The revolution you ask for
When I was in high school studying European history we studied revolutions and explored the age-old hypotheses of whether they are brought on by rising or declining expectations. Did people…
Ontario
“Patrick! Come back!”
In the iconic western, Shane, the gunfighter rides off into the prairie night and the movie ends. I had no idea that Ontario Conservative MPP Patrick Brown would come back.…
Righting policy on the right.
Former Tory Leader Patrick Brown thought he had it made last November. He had the policy for the 2018 provincial election nailed down. He had what he thought was a…
Confidential candidate Caroline.
How much do we really know about Caroline Mulroney? She wants to be a member of the Ontario legislature. She wants to be leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.…
Measuring mediocrity.
Having been party to writing political rule books in the past, it took little time to find the loopholes and errors in the 2018 Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership rule book.…
When the music stops.
The game is called Musical Chairs. You might have played it as a child. If there are ten players, you start with nine chairs together in line, alternating facing in…
And now there are three.
Even in this shortest of all leadership races, it is too early to produce a morning line on the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party contest. How are you expected to consider…
Brown’s fans fight for fairness.
How do you petition public opinion? How many signatures on Facebook would impress the hoi polloi? Would you send the results to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook? Just how do…
And Wynne sits in the catbird seat.
The ‘catbird seat’ is a wonderful American idiom for that perfect position in politics providing the politician with a position to observe the disarray of his or her foes. As…
A house divided.
The Progressive Conservative Party in Ontario is in turmoil. Since last Wednesday, the party has been playing its own Game of Thrones. Slights—real or imagined—are earning retaliation and factions of…
“Who killed Cock Robin?”
“All the birds of the air fell a-sighing and a-sobbing, when they heard the bell toll for poor Cock Robin.” (English nursery rhyme, author unknown.) Former Barrie councillor, former MP…
Ontario banks on the LCBO.
That banker is back. Do you remember Ed Clark? He was the guy from TD Bank who advised Premier Kathleen Wynne to sell off Ontario’s Hydro One electricity distribution system.…
Ontario votes in June.
While political pundits have obviously thought long and hard on Ontario Premier Wynne’s possible political problems this spring, I doubt her main concern is misogyny. Nobody is mad at her…
The Lion proposes to his Princess.
We read that it was the Tenth Sikh Guru Gobind Singh, who determined that Sikh men could identify as Singh (lion) and Sikh women as Kaur (princess). This happened more…
Politics is a numbers racket.
It is time to admit it: I used to be a numbers runner. Different from the numbers racket in the United States, in Canada, it is a political game. I…
We will call that a Wynne Win.
Did nobody at the Tim Horton’s head office know about the change in minimum wage for Ontario scheduled for the first of January? Did all those franchisees fail to tell…
I Didn’t Blog in December
I was distracted by things more awesome than blogging. What could that be? I’ll tell you some day. For now, I’m back, complaining about litter. Everyone is focusing on a…
A New Year rich in political opportunity.
This political junkie is looking forward to 2018. Starting with the Ontario election in June, Quebec scheduled for October 1 and then the American mid-term elections in November, there will…
Naughty or Nice: Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne.
It is hard to say where Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne would be on Santa Claus’ ‘naughty or nice’ list. I expect Santa to give her a pass into the ‘nice’…