What’s up with Wynne?
It is certainly easy to forget about Kathleen Wynne’s Ontario Liberals during such a beautiful summer. They hardly do anything worthwhile the rest of the year but then they take…
Provincial Politics
Death wish of the Wynne Liberals.
Some observers consider it just arrogance but the problems of Kathleen Wynne’s Ontario government could be based on a subconscious desire to end the sham. And they could end it…
Are we the happiest taxpayers?
According to the Ontario government your choices of booze, beer and wine are now at your finger tips. “We deliver” we are told. It all seems to be designed to…
Jason Kenney’s double duty summer.
Do super heroes ever rest? Not super heroes such as Calgary’s Honourable Jason Kenney MP. He is doing double duty this summer with the challenges to save Ottawa for democracy…
Black Lives Matter organizers should get stuffed.
People who have worked with pop-up organizations over the years have learned to be wary. There are just too many that work the “poor-me” street and trade on Canadians’ instinctive…
Going ‘All In’ on bitumen.
There were two stories in the Toronto Star the other day from Canada’s western oil patch. The major story was the one by business writer David Olive on Suncor’s gutsiest…
Brown tries outrage over Hydro.
It depends where you sit in the Ontario Legislature. The government benches mainly consider Ontario Hydro a golden goose. The opposition benches always consider it the government’s Achilles heel. And…
HOT highway lanes are hilarious.
Was that not a joke recently that Ontario is going to have a lottery to test paying for highway space on public highways? Was April Fools Day held over? That…
Jason Kenney ambles westward.
It is certainly not wedding bells that are breaking up the old Stephen Harper gang. Can you imagine Jason Kenney—Harper’s minister of everything—answering to the call of the West? It…
The new and few principles of Mr. Brown.
Ontario’s provincial Conservative Party leader should have a clearly lettered sign on his chest saying ‘Help send this boy to the premier’s office.’ That way people would have a clue…
PSST, there’s cider at a few grocers.
The Province of Ontario slipped that in when we were not looking. They are allowing the few grocery stores selling some beer to also sell apple cider. And we are…
Who is reforming policing?
It seems everybody is in on the act these days. The Province of Ontario is reviewing the Police Services Act. The City of Toronto keeps appointing committees to solve its…
Cabinet shuffle or spring cleaning?
Canada’s Inuit used to have a traditional remedy for aging that involved putting the elderly on ice flows and waving goodbye. The Ontario Cabinet showed us the modern approach the…
At least Ontario’s Wynne has a plan!
While many are willing to criticize Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, she does have an ‘Action Plan’ to do something about climate change. And, yes, it is easy to criticize. The…
Coming to grips with Ontario health care.
This commentator has never been a big fan of Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins. Being a medical doctor has never been a criterion for the job. Although being ruthless helps.…
Politicians are just like us.
Maybe it is because they are never a hero to their valets that we have never been overly impressed with politicians. As a publicist and confidante to many politicians over…
Fool some people some of the time.
You sometimes wonder what ‘progressive’ means. Babel-on-the-Bay is included in a collection of blogs by progressive Canadian writers. We have come to the conclusion that is a very broad description…
When the wheels fell off for Wynne.
With the current slump in the fortunes of Ontario’s Liberal government, Premier Kathleen Wynne has an uphill climb for the last two years of her mandate. Her problem is that…
Selling Mr. Brown to Ontario.
Early in a career as a political advisor, we were on the way to a meeting about a new candidate when we bumped into another, much more experienced apparatchik, on…
Politics is for the rich in Ontario.
It seems the Ontario Liberals want to keep politics in Ontario as a rich person’s game. After all, how many of us can come up with as much as $7,750…