Tories trying to win support from South Asians in Ontario have opened the door to remnants of a Tamil Tiger front group the federal Conservatives themselves banned in 2008.

The unlikely association, forged behind a curtain of tough government talk about Tamil refugee ships and a feared terrorist migration to Canada last year, has developed since the Tigers’ separatist struggle was crushed by the Sri Lankan military in 2009.

Last month, Tim Hudak, Leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives, announced Shan Thayaparan as his party’s candidate for Markham-Unionville. Mr. Thayaparan had helped run an election for a new Tamil separatist group, the National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT), whose key adviser, Nehru Gunaratnam, is a former spokesman for the outlawed World Tamil Movement.

Hudak is a hypocrite and a disgrace, of course, with all of his bleatings about law and order. Nothing new there.

But this latest Ontario PC disaster has me wondering: how will the new recruits, above, get along with Landowner and PC executive members like Edward Kennedy?

You know, the Hudak stalwart who calls non-whites rapists and “n****rs,” quote unquote?

Should make for interesting campaign rallies.

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My sons and my Mom bid y’all adieu. Stay warm and dry!

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A polling firm, Forum Research, has something out suggesting that the McGuinty Liberals and the Hudak-Hillier PCs are vitually “neck and neck” in the Greater Toronto Area.

I asked some friends who Forum Research was.

Then I remembered.

I’m sure they are very nice folks and all that, but no other polling firm ever, ever confirmed their GTA result.  In fact, everyone else found that Sarah Thompson and Joe Pantalone were never behind Rossi in the final few months.  Not once.  That’s why Benedict Baldy dropped out, in fact.  The Forum Research poll did not match what others were finding, or what was happening at the doors.

Can pollsters get things wrong?  Yep, they sure can.  The good folks at Forum did with Rossi, in my view.

I’m writing a column about this polling stuff for the Sunday Sun. I don’t believe the federal Liberals are as behind as some pollsters say they are.  And I don’t believe this morning’s survey, at all.

Over and out.

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From my Sun Media colleague Akin:

@davidakin: On the Hill: The Kenney Branding Strategy: “We Are Losing” but “We Are Losing Less Badly” http://bit.ly/ea98ks

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“In any case, according to Hillier, this work was not supposed to wind up involving his website at all. That it did was a mistake on the part of William Ross. We are therefore invited to imagine that the people from William Ross were providing urls to MacLaren that contained the phrase “randyhilliermpp.com” in them without realizing that they would, in fact, route the reader of the emails through Randyhilliermpp.com. That’s pretty hard to imagine.”

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SFH live! The boys rock out in Rayman’s Man Cave to Ritalin Boy’s touching and sensitive ballad, ‘Puck Bunny.’ The fan in the foreground was Roman Polanski’s idea, and it cost us $1 million, plus residuals.

The weirdo black bands on the sides of the screen were also his idea.  Unsurprisingly, he lives in Europe.

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The Tim Hudak PCs said they’d have their platform out by next month, or even sooner.  That’s what they said.

See that guy at the end of the video?  That’s Chad Rogers.  He’s one of their campaign big wigs.  In that secret meeting of PCs, he effectively said that the Hudak-Hillier PCs now won’t be showing us their plan, after all.  What does that mean?  It means they’ve broken their word before the campaign even gets started.

Will folks care?  Well, here’s one take, just from this morning.

“As the rhetoric heats up in advance of this October’s provincial election, Tory leader Tim Hudak has offered little to nothing in terms of an plan to lead Ontario.

Sure, there’s been musings about bringing back buck a beer, but that’s hardly the type of policy that will win the Conservatives an election.

Hudak promises a full-scale platform will be announced this April after the provincial Conservatives hold a convention in Niagara Falls.

Up to this point, the only thing Hudak has offered is criticism of almost every government initiative.

Be it the HST, or energy policy, media members receive a daily barrage of Hudak-jabs via email.

In school, we were all taught that a good essay starts with a premise and finishes with a conclusion.

However, the PC leader’s ongoing analysis of government policy omits the key principle of good debate.

His premise is simple, no matter the issue – it’s bad, bad, bad.

Ok, so, how would you make it better? I guess we’ll have to wait for Hudak to write the conclusion to his essay for Ontario.”

At least with Mike Harris and John Tory, you knew where they stood.

With the No Plan Man, you don’t.

And you won’t.

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He actually said that.

If he possessed the minutest amount of self-awareness (or irony), Rob Ford would be aware that he is getting mad at the Premier and the Minister of Finance for saying the very thing that he credits with winning him the keys to the Mayor’s office: to wit, “there’s no more money.” Tighten your belt. Make do. Stop complaining, etc. etc. You know, Rob Fordy stuff.

When Rob Ford says it, it’s okay. When someone says it to Rob Ford, well, he has a five-alarm hissy fit, and he makes asinine threats about mobilizing his (theoretical) army of winged monkeys.

This guy is going to win us just about every seat in the GTA. Just watch.

Member of aforementioned “Ford Nation.” Sizes may vary.

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BCL, one of the best online sleuths around, has the deets here:

“This sounds a little dubious to me. How could William Ross Solutions possibly be responsible for where the links in Jack MacLaren’s emails go, especially since MacLaren’s official email account is through these guys(NorthWind Wireless)? Presumably, any “routing” of links would be done at the author’s end, by the author, no? And, as a corollary, if the links went through Hillier’s website, this would be via Randy’s say-so, or not. Perhaps some kind of deal was struck between Hillier and MacLaren. Perhaps MacLaren was acting on his own. In either case, its difficult to see how Hiller’s website designer should get stuck with the blame.”

I love it when Murphy gets a-huntin’ for far-right loons: he never fails to hit his target.

Bottom line: the Hudak-Hillier Hillbillies are lying.  They knew they were breaking the rules, and now they’re trying to cover it up.

This one ain’t over by a long shot, I’d say.

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I am excited about the newest iPad – particularly the fact that FaceTime will work on it, and also the fact that OS 4.3 will render your Apple device a hotspot – but I was happiest to see that he was well enough to attend and talk about the first and best tablet.  He’s an amazing innovator, and I’m glad he’s still fighting the good fight.

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