So, you think Ontario premier Doug Ford is riding the white charger towards a 2022 election victory? You are probably deluding your self. Much can happen in the next two years. And there is more than enough of the old-Ford poking through the current veneer to convince us that he
Continue readingTag: Provincial Election
Babel-on-the-Bay: Parsing the political petulance.
Had an opportunity the other day to measure the mood of local liberals after the humiliation of last June’s provincial election. It was the annual meeting of the provincial party for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte in central Ontario. All you had to do was mention premier Doug Ford and eyes rolled and teeth
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Defectors define democracy.
One of the critical strengths of our Canadian democracy is that we elect people in each electoral district to represent us in parliament. While we might choose them because of the party they represent, they have the right to determine at any time whether or not to be a part
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Doug Ford’s mean streak.
It seems that Douglas Ford Jr.’s mother never told him that what goes around comes around. That is not just a homily. It is a warning. The Ontario premier is asking for trouble with his ham-fisted nastiness. This guy thinks he can use the premier’s office to get even for
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Pushing mediocrity to prove what?
If I learned one thing as a political organizer of many years, it is that you never leave the smallest detail to chance. The same rule applied in business when I had computer programmers reporting to me. I never let a program be released until it had been given a
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Patching the health care problems.
With former Ontario health minister Eric Hoskins helping the federal government and Doug Ford tearing into the make-do solutions in Ontario, we might be in more trouble in adding pharmacare to health care than we thought possible. We already know that Doug Ford’s argument for a patchwork solution is unworkable
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Let’s settle this silly supposition.
According to Toronto Star columnist Bob Hepburn, political guru David Herle says the results for the liberals would have been worse if Wynne had not announced that they would lose. I must be missing some common sense. Since most of my Canadian readers are fairly knowledgeable about politics, I would
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Did Brown lay the table for Ford?
The only newspaper in Ontario that gave a real damn about the lynching of conservative leader Patrick Brown back in January was his hometown Barrie Advance. It is owned by the Toronto Star and while it is just a poor quality shopper in which to wrap grocery flyers, the publication
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: What muted the proportional vote advocates?
It must be the shock of the recent Ontario election has not worn off. You would normally expect a hue and cry by this time for proportional representation in the legislature. It is when you hear about the so-called ‘wasted vote’ and the unfairness of first-past-the-post voting. It is certainly
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A fleeting fondness for Ford.
Does premier Ford really feel the love? Sorry Dougie, it’s temporary. The same rage as put a Ford in the premier’s office can just as quickly send him to the same scrap heap as Kathleen Wynne. Ford began and ended his campaign for Ontario in his mother’s basement. Both he
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Voting Against Your Better Interests – What Just Happened in Ontario
Facts do not necessarily win political arguments. The sooner the progressive left realizes this, the better. As a progressive lefty I’m consistently amazed by the voting patterns of the common people i.e. the people the political left is supposed to represent. Recently in Canada our most populace province decided to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Promises, promises!
Most people are sceptical about political promises. We should certainly be dubious of conservative leader Doug Ford’s recent scattering of promises in the Ontario election. Some, such as paving over the Green Belt around Toronto, had to be withdrawn immediately but he still has a backlog of questionable promises, such
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Don’t blame me, I voted liberal!
From the catbird seat yesterday: I felt as though I was on the lip of an active volcano watching the devastation of the countryside. It was both a sad and a challenging night. A new day dawns and Kathleen Wynne is gone; that is good. We thought Ontario voters were
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: All bets are off.
For the first time since I first got involved in politics, I cannot make a guess on the outcome in an Ontario election. Results that used to be so easy to fathom, have gone murky and I will be hanging out by the television tonight hoping beyond hope that common
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Has Doug Ford ever lied to you before?
Have you dug into Doug Ford’s ‘fully-costed’ plan for Ontario? I trust it has satisfied your thirst for knowledge? It reads like a used-car salesman’s figures done on the back of an envelope. And the figures never add up. But that is the problem we have always had in working
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The political pivot point of 2018.
In every election there is a point of pivot that decides the outcome. It has been fascinating listening to people across Ontario in the current campaign, learning of their concerns and frustrations. And they are concerned and conflicted and caring. They have been looking for solutions. Sometimes the solution can
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Considering consequences of change.
Step right up Ontario. If you want change, you can have it. You can get it in spades. The only problem is this change is like a game of snakes and ladders—where both the snakes and the ladders are slippery slides to disaster. It is time to face the facts.
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Confounding a confluence of conservatives.
It is all happening Monday at Toronto’s stuffy old Albany Club. As I told my host last time I was invited to the club, this is no place for a left-wing liberal. The 125-year old building on King Street East has been the spiritual home for Canada’s conservatives since the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The pollsters have peaked.
“O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive.” Obviously, Sir Walter Scott had a better take on pollsters 200 years ago than we do today. Ontario voters have been bamboozled by the pollsters since the beginning of the current provincial campaign. As much as the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Mixing baloney and beer.
People in Ontario are starting to laugh over the desperate efforts of conservative leader Doug Ford to promise voters anything to vote for him. It took him until halfway through the campaign to come up with something I liked. Doug Ford has promised to have beer in in convenience stores.
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