Regulars will recall my suggestion that, if Stephen Harper’s Reformatories achieved a majority, you wouldn’t recognize Canada by the time he was done with it.

That process, I think, is well underway. The thing that has assisted the Reformatories, more than anything else, is declining participation in democracy. The Con voter base is smaller, but more motivated; if you can suppress the progressive vote – and/or keep it divided – you’ll keep winning.

The Occupy movement, in a very real sense, is the embodiment of Harper’s dream: one, they’re a group of mainly-young people who have given up on democracy. Two, they’re a group of mainly-progressive young people who lack leadership, and are divided on what should be their strategy and tactics.

Thus, we’re Harperized. It’ll be thus for years to come, if the progressive side of the spectrum doesn’t get its proverbial head out of its proverbial ass.

(And people wonder why guys like me chose provincial politics over federal. Wonder no more.)

Comments (54)

Now that he has become national news – and now that he has the entire country wondering how such a knuckle-dragging, mouth breathing hick could become mayor of Canada’s largest city – I figured I would go back in the archives and see if Rob Ford has always been this way.  My motivation was to understand him better. I mean, perhaps Rob Ford was smarter, way back when, and he hit is head on something, and it’s not really his fault.  That sort of thing.

He was elected to Toronto council in 2000.  A few months after his arrival, and after not much media attention, he was profiled – in the conservative National Post, of all places.  What they published about him (a) must be read and (b) makes clear that he has always been an idiot with anger management issues.  He will never change – notwithstanding the “secret” meeting he had with certain, um, well-known Conservatives who told him to get his act together, or else.

(Oh, and again: $300, minimum, for that tape, no questions asked.  I will then broadcast it on Sun News and here, in the hope that it will ensure Rob Ford’s defeat at the time of the next municipal election.)

The profile:

The odd rantings of young Rob Ford

(National Post, March 10, 2001.  By Don Wanagas, City Hall Columnist.)

What are the four words that people attending city council meetings most fear to hear these days?

The answer: “Councillor Ford to speak.”

That’s Councillor Ford as in Rob Ford. Young Mr. Ford (Ward 2 — Etobicoke North) has only been hanging out at Toronto City Hall for a few months now, but he has already made quite a name for himself. Not for anything he has actually done, mind you. Ford’s claim to fame are the outrageously incoherent speeches he likes to make expounding the supposed virtues of neo-Conservatism.

Alas, it is very doubtful he’s winning many converts to his cause. To help explain why, we return you now to the Thursday morning session of this week’s council meeting where Melville’s political braintrust has been busy debating the pros and cons of concepts like privatization and contracting out public services.

It has been a spirited but generally good-natured discussion thus far. Then, the meeting’s chairman, Deputy Mayor Case Ootes, utters the four dreaded words.

“Councillor Ford to speak.”

This is an unedited account of what Ford said.

“I have to give my head a shake because some of the rhetoric that comes out of the mouths of some of these councillors boggles my mind, I swear.

“This $200 that the province gave? How many of you guys gave it back to the province? How many gave it back to a special interest group? Did you? Fantastic. I think that’s great.

“Hey, Councillor [Raymond] Cho. You always keep complaining about $200. Did you give it back to the province? Did you give it back to the province?”

At this point, Ford is almost screaming.

“Walkerton. In Walkerton, I think people have been living under a rock. This was not Mike Harris’s fault. Walkerton. It was strictly the public sector that screwed it up; people drinking on the job and weren’t even competent at what they were doing. I think people haven’t been reading the papers.

“Competition is the best thing for the economy. Competition in public sector or private sector makes the mare gallop. It only makes a better person, makes a more efficient company when you have competition. I hope and I really hope the province makes this council 22 seats and we’ll see how really, really competitive you are. And then we’ll be efficient like our MPs and our MPPs having one per federal provincial riding.

“Another thing. Why does everyone blame the province? Everybody starts moaning and moaning about the province. Well, the province ruled this great province for 40 years, from ’40 to ’85, and things were going great until the Peterson government came and destroyed it. And then the Rae government came in and buried it. It was the Harris government that came in and did something positive.”

By now, the council chamber is in pandemonium. Ford is red with rage and screeching at the top of his lungs. Other councillors are screaming back. Ootes tries to regain control but can’t, and Ford carries on at increasingly higher volume.

“Get the government out of our backyards. It’s ridiculous. Government red tape here. Bureaucratic here. It’s nonsense having all this government. And it’s nonsense. It’s so ridiculous. If you don’t like what the province is doing, there’s going to be an election in June of ’03 — before our election, by the way.

“Go run as a Liberal or NDP. Go put your money where your mouth is and run as a Liberal or an NDP and see if you can knock out your Conservative member of Provincial Parliament. Thank you.”

Clearly bowled over by Ford’s performance, Councillor Anne Johnston jumps to her feet.

“I think he should receive the neo-con award of the day,” she suggests with a chuckle.

“I think that probably perked up the folks at home,” adds the Deputy Mayor.

“Prozac, get some prozac,” shouts Councillor Joe Pantalone, obviously concerned his overwrought colleague from Etobicoke had failed to refill his prescription.

I don’t know about Prozac. But he sure as heck needs something.

This is, after all, the same Rob Ford who a day earlier had advised his colleagues that money to be spent erecting a suicide prevention barrier on the Bloor St. Viaduct would be better used to round up child molesters who, he claimed, are the main cause of people jumping off bridges.

Take a pill, big fella.

 

Comments (35)

“It was almost a blur, the two men flying up the street: a former prime minister and the Man in Motion moving together, followed by dozens in fluorescent yellow windbreakers.

Jean Chrétien pushed Rick Hansen part of the way up Elgin Street in downtown Ottawa, sometimes even jogging, as part of a 7,000-strong relay to raise money and awareness for spinal cord injuries.”

Swear to God: if some of us somehow persuaded him to run again, he’d kick Stephen Harper’s ass. And you know I’m right.

Comments (43)

One hundred bucks for whomever sends me the Rob Ford tape! No questions asked!

UPDATE: Okay, this is getting expensive – the ever-news-hungry Ladurantaye at the Globe has said on Twitter that he’s tripling my offer.  Holy smokes! This is getting expensive – or, at the very least, not unlike Fleet Street before the NOTW implosion.  In any event, I will top (not by much) whatever Ladurantaye offers.

After all, it’s a tape that will help to defeat Rob Ford in the next mayoralty race, so it’s worth the investment, wouldn’t you say?  Adam V. or Josh M., care to participate, here?

Comments (20)

The CBC comedy troupe made a mistake by ambushing Rob Ford at his home.

Toronto voters made a mistake by electing this idiot as mayor.

(…then again, his mere existence helped elect a lot of Ontario Liberals in urban centres, so he’s not all bad.)

Comments (13)

Here, much delayed, is the Court of Appeal decision, in which we won, after 15 long years.  I’m going to be in Ontario Reports! Woot!

Comments (7)

All of this PC caucus-in-shambles stuff has me remembering just a month ago.  Ah, fun times…

Comments (1)

• Ford ambush follow-up: It made him look like a sympathetic figure, per yesterday’s posting.  Yep.  My question: why does the Ottawa Citizen – which serves, um, Ottawa – think this story about the Toronto mayor is a big deal?  Another question: why do people interview Nelson Wiseman all the time for his political insights? This is the guy – along with the provincial trial lawyers’ chief, who told me my “boy” was in trouble – who said McGuinty was as good as gone.  So why keep asking him to predict stuff?
• Frankly, my dear… So Frank Klees is running; it doesn’t mean he’s going to win, right?  What’s noteworthy, here, is that both Hudak and Horwath ordered their MPPs not to run, while McGuinty said (per the Parliamentary tradition) that MPPs can decide what’ll happen on their own.  Whether Klees wins or not, one thing is plain: the Opposition leaders aren’t leaders. They’re weak: as one conservative commentator has declared: “It’s a huge loss of face for Hudak.”
• Qadhafi’s execution: I’m glad Barack Obama has said what needed to be said: the death of the Libyan strongman happened, and Qadhafi himself created the circumstances that led to it – but filming it on cell phone cameras, and broadcasting it, was wrong. And, moreover, it probably engendered sympathy for the former dictator.  Never speak ill of the dead, we Irish are taught – and, similarly, don’t film indignities done to the dead.
• Gun registry gone: I’m a gun owner, as revealed previously, and I wholeheartedly support registering it – as I do my bike, my dog and my car.  Now that the registry is on its way to being gone, our murder rate – particularly in domestic violence situations – will go up. And the Cons will be held to account for that.  Guys like me will be making sure of that.
• Winehouse R.I.P.: At the time of her death, I speculated that her demise had been hastened by junk.  I was wrong.  It was alcohol. Same church, different pew.  It’s a sad loss of life, either way.  I wish she hadn’t done it to herself.
• Don’t Walk This Way: sorry, I just can’t help myself.  And Stephen’s tumble gives us an excellent excuse to play the best-ever Aerosmith song!

Comments (26)

Members of Parliament, and provincial Parliaments, should be permitted to decide who should preside over their debates as Speaker.  Only rookies like Andrea Horwath and Tim Hudak would ever tell their caucus members how to vote in something like that.

So, it’s come back and bitten Hudak on the ass. It amuses me no end, as you knew it would.

But do you, or I, know who MPPs will pick to be their Speaker?  Nope.

And that’s as it should be.  Members will decide, without the likes of Horwath and Hudak bossing them around, and that’s how it should be, too.

Comments (14)

I did CBC’s Day Six, many days ago, and then forgot.  Someone just posted the link to the interview/debate on my Facebook page, so here it is, in case you are interested.

Comments (1)