Sometimes it is hard to determine if Toronto Star Quebec political analyst Chantal Hébert is serious or just firing for effect. Taking a meaningless poll of Quebec federal political leanings as gospel is like those who assured us that the Parti Québécois was going to win the last provincial election.
Continue readingTag: Federal Politics
Babel-on-the-Bay: Get off the dime Justin.
Liberals are waiting for Leader Justin Trudeau to act and every day he dithers is another day when the party is losing sight of the objective. You can hardly expect everyone to be coming to the aid of the party when Justin lies to it. When he was chosen leader
Continue readingreeves report: Fracking impact report due early May
Fracking well in USA. A panel report on the potential environmental impacts of shale gas exploration, extraction and development in Canada has been finalized but will not see the light of day until after May 1, 2014. In 2011, then federal Environment Minister Peter Kent asked the Council of Canadian
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The people trump the politicos.
When the Supreme Court ruled the other day on Prime Minister Harper’s questions about changing the Senate, the answer was unanimous. It was also the answer that most people expected. For the House of Commons to make substantive changes in the Senate requires the approval of the provinces and of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Hair today, gone tomorrow.
It seems the Hair is out of step with Canadians. He is constantly rebuked by the Supreme Court, abused by his friends in the Senate, let down by his caucus, betrayed by underlings and his cabinet might all be vying for his job. As he said at Jim Flaherty’s funeral,
Continue readingreeves report: NEB finds compliance issues with TransCanada’s environmental protections
A series of five extensive audits of TransCanada Pipelines Management Program by the National Energy Board came back with only minor issues the regulator is asking the energy giant to iron out. TransCanada pipeline. “NEB audits proactively identify those aspects of a company’s management system that are working well along
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Rogers discovers customers.
Some Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) hearings remind us of acts from Shakespeare’s MacBeth. You can count on the weird sisters—commonly referred to as witches—to be there. You know them as Bell Canada, Rogers and Telus. And the CRTC is their cauldron of witches’ brew. It used to be
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Rt. Hon. Herb Gray, P.C., C.C., Q.C. 1931 – 2014
Herb Gray was smart, funny, wise, impish, a mentor and a friend. And it was a friendship that lasted over 50 years. We met over copy he had sent to the then party publication Liberal Action in the early 1960s. He had just been elected to parliament in Windsor West
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The return of the F-35 Lightning.
We thought the aircraft deal was dead. After months free of hype for the purchase of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning (II), we thought the civil servants, the military and the Harper government had finally put finis on buying that aircraft. Maybe that was only until they are sending some
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: But what if Tom Walkom is wrong?
Toronto Star writer Thomas Walkom has been an icon for progressives in Canada for many years. If there is a left-of-centre stance possible on an issue, Tom will most often take it. Readers expect it of him. Those readers must have felt let down when they read his take on
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: They always blame First-Past-the-Post.
They call our Canadian voting system First-Past-the-Post. Some people use more scatological terms for it. Others just castigate the system when it does not work the way they want. It frustrates them. Their problem is that they cannot come up with a better system of voting. Many of the people
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “If they just want to play politics.”
In an ill-conceived television commercial introduced Friday, Ontario’s Premier Wynne accuses her political detractors of playing politics. The commercial makes it look as though she is striding after a moving camera, trying to keep up with the teleprompter. It is an overall badly written and badly produced effort. It is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Wrong again, Justin Trudeau.
Even in Julius Caesar’s day, the Rubicon was a very shallow river. Caesar’s legion waded across. Justin Trudeau dives in and ends up looking silly. When writing about the metaphorical Rubicon that young Trudeau faced in Toronto’s Trinity-Spadina riding, we were talking about his relationship with the Liberal Party. Instead
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Conservatives confuse justice and retribution.
You can see the desperation of the Conservative government in the bills it is trying to pass while still in office. You can see it in the names of their bills. The name of the bill has little to do with the content. It is intended to confuse—to give one
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Justin Trudeau is at his Rubicon.
When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River with a single legion, he and his soldiers became outlaws under Roman law of the time. It was the Roman mob that saved him from arrest on his arrival in Rome. He was still their hero. In that sense Justin Trudeau is still
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The boredom of bitumen.
The wife does not want to read another commentary on tar sands bitumen. She thinks that some people who worry about bitumen should get a life. You have to admit that it does give one pause when writing yet another commentary on bitumen, its producers, its pipeline devotees and its
Continue readingCalgary Grit: Vote Out Anders
It was Ron Liepert by a nose for the Calgary Signal Hill Conservative nomination. “Secret Liberal” Ron Liepert has done what a mayor, cabinet minister, and premier failed to do – defeated Rob Anders. And, boy, do typing those words ever feel good. First elected in 1997, Rob Anders gained
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Goddamn the CPR; God save the CBC.
One of our favourite Canadian journalists, Allan Fotheringham, wrote years ago about a Saskatchewan farmer who had everything go wrong who ends up blaming all his problems on the CPR. That is understandable. The Canadian Pacific Railroad has been a major factor in the economy of our west since Confederation.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Shoring up the declining empire.
If you are destined to become a saviour of the British royalty, you start young. It was eight-month old Prince George who flew in to wow the colonials in New Zealand the other day. Somehow his mother, the Duchess of Cambridge, carried him down the steps of the aircraft without
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Reading the entrails of the Quebec election.
When you kill the beast, rip out its guts and use them to foretell the future, all you really need to do next is have a long, cleansing shower. And that shower is what all the pundits need after Monday’s provincial election in Quebec. The election was a watershed. It
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