I'd hate to meet Doug Ford after midnight, because as I'm sure you know, he's bestial enough in the daytime.
Crude, ignorant, demagogic, drunk with power, a bully if ever there was one. A puppet of the Harperite cult one should definitely try to avoid.
But sadly, many decent Toronto City councillors will not be able to avoid meeting the Fordzilla after midnight.
Having been summoned to an extraordinary late night session of the legislature, to watch the grunting Con vampire sucking the life blood out of our precious Charter of Rights.
The embattled Progressive Conservative government is going on a midnight run.
Amid a circus-like atmosphere on a rare Saturday sitting, Government House Leader Todd Smith announced the legislature will resume Monday at 12:01 a.m. to debate a controversial bill slashing the size of Toronto council.
Even if that means throwing the upcoming municipal election into total chaos.
Toronto city clerk Ulli Watkiss has warned that a fair municipal election was “becoming virtually impossible to carry out.”
The clerk had originally planned to have all ballots printed, testing done and ballots and tabulators “locked down” for the October election by now. But ballots have yet to be printed because it remains uncertain whether there will be 47 council wards or 25.
It's hard to believe how much damage Ford has done already. He's threatening the young, he's threatening the old, he's threatening us all. He might as well be working for Stephen Harper.
Which in effect he is, for the man on the left of this picture is Stephen Lecce...
Once he worked in Stephen Harper's sinister PMO, Now he's Ford's Parliamentary Assistant and Deputy House Leader.
And one of the many Harperites running the Ford government.
They're in a hurry to avenge their Great Leader...
Those fanatics believe that one of the reasons he was toppled was because he wasn't ruthless enough to use the notwithstanding clause to gut the Charter of Rights.
And they're not about to make the same mistake.
And the good news? As Stephen Maher points out, a government that acts like that won't be around for very long.
Ford is a bull in a china shop, a disruptive Yosemite Sam of a politician, someone who shoots off his mouth first and thinks later.
He's infuriating his opponents, he's scaring some of his own supporters.
The Ontario Tories have waited in the wilderness for a long time, and they could not be happier to be back in the backrooms, cutting red tape, shrinking government, rewriting the sex-ed curriculum and appointing their friends to boards and commissions. They can’t be pleased to see Ford risking it all with his braying, china-smashing ways.
In their blood lust, Ford and his Harperite handlers are even forgetting what their fallen leader taught them.
During the campaign, Ford was disciplined, following the advice of former Stephen Harper staffers, past masters at keeping politicians in a message box.
Harper managed to win three mandates because of his discipline. He knew when to fight and when to truculently back down, even when that meant being schooled by the judiciary.
Ford has no such discipline, little prospect of learning it and is likely to be an unsuccessful one-term premier.
And the best thing is, before he goes down himself, Ford is going to help take down Andrew Scheer...
And when Scheer goes down, and so does Ford.
Stephen Harper's foul legacy will be buried once and for all...
21 comments:
I hope the Liberals can reform quickly. For me the NDP under Horwarth are not electable. The NDP has too many fringe candidates/positions. While the public seems to have an endless appetite for right wing kooks, left wing kooks not some much. Lets just stick to meat and potatoes, leave the federal policy with the feds.
Win the 905 and 416 and you win a majority. First policy is solve the housing rental crisis. Do this by filling in the land from the Humber river to the islands all the way to the sewage plant. Put Singapore style public housing and bury the Gardner and a new Subway line underneath it all. IT may take 20 years to complete but just the announcement will shock the market back to reality.
For the 905 put the parking all underground on pallets, and turn every go station into a 20,000 person complex. (Just like Dredd)
Solve the energy crisis by offering metal roofs with integrated solar panels to all households for free, make smart grids. Scap any Nuclear future by connecting to the Quebec grid for backbone power.
Someone needs to tell Premier shit-for-brains that he's supposed to be running the province, not running roughshod over Toronto.
When it comes to petty vindictiveness and sheer stupidity, he and Trump are definite soul mates.
JD
I'm guessing Renfield's name is pronounced Stephen "Leechy" to go along with Count "Go Fa Da Jugula" Dougula and the rest of the bloodsuckers? Bats in the belfry indeed...
I guess even Harper will someday learn the Trump lesson of what happens when you build a team of people who are dumber than you are. Andy Android the haunted puppet isn't exactly an example of artificial intelligence (or any form of intelligence) either, and Jason the swamp creature comes across as someone who needed a remedial semester of summer camp. Easily malleable in and of themselves from behind the scenes, but incompetent when it comes to actually emulating the Machiavellian shrewdness of Dear Leader. Ernst Stevero Blowhard, complete with cat on his desk, was an effective Bond villain. Doug is what happens when you put Jaws in charge of SPECTRE. (Although even Jaws eventually reformed himself.)
The only problem -- besides there being a nonzero cohort of morons dumb enough to vote for these cartoon characters at all -- is all the people who didn't, and who will suffer from this horror show. Then there's the question of who ends up in the unenviable position of cleaning up the (metaphorical) bloodbath afterwards. Doug may be a one-term premier like Donald may be a one-term (or half-term) president (hey, even Stormy said he couldn't go for very long), but the damage is already being done, and it will take years to actually Make Ontario Great Again.
Hopefully whoever got sucked into voting for Buck-a-Blood (or staying home) regrets their mistake and never repeats it, ever.
Are you planning on running in the next election? If so you have my vote!
RT
I doubt that Ford will last a full four years. I think he’ll either be caught up in some sordid scandal, or his caucus will revolt and replace him with Christine Elliot. As Maher says, his Cons want as much time at the trough as possible, and it won’t be long before they see him as a threat to themselves and their brand.
Qp this morning was like Christmas with dead cons hanging on the tree. First poll in shows Mad Max with 17% support from Canadians. Guess which cohort that came from!!
I'd say there is a decent chance of a sordid scandal (that may be a contradiction in terms) but I am not sure about a revolt unless his approval numbers are in the negative range. Once in office, most MP's learn to say "Baa" very quickly in any party and the Cons probably can do it in chorus by now.
The cons may revolt if it looks like he will lose the next election badly. Think of what the LNP did to Abbott. They’ll replace him with a so-called moderate with their eyes on the next election. It won’t get them another mandate though, in Australia Turnbull was pretty much in open revolt against Abbott, these cons are complicit and pathetic.
He don’t look very healthy
How many of the slugs who voted for the Ontario CRAP Party, and how many among those who didn't, do you think ever heard of the notwithstanding clause before he invoked it? And now that they may have heard of it, how many have any understanding of what invoking it signals, or of what anything that he's doing means besides delivering an overdue lesson to those effete obstructive lefties on Toronto's city council? It seems to me that Doug might never have heard of it until those slime-balls from Harperland filled him in. That could explain why he blurted out that boast about how bold he is compared to Justin. My guess is that the slime-balls gave him a must-know only briefing and forgot to tell him that the clause only deals with overriding court decisions concerning Charter-based challenges.
Now they've even got their stooges that contribute to media commentary carrying on about "tools in the box". I think he could be pretty safe where his base of support is concerned. All I'm getting from the guys down at the Etch Test is, "Who cares?"
True about Abbott but the Australians have a tradition of throwing PM's under buses. Good for them. Also the caucus elects the leader there, whereas we need party conventions or similar, making it harder to throw a premier under a street car.
Still one can dream.
Hi Steve...if Bernier can have a party, so can you. But as someone who lives on the waterfront your plan to fill in the lands along the shore sounds like an ecological nightmare. So I will not be voting for you... ;)
Hi JD...It is all petty vindictiveness, a settling of accounts with those who stood up to him and his brother. The Harperites have convinced him he can use the notwithstanding clause to crush his opposition and the beast is to dumb to understand the wider implications. Every time I see Ford on TV I am appalled by his brutish ignorance, and wonder how Ontario is going to survive him. But one thing is for sure, we are going to make his years, or months in power, really unpleasant...
Hi Jackie...sadly you're right. It will take many years to recover from people like Trump and Ford. But out of the rubble will come something new and better than before. Progressives should be focusing on two things. One, they should continue to attack both demagogues. But two, they should also work at making clear what this new and better world will look like. As for those who didn't vote, I hope they now understand that not voting has consequences. And progressives also need to hammer that message home. In short, it all sounds very exhausting, but it will be worth it...
Hi anon@2:50 PM....I also think that Ford will not complete his term. He is just too ignorant and brutish, and sooner or later when his caucus realizes he is doing them great damage, I can see them revolting. If they don't they will only damage their brand further, and I'm convinced that should keep the Cons out of power for at least a generation...
Hi Steve...we'll have to see where exactly that support is coming from, but judging from online commentary I have to believe it's coming from Cons who are unhappy with Scheer's leadership. And if it is, the Cons will be in real trouble, and will stand no chance of winning he next election...
hi anon...I'm not surprised, Dougie has been forced to work harder in the last few months than he ever has before. When he was a city councillor he skipped many meetings, and I predict that after six months as Premier he will have to be treated for nervous exhaustion. Especially since according to stories I've heard, Premier isn't good enough for him, he wants to be Prime Minister....
Hi John...yes, you nailed it. This notwithstanding nonsense is only a blunt weapon to use against the left-wingers on the Toronto council. They have no idea of the wider implications, or the threat to our democracy. We do indeed live in challenging times, but we are more and better than them, and we are going to defeat them...
It seems to me that Doug might never have heard of it until those slime-balls from Harperland filled him in.
Doug Ford know anything about the Charter? He may not have known there was a Charter.
a shore is a shore is a shore, if the shore is 2km further out in Lake Ontario who cares?
The Conservatives aren't that unhappy with Ford doing what he is and his use of the Not With Standing Clause. This is a test run. If it works, they will continue to dismantle much of what has been built up in Ontario. Once they have done it in Ontario, they'll move to other provinces.
In B.C. we have Dr. Day in court challenging our federal health care system. No party has tried to pull off a "not with standing routine". If Day looses the current NDP government couldn't be happier. However, if it were an other government, and Ford manages to do what he is doing, trust me, they'd use the not with standing clause and gut provincial health care all over the country. They would invite in big American health care companies and the feast would be on. Nothing the federal government could do about it, except perhaps change legislation,
The Cons are simply testing out the Not with standing clause, Wait until they apply it to other things in our country, we have seen nothing yet in Ontario. However, the people voted for Ford, and now they can live with it or perhaps even die because of it. I'm waiting for a provincial government to deny choice and use the not withstanding clause and give Jason Kenny's attitude towards so many things, don't think it couldn't happen.
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