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SFH and a ton of other bands – plus our newest members, Steve Deceive and Royal Niblit!

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Wynne has this incongruity I like: she smiles a lot and is friendly, but she is absolutely brutal when fat-cats start getting reckless with taxpayer-subsidized expense accounts.  It’s like a bureaucratic Game of Thrones, and she’s the one swinging the axe. Voters like that.

It’s not necessarily a theme to carry her through an entire election campaign, but it’s better than what she’s got right now.

 

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My, my.  You wouldn’t suppose the timing has anything to do with the ongoing Senate scandal, would you? No, of course not.

The decade-plus-long delay makes this a joke.  If a trial ever takes place, I’ll be amazed.

 

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Political courage, someone once said, is not political suicide.

Noble sentiment, I guess, but it’s also worth knowing that the author of the statement was Arnold Schwarzenegger (not Camus, who provided the inspiration for this post’s title).  Arnold, of course, would subsequently go on to commit political suicide.

I thought of The Arnold’s little maxim, this morning, as I read Adrian Morrow’s bit in the Globe:

“Kathleen Wynne will fight the next election over a promise to raise taxes to build transit, staking her premiership on the belief voters will accept short-term pain to finally break the gridlock crippling Southern Ontario.

The move, which the Premier acknowledged is a risky one, would allow her to solve one of the province’s largest and most persistent problems, as well as form the basis for a strong legacy.“

Telling Ontarians “vote for me so I can raise your taxes” doesn’t seem, on the surface, to be a sure-fire winning strategy.  The last guy to do similarly was Stephane Dion.  Here’s what I wrote about his Green Shift before, during and after the 2008 election:

“Stephane Dion was a decent, good man, but he possessed one critical flaw: For anglophones, he was too hard to understand. When proposing a “green shift” that would see gas prices go up — during a summer when voters were already paying nearly $1.50 a litre — that failure to communicate would prove fatal.

Meanwhile, his attempt to forge a coalition government with Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe looked like a gaggle of losers trying to overturn the election result of 2008. The damage to the Liberal brand would be significant.“

Wynne is a great communicator, and she isn’t (yet) proposing a coalition with anyone.  But, per Stein, a tax is a tax is a tax.  It’s not a “revenue tool” – it’s a tax.

If that is indeed the Ontario Liberal ballot question, they will get a few editorials praising them for their courage (like Dion did).  But they will still lose (like Dion did).

Tim Hudak is against every and any taxes, because he is against government.  Voters haven’t taken him seriously, to date, and I don’t expect them to in the future.  I’ve met him once or twice, and find him to be a nice fellow.  But, on TV, he turns into the GOP talking points bot.  He won’t win.

Andrea Horwath, meanwhile, has been campaigning for a while, and her focus is pocketbook stuff.  She’s a New Democrat in the Roy Romanow tradition: balanced budgets where feasible, centrist policy, and no new taxes.  That’s what she’ll say in the election, too: we think you pay enough.  Transit is a problem, but a party that wastes billions at Ornge and OPG shouldn’t come to taxpayers, hand out, demanding billions more.

It’s good to be principled and honest and forthright.  But your principles don’t mean much when you are the third party in the legislature.

If today’s Globe story is true, that – I fear – is where the politically-courageous Ontario Liberals are heading.

 

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You’re welcome.

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Text exchange between Son One and me. We Kinsellas are unimpressed by movie stars.

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I’m not kidding, either.

If this extraordinary story isn’t an Onion-like bit of satire – and I checked, it doesn’t seem to be – the Harper guys are done like dinner.  Dead.

Justin, here are your talking points:

“No wonder they were eager to shut down the House early. If elected, I will stop this.  Vote for me, and I will force Canada Post to keep delivering your mail.”

 

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Good pick.  And here and here and here are some reasons why.

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Rob Ford, who is the scum of the Earth, this week called Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale a pedophile.

Quite a few of us immediately suggested that Dale needed to sue.  Falsely calling someone a pedophile is among the most serious libels.  It is libel per se.  When Ford reaffirmed his words, Dale had no choice but to sue.

Instead, Dale and his employer have apparently chosen to use Ford’s words as an occasion to write op-eds and throw back some insults of their own.

In so doing, they have (a) signalled they intend to do nothing, or (b) seriously undermined any case they may bring to the court.

Either way, Ford has won.

For Dale, who is an excellent journalist, it will mean his name and “pedophile” will live in the Internet ether forever.  If he thinks the haters in Ford Nation won’t now repeat their hero’s words ad nauseum, ad infinitum, he’s dreaming in technicolour.

For the Star, they have lost an opportunity to stand by their writer – and to show all their staff that they will not let scumbags like Ford destroy a fine reporter’s reputation with impunity.  In effect, they have implied that it is open season on journalists.

Like I say, Dale may sue now, but it’s likely too late.  If you are going to sue, and if you are serious, always let your lawyer do the talking.  Don’t turn it into a meeting of the fucking debate club.

Dale, and the Star, didn’t.  And that’s a real shame.

 

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