Toronto Sun's Sue-Ann Levy makes the communist pinheads at rabble.ca explode

You know you're doing a good job when you've written something that makes the communist pinheads at rabble.ca become apoplectic:

"Sue-Ann Levy, the perpetually grotesque enemy of working people that the Toronto Sun pays good money to run down those who actually work for a living, penned an opinion piece recently spouting the Canadian Taxpayers Federation line that Ontario government employees are somehow abusing the system by calling in sick more than do their private sector counterparts.

She spouts a bunch of statistics that, hopefully correctly, show that workers who are able to, do in fact call in sick, though she frames this, of course, as workers somehow "shirking" work because the government or unions "let them"."

and here's Sue Ann's article in THE TORONTO SUN 

rabble.ca is almost completely paid for by the big public service unions. Not quite the "independent" media they claim to be.

CUPE forces hospital patients to see self-mutilated staff members

The Ottawa Hospital’s pioneering attempt to impose a dress code on its staff has been struck down by a labour arbitrator, who ruled there was no justification for ordering workers to cover up their tattoos and remove their piercings.

Defending a policy considered unique in Canadian health care, the hospital had argued the body art could be disturbing to patients who need all the help they can get to recover.

Arbitrator Lorne Slotnick agreed some of the hospitals’ older patients might have a more negative first impression of a nurse sporting a tattoo or nose ring, but concluded there was no evidence the adornments affected patient health.

Great, next time you're in hospital. you can look forward to your nurse looking like this:

The Death Cult takes to Toronto's streets

"We will win because they love life and we love death"
- Hamas slogan

The meaning of the striking, controversial, crystal-like structure jutting over Toronto's Bloor Street that is part of the renovated Royal Ontario Museum has been the subject of much speculation since it was built a few years ago. Yesterday I heard an explanation for its shape I hadn't heard before. Designed by architect Daniel Libeskind,  it appears the edifice was built to serve the International Jewish Conspiracy.

That, at least, was the reason I was told that the noise from the loudspeakers across the street, reverberating against the crystal and amplifying the noise from the loudspeakers of pro-Israel counter-demonstrators, was drowning out pro-Hamas hysterics gathered opposite the building housing the Israeli consulate.

The Hamas supporters' demonstration was rather tame and anti-climactic.Their turnout was disappointing - almost 1300 clicktavists had committed to attend the demonstration on its facebook page, but less than a fifth of that number showed up to vent their fury. It was planned while the recent Israel-Gaza conflagration was still occurring, but since then a cease-fire has come into effect. Nonetheless, war or peace is irrelevant to the core of hateful fanatics for whom a Jewish state is an affront and its destruction is catechism.  

Many of the usual suspects obsessed with eliminating the only genuine democracy in the middle east were there. Ali Mallah, the buffoonish Islamist CUPE representative, the shrill, frumpy Sociology professor Mary Jo Nadeau and Sid Lacombe,  the grubby puppet of Iranian interests who acts as fuhrer of the misleadingly-named Canadian Peace Alliance, were in the forefront.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid's sad old man,
Tim McCaskell addressing the mob

There were a few surprises as well. One of the featured speakers was a young woman who made a disgraceful name for herself earlier this month by disrupting Toronto's Remembrance Day services and insulting the memory of Canada's fallen soldiers. Ranting about Canada being a "white supremacist society,"  this woman was obviously too stupid to comprehend the irony of her complaining about not having free speech in Canada while screaming slanderous insults about this country into a microphone at one of the busiest intersections in the nation's most populous city. That she was honored by the vapid pro-Hamas group was hardly surprising.

A significant visual distinction between the pro and anti-Israel demonstrators that revealed much of who they are could be seen in the complete absence of Canadian flags among the Hamas supporters. The pro-Israel group held Canadian and Israeli flags together.  Among the Muslim and radical leftists across the street were Palestinian, Syrian, and Turkish flags and signs proclaiming their hate, but not a single Red Maple Leaf.

The reason for that is something they made clear; because the Hamas supporters despise Canada. Referring to our country as an "occupied, racist, colonialist-settler state," among other expressions of detest, their invective towards Canada was only slightly less vitriolic than their venom directed towards Israel.

And you probably thought all the remaining Bolsheviks
had crawled back under their rocks...

Along those lines was the bloviating from Union Boss Sid Ryan of the Ontario Federation of Labour. If ever there was a personification of the need for Bill C-377, which calls for transparency in union spending, Ryan is it. Doing what he does best, which is being a self-aggrandizing blowhard, Ryan bragged about how he pushed through a 'boycott Israel' resolution while heading the Ontario branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.  In his tenure at CUPE, Ryan's pompous foolishness did nothing but prove how ineffective his resolution was, have scorn heaped on the union, and offend the majority of public workers and others for whom Israel's destruction is the furthest thing from their minds. Claiming the "occupation" has been going on since 1947, before it even became an independent state, Ryan revealed the end of  Israel's very existence is the goal he is striving to abuse his union role to further.

On the occasions I attend these types of protests, it is to observe and chronicle them. There was something about this instance that was different. This time, in the heart of Toronto, just a few blocks from the neighbourhood where I grew up, standing next to Canadian Forces veterans like Mark Vandermaas,  remembering some of the brave Canadian WW2 vets whom I knew as a child,  and hearing Canada and Canada's proud history being maligned by hateful acolytes of a new form of fascism, I decided to participate.

I took a Canadian flag and waved it high in the wind opposite the symbols of evil wielded by the ignominious votaries of a Death Cult. Waving our nation's flag amid a group ranging from little old ladies, former Peacekeepers, university students, average citizens and even a few of the extreme Zionists of the Jewish Defense League there to show their disdain for terrorists felt good, but I wanted to do a little more.

A barrier was put up to create a wide berth
between the terror supporters and
civilized people visiting the Museum

While Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid denizen Mary Jo Nadeau may be a low-tier academic with an unimpressive intellect, there is indeed one thing she does moderately well - screaming mindless slogans during demonstrations. Before she, Mallah and the rest of the anti-Israel mob skulked away along Bloor Street,  I decided to try an experiment. The Hamas supporters have a simple, facile narrative: "we are oppressed, we are victims, they are oppressors" and that was the essence of the tripe Nadeau was screaming, but she wasn't doing a very good job of electrifying her side.

On the north side, one of the Israel supporters had been continually talking into a rival loudspeaker, reciting support for Israel and opposition to terror. He was doing a decent job of counterbalancing the din from the Hamasphiles on the south, but neither that nor Nadeau's best efforts left either side impassioned by what they heard. So I thought I'd help the bad guys get more excited about their cause.

Union Commissar Ryan bewailed Canada not "saying a word" about Israel's "disproportionate" retaliation against Hamas. So borrowing the microphone from the pro-Israel speaker, I started with: "On that side of the street, they complain that the Canadian government hasn't condemned Israel. That's because Canada supports democracy and liberty over terrorism and tyranny!"  That got their notice and I continued.

"On that side of the street, they support totalitarianism and dictatorship, on this side we support democracy and freedom! On that side, they support Hamas launching indiscriminate attacks against women and children, on this side we support the right of free people to defend themselves from terror!"

Remembering that a few minutes earlier, a subdued and tired-looking Tim McCaskell from the small, lunatic fringe group of anti-capitalist Gays called "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" had addressed the Hamas supporters, I closed with an acknowledgement of his group's self-defeating stupidity. "On that side, they support Hamas, which oppresses women, which denies free speech to Gaza and murders people for being Gay. On this side we support equal rights and human rights for everyone!"

The experiment worked. While I delivered that brief address, the Hamas-lovers were jumping up and down, shouting profanities and threats, with pained expressions of rage like rats in a Skinner Box.

I handed the microphone back to the gentleman who was speaking before me, who then continued with his recitation. Though a great deal briefer and far less eloquent than the speech delivered earlier in the week by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, I'd made some of the same points and had done what I wanted.

One incident that was recounted to me by an elderly woman after the demonstrations dispersed is worth mentioning. There was a young woman, a university student, holding a sign among the Hamasites that read, "I was born in Israel and I condemn Israeli Apartheid." The elderly woman asked her, "how is it that Israel is an apartheid country?" Evidently not really understanding the meaning of the word, the student replied, "Israel took land away from the Palestinians."

"But what does that have to do with apartheid?" the older woman countered. "The same land was taken away from the Jews too and was never a 'Palestinian state.' In fact Zionists were able to buy up much of the land when it was controlled by the Ottoman Empire."

To that, the younger woman said, "what's the Ottoman Empire?"

What's the Ottoman Empire? That in a nutshell describes a vast amount about the anti-Israel fanatics who gather periodically on Canadian streets. Too witless to think beyond the puerile slogans they hear and too incurious to inquire beyond the indoctrination of biased, politicized liberal arts courses, they parade like stupid lemmings to the precipice of a loathsome ideology they don't even comprehend.


Syd Ryan and his conspiracy theories:

Pat Condell has the situation summed up:




The Hamasphrodites skulk away:

Blazing Cat Fur has more pictures here and here

Blogwrath has some great photos too


More fun from the Death Cult:

CUPW bosses using union dues to fund a hateful agenda reiterates the need for Bill C-377

It was a grey, drizzly, crappy day this Friday morning. Looking outside should make one for a moment of those hardworking Canadians, serving their fellow citizen and doing a job for the government by making sure you get your mail delivered on time.

To get that job, the mail sorters, the carriers, the truck drivers, the front line workers manning the post offices were all forced to join a union, The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW).

If you are a postal worker who doesn't like what the union does, it doesn't matter, you had to join. If you think union politics are insidious, it doesn't matter, you had to join. If you don't want union dues deducted from every one of your paychecks, it doesn't matter, it gets taken from you and you have no say over it.

I've worked in unionized environments. For the government. the vast majority of union members are decent, hardworking people. They do their job, cash their cheques, and for the most part, their only involvement with the union is getting a free calendar from them once a year and the odd notice for a union barbecue or holiday party. Not much in return for the hundreds of dollars culled from each employee over the course of each year from their weekly salaries.

Union employees and representatives are another mater. With few exceptions, the ones intimately involved with the union are the worst, most inept employees, and are prone to pettiness and sleaziness. They focus on the union as a way of protecting their ability to be inept and sleazy in the workplace.

The union bosses, who make big salaries and don't even work in your workplace, are the worst of the lot. They run their operations like Stalinist fiefdoms. They live lavishly while pretending to be regular Joes. They travel the country and beyond with large expense accounts and little concern for how the money is spent. Because for them the cash keeps coming and coming, every week, out of the workers' dues.

Think of the history of the long and intricate involvement between unions and organized crime and that tells you much about union "ethics."

Union bosses love playing the big shot, taking money from regular working people to pay for their depraved, insidious political goals. The Canadian Union of Public Employees regularly sends its bosses on "solidarity missions" to the communist dictatorship in Cuba or to prostrate themselves at the feet of authoritarian buffoon  Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. All this on the dime of union members, who are never told how much it costs.

Public service unions in Canada do not pay taxes nor do they disclose their spending.

For the guy and gal postal worker out there in the cold today, doing the hard job to let those union bosses live it up, the worst part is, they don't even get to be told by the unions how their money is spent. The union bosses want to keep it that way for a very logical reason. They know out much disgust and outrage they would face from their own membership upon seeing how their money funds the waste and malfeasance of the  high-living bosses.

The current example is the all-expenses excursion CUPW is sending six "delegates" to in Brazil for a "Let's Destroy Israel" conference. In a facade of trasparency, the union is letting anyone from its membership apply to go. But the twist is that, "Priority will be given to members who have experience with issues and activities related to this trip.." In other words, their cronies who share the hateful, politicized fanaticism of the union bosses get the largesse dispensed to them. While the average postie who isn't interested in destroying Israel is left to pick up the tab.

Union members have a right to expect their dues to be used to support workplace safety, fairness and collective bargaining; not the pet Jew-hate or communist cheerleading projects of the union kings.

Bill C-377, which has passed its Second Reading and has gone to the House of Commons Finance Committee, has the union commissars in a full-blown panic. It will force unions to disclose their spending on items over $5000. The unions are apoplectic with fear of having to tell the people whose money they squander exactly how they are doing it.

The unions have become so enraged, one of their stooges, a CUPE organizer named Humberto da Silva, who makes videos for the union-financed website rabble.ca, produced a video in which he compared Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Adolf Hitler because of the introduction of the spending transparency Bill.

Transparency wasn't actually big on Hitler's to-do list. Like CUPW's bosses, making life bad for Jews was. If  CUPW and some of the other union honchos want to find Hitler comparisons, they need not point all the way to the Prime Minister's office in Ottawa. The nearest mirror would do much better.

Union concessions avoid Toronto municipal strike

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The details aren't out yet, and won't be until the union ratifies the deal. It's unlikely the deal will be rejected because the city's administration was looking for the union to hand them a "go ahead, make my day" moment.

Marcus Gee of the Globe and Mail wrote up an excellent summary:


.. the city set a deadline of a minute after midnight on Feb. 5. Many had assumed the city would lock out its workers at that time if a deal had not been reached. The union's propaganda for the last couple of weeks seemed intended to portray it as the injured party if workers were indeed locked out. Mr. Ferguson was suddenly all moderation and optimism, saying first that the union would agree to settle for no pay increase and that it had no plans to strike. If it came to a lockout, he could say: We were talking and making concessions, so why the need to lock us out of our jobs?

But on Friday, in an unusual and aggressive move, the city said that it would not lock out the union at midnight. Instead it would impose new working conditions set out in its most recent contract proposal. The city was demanding more flexibility in how it deploys and, if necessary, lays off its employees.

The tactic put the union in a fix. Going to work on Monday morning as usual under new city-imposed conditions might have seemed like a tacit acceptance of them, a fait accompli. Suddenly calling a strike in protest at the city's move would have been equally tough for the union, given they had said they had no strike plans. Mr. Ferguson called the city a “bully” for making the threat but stayed at the bargaining table. Some time in the dark hours of Sunday morning, a deal was done.

An invitation to Occupy Toronto’s first Activist Assembly at OISE on the weekend of January 20, 21, 22

Oh goody!

The Occumorons are having a weekend seminar at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Free lunch and dinner.

How much you want to bet this is being paid for out of union dues forcibly extracted from workers in Public Service Unions?

The revolution is coming! It's free, but you have to register in advance or they won't let you in.

Register at: occupytoactivistassembly@gmail.com

If you can't make it for Jan 20-22, the Steelworkers' Union is hosting an Occumoron "Regrouping Weekend" On Jan. 6-8.

"Class War" coming to Toronto in January if the public service unions get their way

The Toronto Stop the Cuts network, an anti-austerity, union front group co-founded by the author of a notorious anti-Semitic OISE thesis, is planning a last-ditch stand against Toronto`s upcoming budget vote on January 17.

Judging by the people committed to participating on the group`s facebook page, it looks like the protest will be a convention of the most undesirable characters Toronto has to offer.

In addition to Jenny Peto, you`ll be able to find James Clark, of the Iranian dictatorship advocacy group The Canadian Peace Alliance, May Lui, the hilarious OISE grad who said that a long wait-time at a hardware store made her a victim of sexual oppression, Jesse Zimmerman, the aggressive, hysterical fanatic that tried to accost best-selling author and journalist Michael Coren during and after a public speech, Sea Hitler stooge Lyn Adamson,  Ryerson Prof Alan Sears, who hopes the anti-Israel movement is the gateway drug to the fall of international Capitalism, and a mish-mash of self-interested CUPE officials, OISE staff and depraved Marxist half-wits.

This fight against Ford is the vanguard of the coming battle of public service unions against taxpayers.

"The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians."             -Thomas Sowell

Ford has kept his promise of not raising taxes beyond the rate of inflation (in fact he did better by not raising it at all in his first year in office). He put money back in taxpayers' pockets by eliminating the vehicle registration tax.

Taxes skyrocketed under Ford's predecessor David Miller and the amalgamation of the City of Toronto, which was supposed to streamline services and increase efficiency, saw the city's employment roll grow by 7000 people. That's where the tax increases have gone under Miller and that's what the unions are going all-out to preserve at the expense of the average citizen.

The unions are using every tactic they have at their disposal, including their financing of the incoherent Occupy Toronto protest that cost Toronto's taxpayers $714,000 according to the anti-Ford newspaper The Toronto Star.

They pour money extracted from union dues into the neo-Marxist propaganda outlet rabble.ca, where making an anti-union comment gets a person banned from their user forums.

They finance the violent, fanatical group OCAP (Ontario Coalition Against Poverty) that, like Occupy Toronto, exploits the homeless and mentally ill to advance their agenda, which they see as being the beginnings of "class warfare."

The unions and their proxies are trying to frame Toronto's budget battle as one of cuts to essential services. Make no mistake, they are concerned with reductions, but only to the overflowing union coffers, not to  the quality of the lives of the average citizen whose taxes they want to spike higher.

That is the real, ugly face of the anti-Ford movement in Toronto. They act in service, not of fairness, but the advancement of an agenda that serves only themselves. In the world they strive for, public policy is not driven by democratic representatives that are elected by every citizen, but a politburo that will impose its will on the less enlightened masses whom they claim to represent despite its lack of consent.



The neo-Marxist, lunatic media outlet rabble.ca produced this poorly-made, hyperbolic 'class warfare' video hoping to mobilize the crazies against Ford:

Ezra Levant proves Occupy Toronto is a scam

4 am and an infra-red camera prove Occupy Toronto is practically empty at night with only a few union-paid stooges hanging around.

Homeless people should go to St. James Park at night and and occupy the empty occupation tents.

The Simon Fraser University Student Society battle against a greedy union continues

Back in July, I wrote about the stand Simon Fraser University's Student Society took against its so-called Public Interest Research Group (Self-Interested Marxist Propaganda Bureau is usually a better description for Canadian university "Public Interest" Research Groups that extract student funds to pay themselves as they engage in fanatical anti-Western activism), that resulted in a lock out and eviction of CUPE employees.

The Peak, SFU's student paper, published an editorial by the Student Society's Kyle Acierno this week about the ongoing dispute. CUPE seems to want to gouge the students of SFU for their own benefit. Who would have believed that a public service union would do that, eh?

From Acierno's editorial:

Most employers (like, say, the Canadian government) hire professionals to bargain collective agreements with unions so that there is a fair result for the employer and the employee. The case of the Simon Fraser Student Society, however, is different. In the past we haven’t had trained professionals to bargain agreements, we have had students with little or no experience thrown against the massive CUPE union.

What is the result? Well, it’s obvious: an agreement that heavily favours the union and gives close to half of the society’s money to pay 16 staff people.

Please remember that as a student elected to represent and work for students, I also share responsibility for running a $1.7 million operating budget. We must make the best fiscal decisions for the society. When we have a deficit of $800,000, is it right to pay all of our permanent employees over $30 an hour?

When we are forced to slash funding for all of our clubs and departmental student unions (such as the Economics Student Union which was cut from $1200 to $700 to $300), is it fair to pay our few student employees $21.64 an hour? When we can no longer afford bursaries that assist dozens of students in desperate financial need, like the $10,000 bursary contribution that is doubled by the government, should we not be looking for ways to solve our financial problems?

The quick and easy answer from most people supporting the union is to raise fees — charge the students more! The fact is that if we raised student fees to increase revenue by $20,000, we would only barely cover the average raises these employees receive each and every year! The following year we would be back asking for your money again. More money — not to provide extra service, to have more events, or to give back to you, but to pay for raises we are contractually forced to give.

Our answer to this dilemma: Why not make better use of the money that we already collect? Why not work to get a fair deal for students?

Canadian Communists and Civil Service Union exploit children for unpaid labour

Do you remember camp as a kid?  It should evoke memories of sports and exploring woods. Even day camps in the city have games and excursions to fun places.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees has a Youth Camp too. But "fun" might mean some thing else in the deranged world of the union bosses who support dictators like Fidel Castro and terrorists like Hamas.

For them, it appears fun means having kids stuff envelopes to ask for money for the union-financed, anti-Israel, pro-Marxist website rabble.ca; the unofficial mouthpiece for Jack Layton's NDP.

rabble.ca is published by the spouse of NDP Health Critic Libby Davies.  It seems the Communists and Unions have no problem exploiting children to suit their own cause.

Explicit calls for political violence come from the radical left in Canada

Any mass murder in North America has ramifications beyond the transparent tragedy that accompanies the death of innocents in a society that is comparatively among the safest in the world.

In trying to make sense of the incomprehensible, there are some who will try to find a culprit beyond the obvious, sometimes without any rational basis. The atrocity perpetrated by demented killer Jared Loughner over the weekend in which six innocent people were murdered and Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was critically wounded has, what seems to be, an obvious explanation. The perpetrator, whose public pronouncements suggest an incoherent, unbalanced madman, was mentally ill and acted out out of psychosis.

But one of the tragedies in this case, that compounds the original one, is that there are no shortage of people who are happy to exploit these deaths for political and ideological motives.

Because the central victim in is a Democratic legislator whose district was identified by Sarah Palin as a "target" for  Republicans to take, Democrats and others on the left, both in the US and in Canada, have ebulliently grasped the opportunity to lay blame on the former Republican Vice Presidential candidate,the Republican party and "right wingers" in general for allegedly creating a climate filled with violent rhetoric that supposedly created these events.

Nothing could be more absurd.

From The Democratic Leadership Council website

Despite preposterous suggestions from people like Paul Krugman in The New York Times, there is no evidence whatsoever establishing that anything Sarah Palin, or Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh said that played any role in Loughner's deranged violence. Sarah Palin may be a bit of a buffoon more famous for celebrity itself than for political adroitness, but her use of political rhetoric never called for violence of any kind and it falls within the scope of discourse that typifies much of American politics.

Responsible conservatives are as opposed to violence as much as responsible liberals. We live in a democratic society where change can be achieved through persuasion and elections.


Sane people are appalled by and reject the idea of initiating transition by terror.

But what may be shocking to some is that in Canada, explicit calls for violence to achieve political ends are coming from none other than the radical left.

Or perhaps not so shocking. The most recent acts of publicized political violence in Canada came from The Black Bloc during Toronto's G20 conference. It was radical leftists who rioted and caused millions of dollars in damage to make a political statement.

But it doesn't end there. Prominent Canadian leftist Judy Rebick founded a Marxist-leaning website called rabble.ca. It's now published by the spouse of the NDP's Deputy Leader, Libby Davies and is mainly funded by Canadian unions like CUPW and CUPE. That site's discussion forum recently hosted a thread entitled, "When is the time for violent revolution?" in which its contributors made comments like:

"I was wondering when it would be ok to overthrow a government, violently if need be."

"Perhaps the reason the ballot box isn't working is because the ballot box isn't the way to the solution."

"I think 9/11 was just a test run. The people failed with flying colours. And I think it's an example of what's in store for the future if fascists back themselves into another corner."

"How many more decades should we wait? It appears that Canadians arent catching on, so should we suffer in silence for 30 more years? maybe a generation or three? Dont the better people of our society have a responsibility to the stupid?"

and worse.

Beyond that,  CUPE, CUPW, Independent Jewish Voices (an anti-Israel group) and the NDP's Socialist Caucus were all endorsers of a recent rally where one of the speakers called for violent revolution in Canada.

At a Toronto rally in support of convicted American cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamar, one of the speakers was an organizer from the Communist newsletter BASICS. Following a rambling speech about conspiracies and praising violent revolutionaries, he said "we haven't had any threat of insurrection or any, you know, revolutionary uprisings in Canada quite for, for quite some time, right? But that that doesn't mean that operation is not still in play."

This suggests that the Canadian radical left is not only advocating violence, but planning it.

This type of organized insurrection against democracy is far more dangerous than a lone madman. Violence for political means is deplorable, and no ideology or political movement has a monopoly on it. But its strongest proponents these days are not the "right-wingers" and "neo-Cons" but their opponents.

CUPE, CUPW, NDP Socialist Caucus co-sponsor rally calling for violent revolution in Canada

It isn't just the Islamists you have to worry about.

Believe it or not, Canada still has communist and radical socialist organizations advocating violent revolution. And they may be involved in places you wouldn't expect.

The Trotskyite International Bolshevik Tendency (what the hell does that mean - they aren't always Bolshevik, but they tend to be??) as well as the NDP's Socialist Caucus, CUPE, The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (of course) and Independent Jewish Voices, a virulent anti-Israel group that is a sponsor of The Sea Hitler, (holds events at OISE) and is led by 9-11 conspiracy theorist Diana Ralph, along with Khaled Mouammar's Canadian Arab Federation, were just some of the groups behind a protest last month outside the US Consulate in Toronto.

The rally was to support convicted American cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamar (nee Wesley Cook).

The rally managed to attract about two dozen people, as you'll be able to see in the video below. That's a rather remarkable achievement, given that it was endorsed by exactly 33 organizations.

(This is further proof of the assertion that there are only a few radical crazies in Toronto who have created a large number of groups to which these same few people have cross-memberships in order to create the impression of greater numbers.)

One of the speakers was an organizer from the Communist newsletter BASICS. Following a rambling speech about conspiracies and praising violent revolutionaries, at about the 9:22 point of the video, he says "we haven't had any threat of insurrection or any, you know, revolutionary uprisings in Canada quite for, for quite some time, right?  But that that doesn't mean that operation is not still in play."

His speech contains what appears to be both advocacy of a violent revolution designed to overthrow our democratic, constitutionally-based government and the suggestion that it is being planned right now.

It's interesting to see CUPE, CUPW and a faction of the NDP associated with that. I haven't heard of them issuing a statement repudiating what was said at that rally. But then, is that really such a surprise?

Who runs the TDSB? Predatory Union CUPE Funds TDSB School Board Trusties Election Campaigns!

TORONTO, SEP 13 Toronto taxpayers and public-school parents may be surprised to learn that a majority of incumbent Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trustees relied on union contributions to finance up to two-thirds of their election campaigns.

The findings were gleaned from an analysis of candidates' financial reports from the 2006 election (City of Toronto website). According to Neil Flagg, candidate for trustee in WARD 5 (York Centre), 15 out of 22 elected trustees (68%) received union donations during the 2006 election, and of the 15 incumbents, 12 are seeking re-election in 2010. If re-elected, these incumbents would constitute a majority (55%) at the Board.

read the rest at:

Blazing Cat Fur: Who runs the TDSB? Predatory Union CUPE Funds TDSB School Board "Trusties" Election Campaigns!

The Toronto Star, Rob Ford, and the Status Quo Quartet

Yesterday, I attended a barbecue with a number of friends and family. It was a group of people from different backgrounds and of varied economic status ranging in age from their thirties to their sixties. Some of these people were multi-generational Canadians and others were the first generation children of immigrants.

It had been overcast all morning with the grey skies seeming to hold the perpetual promise of rain, which by mid-afternoon, delivered on that promise. We gathered under a canopy watching the barbecuer-in-chief deal with the cooking, and all of us imbibing beer and liquor and conversing.

Eventually, the conversation turned to the municipal election. While the things my friends said may be apocryphal, given that this gathering was a seemingly representative microcosm of Toronto's citizenry, it also seemed instructive.

Almost to a person, everyone at that barbecue said they planned to vote for Rob Ford.

A phenomenon that has set the media's head spinning lately, particularly at the Toronto Star, is how after what seems to be fatal foible after fatal foible, Rob Ford's popularity has not diminished. It has in fact increased to the point where he far-and-away the front runner in the upcoming municipal election.

Ford's growing popularity amid The Star's attempts to sink him reminds me of the line Obi Wan Kenobi said to Darth Vader during their duel in Star Wars: A New Hope.

Alec Guiness, playing Kenobi, said: "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

While columnists and writers in the Globe and Mail have launched scathing personal attacks against Ford, the Toronto Star has been unrelenting in its vicious onslaught. The Star has gone to the point of printing stories that border on slander, such as their demonstrably false report that Ford physically assaulted a high school football player he was coaching.

While the editorial boards at the Star and Globe, whose arrogant views of their self-importance and influence must be reeling at how their all-out attempts to sink Ford have failed, what must be bothering them even more is the mystery of "why?"

Some columnists have already printed their own theories about the phenomenon of Ford's resilience, and some, like The Sun's Joe Wormington's recent coulmn, reflected some of what was said to me at the barbecue. It seems the media's 'piling on' of Ford about trivial matters while ignoring more serious transgressions by his rivals reflects a panic from the status quo at the prospect that waste and influence by special interests at city hall is in jeopardy.

The quartet of Smitherman, Rossi, Thompson and Panatlone all represented, as far as my friends were concerned, the status quo. And despite the quartet's insistence that they would change things, no one I spoke with yesterday believed them, while they did believe Ford. Why? Because Ford, through his whole career, has campaigned against waste in government, whereas the 2 members of the quartet who have been in elected office are firmly associated with wasteful spending.

Another component of Ford's popularity is his personality. Ford seems like a "real guy," the sort of person you could have a beer with. None of the quartet have been able to convey that convincingly.

And most tellingly, Ford impressed the people I spoke to as someone who is sincere. Ford carries himself as someone who says what he thinks. Sure, that means he says inopportune things from time-to-time. But that makes him a real person. And Ford will say how he feels regardless of who it offends, which as potentially damaging politically as it may be, suggests a refreshing honesty in a politician. In contrast, the quartet all came across as opportunists who are more likely to say something that they think will serve their political purposes than they would be likely to tell the truth.
                                       
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No issue made this more clear than reaction to Ford's comments about immigration that were spurred by the controversial arrival of a boatload of Tamil migrants. When Ford said this city can't afford to take in more people when we can't even take care of those already here, he was saying something that most people understand to be true. Sensing an opportunity to paint Ford in the light as "anti-immigration" and even "racist" the quartet piled on like hyenas.

The quartet couldn't have made a worse move.  People who have come to Canada legally resent illegal migrants who circumvent the regulations complied with by and stringent efforts of honest immigrants more than anyone else. And nothing has made the dishonesty of Ford's opponents more clear than the accusation of "racism." There was no racial reference or implication to anything Ford said about Toronto's ability to care for its own. Toronto is the most diverse city in the world and "Toronto's own" includes people from every racial and cultural background on earth.

What may have sealed the deal for Ford is the recent revelation that 71% of Tamil "refugees" have returned to Sri Lanka on vacations since they came to Canada. What could be clearer proof that the immigration system and Canada's good graces are getting bilked? You don't go back to a country for a vacation if you are being persecuted there and your life is at risk.

The other factor that Ford stood alone against in the face of attack from the Quartet was his commitment to eliminate the city's "Fair Wage" policy which enforces union pay rates equalling municipal pay rates to outside contractors who make tenders to the City. Anyone can see through this. It costs the city tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. It eliminates much of the very reason and all of the savings the city could gain from outside tenders.

Who benefits from this policy is clear: Unions. The same unions that incumbent mayor David Miller is perceived as being beholden to. The same unions that the Quartet is trying to curry support from. What was telling was that even union people I spoke to were in favor of Ford's "Fair Wage" policy position.

Because only some people in some unions gain from the "fair wage" policy, particularly CUPE, which is fearful of competition and the pressure that getting outside sources to do the same or better jobs at cheaper rates would bring.

The union members I spoke to supported  Ford because they don't identify themselves as being unionist before they do as being Torontonians and taxpayers. They don't want the next mayor to be a wasteful spender in the pocket of CUPE any more than anyone else outside of CUPE.

So, it seems to me that, no matter how hard the Toronto Star and the Status Quo Quartet may try, as long as Rob Ford keeps being Rob Ford, his momentum to the mayor's office is probably unstoppable.

UPDATE: AUGUST 23: An Ipsos Reid poll taken over the wekend shows Ford as the clear front runner with an 11 point lead over nearest rival, George Smitherman.



h/t blazing cat fur