Categories for Musings

Dear CBC and assorted book publishers

Forgive me for me being a tad critical, but two things. 

One, they  are not “anti-immigrant protesters,” CBC. They are white supremacists. Get it right. Wake the Hell up. 

Two, as I told Random House, U of T press, House of Anansi, and Simon and Schuster: we have a problem in Canada, and I want to – need to – write a book about the rise of violent anti-immigrant groups in Canada. They said they didn’t think anyone would want to read about it, or it’s “an American problem,” or “we can’t see Costco stocking that.” 

They didn’t think there was a problem here, apparently. Fortunately Dundurn had a different view. 

What does it mean? It means we are the Great White North, in more ways than one.




This week’s column: never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity

You never achieve great things if you don’t take risks.

How Conservative leader Andrew Scheer doesn’t understand this is an enduring mystery. He never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity, per the cliché.

Take (please) Conservative MP Gerry Ritz. Last week, Gerry – who (a) thinks he is funny and (b) has unfettered access to a Twitter account – tweeted that Environment Minister Catherine McKenna was “climate Barbie,” quote unquote.

That she isn’t was obvious. That folks would consider that sexist and inappropriate was obvious. That Ritz was a mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging troglodyte – also obvious.

Gerry is (blessedly) soon to be departing the federal scene for his cave in Bedrock. So long, don’t let the Woolley mammoth skin hit you on the way out, etc. big guy.

Cro-Magnon eruptions on social media are commonplace, sadly. Even though they cost Alberta’s Wildrose a shot at government – and even though the lunatic tweets of Donald Trump will ultimately figure prominently in the indictments he will face – conservative types still do them.

So, what Gerry Ritz tweeted wasn’t the conservative exception. It was the conservative rule. It shouldn’t have shocked anyone.

What was surprising, however, was the reaction of Ritz’s putative leader, Blandy Scheer. Instead of recognizing that his MP’s Barbie bimbo eruption was an opportunity, not a problem – instead of stepping up to a gaggle of microphones and condemning sexism and what Ritz said and giving him the boot – Scheer issued a mealey-mouthed statement and headed for the exits.

Politicians, like everyone else, only get one opportunity to make a first impression. Ritz’s idiocy was an opportunity for Scheer to show he won’t tolerate Tory troglodytes. But he didn’t do that. He didn’t do the right thing.

Nor did he do the right thing when Conservative Senator Lynn Beyak blew off both her feet, a few days earlier. Beyak, also known to be a proud member of the Red Chamber’s Caveperson Caucus, has long been known as an anti-indigenous nutbar.

Former Tory leader Rona Ambrose had previously kicked Beyak off a committee when the latter paid tribute to Canada’s fascistic experiment with residential schools. More recently, Beyak was removed from the Senate’s agriculture, transport and defence committees for saying indigenous people should lose their status – and for opining that indigenous culture should be promoted only “on their own dime, on their own time.”

Scheer allowed that Beyak didn’t speak for the rest of the Conservative caucus.  And one of his Senatorial fart-catchers intoned that the party had “concluded our deliberations and the parties have agreed to a set of measures to guide the senator going forward. We consider the matter closed.”

Well, no. It isn’t.

Like Ritz, Beyak is still a card-carrying member of Scheer’s caucus. And, as with Ritz, the Beyak case reminds everyone that Andrew Scheer may be many things. But a leader is not one of them.

Voters – and consumers, and citizens, and every sentient being – are astute. They know when you are playing it safe. They know when you are playing the proverbial ostrich, and waiting for some controversy to blow over.

When they sense that you are a coward, Blandy, they will tune you out, sometimes permanently. Or, even worse, they will decide that you have the much-maligned “hidden agenda.” And that you are accordingly dishonest.

And that you may just agree with Gerry Ritz and Lynn Beyak.

Is it a risk to hammer Ritz and Beyak? Perhaps. There is a red-necked constituency out there that agrees with them. It is a constituency that faithfully votes Conservative. They may get mad at you, Blandy, for kicking out Fred and Wilma. It is a risk, perhaps. Sure.

And it’s a paradox: not taking risks, Blandy, is itself risky.

With the Trudeau government being buffeted by the small business tax mess, with their NAFTA strategy clearly at risk of being blown to smithereens by the Unpresident, with Liberal MPs grumbling in the media – with all those things happening, you should be doing a lot better. A lot.

Kicking out Gerry Ritz and Lynn Beyak may have been risky, Blandy. It may have an internal challenge.

But it was an opportunity, too.

And you missed it.


Jimmy the K? Not OK. (Updated)

From the new Hill Times:

Former eight-term Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis, who is now a Toronto city councillor, is considering running in Toronto’s mayoral race in next year’s municipal election.

“The desire is always there,” Mr. Karygiannis told The Hill Times last week, but declined to get into details of his decision-making process.

The next mayoral election is scheduled for Oct. 22, 2018, and the last day to officially register is May 1.

As of last week, only two candidates, including incumbent Toronto Mayor John Tory and former city councillor Doug Ford, had publicly announced their intention to run…

Warren Kinsella, a former senior adviser to Mr. Chrétien, said if Mr. Karygiannis entered the mayoral race, it would be good news for Mr. Tory, but bad for Mr. Ford. He said Messrs. Ford and Karygiannis are both “Trump-style” campaigners and would split their vote, which would help Mr. Tory.

“They’d be splitting the same vote,” said Mr. Kinsella, who in the 2014 mayoral campaign supported Ms. Chow for part of the campaign, and is likely to support Mr. Tory in 2018. “Karygiannis running is probably good news for John Tory, and it’s probably very bad news for Doug Ford.”

Mr. Kinsella acknowledged that Mr. Karygiannis has been a formidable campaigner in leadership, nomination and general election campaigns, but he said the mayoral campaign is very different. He said the nomination and leadership campaigns are mostly about signing up members, but in a mayoral election, candidates have to offer solutions to complex problems to earn the support of voters. After the “Rob Ford experiment,” he said, Torontonians do not appear not to be comfortable with “loud and aggressive-type people.”

“The city after the Rob Ford experiment doesn’t want to get into another era of Trump-style candidates: loud and aggressive type people. The city obviously turned its back on that when they elected John Tory overwhelmingly,” said Mr. Kinsella, president of Daisy Group, a government relations firm based in Toronto.

“Running for mayor is different. You’re not just appealing to one constituency. You’re trying to reach the whole city.”

UPDATE: Jimmy K. phoned me to give me an earful. He said I should have called him to give him a head’s up – and he’s right! We had a fun chat and I told him he should run for mayor if he’s got the fire in his belly. Dunno if he will, but we had a great chat.


About that Forum poll: Tories 39, Libs 35, Dippers 15

Three things.

One, it’s Forum. They’re the ones who said there’d be a Parti Québécois majority, a BC NDP majority, a Wildrose majority, and…you get the picture.

Two, it’s a poll. Every single poll in the U.S. Presidential campaign got the outcome wrong, for weeks. Polls aren’t terribly reliable, these days.

Three, as my lovely and talented wife said on Global News this morning, Trudeau’s government is at the halfway point in its mandate – and, as the Premiers, members of the Liberal Caucus and everyone in Canada has said, they’ve done a piss-poor job of communicating the small business tax changes.

Still.

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Blandy Scheer can’t be the reason for this – he’s the worst new Conservative leader since Joe Clark.  It can’t be anything the NDP are doing, either – they’re at 15 per cent, have no leader, and are now only protected by endangered species laws.

Something else is at work here.  My take is still this, as expressed at the tail end of last week’s column: This government is now at the two-year mark. The indications of entitlement and arrogance — and cynicism — are everywhere to be seen.

Your take, of course, is welcome.  Comments are open.