Statement by Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association President Fred LeBlanc

TORONTO, Sept. 22, 2011 /CNW/ – Today I became aware of the following comments made by Ontario NDP candidate Anthony Marco about Ontario fire fighters.

As a 26 year professional fire fighter and President of the over 11,000 professional fire fighters across Ontario, I am deeply insulted by this quote and ideology. Our members put their lives on the line every day to protect our communities and the citizens of Ontario, including Mr. Marco.

Far too many have paid the ultimate sacrifice. On October 2nd, 24 more names will be added to the Ontario Fallen Firefighters Memorial at Queens Park.

Doctors, fire fighters, and police officers, are everyday heroes and I am not ashamed to say it.

I am shocked that this type of rhetoric is coming from a candidate and I hope that this is not a shared view within the New Democratic Party.

Anthony Marco, NDP Candidate, lovehatethings.com, November 2010:

“There are a lot of very honourable, very righteous, very heroic people who die on a daily basis for what they believe in. And I think we throw the term ‘hero’ around a little bit too loosely these days. I think we need to really tie it a lot more to a belief system, as opposed to a job. I’m tired of hearing, and no offense to doctors or firefighters or policemen, but automatically calling occupations as heroic, I’m tired of hearing about that. Doing your job isn’t necessarily heroic, there can be heroic elements in there. There can be, but there doesn’t have to be. You don’t automatically become a hero just because you put on a uniform of some sort or have a title before or after your name.”

***

Police Personnel Insulted by Candidate’s Comments

TORONTO, Sept. 22, 2011 /CNW/ – As thousands of police personnel members of Ontario’s Police Services travel toOttawa to participate in the Canadian Police Memorial, honouring those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their fellow citizens, we are deeply troubled at the remarks of Anthony Marco, NDP candidate.

Police officers face life and death issues every single day.  In each and every duty, however routine, police duties are fraught with peril.  Officer Garrett Styles of York Region, one of those we honour Sunday in Ottawa, is the most recent Ontario example.

Firefighters have been similarly dismissed by Mr. Marco, as have doctors who face different challenges, but are no less brave.  This lack of understanding is beyond us.

Our membership is insulted at the continued inclusion of Anthony Marco on the NDP ticket.

Comments (27)

Christina Blizzard is a columnist for the Sun.  She’s pretty pro-Conservative – I can’t recall her ever writing anything that isn’t – but I like her.  She’s a good person, albeit a bit politically misguided.

This afternoon, she sent me an email.  Here’s what she said: “I have received a copy of a presentation you have been giving to unions about elections. At the end of it, you advise union members not to just take a lawn sign, but to get involved and “buy an ad.”  I am wondering if it is appropriate for someone who is a senior member of the Liberal campaign team to be advising third parties to do this during the election campaign.”

That was kind of…snarky, and erroneous, too.  In June, I was invited to speak one union, Local 46, the plumber’s union.  The three-hour presentation I gave to them didn’t simply say “buy an ad.”  The folks who asked me to speak wanted to avoid vote-splitting that might lead to another Harris-style government under Tim Hudak.  I spoke to about 200 members, who were described to me as members of all of the political parties – Liberals, New Democrats and Conservatives.  It was a great session, and any member could attend.  Some folks agreed with me, some didn’t.  But it was fun.

So I responded to Chris: “You’d have to send it to me, my friend.  But, before you do that, are you saying that unions should be prohibited from advertising?”

She didn’t answer that.  I did, however, get the deck – which I surmise had been given to Chris by PCs, who are in a free-fall in urban centres, and are starting to full-on panic.  Here’s what she wrote: “[Your] exhortation to buy ads and get politically active is on page 26. It also makes reference to the “Not this time” advertising campaign targeting Ernie Eves.  I am wondering what Elections Ontario would have to say about the connection between you in your position with the Liberal campaign exhorting a union to engage in third party advertising during a campaign.”

That, too, was a bit snarky, given that we are supposed to be colleagues and all that.  But, whatever.  She’s big on the Conservatives, and I understand that.  I also didn’t like the insinuation that what I’d said in my presentation was against the law, but again – whatever.  She has a job to do.

So here’s what I wrote back: “Chris:  I was asked by the union to come and speak to them before the election about how to avoid a Hudak-PC government. I spoke to about 200 people, and they were introduced to me as members of all of the political parties. I encouraged them to get involved in the democratic process in any way they could. One way they could do that is to advertise, and to of course ensure that they followed all of the Elections Ontario rules.  To my knowledge, they have done no advertising at all. Since you obviously intend to write about this, I will place the deck on my web site along with your emails. I prefer to have these discussions out in the open, so there can be no confusion about what was said. Have a great day.”

And, as promised, here’s the deck, every word of it.  If you feel like Chris apparently does – that I urged the union to break the law – I encourage you to promptly lodge a complaint about me with Elections Ontario.  Here’s their email, to save you some time: info@elections.on.ca.  Good luck.

Oh, and Chris?  Like I say: the group I spoke to hasn’t produced any advertising I am aware of – unlike some groups closely connected to Tim Hudak’s PCs.

I look forward to you writing about that, too.

 

Comments (22)

…from the mouth of one of his own candidates.

Comments (7)

It means we keep working even harder – relentlessly, like we are way behind. And take nothing for granted.

Comments (10)

Sun News played the whole Suzuki-endorsement-of-McGuinty ad! I can now die, my life complete!

Comments (5)

Hamilton-area NDP candidate Anthony Marco’s rambling, tongue-in-cheek podcast and blog rants are supplying the party’s critics with no end of ammunition.

The Liberals unearthed several more Wednesday in which the 42-year-old teacher calls Ontarians lazy, opines that elections are a drag and condemns parents for taking their “f …… kids” along with them to Las Vegas.

The candidate for Niagara West-Glanbrook was on the hot seat earlier for drawing a parallel between Nazism and religion during a profanity-laced podcast a year ago.

Comments (4)

Ontario NDP candidate Anthony Marco in a TVO interview.

Yesterday, to defend her friend Anthony Marco, Andrea Horwath allowed a doctored transcript of Marco’s now-infamous words (National Socialism is a “religion,” and those who oppose Naziism are “pretty messed up”) to be issued to the news media.

Here’s his crazed podcast in its entirety.  Listen to it, especially around the seven-minute mark. Is this part of the “positive campaign” Horwath claims to be running?

UPDATE: And the crazy just keeps on coming! And we’ve only listened to a fraction of his online lunacy!

Comments (47)

Here’s just a sampling of what can be seen in Ontario papers this morning.  And the papers don’t even address (yet) the doctored transcript Horwath issued to defend her friend Anthony Marco.

Why is she defending Marco?  Cheri di Novo might know: Andrea Horwath apparently thinks Israel practices “apartheid.”

Comments (3)

This is exactly what I was talking about yesterday – Conservatives using the power of government to silence critics, by taking away their charitable status.

Oh, and the Wind Power Ontario outfit mentioned in the story?  They’re a Tory front, full stop.  Meanwhile, the taxpayer “federation” is basically an arm of the Conservatives.  They work hand-in-glove with PC campaigns, and have done so for years.

And I may even have seen an email in which Wind Power is seen helping to map out Tea Party North strategy!  Now, where is that email?

 

Comments (17)

…and I don’t mean the clothing store.

I mean Andrea Horwath’s disappointing Ontario NDP!  Did they actually release a doctored transcript to the media in the now-infamous Anthony Marco story?  (See here and here and here.)

Next thing you know, Andrea will be saying nice things about Richard M. Nixon!

New Ontario NDP logo.

Comments (0)