A former Ottawa radio news anchor turned Young Liberal member. A staunch Gerard Kennedy supporter with views on the Liberals, Canada and world politics
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Tory Releases New Attack Ads
"Dalton McGuinty said smog was responsible for over 1,900 deaths a year in Ontario so he promised to shut down all of our coal burning power plants. He's had four years to do so and still no action so that's 7,600 deaths and counting."
"...paid for by the Ontario PC Party"
The good news is that Tory's people didn't stoop to 1993 as I feared. The PC's also finally decided to put their leader in their own ads, something the Liberals have been doing with Dalton since before the campaign kicked off.
The bad news is that Tory has been criticized for being too negative and is desperately struggling to appeal to women voters and well these ads probably won't do much to change those facts.
The TV ads focus on autism, crime, economy and coal plant closures. The radio ads, well someone should be fired over those things:"Me too"?? I wrote better ads in college.
Tory's ads not only suggest that Dalton McGuinty's policies are responsible for 7,600 deaths (even though the coal plants aren't the only source of smog nor is all of Ontario's smog generated right here in Ontario) but one of his radio ads smacks of shrewd personal bitterness.
"Dalton McGuinty was open to the idea of extending funding to faith base schools beyond the catholic system -- where he was a student, where he sends his kids and where his wife coincidentally teaches..."
Laaaaaaaaame! (Not to mention the fact that the McGuinty children are no longer in the Catholic system!)
Every single TV and radio ad is a slam against McGuinty. Almost all of the radio ads lack a single policy idea or plan by John Tory.
His campaign is hurting in part because of negativity. Down with less than two weeks to go or entering the 'final period' as Tory said yesterday, why not change the game plan a bit?
Three other PC radio ads feature Tory supporters phoning up "Dalton McGuinty" and giving him an earful over his broken promises but it turns out that all three Tory supporters phoned the wrong "Dalton McGuinty" -- some plumber guy with the same name and made the guy feel rotten. They're supposed to be funny but I think they highlight incompetence.
Some of the acting (I will not suggest for certain that they were all actors) in the TV ads will instantly make people giggle. I mean the PC's themselves seem to be making a joke out of the ads. In the transcripts it describes women and men "looking directly into the camera" yet they appear to be gazing off talking to someone else.
Can John Tory look directly into the camera and tell us how he would come up with his proposed $1.5-billion in "efficiencies" within the provincial government.
Maybe that's why the set designers included this nifty pie chart which shows John Tory's support.Tonight John Tory debates Liberal Education Minister Kathleen Wynne in their home riding of Don Valley West. What a showdown that could turn into.
There is going to be a lot of media at this event and if Wynne can deliver a good debate, things could get ugly behind the scenes at Tory headquarters.
Uh oh! Tory making "Hail Mary" Ads
Earlier this week, Tory was shooting a new set of TV commercials, which are likely to appear soon and be more aggressive than the collection of relatively bland ads the three major parties have released so far.
Campaign observers figure that Tory’s best remaining chance is to send out tougher messages on the Liberal record of broken promises, but even that, they say, might be too little too late.
Right, because showing a sick child or a memorial for a murdered teenage woman wasn't "tough" or "aggressive" enough?
One has to wonder what is in the wings and waiting to hit Ontario airwaves any moment now. Late in the election campaign, pundits predicting a Liberal win, nothing is sticking with voters and a leader that is failing to inspire people -- the year "1993" has to be on the minds of those close to John Tory right now.
Will the ads be nasty? Will they focus on John Tory's record? Will they focus on McGuinty's record or will they sink to levels not seen since 1993 when John Tory himself was responsible for Canada's most cruel election attack ad?
"Not only were the ads unsustainable, but we gave our opponents a huge club to beat us with. To use the football metaphors so beloved by John Tory, I realized that we were losing with seconds left in the game, but (this) 'Hail Mary' pass was neatly intercepted by Chrétien's line, 'God made me this way.' I was disgusted. I instructed that the ads be pulled as soon as possible. John and Allan were furious, but no more so than I," former Prime Minister Kim Campbell wrote in her memoirs about the ads mocking Jean Chretien's face.
The next few plays by John Tory will likely be his final 'Hail Mary'. However, I think it's fair to predict that it will be other references to religion that will have defeated Tory's dream team.
New Poll Devastating for Tory
Asked if there was any good news for the Conservatives in the poll, (Ipsos Reid's senior vice president John) Wright responded with a blunt, "No."
Liberal - 43% (+3) Conservative - 33% (-4) NDP - 17% (+1) Green - 6% (-) Undecided - 5%
*Bracket numbers are the change from the last Ipsos-Reid poll on Sept 18th.
This is "majority territory" and with less than two weeks to go, these numbers are as scary for John Tory as some of his campaign ads are for voters.
Liberal numbers have not been this high in an Ipsos-Reid poll since just after the party booted Ernie Eves out of government in 2003.
According to this poll, the Progressive Conservatives are getting decimated in Liberal and NDP-friendly northern Ontario and are letting key battleground ridings slip away.
According to DemocraticSPACE, the Conservatives are seeing the Liberals take leads in key ridings like Ottawa-West Nepean, Lambton-Kent-Middlesex and Ottawa-Orleans. Those are just three of the ridings the PC's had hoped to scoop up from the McGuinty Liberals.
Even more alarming for PC's... DemocraticSPACE is showing the Conservatives fighting to hang on to seats against Liberal and NDP challengers. Ridings like Oak Ridges-Markham, Oshawa and Mississauga South.
Tory's room for growth numbers are looking very poor as well.
A measure of the Conservative weakness is that the party now ranks last as the second choice of voters, behind even the Green party. The NDP has the greatest second-choice support at 26 per cent, but only 15 per cent name the Tories as their second choice.
"The Tories are at the bottom of the list," Wright said. "It's remarkable."
What has gone wrong for Tory? (Like anxious students on the first day of class, thousands of Ontarians raise their hand to answer that question.)
The Liberals and NDP appear on track to hold onto almost all of their key ridings, with only one government minister facing an uphill fight, according to DemocraticSPACE.
That minister is Education Minister Kathleen Wynne (Don Valley West) who is in a tooth and nail battle against PC Leader John Tory.
What if Tory doesn't win his own seat?
What would be a stronger statement -- the opposition leader not winning his own seat or every government minister voted back to Queen's Park?
The only good news for PC's is that the election wasn't held when this polling data was collected. There's still time to make a change. There's still time to turn the tide and there's still time to ... oh, I don't know, be a little bit more positive on the campaign trail!
The other good news for Tory is that it's not uncommon or career ending for an opposition leader to be handed a majority loss in their first election campaign, just ask Dalton McGuinty and look where he is tonight -- combing over some rather positive polling data.
Letter to my federal Liberal friends
Dear Federal Liberal dudes in suits makin' the big bucks,
Do you want to lose the next federal election? How about see a Conservative majority?
Do you want to bankrupt the party into oblivion and hand the keys to Canada over to Steve and his boys?
If you do -- I suggest you continue with your school yard crap.
I suspect you don't want the above to happen. So it's time to grow up, suck it up and work together.
I pay the annual membership fee, I attended the last convention and vote in every nomination/election and give what I can at the grassroots level. It's time to listen to the grassroots.
Right now those people are telling you to get your shit in order.
Cheers,
Me.
Tory gets earful in Sarnia
Oh, how I miss where I grew up... and where I studied in a great public education system.
They just QUIT?!?! That's it?
The head of a national pro-family organization says it's time to ditch the fight against gay marriage and push instead for tax breaks and other incentives to make marriage and child rearing more attractive options.
Fair enough but why did they throw in the towel?
Dave Quist, executive director of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, said Thursday he has become less concerned about same-sex marriage since census figures released earlier this month demonstrated how rare gay marriage is.
Are you kidding me? I think it has more to do with the fact that, despite what they tried to tell us, the gay apocalypse has yet to strike.
Seriously, they quit because same sex marriage isn't that popular? So they were only fighting tooth and nail all those years because they were concerned that every Tom, Dick and Harry (and Sally) from St. John's to Tofino was going to suddenly turn gay, line up at the altar and get married after the legislation passed?
I thought they were in this fight because it was a matter of principal, not numbers.
They've just finally realized that it's a losing battle and Canadians have accepted this issue. Unfortunately, the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada can't admit that publicly.
So if you're in a common-law relationship, look out they're coming after you next.
Quist said the institute is now more concerned about the increasing popularity of common-law relationships in Canada, and that it would rather spend its time and resources encouraging measures to strengthen the institutions of marriage and the family.
The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada can't even win a battle against 7,465 same-sex couples, I wish them all the best in their next crusade ... limiting the rights of 1,376,865 common-law couples!!
-----Original Message----- From: Randy Hillier -rhillier@istar.ca- To: Sent: Tue Sep 25 21:45:05 2007 Subject: corrections
Although I was detained once for trespassing, I've never been charged or convicted of any criminal action. Please correct your news story. PS I led tractor demonstrations on the 400 series far more often then 3 times - you should hire a new fact checker or call me. Your liberal war room hack and local patsy - (DELETED BECAUSE RANDY DOESN'T NEED A LIBEL LAWSUIT TO ADD TO HIS TROUBLES) does a great disservice to you when he can't get basic facts straight. Keep trying Randy Tel 613-267-8239 randy@randyhillier.com www.randyhillier.com
It's odd because it was John Tory who made the gaffe about Randy Hillier yet it was Randy Hillier who responds.
The PC train wreck chugs along.
Tory on Hillier: 'Huh? Really?'
The following is a transcript found at Are You Kidding Me? and The Steel City Grit. It's an interview with PC Leader John Tory on CBC Radio. The juicy stuff is at the bottom.
CBC HOST: Let's go to Frontenac County. John is on the line. Hi John.
CALLER: Well, John, I've got this issue. You've got Randy Hillier running here in LFL&A [Lanark-Frontenac- Lennox and Addington] and when he was head of the LLA and that's the Lanark Landowners Association for the rest of the province. He closed down the 401 three times. Once in London, once in Thousand Islands then the QEW when he did his tractor day to Queen's Park there. He gets invited to be candidate for the PC party, Shawn Brant does it once and he's in jail for two months without bail. And I see a degree of hypocrisy there. One rule for the white guy and one rule for the natives. Can you explain that?
JOHN TORY: I, I, I could do my best because I could tell you this much.
CALLER: Without the double-speak.
JOHN TORY: There won't be any double-speak. When Mr. Hillier was the head of the landowners and I was the leader of the PC Party and he had expressed no interest or had not approached us about being a candidate. I can tell you that I telephoned him before his first protest at which time he said he was going to block the highway and encouraged him not to do that, urged him not to do that. I said, look you can have the same protest by the side of the highway and in fact you'll see more people because they'll go by you as opposed to blocking the highway off. And I have said consistently, when it comes to what I've said about the rule of law for people who are obstructing highways or anything else, the law should apply to everyone. And I specifically mentioned the day I first took that position and laid out one rule of law for everybody that it applied to groups of farmers. I mentioned that. Or groups of environmentalists. Or groups of Aboriginal people. And so I've been very very consistent in that and Mr. Hillier would tell you that, I've phoned him and I've communicated with him any time he was going to do any protest of that kind and said don't do that there are other ways to protest without blockading highways. With respect to how he became the candidate, in our Party, the PC party, the candidates are elected democratically at the riding level. So Mr. Hiller came forward and put his name in and I think there were three or four candidates who ran for the nomination and he won.
CALLER: You don't vet these people at all.
JOHN TORY: I'll be very truthful with you about that. No double-speak. They’re all vetted to see if there is anything in their background in terms of brushes with the law or any of those kinds of things that would disqualify them form being a candidate it's done before the nomination process so that you don't, it's not too late and we looked at his entire background and I can tell you this man has had no brushes with the law.
CALLER: Whoa, back up. Back up. He's been incarcerated before.
JOHN TORY: Look at that, if that is true, I'm not familiar with that but I mean I can tell you there was a check on his background. What was he incarcerated for?
CALLER: I believe in the Cornwall incident.
JOHN TORY: Well, that's news to me.
CBC HOST: I'm just going to intervene here. We do want to get to some other callers as well. Thank you John for your inquiry. _______________________________________
No brushes with the law John? Your people looked into his past and didn't tell you about anything involving an incarceration? Nothing?
From the Ottawa Sun on May 17th, 2006
Hillier was arrested by Cornwall Police at the NavCan Centre in the city's east end, detained and ticketed $50 for trespassing.
What else haven't your people told you?
My gosh, the Globe & Mail wrote about his arrest as recent as 12 days ago!
Hillier is far and away Tory's most controversial candidate in this election. Tory and his handlers had to have known that Tory was going to be questioned about Hillier's past at some point during the campaign.
Ooops.
Harper setting the bar
I suspect he's just aiming low and hoping to fire high.
Stephen Harper says the possibility of another minority government is "very high".
It's an interesting strategy. Set the expectations low and not be over confident. It might work for Harper as he tries to sell his party once more to Canadian voters.
However, I suspect he is hoping this strategy of setting low expectations does work. Really hoping. Not so much for his party but for his own political career.
Stephane Dion can afford to hold the Conservatives to a slim minority government once but I question how well that would sit with Conservatives. Harper would have been leader through four elections by that point.
Anything short of a near majority or a majority itself would likely be seen by most people as a disappointing reflection on Harper's leadership skills. Four elections, no majority.
Harper is just setting the tone right now for the possibility of failure because another Conservative minority would be considered just that -- a failure. Not for his party but rather his ability to lead his party.
"No one really has the upper hand on the leadership front," (Nik) Nanos said.
Those leadership results could prove particularly troubling for Tory, whose slogan is "leadership matters."
I woke up to the much anticipated news this morning -- the televised debate did little to change people's voting for the October 10th election.
According to a new poll by SES, the Liberals still have a sizeable lead over John Tory's Progressive Conservatives and the leadership numbers have not changed significantly.
John Tory better hope that twice as many men show up to the polls than women... or he has to start making some sort of changes because his campaign is, as the Ottawa Sun screams, "In a Rut!"
The pressure is now certainly on Mr. Tory to save his political life so expect his campaign to pull out all of the stops over the next two weeks.
Liberals - 41% PC - 33% NDP - 18% Green - 8%
The most significant finding of the research was that the Tories significantly trail the Liberals among women. (Women Lib 42%, PC 28%, NDP 23%, GP 7%). The gender gap represents a significant hurdle for the Tory PCs at this point in time.
Tory discredits his own candidate!
A Progressive Conservative candidate comes out against one of the policies that his leader supports and this is the response from his leader, John Tory.
"When you look up 'maverick' in the dictionary, you find his picture there in colour," Tory said.
"Bill Murdoch is bit like a jack-in-the-box, where you wind the handle for a while, and eventually it pops up out of the box," John Tory said.
According to Tory, those in his own party who dissagree with him are just "mavericks" who, although they claim to just represent the views of their constituents, are just out for some press coverage.
These are people in his own party. I wonder what John thinks of those who disagree with him and aren't in his party.
Doesn't "Leadership Matter" John?
Bush: "man-DELLA.. is dead!"
Response to Shameful Tory Ads (Video)
Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory loves his attack ads, whether it be mocking someone's physical features like he did to Jean Chretien in 1993, insinuating that Dalton McGuinty's decision not to close coal plants is killing people (even though he won't say what he wants to do with coal plants) or using a young woman's murder to attack his political opponent.
So here's a little something positive that I just slapped together using the Liberal's campaign song.
I'm confident Liberals will stick with a positive message and voters will avoid getting sucked into Mr. Tory's negativity trap which, right now, is steeper than the Elora Gorge and rushing faster than Niagara.
(John) Tory likes to say that he wants to bring a more civilized style of politics to Queen's Park. But the relentlessly negative tenor of his campaign advertisements are far from being civil.
If Tory has ideas to improve the province, let's hear them, rather than just taking cheap shots at his major rival.
Tory's Confusing Ottawa Team
Progressive Conservative candidates in the Ottawa region claim that the current Ontario government spends too much money and attention on Toronto.
The Ottawa Citizensums up the argument quite well calling it "one of the oldest themes in Ottawa politics".
In all fairness I think a lot of people in Ottawa, given their profession, spend a lot of time focused on federal politics and municipal politics.
I want to draw the attention of PC candidates to two issues.
First off,
The Conservatives said that between 2004 and 2006, the Liberal government gave Toronto $246.06 per household for public transit, while Ottawa received $55.44.
(PC MPP Norm Sterling) said a new Conservative government would get along well with (Ottawa Mayor) Larry O'Brien, and make bigger financial commitments than the Liberals have made to get things such as commuter rail and a new convention centre going.
Dalton McGuinty's government had $200 million on the table to build a new light rail transit system in Ottawa. That money was always there but it was city councillors led by the city's new mayor, Larry O'Brien, who scrapped the entire LRT plan -- scared off by federal Conservative MP John Baird's talk of holding back federal funding. Council has yet to come up with any sort of new solution.
It's interesting to note that O'Brien's former director of communications, Mike Patton, is a candidate for the PC's. Patton recently left his job with the mayor to run his own campaign. But Patton also recently showed up at a city meeting to vocally criticize O'Brien's plan to gain more control at City Hall.
To make things more interesting, Mayor O'Brien showed up at the opening for Jim Watson's campaign, Patton's Liberal opponent who was also one of Ottawa's most popular mayors. There's already bad blood and Patton isn't even at Queen's Park.
Ottawans have read headlines like these before (see Mayor Chiarelli vs. MPP Baird) and the outcome wasn't exactly pretty (see light rail transit fiasco).
O'Brien isn't the only person who is showing displeasure for local PC candidates. Retired general Maurice Baril is upset that PC candidate Bruce Poulin is handing out literature in Ottawa-Vanier which includes praise from the former Canadian chief of defence staff for Poulin. Baril says Poulin never got his permission.
It's not at all illegal but certainly isn't winning Poulin much praise.
Secondly,
"We will end Ottawa's second-class treatment by Queen's Park," said PC MPP Lisa MacLeod.
I'm sorry Ms. MacLeod but if your party had it's way the City of Ottawa would be with one less hospital today. The Liberals managed to keep Montfort Hospital open and invested millions into updating the city's existing health care facilities, including millions and millions for the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario. Cash, not cuts.
The Liberals still have lots to do to improve life in Ottawa particularly when it comes to fixing the messed up property tax system but you don't have to look very far to find progress in the past four years.
Some might say you shouldn't focus on past PC governments and I usually advocate a forward looking attitude. However, when it comes to what Mike Harris, Ernie Eves, John Snobolen and Janet Ecker did to my school years and to our hospitals, it's really hard to move on and fill in that circle next to the names of any Ottawa area PC candidates. But I wish them luck.
"It's Over, Bitch!"
The title is in reference to Britney Spears' latest hit in which she announces "It's Britney, bitch!"
Well it's over sweetie.
Tonight NBC is reporting that Britney Spears has been charged with hit and run and driving without a license.
She'll likely get about one day in jail, if convicted. Yet somehow Lindsay Lohan is still famous after her antics yet everyone, including myself, is now writing Britney off.
Debate Analysis - Complete Confusion
Take a sip after you've finished reading this post.
The major papers all talked about how if you didn't plan to watch Thursday's Ontario leaders debate, you could get analysis in their papers.
So let's take that analysis and see just how "easy" it is to interpret.
"(Hampton) even managed to lose his image as being (a) scary, and (b) boring. He cracked jokes," writes Christina Blizzard.
But just one paragraph away on the opposite page of the same newspaper Hampton was called "humourless" by a Sun writer!
The Ottawa Sun declared VicTory (get it?) on the front page yet the only written analysis in the paper said Tory lost! Tory won the most points in the paper's "scorecard" which included grades for such things as the leader's ties, haircuts, body language oh and some of that other stuff like I don't know ... policy!
Adam Radwanski writes for the Globe & Mail, "(Hampton) spent most of the debate as Tory's sidekick -- helping gang up on McGuinty, but offering little of his own."
Yet Ian Urquhart in the Toronto Star writes, "Hampton, meanwhile, stuck to his campaign message track – including multiple references to McGuinty's "$40,000 pay raise," which he contrasted with the slower upward movement of the minimum wage."
Over at the National Post's blog, commentator John Moore writes, "Tory was too well prepared with scripted remarks meaning that there was none of the spontaneity voters might have come looking for."
That highly contradicts Radwanski's take on Tory's performance, "Well-prepared and completely at ease in the spotlight, (Tory) cut the most appealing figure during the debate."
Confused yet? Hopefully you watched the debate for yourself because these analysts couldn't contradict each other anymore.
One thing seems universal. Most analysts or columnists are saying that Dalton McGuinty didn't lose the debate ... except Blizzard who says McGuinty and Tory both lost yet won't say if Hampton "won" or "lost".
I know most of this is from the comment pages and written by columnists but come on people.
With all due respect to these newspapers and their writers, but is it any wonder that fewer and fewer people read newspapers? I think debate analysis or "who won and who lost" talk is about as mundane as newspapers endorsing political candidates.
That's a whole other peeve that I'll likely unleash in the coming weeks.
JT is bringing cynicism back
What the hell? John Tory could probably win this election... if he really wanted to.
I'm watching the televised debate right now and I'm even more baffled by this man's strategy and his campaign.
He isn't telling us WHAT the Progressive Conservatives want to do. He only seems to tell us that he wants to extend funding to faith based schools -- an idea that is universally unpopular in Ontario and not very popular in his own party!
Tory even said to McGuinty early in the debate that Dalton "needs to start doing more for..." Lines like that just make it sound like you're running to keep the winner more accountable and not to actually win the election!
I give the federal Conservatives credit for running a solid campaign in 2006. The federal party's strategists had set priorities and stuck to them. You can debate how the federal party has since stuck with those priorities but it worked. That was an opposition party facing a 13-year-old government but it was that party's priority strategy which prevailed.
Howard Hampton at least talked about a few ideas. Dalton focused on his government's record and the record of the unpopular previous Progressive Conservative government.
Howard Hampton seemed well, not Howard Hampton. A bit dull and shell shocked before answering one question on manufacturing jobs. He could have really shook things up.
Dalton survived. He did what he had to do which is not stumble and highlight any sort of progress in the past four years.
Tory didn't falter but he did fail to tell voters what the hell he plans to do to fix this "giant mess" that he claims McGuinty has created. If there are no solutions, is it really broken, John?
How about a little "Here's what I'm going to do!"
You're not out yet John but the way things are going -- you're certainly down so why not cheer things up a bit. Optimism with some ideas.
(Disclaimer: I'm a member of the Liberal Party of Ontario and a product of the Harris/Eves education system)
Who is running Tory's campaign?
Tory's latest election advertisement.
John Tory continues to focus on education which for the Ontario PC's is about as wise as U.S. Republicans running a campaign on ethics but Tory's latest election advertisements are even more strange.
The Ontario PC's have yet to release any ads highlighting the party's OWN policy. Instead the party sinks to airing ads that remind us of John Tory circa 1993.
Interestingly, Tory himself helped manage Campbell's disastrous 1993 campaign, which included controversial television ads that seemed to mock then-Liberal Leader Jean Chretien's facial deformity. The ads prompted a public backlash that helped sink Campbell's election hopes.
Wait, is that the same John Tory. Of course it is. It's also the same party that called McGuinty a reptilian kitten eater or something along those lines. We all know what happened in that campaign.
Tory has bombarded the airwaves, and I've heard a miriad of ads, but I haven't really learned much on the policy front, it's just bash, bash and more bash. As a matter of fact, the sheer volume of the vitrol is more a turnoff than a testament to why John Tory should be leader. If "leadership matters", an idea or two would be nice, as opposed to Dalton McGuinty, human pinata.
What a Complete Disaster in Ottawa
The City of Ottawa, facing massive debt problems, is now staring at a mammoth lawsuit.
The lawsuit stemming from council's decision to squash the light rail plan has skyrocketed to $279 million. Two hundred and seventy nine MILLION dollars ladies and gentlemen.
In the statement of claim filed Sept. 14 in Brampton, St. Lawrence Cement says it’s suing the city for $40.5 million for “breach of contract, economic negligence, interference with economic interests and breach of duty of good faith.” It also wants $31.7 million for work completed and not yet paid for and it wants to be reimbursed another $31.7 million it had already invested in the project.
As a result of not proceeding with the project, “Dufferin has suffered substantial damages including loss of profits,” the claim says.
Councillor Diane Deans, who I think is setting herself up for a run at the mayor's chair in 2010, calls this the city's biggest disaster. Deans also delivered the best line of the day,
“Instead of reviewing contracts that haven’t been awarded, Mayor O’Brien might have wanted to think about honouring the ones that have been awarded. It might have saved the taxpayers a lot of money.”
What a complete mess this has turned into. Who really wants to take over at City Hall?
Mayor O'Brien is personally facing an OPP investigation stemming from allegations of bribery. The City of Ottawa is facing a lawsuit from Siemens over LRT and now St. Lawrence Cement. Now there are rumours that an administrative lawsuit could be filed over the mayor's plans to wade into hiring and firing territory that isn't his jurisdiction.
Larry (and some councillors I might add) it's time to go and you haven't even been in office a year!
While I'm at it...
Since I gave credit to Howard Hampton the other day, I think I should pass some of that along to Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory for this...
"I almost think we should have big signs with flashing lights that say 'Support Ontario.' Support your neighbours. Support your farmers."
And we can make those neon signs right here in Ontario!
Seriously though, we should all buy more local. In Ottawa there's a great new farmer's market thanks to our city councillor (it's open during the summer months at the now troubled Lansdown Park). In order to be a vendor there you must sell only local produce or goods.
I'd rather spend my money there and avoid the tourist packed and sometimes not so local Byward Market.
There, I said something good about John Tory.
A Black Eye for Ottawa Police
First off, life jackets can and do save lives. Secondly, this is such a serious and troubling story surfacing about Ottawa Police.
3:48 p.m. Ottawa police communications centre receives a call from the Shirley's Bay area through the service's emergency phone number, but not 911, requesting assistance finding a person who is on a personal watercraft. The caller reported his friend had been missing for more than an hour in the vicinity. Ottawa police contacted Ottawa fire service to determine if they would be deploying water rescue. Without specific information about the location of the watercraft, the Ottawa fire service does not launch a search.
4:04 p.m. Ottawa police receive a 911 call from a second caller at the Nepean Sailing club requesting fire rescue with a boat. The 911 call was downstreamed to the Ottawa fire service that handles water rescue.
4:07 p.m. Ottawa fire service learns from the second caller there is a personal watercraft floating down the Ottawa River with no occupant, halfway between Nepean Sailing Club and Britannia Yacht Club. The caller, who is in a boat, tells Ottawa fire that he is conducting a criss-cross search pattern for the missing occupant and is being assisted by two kayakers. The caller says they will continue searching while waiting for water rescue.
4:10 p.m. Ottawa police receive call through emergency phone number, not 911, from the same person who called at 3:48 p.m. from Shirley's Bay stating that the missing person on the watercraft had been towed to the Aylmer marina and that "everything was OK." The caller also said that police were not needed as he was going to the Aylmer marina to pick up his friend.
4:12 p.m. Ottawa fire calls Ottawa police to advise them of water rescue at the Nepean Sailing Club after a personal watercraft was found with no occupant. Ottawa police operator advises they didn't have that call.
4:15 p.m. Ottawa police contacted Ottawa fire service to advise they are no longer required at the sailing club as the missing person had been found and towed to the Aylmer marina.
4:16 p.m. Call believed to be involving one personal watercraft is cleared by both Ottawa fire and police.
4:57 p.m. and 5:09 p.m. Ottawa fire receives two follow up calls from the same person who had been criss-crossing the area in his boat near the Nepean Sailing Club looking for the occupant of the abandoned personal watercraft. The caller asks whether water rescue was still on its way. Fire services advises the caller the rider had been found at the Aylmer marina and that he was OK.
8:20 p.m. OPP notify the Ottawa police that they had received a report of a missing person from the Nepean Sailing Club after he failed to meet his common-law wife for dinner. This call puts into motion a full response from Ottawa police, fire and paramedic services that culminated in a ground, air and water search that failed to find the missing rider. Police continued the search for two days before calling it off Monday evening with no trace of the watercraft's occupant.
Monday, Sept 10
Police call off search for the missing man after two days of searching.
Wednesday, Sept 12
6:40 a.m. The body of 44-year-old Ottawa accountant Mark Laughlin is found about 150 metres west of the breakwater at the Nepean Sailing Club.
I like John Edwards. If I was an American, I likely would vote for him. Over the past few months I've come to realize that he likely won't win the Democratic ticket but I think he's going to make a wonderful VP candidate and this speech is proof.
He cuts to the chase and explains the situation in Iraq quite bluntly.
