My favouritest sports writer ever, Cathal Kelly, in a typically great column, here.  Provocative and informative, like the best columnists are.

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Here’s Randy Denley’s pledge to run again as an Ontario PC candidate.

And here’s his employer, the Ottawa Citizen, letting him still write about provincial politics.

I await Glen McGregor’s outraged denunciation with anticipation.

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The CAW negotiating team, as seen on CTV’s web site.  All guys, all white.  If Harper, McGuinty or any other level of government showed up with a senior team as homogeneous as this, they’d get (deservedly) creamed.  I’m sure there are women and minorities at CAW, but I sure don’t see them here.

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Toronto’s “mayor” is in Chicago today to drum up “business.” Many media are with him to document any pratfalls; Mike Harris and Ernie Eves are there to observe the proceedings, too, in the way that parents cast a watchful eye over troublesome children.

The whole thing reminded me of something, and then I remembered. That’s Rahm on the left, and Rob on the right (natch).

Neil McNeil alumnus John Candy would’ve been a better mayor, though.

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The return of Parliament, the anniversary of the Occupy Movement, and the NHL lockout may seem like improbable subjects for a single opinion column. But bear with us.

In Hegelian terms — you remember The Hegelian Dialectic from first-year poli-sci, don’t you? — the disgusting money fight between greedy multi-millionaire hockey players, and greedy multi-billionaire hockey team owners, is the THESIS. That is, it is one side of the debate.

The ANTITHESIS — the other side of the debate — is found in the Occupy Movement, this week celebrating its one-year anniversary.

Some will say that the Occupy Movement isn’t as active as it was a year ago, and that is perhaps true. But the rich and the powerful are deluding themselves if they think the ideals that motivated the Occupy kids are passe. There is just as much rage that the rich are getting much richer, and that the poor are getting much poorer; that hedge fund managers continue to receive multi-million-dollar bonuses, while average folks lay awake at night, wondering how to pay the hydro bill.

So, that’s the THESIS and the ANTITHESIS: Greed and avarice on one side (the NHL), a pervasive feeling of disgust on the other (Occupy). Action, reaction.

Two polarities which neatly set out one of the great philosophical conflicts of our age: The 99% versus the 1%. How does it all come together to form what German philosopher Georg Hegel called the SYNTHESIS? That is, the thing that resolves the conflict between the two?

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An evangelical Christian who must be read:

I tried to watch it, but I couldn’t make it halfway to the 13-minute mark. Everything about it was tawdry, pathetic, even pornographic. All but the most fundamentalist believers from my evangelical Christian tribe who watch that video will be appalled and ashamed to be associated with it.

It is hate speech. It is no different from the anti-Semitic garbage that has been all too common in Western Christian history. It is sub-Christian – beneath the dignity of anyone with a functioning moral compass.

Islamophobic evangelical Christians – and the neo-conservative Catholics and even some Jewish folks who are their unlikely political bedfellows of late – must choose.

Will they press on in their current path, letting Islamophobia spread even further amongst them? Or will they stop, rethink and seek to a more charitable approach to our Muslim neighbors? Will they realize that evangelical religious identity is under assault, not by Shariah law, not by the liberal media, not by secular humanism from the outside, but by forces within the evangelical community that infect that religious identity with hostility?

If I could get one message through to my evangelical friends, it would be this: The greatest threat to evangelicalism is evangelicals who tolerate hate and who promote hate camouflaged as piety.

No one can serve two masters. You can’t serve God and greed, nor can you serve God and fear, nor God and hate.

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LeBlanc is of course right.  I’ve been of the same view for a long time.

If you couldn’t win your own seat, then you should not – not – be running for leader.  It’s a waste of your time, and the party’s too.

Do folks have a right to run, if they can pony up the relevant fees?  Of course.  But that doesn’t mean they should.

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I admire his determination.  Reminds me of me, when I was younger and foolisher.

Having beaten my head against that particular wall for a few years, and with nothing left to show for it, I happily pass the torch to Paul.  Good luck to him.

He’ll need it.

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This morning, on the much-read National Newswatch, there was this headline:

“NDP Surge to tie for First Place Provincially, Ontario Liberals In Third; 43% Want Liberal leadership review: Poll“

When you click on the link, you are not taken to the web site of a news organization or a polling from.  You are taken to something called the “Broadview Strategy Group,” trumpeting a “poll” by Forum Research.

The name “Forum Research” should ring a few bells.  They were the firm that got the recent Alberta and Quebec elections wrong – and dramatically so.

We are not told who ultimately paid for the “poll,” but the Broadview web site modestly indicates that the report on the poll was written by one John Laforet.

When not working at his lobby firm – which, if you eyeball their web site, very much seems to be one guy, plus a receptionist – Laforet describes himself as a “volunteer” for something called Wind Concerns Ontario.  As I’ve written for the Sun, Wind Concerns is effectively an extension of the Conservative Party in Ontario.  As Metroland reported last September 8:  Laforet and Wind Concern’s main objective is “defeating the McGuinty government and getting Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak elected Premier.”  And, as Laforet said to the Tillsonburg News on August 24 of last year: “The idea is to mobilize [supporters] to go door-to-door, supporting the Progressive Conservative candidate to defeat the Liberals.”

Fine.  Laforet and his Wind Concerns aren’t shy: they’re an arm of the Ontario PCs.  Good for them.  But are they allowed to do that? How do they do that? Who pays the shots? Well, they’re set up as a non-profit, but not a charity – they don’t issue tax receipts, and the reason is that they don’t want to accept the limitations on political advocacy that being a charity entails. They’re open about this if you ask them.

They say they’re funded entirely by donors, but there’s no disclosure of any sources of donations that anyone has been able to find. Unlike charities, there’s no public disclosure of their finances by Revenue Canada.

Did Wind Concerns pay for the poll?  Who knows.  At a speech he delivered at the Empire Club in June of last year, Laforet was asked who funds Wind Concerns.  Here’s what he said:  “Nobody funds Wind Concerns Ontario, which is why I’m a volunteer. Wind Concerns Ontario’s budget for 2010 was about $8,900.”

If all this seems rather suspicious to you, you’re not alone.  To me, this morning’s innocuous headline has a bad, bad odour. Who paid Forum Research?  Was it Broadview, which is led by a Liberal-hating Ontario PC fan?  Or was it Wind Concerns, who supposedly have a budget of only a few thousand bucks?

And how did all of this end up on National Newswatch, which is – as noted – much-read and much-respected?

Good questions, all.  But if you want to know why so many people increasingly consider our politics to be B.S., and why they are voting less and less – well, this is a good case study to ponder.

UPDATE:  Note here. Christina Blizzard has written a column about the issue, not (she emphasizes to me) a news story.  I accept what she says, of course, but believe that Laforet’s background needs to be part of any straight-up news story or opinion column.  But that’s just me.  My apologies if I offended Chris!

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The spaceman vs. the space cadet.

That’s (sort of) what Sun Media’s Mike Strobel famously called the looming Liberal leadership contest between Marc Garneau and Justin Trudeau. There’ll be other contenders, perhaps, but Strobel’s pithy portrayal is the one that fits the race-to-be.

Garneau is a former astronaut, of course, and the first Canadian to go into space. His name is on the side of schools.

Trudeau, meanwhile, is the son of a former prime minister, and (in the view of his critics) a Canadian who lives in space 24/7. He taught inside schools. I’ve been pretty pro-Trudeau in this space, principally because I like the guy. He’s likeable. If the next election comes down to likeability (and elections often do), Stephen Harper and Thomas Mulcair are pooched. They’re both Angry Old Men, and therefore eminently dislikeable.

But Garneau ranks pretty high on the likeability scale, too, so he’d be a worthy adversary for Harper and Mulcair. Some of his critics say he’s a bit dull. But the Conservative leader is about as exciting as dryer lint and it hasn’t hurt him much, has it? It won’t hurt Garneau either.

The space cadet, therefore, needs to take the spaceman seriously. When Trudeau’s campaign is launched — and, rest assured, it will be — his main competition may be Marc Garneau, C.C., CD, Ph.D., F.C.A.S.I., MP.

Each of those letters appended to the end of Garneau’s name mean something. “C.C.” shows he’s not just a Member of the Order of Canada — he’s a Companion of the Order, our equivalent to knighthood. The only higher honour is one that comes directly from Her Majesty.

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