Welcome to Babel-on-the-Bay’s starting point in understanding the coming election. Bear in mind that these are starting odds only. There will likely be changes by election day. Be sure you get full odds on any of your wagers. And, believe me, this is not a simple calculation. It has never
Continue readingTag: Liberal Party
Babel-on-the-Bay: TVA provides a forum for losers.
Making sense of the political sparring on Pierre Karl Péladeau’s French language television network, TVA, on Wednesday was easy. It was the time for Yves-François Blanchet of the Bloc Québécois and the New Democrat’s Jagmeet Singh to come on strong and hard. This was their first major chance to make
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Death by a thousand tax cuts.
Canadian voters are being nickel-dimed and conned by their politicians. Even Elizabeth May and her greenies have joined into the game of making promises, with funds, from where, they do not really know. It is a game that voters should not buy. Let’s face facts: Sheer is no savior, Trudeau
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Over-Analyzed Election.
It’s a circus on the hustings. It is like somebody tossed a cherry bomb into the outhouse. Everybody has an opinion to lay on you as to what is happening but not what will happen. There is more coverage every day from radio, television and daily newspapers. They tell you
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “How dare you?” Greta Thunberg.
Somebody must have explained to the 16-year old from Sweden that you have to be brash to get noticed in North America. She would be quite unlikely to say ‘How dare you?’ to her elders back home in Sweden. Yet it worked at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in
Continue readingThe Maple Monarchists - Blog: The Trudeau Liberals and the Monarchy: A Retrospective on Four Years
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Canada is well into a federal election and I wanted to take this chance to look back at what the government has done Vis-à-vis the monarchy. I will state right off the bat that this blog takes no stance on who anyone should vote for. This article is provided for educational purposes to assist with making
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The timeless media tempest.
It seems as though this election is taking place just for the benefit of the news media. I am not sure of the right word for it but it is the most over-reported and over-analyzed campaign I have ever seen and it is only week two. I can only hope
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: So far, so what?
The dispatches from the front line of the current election strife are mostly about stupidity, compounded by incompetence. Despite the usual whining, scratching and digging up old pictures of each other, the kids are playing by the rules. Justin Trudeau and his liberals are establishing a traditional campaign ground game.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: We can do that ourselves, thank you.
This ongoing concern for foreign countries interfering with our federal election is more of a joke than a threat. It is not that it could not happen, but why bother? What would be the mythical country’s objective? Why would they, for example, prefer one of our leaders over another? This
Continue readingBabel-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: 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: 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: 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: Trudeau’s Secret Weapon.
You have probably been wondering why prime minister Justin Trudeau is so cheery and ebullient these days. It is probably not just the fact that his pal Gerald Butts is back to back him up in the campaign. Nor is it the pollsters who are saying that the conservatives and
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Chuckles Chooses Cheap.
Conservative leader Andrew ‘Chuckles’ Scheer was not out to look cheap the other day. It was just the effect when he again announced that the conservatives would guarantee Canada’s health care system a three per cent increase per year. It seems that the Trudeau government made a deal recently to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Trudeau does a Harper.
There was a strong sense of déjà vu as our prime minister headed to the far north to kick off his election campaign. It was just four years ago when prime minister Stephen Harper headed for Iqaluit, Nunavut, to kick off conservative Leona Aglukkaq’s bid for re-election. This is despite
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Grand Scheme and the Ocean Drift.
At this time of the phony election that precedes the real election, we are not really concerned about where pollsters think people are at but where they are headed. It is more of an oceanic drift than a positive direction but some of the flotsam will make it and some
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