[UPDATED below with contrite statement from Fullard, and what he thought 10 months ago.]

I see the Tories have politely suggested Stéphane Dion might consider reconsidering Brent Fullard’s logic-defying candidacy in Whitby-Oshawa. (Frankly, my jaw’s still sore from hitting the table when I discovered he’d been nominated in the first place.) [Insta-update: I shouldn't say it defies logic, exactly. Siccing someone like Fullard on Jim Flaherty makes perfect sense, just not at any cost.] For those unfamiliar with his, shall we say, tireless fight against the government’s income trust flip-flop, here’s a brief piece I did for the magazine in November.

Getting over the income trust debacle
Protest on the Hill: Anyone but the Tories… or the NDP
CHRIS SELLEY | November 8, 2007 |

On the one-year anniversary of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s “Halloween massacre” — the government’s decision to tax income trusts starting in 2011, in violation of an election promise — about 100 small investors gathered on Parliament Hill. In Calgary, the Coalition of Canadian Energy Trusts (CCET) publicly renewed its objections, among them the lack of public consultation and the flimsy evidence of tax “leakage” under the old model. But Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors (CAITI) president Brent Fullard was upping the ante. In an Oct. 16 mass email criticizing the Conservatives for targeting ethnic voters, he compared the Canadian Council of Chief Executives’ support for Stephen Harper to “Thyssen Steel . . . supporting Hitler’s rise to power.” Another email was entitled, “Heil mein Harper.”

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