Rob Ford loses again
He’s been denied his ridiculous demand for compensation in the conflict of interest case, as expected.
What’s fascinating, however, is that the Divisional Court seems to be suggesting that he shouldn’t expect the coming Supreme Court hearing to go his way, either:
- They take pains to note that he lost on three of the four grounds he argued on appeal – ie., don’t get cocky, sonny.
- They characterize the case as a “significant” matter of “public interest” – which is effectively the threshold you need to meet to get the high court to hear your case.
Proud father update
I have more than 5,000 Facebook “friends.” Except, as you might expect, they’re not all friends. Some are Facebook fiends.
Because Facebook comments are unmoderated, stupid things sometimes happen on my Facebook profile. When I am over there, I will whack the stupid comments, or (sometimes) block the stupid people. I do my best, but I can’t be there all the time.
Last night, two guys named Bruce and Robin got into a fight about something. What it was is irrelevant. Bruce called Robin a “retard,” however, and I think there were comments made about medication.
Anyhow, Son One – who is a night owl, who has won awards for helping out the less-fortunate, and who has been having a tough time with his broken hip from a hockey tournament in London – got involved in Bruce and Robin’s fight.
Again, I’m not totally clear on the context. But I read Son One’s comment, early this morning, with a mixture of sadness and pride. Pride because there he was again, defending others. And sadness because his vocabularly suggests to me that he is not a little boy anymore. When he was, just yesterday.
Anyway. Just thought I would share it with you.
Dear Toronto politicians
If you impose tolls and yet more taxes to pay for this Metrolinx thing, you’re all dead men (and women) walking. Make better use of the tax dollars we already entrust you to manage. Thanks.
Sincerely,
Warren and four million friends
My view at the moment
Boy, am I ever glad I shelled out for Raptors season’s tickets.
In Tuesday’s Sun: mutiny on the S.S. Harper
As uprisings go, it sure ain’t The Mutiny On The Bounty.
Not yet, anyway.
As you may have heard, last week Official Ottawa was agog over the fact a couple of Conservative backbench sheep finally got up on their hind legs and bleated “no” to the boss. An avalanche of columns and news stories immediately ensued, including some that actually went as far as suggesting Stephen Harper’s corpse might soon be swinging from the yardarm.
The Toronto Star: It’s a Conservative “revolt!”
It’s “a rare show of courage!” enthused The Globe and Mail. It could be the beginnings of a “leadership challenge!” wrote one respected columnist.
Um, not quite.
The beginnings of the mini-mutiny can be traced, mostly, to the abortion file. Some of the nobodies and lunkheads in the Conservative caucus still want to try to make abortion illegal. They have devised all manner of clever motions and resolutions to achieve that.
Ship captain Stephen Harper, however — to his credit, and to the surprise of people like me, who wrongly said he had a hidden agenda on abortion — has said no way. He has ruthlessly crushed any and all attempts to kickstart the abortion debate.
Harper has been more resolute on the abortion issue, in fact, than any prime minister in a generation.
He deserves credit for that. He said he wasn’t going to reopen abortion, and he meant it. Harper’s party pledged to leave abortion alone in successive election campaigns, and they did just that.
The motley crew below decks, however, aren’t satisfied.
So they’ve devised dishonest tactics and tricks to move the country back to the bad old days, when the only choice women had were coat hangers in back alleys.
Some of the MPs say they are focused on “gender discrimination,” or what constitutes “complete birth.” They’re lying. They want to make abortion illegal and they lack the guts to say so out loud.
Some of them, meanwhile, aren’t upset about abortion at all. Instead, they’re upset about something else — two tiny letters, which they would like to see appended to their names on fancy letterhead: “P.C.”
As in, privy councillor. They figured they’d be in cabinet by now and, seven years in, the mutinous MPs have finally figured out they won’t be. So they’re popping off at Captain Harper.
Should the conservative captain be concerned? Yes and no. Yes, because when your government is slipping in the polls, as his is, you need all the shipmates rowing in the same direction.
But, also, no. This pipsqueak revolution, led by pipsqueaks, is nothing like what Jean Chretien loyalists (like me) had to contend with a decade ago. Back then, ambitious Paul Martin supporters used every dirty trick in the book to hurt Chretien and drive him out.
Chretien, however, fought back and ended up staying far longer than he’d planned. All the Grit mutineers ended up doing was sinking the S.S. Liberal. And themselves.
Captain Harper quickly put down last week’s rebellion, and the anti-abortionists and the overambitious sailors have — for the moment — gone quiet. If I were advising Harper, however, I’d advise this: Throw a few of the nobodies overboard and make everyone watch as the sharks tear them to pieces.
Things will be shipshape again, and in no time at all, too.
Nicholas Hoare, RIP
The loss of this extraordinary bookstore is an unmitigated disaster for anyone who loves (and needs) books. With the exception of Ben McNally’s spot on Bay, there just aren’t many book sellers like Nicholas Hoare anymore.
I had two book launches at Nicholas Hoare, and both were special. I am very sad to see them go.
Best political spot ever
Hill Times: True-dough
“Liberal front-runner Justin Trudeau has raised more than $1-million as a candidate for leadership of the third party in the House of Commons which “says a lot,” say a number of political observers and insiders.
“Money isn’t everything, but the fact that Trudeau has raised such an extraordinary amount—when his party is in a distant third place—says a lot. I don’t think anyone has ever done that before. It’s a huge amount of dough, raised by a guy who is just an MP with the third-place party,” said Warren Kinsella, president of the Daisy Consulting Group and a former adviser to prime minister Jean Chrétien. “That’s amazing, frankly.”
Mr. Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) has raised $1,001,060.37 from 7,009 contributors, according to the first of four weekly financial reports filed with Elections Canada. Political observers told The Hill Times last week that this is a feat because of the restrictions on political fundraising the Conservative government introduced when it came to power in 2006.
While former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff raised $1,037,186.24 in 2006 in his first weekly filing with Elections Canada, he did so from 1,959 people when the individual fundraising limit was still $5,000 and when the Liberals were still the official opposition. In 2009 when he ran again, Mr. Ignatieff raised $547,628.85 from 2,113, as shown in his first weekly filing, under new rules limiting individual donations to $1,000, adjusted to inflation. Today’s limit is $1,200.
Mr. Trudeau’s average donation is $143, which some people said last week is a reflection of the overall support he has across the country…
Mr. Kinsella said if the candidates have the money to spend the maximum, they should. “If you’ve got it, spend it. Otherwise, the party will just claw it all back, anyway,” he said.
Mr. Powers agreed: “Most good campaigns will get there. If they have the money there’s no real benefit in saving it. If you have the resources, and people have given you resources to run a campaign, then you should maximize every opportunity you have to do that because you only get one shot at it, and that’s the campaign, so you try and use the resources effectively to get that win.”
One insider said, however, that Mr. Trudeau will likely try not to spend all the money on his campaign, but rather save to it be in a good position to defend the party against Conservative and NDP attacks.
“I think the thinking is based on Dion’s and Ignatieff’s experience, he’s going to get hit with everything but the kitchen sink from the Tories, so he needs to frame and define himself and defend himself against that. That’s where that money will come in handy over the next year,” the insider said.
Mr. Kinsella said the “Just Visiting” ad campaign against Mr. Ignatieff in 2009 cost the Conservative Party approximately $4-million. The Liberals don’t have that kind of money yet to mount their own campaign, Mr. Kinsella said, but “I am confident they will get it—paradoxically, the attacks are often useful in generating funds. We’ve learned that from the Conservatives, in fact.”