It was mentioned yesterday that the Beer Store in Ontario is supposed to be losing money. Well tough cookie! If you follow the bouncing ball of this story, you might be as curious as I, as to how this company can lose money by selling its product: Beer? All we
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Babel-on-the-Bay: Recriminations: We have a few.
At finger-pointing time, politics in Canada slips away into a morass of regrets. Wending your way through the reports on the pandemic, you have little to console yourself. We think of our politicians as the bickering class. There has got to be a light somewhere down damn dark tunnel. What
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is it news or gossip?
It is a puzzle sometimes. You look to the news media to keep you abreast of politics across Canada. The question you need to ask about the so-called political news is it news or just gossip? It is discouraging to think of some of our favourite pundits of the press
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Carney: A politician in the making?
So far, the speculation about Canadian Mark Carney’s future has been left to the news media. After all, what is left to do when you have been Governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England? The news media are picking politics for Carney. Judging by the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A few fools foul racial relations.
It is outrageous to hear that there are increased incidences of racial hatred in our Canada. It is, admittedly, a time of serious stresses on our society, but I can imagine no rationale for a deterioration in race relations. From where I grew up in Toronto, the worst fault you
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Trudeau building bridges in Quebec.
It is rare that prime minister Justin Trudeau would be considered best friends with Quebec premier François Legault. It is just that timing is everything in politics. If Trudeau’s liberals want to take back a majority in an election later this year, they have to maximize their seats in Quebec.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Canute-like Kenney confronts Canadians.
In the supposedly moralistic story of King Canute of the North Sea Empire, Canute was demonstrating that even a king could not control the tides. It is somewhat strange that premier Jason Kenney of Alberta never paid attention to this story when in grade school. Instead, Kenney challenges the facts
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Locked down or locked up?
It feels like being kept after school because some one else broke the rules. It feels like a piling on of detentions. Now premier Doug Ford has added another four weeks of lock-down for the entire damn province. It never would have happened if the jerk had known what to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The boy from Flemingdon Park.
Flemington Park in Toronto is not a prestige address. I watched the area grow over the years. It was never much in the way of architectural creativity. It was rabbits’ warrens of apartment buildings, second rate office buildings and a small strip plaza. It is in the area just north
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: O’Toole sings of solidarity.
Some political pundits seemed surprised the other day that conservative leader Erin O’Toole was trying to build bridges to unions. Not all union members vote for new democratic party politicians. If there has been any drift over the years, it has been to both conservatives and liberals. It is all
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: ‘That was then; this is now.’
Is it not amazing how a few more nickels in your tin cup can change your attitude? Did you listen to how the Shaw executive on Monday changed his tune about the importance of Freedom Mobile? One wonders just who he thought he was kidding? No doubt he used to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Picture That.
Ontario premier Ford likes to bring some back-up when he is doing a Covid-19 presentation. It was a surprise last weekend when one of the smirking faces in the conservative back-up was that of Brampton mayor Patrick Brown. Oh, how well we know that weaselly countenance. He was even wearing
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Pick your battles.
If you want to win, in war or in politics, you pick the battles you can win. Losers fight any battle that comes along. It is the problem facing the major opposition parties in the coming election. It is a special problem for conservative leader Erin O’Toole. He is between
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Liberalism Betrayed.
You hear it too often. It is the jerk who tells you that they are socially a liberal and financially a conservative. Does that mean that you want to do the right thing but you do not want to pay for it? Is this like the idiocy of the conservative
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The knocking on Trudeau’s door.
Like the late-night tapping on his door, as written by Edgar Allan Poe, Justin Trudeau dares not fail to answer this summons. It is at the heart and soul of liberalism in Canada. It must be answered with fairness and justice. It is in the face of the rape and
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Do we really understand China?
They are known to most Canadians as ‘the Two Michaels.’ They have been in prison in China since before the pandemic. Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, were arrested in China just days after the RCMP arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, in Vancouver
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Billions to nowhere.
It seems strange to have a provincial budget that spends close to $200 billion in the coming year and ignores the most vulnerable among us. It is a budget that will increase the provincial debt by about $33 billion and raises no taxes. You have to remember that this is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The upcoming battle for the GTA.
Some pundits are under the impression that the key battle in the coming federal election is in the greater Toronto area (GTA). They might be able to give logical support for their assumptions but I would not suggest that it is all a done deal. Some things have changed and
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Kenney sugar coats dishonesty.
We get lots of promotional stuff in our Internet in-boxes. It usually only takes a second to click on the little garbage-can icon. But the other day, with my finger hovering, I took a minute to think about one of them. This promotion was by the Canadian Energy Centre—better known
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In the leadership wilderness.
Canada’s major political parties have a leadership problem. We have to face facts folks: Trudeau of the not-a-party liberals is a hypocrite; O’Toole of the mainly western conservatives cannot get his party to back him; and Singh of the new democrats is taking his party nowhere. None of these three
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