Yearly Archive: 2014

A man I know, who was born in the Caribbean but has lived in Canada since he was eleven, was telling me about his recent Caribbean holiday. He said that the wind on his cheek and the smell of the sea felt like home to him.  A few days later I was shovelling my driveway. The snow had stopped, the stars were sparking in the night-time sky and tires squeaked as cars passed by. I thought: Winter is home to me. Toronto has had the sort of winter we used to have in Guelph when I was a boy. I...

Everybody’s got their shirt in a knot about a speech Peter Mansbridge gave to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. I know everybody’s got their shirt in a knot because a lot of journalists are telling me so. Of course, it’s only other journalists who have their shirts in a knot, but it’s news because Mansbridge was paid, do you hear me, paid, to speak to this group. Because he took their money, he’s supposedly now in bed with those dirty hucksters who run the oil sands and can’t possible read the news anymore because he’s tainted goods.  Maybe the...

I won’t be watching Rob Ford on Jimmy Kimmel tonight but I can imagine how it will go. As usual, Ford will mistake notoriety for renown and a high-profile appearance with appreciation. Even so, I don’t know why we’re all so fussed about our current mayor, he joins a long line of officeholders who accomplished little and didn’t go on to do much after they left. My memory of modern mayors begins with Nathan Phillips (1955-1962). The best story about him is what he missed. In the dying hours of his time as Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker told his staff...

Dear Steve Paikin: I read your blog about you and your son and I agree, you have a serious problem. As a high-profile journalist covering politics and public issues on TVO, how do you deal with your son Zach’s plan to seek the Liberal nomination in the federal riding of Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas? As you rightly ask, can you continue to be seen as neutral, do you have to stop covering Liberal politics, or are you exaggerating your concern? The last question is the simplest. No, you are not exaggerating. But how do you balance being a father with being a journalist?...

Notice anything about your hydro bill recently? Prices are up, year-over-year, anywhere between 9 per cent and 14 per cent depending on time-of-day usage. The biggest increase, 14 per cent, is for off-peak. So much for doing a load of laundry at 10 p.m. to save money. And it’s only going to get worse. Ontario used to have a ready supply of the cheapest power in North America. Soon we’re going to be among the jurisdictions at the top end. The cause? Decades of poor management and worse political oversight. The original goal of Ontario Hydro, back in 1906 when Adam...

In the bird world, there are wonderful descriptions of groups and flocks. Just to cite three examples: a murmuration of starlings, an exaltation of larks, and my personal favourite, a charm of hummingbirds. Why not apply the same possibilities to human gatherings? So you’d get a tribulation of politicians, a banality of sportscasters, a trepidation of lawyers, a pugnaciousness of hockey players, an exhaustion of Olympics and a reach of bloggers.

Whatever happened to budget secrecy? Here we are on the day Finance Minister Jim Flaherty brings down his budget and we already know that he will announce an end to the immigrant investor plan, legislation for better consumer prices in Canada versus the U.S., as well as more money for skills instruction, infrastructure projects and the auto sector. And, oh yes, there will be an overall deficit, supposedly the last for the Harper government.  And I read all this in my morning paper, as supplied by officials in the know and the minister himself. Time was when a journalist who...

We’re all trying to get used to the new polymer currency, battling with bills that stick together, and worrying about them melting in a parked car if summer ever comes. For my part, I’ll accept the Bank of Canada’s claims that the bills last 2-1/2 times longer than the old cotton-paper series. Over time, we’ll learn if they really are difficult to counterfeit. And yes, we’ve joined some 30 other countries using polymer. I’m fine with all that. What bothers me is that we’re stuck with portraits of people that can only be described as duds on each of the five...

What is it about TV personalities that makes print journalists go all weak at the knees? The profile in Saturday’s Globe and Mail about Arlene Dickinson, a panelist on CBC-TV’s Dragons’ Den, is positively fawning. Yet it’s written by Jackie McNish, one of the paper’s hardest-hitting investigative journalists. Dickinson is so deft at what she does that she cries while telling McNish about helping an entrepreneur. The article ends focussed on Dickinson’s napkin, still moist from the tracks of her tears about someone else’s travails.  Gad. Nowhere in the profile does it say that precious few of the “deals” that...

I saw a statistic recently that between 1892 and 2012 the stock market rose 9 per cent a year. I thought that was a huge annual increase, far beyond what I’d ever heard before, so I asked a group of friends who have worked on Bay Street for their thoughts. Yes, they said, that sounds about right, but don’t forget that’s a gross number. You have to subtract fees, take account for inflation and pay taxes. The real number, net, net, net, as they said, is more like 3 per cent annually. Three per cent! Such a low result came...

Flush with success in the early going of his mission to Israel, Stephen Harper has announced that his next sortie will be to Scotland. “There are five million Canadians of Scottish origin. We hope to snare all of their votes,” said a spokesman for the prime minister who asked for anonymity because of his Irish roots. Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, not wanting to fall behind in the global quest for popularity, said he will travel next week to the Philippines to shore up support through the families of nannys working in Canada. The prime minister’s trip to Scotland will include...

I’ve just been reading a horror story and it’s not by Stephen King. The title is “The State of Ontario’s Indebtedness: Warning Signs to Act.” Published by the Fraser Institute, you can read it here. Let me summarize it for you. Every year Ontario runs a deficit and that loss does not go away. It gets added to the debt. No surprise there, but no one seems to be paying attention. Certainly Ontario Minister of Finance Charles Sousa seems content with the way things are. But compared to California, which is supposedly a basket case, we’re far worse off. Ontario’s...

Rather than make foolish predictions this year, here’s the top seven things I’d like to see:  1. The Ontario Securities Commission charge some high mucky-muck we all know with a criminal offence, rather than just the usual passing parade of small-fry pump-and-dump artists. 2. The rear-end of Rob Ford in this fall’s mayoralty race. No apology required when he exits public life. 3. Prime Minister Stephen Harper offer the same loyalty to staff and MPs that he expects from them. 4. Well-written stories worth reading in my local papers. 5. Tolls on major Toronto roads to raise revenue and reduce...

Time to revisit the predictions I made a year ago for 2013. You can read them here or believe me when I describe them. My first idea was so far off base I got both parts wrong. I said that Sandra Pupatello would be chosen leader of the Ontario Liberal Party and be defeated in an election later in the year by Tim Hudak and the Progressive Conservatives. Of course, Kathleen Wynne got the nod, there was no election, and Hudak doesn’t look like he will ever win despite the government’s multiple failings. One wrong. Second, I said that the the all-new...

When the Order of Canada was launched in 1967 I had the naive notion that it would honour only a select few deserving Canadians. After all, the high-minded motto is Desiderantes Meliorem Patriam, which can be translated as, “They desire a better country.” How many people could pass muster to make it over that stratospheric bar? Well, it turns out, quite a few. Another in the semi-annual list of honorees has just been released and there are far too many names announced that don’t deserve such status. Indeed, the number of winners is beginning to be embarrassing. While the top level,...