For most of the Ontario election campaign Doug Ford has acted as only a Con clown, or a snake oil salesman could.
Attacking his opponent's economic platforms, without having one of his own. And making all kinds of wild promises.
He said he'd tell us how much all of those promises would cost, soon, later, before the election.
But now with only seven days to go before that election, and many people having already cast their votes, Ford and his Team Harper puppeteers have put a price tag on those promises, called it their "platform."
And gone from Con clowns to full blown Con artists.
Well we know he's no mango Mussolini, no Great White Superman.
Just a big fat old Dougie from Etobicoke, with delusions of grandeur.
But we also know that Canada's white supremacists want Doug Ford to be their homegrown Fuhrer.
We know that one of his PC candidates was caught in the act of giving a shout out to far-right extremists.
And now we know this.
I did something unusual last Saturday. I took a whole day off social media.
No blogging, no tweeting, no reaching into my pocket to pull out my mobile to check out what was happening in Canada or the world.
Part of the reason I did that was because it was a beautiful day, and I have vowed to make this summer my best one ever.
So instead of staring at a screen, I stared out at Toronto from one my favourite vantage points on Ward's Island.
I never watched any episodes of the Roseanne Barr show, not the old series or the new one.
But I knew she was a Trump supporter and a vile racist.
So I thought this was very good news.
When it looked like Doug Ford was heading for a crushing majority, him and Andrew Scheer were the best of buddies.
And Scheer even made plans to hit the campaign trail with him.
But what a difference a few weeks can make.
Now when the wounded Ford needs him the most, Scheer has suddenly changed his mind.
As we all know by now, Donald Trump is a man without a moral compass, and without a discernible trace of human decency,
And this tweet on Memorial Day, the day the U.S. remembers its fallen soldiers, is more evidence of that:
And as if that wasn't bad enough then there was this...
I watched last night's Ontario election debate, and when it was over I couldn't decide who had won it, Kathleen Wynne or Andrea Horwath.
I thought both Wynne and Horwath put in strong performances, especially when they attacked Doug Ford instead of each other.
Although I would give Wynne a slight edge for the dignified defence of her record in office, and subtract a point from Horwath for interrupting her opponents again and again which I found annoying.
But nothing was as annoying as Ford's performance.
It's the final debate the Ontario election campaign. The stakes couldn't be higher.
And you can be sure that Doug Ford's Team Harper handlers have been trying to hammer one talking point after the other into him.
For with his polls heading south, and his campaign dented by scandal, it could very well be his do or die moment.
But at least he has something new to offer the voters.
And like the man himself, it couldn't be more blunt or more brutish.
Well as you might remember, when we last left Doug Ford, he was up to his waist in the his ethical swamp, protesting or bellowing his innocence.
Claiming that he would never sell bogus party memberships.
Or intimidate another candidate.
And of course dodging questions from the media.
But what a difference a day makes. Yesterday he was still treading water.
Today he's sinking like a stone.
When he ran for leader of the Ontario Cons, Doug Ford had himself anointed in a church, and vowed to clean-up what he called the rot in his party.
The corruption he blamed on his ousted predecessor Patrick Brown.
And when he won, and Team Harper started running his campaign, they tried to portray him as a secular saint.
But sadly for them, Dougie will be Dougie.
And he's now up to his big belly in his own ethical swamp.
Doug Ford's handlers have been pulling out all the stops, trying to portray their candidate as Mr Nice Guy.
The kind of guy you can trust to run a lemonade stand, and/or Canada's most powerful province.
But sadly for him too many people know Dougie.
And it's just not working.
In case you have been wondering whether Stephen Harper has come back from the dead to haunt us again.
Or will only be with us for a short time, before returning to well deserved obscurity in that musty coffin in his basement.
Well wonder no longer.
For it seems he's here to stay, and attempting a full blown political comeback.
Doug Ford is still trying to buy votes, and is now promising to sell beer and wine on every street corner.
No doubt to try to make people forget that he could be the Premier of Canada's most powerful province in less than three weeks.
And he still has a comfortable lead in the polls.
But that support is softening.
Well it's the night of the Royal Wedding, and maybe a little dress up, and a little Vaseline on the lens, will make Jason Kenney feel better after his bruising bout with Justin Trudeau.
Where he insulted Trudeau in the most queenish manner, by claiming he had the political depth of a "finger bowl."
Only to have most observers empty the dainty finger bowl on his tinsel tiara.
And have Justin Trudeau leave him looking more like a drag queen than a real one.
Or whatever...
I have followed Jason Kenney's long and sordid career for years, and I have watched him disgrace himself over and over again.
In Ottawa he was appalling, in Alberta he is threatening to be even more deplorable.
His ugly outbursts are legendary.
And his latest meltdown couldn't be more disturbing.
It's finally starting to feel like Spring in the place where I live, and after a long hard winter I am reminded again why I love Canada so much.
Soon I'll be out on the lake feeling the fresh wind in my face, far from the madding crowd and all the problems of this troubled world.
And then in a month or so I'll be here.
As you may know, Muslims around the world are preparing to observe Ramadan, a month of fasting and religious reflection.
And it comes at a difficult time.
What with the horror in Gaza.
And the rise of anti-Muslim bigotry everywhere including Canada, where scuzzy hate mongers like Ezra Levant make a living peddling hatred against them.
So to try to counter that blind hatred I thought I'd bring you a humble little story about a young Muslim teenager.
A few weeks ago he was spotted at an Ottawa McDonald's, trying hard not to be recognized, and apparently content to be living in well deserved obscurity.
But appearances can be deceiving.
For in fact Stephen Harper has been desperately trying to raise his shrinking profile,
As the new chairman of the right-wing International Democrat Union he has heaped praise on Viktor Orban the virulently xenophobic Prime Minister of Hungary.
He has appeared in a full page ad in the New York Times, saluting Donald Trump for pulling out of the Iran deal.
And now he is praising himself, and saluting the Con party he created, and seemingly returning from the dead.
Last Wednesday Justin Trudeau was answering a question about abortion, which ended with him declaring that his government would always defend a woman's right to choose.
When the Con MP Ted Falk shouted out "it's not a right!"
And caused a commotion in the Commons.
Now Andrew Scheer has finally addressed the controversy, saying he has spoken to Falk.
But he was clearly not comfortable discussing the question of abortion with him.
As I predicted before the campaign began, Doug Ford's Team Harper handlers are trying to muzzle him.
Or at least restrict media access to him, just like they did with their Great Fallen Leader.
To try to prevent Ford from sticking one or both feet in his mouth.
But it's just not working.
For many months Andrew Scheer has been making a fool out of himself by trying to scare Canadians with the idea of a carbon tax.
But it's just not working, the economy is too strong.
Unemployment is lower than it has been in forty years, and the good news just keeps on coming.
So a desperate Scheer has been forced to crawl through the gutter in a desperate attempt to kick the fear factor up a notch.
Well it wasn't exactly Romeo and Juliet, or even Romeo and Julius.
But the bromance between Stephen Harper and Benjamin Netanyahu was something to behold...
I didn't have a chance to watch much of the first Ontario election debate, but what I saw of Doug Ford was enough.
For there he was straining to remember the lines his Team Harper handlers made him memorize.
While his fake followers jumped up and down outside.
But of course they were just performers looking to make a few bucks.
And this is the really disturbing part, the two faces of Doug Ford.
I watched Andrew Scheer's appearance last night on Tout Le Monde En Parle, Quebec's biggest talk show.
And although I thought his French was (slightly) better than I had imagined it would be, his fifteen minute appearance can only be described as a bust, or a snooze fest.
If you understand French you can watch it here.
But if you don't, I think the looks on the faces of those trapped in the studio with him will tell you all you need to know.
As you probably know Tanya Granic Allen and Doug Ford had a very special relationship going.
For if she and her band of religious fanatics hadn't thrown their support to Ford during the PC leadership convention, he might not be just a few weeks away from becoming the new Premier of Ontario.
So although he was afraid of her. Afraid that she might judge him, or embarrass the party with her extremist views, or start talking about anal sex. Again.
When the Harper operatives running his campaign suggested that he cut her loose, he refused and instead hugged her to his hairy bosom harder than ever.
At least until yesterday.
For months Andrew Scheer tried to keep his hyper inflated India story going, in the hope that it would make him more popular than Justin Trudeau.
And for a while it seemed to work.
Just a few weeks ago an Ipsos poll suggested him and his Cons were heading for a crushing victory, maybe even another majority.
If an election were held tomorrow, the Liberals would receive 31% of the national popular decided vote (down 2 points since early March), while the Conservatives would receive 38% of the vote (unchanged) and would win the election.
But not any longer.
I used to admire Michael Harris. During the grim years of the Harper regime he was a bright candle in the darkness.
But then when Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister, Harris started acting weird.
Started attacking him the same or harder than he had attacked Harper.
And became just another angry old man spewing toxic Trudeau hate in every direction like so many others in this country...
For no sane reason.
While never answering the question if not Trudeau WHO?
Even as the right-wing extremists, religious fanatics, and treasonous Trumplings in our midst, prepare to destroy this country and its values.
So I'm really glad to see that Harris seems to have calmed down a little, or regained some measure of sanity.
When we last left Doug Ford he had been muzzled by the Harper gang who are running his campaign, after being caught on tape offering to carve big chunks out of Greater Toronto's Greenbelt, and hand them over to salivating developers.
Muzzled like Hannibal the cannibal in The Silence of the Lambs, for embarrassing himself, and making the Cons look like the mob.
And of course for making a lot of people in Ontario wonder, if he is acting like this now, what would him and his Cons be like if they were THE GOVERNMENT?
And Ape Ford really was the Premier of Ontario.
Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani haven't been seen together since the heady days of the Republican leadership race.
But Trump has been shaking up his legal team as Robert Mueller closes in on him, so he decided to call on Giuliani again.
And it may have been one of the worst decisions of his life.
As you know Doug Ford had secretly promised to let his developer friends carve out a big chunk of Toronto's Greenbelt.
Until a video was released of him making that promise, and he performed one of the quickest flip flops in modern Canadian history.
It was humiliating, it made no sense, and his claim that he listened to the people couldn't be more absurd.
When he was obviously spanked by his Team Harper handlers, who you can be sure will do anything to make sure the beast doesn't make that kind of mistake again.
The Team Harper gang that is running Doug's Ford's campaign, gave him the tinny slogan "For The People," to try to make him look like he really is a man of the people.
But sadly for them he's a millionaire, and you know, Dougie will be Dougie.
A few years ago he came up with the garish idea of building the world's largest Ferris wheel, a megamall, a monorail, and a sail-in hotel on the city's waterfront.
Which as you can imagine had Toronto's big developers howling and slobbering.
And although that "Big Idea" went nowhere, now that he could become Ontario's Premier, he's been caught on video offering to let developers take a big bite out of the city's so-called Greenbelt.
They called Tony Clement Tony Gazebo, for building one during the G8 summit nowhere near the summit, but in the middle of his riding.
Of all the scandals of the Harper years, that scandal is one of the easiest to remember.
Even though there were so many others, like the time he gutted the census for no good reason...
So I was stunned to see that the Con propaganda machine has made a new video starring Tony Gazebo called, believe it or not, These Liberal Scandals Take The Cake.
