Everywhere you go these days, there’s Michael Ignatieff. I’ve even seen him walking around Yorkville twice within the past month. For those who miss seeing Ignatieff’s face on every third commercial, you can read some juicy nuggets from his new book here, an excerpt on how he handled defeat here,
Continue readingTag: Federal Politics
Babel-on-the-Bay: Tilting at Toronto transit troubles.
Who won what? How do you compare $660 million from the federal government to $1.4 billion from the province and say Toronto Mayor Ford won? What did he win? And for someone to win, you have to assume somebody lost. Who lost here? And as a former Scarborough resident, you
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The challenge in Toronto-Centre.
It is something of a dry run. If Justin Trudeau is going to make a difference as Liberal Party leader in the federal election expected in 2015, the Liberals have to win the yet to be called Toronto-Centre by-election. It is the electoral district made vacant by the resignation of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Hair helps His Honour.
You could tell from the news clips of yesterday’s event that the Hair is enjoying his holiday. With Parliament prorogued until late October, the hair has time to visit with friends and cronies such as Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. Of course, the Hair tries to stay out of Toronto so
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Burying Blackberry before the buyers.
Thursday nights on CBC’s National News there is an excellent panel of pundits, usually monitored by news reader Peter Mansbridge. The panellists are Chantal Hébert of the Toronto Star, Andrew Coyne of the National Post and Bruce Anderson of his own consulting firm, Anderson Insight. Their topic last Thursday evening
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Policy pillars for the 2015 election.
Nobody wants to reveal their plan too early. The key is to take ownership of the key issue(s) at a time when your opponents are already committed and can only respond. At this time, there are probably three issues from which to choose and use with different emphasis. They are
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Mass murder in Lac-Mégantic
The Dangerous Goods Driver’s Handbook for Canada starts with a disclaimer that states: “The transportation of dangerous goods is subject to complicated and changing Government regulations. Transport Canada has a comprehensive set of regulations, which must be observed when transporting dangerous goods.” And it is law. If you are going
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Mulcair, in motion.
They took New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair to Saskatchewan this week. It was like bringing him home to be baptized. Here they were in Saskatchewan, the home of Tommy Douglas socialism, and Mulcair is a gruff old bugger in a suit. And both he and the suit are ‘pur laine.’
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Hair needs better speech writers.
It must be the high turnover in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Did nobody notice when the last speechwriters left? Yesterday we found out that the Hair needs until October 16 to finish writing a new throne speech. We appreciate that a speech of this magnitude requires broad input and
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Harper’s ‘Hail Mary’ for Keystone XL.
A ‘Hail Mary’ is that final play in the football game where you have to go for the goal or nothing. That is the play Prime Minister Stephen Harper is making to U.S. President Barack Obama to get him to approve TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline to carry Athabasca tar sands
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Letting in the political fringe.
The local Sun Media newspaper in Babel is very thin. It has very little advertising and little budget. It therefore welcomes free articles from local writers. Some of these writers are from the political fringe. An example this week was an article by a political hopeful boosting a September conference
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Wither without Verizon on the horizon?
Somebody took away Prime Minister Harper’s big stick. Verizon has declined the opportunity to come up here and play in the Bell-Rogers-Telus sandbox. Do the Canadian telecom trio look pleased? Yes they do. Did they scare off Verizon? Not really. You do know who is going to get screwed now,
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Harper can skate backwards.
Do you feel that you have been getting mixed messages from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) lately? It is like watching a fast-paced hockey game. The puck and the teams keep changing ends. From a hawkish stance a week ago, we are now seeing a more reticent Prime Minister and
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The long hot summer of M. Mulcair.
It has been a tough summer for our parliament’s Leader of the Opposition. Thomas Mulcair of the New Democrats has been leading from the rear. We have seen more of some of the party’s spokespeople than we have seen of its national leader. It has been a time of Canadians
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Hair is hawkish on war.
Is war just a telephone call away? Is it that simple? Can the Canadian Prime Minister just call up the President of the United States and say, “It’s okay. You can go to war with Syria. Canada is behind you. In fact, since we are hiding behind you, you might
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The boring battle over bitumen.
It is really not our favourite topic. Bitumen is boring. The conundrum we are facing is that the Harper Conservatives are so bereft of any solutions to our country’s economic malaise that they are putting more and more reliance on selling the output of the Athabasca Tar Sands. As long
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Whoring with the Ottawa press gallery.
You used to be able to take a story to the Press Gallery bar. It was right there on Wellington across from the Houses of Parliament. The drink prices were reasonable. You met on the media’s turf. The conversations were relaxed and casual. It was a convivial relationship back then.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It’s always April Fools’ at the Fraser Institute.
You have to wonder how anyone could come up with anything as ridiculous as the Fraser Institute. For these people it is always April Fools’ Day. For the past 35 years, the Fraser Institute has been the antithesis of public policy think tanks. It has built its questionable reputation on
Continue readingCalgary Grit: Politics Done Well
Blogs and pundits love it when politicians fall flat on their face, but as a fan of politics I can also respect a flawlessly executed political manoeuvre. Think of Stephen Harper’s surprise piano duet with Yo-Yo Ma. In one swoop, Harper earned a month of good press and showed us
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Remember Justin, pot is just small beer.
Ok, point made. Moving on, Canadians have far more important issues to consider than legalizing marijuana. Let us not keep gilding the cannabis. Sure the news media are always in a rut with their questions but there is certainly more exciting news. What about the way Prime Minister Harper is
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