An Eye on a Crazy Planet endorsement of Adam Vaughan in tomorrow's Trinity Spadina by-election

In elections, for the most part, we don't vote for who we want, we vote for who we can live with.

Of the three major political parties in Canada today, the Conservatives have, far and away, the best leadership. Our current government may get some things wrong, but measured against the radicals and incompetents in Tom Mulcair's NDP and the bumbling stupidity of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a superlative statesman and leader by comparison, and a good one by any standard in today's world.

Tomorrow, on Monday, June 30, a by-election is happening in Toronto's Trinity-Spadina riding. I know the riding very well, having been born in, grew up in and lived in it for 30 years and it's where my son currently goes to school.  In the early 1980's I was Vice President of the riding's Liberal Youth Association when Jim Coutts, who had been Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, unsuccessfully vied for Spadina's Parliamentary seat. The riding has an over-concentration of privileged, aged socialists on the public teat who think more taxes and government control are the solution to all life's problems along with a recent influx of shallow condo Yuppies.

The reality is that the Conservatives have absolutely no chance of winning Monday's Trinity-Spadina by-election. The last time a Conservative represented the area was 1970-72 when Perry Ryan, representing the old Spadina riding, switched parties from the Liberals.The riding, with its old and new boundaries, has changed hands between the Liberals and NDP since then and there's no indication that is likely to change any time soon.

The effective two person race is between former Toronto City Councillor Adam Vaughan, running for the Liberals and Joe Cressy, who was an aide to the NDP incumbent MP Olivia Chow, whose resignation to try to capture Toronto's mayoralty necessitated the by-election.

Given that choice, Adam Vaughan is clearly the superior candidate.

While there is much in the way of policy that I disagree about with Adam, and I think he is likely to be as partisan a parliamentarian for the Liberals as they come, there are also very compelling reasons to elect him.

In the first place, Adam is smart. There was a time when we used to take that for granted among those who held seats in the House of Commons, yet such is no longer the case, and the examples of that decline are too many to enumerate here. But perhaps the best example of the decline in intellectual standards among elected politicians is the leader of the Liberal party for which Vaughan is running.

It does seem paradoxical to condemn Justin Trudeau while in effect asking people to vote for him by extension in casting a vote to strengthen his party's position in parliament.There is, however, a logical explanation. Justin Trudeau may have below-average intelligence, but if intelligence is quantifiable, then that description applies to half the voting public.

I know a woman who plans to vote for Justin Trudeau for no reason other than she likes his hair and thinks he's cute. No, I'm not joking, and unfortunately, yes, she was serious.

Stupid people vote, and there's every possibility that enough stupid people will vote for Justin Trudeau to elect him as the next Prime Minister. If you don't believe that, remember that Kathleen Wynne's hopelessly inept, corrupt government just got a majority in Ontario.

So in the event that Trudeau were to lead the country, it's far better he be surrounded by bright people like Adam Vaughan and sitting MP Marc Garneau than some of the idiots who are currently in the Liberals' Parliamentary caucus.

There are many other qualities possessed by Adam to recommend him for the office he's seeking tomorrow. He has demonstrated during his years as a City Councilor that he doggedly researches and familiarizes himself with relevant policies and procedures affecting his duties. Adam is also very responsive to constituency needs. Compare that with say, Ontario's Minister of Education who signs off on a curriculum she hasn't even bothered to read and dismisses public concerns about its radical and detrimental effects.

Another thing recommending Adam to higher public office is that he is not corrupt. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of Toronto City Councilors about whom I'd say that with any measure of confidence and Adam Vaughan is one of them.

Vaughan's NDP opponent Joe Cressy doesn't have much in his favor to speak of. His party has two vacuous Deputy Leaders in the persons of Libby Davies and Megan Leslie and the NDP would run a ruinous economy if ever given the chance. Cressy himself, working for Olivia Chow, was serving a 57 year old person who has spent practically all of her adult life as a politician, yet has no notable achievement to speak of other than having married Jack Layton. So basically speaking, Cressy's resume is that he helped Olivia Chow suck up public finds for doing nothing, which isn't much of a recommendation for a Parliamentary seat.

For those who think Adam Vaughan is nothing but a stuffy old leftie, I've met him many times and he's personable and has a pretty decent sense of humor. And there's a story a good friend of mine relayed that may make Adam seem like more fun still.

This friend of mine was a drinking buddy of Adam's way back, before he was a City Councilor and even before he was a reporter for Toronto's CITY-TV. From what my friend told me, on occasion, when Adam was doing some power-drinking and knew he was on the path to getting sick, he would start to swallow the contents of vials of food coloring dye so that when he puked, it would be in rainbow colors.

Our nation's first, and many believe greatest Prime Minister was known for vomiting in public from drink, but never as impressively as with Adam Vaughan's rainbow barf.

And so tomorrow, when Trinity Spadina chooses its next MP, it strikes me that a smart guy who used to puke rainbows is a much better choice than the other guy, whose party would crush our national economy.

Join me, Adam Giambrone and others for a free movie and a talk about Social Justice in Education

UPDATE - There have been a couple of cancellations and some new people joining us for the post-film discussion:

Remember Thursday November 14 in the Auditorium at Central Technical School (at the Corner of Bathurst & Harbord Streets) in Toronto, you'll get to join former City Councillor and current NOW Magazine columnist Adam Giambrone, as well as Paul Koidis, Associate Dean of at the School of Media, Art and Design at Durham College and me for a fantastic movie and what promises to be a very interesting discussion about Social Justice and Activism in the education system.

It starts promptly at 6:30 PM, so be sure to be there early!

Kelly McParland: Rob Ford’s enemies prove to be his greatest strength

Anyone wondering how Rob Ford manages to retain a solid core of supporters despite his sea of troubles need only look at the nature of his challengers. With enemies like this, who needs friends?

...The more the privileged core of “activists”, “progressives” and downtown-dwellers vent about Rob Ford, the more determined his fan base becomes to keep him in office.  The Toronto Star, chief cheerleader for the anti-Ford forces, keeps searching for polls that suggest the mayor is toast, but instead finds voters think he’s the target of a jihad. An Ipsos Reid poll conducted weeks after Ford was alleged to have used crack cocaine found that half the people polled thought the claims were proof of a media (read: Toronto Star) agenda against Ford. The core of his support, not surprisingly, was in the same suburbs that made him mayor and resents the downtowners’ unending crusade to negate the election. When the Star sent a reporter out to mock Ford supporters — standing on a roadside with a sign seeking interviews — it discovered they don’t care about imagery and are happy that he’s controlled taxes. “They believe there is a vendetta against the Fords and that we journalists are making money along the way,” sighed the reporter.

Read all of Kelly McParland's column at THE NATIONAL POST 

h/t Marvin W.

The infantile behavior at Toronto City Council continues

Everyone in Toronto should spend some time at City Hall to watch Council in session. It is a particularly educational, though a depressing and disillusioning experience.

City Councilors, particularly those representing wards from the old city of Toronto, routinely behave like spoiled, petulant cretins. Of those, Maria Augimeri, Gord Perks, Shelley Carroll, Janet Davis and Paula Fletcher are stand-outs of extraordinarily deplorable behavior.

Sue Ann Levy reports on the latest antics going on at our seat of municipal government: 

...six and-a-half hours of time wasted at council Wednesday on a moronic plan — hatched by Vaughan — to declare the back campus at the University of Toronto a “cultural heritage landscape” to preserve the muddy grass there, instead of installing artificial turf. 

... Because three-dozen uptight Annex residents whined to him — and because he doesn’t really care about growing Toronto economically — he was prepared to sacrifice the U of T’s role in the Pam Am Games. Six and-a-half friggin’ hours and gawd knows how much in staff resources later — all frittered away on ridiculous yakking about grass vs. turf — council voted 31-12 to go with the original plan to install, you guessed it, the turf.

...there were the usual number of childish antics from those who purport to be our leaders. Would-be mayoral candidate Karen Stintz sat mock-playing a violin while Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti spoke about the lack of funding for sports endeavours in Ward 7 — reinforcing the fact that she doesn’t have what it takes to run this city. 

Councillor Shelley Carroll repeatedly interrupted Wednesday’s proceedings, attempting to throw her weight around and to bully the weak councillors in the middle, as she does at every meeting...

Rob Ford maintains his economic stewardship will ensure he survives scandal as Councilor Adam Vauhgan takes a taxpayer-funded jaunt to Vancouver

More here

Rob Ford Derangement Syndrome

Rob Ford on crack is still better for Toronto than his "sober" spendthrift opponents

Property taxes skyrocketing, unions dominating city spending, introductions of new taxes disguised as user fees, like a new garbage-pick up fee, complete capitulation to a civic union after a lengthy garbage strike, imposition of dictates on how neighbourhoods should be from city bureaucrats and politicians, inept wast of city funds, like the St. Clair streetcar fiasco, and total incompetence characterized the tenure of David Miller, Rob Ford's predecessor as mayor of Toronto.

In complete contrast, since becoming mayor, Rob Ford kept his promise of eliminating the Vehicle Transfer Tax, he reduced the amount of money individual City Councillors are allowed to spend on office expenses, he saved the city millions by outsourcing garbage pick up west of Yonge Street and knowing he would stand up to them, negotiated fair and reasonable contracts with civic unions.

And under Ford's stewardship, for the first time ever, the city's spending has flatlined.

His commitment to put taxpayers above special interests who rely on public-funded entitlements has made Ford plenty of enemies. The Toronto Star has been relentless in attacking the mayor, devoted unprecedented resources to defaming him and actually libeled Ford by falsely accusing him, based on hearsay,  of assaulting a high school football player. A charge that the student, once located, refuted himself. There hasn't been a week when the Star hasn't found some petty grievance that it tried to magnify into a mountain of disdain against Rob Ford.

And now it emerges that Rob Ford may have smoked crack cocaine.

Even if the charges are true, while expecting the mayor to seek help and conduct himself with more decorum in the future, the city is still far better off with Ford as mayor than it would be under any of his spendthrift opponents.

When Grover Cleveland, the former mayor of Buffalo and a man considered to be a thoroughly honest politician, was running against James G. Blaine for the US Presidency in the 19th Century, it was considered a scandal that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child. The Republican Blaine was a good family man who was widely believed to have accepted bribes while Speaker of the House of Representatives.

A newspaper editorial at the time said in effect that Cleveland was a disappointment as a family man while staying honorable in his role as a public servant, while Blaine was immaculate in his private dealings but thoroughly corrupt as a politician. The right thing to do therefore, was that the two should be consigned by the voters to the lives they led best - Cleveland to public life and Blaine back to private life. Grover Cleveland defeated won the election.

The analogy holds true of Ford. The man has never taken a cent in public funds in any way that could be deemed inappropriate. He is even famous for paying his office expenses from his own pocket rather than charging them to the taxpayers.

Lucia Corbella noted in The Calgary Herald that the hypocrisy exhibited by Ford's enemies regarding his alleged substance abuse is astounding:

"Funny how quickly, though, lefties who use that excuse for beautiful losers they admire, or for the downtrodden on their city streets, have abandoned their hackneyed mantra when a person they despise is a user."

The Toronto Star lavished praise on the unbalanced kleptomaniac MP Svend Robinson. But he had, in their eyes, the benefit of of being a member of the socialist New Democratic Party.

In the last municipal election, The Toronto Star endorsed George Smitherman, a drug-addict who was responsible for a billion dollars worth of wasted taxpayer funds. But he was a Liberal, so as far as the Star was concerned, he was just great.

Ford's Council opponents are incompetents who lavish public money on their special interest friends. To put them back in charge of the city's coffers would be disastrous for the taxpayers of Toronto.

While we want to get Ford to get of his crack, he spends other people's money responsibly. Whether sober or on drugs, leftist city councilors like Adam Vauhgan, Joe Mihevc, Janet Davis and Gord Perks spend tax dollars like crackheads who have just pulled off a successful home invasion.

And that's a type of addiction Toronto really can't afford.

City Council gives finger to mayor & city and votes for more traffic congestion and neighborhood disruption

Mayor Ford tells city council the people of Toronto do not want another St. Clair West fiasco.

He asked for a study on the best practice and the smug leftists on council laughed when he said it's best to do what's in the city's best interest and not to "play politics."

Some might claim the laughter was because they think Ford routinely plays politics. I'd suggest that for Councillors like Adam Vaughan and Joe Mihevc to be able to restrain their uncontrollable ideological bent is so impossible as to be a joke.

The City loses again.



UPDATE:While the councillors who voted against the subway were congratulating themselves after the vote, Rob Ford was riding the subways hearing how people who use the TTC support his plan.

Royson James writes about Toronto's leftist Councilors who have gone off the rails to protect their socialist comrades at the Toronto Community Housing Corporation

Blinded by their zeal to stop Ford, too many left-wing councillors chose to attack Griffiths rather than accept his findings and demand greater accountability. They support public housing, not any suggestion of privatization. They support big government, not Ford’s push to cut the size of government. They support more spending at city hall for city-building, not a contraction of the budget.  

They lost the last election. 

Ford won, promising the opposite of what these councillors practised for seven years under David Miller.

These councillors have a duty to provide effective opposition to Ford. And they do. They also have a duty to protect taxpayers, ahead of members of the TCHC board, ahead of city staff who may have failed to provide proper oversight in the spending of tax dollars. 

But instead of focusing on the indiscretions of public service workers, the councillors seemed intent on protecting them, even in the face of the auditor’s findings. And instead of condemning staff behaviour, they wanted to focus on media leaks in the public interest. 

The dissenting councillors intimated that Griffiths and/or staff may have leaked portions of two auditors’ reports to the media. They all but said Griffiths had come under the “undue influence” of the mayor. They cast aspersions on his integrity, even as they professed not to.

Then Councillor Adam Vaughan, unable to hide his contempt for the auditor general, gave him a lecture on integrity and public accountability and warned of an “audit process that is going off the rails.”

Staring at Griffiths, an independent auditor with more integrity than a dozen councillors put together, Vaughan instructed him to “tighten the regulations and rules” in his department. Then he upbraided Griffiths, ending with:

“And if there’s a leak in his department, it’s on his watch,” Vaughan spat, jabbing his finger at Griffiths, a few seats away. 

Deputy mayor and audit committee chair Doug Holyday jumped to Griffiths’ defence.

“This is a classic case of ‘shoot the messenger.’ You don’t like the message so you shoot the messenger.”

James' whole column is in The Toronto Star.

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

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.