The Puffster's Senate Speech

As much as I detest Mike Duffy and everything he stands for, I have to confess that in listening to his Senate speech yesterday I was much-taken with both its content and delivery. Thundering at his erstwhile allies and colleagues, Duffy rebuked the motion of suspension pending against him and Senators Brazeau and Wallin. While undoubtedly heavily self-serving, Duffy portrayed a PMO and, by extension, a Prime Minister who abandoned him despite earlier reassurances that all was kosher with both his expenses and residency, all for the sake of political expedience.

During a meeting with Nigel Wright and Harper, the latter is alleged to have told Duffy:

"'It's not about what you did. It's about the perception of what you did that's been created in the media. The rules are inexplicable to our base' …, after which he was ordered to pay back the money.

Hardly a smoking gun, but the unfolding portrait is one that promises to further erode Harper's credibility on claims of knowing nothing about anything pertaining to Wright's arrangements to write the $90,000 cheque to Duffy. I am sure more will be revealed in the forthcoming weeks and months.

Will Duffy's words be enough to circumvent the suspension? Today may provide the answer.

If you would like to hear Duffy's speech, click here.

Pat Robertson Rarely Disappoints

Whenever I want a little theatre of the absurd, I turn to Pat Robertson. He rarely disappoints:

The Virtues Of Restraint

I suspect if teachers were to be completely completely honest, almost all would admit that at some point in their careers they felt like lashing out, either verbally or physically, at a student or two. That was certainly my experience a few times during my 30 years in the classroom, but two things stopped me from ever being physically aggressive: the likelihood that I would lose my job, and, more importantly, the knowledge that I occupied a position of authority that carried with it profound responsibilities; to abuse that authority would have been a violation of the trust placed in me and also a repudiation of my own moral code.

Unfortunately, some police do not seem to be troubled in the least by such considerations. Deluded into thinking that their word and version of events is virtually sacrosanct, countless allegations have arisen over the years of police beatings of civilians; in the majority of instances, absent of corroborating evidence, the offending officers' versions of events have carried the day.

With the advent of camera-equipped cellphones and the proliferation of public surveillance cameras, that dynamic has been slowly changing, each publicly-posted video eroding both police credibility and public confidence in the job they are entrusted with. Two of a myriad of examples include the 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto and the recent killing of Sammy Yatim.

In the print edition of today's Star (I'll provide the link when the online column becomes available), Rosie Dimanno excoriates disgraced Barrie cop Jason Neville, recently sentenced to a one-year jail term for the unprovoked beating of Jason Stern outside of a Barrie mall on November 20, 2010. A public surveillance video (shown below) captures both the senselessness and the brutality of the beating inflicted by Nevill on what appears to be a totally passive and compliant Stern.

It also makes clear how extensively he perjured himself in his claims that Stern kneed him in the groin and was 'extensively intoxicated'.

What was at the root of this senseless attack? An ornament atop the mall's Christmas tree, accidentally broken by a friend of Stern.

I'll leave you with the video and a few choice word from Rosie's column to describe the guilty cop:

Thug. Liar. Bully. Disgrace. Felon.

Another Refreshing Perspective From Pope Francis

I am finding more and more to like about the new Pope everyday. I am certain his distinction between faith and ideology will enrage some on the right - that is, if they even listen to anyone anymore.

Uh Oh - The Big Boy's Mad

One cannot help but wonder if Toronto's Chief Buffoon, Rob Ford, had been 'over served' in some capacity (take your pick of mind/mood altering substances) before making this call to Sun reporter Joe Warmington last night.

Abandoning Ship?

Perhaps the Puffster will receive another lifeline soon?



H/t The Globe and Mail

A Peak Behind the Political Curtain

If, like me, you are of the firm suspicion that governments regard the needs of its citizens as largely secondary to those of its corporate backers, you will derive much from Martin Regg Cohn's column in this morning's Star. Entitled How corporate Ontario gets its way at Queen’s Park, the piece confirms the subversion of the people's interests at the hands of money, powerful lobbying, and venal politicians.

As discussed in an earlier blog entry, construction giant EllisDon has been engaged in an intense lobbying effort to get the Ontario legislature to rescind a 1958 agreement that binds them to using only union labour which, they assert, puts them at a competitive disadvantage. As part of what Cohn terms the lobbyist-industrialist complex that lubricates Ontario politics, the company, a contributor of massive sums of money to the Liberal Party and, to a lesser extent, the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (with promises of more in exchange for their legislative support), attempted to 'call in its markers' through a Conservative private member's bill geared specifically to freeing it from its union obligations.

Thanks to some deft lobbying by StrategyCorp, EllisDon was able to secure Liberal backing for the Tory MPP’s proposal — a conspicuous display of bipartisan co-operation. The two rival parties went even further by agreeing to prioritize the controversial EllisDon bill, speeding it through the legislature.

Premier Kathleen Wynne publicly defended the bill as a necessary corrective for EllisDon. It was an unusually passionate defence of a bill circumscribing union rights, coming from a premier widely viewed as a labour-friendly progressive.

The motivation for such generous Liberal cooperation? Perhaps it had something to do with EllisDon's own 'generosity':

... EllisDon, its subsidiaries and executives, have been shockingly generous donors to her [Wynne's] party: more than $125,000 to the Liberals in 2012 and more than $40,000 so far in 2013.

And what the Tories didn’t say publicly was that EllisDon had given them a still-generous $32,000 last year and some $14,000 so far in 2013. Now, they were hoping for even bigger contributions if they went to bat for the company. Indeed, the latter was confirmed by an email from Conservative Randy Hillier in September.

Interestingly, all of these acts of political prostitution were ultimately unnecessary. Because the company had appealed an Ontario Labour Relations Board ruling that had granted it a two-year exemption from its union obligations, last month Ontario’s Divisional Court granted it a permanent exemption.

But the political hijinks and corruption didn't end there:

Seizing the opportunity, Wynne ducked. In light of the latest court ruling, she publicly dropped her support for the EllisDon bill — provided, she noted, there were no further court appeals from the unions.

Alas, the union has launched an appeal, but, because further legislative support of the company would have made her lack of principle obvious to even the most benighted, Wynne has decided to offer no further support to EllisDon.

All in all, a tawdry affair that shows the massive role that money and corporatism plays in Ontario politics, protests of principled purity by all participants notwithstanding.