In the iconic western, Shane, the gunfighter rides off into the prairie night and the movie ends. I had no idea that Ontario Conservative MPP Patrick Brown would come back. I have written about the reality that running to replace himself is his only road to redemption but why would
Continue readingTag: Ontario
Babel-on-the-Bay: Righting policy on the right.
Former Tory Leader Patrick Brown thought he had it made last November. He had the policy for the 2018 provincial election nailed down. He had what he thought was a wonderful book that could grace the coffee tables of the province with a great picture of him on the cover.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Confidential candidate Caroline.
How much do we really know about Caroline Mulroney? She wants to be a member of the Ontario legislature. She wants to be leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. She even wants to be premier of Ontario. This woman wants all of this and we all know so very
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Measuring mediocrity.
Having been party to writing political rule books in the past, it took little time to find the loopholes and errors in the 2018 Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership rule book. I did not compare them, side by side, but I figure the major change is the date on each page.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: When the music stops.
The game is called Musical Chairs. You might have played it as a child. If there are ten players, you start with nine chairs together in line, alternating facing in opposite directions. When the music starts the players are lined up and walk around the line of chairs. When the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: And now there are three.
Even in this shortest of all leadership races, it is too early to produce a morning line on the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party contest. How are you expected to consider workouts and past performance for this mixed bag of candidates? And when you only have three—so far—you have to wait
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Brown’s fans fight for fairness.
How do you petition public opinion? How many signatures on Facebook would impress the hoi polloi? Would you send the results to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook? Just how do you defend against accusations handled entirely within the court of public opinion? Talking to one of the people behind the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: And Wynne sits in the catbird seat.
The ‘catbird seat’ is a wonderful American idiom for that perfect position in politics providing the politician with a position to observe the disarray of his or her foes. As you can imagine, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is currently enjoying that position. Her main opposition, the Ontario Conservatives are totally
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A house divided.
The Progressive Conservative Party in Ontario is in turmoil. Since last Wednesday, the party has been playing its own Game of Thrones. Slights—real or imagined—are earning retaliation and factions of the party are preparing for the fights to come. The Queen’s Park conservative caucus got behind Vic Fedeli from Nipissing
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “Who killed Cock Robin?”
“All the birds of the air fell a-sighing and a-sobbing, when they heard the bell toll for poor Cock Robin.” (English nursery rhyme, author unknown.) Former Barrie councillor, former MP and former leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party, Patrick Brown is not an object of sympathy. It would be
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ontario banks on the LCBO.
That banker is back. Do you remember Ed Clark? He was the guy from TD Bank who advised Premier Kathleen Wynne to sell off Ontario’s Hydro One electricity distribution system. Remember how that got the Wynne government in trouble? This Clark is the same guy who told Wynne that she
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Brown’s political days are done.
When your entire life is politics, the end of your run can be a tragedy. Like the marathon runner, he is, he felt the eagerness for the starter’s gun and the highs of the final stretch. For the rest of his life, Barrie’s Patrick Brown can only say, ‘If only…”
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ontario votes in June.
While political pundits have obviously thought long and hard on Ontario Premier Wynne’s possible political problems this spring, I doubt her main concern is misogyny. Nobody is mad at her for being a woman and not many voters give a darn about her being in a lesbian relationship. That is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Lion proposes to his Princess.
We read that it was the Tenth Sikh Guru Gobind Singh, who determined that Sikh men could identify as Singh (lion) and Sikh women as Kaur (princess). This happened more than 300 years ago and was all in aid of getting rid of the caste system for Sikhs and asserting
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Politics is a numbers racket.
It is time to admit it: I used to be a numbers runner. Different from the numbers racket in the United States, in Canada, it is a political game. I used to announce numbers provided by my political party to see if we could draw out numbers from the other
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: We will call that a Wynne Win.
Did nobody at the Tim Horton’s head office know about the change in minimum wage for Ontario scheduled for the first of January? Did all those franchisees fail to tell them? And would you not wonder about a major franchiser who dominates the product line in Ontario, not being in
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: I Didn’t Blog in December
I was distracted by things more awesome than blogging. What could that be? I’ll tell you some day. For now, I’m back, complaining about litter. Everyone is focusing on a crappy coffee shop chain in Canada, and giving them even more brain-space free marketing because too many people are addicted
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A New Year rich in political opportunity.
This political junkie is looking forward to 2018. Starting with the Ontario election in June, Quebec scheduled for October 1 and then the American mid-term elections in November, there will be much on which to comment. The only recommendation we can make at this stage is to ignore the pollsters.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Naughty or Nice: Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne.
It is hard to say where Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne would be on Santa Claus’ ‘naughty or nice’ list. I expect Santa to give her a pass into the ‘nice’ category but he should be warned that this person is one tough cookie! If he does not bring her something
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Naughty or Nice: Ontario’s Patrick Brown.
As more and more Ontario voters get to see Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown in action, the more his voting preference plummets. He is just not the type of person people can imagine as premier of Canada’s largest province. And neither can Santa as he keeps Patrick on his “Naughty”
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