The hardest thing to digest from the recent election in Ontario was the anger that fueled the liberal downfall. It was similar to a situation with a child who feels wronged and in the midst of a tantrum of tears and frustration. They often will strike out at the adult
Continue readingTag: Provincial Politics
Babel-on-the-Bay: Promises, promises!
Most people are sceptical about political promises. We should certainly be dubious of conservative leader Doug Ford’s recent scattering of promises in the Ontario election. Some, such as paving over the Green Belt around Toronto, had to be withdrawn immediately but he still has a backlog of questionable promises, such
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Don’t blame me, I voted liberal!
From the catbird seat yesterday: I felt as though I was on the lip of an active volcano watching the devastation of the countryside. It was both a sad and a challenging night. A new day dawns and Kathleen Wynne is gone; that is good. We thought Ontario voters were
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: All bets are off.
For the first time since I first got involved in politics, I cannot make a guess on the outcome in an Ontario election. Results that used to be so easy to fathom, have gone murky and I will be hanging out by the television tonight hoping beyond hope that common
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: If you don’t know, don’t!
It has always been grating on election day hearing radio announcers telling their listeners to get out and vote. They actually say if you do not know who to vote for, vote anyway. Why? Why would you want to go to vote against what your neighbours had thought about and
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Has Doug Ford ever lied to you before?
Have you dug into Doug Ford’s ‘fully-costed’ plan for Ontario? I trust it has satisfied your thirst for knowledge? It reads like a used-car salesman’s figures done on the back of an envelope. And the figures never add up. But that is the problem we have always had in working
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A real liberal never gives up!
Kathleen Wynne betrayed Ontario liberals yesterday. She surrendered, she gave up, she quit and she did the unconscionable. She ended her run as Ontario liberal leader the way she began: breaking the rules. Kathleen Wynne never put the party first and the party is paying the price. From the time
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The political pivot point of 2018.
In every election there is a point of pivot that decides the outcome. It has been fascinating listening to people across Ontario in the current campaign, learning of their concerns and frustrations. And they are concerned and conflicted and caring. They have been looking for solutions. Sometimes the solution can
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Yes, but did the fat lady sing?
Listening to and reading analyses of the Sunday night political leaders’ debate in Toronto, you wonder if they were at the same debate. Frankly, the analyses were better than the debate. Kathleen Wynne did less than expected. Andrea Horwath was rude and foolish. Doug Ford made you wonder if they
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Considering consequences of change.
Step right up Ontario. If you want change, you can have it. You can get it in spades. The only problem is this change is like a game of snakes and ladders—where both the snakes and the ladders are slippery slides to disaster. It is time to face the facts.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Confounding a confluence of conservatives.
It is all happening Monday at Toronto’s stuffy old Albany Club. As I told my host last time I was invited to the club, this is no place for a left-wing liberal. The 125-year old building on King Street East has been the spiritual home for Canada’s conservatives since the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A vote to assure Quebec’s future?
Sometimes you have to shake your head, throw up your hands and admit nobody understands Quebec politics. The latest confusion is the promise of four political parties in the province to ditch first-past-the-post voting. They are promising that if one of those parties is elected to power later this year,
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The pollsters have peaked.
“O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive.” Obviously, Sir Walter Scott had a better take on pollsters 200 years ago than we do today. Ontario voters have been bamboozled by the pollsters since the beginning of the current provincial campaign. As much as the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Mixing baloney and beer.
People in Ontario are starting to laugh over the desperate efforts of conservative leader Doug Ford to promise voters anything to vote for him. It took him until halfway through the campaign to come up with something I liked. Doug Ford has promised to have beer in in convenience stores.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: We are not ready to surrender.
What are we coming to? When fair weather warriors are conceding defeat, are we all supposed to lay down our arms? I have been involved in too many comebacks to go along with that. We should not get mad about the current situation. The smart get to work. What have
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Mother’s magic money.
Listening to Ontario conservative leader Doug Ford recently reminded me of my early childhood in Toronto. Doug Ford never seems to worry about where the money for his promises will come from. Neither did I—as a child. I remember during the Second World War and my mother was sole support
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Morning Line: Ontario’s dilemma.
This is probably the most difficult Morning Line Babel-on-the-Bay has produced in ten years. It might just be the one that besmirches our reputation. The question in this election are the polls following the voters or are the voters following the polls? But I am convinced that the pollsters are
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Three-ring circus versus horse race.
Whatever you want to say about the Ontario election that is going on now, it could never have been a three-ring circus production by P.T. Barnum or his partner James Bailey. The simplest explanation is that if you consider the performer who keeps multiple plates spinning atop long sticks, you
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: TV ads do not get the vote out.
There is a fascination with political advertising. It seems to be more for their entertainment value than their efficacy. I just have yet to see an ad that would get a voter off the lounger and out to the polls to vote. I think the best of the current batch
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Opera ain’t over.
First off today, we want to apologize. We have been thoroughly castigated by family and readers for being rude to Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath the other day. I sincerely apologize to her for my comments on her weight. That was inappropriate. At the same time, I stand by my
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