There are people in British Columbia ready and willing to go to jail in their fight against twining the Kinder Morgan pipeline to Burnaby, B.C. It is an abomination that must be stopped. In turning his back on the environmental concerns, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is guilty of hypocrisy. He
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Babel-on-the-Bay: Petticoats and pantsuits: The politics of gender.
There is a double standard in writing about the politics of gender. A man has to be oh-so careful not to offend while female writers can tramp so carelessly on men. And today, we are supposed to commiserate with the female politicos still drowning their sorrows in gin fizzes over
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Are they making America great again?
As much as there is an ongoing hullaballoo about President Elect Donald Trump as America runs up to his inauguration, we should never forget the people who elected him. It is quite likely that not even half these people can explain the process of the Electoral College but they are
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Queen advises: “Take a deep breath.”
We can all buy into that advice. It was directed mainly to Great Britain in Queen Elizabeth’s Christmas message to the Commonwealth. It was obviously related to the surprise Brexit vote by Britain earlier in 2016. It is also excellent advice for the rest of the world judging by the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Can O’Leary cow Canadian conservatism?
This is pathetic. This guy Kevin O’Leary thinks he is the Canadian hope for conservatism. Waving a kitchen scraper, he is asking people to endorse him as Canada’s answer to Donald Trump. Frankly the best instrument for the job to be done in Ottawa is still a pitchfork. You would
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Reprising a year of bad bets.
The regrets of a political junky can be many. After years of easy political prognostications, to be a failure and ground under the heel of a person such as Donald Trump is ignominy. The guy did not even appear on our political radar until March. And we foolishly picked him
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ottawa’s Ghost of Christmas Future.
When Marley’s Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come came to see Canada’s Prime Minister, the ghost looked a lot like American President Elect Donald Trump. Justin Trudeau had many questions for him but the ghost never spoke a word. He just kept on twitting. The ghost took the Prime Minister
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ottawa’s Ghosts of Christmas Past.
When Canada’s parliament shuts down for Christmas, the old grey halls along Ottawa’s Wellington Street welcome the respite. They have seen much since their construction for the Parliament of Upper Canada in the mid 19th Century. And they have been under constant repair since. But it is the ghosts who
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ontario: The little engine that could in 2017.
There are many versions of “The Little Engine That Could.” There are also various claimed origins of the inspirational children’s story from as far as more than a century past. There are also many adult versions of the theme by many writers, prominent among them (and the most prolific) was
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The arrogance of Justin Trudeau.
Weighing the pluses and minuses of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first year in office was a tough job. He got off to a good start. How many refugees can claim they were welcomed to their new country by its Prime Minister? In person! And he kept his promise to fix
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Lament for the CRTC’s Skinny Basic.
It was over three years ago that we last travelled to the nation’s capital to talk with the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). When there, we faced the enemy and their henchmen. We saw Bell Canada and Rogers in action. We talked to the commissioners about ‘skinny basic’ service for
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The rocky road to electoral reform.
It seems obvious at this stage that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has still not gained any conviction on electoral reform. He hardly understood what he was promising when he said that the 2015 election would be the last federal election using first-past-the-post. He seemed to have no understanding of the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: You told a pollster the truth?
It seems that the privacy watchdog in Ottawa is investigating the Liberal government’s survey on electoral reform. The privacy commissioner’s office is concerned that the Liberals should not have included collecting demographic information in the survey. It might be an invasion of privacy. But since you decided not to give
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Who chose who?
It is grating when we read about Ontario politics and a careless reporter refers to Patrick Brown as ‘winning’ the leadership of Ontario’s Conservatives. He hardly won it. It would be the same as saying Donald Trump won the most votes on November 8, 2016. He did not win the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: You only know what Donald Trump is not.
You can never accuse President-Elect Donald Trump of being a politician. He is the antithesis of that. He despises politicians. You saw how he treats both Democrats and Republicans. He is neither. At best, he is an oligarchist. It is a system he knows from business. It would suit a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The empty chair of Tom Mulcair.
In a much condemned political schtick by actor-director Clint Eastwood at the Republican National Convention in 2012, he talked to an empty chair. The chair was supposed to represent President Barack Obama. We always thought it helped get Obama elected to his second term. We were reminded of it recently
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Forecasting what President Trump will do.
It was Franklin Roosevelt who showed us how a politician can get around the news media. His fireside chats on radio were his direct connection with the American voters and they loved him for it. It was a lesson we noted early in our career as a political apparatchik. Some
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Andrea Horwath, where are you?
We were starting to think of our naughty or nice list for the holiday and realized that we had written nothing about Andrea Horwath for many months. We are talking about the leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party. She has simply been missing from the news. How do you
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The impoverishment of Sir John, eh?
There is a very old saying that people who forget the past will probably screw up the future. It has always been very annoying to us that Canadians can be disinterested in the past. They fail to be aware of or appreciate the people who have given so much of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Joe Biden: Lame duck or solution?
Before the U.S. Vice President’s visit, Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion explained Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Ottawa last week as routine. While some people might see it as a stick in the eye of incoming U.S. President Donald Trump, Dion treated the visit as routine. There was nothing routine
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