Pierre Karl Péladeau running in Saint-Jérȏme for the Parti Québécois, brings back fond memories of John Bassett. This is the John Bassett that was famously publisher of the Toronto Telegram and the founder of CTV. And he relished having the reputation of being something of a womanizer, a sports enthusiast
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Babel-on-the-Bay: On protecting Canada’s democracy.
The last serious attempt in Ontario at changing how people vote was brought forward by the McGuinty Liberal government in 2007. It was a foolish and ill-conceived attempt to put a foot in the door for a form of proportional voting. Ontario voters gave the idea the brush-off in the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Péladeau steps up to Quebec election.
Pierre Karl Péladeau scion of the Quebecor millions has agreed to run in Saint-Jérȏme riding for the Parti Québécois in the April election. Quebec Premier Pauline Marois has made the announcement just months after appointing Péladeau head of Hydro-Quebec. The choice of Saint-Jérȏme riding will allow the candidate to get
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The bother of bewildered blogs.
There are bloggers who care. Some will even suppress that overwhelming desire to write about themselves and write lovingly of their country. They are often concerned liberals and progressives. They worry that all political parties are travelling a road to sameness, to the right and to greed and to uncaring.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Watch the Orange Wave wave goodbye.
Quebec Premier Pauline Marois has made a critical error. When she called the Quebec election, she did not realize who her enemies really are. Her separatists have not just taken on a novice provincial Liberal Leader Philippe Couilard and an inconsequential center-right Coalition Avenir Québec led by François Legault. She
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Lying low at Lottery and Gaming.
Things are quiet at Ontario Lottery and Gaming (OLG). Too bad! The people there are fun to write about. For a government agency that contributes almost $2 billion to government revenues each year, it works at keeping a low profile. It lets its games and casinos speak for it. Not
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Larry, Curly and Moe represent Canada?
This is disgraceful. Canada’s foreign affairs seem to be in the hands of the Three Stooges. Recent events in Jerusalem, Kyiv and Hollywood appear to be making the point. First of all, Prime Minister Harper leads an invasion of Israel. That is a small country and they hardly need more
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Harper harms Canada’s reputation.
The objective of foreign relations is not to pander for votes at home. And it is conducted with diplomacy, not a baseball bat. Those are just two of the lessons that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his eager understudy John Baird have yet to learn. What they are doing is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Achieving electoral mediocrity.
The faster you try to do something, the longer you will have to regret it. There are too many stupid things we do that seem like a good idea at the time. Take the latest ill-considered suggestions at Queen’s Park to change the way people vote in Toronto elections. The
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The poverty of Ontario’s political parties.
What we have in Ontario today are three political parties that have moved to the right of the political spectrum. They will all tell you that there is no meaning to left or right wing politics anymore. They might be correct. And if they are correct, we can assume that
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Better button up Tory!
In more than 30 years of dealing with the news media, you find that you can make all the mistakes you will ever need to make in the first week. If you do not clue in during that first week that the news media are not your friends, all is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Horwath toe-tests minimum wage.
It would be great to have a real left-wing political party in Ontario. This is not a promise to support the party but it would be great for voters to just have the option. And if you think Andrea Horwath and her Ontario New Democrats are going to answer the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: If the Hair is not there, can it be important?
There is confusion across the country. The Hair is sending Foreign Minister John Baird to the Ukraine. Canadians know that if there is an important trip to anywhere, the first people allocated space aboard that big Airbus A310 are the Hair and the hairdresser. But on this trip, the Hair
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: An apology as requested by Mr. Kinsella.
You do not often get shouted at in an e-mail. Mr. Kinsella has requested an apology. He may certainly have it. Please understand the confusion. A column appeared in the Toronto Sun last Sunday in which Mr. Kinsella was declared to be the author and identified him as with QMI
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It is not about you Mr. Kinsella.
If it were not for the egos involved, political campaigns would be far more fun. Most political apparatchiks get their comeuppance early in the game and learn the hard way that the candidate is always the star, not the hangers-on. It is like the old ventriloquist Edgar Bergen was always
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Toronto’s Phoney War begins.
The endurance contest in Ontario that has replaced municipal election races has its own challenges and strategies. The Toronto mayoralty race can be considered launched Monday with the official entry of Councillor Karen Stintz and former provincial Conservative Leader John Tory. And like the period from September 1939 to April
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Wynne’s policy picks are puzzlers.
Maybe some of us are a bit slow on the up tick. An e-mail arrived the other day saying that Premier Wynne now had a way forward. It came from a policy input program on the provincial Liberal web site called Common Ground. If this is the best that the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Justin Trudeau: Not his father’s son.
It is Justin Trudeau’s political instincts that never cease to amaze the older apparatchiks in the Liberal Party. It is remembering a long argument with the late Senator Keith Davey some 30 years ago over Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau just mentioning his family in a speech. If you had sweated
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Tory’s Timmy tempers trades tampering.
The Conservative caucus at Queen’s Park must have got to their Leader Tim Hudak. They made him promise to cool his jets on right-to-work laws. With a broad wink, he is promising not to mention the idea again until after Ontario’s expected spring election. After all there is more than
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The tale of the Hair and the whore.
As you recall the Supreme Court decided that the Conservatives need sex education. Long overdue, you might add. The only problem was that nobody could agree on who should teach sex education to the Conservative caucus. We are not sure but we think it was Peter Mackay who solved it
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