Goodbye Bill Blair: You failed us.
Toronto has not lost a police chief. It has gained freedom. It has left an era of bad policing behind. It has new opportunities for better policing. It has new…
Peter Lowry
The Hair’s ‘Politics of Division’
Asking a voter why s/he is going to vote for the Conservatives this fall can cause a rising anger. The anger is hardly directed at the voter. This person has…
The Candidate: Pre-writ canvassing.
Part 3 of our series for Canada’s federal candidates. These spring days are golden times for canvassing. No political candidate worth the name can ever waste a single day without…
Whining about Premier Wynne and wine.
Once again with feelings folks! We just found out from Ontario’s official newspaper the Toronto Star that the Ontario budget will not include selling good wine in grocery stores. We…
No Cap ‘n Gown for Premier Wynne’s Cap ‘n Trade.
If you really want to screw something up, you just have to wait long enough for Ontario’s Premier Kathleen Wynne to get involved. When you know that your opponents will…
Legislating Ideology.
It is when you listen to the federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver that you realize what a breath of fresh air the late Finance Minister Jim Flaherty must have been…
Wynne works with the Arc of Political Change.
Political change is never a straight line. No politico ever wants to admit that they were not doing things properly nor do they ever want to make a 90 or,…
The Candidate: That pre-writ lit.
Part 2 of our series for Canada’s federal candidates. There are many arguments about the literature required by candidates in the pre-writ period (the time between being chosen as the…
Patrick Brown is the ‘same old, same old.’
Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party is about to succumb to its worst nightmare. The party people thought they could never do worse than Timmy Hudak as their leader. They had obviously…
What’s the Senate all about Hair?
There is something of a contest going on. The Hair might draw the line at taking off his stuffed shirt and streaking the tourists gaping at Ottawa’s Confusion Square but…
A time and place for political deals
Election day in Ontario in 1985. On the way into a candidate’s campaign headquarters, Liberal Leader David Peterson’s executive assistant was leaving and we stopped to chat. There was no…
Alberta stumbles as the Hair’s empire crumbles.
There are at least a couple ridings in Alberta that could attract some smart Liberals for the federal election. Voters in that province are not stupid you know. They might…
The Candidate: “What do we do now?”
That question is never answered in the movie: The Candidate. It is the final line of the film delivered by actor Robert Redford. The bad news for any serious political…
Ontario can have a two-day budget day.
Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa hardly needs us to tell him what to do. Premier Wynne put Ed Clark of TD Bank in charge. That way, she tells Clark and…
We’ve been goosed by Uncle Joe.
Once more the Canadian parliament has been downplayed by the Harper Conservatives. Even as simple an announcement as the date of bringing down the next budget is moved away from…
Don’t care about politics? You’re missing the fun.
The talking heads of the news media tell us that Canadians no longer give a damn about politics. They think it is a yawn. That may be. It might also…