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 readingTag: patrick brown
Canadian Soapbox: Is Trudeau next? The future is female and the politics of anything goes
I like Justin Trudeau, I don’t always agree with his politics but I do like the man. Do I think he’s the greatest Prime Minister Canada has ever had? Uhm…..no. But I do think his heart is in the right place and that he genuinely wants to make Canada a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Ed Finn comments on the massive amounts of public money being funneled toward Canada’s wealthiest corporations: When it comes to listing countries on the basis of the social services they provide to citizens compared to the subsidies they heap on corporations, Canada doesn’t
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Episode 5: #MeToo rocks Canadian politics, Kara Levis and the PST, goodbye Brad Wall, and more.
A look at how allegations of sexual misconduct have rocked Canadian politics, Alberta Party leadership candidate Kara Levis‘ sales tax idea, how a change in leadership could change Alberta-Saskatchewan relations, what’s weird with the 2017 fundraising returns (Dave goes deep into the weeds), and some hot gossip from Alberta politics
Continue readingCanadian Soapbox: Patrick Brown and Omar Khadr both victims of injustice….
Nothing like a political scandal to get the creative juices flowing, inspiring me to dust off the cobwebs on this forgotten little corner of cyberspace and chime in. I was planning on using caution here. I’m aware of the political climate that we live in and I was going to
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: #Metoo?
Can we talk? Many men (and some women) worry that the #metoo movement has morphed into a man-hating witch hunt where innocent men will be publicly humiliated and deprived of their livelihoods by vindictive women spreading unfounded accusations. They point to the fate of three Canadian politicians, Ont PC leader,
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 readingMind Bending Politics: Political Coup and The Dangers of Knee Jerk Reactions to Unproven Allegations
Former Ontario PC Leader Patrick Brown Faces Unproven Allegations of Misconduct Like many when I first heard the news about the allegations made against Patrick Brown, I jumped on the bandwagon. My first thought was how disgusting a man he is, but when I actually saw the reports and those
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: Welcome to our Gripes of Wrath.
It makes sense to save up our complaints and just share them periodically. There is no need to write too much about them. We should see if we can give them the quick shot in the head they deserve. It is like that guy Desmond Cole who is playing coy
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: Brought to you by Bollywood?
In reviewing the three leaders of the major political parties in Canada, we came up with what we consider the key question for Jagmeet Singh: Why? What is the new leader of the New Democratic Party out to prove? Was his taking the leadership of the National NDP just a
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”
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Brown plays bad with the big kids.
The first time I met Barrie, Ontario politician Patrick Brown, I wondered what this miserable person was doing in politics? He has no personality. He has little grasp of election issues. What I soon learned was that he is a gamer. And his game is politics. He plays the game
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Tories try sleight-of-hand with transit.
When we first saw the Ontario Conservative’s proposal for Toronto Transit, we thought it was one of the silliest we had heard for a while. It just made no sense why they thought the provincial government would make less a mess of the job of running the subways and light-rail
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Does Ontario come with an owner’s manual?
Maybe Patrick Brown forgot to ask. It has been clear that Premier Kathleen Wynne has been playing the job by ear for the past four years. It is just that the former do-nothing back bencher from the Harper government wants Wynne’s job. The Globe and Mail tells us that Brown
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Promises and Political Promises.
The magazine style “policy platform” handed out to the Ontario Conservative elite at their get-together last weekend is a style of political literature that was developed many years ago. The glossy magazine is a strong sales style that the voter might keep a bit longer. Adding a full-page guarantee was
Continue reading