They can scrub him, fix his hair and dress him properly but it hardly adds to his ability to lead. Patrick Brown might hold the title of Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader but does not make him one. Leadership is more than winning the leadership job by signing up more people from the Sub-Continent than […]
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Babel-on-the-Bay: On political suicide.
It is not that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is not smart. Never having the opportunity to meet her and talk with her, it is not even fair to say she is politically stupid. It just seems that she comes at political questions from a very narrow perspective. And that could be because of limited political […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In search of Ontario’s liberalized beer sales.
It was a pilgrimage. The objective was to experience booze in an Ontario grocery store. There was no such grocery store in Barrie. Our city is too unimportant to the Ontario government to have beer in grocery stores. Last weekend we stayed in Toronto and early Sunday morning set out to see beer in a […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A conservative budget from Premier Wynne.
Patrick Brown, eat your heart out. As leader of Ontario’s Conservative Party, it is no fun having all your good potential tax moves made by conservatives in liberal clothing. The Ontario budget read so dutifully by Finance Minister Charles Sousa the other day made a mockery of liberalism and usurped traditional Conservative space. Imagine if […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Finding out the truth on Cap and Trade.
It is like you are saving the world one added tax at a time. Only politicians would believe that the refineries and gas providers would be constrained from polluting by a tax on the end users. And why is the consumer tax imposed before the supposed industry caps are even attempted? Ontario’s new Cap and […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It’s leadership that builds our future.
This is just an idle thought for a bleak February in Barrie. It is what a difference leadership can make. This comes to mind with the sour grapes announcement by Laurentian University that they are dumping their partnership staff and students at Georgian College. It reflects the abysmal failure of the Ontario Ministry of Training, […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It’s a Wynne-Wynne for wine in Ontario.
It was like a fanfare of trumpets and drums for the announcement of the coming of some decent wine to Ontario grocery stores. Not immediately and not all at once and with a myriad of confusing rules but foreign and domestic wine will be available in some grocery stores this fall and more in the […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: An Honourable Member from Barrie.
In writing about the honourable members we elect to our legislatures and parliament yesterday, an image kept coming to mind of our new Member of Parliament for Barrie–Springwater—Oro-Medonte. It is not a positive image. The honourable gentleman who now represents the riding is an acolyte of Patrick Brown, the new leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Honourable Members All!
A reader brought up what he considers a serious weakness in first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting yesterday. It is the assumption that we elect “honourable members’ to our legislatures and the House of Commons and select the same for our Senate. The member we elect with at least a plurality is assumed capable of representing all voters […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Incremental inclinations of the incompetents.
The banker has been heard from. The other day we noted that Ontario wine drinkers were waiting to hear about liberalizing wine sales in Ontario. We have been waiting for a long time for this and it seems that we will be waiting even longer. It is turning into a bravura performance of incrementalism. The […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Sometimes you do not want to be right.
So, do you feel better after the Whitby-Oshawa provincial by-election? What do you expect when only 25 per cent of the voters would brave the cold to vote? Frankly, the results might have been the same on a warm spring day. Nothing changed. The only good news for the day is that auto repair places […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The perils of political predictions in by-elections
A friend called the other evening. He wanted to know who would win tonight’s provincial by-election in Christine Elliott’s former electoral district of Whitby-Oshawa. Once again we had to patiently explain that it is impossible to predict. The opinion polls that say the Conservatives have the best chance are useless. The big rally the other […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: WHERE’S THE BEER?
Do you have beer in your grocery store? Are you one of the favoured few in Ontario? Here in Barrie we are being discriminated against. We are being denied a proper university here in central Ontario and we cannot even drown our sorrows in grocery-store beer. It is not as though our Liberal MPP can […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It’s not the pipelines, it’s the bitumen.
Thank goodness for mayors who can call a spade a spade. Not every city enjoys that luxury. The only problem is that mayors and their municipalities have no jurisdiction over pipelines. What they do is posture for their voters and then conveniently remember it is not their bailiwick when the going gets tough. Toronto Mayor […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ontario Premier Wynne wins India.
Patrick Brown MPP eat your heart out. You are no longer India’s darling. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has won the media wars in the world’s largest democracy. In homophobic India, a lesbian politician from Canada was a big hit. It never occurred to us Canadians that Kathleen Wynne taking her husband Jane with her was […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Patrick Brown where are you?
Patrick Brown MPP needs to decide whether he is his provincial party’s leader or its chief apparatchik. In politics, an apparatchik is a person who usually toils in the background of a party coming up with and implementing strategies and tactics with which to win power. Watching Mr. Brown at work in politics over the […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Justice denied: The Yatim trial.
At one time the Toronto police force was among the most respected in Canada. It had the overwhelming support and trust of the citizens it served. That is no longer true. The trial of Constable James Forcillo for murdering Sammy Yatim has told Toronto citizens that the police consider themselves above the law. The lesson […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Sub-Continent votes won’t help Brown.
He must be joking. Toronto Star writer Martin Regg Cohn tells us that there is some sort of contest going on for the votes of the Sub-Continent Diaspora in Ontario. If Opposition Leader Patrick Brown and Premier Kathleen Wynn are really in this contest, it seems like a foolish expense for a larger portion of […]
Continue readingScripturient: The Political Agnostic
Watching the American political debates, especially the increasingly vituperative and acerbic Republican debates, reminds me again why I am a political agnostic when it comes to party politics. I simply cannot believe that any single political entity, …
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: What? Ontario politics corrupt?
The reason this writer has retained a membership in the Ontario Liberal Party for many years has nothing to do with approving what is going on. It is the belief that the change that is so desperately needed has to come from within the party. Nobody can effect the reforms needed from outside. Any long-term […]
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