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So, the John Tory folks put together a fun little video about the expressed desire of Tory’s main opponent, Jen Keesmaat, to secede from the province and country.  Here it is.

Okay. So, Keesmaat’s folks didn’t like it. They’d been calling John Tory all kinds of nasty names for weeks, but they’re not too good in the dishing-it-out-and-taking-it department. They got all sniffy and told CITY-TV that John Tory “doesn’t want to talk about his record,” blah blah blah.

Anyway. Keesmaat’s comms guy is a good friend of mine, Chris Ball. I like him a lot. In this campaign, we’ve taken good-natured shots at each other, and at our opposing candidates. I tweeted (what I correctly thought was) a funny picture about Keesmaat’s transit and traffic plans, Chris responded with what he (erroneously) thought was a funny picture about Tory.

So I responded with the secession video above. Someone immediately favourited the video. Guess who it was?

I’ve been doing this for a long time, boys and girls, but that’s the first time I’ve ever had an opponent help promote an attack ad about that selfsame opponent.

Anyway, it’s never dull on the old campaign trail!  And, at the very least, it also heretofore eliminates Ms. Keesmaat’s ability to say her opponent is being too negative!

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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 resistance 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.

 

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‎So, I should be dead.

There I was on the 401 outside Woodstock, driving back to TO in the fastest lane. The highway was clear and smooth. No potholes or anything like that.

The Jeep was new, too, less than 10,000 km – and that’s even after driving to Maine and back. Brand-new Goodyears, came with the vehicle.

Heard the sound first – always listen to your vehicle! – and then saw indicator showing rapid tire pressure loss. Driver side rear tire.

I can’t remember exactly how, but I got across three pretty busy lanes to the far side of the 401, and then up onto the grass.

My first feeling was irritation. Irritated with Toronto Dodge Chrysler (the dealer), Goodyear (the tire manufacturer), the roadside assistance outfits (both useless). Changed the tire myself without getting hit, and drove back home in the slow lane.

It was only when I got home, and was able to post a photo of the tire, that I started hearing from many, many folks. Messages I received many times: Warren, your tire shouldn’t have done that. A new tire shouldn’t ever do that.

And: Warren, you are lucky to be alive. You should be dead.

When I looked at that tire, I couldn’t really disagree: like, how did I get across three busy lanes of highway traffic after a blowout like that? Should I be pushing up, er, daisies?

I’ve always believed – actually known, but it’s a long story – that I wasn’t going to go out with a whimper. I’d be slipping this mortal coil with a bang. No hospital rooms for me, man.

When I was a punk rock teenager, I couldn’t picture getting to 20. Now that I’m a punk rock geriatric, I can’t believe I’m in my fifties. Feels like I’m running out of runway, you know? Losing Gordie this Spring brought all of that into pretty sharp focus.

Anyway. For now, still here. Still breathing. Still kicking. Sorry about that, haters.

Looking at that tire, my two-part piece of advice to all of you is this: one, live the cliché, and live each day like you don’t have any more days.

And, two: get good tires.

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⁦@MaximeBernier to set up his own right wing party ⁩#cdnpoli #CPC18 https://t.co/Cly7wkQfkc

— Robert Fife (@RobertFife) August 23, 2018

Said no one.

What does it say about Consevatives? It says that they never ever change: Tea Party vs. Establishment Republicans, Reform vs. PCs, and so on and so on. Conservatives are always at war with themselves.

This also proves my Justin Trudeau theory, yet again: he may not be as smart as his Dad, he may not be as politically skilled as Chretien, he may not be as principled as Dion. But, Jesus, is he ever lucky.

When your main adversaries are The Mango Mussolini, Blandy Scheer, Mad Max and the Guy Who Leads the NDP, you can’t help but win.

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From next week’s Hill Times column:

The Storm Alliance are led by a former Soldiers of Odin leader, Dave Tregget. Like David Duke did for the Ku Klux Klan forty years ago, Tregget’s strategy is to project a kinder, gentler image for anti-migrant, anti-refugee agitation. It’s attracted the same sorts of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and bigots that Soldiers of Odin did and do. But it’s more media-savvy. ‎

‎Thus their presence at the Trudeau event, video cameras in tow. They were after uncritical media coverage, and they got lots of it.

‎The Storm Alliance’s previous media event hadn’t gone as well. In July, the Storm Alliance teamed up with another Quebec-based refugee-hating group, La Meute‎ (roughly, The Wolf Pack). The two groups gathered on Canada Day at Hemmingford, Quebec, to intimidate migrants and prevent them from crossing the border. ‎

‎White supremacist Faith Goldy, now a Toronto mayoral candidate, showed up to offer Storm Alliance her support. She whips up hate, and she’s good at it. ‎

‎Storm Alliance’s Blain was the right choice to whip up hate at the Justin Trudeau event, too. She is a member of another anti-immigrant group, the Front Patriotique du Quebec, and is a separatist. A few months ago, a Front Patriotique admin opined on Facebook the need for a “terrorist attack to wake up people.”‎

‎Blain seems to dislike Muslims, a lot. ‎A few months ago, she refused to be touched by a Muslim student at a dental clinic at the University of Montreal.

‎At the Trudeau rally, she started screaming about illegal immigrants, and she got the attention of both the media and the Prime Minister of Canada. The cameras followed her at the event, and Justin Trudeau even engaged with her – forcefully but not inappropriately. ‎

‎The Conservative Party of Canada, right up to and including Andrew Scheer, loudly denounced Trudeau for abridging Blain’s “freedom of speech.” On Twitter and elsewhere, Conservatives condemned Trudeau for the sin of opposing Diane Blain. They sounded like they tought Diane Blain was a hero. ‎

‎She isn’t. She’s a racist.

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BOSTON – What never moves and never talks, but is too often racist?

Statues, of course. They’re lifeless. Down here in America, but also back home in Canada.

Statues paying tributes to notorious historical racists like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are still found across the Southern U.S. – and someone even erected one honouring Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first leader of the Ku Klux Klan, just outside Nashville.

Here in Boston, the famous Faneuil Hall is named after an infamous slave trader. And in the city’s North End, there’s a Christopher Columbus statue – which pays homage to a man who also traded in slaves.

In 1492, upon arriving in the Caribbean and on his way to North America, Columbus was greeted as a demi-god by the native Arawak people. By 1495, on a return trip, Columbus was energetically committing acts of genocide against the Arawaks. They no longer exist as a people.

Debates have been raging about such statues for years, but have intensified in the age of the Racist-in-Chief, Donald Trump. Advocates for the racist statues say that these men are part of our history, and we should not tamper with history.

Opponents of these racist statues state, correctly, that such monuments are painful reminders of slavery, violence and genocide. They, we, argue that we should not ever celebrate hatred. They, we, echo the words of former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, who said such monuments “rewrite history to hide the truth [and] purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.”

But the fans of racist statues are undeterred. Even up in Canada, where we regularly (and falsely) claim to be a kinder, gentler and less-racist nation than the United States, a controversy has grown around a certain statue of Sir John A. Macdonald.

The City of Victoria recently decided to remove a Macdonald statue on the steps at city hall. Ontario’s government then wrote them a letter, offering to take the statue Victoria that didn’t want. Ontario Tourism Minister Sylvia Jones told the Legislature that “people are complicated, but there is no doubt that 125 years after his death, our first prime minister stands as an important Canadian within the creation of our country.”

And that, certainly, is true. Macdonald is important, and he was “complicated.” But – knowing what we now know about him – he is not a man we should be celebrating like we once did. Statues and monuments should not be built in his honour.

If you disagree, a challenge. Imagine, for a moment, you are a First Nations person – or imagine that you are, like me, father to an indigenous girl. Just imagine that. Then read these words.

Here’s what he said in 1879: “When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with its parents, who are savages. He is simply a savage who can read and write. Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.”

And here’s what he said in 1885: “…we have been pampering and coaxing the Indians; [but] we must take a new course, we must vindicate the position of the white man, we must teach the Indians what law is.”

Also in 1885: “I have not hesitated to tell this House, again and again, that we could not always hope to maintain peace with the Indians; that the savage was still a savage, and that until he ceased to be savage, we were always in danger of a collision, in danger of war, in danger of an outbreak.”

A couple years later, in 1887: “The great aim of our legislation has been to do away with the tribal system and assimilate the Indian people in all respects with the other inhabitants of the Dominion as speedily as they are fit to change.”

And, finally, this in 1884, when describing potlaches, the joyful indigenous gatherings held to celebrate births, deaths, adoptions, weddings: “…celebrating the ‘potlatch’ is a misdemeanor. This Indian festival is debauchery of the worst kind, and the departmental officers and all clergymen unite in affirming that it is absolutely necessary to put this practice down.”

And “put them down” Sir John A. did. He gave Canada’s First Nations – the ones who were here first – assimilation, brutality and genocidal residential school. That’s what he gave them, and us.

There therefore should be no further statues in his honour. There should be no new schools bearing his name. There should be more of us doing what Victoria has done.

Instead, let’s build monuments to those historical figures who were not violent racists.

Because statues, as lifeless as they are, can still hurt the living.

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Jennifer Keesmaat’s vision for Toronto, not exactly as pictured.

There are 67 days until Election Day, and Jennifer Keesmaat still has this up.  She slept on it, apparently, and she still wants to separate from Ontario, Canada.

It’s crazy, sure, but it at least explains her desire for a TST (Toronto Sales Tax): she’ll need to tax the living Hell out of everyone living in her city-state to pay for basic services.

Oh, and you want jobs in Toronto? There’ll be plenty of opportunities for bricklayers to build Keesmaat’s wall along Steeles Avenue!

 

Now I have had a chance to sleep on it. Secession. Why should a city of 2.8 million not have self governance?

— jennifer keesmaat (@jen_keesmaat) July 27, 2018

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