Another bad night for Canadian democracy.
When will we treat these election debates as what they are? When they told us that there would be six leadership hopefuls and five moderators for the one English-language debate,…
Federal Politics
The Morning Line: 43rd Canadian General Election
Welcome to Babel-on-the-Bay’s starting point in understanding the coming election. Bear in mind that these are starting odds only. There will likely be changes by election day. Be sure you…
Jason Kenney: Doug Ford’s understudy.
Every actor needs an understudy. It just seems appropriate for the much-detested premier Doug Ford in Ontario to have a truly obnoxious stand-in during the federal election. It is conservative…
It’s time to deliver the profile.
No, this is not for that American television show. The profile we will be presenting one day this week is best described in horse race terms. It is called a…
Don’t sweat the big stuff.
This election campaign is built around small stuff. We even have small minded politicians to keep the arguments unimportant. Nobody seems to want to fight over the important things that…
TVA provides a forum for losers.
Making sense of the political sparring on Pierre Karl Péladeau’s French language television network, TVA, on Wednesday was easy. It was the time for Yves-François Blanchet of the Bloc Québécois…
Doug Ford: The man who isn’t here.
We hear that premier Doug Ford is low bridging this federal election. It is at the begging of his friend Andrew Scheer. Conservative leader Scheer did not want to be…
The confusion of the pollsters.
It is difficult sometimes to explain why the opinion pollsters are straining themselves in this current Canadian election. If we had proportional voting, it would all be so easy. It…
Death by a thousand tax cuts.
Canadian voters are being nickel-dimed and conned by their politicians. Even Elizabeth May and her greenies have joined into the game of making promises, with funds, from where, they do…
The Over-Analyzed Election.
It’s a circus on the hustings. It is like somebody tossed a cherry bomb into the outhouse. Everybody has an opinion to lay on you as to what is happening…
In the Sorry State of Sorry.
You never think of Sorry as a place but the current election in Canada seems to be parked in a Sorry State. And why do I get the sad feeling…
Wilson-Raybould: A woman of a certain age.
Maybe after the election. Jody Wilson-Raybould can take her own one-person show on the road. At the present, she is attempting the more difficult task of getting elected as an…
“How dare you?” Greta Thunberg.
Somebody must have explained to the 16-year old from Sweden that you have to be brash to get noticed in North America. She would be quite unlikely to say ‘How…
Who builds our nation?
This is an important ask. We have already had enough of this traditional election. We have been listening to the platforms. We already know the ideologies of the various parties.…
Trump tramples on our territory.
The other day something caught my eye on the opening page of Microsoft’s browser. The company was doing a survey to find out why people dislike their MSN News. I…
The timeless media tempest.
It seems as though this election is taking place just for the benefit of the news media. I am not sure of the right word for it but it is…
Oh, the drama of it all.
It is too bad the media cannot find more important news. The best answer to the current media tempest came to us the other day from New Brunswick. This reader…
So far, so what?
The dispatches from the front line of the current election strife are mostly about stupidity, compounded by incompetence. Despite the usual whining, scratching and digging up old pictures of each…
We can do that ourselves, thank you.
This ongoing concern for foreign countries interfering with our federal election is more of a joke than a threat. It is not that it could not happen, but why bother?…