Never having been reluctant to give Premier Wynne advice before, we can hardly resist the opportunity to give her and her Liberal Party of Ontario advice on fund-raising. The first advice we will give her is to get her and her fellow members of the provincial parliament out of the fund-raising trough. They should not […]
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Babel-on-the-Bay: So gas up. They lie, cheat and steal anyway.
You would think that Canadians would be tired of it. Every time you buy gas at your local gas station you are being ripped off. And yet the other day one of Canada’s major refinery executives compounded the abuse we are taking. Mark Sherman, chief operating officer for Irving Oil told Global News that the […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Don’t get between the Photogs and Politicos.
Years ago at a dinner three of us were chatting at the head table reception. There was the Ontario party leader, a prominent member of the federal cabinet and this writer. The three of us were discussing nothing important and we studiously ignored the photographers and TV camera people recording our innocuous three-part tête-a-tête. It […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Correcting corruption in Ontario.
It appears that the news media has detected a bad smell in the general area of Ontario’s seat of government at Queen’s Park. It is the smell of political corruption. We are told not to worry though as our Premier promises to fix it later this year. Is that when she will have enough in […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The snob appeal of Brexit.
Babel-on-the-Bay has decided not to do any Morning Line handicapping on the question of Great Briton voting to leave the European Union in the June 23 referendum (commonly referred to as Brexit). Unlike the Scottish referendum a couple years ago, we have no emotional ties to this argument. While there is no reason to think […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Bernie Sanders occupies the Occupy revolt.
The good news for the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011 is that the revolution lives on. Watching the Occupy movement at the time was painful as the young and inexperienced organizers took their ideas nowhere. It was an ill-timed revolution without a plan. Only the now established anger at the one per cent for […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is Justin Trudeau’s senate legitimate?
When a leading Liberal thinker such as Pierre Trudeau’s former Principal Secretary Thomas Axworthy challenges us on how to make the new independent(?) Senate of Canada legitimate, workable and effective, we need to pay attention. The only problem is that in a think piece for the Toronto Star on March 26, Tom writes that Justin […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Party conventions are always about money.
The first thing learned about political conventions is that it always has to be at a profit. The second is that if there is nothing contentious, create something. You always have to fill the hall. And filling the hall does not seem to be a problem for any of the three political party conventions planned […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Impatient for democratic reform?
The federal Minister of Democratic Institutions Maryam Monsef must have the easiest job in Ottawa. Sure, she is new to the job and has lots to learn but so far, she has had it easy. Even her announcement of the Senate of Canada appointment process was made easy. She made it last December along with […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In Ontario there is the Brown Way.
Last weekend Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown was in Barrie to stoke the local loyalties. He reminds us of the busker with the sticks and plates. This is the entertainer who can keep more and more plates spinning on sticks. And if he makes it look too easy, he just adds more sticks and […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Don’t bet your pay cheque on this budget
To be honest, Finance Minister Bill Morneau, you did nothing wrong. Listening to your preamble on the budget the other day, you said that hope is possible. You talked about the years after the Second World War when the middle class emerged in Canada. We were strong. We were confident. And yet in the 1970s […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: But this is not about oil!
Companies exploiting the Athabasca and Cold Lake oil sands and the pipeline public relations people must be proud of themselves. They have gullible business media writers, television script writers and others in the news business talking about oil. They have all found it easier to talk about oil rather than to explain bitumen. Just last […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Did Le Pen expect rose petals?
What did Marine Le Pen president of France’s Front National Party expect? Canadians are hardly about to strew rose petals in her path when she decides to come here and tell us what we are doing wrong. We are open-minded people but we are not particularly interested in people who spread bigotry and fear. Who […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The death of journalism.
We are told that journalism is dying. It was supposed to have chronicled centuries. Journalism, as we knew it, was born in the 19th Century, came to fruition in the 20th Century and is staging an ugly despairing death in the 21st Century. Canadians bear witness to this death on a daily basis and pay […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Pay politicians what they are worth?
A friend made the suggestion the other day that we should pay politicians according to the contribution they make. While there was an immediate acceptance of the suggestion, we realized that there would have to be a minimum base to allow the individual something to live on. It is just that we have known too […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A guaranteed income for Canadian elites?
That was a firm step backward in time for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday. He gave jobs to people who had no need for another job. He gave the title of senator to people who had no need for further titles. He made a mockery of much needed reform. This is elitism at its worst. […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “There will be rioting in the streets.”
It is terrible that Donald Trump cannot seem to find a better playbook for his campaign than that of the Weimar Republic of the 1930s. He is raising spectres that were thought to have died more than 60 years ago. He is causing comparisons with tactics that might have worked in the past but have […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Wandering in the wilderness with the NDP.
Leader Thomas Mulcair is hardly the only New Democrat with something to prove at the party’s Edmonton Convention April 9 to 10. Sure, he needs to justify his leadership but the real question is where Canada’s New Democratic Party is headed? It is obviously not the direction that Mulcair chose for the last federal election. […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Time for a guaranteed income for Canadians.
It is surprising how often the suggestion for a guaranteed annual income system for Canada comes up. While scoffed at by the political right wing, they need to realize how much money it would save. Liberals and left of centre parties have long been advocates of this major change. An annual guarantee would eliminate the […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Doing Ontario up Brown!
To this long-time political apparatchik, it was an interesting example of the art of remaking a politician. Ontario viewers of Global Television Sunday morning had an opportunity to see the training effort in action. It was almost a before and after—that might have been recorded hours apart. It was new Ontario Conservative Leader Patrick Brown […]
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