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!
Sun News: I’m outnumbered!
…but I (and you) knew that already. Which is beside the point: the Sun folks, whose opinions I vehemently disagree with 99 per cent of the time, are open about all this. They don’t pretend to be free of bias, like too many other media organizations do. They’re proud of their bias.
The Sixth Estate folks missed a couple things, too: Bonokoski sought a Canadian Alliance nomination, and Worthington was a Progressive Conservative aspirant. There may be others, I can’t recall.
Point remains, however: nobody – with the exception of media fantasists – believe the media is without an agenda. My take: if you’ve got a view, be honest about it.
My view, meanwhile, is the only right one!
This PC MPP is an idiot
And no less than B’nai Brith agrees Jim McDonnell’s characterization of opponents as Nazis is a disgrace: