When you are part of Canada’s parliament, you are assumed to be an adult. You are expected to act like one. You hardly expect Members of Parliament and Cabinet Ministers to act like children sent out for recess. It was still not surprising this past week to see Justin Trudeau
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Babel-on-the-Bay: Why would Wynne shy from sex education?
Back when sex education was first taught in Ontario schools there was always a lot of giggling and barely suppressed laughter from the back of the room. The kids up front had to try to keep straight faces. Since we were divided by sex for the classes, we boys had
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Selling Ontario services to the world’s wealthy.
It started with education. For many years community colleges and universities in Ontario and across Canada have been selling education to the children of wealthy parents in foreign countries. This was something that was happening anyway and the argument has always been that the substantial fees paid were helping fund
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: If there was ever a time…it is now.
If there was ever a time to save Canada from the destructive direction of the Harper Conservatives, it is now. If there was ever a time for the Liberal and New Democratic parties to merge, it is now. If there was ever a time for the right decisions, it is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Time of truth for Justin Trudeau.
It is time for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau to make things happen. The challenge is in the federal riding of Whitby-Oshawa in Ontario. It is not because this is about him. It is about how the Liberals will win Ontario next year. It is the first real test of Stephen
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It’s not the guilt; it’s the attitude.
MP Dean Del Mastro earned his reputation as a pit bull when serving as Prime Minister Harper’s parliamentary secretary. If the Prime Minister’s Office officialdom declared black was white that day, Del Mastro would stand up in the House of Commons and tell everyone that black was white. He got
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Billions bet on bitumen battle.
It must be a time of more honesty. TransCanada Pipelines is now estimating that its Energy East pipeline proposal could cost as much as $12 billion. And the pipeline company is now being more truthful about the intent to export at least half of the 1.1 million barrels per day
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Hair hurries his handouts.
The Hair, in his role as benevolent prime minister, was in Vaughan, Ontario the other day. The Hair and a large group of affluent looking Conservative families were there to tell the news media of the benefits voters can get by being married, having a big income, voting Conservative and
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The baffling Beer Store battle.
Maybe Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne does not like beer. Sometimes when you get together over a bottle or so of beer, you can solve this type of problem. It simply does not work when a major participant in the problem does not drink beer. Or maybe it is her partner
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is Ontario Doug Ford’s next campaign?
Former Toronto mayoralty candidate Doug Ford says he might want to go on to fame as leader of the Ontario Conservatives. This is serious folks. Doug Ford is the guy who said that what the Ontario Conservatives really need is an enema. We would all have a good laugh and
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The marching music of M’sieur Mulcair.
Leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party Thomas Mulcair faces a fascinating challenge in the coming year. He is attempting to choose the right march music for his election band to play. There are three genres from which he can choose: He could select Ragtime of the party’s beginnings as the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Wynne wins in Toronto shoot-out.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne pulled it off. She got her candidate into the mayor’s chair in Toronto. Despite disturbing early tabulations, John Tory emerged as the peoples’ choice for mayor. And if you did not know that John Tory was Wynne’s choice, what do you think her aide Tom Allison
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Liberals are progressives Ms. Wynne.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne needs to check her dictionary. She needs to understand the definition of the word ‘liberal.’ Oxford says it best. In politics it means “favourable to democratic reform and individual liberty.” Could it be any easier to understand? You can expand on that but it gives you
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Your way, their way and the Brown way.
It paints a picture. Patrick. Brown, Babel’s Member of Parliament, was cowering with the Conservative caucus the other day when a confused gunman went down the hall in parliament outside the caucus room. This breach of security was an affront to Canadians and to our democracy. And what is Mr.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: How the Hair hastens havoc.
We were all deeply concerned the other day. It just takes time to think it through. How awful that this sad, mentally-deranged person with a gun be enabled to attack and kill one of our soldiers standing ceremonial guard duty at Canada’s national memorial to our dead of foreign wars?
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A year can be forever in politics.
It will feel like a year long federal election campaign between now and October 2015. Wars have not lasted as long. Yet, despite all the strategies at play, the key decisions by the real electors will not be made until September and October next year. Much of the first six
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Discrimination in municipal voting.
You know you are a second-class citizen in Ontario if you are a tenant and have moved since last time you voted in a municipal election. The municipal people across Ontario explain it simply: if you are a tenant, you are responsible to register to vote. If you are a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Harris helps harass the Hair.
Canada’s prime minister a.k.a. the Hair does not have a large number of friends. And that short list obviously does not include Canadian author and journalist Michael Harris. We hear that Harris’ newly published list of the Hair’s shortcomings is a rather lengthy book. Called Party of One: Stephen Harper
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Meaningless measuring for meaningless media.
When you take a poll to help sell newspapers, how serious can you be? Does the poll even matter if it restates the obvious? It is giving the entire business of polls a bad name. Take the Toronto Star. The Star hires Forum Research to take a poll. Last week
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Justin’s book written by the choir.
Nobody expects that Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s puff piece that has just been published is actually written by him. It comes as a shock though when he describes the process as more like a choral arrangement. It sounds like a process that takes out any spontaneity, edge or passion from
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