The political genius of Rob Ford

By Nicholas Köhler - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 166 Comments

Photographs by Donald Weber

Originally published on Oct. 12, 2010

Rob Ford leans back in the nook of his Rob-Ford-for-mayor RV and, sphinx-like, fixes his gaze on something at the far end of the universe. He is just back from a fundraiser at the Mandarin buffet, in uptown Toronto, where members of the local Chinese communities feted his coming victory over the forces of “waste” and “socialism” at city hall. (Ford passed on the chicken balls and deep-fried shrimp, dining instead on roast beef and mashed potatoes.) In a couple of hours he will square off against his opponents in a Citytv debate—a perhaps anxious prospect given that Ford, according to polls the front-runner, will be an even larger target than usual. Now, in the dark calm of the RV, he is ruddy-faced, disengaged, not altogether present. Is he gathering himself for the coming TV battle against George Smitherman, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s one-time pit bull and Ford’s closest rival? No, he says in a small voice. “I’m just digesting my food. That’s a lot I ate.”

However improbable it may seem to Toronto’s elites and the reporters who cover local politics, Ford has good reason to expect that Oct. 25 will make him mayor. Polls have him as far as 24 points ahead of Smitherman, whose victory in January seemed a foregone conclusion. (“In the absence of an incumbent, they made me the incumbent,” Smitherman told Maclean’s.) If Ford does win, it will be in spite of a history of almost Borat-sized faux pas and brushes with the law, including a 1999 Florida drunk-driving conviction that first came to light in August. “We all make mistakes,” says Ford, still in the midst of digestion. “It was bad. I was drinking and driving. But a lot of people drink and drive. I got caught.”

Continue…

Dalton Trudeau

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 9:05 AM - 0 Comments

The Ontario Premier gets comparative.

In a closed-door meeting with MPPs on Wednesday, McGuinty deflected questions from members unhappy at the heavy-handedness of police in dealing with protesters—and the government’s complicity in failing to correct the mistaken impression officers had been given more powers.

“He told us, ‘Just remember, the same guy who gave us the Charter also gave us the War Measures Act,’” said one startled MPP, noting the premier also refuted calls from several members to strike a public inquiry into the G20 debacle.

In fairness to Pierre Trudeau, the War Measures Act was enacted in 1914, he merely invoked it in 1970.

For the sake of comparison though… Continue…

One week later

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, July 4, 2010 at 12:44 PM - 79 Comments

Thoughts from Tabatha Southey, Lisa Rochon, Elaine McCoy, Aaron Leaf and Roland Paris. Torontoist has the 14 essential video clips of G20 weekend and an interview with the hero of the one below. The Star tells the stories of the TTC employee who was tackled and the protesters who got engaged. Dalton McGuinty speaks and punts. The CCLA is considering a lawsuit. And Mark Holland wants federal compensation for business that were trashed.

The smartest guy in the room

By Paul Wells - Friday, June 25, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 10 Comments

Photograph by Cole Garside

Last Sunday an array of VIPs—Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Kevin O’Leary, the angry guy on the CBC reality show Dragons’ Den—convened in a theatre at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo to pay tribute to Stephen Hawking. The British astrophysicist sat in his wheelchair while the politicians buttered him up. Then he delivered a lecture through his speech synthesizer about his early years in physics.

The next day a bunch of physicists took a lunch break from a conference where they were discussing what happens when black holes of various sizes orbit each other. A caregiver pushed Hawking to a place at one of the cafeteria tables, where he ate some lunch and listened to the chatter and gossip among his colleagues.

Continue…

Meanwhile, in mysterious Ottawa

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 6:35 PM - 59 Comments

While the premiers of Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia are unimpressed with the head of CSIS, the Liberals want the national security committee recalled to investigate Richard Fadden’s claims and the NDP’s Olivia Chow is demanding answers. For good measure, sources now tell the CBC that the Prime Minister’s Office was aware of Mr. Fadden’s general concerns and the Prime Minister is himself concerned.

Sources tell the CBC the PCO was well aware of those concerns, even if it hadn’t been told the details of who was involved … A source suggested the prime minister was personally aware of the issue of foreign agents trying to win influence over politicans and bureaucrats — even if he didn’t know the details. ”The prime minister is strongly of a view that this is a problem,” a source said.

The source said Harper has an appetite for intelligence beyond that of his predecessors. Intelligence briefers now routinely provide the prime minister with detailed written reports, in addition to their regular verbal briefings.

The CBC’s Brian Stewart also attempts to clear up several misconceptions about the network’s reporting here.

Tonight in Guergis

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 12:39 AM - 49 Comments

CTV gets the private investigator’s side of the story.

Helena Guergis, the former minister of state for the status of women, was expelled from caucus and is being investigated by RCMP over allegations of partying with cocaine and prostitutes, CTV News has learned. Private investigator Derek Snowdy says Guergis lost her Tory post after he informed a Conservative Party lawyer of those allegations, CTV’s Robert Fife reported Wednesday night.

Snowdy had been conducting a 19-month probe into the affairs of Nazim Gillani and his business partner, former CFL player Mike Mihelic, when he learned of purported illicit behaviour by Guergis and her husband, former Tory MP Rahim Jaffer … Gilliani boasted that he had cellphone photos of Guergis and Jaffer “partying” with cocaine and high-priced hookers, Snowdy said … It has not been confirmed that Gillani said those comments or that he had the cellphone photos, but it was those allegations that caused Harper to act.

The government operations committee has called Mr. Jaffer and Ms. Guergis to testify during hearings into federal funding for renewable energy. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty cites “missteps” in Mr. Jaffer’s case. Ontario Provincial Police chief Julian Fantino commends the work of his officers on that case.

The league table

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 at 12:23 PM - 25 Comments

As a general rule, I limit the amount of polling discussed here—and avoid horse-race polls entirely. The horse race is almost always the least interesting thing going on in Ottawa.

And the following is almost definitely of questionable significance. But, for whatever it is worth, here are Canada’s most prominent political figures ranked by their most recent approval ratings (as determined by Angus Reid here, here and here). Continue…

MPs attend ACTION party

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, March 26, 2010 at 10:09 AM - 6 Comments

The politicos came out for the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC) annual ACTION party in Toronto.  (Left to right) Bernie Farber, Nathan Jacobson and Transport Minister John Baird. Behind Farber is Jamie Ellerton, aide to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

.

Baird and Toronto mayoral hopeful George Smitherman.

Continue…

Wild times

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

You know you’re in the middle of a wild and crazy national party when female models are lining up to have the Canadian flag painted on their naked bodies in public, their modesty (or what’s left of it) preserved by strategically placed red stripes. That was the scene, or a tiny part of it, last Saturday night inside the private Budweiser-Lululemon-sponsored bash at Club Bud, in the Commodore Ballroom on Granville Street. Just getting close to the place, past the cheering revellers, was an Olympian challenge.

Inside, past the red carpet, where Australian half-pipe gold medallist Torah Bright posed for photographers, the mood was equally buoyant. The 18,000-foot space was transformed into a pulsating three-level ice palace where DJs spun, go-go girls (and boys) gyrated in scant Lululemon-wear, a fluorescent Chinese dragon snaked its way through the room, and Budweiser (the only brew on tap, natch) flowed. Anheuser-Busch, which owns the Labatt and Budweiser brands, had set up versions of Club Bud at the Torino and Beijing Olympics, to huge success. In Vancouver, the parties went on until 4 a.m., and drew Michael Bublé, American figure skater Johnny Weir, U.S. long-track skater Shani Davis, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, Mad Men’s Jon Hamm and snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler. Saturday night’s guest list included a who’s who of Canadian medallists including Cheryl Bernard, Charles and François Hamelin, Alexandre Bilodeau, Scott Moir, Tessa Virtue, and Brian Orser, plus a smattering of CSI stars.

Leave it to the beer guys to know how to throw an Olympic party. There was branding, for sure, but no speeches, no goody bags filled with promotional swag, no waiters delivering trays of the ubiquitous 2010 Olympics cocktail munchie: medium-rare roast beef in a Yorkshire pudding crust.

Continue…

Dalton McGuinty to recalibrate in record time

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 1:32 PM - 4 Comments

The Ontario legislature will be prorogued over the first weekend in March, without eliminating a single sitting day.

Why doesn't Dalton McGuinty care about consulting with Canadians?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 3:06 PM - 27 Comments

Adam Radwanski explains how Mr. McGuinty is going to go about recalibrating the Ontario legislature.

Mr. McGuinty apparently grappled with this dilemma for weeks. Yesterday, he announced what his strategists think is a clever compromise. Rather than putting off the return from recess, as Mr. Harper did, the Premier will have the legislature resume as scheduled next Tuesday. Prorogation will happen in March, and government sources say the ensuing break will last no longer than a week before the Throne Speech.

Dalton McGuinty's mom has spoken

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 8:26 AM - 31 Comments

Apparently the Prime Minister’s latest prorogation is making life difficult for the Premier of Ontario.

“One of the challenges that we have now politically is that prorogation has become a bad thing,” he told reporters. ”My mother is now aware of what a prorogation is and she thinks prorogations are bad.”

Ontario's $7-billion green energy investment upsets enviros

By Katie Engelhart - Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 3:55 PM - 19 Comments

Last week, when Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced a new $7 billion investment in the province’s green energy sector—perhaps the largest such investment in the world—he earned himself an unlikely adversary: the Green Party of Ontario. “We’d like to see the provincial government scrap this deal,” said Mike Schreiner, the Green leader, in an interview with Maclean’s.

The province signed its deal with a South Korean consortium, which includes Samsung. And at first glance, it seems like an environmentalist’s dream come true. The consortium is committed to developing 2,500 megawatts of wind and solar power across the province (about enough to light 580,000 Canadian homes). In the process, it will create an estimated 16,000 jobs, 4,000 of which will be permanent. The goal is to make Ontario “the place to be for green energy manufacturing in North America,” McGuinty explained.

That’s all well and good, says Schreiner, whose party celebrated the passing of the Green Energy Act last year. But “this deal essentially throws [Ontario companies] under the bus.” Ontario-based projects are shovel ready, he insists. “So why are we offering special deals to multinational corporations?” The Association of Power Producers of Ontario is equally upset. David Butters, the group’s president, says it’s not Samsung’s presence that bothers him so much as the preferential treatment that the South Korean behemouth is getting. Ontario has guaranteed Samsung a higher-than-market value for its energy and  priority access to the power grid. “Now we have two kinds of developers in Ontario,” laments Butters. “Samsung and everybody else.”

Consumers, at least, can take solace in the fact that the power they’re getting will be clean and green. But at a cost, say various critics. The province will shell out $437 million to the consortium, who in turn are investing the $7 billion. At the household level, that amounts to $1.60 a year, for the next 20 years.

The War of 1812, as an example of bullying

By Andrew Coyne - Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 1:05 PM - 134 Comments

Meanwhile, in Ontario, it’s 1969.

Ontario’s government is conducting a sweeping review of curriculum from Grades 1 to 8 to fix what educators charge is an overcrowded jumble of disconnected facts that fail to prepare the province’s 1.4 million students for the future.

Based on tough input gathered this fall from teachers and school boards, Queen’s Park says it will start clearing the clutter by the fall of 2011 with leaner guidelines, fewer checklists of facts and more time for deeper learning.

It is the first overhaul designed to weed out some of the staggering 3,400 “expectations” built into the new curriculum designed 10 years ago when Grade 13 was abolished.

So Ontario’s teachers and school boards think the curriculum is too demanding, too full of “expectations” and “facts.” Do Ontario’s parents? The story never mentions them. Not even once.

…. A tough-talking missive from the Toronto District School Board … called the curriculum “a series of overly robust subject-based documents which are disconnected, overwhelming and full of content reflective of 20th century knowledge. “The curriculum does not engage students within their own realities, nor does it integrate the skills society hopes to see in a 21st-century learner,” said the recent submission by a group of principals, teachers, superintendents and trustees.

I have no idea what “engaging students within their own realities” means. Luckily, a helpful educrat is nearby to make sense of it all:

Karen Grose, the board’s system superintendent, said it no longer makes sense to try to cram piles of facts into young minds.

“Our kids live in a world where they are immersed in content through things like Twitter and Google, so we don’t want them memorizing facts they can access easily, but we want them to think about how to apply that knowledge, and how it affects how they live as citizens and workers,” said Grose.

They don’t need to learn facts! They can get those from Twitter! Because, after all, it’s about the kids. Or maybe the teachers:

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said the review was sparked by years of complaints she has heard that the curriculum is overcrowded with material teachers scramble to cover.

But lest you think knowledge minus facts equals ignorance, nothing could be further than the truth.

“We’re not saying we don’t want kids to study the War of 1812, but let’s lift that subject to the ‘big idea’ of war in the current global context,” [Grose] said…

Thinning out the curriculum does not mean dumbing it down, said Toronto trustee Cathy Dandy, one of the authors of the TDSB’s submission. By spending less time teaching the small details of individual wars, said Dandy, it frees up more time to “weave it into a larger discussion of war and peace and conflict and even bullying.”

A prediction: twenty years from now, some future government will discover that they have ruined the education of a generation of children, as the “reforms” of the 1960s and 70s ruined mine. Then we will repeat the cycle all over again.

EXTRA CREDIT: The Society for Quality Education weighs in on Ontario’s new fact-free curriculum:

Ontario’s Liberal Party has been making very little progress towards fulfilling their promise that 75% of the province’s students will pass the provincial tests, even though the government has been throwing money at this problem for years…

Right. So if students can’t pass the tests, then either we teach them better, or …

The … tests are based on the curriculum. If the curriculum gets easier, the tests get easier. And, if the tests get easier, more students will be able to pass them. In other words, dumbing down the curriculum makes it more likely that the Liberal Party will be able to keep its 75% promise (albeit several years late) and get re-elected. A happy ending for all concerned, except of course the students who end up learning less.

Ad Hoc Parliamentary Reform of the Week

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 11:37 AM - 6 Comments

If the government won’t answer your requests in Question Period, leave.

Frustrated by Premier Dalton McGuinty’s refusal to hold public hearings on the controversial 13 per cent HST, the 25-member Progressive Conservative caucus stormed out of the Legislature’s daily question period today shortly after it began.

“You have lost touch,” Conservative Leader Tim Hudak told McGuinty before the stunt took place, accusing the Liberals of being afraid of a public backlash over the tax. ”If Premier McGuinty is going to show that level of contempt for taxpayers by forcing through the largest sales tax grab in the history of this province without any kind of public hearings . . . we see no point in proceeding with question period today.”

Spot the flu line celebrity

By Paul Wells - Friday, November 20, 2009 at 4:57 PM - 19 Comments

From a colleague at our Maclean’s Toronto headquarters:

“[Another colleague] just called from her place in the flu line at Metro Hall. Eight

over from her is Dalton McGuinty. Also waiting.

“No press, no aides, just one guy who looks like security.

“She thought someone ought to know.”

The Commons: 'Tell the truth!'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 6:55 PM - 45 Comments

The Scene. Ralph Goodale stood, broad and booming, with a particularly provocative turn of phrase.

“The Conservatives,” he said, “are engaged in an orgy of partisan abuse.”

And you needn’t apparently take Mr. Goodale’s word for it.

“Three independent investigations confirm the research of the member for Parkdale-High Park,” he continued. “A shocking part of the stimulus plan is earmarked for partisan Conservative purposes. Will the Conservatives admit this is a threat for those who didn’t vote for them?”

The Prime Minister stood, apparently quite confused by the Liberal house leader’s tone.

“Mr. Speaker, the program for the reconstruction of leisure facilities is a very important measure for the Canadian economy and for communities. I do not understand at all why the Liberal Party of Canada opposes such projects and, even in their own counties. The allegations of the honourable member are quite untrue and, indeed, the Liberal deputy premier of Ontario said so.”

So there. Continue…

Compromising positions: Ignatieff and the HST

By kadyomalley - Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 1:54 PM - 106 Comments

It came at the tail end of the scrum, which is probably why it garnered relatively little media coverage. But even in mid-liveblog mode, an ITQ eyebrow went up when Michael Ignatieff was asked about his party’s seemingly contradictory position on the GST/PST harmonization plans in British Columbia and Ontario.

Instead of simply answering the question, he reminded reporters that he’s the leader of the opposition, not the government, and, as such, “doesn’t have to have a position” — which, as far as he is concerned, meant that he didn’t have to clarify it.

Which, of course, is true: No one held a gun to his head and forced him to pick a side in the Great HST Debate of 2009.  Unfortunately for Ignatieff, however, not only did he take a position, but for a while, there, he seems to been have holding both of them — at the same time. Continue…

The Commons: This is a crucial time, apparently

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 6:15 PM - 61 Comments

The Scene. Having not had the opportunity a day earlier to add his unique voice to the discussion, Conservative Gord Brown stood a few minutes before Question Period with a bulletin.

“Mr. Speaker, throughout my great riding of Leeds-Grenville there are shovels in the ground, there are roads, sewers and other infrastructure works being built and repaired and folks are looking forward to the future. Everywhere I travelled in my riding this summer the people told me they are pleased with the direction our government has taken to help position Canada to face tomorrow,” he reported. “My constituents have one message: ‘Remain focused on the economy and do not have an expensive and unnecessary election.’ ”

No doubt. Our last exercise in electoral representation cost the national treasury some $280 million. Even with a drop in the price of oil, another one might add approximately the same to our already overdrawn account.

Mind you, that surely pales in comparison to the cost of sending several dozen men and women to Ottawa after each election so that they might stand in their places every so often and repeat the rote partisan rhetoric of the day.

Not that one should fuss too much over the numbers. For who among us, really, can put a price on precious democracy?

Continue…

Eternal sunshine of the Globe and Mail mind (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 3:56 PM - 22 Comments

My friend Adam sounds heartbroken.

With even more urgency than usual, the Prime Minister dashes hope expressed in our editorial column that he’ll spend a little more time on the high road.

He can change. Really.

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 2:44 PM - 43 Comments

Stephen Harper once again redeems the Globe’s faith in him.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper defended his government’s handling of the case of Suaad Haji Mohamud on Thursday, saying officials have made it a priority to ensure the Canadian woman, who has been stranded in Kenya for 2 1/2 months, returns home.

But rather than directly responding to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s criticism of the federal government’s conduct, the prime minister hit back at the premier by urging the province to deal with the ongoing scandal at its electronic health records agency.

See previously: “I have taken the view, as the federal prime minister very different than some of my predecessors as I don’t lecture the provinces publically on how they should be running their health care systems.”

What the heck is going on in Kenya? (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 7:21 PM - 85 Comments

Dalton McGuinty gets angry. The Canadian Press tries to sort out what Messrs Van Loan and Cannon are doing.

So far, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan have avoided comment about Mohamud’s case.

Chris McCluskey, a spokesman for Van Loan, would only say that the minister has asked the Canada Border Services Agency and his department for a full account of what happened.

An agency spokeswoman said Mohamud’s case has been transferred to Foreign Affairs.

According to CBC, Cannon hasn’t entirely avoided comment. On July 24 he told reporters there was “no tangible proof” of Mohamud’s citizenship and that “all Canadians who hold passports generally have a picture that is identical in their passport to what they claim to be.” The Star has quoted him as having said that “the individual … has to let us know whether or not she is a Canadian citizen.”

Ontario's big windy gamble

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 3:20 PM - 57 Comments

You are forgiven if you somehow missed the celebrations, but in late June, George Smitherman, Ontario’s minister of energy and infrastructure, was named the 2009 winner of the World Wind Energy Award. The handsome plaque, handed out at the eighth World Wind Energy conference on Jeju Island in South Korea, hasn’t yet been installed on his office wall, but the 45-year-old is busy making a bid to extend his reign as “Mr. Wind” (as he calls it) into 2010. Or perhaps, given the scale of pending government announcements, lock up the title for the rest of the century.

Ontario is already North America’s friendliest jurisdiction for wind and other renewable energy projects, thanks to its recently proclaimed Green Energy Act, meant to speed along approval, and the establishment of European-style 20-year fixed-price energy contracts. (Power companies are now required to integrate all new green energy projects into their grids and pay producers 13.5 cents per kilowatt hour for onshore wind farms, 19 cents/kWh for offshore wind, and up to 80.2 cents/kWh for solar power, versus about six cents/kWh for both hydro and nuclear energy.) The province, which is committed to shutting down its coal-fired plants by 2014, will have 1,200 megawatts of wind power in operation by the end of this year, and there are 103 more “shovel ready” wind developments, totalling 3,263 MW, in the pipeline. The proliferation of giant turbines—80-m-tall towers with 40- to 45-m blades—is already nearing the 5,000 MW supply ceiling the Ontario Power Authority has said it can easily integrate into its aging grid. But soon, there will be no more limits. Smitherman is promising a series of major power infrastructure announcements in coming weeks that will not only make wind a much bigger part of Ontario’s energy mix, but open up vast new areas of the province to commercial wind development. Continue…

Mitchel Raphael on three rain miracles

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

Bow if they bow
Japan’s Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko arrived in Ottawa last week and were greeted at the airport by International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda and Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon. Oda, the first Japanese-Canadian ever elected as an MP, joked to Cannon before the royals’ plane landed that in ancient times no one’s head could be higher than the emperor’s, “so you better lean down.” Oda said Canadian officials explained that the protocol with the Japanese royals was to take your cue from them. Bow if they bow or shake their hand if they extend it. Oda noted the rain stopped just as the emperor and empress got off the plane and did not start again until they were in their car. Both royals spoke English but at times the emperor would turn to the empress for the right English word. Oda speaks a little Japanese and understands most of it from having her Japanese-speaking grandparents living with her while growing up. At a special reception for the royal couple on Tuesday, the minister was allowed to bring a guest. She chose her 86-year-old mother Kaye Oda as her date. Continue…