Some of the most surprised Liberal partisans in the recent Ontario election were here in Babel. Nobody, including the Liberal candidate, expected her to win the election. She obviously thought she was the traditional sacrificial lamb. She had been thrown into the fray after the election had been called and
Continue readingTag: Provincial Politics
Babel-on-the-Bay: Which half of Ontario voters voted?
It is sure getting tough for a person to accurately forecast election results. Watching Tom Clark during the excellent election night coverage by Global Television, he asked a lovely looking communications consultant on Ms. Wynne’s team if she was surprised at the strong showing of the Liberals. As a long
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Did you show your voting license?
Tomorrow, we can bemoan the poor turnout of voters. This Ontario election election will only serve to prove it is getting worse. Too many people have disconnected from the basics of our democracy. The only problem is that we are going about the solution the wrong way. We have got
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Third party election advertisers go too far.
There are 34 registered third party advertisers in the current Ontario election. In a perfect world, there would be none. There are more than enough lies emanating from the political parties involved in the election, why do we need more? Is the ability to pay the only criteria to allow
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The collapse of Ontario New Democrats.
This opera of an election will be over very soon. It has seemed like a long and tedious affair. The pundits have made their final forecasts. The newspapers have surprised nobody with their choices. The broadcast media are preparing for their big night. The voters can now have their say.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In the Globe and Mail’s perfect world.
In typical Globe and Mail fashion, the editorial board of the newspaper has decided that their choice for premier, Tim Hudak, can be kept on a short leash. All voters have to do is elect a minority Conservative government for the province. In telling us to vote that way, the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Turning the public against politicians.
If economics is the dismal science, political economy must be the corrupt science and therefore politics is just corrupt. We came to this conclusion when we were bemoaning the fact that some otherwise intelligent people might vote for their Ontario PC Party candidate despite their recognizing the fallacious basis of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Peter’s Predictions: Ontario, 2014.
Listening to the Babel Conservative candidate doing his own radio commercial the other day, there was a feeling of sadness. The sadness was for the voters here in Babel. While this is an attractive Ontario town with a long history, its growth has been as a detached bedroom of Toronto.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Wynne won what?
Was that a flashback to Canada’s federal leaders John Turner and Brian Mulroney in 1984? These people need new material. The Ontario leaders’ television event last night was like a debate in a ladies’ washroom. It had a bad set, erratic camera work, rehashed script, confused organization and a bewildered
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Revving up for Ontario’s big debate.
If the spin doctors fail to do their jobs tomorrow, does that mean the leaders’ debate does not matter? With the most inane of the commentary on Twitter, you will get the impression that the writers of that stuff expect 12-year olds to vote. Despite the spin effort of each
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Horwath harms herself, helps Hudak.
Ontario provincial New Democratic Leader Andrea Horwath is on a slippery slope and she keeps trying to increase speed. By next Tuesday’s leaders’ debate on provincial television networks, she should be reaching terminal velocity. The only problem with it is that in her rush to self destruct she is only
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: When is the truth a ‘channel-changer’?
Why would anyone get excited about the Premier of Ontario wanting to keep her job? She likes her job and she has done it better than many of us expected. When a bored Global Television reporter asked a standard question yesterday about forming a coalition to stay in power, she
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Death of a political party: Absolving Andrea.
Maybe we are becoming jaded by politics but what is happening to the Ontario New Democrats might be momentous. We are watching a bastion disintegrate. It is like a news clip of the imploding of old hotels on the Strip in Las Vegas. Ontario New Democratic Leader Andrea Horwath ran
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Death of a political party: NDP and leadership.
Looking more closely at what is happening to the Ontario New Democrats you realize that the signs have been there all along. This is a party without the will to exist. It has lost impetus, direction, raison d’etre and is adrift without effective leadership. Maybe, as political apparatchiks, we see
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Death of a political party: NDP and the unions.
What always divided Canada’s social democrats, be they liberal or socialist, was never dogma or heroes. It was the unions. The liberals saw Canada’s unions as regressive. They were reactionary, self-centred, living in the past and, in too many cases, tied to international unions that worked against this country’s nascent
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Ontario NDP has a platform?
And here we thought the New Democrats were going to wing it through this election without a platform. They fooled us again! Here we are with three weeks more to go and Leader Andrea Horwath has announced a platform—such as it is. The New Democrat document seems to be mainly
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Hudak had the answer and blew it.
All along, we were assuming that Ontario Conservative Leader Timmy Hudak was saving his ace in the hole for late in his campaign. He would have had it as his clincher. It was allowing the sale of beer and wine in convenience stores. It was assumed that he intended to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Learning Timmy Hudak’s ‘rithmatic.
One of the problems politicians face is that voters often take you literally. If you are stupid enough to tell voters that you are going to create a million jobs by firing another 100,000 people who are working, you leave them struggling with the mathematics. The key to this is
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The pollsters also need to get real.
Here we are less than half way into the Ontario provincial election and the pollsters are getting more attention than the politicians. Get a life folks. This is far from over. Where does this election stand when as many as half the voters are not even aware of when the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Let’s give the voters a time-out.
The City of Toronto is in the most trouble. It really needs a break. The city and even the province are suffering from hyper-politicossis. It is a rare disease that can happen when too much political activity drives the voters to distraction. Even worse, they take out their frustrations on
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