The Robocalls "scandal" that never was

There are 525,600 minutes in a year.

And there have been 3,581 news stories written about the Robocall scandal, according to the Infomart database.

Except last week, we found out it was fake. There was no conspiracy to use automated phone calls to dupe voters in the 2011 election into going to the wrong place to vote.

After three years and millions of wasted tax dollars, Elections Canada – possibly the most anti-Conservative government agency in Canada, other than the CBC – concluded the whole thing was a myth, like Sasquatch or the Loch Ness monster.

It’s not just that the Conservatives didn’t do anything wrong. It’s that no one did anything wrong. As Yves Cote, the Commissioner of Canada Elections, put it: “the evidence uncovered in the investigation is not sufficient to give me reasonable grounds to believe that an offence was committed.”

A despicable Toronto Star publisher tries to intimidate civic leaders into joining its vendetta against Rob Ford

Conrad Black in the National Post:

...In another aspect of the Ford controversy, a number of people have angrily sent me copies of a letter that the disgraceful John Honderich — the chair of the board of Torstar Corporation (the Star’s owner) and a former Star publisher — assumedly approved for distribution to 70 prominent Torontonians, urging them to agitate for the mayor’s removal in mid-term, and taking them to task as moral outcasts of the community for not joining in the full Christmas revelry of the Star’s attempted putsch....

A very interesting commentary on Rob Ford by Ken Dryden

Many highly educated, politically sophisticated, well-off people voted for Rob Ford in the last Toronto mayoralty election. It was not for no reason. Despite a recent run of weeks that could hardly be worse for Mr. Ford – admissions of crack cocaine use, drunkenness, lies, cover-ups, personal meltdowns, international ridicule – 42 per cent of those now polled approve of him in his time in office. Again, it is not for no reason.

Before being elected mayor, Mr. Ford was a long-serving but not widely known city councillor. Those who knew him best are least surprised by the revelations. He promised to cut taxes. All candidates everywhere now promise to cut taxes, but Mr. Ford, with his blunt conviction, looked like he meant it.

Read the rest at The Globe and Mail

The Rob Ford interview with Conrad Black

This is quite an interesting interview. Ford makes some good points in his favor. One of the interesting aspects that emerges is the sleazy stalking to which The Toronto Star's reporters, particularly Robyn Doolittle and Daniel Dale, have subjected him and his family.

A political Hit Job by the Toronto Police Services

The real revelation in the latest release of reports of investigations and wiretaps surrounding the Rob Ford controversy is that there is no revelation. At least not about Rob Ford.

The "shocker" is supposed to be that some people talked on the phone about Ford having done heroin and that people discussed his attempting to buy the "crack video" which was at the centre of the media firestorm.

But these are reports not of anything Ford actually said but what some people have said about him.

There are even some Toronto City Councillors suggesting that Ford should face criminal charges. If your Councillor is among them, the big concern you should have is that your municipal representative is a moron.

Ford should be charged with what, exactly?

If there is actual evidence of his attempting to pervert the course of justice, then absolutely he should face criminal charges. But if there is any such evidence, there has been no indication of it so far.

Furthermore, most of the released information about Ford has nothing to do with a criminal investigation. It seems to be in the report for the sole purpose of smearing and humiliating him. That aspect, which seems designed chiefly to benefit Ford's political enemies, is not, as far as I know, what police or judges are supposed to do as part of their paid duties.

To be clear, to the best of my knowledge, Ward 21 Councillor "Fiasco" Joe Mihevc has never had sexual relations with a farm animal. But the Ford-related transcripts are not dissimilar to what could occur in a hypothetical situation in which a recorded conversation was released in which Mihevc was alleged to have had sexual intercourse with a goat, and if then outraged activists railed "Why hasn't Mihevc been charged with cruelty to animals!?"

What would happen if police released a transcript of a recording in which someone said: "Yeah, Mihevc tied the goat to a post, then pulled his pants down. He lubed up his cock and then jammed it into that goat doggie-style. Or I guess it would be goat-style in this case. Mihevic was grunting and the goat was groaning. Or was it the other way round? Anyhow, he started screaming as he was cumming, 'you're the best goat I ever fucked!!' Then he untied it and walked it back to the organic goat milk farm. That poor goat looked traumatized."

Now, had such a conversation occurred among third parties and a transcript been released, would there be any legal grounds for charges against Mihevc? Of course not. It would have all been unproven allegations and baseless hearsay.

But the release of the conversations among third parties about Ford have been nothing more than a political hit job by a politicized police department for no other apparent reason than that it can be exploited by some sleazy municipal politicians, their allies and media stooges.

Among the issues raised was Ford having been allegedly blackmailed by some of the drug gangs in the suburbs. That would be a serious matter and the first question which should be raised is, did Rob Ford ask or in any way try to influence police to not investigate or enforce the law against those criminals?

Unless there's something I haven't heard, the answer to that question is a clear and resounding "no."

Moreover, Ford has been the more supportive of Police and their efforts to combat drug crime and gang violence than any other Toronto mayor in living history. Ford himself has devoted countless hours to volunteering to help youth in those at-risk neighborhoods, so he is well aware of the need for police to take a hard line on them.

If this sounds like some sort of bizarre contradiction, that Ford associating with some of them and using drugs belies that, the problem is that indeed Ford does have some personal failings which he has committed to remedy.

But this goes further to the point that Rob Ford's personal life and issues have no bearing on the job he was doing as mayor. He is still far more competent and professional in exercising his public duties than his City Hall opponents.

There are a lot of people whose lives may not look so good if continually put under a microscope the way that Rob Ford's has for the last three and a half years.  There is even a very, very senior Toronto Police official who has been described to me by reliable sources as having been "a major pot head."

To say nothing of other politicians and media figures.

The new transcripts with fewer redactions do have some interesting revelations. Among them that many of the allegations of which the media are making so much are actually contradicted in the document by other allegations.

It's quite interesting to note that the one person who claims to have seen Rob Ford "do lines at the Bier Markt" never saw it. If the report is accurate, then this server speculated that he saw Ford snorting cocaine and then went around boasting to both as many of his fellow employees he could find and The Toronto Star's Robyn Doolittle that he had eyewitnessed something which he admitted to police that he in fact hadn't.  Even more interesting is that this same server had been a volunteer for George Smitherman, whom Ford defeated in the mayoral race.

Speaking of The Star's Robyn Doolittle, she comes across in the report as an obsessive stalker of Ford, practically harassing people and turning up unannounced at their homes to pester them for information after being told by people they had nothing to say to her.

The Toronto Star's vendetta against Ford was made even more clear in a recent panel discussion that included Doolittle and Star editor Michael Cooke. Cooke described to the friendly audience that during the mayoral race, The Star had sent reporters to Chicago to investigate every facet of Ford's business to dig up dirt on them.  Disappointingly to him, he described the way Ford conducted his business as "squeaky clean."

Did The Star send cohorts of reporters to investigate "party drug addict" Smitherman's personal life? The Star's anointed candidate cost Ontario taxpayers billions through the waste of the EHealth and ORNGE debacles, but as long as he was toeing the line they liked, evidently that didn't matter. Smitherman's husband was recently found in what appeared to be a drug-induced stupor in a ditch after a massive police search, following his going missing for a day. And that is the same George Smitherman The Star wishes were running Toronto now.

This all points to why Ford's support remains solid. He is a man who, whatever personal problems he may have, confines them to his personal life, but in exercising his professional duties is meticulous. This is the opposite of a number of City Councillors who have clean personal lives but whose incompetence and corruption, along with their subservience to special interests, cost Toronto taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

  Rob Ford court documents: ITO With Pub Ban-edited by Crown-Dec 3 13

The real "shame and embarrassment" of being a Torontonian

Olivia Chow, a Member of Parliament for a downtown Toronto riding and a presumed candidate for the position of mayor in the city's next election, spoke recently of the "embarrassment" that Rob Ford had brought upon her by his antics. "We are being embarrassed" she professed at a recent media scrum. This is the same Olivia Chow who is the widow of Jack Layton, who led the New Democratic Party from 2003 until his death, and about whom it was revealed that during their marriage he was caught by police in a dingy Chinatown brothel after receiving a hand-job (at the least) from a hooker.

I don't recall Ms Chow professing her embarrassment about that, just as she did not proclaim her "shame" about being exposed for taking advantage of subsidized housing while she and her husband were making a combined six-figure salary.

But because of the current Toronto mayor's occasional drug use and his intemperate remarks, now, finally, Olivia Chow has come to learn what it is to be humiliated.

If you say so, Olivia...

Toronto Ward 21 Councillor "Fiasco" Joe Mihevc sent out an email to his constituents a couple of weeks ago in which he bemoaned "the shame and embarrassment Mayor Ford has brought upon us."

The very same Mihevic whose advocacy for, and bumbling oversight of an unnecessary dedicated streetcar lane along St. Clair Avenue in Toronto became the exemplar of how not to do a civics project. Disruption from the lengthy construction, which went more than twice the planned time at almost three times the cost to taxpayers, caused some local businesses to go bust. The resulting lane divided the neighborhood, created a nightmare of traffic congestion, made a number of intersections death-traps for pedestrians, and resulted in only a minimal reduction in travel time for public transit patrons.

I haven't been able to locate any expression of "shame and embarrassment" for his role in causing that fiasco. Last time I checked, Mihevc was still praising himself in the face of his incompetence.

But now, because of Rob Ford, a man for whom Mihevc has frequently and very publicly expressed his detestation, suddenly, a grotesque, enormous blot of shame has enshrouded "Fiasco" Joe.

A couple of days ago, I had a long conversation with an old friend in Los Angeles who is a film producer who has worked with people such as Steven Spielberg and Michael Mann. He asked me about Toronto and rather than shame, there was quite a bit of laughter in recounting the recent goings-on in my city's municipal politics.

One thing that did seem to surprise him was the increase in support for Ford since his confirmation of having smoked crack cocaine. It's easy to understand how someone not familiar with Toronto politics would find that unusual, and to explain that, I had to describe the Rob Ford phenomenon.

Despite the obvious problematic components, Rob Ford, at least in his role as a public servant and politician, is completely forthright, which places him in stark contrast with his opponents. He may tell stupid lies about his personal behavior, but when he says he wants to do something in the political arena, you know he means it and isn't saying it just for public consumption as is so often the case with his rivals. Ford may me prone to bizarre outbursts, but he is genuinely passionate about his concern for the average citizen.

After years of the city's being run by a wasteful nanny-statist, Ford was in large measure a reaction to the paternalism and deceit coming from our city's "mainstream" politicians.

Conrad Black put it well earlier in the week in an editorial for the National Post when he wrote that the people who support Ford "are not scandalized by obesity, occasional cocaine use, occasional drunkenness, or the odd whirl at the wheel of a car when a breathalyzer, if applied, could be problematical. They are, however, scandalized by rank hypocrisy from mouthy journalists and gimcrack municipal politicians, and by the confected and inflated sanctimony of prigs and twits."

Ford`s supporters are frequently portrayed by some of the stupider pundits and political prognosticators as only being concerned with keeping taxes down. If that were the case, then that fails to explain why Ford`s support held firm despite the need for a tax increase to help pay for a much-needed subway expansion in Scarborough. What those ideological enemies of Ford fail to grasp is that the mayor`s support is not based from people who hate taxes, but those who hate seeing taxes used wastefully, as they are so often by Toronto politicians who want to double as social engineers.

Last week, in what some have described as a palace coup, Toronto`s City Council stripped Ford of most of his mayoral authority, even though the excuse was little more than that they dislike and claim to be embarrassed by him. Ford has neither been charged with nor convicted of a crime while in office.

Then, as if on cue, only a couple of days later, the idiots on City Council started talking about imposing a property tax increase well above the limit Ford would have ever proposed. The backlash was swift and immediate. Ford`s opponents fell right into his hands, playing to his strength as a champion of taxpayers and his narrative that the rebellion was motivated entirely by ideology.

Ford is now rising even more in the polls, with him being favored more than any other candidate to be best qualified to manage Toronto`s budget.

Explaining Ford`s rise in popularity to my LA friend, I said, given the pathetic alternatives we have among municipal politicians here, the idea of a guy who takes the occasional puff of crack and goes on weird drunken tirades is still a lot more attractive than anyone else we have on offer.

"Wow," he replied, "things must be really bad there."

It was then that I felt a tinge of embarrassment. "Yeah," I said back, "they are."

Plus : No comment on this

The Rob Ford "death threat" video is obviously him joking about a celebrity boxing or wrestling match

Kathy Shaidle at Five Feet of Fury observed that Rob Ford sounded like he was doing a Hulk Hogan impersonation in the latest "scandal" released of the mayor after it was purchased by The Toronto Star for $5000.

That sounds pretty close. The video was made around the time of Ford's celebrity arm wrestling match with the famous pro wrestler.

In the video, you can clearly hear Toronto Mayor Rob Ford talk about being "in that ring" and when he talks about killing and only needing "15 minutes".

He also says if he wins, he'll "donate.." One of the other people in the room talks about how Ford's opponents "are pros."

Now under what circumstances other than a celebrity boxing match/fight does someone talk about donating???

It does sound a lot like it was in the spirit of his match with The Hulkster.

Ford admits being extremely inebriated when the video was made. But is it so terrible to get drink, in private, and joke around about what you'd do in a celebrity fight, and imitate the bluster of professional fighters?

This new "scandal" with which The Star is trying to outrage Toronto is no scandal.

But after they paid for this piece of nonsense it does firmly establish that The Toronto Star is a scandal rag with about as much credibility and integrity as The National Enquirer.

"St. Clair Fiasco" Joe Mihevc and other sleazeball responses to the Ford situation

The sleaziness and hypocrisy would be astounding if it weren't so predicable. 

Today I received emails from Toronto City Councillors Joe Mihevic and Josh Matlow dripping with sanctimony and reeking of self-promoting hypocrisy.

The one from Mihevc, the bumbler whose vastly overpriced St. Clair Streetcar fiasco is still used as an example throughout Ontario of how not do to a civics project, is particularly cretinous. As he has before, while professing sympathy and concern for Rob Ford, Mihevc takes every opportunity to insult the mayor while putting on the proverbial hairshirt of " pain for our City and the shame and embarrassment that Mayor Ford has brought upon us."

No sane person who isn't Rob Ford or an immediate family member of the embattled mayor is walking around feeling shame or embarrassment for anything Rob Ford has done. Only one of the notoriously asinine Toronto leftists whose personal self-esteem is tied to municipal politics would be stupid enough to profess anything like that. But that doesn't mean that sleazy municipal politicians can't sink so low as to try to milk as much advantage as they can from another person's personal tragedy.

The tone of these releases from the likes of Mihevic and Matlow is that character matters. Indeed it does. In their current statements, the hypocrites Mihevc and Matlow are demonstrating how their own character is far more reprehensible than Rob Ford's.

When City Councillor Ana Bailao was charged with (and later plead guilty) to drunk driving, Rob Ford didn't call for her head, but said "everybody makes mistakes" and offered her support.

Ironically, now with the tables turned Bailao, who is a convicted criminal, is calling for Rob Ford, who is not, to step down.

Clearly Ana Bailao is not the sort of person you want standing behind you if you don't want to find a knife in your back.

It's also worth mentioning that Matlow himself is somewhat dodgy about his own history of impaired driving.

There are a pack of braying hyenas on Toronto's City Council. While Ford has done a good job of pushing his agenda through and righting the course of the economic disaster upon which David Miller had set Toronto, some on Council think Ford's current perceived vulnerability is a chance to advance their own ambitions or those of their special interest friends.Those would include the union CUPE, which is still resentful about the last agreement that Ford managed to force them to accept and which has a number of Ford's more outspoken opponents in its pocket.

The public will have a choice a year from now. They can choose a flawed but devoted public servant trying to do his best for Toronto's citizens. Or they can choose one of the detestable hypocrites who aren't even trying to hide their glee that Ford's personal issues are hurting him.

When that choice is made, it won't be a choice to decide who is running their personal life best. It's a choice about whom the citizens of Toronto trust most to take care of the public interest. And with politicians like "St. Clair fiasco" Joe, whose ineptness wasted tens of millions of tax dollars leading the charge against Ford, that choice will be an easy one.

From Ward 22 Councillor Josh Matlow's email today

Toronto mayor Ford admits having smoked crack cocaine

Speaking to reporters outside his office, Ford asked the media to repeat a question asked to him in May.

“Do you smoke crack cocaine?” a reporter said. 

“Exactly. Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine,” Ford said. “I’ve made mistakes… all I can do is apologize and move on.”

“But, no, do I? Am I an addict? No.”

“Have I tried it? Probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately about a year ago.”

After five months of avoiding comment on the crack cocaine scandal, the mayor suggested he was just wasn’t asked about it.

“I wasn’t lying, you didn’t ask the correct question,” Ford said.

More at NATIONAL POST

And for those curious, I don't really care all that much for reasons delineated here 

UPDATE: Flouting all decency and regard for the electoral process, some City Councillors are trying to remove both Ford and the Deputy Mayor

Separating the personal from the political with Rob Ford

A news leviathan that dominated today's headlines across Canada was confirmation, from Toronto's Police Chief Bill Blair, of the existence of the elusive Rob Ford "crack video."

It would be pointless to argue the authenticity of the video. Anything can be faked, but the apparent efforts of associates of Toronto's Mayor to procure the video suggests it was not a fabrication concocted by special effects experts.

That's the bad news for supporters of the embattled chief magistrate.

But for Torontonians who fear the demise of their only mayor to show demonstrable concern for fiscal accountability in over a generation, there is in fact a great deal of good news to counterbalance today's revelations.

Barring some new shocker, there will not be any charges against Ford, and quite reasonably so. A video with a man smoking a pipe with a puff of smoke coming out of it is not conclusive proof of any criminal wrongdoing.

Ford has said he's not resigning. And there's something that the ecstatic media buzzards that despise Ford have forgotten in their current euphoria; the next municipal election is a year away.

A year is an eternity in politics.

Ford has kept property taxes down to the rate of inflation, as he promised. He eliminated the Municipal Vehicle Registration Tax, as he promised. His influence has managed to get federal and provincial funding for subway expansion, as he promised. Ford has saved millions and improved garbage pick-up for half the city by privatizing that service, as he promised. Because the municipal unions knew he would play hardball, Ford was able to negotiate a fair contract with them, staving off any strike. That in stark contrast to his predecessor David Miller who forced the city to endure a prolonged, fetid garbage strike in the hottest months of the summer of 2009. At a point where the length of the strike would have forced union workers subsisting on strike pay to negotiate a deal more favorable to the city, Miller completely capitulated to the unions.

Miller is relevant to any current discussion about Ford. Because if one of  Ford's presumptive rivals gets into office, like the straw man candidate David Sonacki, Miller's Budget Chief, to whom all of Toronto outside of the offices of The Toronto Star remain indifferent at best, a return to the fiscal ineptitude and high taxes of the previous administration is virtually guaranteed.

The orgy of sanctimonious revelry at The Toronto Star over the disclosure of the existence of the Ford video will probably turn out to be short lived.

Ford lied about the video. But in terms of lying, The Star also lied about Ford, when during his mayoral campaign, the newspaper published false accounts of Ford having physically assaulted a high school football player he was coaching. Even after the alleged victim of Ford's non-existent assault denied it ever happened, The Star still did not print a formal retraction of their lie.

And we all know that the public is not as inclined as partisan media and partisan politicians to become histrionic about politicians lying about events in their personal lives. Indeed, a hysterical overreaction to personal foibles can backfire in a big way against the people trying to exploit it.

Newt Gingrich thought he had Bill Clinton on the ropes after the lies the former President told about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. But in the end, it wasn't the President, but Gingrich, who lost his job. The Speaker of the House role was taken away from Gingrich after the charge he led plummeted the GOP into a disastrous performance in midterm elections, when the public rejected their exaggerated hysteria about the Clinton affair.

Toronto's media mavens have been scrambling over each other to demand the crucifixion of Ford, whose indiscretions have cost taxpayers nothing. Yet strangely, most of them have remained complacent and silent about the billions of tax dollars wasted by the corruption Kathleen Wynne's provincial government.

The public are not as stupid and oblivious to that hypocrisy as the media might hope.

The milquetoast, mushy middle Councilor Josh Matlow and leftist Councilor Joe Mihevc both rushed today to exploit the news about the Ford video to their advantage. That is the same Mihevic whose incompetence and mismanagement of the St. Clair streetcar fiasco cost the city tens of millions only to see a neighbourhood divided, no discernible improvement in transit service and increased traffic congestion in his ward.

"It pains me to see the City of Toronto in the situation we currently face,"  Mihevic gloated about Ford. No more, I can assure you, than it pained me to see a $40 million project mushroom to over $120 million largely because of Mihevic's ineptness.

A year from now, when Torontonians go back to the polls to select their mayor, the Rob Ford video may or may not be on their minds. But so too will the high taxes, the incompetence, and the paternalistic arrogance of David Miller and his acolytes on City Council.  Knowing that horrible stewardship of the city, and union-bosses' and developers' domination of City Hall would return if one of Ford's potential rivals like Olivia Chow, David Sonacki or Karen Stintz should replace him will also be on the minds of voters.

Which weighs more heavily on Toronto's voters in the fall of 2014 remains to be seen. But I wouldn't count out Rob Ford yet. Not by a long shot.

Justin "Zoolander" Trudeau : I'll get back to you with answers in a couple years when my smart advisers have trained me what to say

The problem is, with the exception of Marc Garneau, Justin Trudeau's "smart advisers" aren't very smart.

Here's another little secret:    a lot of journalists aren't very smart either, but not too many journalists outside of Sun News are willing to discuss that:

My Liberal MP publicized a $500 pie-in-the-face bounty on Justin Trudeau

Social media can be like juggling chainsaws. If you do it well, you can make quite a name for yourself, but do it badly and you can end up with a nasty, self-inflicted gash, or worse.

I'm amazed that politicians would use something as potentially self-damaging as the "this is the sentence I'm now thinking" service twitter for anything but the most mundane messages.  For an elected official who hopes to stay such, there's absolutely no upside to any other use for it.

People like former Senator Fred Thopmson have used it to showcase their very clever wit, but the operative word there is former and the the number of people who are as pithy as Thompson are few.

Which brings me to my member of Parliament, Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett.

The other night, thanks to a re-tweet from Carolyn, I learned  of a dire threat to newly selected Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.

Described, by another twitter user as "someone on twitter encouraging others to assault Justin Trudeau" and with an attached photo of the offending tweet, I immediately checked it out.

I am no fan of Mr. Trudeau the younger. It is with pride that I note that a Google search for the term "Justin Trudeau is an idiot" produces one of my blog postings as the top result. But even more strongly, I believe that political violence is a reprehensible form of expression in a democratic society.

This was retweeted  by my Liberal MP to her 12k followers

And it's completely unnecessary. We have so many other ways of expressing ourselves to tear them down, and as long as politicians follow the law and are subject to elections, political violence is completely unacceptable and should be condemned.

However it seems the "assault" being encouraged in this instance was not quite the savage menace implied by the message I saw.

It turned out that someone with the twitter handle Ottawa Angry Cat had posted a $500 bounty, insofar as a donation to the Humane Society in the name of a person counts as such,  to anyone who would shove a cream pie in the face of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.

Don't get me wrong. Although I support the fine work the Humane Society does, shoving a pie in Le Dauphin's face is not OK, no more than it's OK for someone to throw a slushie at Toronto mayor Rob Ford.

But the thing is, that Ottawa Angry Cat's contract on Justin would probably not have been noticed had my MP not decided to disseminate it to her over 12,000 twitter followers.

Ottawa Angry Cat only had a few dozen followers, a number almost doubled following Carolyn's publicizing of his bounty. How anyone would actually ensure that someone only known as Ottawa Angry Cat made good on his promise is something that might be considered when assessing the seriousness of the threat, but that's not really the point, I suppose.

Now, thanks to the diligent efforts of a big, big fan of Justin Trudeau, it appears the RCMP have been notified and Ottawa Angry Cat has gone deep into hiding.

But the question remains, is it really such a smart thing for an MP to be advertising, in rather exaggerated terms, a bounty on her leader?

When I expressed my twitter surprise that my MP was doing so, Carolyn responded that "people needed to know what's out there." I was interested in learning about Ottawa Angry Cat's threat being there because I found it mildly amusing, but "need" would be something of an overstatement in this instance.

I like Carolyn Bennett. I think she's on the wrong side of some very serious issues, but she's a good person and she's not corrupt, and it's not every Liberal Party politician in Ontario at the federal or provincial level about whom you can say that.

However, social media isn't something she seems to get all that well. I've helped her with a twitter gaffe before, Still, Carolyn doesn't seem to have learned the crucial lesson that as a politician, social media is a tool that can do you as much harm as good.

Blind love doesn't guide Rob Ford's supporters, disgust with his opposition does

An important piece from Blazing Cat Fur that delineates why Rob Ford's support has remained so solid:

DiManno and it would seem most of Toronto's downtown, just don't get the Ford thing, which is odd given they created him. Ford is a symbol, he is Toronto's Sarah Palin. Why? Because we love how he drives the liberal- left crazy.  It really is that simple. They condescend  and we reciprocate - by supporting Rob Ford who is better, in our humble opinion, as our Mayor than anything they have to offer.

Doug Ford declares intention to run for Progressive Conservatives in next provincial election

Councillor Doug Ford, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s slightly less controversial brother, has declared he plans to take his family’s unique brand of brash politics to Queen’s Park and will run for the Progressive Conservatives in the next election.

On a personal aside, I've dealt with Doug Ford's office on occasion and found him, like his brother, to be exceptionally conscientious and diligent in making sure that constituents needs are taken seriously. He'll make a needed contribution to Queen's Park politics.

Toronto's elites create a new Easter martyr

In this week following Easter, it is apt to think of a man who has strived to helped his fellow man,  giving his days and nights to talk to the common people. This man, himself in the center of a maelstrom of controversy, is continually beset by those asking him to alleviate their problems, and quietly, without fanfare he has helped many of his fellows. Yet for his efforts, a jealous elite are threatened by this man's appeal to the common people in whose interests the ruling classes pretend to act, while only truly serving themselves.

Yet relentless in their slander and vilification of this servant of the people, the powerful not only fail to diminish him, but have created the image of a martyr standing bravely against the ferocious onslaught.

This martyr is Toronto's mayor, Rob Ford.

In the Editorial boardroom at the Toronto Star, the continual frustration at their inability to make a dent in Rob Ford's support must be competing with embarrassment that the highest elected municipal official in their cosmopolitan city is, in their eyes, a brash, overweight bumpkin. The pile-on is abetted by histrionic invective from the socialist weekly NOW magazine and disgruntled columnists like The Globe and Mail's Marcus Gee. Despite their best efforts, and unrelenting attacks that have gone on virtually daily since the former Etobicoke councillor declared his mayoral candidacy, they have done nothing to diminish his popularity with his core constituency.

They have portrayed Ford as racist and anti-immigrant, but in his home riding, made up mainly of immigrants and minority voters, he regularly polls overwhelming majorities, exceeding 75% of the vote.

What the Star's satraps have blinded themselves to is that rather than tear Ford down, their histrionic mudslinging is actually bolstering Ford's popularity.

At this point, one wonders what the anti-Ford media is up to? To whom are they trying to make their sale? The people who hate Ford don't need daily reminders. They will hate him no matter what. But these histrionic attacks only invigorate Ford's supporters.

Making a typically hyperbolic comparison to Marion Barry, the felonious former mayor of Washington D.C., even the Star's editor Bob Hepburn conceded that their scandal-mongering against Ford is unlikely to have any affect.

But like spoiled infants throwing a tantrum. they are just unable to restrain themselves.

We hates the Ford, my Precious!

Rick Salutin, the old dinosaur of the left The Star acquired after he was unceremoniously dumped by the Globe and Mail, has made himself look like a malicious clown railing against Ford. Salutin, whose appearance is daily becoming more like The Lord of the Ring's Gollum,  before calling the mayor a "drama queen" said the Ford era has "been so much about him, it's hard to remember there's a whole city involved."

Actually, it's Salutin, his colleagues, and employers who are the drama queens who have forgotten the city. They have incessantly been trying to make Ford an issue at the expense of Toronto\s best interests and with complete disregard for journalistic integrity.

What are the issues the Star has been so worked up about? That Ford may have been drinking? That he solicited charitable donations on City letterhead he paid for from his own pocket and from which he derives absolutely no personal fiduciary gain? That he might have smoked a joint when he was on vacation in Florida?  None of the accusations, even if they are true, suggest that Ford has ever done anything improper for enriching himself.

Ford has devoted himself, while facing ridicule and scorn, to doing what is right for Toronto's taxpayers. He has fought hard to keep taxes and costs down for Torontonians, and he has been as successful as anyone could be given the magnitude of the opposition he's faced.

Today, when Ford was the voice fighting back against proposals to raise taxes, which had skyrocketed under his predecessor, David Miller, The Star published a spiteful article focusing on the way the mayor expressed disdain at imposing taxes on Torontonians while neglecting the detrimental affect of the new levies.

When Ford said there is corruption at City Hall, the Star was more interested in trying to vilify the mayor than serve public interests by exposing the corruption.

Something the media elites in Toronto don't realize is that people aren't as stupid as they think they are; nor will they believe everything they are told, just because it comes out of the mainstream news.

There isn't a major city in the world without some level of corruption at the municipal level.  And people know it.

In Toronto, billions are being spent on condo and commercial developments, often over the objection of local residents. A lot of money is being thrown around amid interests that are tied to that development and it may not be coincidental that more than one downtown "left-wing" councilor is living awfully well for someone supposedly making $102,608 per annum.

Ford has said he is willing to act for the will of residents when it comes to development. But rather than pursue potential corruption where it actually may exist, The Star, which makes a tremendous amount of money carrying advertisements for condos, is more interested in pursuing Rob Ford for potential technical errors in his efforts to help underprivileged kids with his school football foundation.

Just because Torontonians have ignored the will of the media elites doesn't mean they are stupid, or nuts as Star columnist Heather Mallick shrieked around the time she wrote a bizarre, disturbed, imagined wretched sexual tryst with Ford. Nor are they "hordes" conjuring up the images of barbarity attempted by the Star's resident condominium aficionado, Christopher Hume.

People aren't as stupid as Toronto's media elites would like. Voters not obsessed with their own insecurity are not afraid to have opinions that aren't sanctioned at One Yonge Street by the Toronto Star.

Ford was elected by a city fed up with social engineers and special interests who wanted to impose their vision at other people's expense, while telling the public they knew what is best.

What Rob Ford represents is the common person saying "we don't need a pompous, self-interested political class to tell us they know more about what's best for us than we do ourselves."

And as much as a sanctimonious political and media elite may hate it,  what they are telling us to think isn't turning people against Ford as much as turning him into a hero.

NDP front group issues `cease and desist` letter against Tim Hudak for calling them a Liberal front group

Working Families Ontario, which is funded by the same labor unions closely affiliated with the New Democratic Party has issued a `cease and desist` letter against the Ontario Progressive Conservatives for an advertisement that depicts the advocacy group as a ``Liberal front.``

This is a rather worrying trend about Hudak`s PCs. They don`t even know which opposition groups are doing what. At the very least, they should give credit where it is due.

‘Beyond its mandate’: Canada’s ‘radical’ postal workers’ union helps fund litany of controversial causes

Earlier this month, The Rose, a women’s newsletter issued by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, declared that through its support of Israel, Canada is complicit in “war crimes.”

Alongside claims that “patriarchy was introduced into First Nations cultures through European colonization,” the publication asserts that Canada “is allowing Israel to terrorize occupied people, breach international law, normalize home demolitions … and steal resources.”

Almost immediately, Jewish groups issued condemnations of the three-page document as “a racist propaganda tool filled with half-truths,” according to the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.

Representatives from all three major parties joined the chorus, with the most colourful coming from Liberal leader Bob Rae: “I continue to be astonished by the extent to which ideas which should be on the ‘loony tunes’ margins of politics have now been adopted by a union which represents thousands of its members.”

Read the rest at The National Post

h/t BCF

Missing Native women - a tragedy with grossly exaggerated numbers and political motives

Back in 2005, under Prime Minister Paul Martin’s Liberal government, an agency called Status of Women Canada gave a $10 million grant to the Native Women’s Association of Canada. The money was earmarked for the NWAC’s Sisters in Spirit Initiative with the intention of building a national database of missing indigenous women & girls.

The project was very successful at raising awareness- right to the point where their rallying cry of 600 missing and murdered women was announced on the floor of parliament. Unfortunately, it appears there are significant questions about the integrity of their database- arguably the most important part of the project.

Earlier this month the RCMP made a statement about the Sisters In Spirit initiative that caught a lot of people’s attention. First, they said that the NWAC only provided them with 118 names our of the 582 they claimed to have in their database- no explanation has been provided for the remaining 464 cases. When RCMP staff searched the 118 names released they were only able to confirm 54 cases listed in police databases.

Rob Ford to stay as Toronto's mayor!

The Divisional Court has overturned a decision ordering Mayor Rob Ford out of office. 

Regional Senior Justice Edward Then, Justice Katherine Swinton and Justice Lynne Leitch disagreed with a lower court that Mr. Ford broke the Municipal Conflict of Interest, designed to keep elected officials from exerting influence on decisions that could benefit them financially.

The panel of judges found that Justice Charles Hackland erred in finding the city had the authority to order the mayor to reimburse donations made to his private football foundation. The city’s integrity commissioner had found the donations were obtained improperly with use of city resources. But the higher court objected to a “so called remedial measure.. being used for a punitive purpose.”  

Furthermore, council’s decision went beyond the actions allowed in the city code of conduct “because it required Mr. Ford to reimburse funds which he never received personally,” the judges wrote in a decision released Friday morning. It concluded the mayor did not have a financial interest in the matter.

  Toronto Mayor Rob Ford appeal decision by  

Intelligent policy proposals from Marc Garneau

Garneau appeared on Sun News Network today to discuss his policy positions.

Garneau is the only feasible choice the Liberal Party of Canada has to offer