It was the picture of Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown on an elephant with one of his Ontario Conservative caucus mates that has already won picture of the year for us. When you think of how many times Brown has visited India on the Canadian taxpayers’ money, you would think the people of the sub-continent […]
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Babel-on-the-Bay: Waiting for Woodbine.
It was last July that Toronto City Council finally agreed that the Woodbine Entertainment facilities in Rexdale could become a full-fledged resort casino. Now we wait. It is hardly going to happen overnight. It is just that we have high hopes for Woodbine to become the premier casino resort location in Canada. Of course, we […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The indestructible Premier Wynne.
Readers of Babel-on-the-Bay have gotten the impression that we do not approve of the Ontario government of Premier Kathleen Wynne. The truth is there is a small possibility that she might gain some traction with us if she did not call herself a Liberal. As it stands, she has nothing to commend her beyond the […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: And one determined dipper.
Over the years we have realized that most of our regular readers of Babel-on-the-Bay are among the more progressive liberals. We certainly enjoy a healthy level of readership and get a good number of supportive e-mails from them. The practice of rabble.ca picking up some of our commentaries has also led to some very interesting […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Looking Back: Alberta’s Orange Crush?
It was the second most important political turnaround in Canada this past year. It was not so much that the Alberta New Democrats crushed anyone but the Conservatives of Alberta got their comeuppance after 44 years in power. The Conservative dynasty created by the late Peter Lougheed was in a train wreck. There was no […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Odd Couple of Canadian Politics in 2016.
There is something perversely funny about the coupling of two of Canada’s least likely politicians. This thought came to mind in wondering about the impact of this pair on Canadian politics in 2016. They are the two opposition leaders in Ontario and Quebec. They are politician Patrick Brown from Barrie, Ontario and neophyte politician, millionaire […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: It’s all small beer in Ontario.
Liberals in Ontario got an e-mail yesterday from Finance Minister Charles Sousa raving about beer being here in 58 Ontario grocery stores. He even notes that it is in time for Christmas. (Now would not a six pack be a perfect gift for the Toronto Star carrier?) But it sure is tough to figure out […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A six-pack and a toke for Premier Wynne.
The publicity opportunities for Ontario’s premier come thick and fast with Justin Trudeau in the prime minister’s office in Ottawa. The other day Premier Kathleen Wynne got in on the act out at Pearson Airport welcoming Syrian refugees to Canada. And now that we finally have beer in a few Ontario grocery stores, she wants […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ontario Liberals: Lazy or Stupid?
You would think that the Ontario government would at least look at the results of the last provincial and federal elections before accepting the federal electoral district redistribution in the province. All they needed to do was Google the word “gerrymander” and they would have understood what was wrong with the federal redistribution of the […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: By way of apology to our Barrie Whigs.
This is about as close as Babel-on-the-Bay can come to an apology. For the life of this blog, we have tended to disparage a faction of the local Liberals in Barrie. Calling them Whigs was not a compliment. (Whigs are Liberals about 100 years out of date.) This change of heart needs an explanation. It […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Life in a world without heroes.
There are no longer heroes in North America. Small children used to look up to police in their uniforms and want to emulate them. Now they fear them. And it is the fault of the police themselves. The police have placed themselves beyond our reach. They have made a sham of the controls society should […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A tale of two finance ministers.
It was the best of times–for the provincial government. It was the worst of times–for the federal government. A blogger ahead of his time from the 19th Century, Charles Dickens understood that conundrum. Dickens wrote best sellers as pamphlets and fed his readers a chapter at a time. Today, anything more complex than 140 characters […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Pay yourself first.
It is a rule that the rich have to follow. They are taught that you always pay yourself first. It is how they stay rich. Take the situation of Chief Executive Officer Paul Godfrey at Postmedia. The company loses hundreds of millions of dollars every year and the stock is in the toilet. If the […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Two thumbs up for the Charbonneau show.
As Cole Porter put it in “Another Op’nin’, Another Show” to open his hit musical Kiss me Kate, there really is no business like show business. And there is nothing more insidious than the omertá of the Mafia and the corruption of politicians. Madame Justice France Charbonneau’s enquiry into construction in Quebec ran an extra […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Can the provinces keep the money?
It seems that the point has been made about climate change: Industry can destroy the environment if they pay a tax on it. And that is why the provinces are so eager to cooperate with the Trudeau government. It is all determined by who gets the money. It makes you wonder how the federal government […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Ontario: Socially responsible or greedy?
Fear not fellow Ontarians, we will soon have some beer in some of our supermarkets. We are told that this is all being done to be socially responsible about booze. What it looks like is one huge cash grab. Step one in the process of making this new(?) liberalized(?) event happen is to have a […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The makeover of Brother Brown.
The best thing you can say about Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown is that he is a real piece of work. He is a person who works very hard at being what he is not. And if you think it only cost him $2 million to take over the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Fix policing by fixing police boards.
It seems there was an attempt recently to get the Toronto Police Services Board thinking about reform of policing. It is reported that the board spent $200,000 of public money to have a management consulting firm report on suggestions for reform. It is likely that the money might have been
Continue readingScripturient: Proportional Representation in Canada
Another Canadian election has gone by where the majority government is formed by a party winning only 40% of the popular vote. This has political watchers and pundits increasingly vocal about changing the electoral system. But most of them agree it needs changing. So far, however, the Liberals are mum
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Is politics really a team sport?
In the Pearson-Trudeau era of Liberal politics in Canada the chief political apparatchik of the times was the later Senator Keith Davey. He was a friend and a mentor. He often told us that the greatest political failing in politics is loyalty. It was only after he departed into the
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