe the thing around the eyes is pity, at first. They then ask what you blog about. When you say politics, the nose definitely tilts up a bit and the forehead crinkles into a frown. They
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: And you think this is voter apathy?
There has been a flurry of concern lately about what people see as voter apathy. And when voter turnout in federal and provincial elections heads toward the 50 per cent levels, we should be worried. What is wrong is not that the first-past-the-post voting is wrong or that attack advertising
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Finding the facts on prostitution.
Taking a poll on prostitution is probably the least helpful exercise by the government in assisting themselves and others to understand the issues. Top of mind response to polls can trivialize the topic. And that is what you get to telephone surveys. It is also why you get very different
Continue readingreeves report: New evidence of Triclosan toxicity
Hand soaps containing triclosan and triclocarban. (Andrew Reeves/Reeves Report) OTTAWA KNOWS that a common ingredient in antibacterial soaps is posing acute and chronic problems for human health and freshwater ecosystems but has done nothing to ban triclosan, according to environmental and consumer advocates. But now there’s even more evidence against the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: There are liars and damn liars.
The Woodrow Wilson Institute based at the Smithsonian in Washington is an honoured institution recognizing the only American President to have earned a PhD. It seems a shame that its name is being besmirched by the cant of the tar sands exploiters and the sham of Prime Minister Harper’s energy
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