There are various opinions about ways of getting to Hell but my American mother liked the phrase about a handbasket and I first heard it from her when I was quite young. It seems appropriate now that we have elected a Ford as premier, that the province is heading for
Continue readingTag: Provincial Politics
Babel-on-the-Bay: Jason Kenney’s Quest.
There is something about being the big dog in a small kennel. It brings the walls to you and it feels all warm and snuggly. It must be what Jason Kenney thought of when he saw that the years of posing as heir apparent to former prime minister Stephen Harper
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ford Forestalls Hillier’s Hussars.
It might not be up to the standards of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade but somebody should have warned Ontario premier Doug Ford before he got into a squabble with the caucus bad boy of the Ontario Tories. Oh well, Ford is due for a drubbing anyway.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Nothing New about a Stalking Horse.
Oh, to be in Alberta when the politicos are running! Have you heard the latest about that sleaze Jason Kenney of the united conservatives? With premier Rachel Notley about to pull the plug on the provincial election, UCP leader Kenney has got his jeans in a twist. It seems people
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Peaking early; Peaking late, in politics.
It is something like a fertility cycle. If you are too early or too late, that little sperm has lost an opportunity. It is like that time in a political campaign when unfertilized minds can be receptive to a particular message. It is only the entire costly campaign that is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Did they forget to tell Jagmeet?
It seems strange that the NDP apparatchiks around their leader Jagmeet Singh have forgotten to tell him something important. He certainly has enough French to understand that Québec Solidaire is a separatist party based in Quebec. It might share the orange party color and the left of centre politics of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Fighting the Beer Store fight.
Have you seen the opinion pieces running in what is left of Ontario’s small-town papers? These are warnings forecasting higher prices for beer if we change the way it is sold? This is old-fashioned protectionism for the beer store’s unionized employees. Frankly, with some grocery stores already offering beer, that
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: ‘Take that, John Horgan.’
The Toronto Star’s Calgary apologist, Gillian Steward, thinks maybe Alberta premier Rachel Notley can frighten her former ally, B.C. premier John Horgan, into approving the Trans Mountain pipeline. It seems that the Alberta premier has committed $3.7 billion to lease 4,400 rail tanker cars to carry diluted bitumen to Burrard
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Reefer Madness in Ontario?
It is too bad premier Doug Ford’s younger brother died. The late Rob Ford might have been a wealth of information about the marketing of street drugs. As it is, it will take years to straighten out the mess the Ontario conservatives are making of legal retailing of cannabis. But
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: How great is it going to be?
Do you really want to trust a politician who insists on telling you how great it is going to be? When the Ontario government announced its health care reforms this week, everyone was left wondering just how they were going to accomplish these great results. That was all we got,
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: When compromise is the problem.
Nobody should celebrate too soon about the compromise solution to paying Ontario’s doctors. After more than four years of arguments, back-stabbing and threats, nobody is particularly happy. The three-member arbitration board did not have to find the money, so they could be generous. And they were. The doctors got what
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A Corrected Convention.
The seven liberal MPPs remaining at Queen’s Park are going to carry a lot of weight in deciding the when and how of the convention to replace Kathleen Wynne as leader of the party. Not only are there possible candidates among them but they will also want to ensure that
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ford Follies.
This entertainment is settling in for a long run. Ontario premier Doug Ford and his ensemble are enjoying their reviews. You cannot help but compare the show to the old 19th Century minstrel shows—without blackened faces, though Doug Ford does seem pleased in playing the role of Mr. Interlocutor. In
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: ‘Super-agencies,’ been there; done that.
Health care in Ontario is a machine of many parts. It seems the Ford government wants to start collecting those parts into one super agency. The only problem with this is that there once was a super agency responsible for health care in the province. It was called the Ministry
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: ‘Dirty Thirties’ solutions for Ford.
Ontario premier Doug Ford must admire the past. His government keeps reaching back in time to the solutions of the 1930s. The latest is to return to those times when a landlord could hire thugs as bailiffs and physically remove a tenant. They would toss impoverished tenants and their pitiful
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A Feisty Fedeli files on Brown.
If I had ever written a proper review of Patrick Brown’s tell-all book on his political take down, I would have paid far more attention to his relationships with the Tory caucus at Queen’s Park and particularly Vic Fedeli the MPP from North Bay. Fedeli, now Doug Ford’s finance minister,
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Brown bounces back.
This is not a contrite political Patrick Brown bragging about his comeback from being a nobody. This is a brazen Brown bragging that he has bested the best. Comfortably ensconced in the mayor’s chair in Brampton, Ontario, he has four years to choose his next steps. And he expects CTV
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: First pick a direction.
It is ridiculous that people are speculating about the possible leaders of the Ontario liberal party so soon. We do have a choice. And the old adage says, we can decide now and repent at leisure. As we have mentioned before, we first want to figure out where the party
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ford follows Forrest.
Remember the famous line from the blockbuster film: Forrest Gump? It was “Stupid is as stupid does.” The point was that stupid people keep on doing stupid things because that is what they are. But if the Economic Club of Canada audience gave Ontario premier Doug Ford a standing ovation
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: An Olive Branch to Alberta?
It was last April when Babel-on-the-Bay commented on the Toronto Star’s Quisling-like coverage of the Alberta tar sands quandary by Star business writer David Olive. We were pleased to note the other day that Olive has seen the light. In a recent opinion piece, he suggests that Albertans should get
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