The Ontario government must be serious about Doug Ford’s promise to open up beer and wine sales in Ontario. We have both the Beer Store management (at Brewers Warehousing) and the Beer Store union paying for TV spots complaining about possible lost jobs. I wonder why? This is an opportunity
Continue readingTag: Provincial Politics
Babel-on-the-Bay: The Ford folk play high-speed games.
What is a safe speed on a highway? That is a question that the Ontario government is trying to figure out. And they are wasting their time trying to answer it and they are wasting the public’s time. Most drivers have an inflated idea of their driving skills and tend
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Mayor Tory asks the rhetorical.
Asking a question rather than making an accusation is another piece of equipment in the politician’s toolbox. Mayor John Tory of Toronto should be an expert at this form of bafflegab. He would have learned it in his years as a disciple of Ontario premier Bill Davis. Bill never publicly
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Bankrupt Ontario.
You had no idea that Ontario was bankrupt, did you? We find that conservatives seem to have a very different definition of bankrupt than most bankers and economists. The other day Ontario’s deputy premier and health minister, Christine Elliott was on Global TV’s Focus Ontario, being interviewed by news anchor,
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Doug Ford meet Mike Harris.
Philosopher George Santayana told us that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That idea has obviously sailed right over the head of Ontario premier Doug Ford. Despite his father being a back bench MPP for the Harris government, the younger Ford is making the same
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It’s not a game, Mr. Ford.
Ontario premier Doug Ford has yet to realize that he is not in a life-size game. There are repercussions and blowbacks and consequences for his whims at governing. Like the irresponsible Mike Harris, the premier of two decades ago, Ford has been busily downloading costs on the municipalities in hopes
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Who runs this country?
Like it or lump it, Canada is a confederation. And that means the parts of the country that created it think they are just as important as the whole. As many wise politicos have noted over the years, it makes the country a bitch to govern. The federal government got
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is Kenney a Constitutional Crisis?
It seems that between Jason Kenney and his predecessor as premier of Alberta, Kenney has the shriller voice. When he goes to Ottawa to bitch and whine about how his province is not given everything it wants, he knows the buttons to push and the people to harangue. There was
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Why we are pissed with politicians.
They are even quantifying just how pissed Canadians are with their politicians these days. It makes sense. And interestingly, we see they are happier with their mayors and councillors. These local people are able to generate a 50 per cent approval rate. Provincial and federal politicos do not make it
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Doug Ford’s base is into booze.
There. Question asked. Question answered. If you had a bunch of freeloaders such as Ford Nation supporting you in politics, would you not reciprocate by supporting some of their wishes? His base wants better access to booze. All these newspaper people fail to understand why premier Ford is changing the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ford finds friends.
Politicians always claim that they represent the people. Doug Ford ran a successful campaign in Ontario last year with the slogan: Doug Ford – For the People. But the truth is that the voters have little say on laws presented for consideration and discussion. Bills take a long and cumbersome
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Bountiful B.S. for the Beer Store.
When even the Toronto Star gets in line to support the Beer Store’s battle with Ford and Friends at Queen’s Park, you know the fight is on. Just the other day, the Star proposed on its front page that having beer in corner stores could cost Ontario taxpayers $1 billion.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Facts and fake news from Ford and foes.
The facts are few but the opinions are fanciful as we read reaction to the Ford government’s alcohol policies. What is particularly amusing is that we are told neither the premier nor his finance minister drink alcohol. And yet they are telling old, staid and dull Ontario to loosen up
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Alberta that God forgot.
“O outcast land! O leper land! Let the lone wolf-cry all express The hate insensate of thy hand, Thy heart’s abysmal loneliness.” From the poems of Robert Service. Jason Kenney won the Alberta election and the embittered battles over bitumen are drawing clearer lines. He joins the blow-hard conservatives of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In the arrogance of ignorance.
You saw the big beaming smiles on their faces. If not in the newspapers or television news clips, you can imagine the smugness that Ontario’s conservative government felt bringing in their first budget accounting for Ontario’s billions in revenues. Despite their promises of efficiencies and despite the braggadocio, they failed
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Tories take a try at Toronto transit.
You really need to be a Torontonian to recognize the absurdity of the Ontario government’s latest plan for Toronto transit. It seems to be a right of passage for Toronto politicians that they all have to give transit another kick in passing. Premier Doug Ford should be passing out cigars
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In Alberta, vote, wash hands, wash hands again.
With less than a week to another Alberta provincial election I cannot forecast the vote. It is one of those times you can only vote against. There seem to be few positive options. The entire campaign is a disaster and a disappointment. It is a given that I despise Jason
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ontario liberals need a leader.
It is good to see that there are a number of worthy contenders already at the starting line for the upcoming leadership contest for the Ontario liberals. More important than the names of those individuals, at this point in time, are the rules for the race. And the simpler the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In a time of fools in Quebec.
There is no more appropriate time to recognize the foolishness of the bigotry that emerges periodically in Quebec than April Fools Day. They bring it on themselves. Quebec leaders and politicians seem endlessly adept at bringing derision on themselves and their province for bigotry and tribalism. The provincial paranoia seems
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Even a stopped clock is right twice a day…
As inept and foolish as the Ford government in Ontario might be, you have to admit it when occasionally the chuckleheads do something right. It is like when the impossibly ideological Mike Harris government in the late 1990s amalgamated the city of Toronto. The province did it for the wrong
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