Spendaphobe? Give Us A Break

So, according to Rob and Doug Ford, Rob isn't a homophobe, he's a spendaphobe.

Rob Ford's own actions related to pride in the not so distant past (refusing to attend, trying to stop the city from flying the pride flag for example) speak quite clearly to where he stands with respect to gay rights.

However, that isn't the point of this post.  It is the ridiculous moniker of "spendaphobe" that needs to be talked about.

Typical of what we've come to expect from conservative politicians in the last decade, this is nothing more than a piece of jingoism.  It's a meaningless term designed to deflect attention away from the issue at hand.

Rob Ford spends ... often like a drunken sailor, and most of his claims of saving the City of Toronto billions of dollars are largely lies.  Further, Ford's conduct over the last year and a bit have demonstrated repeatedly that the man is a compulsive liar.  Almost every time he has been confronted with his own misconduct, he has lied to Canadians.

So, as a voter in Toronto, would you believe his latest round of denials?

Municipal Voters: Partisan Intervention is Coming Your Way

Did you mistakenly think that the Manning Centre's attempt to bend the 2013 Calgary municipal election to more "conservative" was an aberration?  You would be quite wrong.

The author of the Metro News article is considerably more charitable than I am about the matter - but then again, he was in Ottawa, not Calgary and didn't necessarily see the full breadth of the effort on the part of the angry right wing to twist the election.

When right-wingers from across the country huddled in Ottawa last weekend for the Manning Networking Conference, they understandably had their eye on the next federal election, but they also examined city politics and their perceived weakness there. 

One talk on the conference agenda was entitled, “How conservatives can succeed in the last bastion of the left – City Hall.” 

The title — and the talk — began from the assumption that the bicycle-riding, fancy-coffee-sipping socialist hoards by and large have a lock on city councils. ...

That's far from true, but what does happen at the civic level is that council decisions have a more direct impact on people's day to day lives than does a decision about interest rates in Ottawa, or Harper's rather naive and bellicose approach to foreign affairs.

Consequently, people tend to vote for councillors that actually do a good job of representing their local interests.  Whether that's ensuring that garbage gets picked up, or the snow is removed from the roads - political stripe doesn't usually matter to most people.

On the other side of the coin, apparently the far right thinks that they are imperilled somehow.

One might argue that as tax and spending cuts became orthodox at the other two levels of government, municipalities have had to step into the resulting gaps. And Ottawa had a right-leaning mayor not so long ago who vowed to hold the zero-means-zero line on tax increases — until reality caught up with him. 

Pantazopoulos allowed that conservative ideology as it’s articulated at the federal level may not filter down perfectly to Main Street: “What does smaller government really mean at the municipal level? Does it mean fewer roads get paved? Does it mean less snow gets cleared?” 

In city politics, he said, it’s more helpful to talk about supporting “market-oriented” candidates. That’s what the Manning Centre tried to do in Calgary’s elections last year with their Common Sense Calgary campaign.

"Market Oriented candidates"?  If you're as surprised by that mealy sounding term as I was when I first saw it, I can't blame you.  Once again, the far right is trying to sugar coat a turd.   In this case, the turd being a candidate who is on the political right wing, but madly running about trying to mask how far right wing they are, or what interest groups think they can control them.

The "Common Sense Calgary" thing was, fortunately, more or less a failure.  But it didn't fail because they weren't trying to get their message out - they spent hugely on advertising.  It failed because someone saw Cal Wenzel talking about trying to buy control over city council in the upcoming election via the Manning Centre and leaked it to the media.  People were expecting a bunch of Astroturfing to take place, and when it arrived, it mostly fell flat.

‘The idea was to really try and talk about some of the issues from a conservative perspective. And if you think that would be very harmless and that people would have no objection to that, you’re wrong,” said session moderator Monte Solberg, a former Conservative MP. “Mayor (Naheed) Nenshi was really quite outraged about all of this because it drew great scrutiny to his record.”

Well, actually the attempts to "scrutinize" Nenshi's record were not only blatantly partisan, they were full of lies to boot, and the Manning Centre's report on "council voting patterns" turned out to be a bunch of poorly analyzed statistics which really did not show what the far right claimed they did.

I don't think the Manning Centre/Developers did themselves any favours by having Jon Lord play the "angry old white guy" candidate for Mayor either.  He simply ended up looking stupid, especially when competing against incumbent Naheed Nenshi whose tireless work during the June flooding crisis had likely already won him the election entirely.  The real fight was to ensure that the developers didn't get their way with controlling the individual members of council.

But the Manningites also have some ideas about how citizens can use information technology to keep better tabs on city council. Researcher Jeromy Farkas crunched numbers from Calgary city council, from councillors’ attendance to the number of questions they ask staff to how often they vote with or against the majority. 

Some of the data’s meaning is open to interpretation. A councillor who asks a lot of questions may be keeping a skeptical eye on the bureaucracy, or just fond of the sound of his own voice. But the point is voters get more data to interpret. The Manning Centre intends to offer this analysis for other cities, including Ottawa, and that’s pretty cool.

 The problem is that these kinds of statistics aren't overly meaningful, especially the way that the Manning Centre went about the analysis.  It was clear enough that they were trying to interpret things to draw a particular picture.  As the old saying goes:  "There are 3 kinds of lies in the world:  Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics".  Like the Fraser Institute's "ranking" of schools, you have to realize that there is a political agenda being played out, and groups like the Manning Centre are pushing their agenda.  Examine their statistics very carefully, and interpret them with a healthy dose of skepticism.

One last reminder about the creeping partisanship in Canada's municipal politics:  The Fords in Toronto are very well connected to the federal CPC.  It is no big secret, or surprise, that Rob Ford received significant help from the CPC campaign machinery when he was last elected.  Further it is no surprise that we keep seeing the Fords using the same rhetorical practices that Harper has used.

This isn't healthy, it is ultimately undermining Canada's democracy at all levels.

Rob Ford's re-Election Strategy

After reading this, I wonder just who from Harper's inner circle is advising their campaign?

In another pointed jab at the gay community, Doug Ford accused the mother of a gay son of “bullying” for accusing Rob Ford of homophobia.Rob Ford has begun his mayoral campaign by saying that hedeliberately avoids the Pride festival and vocally opposing the city’s decision to fly a rainbow flag during the Olympics in solidarity with the gay community in Russia. Doug Ford, his brother’s campaign manager, has complained that Pride involves “buck naked men.”On the second episode of their YouTube campaign show, released on Tuesday, Rob Ford read aloud a letter from a Scarborough mother who said she is hurt by his actions and called him “homophobic.”“This is about being patriotic to our country,” Ford said to the camera. “I am not homophobic. I will go to anyone’s house, anyone’s place, to help them out. I take offence when people say that to me.”Doug Ford said: “You know how many gay friends that we have? People that have worked on our campaign. So you may want to try to bully us into things, but — that’s how I feel sometimes, Rob. I feel like I’ve been bullied into something.”

This is hallmark tactics out of the far right these days - attack on one front, and then when you get blowback, start dog-whistling to the extremists in your base.  

It is a zero-sum game.  Any criticism must be eradicated.  If you can do it in a way that reinforces the support of your "base", so much the better.

I don't know how much of Ford Nation is staunchly So-Con, but clearly they have gained a prominent voice on the shoulder of the brothers Ford.  This is clearly dog-whistling to the supporters of people like Gwen Landolt and Charles McVety.

Of considerable note is the conflation of Rob Ford's opposition to flying the Pride flag outside of Toronto's city hall with "patriotism".

“This is about being patriotic to our country,” Ford said to the camera. “I am not homophobic. I will go to anyone’s house, anyone’s place, to help them out. I take offence when people say that to me.”

This position conflates opposition to Russia's anti-gay politics and patriotism relative to Canada.  Yet, among Canada's athletes at Sochi are no doubt LGBT persons, so how is sending a message of solidarity to them and the LGBT community at home "unpatriotic"?

Of course, it isn't.  But that won't stop them from trying to confuse things in the minds of voters.  This tactic has been used before, and the results weren't pretty.  One can only hope that the voters of Toronto are smart enough to see this for what it is.

Part of me wonders if this isn't a trial balloon for tactics that the CPC is planning for the proposed 2015 election campaign.

On Rob Ford and "Private Time"

Robyn Doolittle was the guest on Alberta At Noon on CBC today, and the discussion naturally revolved around Rob Ford.

Recently, Rob Ford has turned up in Vancouver - intoxicated apparently - and in nightclubs in Toronto.  When he has been accused of being intoxicated, he has tried to dodge behind the veil of "well, it's my personal time, I can do what I like" argument.

I can appreciate that Mr. Ford has a desire for "personal time", and to be free to do as he wishes in that time.  However, when you are a public figure, the reality is a little different.

From a business perspective, Ford is effectively the CEO of a $9 billion-a-year corporation.  Anytime he is out in public, he represents that corporation - even if that is doing something as mundane as buying a bottle of milk at the corner store.  You never know when you are going to encounter a prospective client.

Looking a little further, Mr. Ford is a politician.  He is a duly elected public official.  As such, he should be quite familiar with the campaign trail, and the equally brutal fact that he is even more visible to the public as a result of both his campaigning and his distinctive appearance.  No matter what he does, when he steps outside of his home, Mr. Ford is undeniably subject to observation by everybody who walks past him.

Is Mr. Ford free to do as he wishes when he isn't at work?  Yes, he absolutely is.  However, he should also recognize that he is also very much in the public eye anytime he leaves his home.  If he is photographed in the company of known drug dealers, or drunk in a nightclub, that really is his lookout.

The public, however, may see it a little differently.  If they see Mr. Ford "out on the town", and he appears intoxicated, they are similarly free to make their own judgments of the situation.  If it comes out in the news that Mr. Ford is consorting with known criminals, the public has a right to know this and make their own determination about what the implications are.  In today's world of smartphones, everybody has a camera at hand, and Twitter can be used to broadcast what Rob Ford is up to faster than he can inhale a puff from a crack pipe.  Private time simply isn't an option for him except in the privacy of his own home.

The issue that Rob Ford has to face is not merely that he drinks to excess, or has used narcotics.  (Both represent personal problems that he needs to deal with)  No, the bigger problem that he has to face is that he has lied to the public about his activities and actions.  In doing so, he has impugned his own credibility. 

What Ford and Harper Have In Common

They both have problems with telling the truth.

Yesterday, news broke that Rob Ford had been attempting to purchase the video of him smoking crack cocaine - before Gawker and the Toronto Star made the existence of the video public.  In this morning's news, we find Ford denying that he was doing that at all.

So far, in the course of this saga, every time Ford has denied something, evidence has come along to disprove his denials.  At first, he denied ever having smoked crack cocaine, and then at the end of October, the video mysteriously turns up in the hands of police.  Given the pattern to date, I'd say the odds of Ford's utterances (which appear to contradict the ITO documents) being true are fairly low.

As we've seen with the Senate Expenses Scandal, Harper has a similar approach - lie, deflect, deny until the evidence corners you.  At first, Harper was saying the everything was just fine with his errant senators, then when it became impossible to avoid, they were being "disciplined" by the Senate; and eventually the whole mess got handed to the RCMP in a clumsy attempt to bury it in a criminal investigation.  All the way along, Harper has denied all knowledge.  Meanwhile, Duffy's speeches have made it abundantly clear that the PM clearly knew what was going on in considerable detail.

In parliamentary terms, both have chosen to "deliberately mislead the house".

Do the math.

On Bullying and Thuggish Behaviour In Canada's Politics

As a human being, I see Rob Ford as a tragic character.  The man is so obviously in over his head it's not even funny.  His closest advisors and family have enabled his proclivities for substance abuse, and I would go so far as to suggest that he may well be little more than the puppet on the throne rather than the master of his actions.

As a Canadian, I am appalled by the Fords and their behaviour in the last few weeks.  It is not that their behaviour is embarrassing to Canada - it is, but that is secondary to what I want to talk about here.  It is the way in which the Fords throw their weight around (literally and figuratively) in council.

One of the favourite "escape hatches" of the far right in this country when confronted with their own misdeeds is to try and accuse their critics of exactly the same failing.  We've seen it time and again with the CPC in the House of Commons.  How many times, when confronted with their own fiscal mismanagement have we heard the Harper government dredge up past scandals?  Countless.

In the case of the Fords, it's a more direct form of bullying.  When Rob Ford was confronted in council session about his drug use since being elected, Doug Ford turns around and accuses the councillor questioning his brother of using marijuana.

"Everyone in this chamber is coming across as holier than thou, lily white," Ford began before setting his sights on Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, who earlier filed a motion demanding Ford take a leave and apologize for lying about smoking crack cocaine. 

"The question is: have you ever smoked marijuana?" Ford asked to surprise. 

Ford repeated the question several times, raising his voice. 

"It's a question. It's simple. A yes or a no, have you smoked marijuana?" he asked as fellow councillors called for a point of privilege and speaker Frances Nunziata attempted to calm things down. "The answer, I guess, is yes. The answer is yes, I guess." 

Ford then called on other councillors to stand up if they had tried smoking pot.
"The whole council will stand up. So don’t come across that you're holier than thou," he said.

There is a fundamental issue with this kind of "counter-attack" - it attempts to draw a false moral equivalence between actions.  Whether or not councillor Minnan-Wong had smoked pot is immaterial.  The question is no longer about whether Rob Ford has used crack cocaine, but rather the fact that he has lied to council and Toronto as a whole about it.

Then, in an interview on US network Fox News, Rob Ford continues the process of escalating threats against various members of council:

If that’s all they’ve got well you know what if you wanna get nasty we can get nasty, and I can start digging up dirt on every single one of those politicians down there but they don’t want to so you know what? And like we said if you wanna do drug testing I’ll do drug testing but when my brother asked the question to Council Member Wong(?) have you ever done marijuana or cocaine the whole council erupted and said you can’t say that you can’t say that? Why? They can say it to me. Why can’t the other Councillors answer those questions?

Notice the attempt to make the issue of Rob Ford's behaviour as mayor a "tit-for-tat" issue, as if there is no difference between individual councillors' roles and the position of Mayor.

Today, in a council meeting, we have the Fords throwing their literal weight around in council - knocking over one of their peers.

What is the problem here?  It is the insistence on the part of the Fords that nobody should ever dare question them or their politics.    Instead of confronting issues directly, these goons insist on trying to turn the issues around on their opponents and make their opponents "responsible" or somehow "equally bad".

This is ultimately very damaging to political discourse.  It is the approach of childish politicians who still haven't figured out that politics in a democracy is not about absolute power, or always getting "your way", but rather it is the art of compromise.  It is precisely this unwillingness to compromise that has doomed Harper's desire to reform the Senate to the wastebasket.

[Update 19/11/2013]
Article from CBC posted late yesterday:  Rob Ford Says He's Quit Drinking

Another aspect of this is the unwillingness to take responsibility for your actions, or to recognize the position that one is in as a public leader.

Consider the following from CBC's interview with Rob Ford:

Mansbridge asked Ford if he's been drunk while driving. Ford told Mansbridge he hasn't driven while drunk but may have driven after moderate drinking. 

"All of us have done this," said Ford. "Whoever has a licence. You've gone to a dinner party or a restaurant with your wife and had a glass of wine. Do you drive? Absolutely you drive. I've never been drunk and driven." 

Ford answered "no" when Mansbridge asked if the mayor did crack more than once during his time as mayor. Ford described his crack use as "an isolated incident" that happened more than a year ago. 

Ford said he was "probably pretty inebriated" when the video was shot of him doing crack cocaine."You know what happens when you get to a certain point, when you're very inebriated. You might remember this, you might not remember that. There's blackout period I think we've all gone through. Some people are perfect. I'm not."

This sounds like a teenager caught doing something particularly stupid and is being reprimanded by their parents.  "Oh, everybody else does it".  Sorry, Mr. Ford, but that doesn't cut it.  First of all, not everybody else does it, and just because "everybody else was doing it" doesn't mean you should do it.

"There's two types of people: poor people and rich people and I side with the poor people," said Ford. "I've been honest and I'm being punished for it." 

Ford has been "honest"???  You've got to be kidding me.  Apparently we're supposed to ignore the fact that when rumours of the first video turned up, he denied its existence entirely.  He and his brother went after the Chief of Police for mentioning that they had recovered that video, until a day or two later Rob Ford admitted to having smoked crack cocaine.  No, Mr. Ford, the issue is precisely that you have not been honest about this.

Further, Rob Ford is not being "punished" for this.  He has been the advocate for "tough on crime" - zero tolerance for drugs, alcohol and gangs, and yet that is precisely what he has been doing.  The "lock em and through away the key" justice that Ford has been advocating is not what he is being subjected to.

City Council has apparently decided that Rob Ford's antics of late are unacceptable in the man who is the public face of Toronto.  If that's the worst punishment that he's receiving, he should be thankful.

Lastly, Mr. Ford and his supporters should perhaps consider the "But everybody else does it" reasoning a bit - particularly in the context of what their respective parents would say.  Mine would rightly point out that "I had a choice not to follow the pack".
[/Update]

Harper ... Linking Him To Ford

In the last two weeks, we've heard a lot about - and from - Rob Ford.  He's been, to say the least, prominent in the headlines - shocking most of the time, belligerent the rest.

Of some consideration though is the dead silence coming from the PMO where Rob Ford is concerned.  Harper has been silent on the matter, and aside from allowing Peter Mackay to wander in front of a live microphone trying to link Rob Ford's antics with Justin Trudeau's stance on legalizing marijuana.

A signature aspect of Harper's government has been the "tough on crime" business.  Throw more people in jail for longer.  Less latitude for any kind of criminal behaviour.  Yet, here we have a Mayor whose ties to the CPC are no surprise who is admitting that he has committed multiple crimes while in office.  The silence from Ottawa is almost deafening.

Considering how Harper has thrown so many people under his political bus lately, one wonders just how come Rob Ford is getting the kid gloves treatment.

Oh wait ... Harper isn't going to throw someone under the bus when he perceives that there is still a partisan gain to be had.

Welcome to the hypocrisy of the far right's "tough on crime" agenda.  It's fine to be "tough on crime" until it is one of their own...then it becomes something different.

An Interesting Analysis Of The Recent Scandals

In reading the following article from Global Research: The "Scandalization" of Canadian Politics:  The Hard Truths of Neoliberal Conservatism,   I found myself agreeing with the author on some points, but substantially disagreeing with the extrapolations being drawn from the basic evidence.

If I were to distill this entire article down to its essence, it is very much the "Panem et Circenses" hypothesis applied to current neoliberal politics in Canada.  In short, the power players in (and just behind the veil) of Canadian politics are creating and using these scandals as a way to divert Canadians from the actual policies that are being implemented.

We are talking about much more than a few incidental scandals. More and more of what goes by ‘politics’ according to the media – statecraft, elections, parliamentary debates – is taken over by endless ‘revelations’ about individuals, their personal failings or corrupt practices. Political conflict takes the form of duels between individual establishment figures: politicians, newspaper editors, radio hosts, and police chiefs. We all fill social media sites with our own views about who we think are the good guys in this gladiator sport.

The metaphor of 'panem et circenses' is quite apt.  There can be no doubt that the Senate Expenses Scandal has provided months of high political theatre, and Rob Ford's implosion the last week or so has certainly been entertaining, if tragic on a human level.

The blogosphere has been alive with commentary on both subjects, and rightly so.

Why apolitical rebellion? Rimbert and Keucheyan argue that when media-fuelled scandals occupy our attention, the air seethes with schadenfreude about the powerful. Yet this resentment often remains passive: private rather than collective and focused on individual misgivings instead of systemic corruption. 

...  

All this explains why scandal risks pushing politics into a conservative direction. This is particularly the case in times of deep economic, social and ecological uncertainty, such as ours. Scandal can hit the ‘left,’ ‘centre’ or the ‘right.’ Yet in all cases, the danger is that politics is reduced to morality contest while systemic corruption remains intact. Names and personalities change but policies and structures of power are not questioned.

I will partially agree with the authors here.  There is no doubt in my mind that when voters disengage from the political sphere, it is the far right which benefits.  We've seen this in Alberta for years where voter turnouts are chronically low at both the provincial and federal levels and the running joke on the street is that you can get a bale of hay elected if you slap a conservative banner on it.

The political right has been very successful in exploiting voter apathy since the early 1990s in Canada.  The rise of "populist" politics in Canada's prairie provinces (e.g. the Reform movement in the 1980s) plays very much on voter apathy.  These movements do not invite discourse, but rather they are the "religious fundamentalist" of politics.  They adopt hardline positions and push them constantly rather than engaging in actual discourse.  Sooner or later, more moderate voters disengage for the same reason that people don't discuss theology with fundamentalists.

More recently, we saw this in the CPC policy convention in Calgary, where the hardline base once again pushed through policy directives which play to their views - overriding more moderate positions that the party had taken in order to seem "appealing" to mainstream voters.

Interestingly, I disagree with the author's claim that scandal results in passive disengagement, at least in the situation in Canada.  The response in Canada to both the Senate Scandal and the Ford Implosion has been for the disengaged to start engaging and taking a closer look at what is going on and begin formulating actual opinions about what is going on.

What is worse, scandal evokes desires to ‘clean up the mess’ by means of authoritarian intervention. Problems with elected politicians? Bring in the RCMP or the Police Chief to restore order. Yes, the very RCMP whose legitimacy is actively in question because of their role in cracking down on political protests and clearing the path of resource companies when First Nations attempt to defend their land, as the Mikmaq of Elsipogtog have been doing. Yes, the same Toronto Police force that, Rinaldo Walcott urges us to remember, “constantly stops, questions and cards black people and aboriginal people with less evidence of suspicious activity than warrant documents concerning Ford and Lisi reveal.”[3] 

Here's the second place that the author's argument starts to go off the rails.   First, I think the author has misunderstood the situations that are cited as examples of why the police should be considered "suspect".  The G8/G20 protest handling was so clearly driven by Harper's authoritarian streak that we are far better to look at it as a function of the political power structure manipulating the police rather than the police themselves.  At lower levels, there is no doubt that the orders from on high were interpreted as a license to engage in much harsher terms than we have seen in the past, but I suspect strongly that if you followed it through, you would find that orders came down from the PMO, no doubt with a "carrot-and-stick" incentive thrown in for compliance.

I have little doubt that Elispogtog was much different.  In fact, I would argue that Elsipogtog is far better understood through the lens of Corrupt Neoliberalism:  Corporatocracy, than as a direct failure of the police.  We already know that Harper has exerted considerable direct political control over the RCMP's top levels, and as the G8/G20 events demonstrated, Harper would not hesitate to use those tools to suppress protesters.

So, if I come back around to the Senate Expenses scandal, and the referral of it to the RCMP, I think what we really have is Harper attempting to bury the issue using the most expedient tools possible.  In general terms, police will not comment on an active investigation publicly, nor will a politician's office.  By creating a criminal investigation, Harper (theoretically) gagged every major player in the discussion ... except that he miscalculated Mike Duffy's response.  Harper assumed that Duffy would play along and be quiet in return for a bit of "hush money".  A poor assumption apparently, as Duffy has chosen to fight back after being thrown under the Harper bus.

With respect to the Rob Ford situation, I am much less familiar with the Toronto Police force and the politics of it.  I don't doubt that there are problems with implicit or even explicit racism in the actions of the GTO police force.  Ever since 9/11, racial profiling has become a tool of law enforcement agencies across the continent.  Yes, this does need to be addressed, and it does represent a serious problem.  However, it does not present actual evidence that the ability of the Toronto Police to carry out a serious criminal investigation has been compromised.  Again, I have little doubt that the Fords hoped (beyond reason, it would seem) that the police would carry out their investigation, arrest a few drug dealers and gang members and the whole mess would go away.  It didn't.  Instead, the police appear to have done their job quite thoroughly and the implication is that the Mayor himself is linked to illicit (if not outright illegal) gang activity.

While I agree that the events cited do mean that we have to be careful in our interpretation of police activities, I do not think that we can simply discount the Senate and Ford investigations as mere political chicanery based on those other events - it is simply an unreasonable extrapolation.  Every so often, attempts to bury things by creating an investigation backfire - both Harper and Ford have encountered this very reality, by their own hands no less, as the evidence keeps leading to their front doorsteps.

Scandalized politics is dangerous in more ways than one, particularly when it is connected to a surge of populist politics.[14] For progressives, radicals and the left, scandal is dangerous because it can keep popular anger passive and foster cynicism. Worse, it can deepen the desires for authoritarian solutions right-wing populism has been cultivating for decades. 

Again, the author is making a questionable extrapolation.  He is confusing the desire on the part of leaders like Harper to implement authoritarian solutions with the public's desires.  Harper has shown himself to be an authoritarian many times in the past.  His desire to use those kinds of solutions to "make a problem go away" is no surprise.  However, to assume that the broader body of the public believes that such solutions are the desirable approach is very questionable.

I think that in Alberta, we have seen the great irony of that populist authoritarianism come to the surface with the so-called "distracted driving" law that was rammed in a few years ago.  In theory, this law is supposed to stop drivers from doing things while behind the wheel that take their attention away from driving (e.g.  Using a cell phone, eating a hamburger, shaving, whatever).  This law is so overreaching that most people have long since tuned it out.  The definition of "distraction" is so broad, so imprecise, that just about anything except having your hands on the wheel is considered "distracted".  The result - compliance is low, enforcement is ... well ... spotty.  What does the province think an answer is?  Oh, well, they're going to stiffen the penalties.

Is it the public that is seeking stiffer penalties?  No.  It is the knee jerk reaction of a right-wing politic that seems to think that punishment is deterrent.

Does scandal result in disengagement?  Quite the contrary, I would argue.  After a long period of relative indifference, we are seeing Canadians taking a look at the issues in the light of politicians who are themselves corrupt, cynical and manipulative.  A quick survey of the comments sections in news sites shows more people critiquing Harper and his policies than we have seen since 2006.

Not being a resident of Toronto, I really don't see enough of what Ford and his allies are pushing to really comment on his policies.  What little I have seen simply demonstrates what I always thought about Alberta's Ralph Klein - a man of limited intellect who somehow manages to buffalo enough people into thinking he's a "right good guy" (in the 'I drink with people like that all the time' scheme of things).  Ford seems to be cut from similar cloth, although with a much harsher nasty streak in him that Klein didn't have.

At the end of the day, while there is a "bread and circuses" aspect to the current scandals, I do not believe that either Harper or Rob Ford and their power brokers are organizing these scandals as a means to foster disengagement or to distract the public from what they are doing in office.  I think that both of the current scandals represent the consequences of their activities escaping their ability to explicitly control all of the variables in the increasingly complex stories they are weaving.  Further, I do not believe that they fully understand the impact of the Internet's elephantine memory.

The author is correct about two fundamental points though:

1.  Far right politics gains the most from a disengaged electorate.  (why else do you think the HarperCon$ played the Robocall game in 2011?)

2.  Harper and his allies (like Rob Ford) have been diligently working to undermine our system of government for their own benefit.  

Rob Ford: Please Get The Help You Need

After watching today's video recording of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, and in particular the Press Conference footage, I am saddened to see this unfolding.

The man is so obviously in way over his head.  It appears that he doesn't even remember the events in that video.  Sadly, I don't think he has a clue what is going on here, or why.

He needs help - serious, professional help.  I can't even begin to guess the depth of his issues - I can only hope that those closest to him can intervene and get him out of the spiral of self destruction that he is in.

I feel sorry for Toronto - it is so clear that the Mayor is past the point of being able to function in his job, and that his issues have become the central focus of council attention, rather than being a sideshow distraction.

For the sake of the city, Mr. Ford needs to step aside and seek out help to get his life sorted back out.

That Was A Tactical Error

Last night, Canada's Senate voted to suspend three of its members.

Senators were allowed to vote separately with these results: 

• On the motion to suspend Brazeau without pay, 50 yeas, 29 nays, 13 abstentions.

• On the motion to suspend Duffy without pay, 52 yeas, 28 nays, 11 abstentions.

• On the motion to suspend Wallin without pay, 52 yeas, 27 nays, 12 abstentions.

The suspensions are to last for the remainder of the session, likely until the next federal election in 2015.  

Looking at the vote, I'd say this is pretty much a "whipped vote" on the Conservative part.  Except for a handful of the most senior CPC caucus who are more confident in their posts than Harper's minions, the CPC caucus voted quite firmly to Harper's wishes.

This is a tactical error on Harper's part.  From his point of view, suspending these Senators is a way to bury a political issue.  Harper doesn't like being grilled in Question Period about it and the constant media scrutiny on Parliament, so he has opted for what he thinks will be the easiest way to bury this.

However, Harper has just made his problem worse.  No, he won't be seeing the media circus that happens every time Duffy, Wallin or Brazeau show up on the hill.  But, he's lost the control over the narrative that is implicit with allowing them to continue to sit in the upper chamber.  Parliamentary privilege and the structure of parliamentary process can be used as far more effective 'gag order' on the errant Senators than ejecting them from the house will ever be.

Both Senators Wallin and Duffy are experienced media personalities.  They are used to being in the public eye.  By ejecting them from the Senate, Harper has just given both of them the time and opportunity to work their stories unfettered by their responsibilities as Senators.

Duffy has already shown that he has rather a lot of material in his hip pocket.  Material which he is willing to release at moments which are going to have maximum public impact.  I can't say the same for Wallin or Brazeau on these matters - neither of them has given the kind of speeches in the Senate that Duffy has - only time will tell for them.

With Duffy's latest bombshells in Senate speeches, if the RCMP isn't knocking on the PMO's doors today, they will be soon enough.

If Harper thinks that ejecting a few errant Senators has "ended" this scandal, he's profoundly mistaken.  At the moment, he looks more like Wile E. Coyote with explosives.

As Rob Ford found out this week, you can only get away with denial and lying about things for so long.  Harper's story has been changing on a near daily basis with respect to the Senate.  If he believes that this is "just going away" because he bludgeoned his appointed Senators into ejecting a handful who have become political liabilities, then more the fool he is.

Rob Ford and the Mysterious Reappearing Video

So, the mysterious video that Rob Ford claimed "didn't exist" has resurfaced.

Frankly, the fact that Rob Ford appears to have smoked some crack, and by his own admission a considerable amount of pot, really doesn't bother me.  At least not the deeds themselves.

Quite frankly, the whole idea of a "war on drugs" that makes criminals out of everybody who touches a chemical for the purpose of "getting high" really doesn't make any sense to me.  I've certainly argued that there is no good reason for pot to be illegal, and frankly I don't know that making other narcotics illegal does any good either.  We need new approaches to the problems that can result from these drugs.

The issue that Rob Ford presents is one of honesty and integrity.  Ford has tried to evade and deceive on this issue for months now.  It hasn't been pleasant to watch, but the mayor has desperately tried to avoid coming clean on this matter.  In the process, allegations have been made that suggest that Rob Ford and his brother were selling drugs back in high school.

The issue is one of character.  Technically, Ford has skated around the edges of illegality.  Perhaps he was smoking crack in that video, perhaps not.  However, he did attempt to deny the existence of this video, and now, in the wake of his long time friend's arrest, it turns up.  Suspicious?  To say the least. There had been speculation that Ford had his allies running about trying to acquire the video before it got into the hands of media.  It is entirely possible that the speculation was more than just idle guessing.

No, just as Canadians are rightly becoming deeply troubled by Stephen Harper's evasiveness and changing story in the Senate Scandal (which should really be the "Duffy-Wright Affair" if you ask me), Torontonians should be profoundly worried about Ford's conduct.  He has lied to the public - the existence of the video makes that clear now.

Can Ford legitimately continue to occupy the Mayor's chair?  Legally, perhaps - he has not been charged with, or convicted of, any criminal offence yet.  Morally, and ethically, is a much different question.  A leader who has lied on a matter of personal integrity is of very questionable character indeed, and his credibility in the political sphere should be seen as non-existent.

Ironically, had Ford come clean in response to the initial allegations about the video, I think the political picture today would be quite different for him.

Don Cherry: A Study Of What's Wrong With Political Discourse In Canada

So, "right wing" politics in Canada took another turn towards the shrieking insanity of the so-called "Tea Party" in the US this week. When Don Cherry gave a speech at Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's inauguration/swearing in/whatever you call it, he said the following:

In a rambling speech meant to introduce the new mayor, Cherry touched on media articles that have criticized him in the past "because I go to church" and "because I honour the troops."

The former NHL coach, now a commentator, told Ford that was the type of criticism he will face as mayor.

"This is what you'll be facing, Rob, with these left-wing pinkos. They scrape the bottom of the barrel."

In closing, Cherry said Ford would be "the greatest mayor that this city has seen — and put that in your pipes, you left-wing kooks."

It seemed at least some of Cherry's remarks were directed at members of council — those who have been critical of the new mayor.

Along with recent comments in Michael Coren's column, we get a very clear picture of what's really wrong with political discourse in Canada:

Also, why the New York Times, among others, refused to print the climategate leaks as they were “gathered illegally,” but so relished printing the WikiLeaks information.

The answer, of course, is as apparent as a liberal’s hypocrisy. The climategate e-mails showed some of the zealots behind the global warming industry to be dishonest and malicious, and so discredited the left.

Fundamentally, it comes down to the supposed "conservatives" on Canada's political right have dragged discourse about how Canada should be governed, and where we are to go as a nation in the next few years into the mud pits of name calling and jingoism.

The discussion is no longer about policy and direction, it's about invective and who can cut down their opponent with the most vicious one-liners. Accusations of hypocrisy are common; discussions of facts and evidence have been replaced by not just spin, but blame dodging and name calling.

Don Cherry is not a problem in his own right - he is merely a symptom. The problems are far more fundamental than he is ever likely to attempt to understand.