Captain eHealth endorses the Velvet Touch Widow

Two people who have one thing in common -  their joy in wasting your tax dollars

Funny how Olivia Chow isn't embarrassed about being associated with this drug addict

Hell has frozen over: al Starzeera publishes a pro-Rob Ford editorial

Now that their Rob Ford video was eaten by the Loch Ness Monster and their best efforts to get rid of Ford have only resulted in half of Toronto being convinced that The Star is made up of pathological liars, they may have finally recognized the writing on the wall.

But I doubt it will last.

Since 2010, a common cry from some of my anti-Ford friends has been, “It’s not my Toronto, anymore!” Sure it is. When Miller was mayor I never thought it wasn’t “my Toronto.” I just thought it was my Toronto run by a grandstanding incompetent. 

And this is what those who want Ford gone have never understood: their inability to admit that Miller was a disaster and that Smitherman or Chow would be more of the same.

h/t  The Hammer

Rob Ford's whirlwind shows a Toronto media willing to betray the public interest

In the Stanley Kramer movie Inherit the Wind, the great dancer Gene Kelly, in a rare, strictly dramatic role, played a character named E.K. Hornbeck, based on the famous journalist H.L. Mencken. His character delivers a line in the movie that paraphrases another famous Chicago newspaperman named Finley Peter Dunne, whose work, like Mencken's, also straddled the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

The line is, "the job of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable."

In Toronto, Canada in 2013, the newspapers have taken on the exact opposite role. Rather than serving the interests of the public, they have become a bludgeon being wielded by a snobbish elite to crush the democratic will of a city's citizens.

From the time Rob Ford declared his candidacy as mayor in 2010, a media with the conceit that they were the intellectual tribunes of a progressive city pulled out every stop imaginable to prevent a man they considered too déclassé from becoming Toronto's chief executive. Let's leave aside for the moment that very few Toronto journalists come close to being intellectual or that progressive is a term that is in the eye of the beholder.

Trying to sway the public, The Toronto Star printed outright lies about Ford, including libelous accusations of him assaulting a minor. Its columnists went so far as to say, in essence, that only idiots would vote for Ford. Then, when Ford's support remained solid, The Star's editorial board tried to convince other mayoralty candidates to drop from the race and support their chosen banner-bearer, George Smitherman, a former drug-addict who had overseen the waste of hundreds of millions of dollars of tax money while provincial Health Minister.

The Star wasn't alone in its glaring contempt for Ford. Though generally more restrained than The Star, some writers at The Globe and Mail and some at the National Post put their dismay at the prospect of a Ford victory into print.

Despite all that, Ford handily won the election, and that stuck hard in the "progressive" media's craw for a pair of reasons. One is that media players like to think how influential they are, and the election was a fierce blast of cold water that woke them up to the falsehood of that presumption. More painful was the bitter shock that their sophisticated, urbane. "world class" city was going to be headed by a sweaty populist who actually was more interested in the opinions of the man-on-the-street than those of the sanctimonious editorialists at One Yonge Street.

Suddenly, the special interests of the arts community, the unions, and the social engineers were no more important than that of John Q. Public. As far as the media nabobs were concerned, that could not stand and no rules or standards would keep them from undoing it.

Rob Ford was stalked, harassed, bullied, libeled, defamed, and subjected to standards and scrutiny that no politician in the western hemisphere has ever faced before.

But none of that was intended to serve the public interest. It was only to feed the vanity and conceits of a hypocritical, self-obsessed media class and their cronies.

As a number of people have noted, The Toronto Star violated basic ethics and journalistic standards to spread a story about Rob Ford that is based on hearsay from thoroughly disreputable sources. Today The Globe and Mail did the same, dredging 30 years into the past of Ford's brother, Etobicoke Councilor Doug Ford.

And for whom?

The same media for years buried a report of Jack Layton's being caught by police during his visit to a hand-job parlour that occurred while he was married and a City Councilor. But he was a media darling, so they colluded to keep it quiet until the Toronto Sun finally published the story. And then journalists from The Star and others tried to discredit it or say it was not relevant.

There are worse stories then that about Jack Layton floating around regarding some of his activities in the 1980's and 1990's. But he has a family and it would not be in the public interest to publish them. What matters most about a public servant is how they serve the public. Like Ford, Layton had his personal failings, but like Ford, as far as his public service was concerned, he behaved honorably. But where the media turned a blind eye to Layton's foibles, Ford's are magnified into firestorms.

Much of Toronto's media is behaving like reprehensible hypocrites. What tales might emerge if one was to dig 30 years into the past of left-wing councillors like Adam Vaughan and Kristyn Wong-Tam, one wonders? We know what one finds when looking into the past of The Toronto Star's last anointed selection for mayor, George Smitherman, and it's worse than anything of which Rob Ford was ever accused. But Smitherman got a free pass from The Star because he represented their values, where Ford faces an onslaught because he is an affront to them.

Toronto's public elected Rob Ford to do a job, and Toronto's media has shown there is no depth to which they will not sink in order to undermine him and prevent him from doing it.  But make no mistake about it, the interests The Toronto Star serves are not those of the average Toronto citizen.

Doug Ford says he and Mayor Rob Ford would be willing to step down and go to an election tomorrow. “Let the people be the judge and jury."
— CP24 (@CP24) May 25, 2013

Former Smitherman aide warns that the Toronto Star is growing Rob Ford's support by bullying him

TORONTO – A former political aide to mayoral candidate George Smitherman said Thursday that support is growing for Rob Ford amid allegations the mayor appears in a video smoking what appears to be crack cocaine.

Bruce Davis suggested the media is creating public sympathy for Ford by hounding him for answers.

“When I talk to people out there, they have a lot of sympathy for the mayor,” Davis said. “They don’t have a lot of sympathy for people interrupting a press conference, or challenging him in the Tim Hortons drive-thru. That doesn’t go with Canadians.”

Gee, this is all sounding strangely familiar...

hmm..rudely, repeatedly interrupting a press conference like The Toronto Star's Royson James did here, perhaps?

Is provincial Liberal candidate Sarah Thomson attempting to skirt election finance regulations?

Left in the mailboxes of Trinity Spadina residents

Updated Aug 27 based on additional info from The Globe and Mail (which in turn was based on info from this article).

Residents of Toronto's Trinity-Spadina riding have been the recipients of a surprise treat in their mailboxes this past week. A free copy of Women's Post.

Reports indicate that having it haphazardly turn up in mailboxes throughout the riding is something that has not happened before and it doesn't seem to be happening in other ridings. Women's Post is published by none other than Trinity-Spadina Liberal candidate Sarah Thomson, whose face, with the large caption "Sarah Thomson weighs in on the tough choices facing Ontario voters"  graces the copy that residents received without solicitation. Inside the summer 2011 issue, on the first printed page, is a full page editorial by Ms Thomson in which she presents an odd, rambling, boating analogy, the point of which is that Ontarians should vote for the political party for which she is running in the upcoming election.

Despite the ads and a few fluff articles about food, the issue is self-promotion for Sarah Thomson. Does this qualify as campaign literature? 

Ms Thomson, who has never held public office, has shown as a political candidate that she is not shy about being opportunistic. But using the opportunity as publisher and owner of her own magazine which she is using to promote her candidacy may or may not land her in hot water with Elections Ontario.

Elections Ontario regulations say that candidates cannot spend their own money on a campaign. If they do spend money on themselves, it must be through the campaign account and the maximum any individual can donate to an individual can donate to any candidate is $1240.00. Campaign literature must be identified as such and as authorized by the candidate of riding association, or a third party, but obviously a candidate cannot be their own third party.

The printing and distribution of the summer Women's Post would likely exceed the $1240 amount. An official at Elections Ontario who wished to remain anonymous said, "This is a grey area and we'd really need to take a close look at it to make a determination about whether it complies with the rules or not, and that will take a while."

Ms Thomson was an unsuccessful candidate in the last Toronto mayoral election. She was forced to withdraw from the contest due to dismal support. In the final days of the campaign, she lent her endorsement and active campaigning to her rival,  the Liberal former Deputy Premier of Ontario, George Smitherman. Many people speculated at the time that some sort of deal had been struck with the Liberals, and Ms Thomson's virtually uncontested candidacy for the Trinity Spadina nomination as Liberal candidate in the provincial election did nothing to dispel that speculation. Ms Thomson quickly expunged her harsh criticism of Smitherman from her website. She had written about him: "..Mr. Smitherman seems to forget, as we have witnessed with his inconsistent and disorganized transit plans and, of course, his history with the E-Health blunder. This is a classic move to increase the size of government without comprehensively studying whether it in fact can reduce costs.

Ms Thomson may find that the criticism she levied against fellow Liberal Smitherman may be mild in comparison to what she has to face from the electorate and the media. Ms Thomson's campaign office was contacted yesterday to comment on whether the Women's Post issue promoting her candidacy was paid for from her campaign or other sources. One of her assistants, after an interval, said that Ms Thompson would call back personally, but as of the posting of this, she has so far failed to return the call. Based on her response to inquiries made by The Globe and Mail, it appears that the summer Women's Post that was distributed was financed the way the magazine is usually financed, which is not through a political fund.

The Globe reports that Ms Thompson "said the magazine is regularly distributed within the riding. Before putting out the summer issue she made sure she wasn’t breaking any Elections Ontario rules, she said."

(NOTE: I know people in the riding and they don't recall the Women's Post ever being delivered to them prior to Ms Thomson's candidacy. That was echoed by staff for the riding's incumbent MPP, Rosario Marchese. I live in the riding next door and have not received a copy of Women's Post in my mailbox.)

Ms Thomson had been embroiled in a similar controversy during her mayoral run, when she also put herself on the cover of her magazine with the caption "Toronto's Next Mayor." A lawyer consulted by the Globe has said that Ms Thomson's use of the magazine to promote herself and her candidacy, as she did duing her mayoral bid, do not violate elections laws.

But this time, depositing the magazine in the homes of riding residents raises additional questions.

The current representative in the Provincial Legislature for Trinity Spadina, NDP MP Rosario Marchese, did respond to an inquiry about this, saying: "I wish I had my own newspaper that I could use as a vehicle for my election campaign. I know the people of Trinity Spadina very well. It's an intelligent constituency and I'm confident they'll be able to see what Ms Thomson is doing for what it is."


UPDATE: Now The National Post has picked this up too

The Toronto Mayoral Election Post Mortem in Brief

There is a much being written about Rob Ford's election on the day following his win. The Toronto Star is  both petulant and in shock, a lot of media is attributing Ford's win to "voter anger."

Ford's win is very easily and simply explained.

Ford's message throughout the campaign was "Respect for taxpayers." It was a positive message that all the people of Toronto, and not the narrow political class and a few special interests like civic unions and arts grants recipients, should have a say in how their city is managed.

The main opposition to Ford was George Smitherman, whose only message was one of fear-mongering and arrogance in what appeared to be a sense of his own entitlement to power.

Voters chose the positive message of Ford over the negative message of Smitherman.

And Joe Pantalone, who ran on the idea that David Miller did a good job and his legacy should continue, was trounced, receiving only about 11% of the vote. The message is clear there too. Toronto did not feel David Miller performed well in his job.

UPDATE: In a decisive rebuke to the fear-mongers who tried to smear Ford by suggesting he was a racist because he said Toronto needs to focus on its own needs before taking in more immigrants, the last poll before the election showed Ford was the clear favorite among Torontonians born outside Canada. For that group, Ford's "margin rose to 51.7 per cent, over Mr. Smitherman’s 30.1 per cent."

ROB FORD IS TORONTO'S NEW MAYOR!

Ford wins in landslide. His numbers add up to more than rivals George Smitherman and Joe Pantalone put together!

The Toronto Star, which advocated an 'anyone but Ford' approach, is stunned by its irrelevance!

UPDATE:  Ford is the victor. Latest results, with most polls in, have him above 47%.

Watch Toronto's election results in real time

The electronic, automated voting system lets you review real time results right here.

Smitherman launches election day fear-mongering last-ditch effort

Today's last-ditch, fear-mongering email from George Smitherman:

Today is decision day.  A day of two very different visions for Toronto.  You can choose a city of fear, anger and exclusion or you can embrace a man with a plan.  A man with the vision and values that reflect a Toronto you can be proud of.  A man that wants to be the mayor of a Toronto that includes everyone and celebrates diversity.  That man is George Smitherman.  George Smitherman is a man of passion and purpose, consensus and commitment.  George will get it done.  But first we need you to get out and vote.  Every vote counts and in this election, your vote will make the difference.

Smitherman keeps telling us he has a "plan." A plan to keep things the way they are at city hall with CUPE running the city and establishing the amount of wasteful spending taxpayers have to endure?

Smitherman a man of "vision and values"? (eHealth, party drug addiction, multi-million sole source contracts to former associates)

Halloween would be scary enough without this

to look forward to all year!

 

It's Voting Day in Toronto

There are two realistic choices for Torontonians today.

Rob Ford

or

Anti-Gay, anti-Smitherman ad turns up on Tamil radio

It's not clear who placed this ad on a Toronto Tamil radio station,

According to Xtra,  "Adrienne Batra, head of Communications for the Rob Ford campaign, says the Ford campaign itself is not responsible for the ad. Batra says the campaign is "appalled" by it, and compared the reference to Smitherman's homosexuality to disparaging comments made about Ford's weight. "We have no idea where this ad came from. They're alluding to his lifestyle choices and no one feels ill-feelings for his choice." UPDATE: @RobFordTeam (the official Twitter account of the Rob Ford campaign) wrote: "I do not condone the recent Tamil Radio ad. I support diversity & have no issue with others' lifestyle choices. #voteTO"

(Note: Recent science suggests that homosexuality is an inherent, genetic designation rather than a "lifestyle choice", but Ford's heart, and tolerance, is in the right place.)

Rough Translation:

1st Person: Mani Anna, Who you voting for in the Mayoral Election?

2nd Person: [Laughs] What kind of question is this? I am Tamil. We have a religion and culture. Take Rob Ford for an example, his wife is a women. That's not only it, he said will reduce land transfer taxes and other taxes.

1st Person: What about Immigration?

2nd Person: [Laughs] That's a federal government issue. So, the white people can get our vote.

1st Person: I am also going to vote for Rob Ford.

DISCLAIMER: This is a paid Advertisement

There are plenty of reasons not to vote for George Smitherman, such as his demonstrated lack of competence as a manager of large governmental budgets, his lack of trustworthiness, and his pandering to whatever audience he's in front of. But his sexual orientation in irrelevant to all this. I'd vote for Quentin Crisp (with whom I once had a very interesting telephone conversation) as mayor, if I thought he would cut the waste and entitlement that characterizes Toronto's city hall (and if he were still alive).

That's why I'm voting Ford.

UPDATE: The Smitherman campaign has unearthed some pictures that turned up in the east end of Toronto pandering to religious Muslim homophobia. This last bit of news is hardly surprising. Conservative members of the Islamic community tend to only express tolerance for those Gays who condemn Israel, but otherwise, have denounced homosexuality in the strongest, most bigoted terms.

Ford: More transparency needed on donors list

The following Press release was issued by the Ford campaign. As noted last month in Eye on a Crazy Planet, Smitherman has been reluctant to release his donors' list.


Mayoral candidate Rob Ford announced today that if elected Mayor, he will ask Council to pass an amendment to the City of Toronto Act that would require all candidates to release their full donor lists before Election Day so that voters know who is financing the campaigns of potential Mayors.

“The voters deserve to know where the money is coming from. Every major candidate since 2003 has done this willingly, but with George Smitherman refusing to release his donors’ lists, it’s clear we need new rules to improve transparency and accountability,” said Ford. “It raises the question: what is George Smitherman hiding?”

George Smitherman has already been embroiled in multiple scandals involving the sole-sourcing of contracts to consultants that happened under his watch as Ontario Minister of Health. He is the only major candidate in the race for Mayor that has refused to release his donor list in this election.

“Are Mr. Smitherman’s friends at the Courtyard Group paying back some favours for all those sole-sourced contracts? We don’t know. George won’t tell us,” added Ford. “I believe strongly that Torontonians deserve to know before the election who is paying for Mr. Smitherman’s campaign, and that’s why, if elected Mayor, I will work with Council to change these rules.”



-30-


Adrienne Batra
Director of Communications
Rob Ford for Mayor Campaign

George Smitherman wants to be the conductor on the Gravy Train and only you can stop him!

Adam Vaughan, the councillor for Ward 20, came by my house the other day, campaigning for re-election and...

On a personal level, Adam's a nice, sincere guy. I think he's wrong about quite a few things in his political stances. His support for the despicable Krystin Wong Tam, one of the people behind Queers Against Israel Apartheid, is inexcusable. Adam is one of the councillors who appears content with the Miller status quo and from what I inferred, he thinks Miller's greatest failing is that he hadn't effectively communicated all the wonderful things he'd accomplished during his time as Toronto's mayor.

Vaughan doesn't appear to believe Toronto needs spending cuts and that a lot of our financial woes and the deterioration of roads and infrastructure not being properly addressed is because of the city's growth and the costs of transportation.

Some of those transportation costs being due to the incredible waste that happened during the St. Clair street car construction that cost than 300% of its proposed budget. Vaughan's leftist council colleague Joe Mihevc, as Deputy Chair of the TTC and a principle proponent of that mismanaged disaster, bears a huge measure of responsibility for that, and hopefully the electorate in Ward 21 will remember that and put in an alternative like Shimmy Posen.

The conversation with Vaughan took a strange turn. Vaughn has pretty much a lock on his downtown Trinity-Spadina ward. He's not facing any serious competition, so he seemed more interested in investing his time, not to advocate for himself in his ward, but to advocate voting against Rob Ford as mayor.

It was bizarre. First Vaughan started making comparisons between Ford and Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Obviously the comparisons were meant disparagingly and I interrupted Adam to point out that he was making a big assumption to posit that I shared his views about Limbaugh and Beck. (While I find neither  to be exceptionally profound individuals, I don't find their positions so outrageous as to share the socialist "progressives" assessment of their being devils incarnate.)  Adams' response suggested he wasn't taking me seriously. It appeared incomprehensible to him that an intelligent person couldn't feel the same way. Particularly an intelligent person who lived south of Bloor Street.

As I said, the conversation was a bit bizarre. Adam made some very cogent points about Ford's council record being less impressive than his campaign would suggest, and then he undermined his arguments, in my mind, by trying to suggest I shouldn't vote for Ford because of Ford's father's record as an MPP when Mike Harris was Premier.

Adam then proceeded with an argument that may play well with some of his constituents, but struck me as the ultimate in political cynicism. He brought Ford's having lied (or forgotten about) his DUI/marijuana incident 11 years ago in Florida and his drunken outburst at a hockey game. The cynicism of harping on those matters is that it suggests Annex voters are more concerned with image than substance. My concern is with having a mayor who is determined to get our roads fixed, our municipal costs down, and who isn't in the pocket of detestable unions like CUPE Ontario. I told Vaughan I don't care if Ford smokes joints during council meetings, as long as he can cut the waste at city hall.

Ford is still preferable to councillor who spends $13,800 on their website or one who launches libel suits at the taxpayers' expense.

As far as I was concerned, the conversation reached its nadir when Adam told me "Ford is like George Bush, he tells you he's smart, but he's not."

It became apparent then that I was speaking with someone so blinded by their ideology that it was impossible to recognize or acknowledge any truth beyond it. George Bush was the president of the United States for two terms. In debates, he bettered supposedly more intelligent opponents like Ann Richards and Al Gore. You may disagree with what he did, but one of the reasons for his successes was that he was faced by adversaries so arrogant that they refused to concede the fact that someone who disagrees with them might actually posses some intellect. And he mopped the floor with them.

Adam conceded that Smitherman is not someone people could bring themselves to vote for. That part of the conversation was like his tepid Smitherman endorsement. I like Joe Pantalone in the same way I like Adam. I disagree with him, but at least I know that I'm talking to someone who is communicating what they honestly believe. Vaughan's endorsement of Smitherman is not based on any enthusiasm for Smitherman but on an all-consuming abhorrence of Rob Ford.

The 'strategic voting' endorsements of Smitherman by Mihevc and Vaughan should be instructive to voters. Smitherman has lately been talking about himself as a "progressive" candidate. Those paying attention need no reminder that "progressive" is also a code word that Marxists and radical socialists use to describe themselves.

Is Smitherman a Marxist or a radical socialist? Absolutely not. But he appears to be someone who will make shady deals and talk out of both sides of his mouth to achieve power. He's a McGuinty Liberal. The "progressive" who is going to cut taxes and waste? Don't hold your breath.

Yesterday the Globe and Mail endorsed him. It was the least enthusiastic endorsement I have ever read from a newspaper.

Here is some of the Globe's "endorsement" of Smitherman:

"Mr. Smitherman is vague. The risk in supporting Mr. Ford is what he might do as mayor, the risk in supporting Mr. Smitherman is what he might not do. The latter of the two has failed to articulate a vision or a strategy of his own, and he could easily end up as a second David Miller..He is essentially a professional politician, an office-seeker with a taste for managing, but not for transformation."

One of Eye on a Crazy Planet's readers provided this rendition of what we could look forward to if Toronto doesn't have the sense to reject Smitherman

If you want to understand Smitherman, look at the people around him

Today Toronto city councilor and former Etobicoke mayor Doug Holyday endorsed Rob Ford as the best choice for mayor.

According to The Toronto Star, The Ford campaign has for some time been trying to land Holyday — an elder statesman on council’s right wing, known as much for his level head as Ford has been in the past for his hot temper. Holyday (Ward 3, Etobicoke Centre) said he finally agreed because he’s convinced Ford’s main challenger, George Smitherman, is a tax-and-spend liberal running as a fiscal conservative.

Holyday said:  "You look at the people Smitherman has around him — (Councillor) Pam McConnell, (former Toronto mayor) John Sewell — it’s going to be more of what we got from Miller.  If the public wants more of the same, there’s a clear option for them. If they want change — I think Rob needs help, and there are those around him to help him do that.”

As noted in an earlier post, Sewell has recommended imposing a municipal sales tax and his single-term mayorship 30 years ago was best noted for the destructive conflicts he had with the Toronto Police Department.

The Globe and Mail sinks lower than imaginable on "Ford is a fatso" column

The Globe and Mail published, then attempted to scrape a disgraceful column from its website that went on and on about nothing but Ford's weight.

The remarkably immature tome of name-calling was written by a Stephen Marche, who, it turns out, is Robert Fulford's son-in-law.

The Ford campaign is using the column as a tool to show the depths to which his opponents would sink and the mentality and hatred that consumes the anti-Ford/Smitherman campaigns.

The column plays perfectly to the notion that the anti-Ford campaigners are a vacuous lot who are so overwhelmingly consumed with "image" that they have abandoned every other concern for the well-being of Toronto.

Despite the Globe's efforts to eradicate evidence of it, the article was archived elsewhere. Here is an excerpt:

The mounds of fat that encircle Rob Ford’s body like great deflated tires of defeat are truly unprecedented in Canadian politics. 

We have had chunky political candidates before, but the front-runner in Toronto’s current contest to be mayor is so fat that his belly is invariably the first thing you notice about him.

Yet far from harming his political image, his bulk is the key to his appeal. Neither intelligent nor sympathetic, Mr. Ford offers voters fat. And we want fat. In fat, we see ourselves.

Let no one confuse Rob Ford’s obesity with jollity. Every extra pound on Mr. Ford’s frame is an extra pound of rage. His angry fat is perfectly of our time.

You can read the whole, angry column here





h/t Blazing Cat Fur

Another "progressive" abandons principle and Pantalone

Downtown Trinity-Spadina Ward 20 councillor Adam Vaughan has joined Ward 21 councillor Joe Mihevc in abandoning his "progressive" ally on council, Joe Pantalone,  in favour of endorsing the strategic vote for George "Captain eHealth" Smitherman in Toronto's mayoral race.

The left wing on council must be terrified that Rob Ford will make good on his promise to cut council perks and expenses and are opting for whatever they think will keep their money flowing.

George Smitherman gets official endorsement from anti-Semitic 9-11 conspiracy theorists

Readers of Eye on a Crazy Planet may remember The Canadian Charger. It's provided us with many laughs, although purely unintentionally on their part.

That ideological cesspool is home to some of Canada's craziest bigots.

It's no surprise they have endorsed George Smitherman for mayor of Toronto.

See here: Blazing Cat Fur: Kiss of Death: George Smitherman Endorsed By Crazed Jew Baiters Ali Mallah & Mohammed Elmasry's Canadian Charger 911 Troofer Rag

New poll puts Rob Ford back on top in Toronto mayoral race

The poll was conducted on Thursday night, the day after trailing candidate Rocco Rossi withdrew from the race.

The poll shows support for each of the candidates as follows:

•Rob Ford: 44%

•George Smitherman: 38%

•Joe Pantalone: 16%

•Other candidates: 2%

•Undecided: 16%

It’s in contrast to an Ipsos Reid poll completed before Mr. Rossi withdrew and released on Wednesday that showed Mr. Smitherman with a narrow lead of 31%, followed by Rob Ford at 30%, Mr. Pantalone at 11% and Mr. Rossi at 4%.

It looks like enough people remembered that a vote for Smitherman is like an endorsement of Dalton McGuinty's mismanagement of the province and of Smitherman's incompetence as McGuinty's Minister of Health.

George Smitherman's choice to head up "municipal government reform panel" wants to impose municipal sales tax

Graphic from Blazing Cat Fur

It appears a vote for George "Captain eHealth" Smitherman is a vote for instant higher taxes.

George Smitherman recently announced that if he becomes mayor, he would place former one-term Toronto mayor John Sewell as head of a municipal “government reform” panel.

This summer, Sewell wrote that the city should impose its own municipal sales tax.

"The city needs its own sources of tax revenue, like its own sales tax. A one per cent tax on goods and services raises about $700 million in Toronto per year"
John Sewell, prospective Smitherman appointee

Can you feel the cruel chill of Smitherman's hand reaching for your wallet yet?

Ward 21 Councillor Joe Mihevc: If Rob Ford becomes mayor, the world as you know it will come to an end (or words to that effect)

Leftist Toronto City Councillor Joe Mihevc is a supporter of David Miller, whose disgraceful performance  as mayor during the civic strike in his last term had killed his hopes for re-election. But Mihevc has reluctantly turned his back on fellow Miller "progressive" Joe Pantalone.

Mihevc advocates strategic voting for George "Captain eHealth" Smitherman because in his words, front-running Rob Ford  "would destroy so much that we value about our city – its diversity, animated neighbourhoods, care for the newcomers and the poor, our quality of life." I guess that is Mihevc's way of saying 'implement policies which would reduce the city's skyrocketing debt and cut the bloated waste at city hall.'

Or maybe it's his way of saying Ford is going to try to get to the bottom of why the St. Clair streetcar fiasco, which was budgeted at $43 million, ended up costing $120 million.

Mihevc's hysteria continues with: "Under Rob Ford, City Council will not function, our city agencies will be in disarray, economic development will be hurt and our city will suffer in many ways."

I was waiting for the part where Mihevc describes how the earth will open to the sulphuric pits of hell,  and how the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will ride their steeds in a crimson sky above the CN Tower which will be transformed into a pillar of fire, but he didn't go quite that far.

I also didn't notice the part where Joe tells you how popular he is with the city's unions who dread Ford clamping down on them on behalf of the city's taxpayers.

Sure Joe. Whatever you say. There's a good candidate running in Ward 21 named Shimmy Posen.

And Joe, if you're reading this, as I expect you or one of your staffers will be, it would have been one thing if you had endorsed Smitherman by extolling his virtues. But evidently that task was too challenging (I don't disagree with you there), so you felt the need to lay on ridiculous invective about Ford. That's an insult to the intelligence of your constituents and invites this sort of response.


Read Joe Mihevc's statement here.

UPDATE: Joe Mihevc said in a press conference that he spoke with Pantalone about where his endorsement would go, but The National Post reports:

Mr. Pantalone was completely shocked by Mr. Mihevc’s “incomprehensible” decision to support his opponent, which he clearly took personally. “I don’t know how Joe Mihevc can explain his position to his progressive base. He should be ashamed of himself,” Mr. Pantalone said last night, after a debate. “He didn’t even give me the decency of a phone call, after all the years we’ve known each other. I thought we were friends.”