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From my brother of another mother, Bernie Farber, in the Star:

Goldy is well-known to Ford. She was a colleague of the premier’s when they both appeared on SUN News panels. He was also interviewed by Goldy before she was fired from the ultra-right Rebel Media for her support of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

Goldy has a short but sordid history with white nationalist extremism. She didn’t start out that way. Articulate and engaging, Goldy was a devout Christian and a graduate of Trinity College at the University of Toronto. At Trinity, she received a Gordon Cressy Student Leadership Award recognizing outstanding extra-curricular contributions to the school.

From there Goldy took a sharp turn to the right. In 2015, Goldy was a co-host of a live public affairs program for Zoomer Media. I was asked to participate in a discussion on the Syrian refugee crisis. At first congenial and warm, Goldy turned right before my eyes into an anti-immigrant loudmouth hardly disguising her animus, permitting raucous racist comments from the partisan crowd.

Shortly thereafter, Goldy began her stint with Rebel Media. It seems that the influence of commentators there who engaged in anti-Semitic, racist and Islamophobic rhetoric helped turn her mind. And it was from her perch at Rebel Media that Goldy went fully into the nightmare world of white supremacy.

Warren Kinsella, author of the Web of Hate and a recognized expert on Canadian hate groups had this to say about Goldy’s experience in Charlottesville:

“The breaking point came in Charlottesville, which she was sent to cover for Ezra’s online lunatic asylum, where she’d be seen doing a stand-up not far from the woman who was mowed down by a white supremacist. That terrible week, Faith appeared on the pro-Nazi Daily Stormer, opining that there was a need for a rise in “white racial consciousness.” She also proclaimed that National Socialist types have “robust” and “well-thought-out” ideas on “the Jewish question.” Levant, a Jew and no anti-Semite himself, finally fired her.”

From that point on, her descent was rapid. She began to appear on white supremacist media sites where she recited the infamous “14 words.” (We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.) It is the credo of white supremacy evolved by David Lane, leader of the neo-Nazi terrorist group “The Order.” Lane was convicted and sentenced for violating the civil rights of Alan Berg, then a Jewish talk show host who was murdered in June 1984. Three members of “The Order” shot Berg in his driveway. Lane drove the get-away car.

Goldy’s meteoric rise in the far right continued. Appearing on a far- right television program, Goldy hyped the anti-Semitic tome For My Legionaries. Written in the 1930s, the renowned Southern Poverty Law Center describes it as “the canonical works of global fascism.” It advocated the genocide of Jews even before Hitler enacted the Holocaust. Goldy described it as “very, very, very, very spot on. . .”

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Defeat, in politics, is almost always preceded by some sort of an overreaction.

You know: Paul Martin, desperate to avoid defeat in the 2006 federal election, declares that he will take away the federal government’s ability to use the notwithstanding clause.  Didn’t work. He lost.

The Grant Devine government in Saskatchewan used it in 1986, desperate to ensure some public sector workers were forced back to work.  His government was subsequently defeated, and a bunch of his MLAs and staffers later served time for expense account fraud, too. For good measure, the federal Conservatives wouldn’t even let Devine run for them.

Ralph Klein, desperate to keep social conservative knuckle-draggers happy, mused about using the notwithstanding clause back in 2005, to prevent same-sex couples from getting married.  A few years earlier, in 1998, he wheezed that he’d also use section 33 of the Constitution to prevent compensation for thousands of innocents who had been subjected to forced sterilization by Alberta’s government between 1927 and 1972.

He didn’t, though, in either case.  Klein’s willingness to use brute constitutional force against gay people who love each other – and against people who had been sterilized simply because they had disabilities – will follow his name throughout time, like a foul curse.

Quebec, however, wasn’t nearly as shy as Ralph Klein.  From 1982 to 1987, in fact, the separatist Parti Quebecois government actually inserted the wording of the notwithstanding clause into every single piece of legislation it passed – so desperate were they to prevent any of their laws from being challenged in court. That all was a bit too reminiscent of a certain European nation in the 1930s, so the PQ was sent packing in 1987, and the practice stopped by the Québec Liberals.

In 1988, however, the Quebec Liberals were eventually desperate, too. So they invoked the clause to prevent people from putting English words on signs.  They got condemned by the United Nations for that, so the Robert Bourassa Liberals rewrote their anti-English law to make it somehow conform with the Charter of Rights.  Bourassa went on to quit politics, and his successor got wiped out by the PQ after just a few months in power.

See the threads weaving through all of that?  See that? Desperation, and the notwithstanding clause.  In Canada, the two go hand-in-hand: desperate politicians use the notwithstanding clause – or say they’re going to, or simply start talking about it – and then they pay a steep, steep price.

The Ontario Progressive Conservative government didn’t end up using section 33. But, so desperate were they to winnow down a municipal council by a few puny seats, they said they would if they had to.

Asked for some justification, the Ontario PCs went on and on about how judges are appointed, and how politicians aren’t. (Forgetting, apparently, that it is the politicians who do the judicial appointing, up here in Canada.)

But logic is irrelevant, among the desperate. No one knew why they were so desperate, really – would it have killed them to wait a little bit, and pass their law when an election wasn’t already underway? – but desperate they were.

So: they were condemned by one of the authors of the Constitution, Jean Chretien. They were condemned by Brian Mulroney – a fellow Conservative who (like Kim Campbell, like Stephen Harper) never, ever used the notwithstanding clause. They were condemned by another Ontario Progressive Premier, the much-revered Bill Davis.

Most notably, they were condemned by the people. Across Toronto, across Ontario, across Canada: people were mad at the Ontario Tories. The polls showed it. Whatever honeymoon the weeks-old Ontario PC government was enjoying was effectively obliterated by the constitution desperation.

Does the same fate await them that befell the others? Will they carry the notwithstanding curse to the political graveyard?

Who knows. Time will tell.

But their stated willingness to use a constitutional nuclear bomb – and their sheer desperation – will not be forgotten anytime soon.

It shouldn’t be.

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Good question. I remember her.

She’s tallish, slouching near the doors at Sun News Network, chain-smoking.  Smirking

“Troll with a tan,” someone at the erstwhile network said about her. Uncharitably, but not inaccurately.  That indeed seemed to be the whole package: a suspiciously deep, orange-ish tan, and the sleeveless Fox News mien.  That’s it.

When she first appeared on Sun News, they’d hand her a microphone and tell her to go stand somewhere and pretend to be a reporter.  She’d slap on fake eyelashes the size of bats – and then she’d fire off words and sentences like a speed freak running an auction.  She was terrible.

In time, she’d slow down her delivery, reveal a bit more décolletage, and start sharing her views on-air.  Around the ill-fated right-wing network, it was pretty difficult to sound extreme: for many, fanaticism was the lingua franca.  But Faith Goldy – with figurative snakes slithering thorough her veins, and a clutch of metaphoric maggots in the spot where a heart should be – sounded extreme even to the extremists.

When Sun News slipped beneath the waves, however, no one was surprised to see her clutching at Ezra Levant’s dinghy, the S.S. Rebel.  The rightist trolls – living in their mom’s basement, pawing at their tiny gonads through their Avengers jammies as they eyeballed Faith’s clips on a continuous loop – loved her.  They positively ached for her. Faith was the one they wanted to marry, at a ceremony with lots of Wagner’s Rienzi, Die Meistersinger playing, and possibly an officiant from the Aryan Nations compound in Hayden Lake.

But even as the rebels sought to curry favour with the so-called alt-Right, publishing columns titled “Ten Things I Hate About Jews” and doubting the Holocaust in commentaries, Faith Goldy went further.  She was more of a race-and-religion rebel than anyone at the Rebel.

The breaking point came in Charlottesville, which she was sent to cover for Ezra’s online lunatic asylum – where she’d be seen doing a stand-up not far from the woman who was mowed down by a white supremacist.  That terrible week, Faith appeared on the pro-Nazi Daily Stormer, opining that there was a need for a rise in “white racial consciousness.”  She also proclaimed that National Socialist types have “robust” and “well-thought-out” ideas on “the Jewish question.”  Levant, a Jew and no anti-Semite himself, finally fired her.

After that, Faith abandoned all pretense of restraint.  She was fully alone, piloting in dark, dark waters.

She started reciting The Fourteen Words, the credo of neo-Nazi terrorists in the Order – “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”  She went on someone’s show to promote a book about “the Jewish menace” – a book which calls for “putting an end to their unnatural, parasitic existence.”  She advocated for pedophile Milos Yiannopoulos, simply because she was encouraged by his brand of foul racism.  She tweeted “the future is Far Right.”  David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, took notice and commenced cheerily retweeting her stuff.  So did other lowlifes.

So, is Faith Goldy a neo-Nazi?  Who knows.  She certainly counts many Hitlerites among her friends and followers, doesn’t she?

Which naturally leads us to another question, one more relevant:  is Faith Goldy someone with whom Canadian political leaders should ever be seen?

No. No, they sure as shit shouldn’t.

UPDATE: I am reliably told the Premier was not aware of the sorts of things I outline above. I am also told this will never happen again.

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A few days ago, John Tory put out a press release laying out what he wants to see in the Toronto mayoral debates.  Given all the crap that is going on, with notwithstanding clauses and protests and grandmothers being handcuffed and whatnot, it didn’t get a lot of attention.  It should have.

Tory laid out some of the things he wants to see in the debates in which he will participate.  They are:

• He’s not showing up if organizers permit white supremacists like Faith Goldy and James Sears to participate
• He wants to have some of the other credible mayoral candidates present – even those who have been strong critics of him
• He wants the debates to be as diverse as the city itself, and not just a couple caucasians participating

Jennifer Keesmaat hasn’t insisted on the same sorts of things, to my knowledge.  She wants to exclude other candidates, for example.  That’s wrong.

Yesterday, John Tory got asked about all of this stuff.  What he said is significant [and I’ve edited it for brevity]:

Discussions about debates are taking place [with] my campaign. We have issued, as a campaign, a series of criteria that are fair – and that should apply to all debates. I will not debate in the presence of a couple of candidates that have openly and consistently advocated racism, and white supremacist views.  That has no place in the city, let alone in the debate for the mayoralty.  The second thing that I have said – in light of the fact there are some 35 candidates, I think, running for mayor – these debate organizers should make more of an effort to make sure that that other people are represented.

I’m quite willing to debate. And I look forward to debating. But I believe that having just two [candidates] is not reflective of the fact that other people have spent a lot of time and effort to campaign in good faith. The debate organizers should be making an effort to make sure that some of those people should be represented in the debates that we have. And I am pleased to say that a number of the debate organizers have agreed with that, and I have confirmed my participation in these debates.  

This is another reason why I’m supporting Tory: he isn’t afraid of critics or criticism. And: he won’t give legitimacy, in any way, to bigotry. And: he wants the mayoral campaign to be as multicultural as Toronto is.

Like I say, he’s a good guy. If you live here in the Centre of the Universe™, you should vote for him.

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Show of hands: how many of you expected the Ontario government to lose the constitutional challenge of its Bill 5, which aimed to reduce the size of Toronto’s city council?

No one?

Exactly. No one – no one who has been paying attention, at least – expected Doug Ford’s government to lose.

Municipalities are creatures of provincial legislatures, as we lawyers like to say. Provinces can do anything they want to municipalities – even legislate them out of existence.

But Ford lost. In a scathing decision, Justice Edward Belobaba concluded that the newly-minted Ontario government had violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms with their bill. Specifically, the free speech rights of those seeking a seat on city council.

So, chagrined and chastened, Ford and his government decided to invoke section 33 of the Constitution to override Belobaba’s decision. The non abstante provision. The notwithstanding clause.

What does it all mean? Nothing. It means we are precisely at the point we all expected to be at: with a smaller city council here in the centre of the universe.

The only difference, in fact, is this: Doug Ford decided to avail himself of the notwithstanding clause, something the Constitution explicitly permits him to do.

Section 33 was not conjured up by a Québec separatist, either. It was mostly the invention of Alberta PC cabinet minister Merv Leitch. He suggested it to Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed, who in turn suggested it to Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chretien, Roy McMurtry and Roy Romanov.

None of them liked it. But they all went along with it. Tories, Grits, Dippers. Everyone was in on it.

So, now we are all where we expected to be: with a Toronto city council that is smaller – and which needed to smaller, in my opinion. The only difference is that a little-used part of the Constitution has been once again used. That’s the honest truth.

And, let’s be honest about something else, too. Not many folks can spell “notwithstanding clause,” let alone feign interest in it. To most normal folks, it is just another case of politicians being preoccupied only with themselves.

And that, to me, is Doug Ford’s biggest problem. Not that he overturned a court decision everyone expected him to win. Not that he used a constitutional provision no one knows about. Not any of that.

No, Doug Ford’s big problem is this: he has done the thing that Canadian voters most dislike – he has put the Constitution back on the agenda. He has sent the constitutional cottage industry into overdrive. He has gotten us talking about the thing that most often divide us. That brings out the worst in us.

Trust me, here. I was privileged and honoured to work for the greatest politician this country has ever seen, Jean Chretien. He didn’t lose a single election in 40 years. He did that, mainly, by saying this: “Vote for me, and we won’t talk about the Constitution.”

Whenever the Constitution would be raised by some politician seeking more power, Chretien would be dispatched to wrestle it back into its cage, like a lion tamer. Canadians loved him for it. (I sure did.)

So: Doug Ford’s mistake wasn’t in overturning a court decision everyone expected him to win. Doug Ford’s mistake wasn’t in pissing off some New Democrat political welfare cases, who (predictably) didn’t want to lose their council seats.

Doug Ford’s mistake wasn’t even invoking section 33, really. Not even that.

No, his mistake was in rousing the Canadian constitutional beast. The beast is now awake, and it is out of its cage, and it is going to start consuming everything in sight. As it always does.

Hands up, anybody who thinks it was a good idea to start talking about the Constitution again.

Didn’t think so.

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1. The courts should not be supreme.  The people’s representatives should be.
2. Most judges think they are smarter than all politicians.  They may well be, but elected people should have the final say.  Not unelected ones.
3. Legislatures, and Parliament, have the right to use section 33.  Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec have done so.  No Prime Minister – including Conservative ones – has ever done so.
4. Pierre Trudeau didn’t like section 33.  Neither did Jean Chretien.  But Chretien told Trudeau the truth: if he didn’t agree to it, the Conservatives Premiers – and they all were Conservatives, pretty much, back then – would never sign on.
5. The notwithstanding clause is not permanent, by the way.  You have to renew its application, every five years.  An election is how it is reviewed.
6. When you use it, you have to explicitly state you are disregarding the Charter of Rights.  Not a good thing to ever do on paper, politically.
7. There is a disallowance clause in the Constitution, true.  It hasn’t been used in a 100 years or something like that.  If it ever was, it would be swiftly struck down by a Court for that very disuse.
8. Using section 33 for a few city council seats is overkill.  It is a mistake.  If the Ontario PCs had simply promised to reduce the size of council in the election, all of this could have been avoided.  They didn’t.
9. Toronto city council should be smaller – it should have no more seats than the provincial and federal legislatures have to represent the same piece of real estate.
10. So, Ontario has the right to do this.  So, elected representatives should be supreme, not unelected judges.  So, city council will benefit from being smaller.

But this was an avoidable mistake.  And it will follow its authors around for a long, long time.

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From next week’s Hill Times:

And that, to me, is Doug Ford’s biggest problem. Not that he overturned a court decision everyone expected him to win. Not that he used a constitutional provision no one knows about. Not any of that.

No, Doug Ford’s big problem is this: he has done the thing that Canadian voters most dislike – he has put the Constitution back on the agenda.  He has sent the constitutional cottage industry into overdrive. He has gotten us talking about the thing that most often divide us. That brings out the worst in us.

Trust me here. I was privileged and honoured to work for the greatest politician this country has ever seen, Jean Chretien. He didn’t lose a single election in 40 years. He did that, mainly, by saying this: “Vote for me, and we won’t talk about the Constitution.”

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There’s leaks, and there’s leaks. And then there’s the leak the New York Times got.

It was splashed across last Wednesday’s paper, to the extent that the Old Gray Lady “splashes” anything on its front page: “I AM PART OF THE RESISTANCE INSIDE THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION.”

Wow. Like, wow.

To ensure that no one missed the significance of the piece, the Times’ editorial board – who are the only ones who reportedly know the identity of the leaker – topped the resister’s tale with this:

“The Times today is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers.”

You don’t get onto the front page of the most influential newspaper on the planet by being the West Wing janitor. While we don’t presently know the author’s name, we can be reasonably assured that he or she holds a position of power.

And his or her essay spilled the proverbial beans, and then some. Here are some of the juicier bits:

“Senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations. I would know. I am one of them.”

And:

“We believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.”

And:

“The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.”

And:

“The president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective. From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.”

It was the biggest White House leak since Watergate, pretty much. And its significance was underlined by the reaction of no less than the Mango Mussolini himself. On his cherished Twitter, Donald Trump screeched: “Does the so-called “Senior Administration Official” really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source? If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”

There was time when it would be news for a President of the United States to invoke “National Security” to justify “turning in” an American citizen who had exercised their First Amendment free speech rights. We are in those times no longer. President Pisstape has violated so many political conventions – he has moved so far from the most basic societal and legal norms – no one is surprised anymore.

But the White House resistance leak? That should surprise us all.

Not because a senior official is the source: senior officials leak all the time (some would say that’s all they do, along with planning their next junket). Not because it was on front page of the august New York Times (leaks have made their way onto that coveted piece of news real estate before). And not because the leak contained salacious, get-even stuff (that’s what leaks are, most of the time: the bleatings and screechings of someone who lost a political fight). Not because of any of that.

No, the I AM PART OF THE RESISTANCE INSIDE THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION story was shocking for this reason: it details a high-level mutiny against a sitting President of the United States. It describes what can only be fairly regarded as a constitutional crisis, one that will shake the world’s most powerful democracy to its foundations.

As a leak of Bob Woodward’s book Fear detailed the day before the resister’s tale was told, senior officials are now actively and regularly bypassing and overruling the decisions of the President. They are even snatching documents off the top of his desk in the Oval Office, so he doesn’t see them.

The ramifications of the New York Times’ bombshell will be felt beyond the United States. With the mid-terms just weeks away, with the Democrats maintaining a double-digit lead over Republicans, and with the Trump Administration falling apart at the seams, the resisrtance story will oblige Donald Trump to mostly give Canada what it wants in the byzantine NAFTA negotiations.

Ten days ago, Donald Trump was promising to exclude Canada from a trade deal, and mocking us. Ten days later – and after the revelation in Woodward’s book, and the Times’ account of the resister’s palace coup – Trump cannot afford to lose the few Republican allies he has left in Congress. The moment that leak was published, Canada’s trade ambitions were rescued.

There’s leaks, and there’s leaks like the one the Times had. And it’s a leak that has helped Canada, big time.

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From the actual judgement from Justice Belobaba.  Read to the last line.  That’s something I’ve never seen before:

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