Olivia Chow wants to be your kids' role model

Chow demonstrating with Islamist hatemonger and antisemitic al Quds Day organizer Zafar Bangash

NDP MP Olivia Chow has been making the rounds pushing her memoirs and in an effort to boost sales, is coyly hinting about her widely presumed entry into Toronto's 2014 mayoral race.

Part of the purpose of Chow's tedious exercise in narcissism, titled My Journey, is to whitewash her past with some revisionist history.

As The Globe and Mail reports:  

Ms. Chow also tries to clear the air on the accusations that she and Mr. Layton lived in subsidized units when they both had apartments in a downtown Toronto co-op housing building before and after they were married.

“Both Jack and I paid full market rent for our apartments,” she writes, later adding, “The self-appointed lynch mob sought to destroy the safe haven Jack and I sought not just for our family but for the community. To this day, the slander is repeated by people who mistakenly believed it at the time – as well as by opponents who know better.”

Since Ms Chow is claiming it's "slander" to accuse her and her husband, who were making a combined annual income of almost $150,000 of exploiting taxpayers and abusing their position by helping themselves to subsidized housing, then she may want to take issue with the official record of the Legislature of Ontario.

According to Hansard (the Legislature's official transcripts), a 1998 exchange between Provincial Housing Minister Al Leach and MPP's Rosario Marchese, Terence Young, and John Gerretsen went as follows:

Mr Young: In New York City today, I'm sure you're aware, Minister -- I don't know if the committee members are aware -- there are rental control units occupied by wealthy movie stars, $2,000 a month or whatever. We've seen a situation here where two Toronto councillors with the combined income of I think over $130,000 to $140,000 a year were both living in government-assisted housing. How do we prevent wealthy people from living in housing subsidized by their fellow taxpayers and just get money to the people who have the need?

Mr Marchese: They were paying market value, Terry.

Mr Gerretsen: Those people were paying market value.

Hon Mr Leach: I'm aware of the councillors in question. I understand that they are no longer living there but they were paying market value. But as I pointed out earlier, the market value that was charged to a co-op was about $900 a month where the actual cost of operating the unit was $1,200 a month, so that people who claimed that they were paying market value were still getting a substantial subsidy from the taxpayers of Ontario. There is no doubt about that whatsoever. I believe that the individuals you are talking about, who will go nameless, are no longer in that circumstance.

Mr Marchese: Would that be Jack Layton and Olivia Chow?

Hon Mr Leach: I think if you look around the city of Toronto council, you might find that there are still a couple who are living in co-op housing units.

Mr Marchese: I used to live in one too.

Hon Mr Leach: It's a good concept as long as you pay your full share. If you want to pay $1,200 a month, which is the actual operating cost, be my guest, but don't live in a co-op saying you're paying market rent of $900 when it costs $1,200 to operate and you're getting a subsidy of $300 from the taxpayers of Ontario.

When asked about Toronto's current mayor, Chow's pat line, which she has repeated in a number of interviews, is that she doesn't 'think Rob Ford is a very good role model for the kids.'

Oh. So is that what we elect our mayors to do, be role models for 8 year olds?

Actually, 'a role model for the kids'  isn't a consideration when I cast a vote. I want a politician who tries to keep election promises and takes the use of public expenditures and the wishes of constituents very seriously. As long as he or she is doing a good job representing my interests, as far as a politician's personal life goes, as the expression goes, I couldn't give a toss.

If being a role model is the case, then one could as easily question the value of the leadership of a dopey pothead who only got his job because he has a famous last name. Or that of a pompous liar who frequented hand job parlors.

Ms Chow's repeated criticism of Ford's adequacy as a role model suggests she thinks that she would make a suitable substitute in that department.

There probably aren't a lot of people who would want someone for a role model who is a rich person who shrilly accuses people of "slander" for calling her out for milking taxpayers for $300 a month.

For that matter, I'm not sure how someone who has spent almost all her adult life in the public trough as a professional politician, with no notable political achievement to her name other than being the junior partner in a political marriage, qualifies as a role model. But you wouldn't know that from the way the liberal media fawns over Ms. Chow.

While they were both MP's Jack Layton and Olivia Chow could be described as Mr. & Mrs. Gravy Train. The pair of them charged over $1.1 million per year to Canadian taxpayers in expenses alone so they could maintain their lavish lifestyle.

Rob Ford has voluntarily returned his salary increases back to the City each year and cut his own office budget and expenses. Considering that, Olivia Chow may want to stop using her "role model" line, because upon closer examination, compared to Rob Ford, she may not do too well in that area either.

h/t Sanwin