Thirty years ago, in Ottawa, a guy walked into the place where Chris and I were sitting. He handed me a Joan of Arc medal, and walked out. I’ve been wearing the medal around my neck ever since.
Joan was murdered by the English nearly 600 years ago in Rouen – for looking like a boy. Her story is here.
Why have I worn her around my neck for so many years? Because I admire strong women, that’s why.
Here she be:
…and the source, as it turns out, is none other than Rob Ford.
His talking point: there is no video, but I know where the video is. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, etc.
Link here. The Star:
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford told senior aides not to worry about a video appearing to show him smoking crack cocaine because he knew where it was, sources told the Star.
Ford then blurted out the address of two 17th-floor units — 1701 and 1703 — at a Dixon Rd. apartment complex, to the shock of staffers at a city hall meeting almost two weeks ago, the sources said.
The mayor cited “our contacts” as the source of his information, according to insiders familiar with the unusual May 17 session in his office.
Staffers were alarmed by the implication of hearing so precise a location, sources said.
This report is based on accounts given by those privy to what was discussed the day after the Star and the U.S. website Gawker published news of the crack-cocaine video shot on a cellphone.
Ford has called news of the video “false” and said: “I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine. As for a video, I cannot comment on a video that I have never seen or does not exist.”
Around the table at city hall on May 17 were operations and logistics director David Price, then deputy chief of staff Earl Provost, press secretary George Christopoulos and others. Missing from the meeting was Mark Towhey, then Ford’s chief of staff. Also not in attendance was communications special assistant Isaac Ransom.
Towhey was fired last Thursday after counselling Ford to seek help for his health. Christopoulos and Ransom resigned “on principle” Monday, and Provost is now chief of staff.
(And, yes, I was one at the Ottawa Citizen and Calgary Herald, many moons ago.)
Ipso facto, my question: anyone got footage/pix of the “beat-up beige compact” or a certain Range Rover out near 320 Dixon Road, referred to in this NOW magazine story? Or, has anyone yet matched the private vehicles of Ford staffers to the address in question?
If you do, you’ve got something almost as good as the video: you’ve perhaps got evidence that Ford was indeed there, and that a member of his staff/circle drove him there.
Boom!
The seventeenth floor at 320 Dixon Road, in Kingsview Village. Bullet marks can be seen on a door on that floor, above.
The Sun has more:
Toronto Police won’t talk about the video or the shooting, so it’s unclear if the two are connected.
This is the view, right now, of the Don Valley Parkway – which Son One and I take to get downtown every day. We won’t be going that way. Thanks, Rob Ford.
Just out now in the Globe:
Mr. Towhey asked Mr. Price not to attempt to find the video, according to the source.
Can Rob Ford survive this, which is now officially the biggest scandal in Canadian political history?
Who knows. But Anthony Smith didn’t survive it.
Spotted yesterday in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. This youngster from Canada was planning on taking kiteboarding lessons, but since there wasn’t a lot of wind, he opted for the wake boarding part.
Damn, his name is on the tip of my tongue.
After more than a week of extraordinary revelations, another one this morning: the Star is reporting that someone senior in Rob Ford’s office – paid for by Ford’s mythologized taxpayer – knew where to find the video of Ford smoking crack cocaine.
That is, the video that Ford now confidently says “doesn’t exist.”
How did they know this? Did Ford tell them to locate it? Were they hoping to buy the video themselves, and then destroy the evidence?
And why, while we’re on it, were two homicide detectives investigating this? Do the police think the murder of Anthony Smith – who knew Ford well – is connected to the video, and the office of the mayor?
Like I say: extraordinary. And getting dirtier every day.
Shortly after news of the video’s existence broke late on the evening of May 16, top aides began discussing the situation. One of those aides was Ford’s logistics man and former high school football coach, David Price.
Also present during discussions were then chief of staff Mark Towhey and two other senior officials. Price contacted Towhey late on May 17 and asked “hypothetically” what if someone had told him where the video was. “What would we do?” Towhey was asked.
Towhey, a former military man and the most experienced official in Ford’s office, was alarmed at Price’s comments. Price went further and said, “What if a source has told me where the video might be found?”
Shocked, Towhey told Price that the only thing he would advise is going to the police. Price also said that the video may have been the reason that Anthony Smith, a person pictured in a photo with Ford, was killed.
Towhey’s response, according to sources, was to tell Price that he would be contacting police.
Towhey called police, and shortly before he went in to give a sworn statement on May 18, Price contacted him and passed on the apartment numbers and floor (17th) of a building in Rexdale where Price said his “sources” had told him the video might be found. Price did not identify his sources.
When Towhey went to the police he did not inform his boss, Mayor Ford. He gave a statement, identifying Price as the originator of this information. Price was later asked to give a statement.
The Star has been unable to reach Price but will continue to try and will pose questions to him regarding this matter.
UPDATED: This morning, Ford was asked by media why his staff knew where video was. His response: “Ask my staff.”
It’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma: Why did Nigel Wright destroy his political career to protect Mike Duffy?
In Ottawa political circles, it’s one of the many Senate scandal questions now being mooted every day.
Why would the prime minister’s chief of staff — the most powerful unelected person in Canada — put his reputation at risk for a lowly senator, one who was already distrusted and disliked by the Prime Minister’s Office?
None of it makes any sense. None of it adds up. And that’s particularly so when you look at the background of players in the controversy, which has left Stephen Harper’s Conservative regime battered and reeling.
I’m familiar with both Duffy and Wright. Trust me when I say there could not be two people in Ottawa more unalike.
Wright, among political operatives of all stripes, is considered to be as ethical as he is straight-laced. Born in Hamilton, adopted by a family of modest means, Wright was hard-working, religious and brilliant from the start. He attended the University of Toronto, and received multiple accolades. Later, he sought a master’s degree at Harvard. For a time, he considered becoming an Anglican priest.
As a young man, Wright was a member of a group of young Conservatives — along with Tom Long and (full disclosure) my ex-wife — who helped push Brian Mulroney into the prime minister’s chair. Later, he was a Bay Street lawyer and businessman who devoted himself to charitable causes, ran marathons, and was held in the highest regard by many folks.
Mike Duffy, as noted, could not have been more different. Born in P.E.I., Duffy got his start as a radio disc jockey, and attracted attention while working as TV reporter for CBC News.
Later, he hosted CTV’s Sunday Edition, which showcased Duffy’s affable personality, but not much in the way of hard news. Off-camera, the Rubenesque Duffy was ubiquitous on the Hill, and was renowned as a glad-handing fellow who had an eye for attractive women — and who could drink with the best of them.
Where Wright’s secret ambition was to be a priest, Duffy could not have been more open about his — he wanted to be a senator. So well-known was this, that many denizens of the Hill called him “Senator.”
After a 2008 hatchet job on a campaigning Stephane Dion, Duffy got his wish, and was appointed to the Red Chamber by Harper. He was disciplined by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council for broadcasting Dion’s remarks that CTV agreed would not be broadcast — an error in discretion and decency and a cause for concern. He was not part of the inner circle.
Why, then, did Wright — who followed the unravelling Senate expenses scandal closely, and was highly familiar with Duffy’s role in it — place himself in harm’s way for a disgraced broadcaster?
Because the man he was protecting wasn’t Mike Duffy. It was Stephen Harper. And the $90,000 that he offered Duffy out of his own bank account wasn’t money to help out a friend in need.
It was money to shut Duffy up. There is no way — none — that Harper could not have been briefed about the Duffy “solution” by Wright. In Ottawa, chiefs of staff simply do not keep their bosses from knowing such things. (I was one; I know that much, too.)
And now, Harper has the worst of all outcomes: A respected and admired top aide, gone.
And stuck with a scandal — and a reviled senator — which will never, ever go away.