The adage about all politics being local is usually credited to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Tip O’Neill many years ago. All he was saying was that if you do not know what your voters have stuck in their craw, there is little you can do for them. You always
Continue readingTag: Municipal politics
Babel-on-the-Bay: Toronto’s urgent need for unity.
It is a daunting prospect. No matter who is elected to what position in Toronto in the October municipal election, the Ford conservatives will be in their face for the next four years. And the only way to face it is with a united front. And to do that, you
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Dougie doesn’t do distress.
At the end of April this year, a truck was driven down Yonge Street in north Toronto on a quest to murder. The driver succeeded in killing 10 people and injuring 14. Mayor John Tory was there on the scene soonest, Premier Kathleen Wynne came. NDP leader Andrea Horwath came.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Patrick Brown legacy lives on.
It is like a bad smell that does not go away. There was some relief in Barrie during the period when Patrick Brown was living the high life in Toronto as leader of the Ontario conservatives. It was the complaints by two young, unidentified Barrie ladies that caused him to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Ford Follies fumble forward.
To be truthful, I had a hard time controlling my laughter reading the revelations on premier Doug Ford’s plans for Toronto and the municipal elections in Ontario. I am now convinced that Dougie is dumber than former Ontario premier Mike Harris. It was Harris who amalgamated Metro Toronto and left
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Doug is doubling down.
Is it fun yet watching our new Ontario premier doubling down with our money? Doug Ford has given the back of his hand to all the efforts in the recent years to protect our environment. He wants to take us back to what was the middle ages of sex education.
Continue readingScripturient: Saunderson’s abject desperation
I’m not sure whether I pity Brian Saunderson more for his lack of principles than for his lack of shame. Or both. Desperation makes people do things that common sense would suggest won’t work. Monday we saw desperation replace both principle and shame when Saunderson made a motion to support
Continue readingScripturient: Tim Fryer’s fictitious candidate
You have to wonder who is being described on Tim Fryer’s campaign website when you read about claims of: Transparent and Trustworthy Leadership. Responsible and Accountable Creative and Open Minded Socially & Environmentally Conscious Is Fryer advertising for another candidate? One not so deeply joined to Brian Saunderson and his
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: When “anti-social sewer rats” are black.
Only the Toronto Star would pay good money for a resident reporter as an apologist for Toronto’s black community. When an angry Toronto mayor John Tory recently called some thugs “anti-social sewer rats” for shooting two young girls, it was hardly a racist comment. Nor do you expect the Star
Continue readingScripturient: A cop on every corner and in every backyard
Councillor Kathy Jeffrey wants to get tough on crime. Serious crimes like throwing birdseed on your deck, not cutting the grass on the boulevard in front of your house, and riding a bicycle on a sidewalk. I suppose and we’re all at risk from imminent social collapse if they aren’t
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Changing politics in Toronto.
We are seeing increased efforts in Toronto to end the frustrations and lack of direction for the city. What we are seeing though is a mishmash of solutions that are counterproductive and going nowhere. Most of the action is coming from interest groups that in themselves have nowhere near enough
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Patrick Brown is back.
The wife was worried with my unrestrained laughter over breakfast. “Brown is back,” I finally managed to tell her. It was word in the Toronto Star that Barrie’s own Patrick Brown is running for chair of Peel Region that had sent me into paroxysms of laughter. She did not think
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Two cities rebuttal.
Had an interesting objection to my kind comments about Toronto mayor John Tory last week. The reader provided an extensive list of what he considered to be the mayor’s failings. It might surprise him to learn that I agreed with all of his complaints. My only qualification is that he
Continue readingScripturient: Collingwood’s Reichstag fire
The Reichstag was the home of the German parliament until 1933, when it burned down just one month after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor. The Nazis immediately blamed the fire on the Communists – their main political rivals – and used the event to suppress their opponents, repress opposition and
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “A tale of two cities.”
The words of Charles Dickens are ageless: ”It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…” He wrote those words 60 years after
Continue readingScripturient: Really? Another sole-sourced lawyer?
Collingwood hires lawyer for judicial inquiry. That’s the headline on a story in the Connection. Do I understand this story correctly? The same sole-sourced lawyer who encouraged Brian Saunderson and his council puppets to launch a judicial inquiry that may cost taxpayers $6 million or more has been appointed to
Continue readingScripturient: Brian’s new campaign slogan
Brian Saunderson needs a new campaign slogan, now he’s officially filed papers in his ill-fated race to become mayor against the hard-working, well-liked, ethical, community-minded, former police chief, John Trude. It’s not good enough for Brian to run on his slogans from last election – “I’ll Show ‘Em Who’s Boss!”,
Continue readingScripturient: John Brown’s letter got the attention it deserved
It went almost unnoticed, but on the agenda for the April 30 Collingwood Council agenda was a letter from the former interim CAO, John Brown, with eight questions (and some comments) about the CAO’s report on the costs of the upcoming judicial inquiry (item eight in the Consent Agenda portion).
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The malice that made the megacity.
Toronto as a megacity turns 20 this year. Canada’s largest city has once again opened the nominations for its city council to be elected in October. It will be another lost opportunity. It will produce another council of dilettantes and wannabes to argue over meaningless issues. Former conservative premier Mike
Continue readingScripturient: The hypocrisy, it burns, it burns…
The Block on Collingwood Council can’t seem to go a week without diving into their deep, private lake of hypocrisy. Remember how they whined and snarled about the partnership last council formed with PowerStream to own and operate our electrical utility? How the Jeremiahs at the table lamented that a
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