Lose? You can’t win
LeBlanc is of course right. I’ve been of the same view for a long time.
Do folks have a right to run, if they can pony up the relevant fees? Of course. But that doesn’t mean they should.
More Adams on merger
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.
A whiff of political B.S.: an Ontario case study (updated)
This morning, on the much-read National Newswatch, there was this headline:
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!
In Sunday’s Sun: Spaceman vs. Space Cadet
The sad ballad of Tim Hudak
Ontario Liberals didn’t like the outcome of the Kitchener-Waterloo by-election – and it’s spelled Kitchener, Tim Hudak, not “Kichener” – but Ontario’s PC leader probably liked it a lot less. His party got beaten, badly, in a riding it had comfortably held for a generation.
He’s the most unpopular leader in the province. He is regularly pilloried by the media. His chief advisors are enmeshed in scandal, in Ottawa and Toronto. And, under his watch, his once-great political party has been reduced to a rural rump.
Above is a sad-looking sign for his “star” candidate in the Vaughan by-election. It’s across the road from the rink where Son Two is goal tending this morning. Two weeks later, the PCs signs are still up all over riding, where the Ontario Liberal candidate pulverized his PC opponent.
How did it all come to this? How did the former golden boy of the Ontario Conservatives fall so far?
A variety of reasons, I think. He’s allowed his party to be taken over by rural extremists like the OLA. He’s alienated “foreigners,” when we’re a nation of foreigners. He’s been hurt by his close ties to the likes of Rob Ford and Stephen Harper – and particularly by the fact that voters don’t want the same gang of right-wingers running all three levels of government.
Most of all, however, I think it’s him. As I write in my new book, he comes across as a smirking frat boy, and he seems as deep as a puddle. He’s that guy in high school who nobody liked.
Do we Ontario Liberals want to keep him around?
You’re damn right we do.
Hits and Misses
Sad to see another record store slip under the waves. Hits and Misses will be missed.
The Islamophobic web
“Canadian Hindu Advocacy” is a group that says it plans to screen the Innocence of Muslims propaganda film that has stirred up chaos and death in the Middle East. Who are they? BCL has more here. Most recently, they have been associated with Jewish Defence League, hosting British white supremacists like the “European Defence League” and stirring up anti-Muslim hate.
What’s interesting, too, is Canadian Hindu Advocacy’s symbiotic relationship with Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney. It’s a relationship that needs to be investigated, I’d say. More here and here.
Lougheed
Very sorry to hear of his passing. A great Canadian.
Kay, defined
When I wrote for the National Post, and Kay was my editor, I was not permitted – in any way, shape or form – to publish anything remotely positive about the paper’s imagined demons: The Toronto Star, the CBC, whatever. They would refuse to publish it. Full stop. I still have the emails.
Kay can write about “red lines” all that he likes. But nothing can obscure the fact that there’s a great big one at the National Post, and it starts at Jonathan Kay’s computer.
Oh, and at the Sun? In my two years of writing for them, I have never been prevented from writing about anything.
Never.
It’s KITCHENER, dummy
Here’s Michael Harris, aptly-named Ontario PCC MPP FOR A KITCHENER-AREA RIDING. At a PRESS CONFERENCE.
Oh my Lord Almighty, I love these guys. I hope they never, ever change.
THeir awsum!
