Rob Ford: Moron

The Rob Ford Campaign does not want this friendly handshake in any way misconstrued, said the Rob Ford Campaign.

Rob Ford’s long-held belief in traditional marriage has exploded into a campaign issue now that he has endorsed the views of a fundamentalist Christian pastor who suggested online that same-sex marriage could “dismantle” a “healthy democratic civilization.

We’re together. We have the same thoughts,” Mr. Ford said at a news conference with Pastor Wendell Brereton, who abandoned his candidacy for mayor to run for council and endorse Mr. Ford…

Mr. Ford’s views emerged during a reciprocal endorsement Wednesday with Mr. Brereton, a former Ontario Provincial Police officer who now preaches at the Glorious Church-Faith Temple, a multiethnic Christian congregation near Regent Park. Under the heading “my opponents” on his mayoral website, the pastor wrote: “Men who don’t truly comprehend the reality of the importance of the God defined family will dismantle the very ethical fibers of what a healthy democratic civilization is.

The notion that this knuckle-dragger could become mayor of Canada’s biggest and most diverse city is beyond ludicrous.  God help us all.

What do you think, Internet?  Want to see the Clampetts running the show down at City Hall?


The obligation we owe those who could not speak for themselves

Goar: Former residents of mental asylum seek justice

The time for apologies has passed. No words can right the wrongs the Huronia Regional Centre did to its residents. No expression of regret can change their blighted lives. No profession of contrition will excuse the five provincial governments that knew what was going on behind its doors and did little.

Last week an Ontario Superior Court judge authorized a $1 billion class action suit against the provincial government by former residents of the Huronia Centre, originally known as the Orillia Asylum for Idiots.

If this case goes to trial, it will set a legal precedent. The courts have never allowed a collective lawsuit against a government-operated psychiatric facility. Ontario ran 16 such institutions. (They are all closed now.)

It will reopen one of the ugliest chapters in Ontario’s history. For decades, retarded children, unmanageable adolescents and adults deemed insane — which could mean anything from homeless to paranoid schizophrenic — were locked up in mental asylums. Few outsiders were allowed in.

Stories got out, but policy-makers discounted or ignored them. Complaints were filed, but they were settled quietly.

It has taken nine years to bring about this class action suit. The two lead plaintiffs, Marie Slark and Pat Seth, are not the worst victims, but they have clear memories and the ability to articulate them. Slark, diagnosed as “mildly retarded,” was confined to the Huronia Centre at 1961 at 7 years of age. Seth followed in 1964 at 6 years of age. She was labelled “developmentally challenged.” Both were beaten and medicated against their will.

But the real force behind the litigation is a social worker named Marilyn Dolmage, who spent five years on staff at Huronia. She and her husband Jim, a phys-ed teacher, are acting as “litigation guardians” for the plaintiffs.

Marilyn Dolmage has three reasons for taking on this battle.

The first is what she witnessed as a social worker. She saw residents tranquillized, kept in caged cots and disciplined with a heavy-duty hose.

The second is her younger brother, Robert. Sent to Huronia at birth with Down’s syndrome, he died of untreated pneumonia at the age of 8.

The third is her son, Matthew, born with severe cognitive and physical disabilities. She fought to keep him out of institutions like Huronia.

She and her husband found lawyers who would take the class-action suit, persuaded residents it was safe to talk and kept pressing ahead despite delays and setbacks.

The plaintiffs are seeking “justice and compensation for severe abuse they and other class members suffered while residing at the Huronia Centre.” They contend the Ontario government is guilty of “negligence and breach of its fiduciary duties to the residents and their families.”

Both women have filed affidavits chronicling their mistreatment at Huronia. Seth’s describes how she was hit with a radiator brush and held upside down in cold water for not eating. Slark’s recounts how she was medicated against her will and sexually abused.

The evidence also includes a 1960 article by Toronto Star columnist Pierre Berton, in which he described the “atrocities” he saw inside the psychiatric institute; a scathing 1971 report to the provincial health minister by Walton Williston; and sworn testimony by former staff and family members of residents.

The worst was over by the time Premier Dalton McGuinty took office. When it closed last year, in fact, Huronia had individual apartments, a canteen, a chapel and a therapeutic swimming pool.

But to generations of residents, it was a place of suffering. They were deprived of their rights, beaten or drugged into submission and punished for complaining.

The government cannot restore what they lost, but its can accept responsibility for this egregious injustice.

Carol Goar‘s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.


Smart phone, not-so-smart government

Unidentified U.S. bureaucrat with freedom-loving Canadian device.

I’m thumbing this entry.

Do you find this bit from this morning’s Globe a bit, well, strange?

On Monday, the U.S. State Department became the latest government arm to weigh in on the UAE’s threat to shut down several BlackBerry services in October, should the company not take measures to allow local authorities to monitor communication on the device.

“We’re disappointed with [the UAE’s announcement],” a State Department spokeswoman told The Globe and Mail. “It’s not about the Canadian company, it’s about what we think is an important element of human rights … and the free flow of information.”

Do you find it odd, as I do, that the U.S. State Department is aggressively taking the lead on defending one of Canada’s most successful companies?  That it is the United States government, not its Canadian equivalent, being seen to push back against Middle Eastern despots?  That the Reformatories are missing a huge opportunity to change the channel from some of their myriad number of problems, this Summer?

But maybe I’m missing something.  What do you think, smart smart-phoners?


Drunk girls

Roxy and I were driving around this morning, super early, and this LCDS gem came on XM. Are those puppies or kitties? Roxy wants to know.


Tweet heat

140 characters or less: I didn’t use to follow Twitter, now I do.

As this New York Times piece suggests, there’s something about Twitter – its culture, perhaps, or simply the ease of access – that compels certain people to use it all the time. And I mean all the time.

There’s a certain Ottawa journalist, for example, who Twitters everything he/she does. Everything. What he/she saw on the ride into work, what the view is like out his/her window – and, most notably, what he/she thinks about particular politicians or policies. And, sometimes, even how he/she plans to go after news stories.

As a consequence, political parties have started to closely follow what he/she Twitters. So, too, some of his/her equally-addicted Twitterers. “It’s an early-warning system for us,” said a partisan friend. “It gives us access to the slant they are taking, the stories they are pursuing, even the line-up of newscasts.”

In the good old days, politicos and publicists couldn’t often get that kind of intel. Now, thanks to Twitter, they can. Free of charge.

There have been plenty of news stories about politicians and their staff writing dumb things on Twitter. In campaigns to come, you’ll be seeing more and more of those stories. My species often say things that we shouldn’t.

But that Twitter axiom cuts both ways. Some journalists are perhaps revealing more than they should.

Editors and news bosses will eventually wise up, of course, and tell their writing staff to be a lot more careful – or perhaps even ban work-related Twittering altogether. In the meantime, the Twitter-ati are providing the rest of us with a fascinating (and maybe even useful) glimpse into a world that was heretofore off-limits.

Now, was that 140 characters or less?