Come on down, Patrick Brown!

Here's SoCon MP Patrick Brown at the now infamous Rob Ford Family BBQ listening to Harper make his plug for a Stephen Harper/Rob Ford/Tim Hudak governing Con trifecta for Canada. FinMin Flaherty made a special point of thanking Brown for "being key to organizing this event". 

Writing about Patrick Brown shifting from Parliament Hill MP into provincial politics as a candidate in the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership race, John Iveson says that "nobody knows where he stands on any given issue".

Oh come on, John, we do so know a couple of things.

We know his campaign co-chair doesn't believe in evolution.

We know in 2006 he voted Yes to reopen the definition of marriage to remove teh gays, something Harper campaigned on in 2005 but no longer needed after he was elected.

We know in 2008 he voted Yes for Con MP Ken Epp's C-484 to recognize fetuses as persons.

We know in 2010 he voted Yes on Con MP Rod Bruinooge's Bill C-510, Roxanne's Law, another anti-abortion bill.

We know in 2010 he voted No on Bill C-384 to legalize assisted suicide.

WE know in 2012 he voted Yes on Con MP Brian Storseth's Bill C-304 to take hate speech out of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

We know in 2012 and 2013 he voted No on Bill C-389 to add gender identity and expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act.

We know in 2012 he voted Yes for Con MP Woodworth's C-112, yet another covert effort to give the state legal custody over us breeding vessels.

Not really what I'd call a dark horse actually, John.
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Bobblehead Trifecta

The Toronto mayor's office is selling a Rob Ford bobblehead as a fundraiser for United Way. The Robbie Bobbie looks a whole lot more like Doug Ford actually and certainly the old Steve bobblehead could do with an update too so here's the whole teacon trifecta.

h/t Willy Loman

Monday am update : While the budget meeting goes on upstairs at city hall, Rob and Doug and 7 city staffers are down in the lobby working the bobblehead sales line which goes round in a circle like caterpillars on the rim of a saucer. 
Doug Ford : “I don’t think there’s a politician in the country, including the prime minister, that could have bobblehead dolls and have them line up around the corner.”
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Wed update : Judge releases some more details from police Ford/Lisi ITO : 

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Rob Ford and friends

Oh that's so unfair of me -it's a couple of years old. Ok, here they are again after another fishing trip last year.

But it was this pic of Steve showing up to do a Toronto subway funding presser with Ford last month that had me convinced the Ford crack video was gone forever. Well, that and the fact people in and around that vid were getting shot and arrested or beaten up with pipes.

Why would Steve risk being associated with him?


The Star Today : Police have the video that appears to show mayor smoking crack, Blair says

“I have no reason to resign,” Ford says. Ford friend Alexander Sandro Lisi charged with extortion related to the video, police chief says

"It's safe to say the mayor does appear in the video,” Blair told reporters.

Blair said he has seen the video. His reaction? “As a citizen of the city, I am disappointed.”

In the 44 days, Lisi and Ford had 349 “points of telephone contact,” the documents said.   

Ford helped Lisi escape police surveillance at least once, letting his friend sneak into City Hall’s underground employee parking lot, according to allegations in the police’s ITO.  On Wednesday, July 24, a detective sergeant with the force’s mobile support unit followed Lisi as he weaved his way through side streets near the Westway.  Lisi “was followed to the downtown core where he began to circle the area of Bay Street and Queen Street West, executing U-turns on several occasions,” the police said.  Lisi eventually dipped into the underground lot at City Hall.   Ford, waiting at the entrance, “swiped him into the controlled access area,” the police said. 

Earlier versions of the story said police obtained the vid from deleted files on a hard drive obtained in their Dixon Road sweep back in June. Recent versions now say Oct. 29.

Sun News, whose coverage of the Ford crack vid has run mostly to complaining that the Star has it in for Ford and how any idiot could have faked the vid, was still running with that slant up til an hour ago when they suddenly broke off mid rant about the media and went with :

A special afternoon 28-page edition jam-packed with startling revelations about the alleged video showing Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine. 

free of charge at select downtown locations.

The Star broke the original story and the Sun excoriated them for it week after week. Now the Sun are trying to horn in on their revenue from it. 
Wankers.

Well done, Star reporters
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Made in the USA : Tim Hudak

Teahadist Tim Hudak, former Walmart manager and leader of the Ontario PC Con Party since 2009, doesn't much care for the term "right-to-work" laws, preferring instead "worker's choice reforms".  
Well, OK then - Workers' choice of the right to work for less money, reducing wages for union and non-union workers alike and pitting worker against worker.

On Friday, LauraK went to hear Chris Hedges in Toronto and provides an excellent overview of his talk on Syria, Chelsea Manning, the surveillance state, corporate and media ownership, the liberal class, and organized labour.
Laura's piece really worth a full read but here excerpted : Hedges :

"It's amazing. We do everything wrong in the United States, and 10 years later, Canada copies us.    Do you have 'right-to-work' laws here yet?" The audience answered that we do not.  And Hedges replied: "The minute Harper passes those laws, if you guys don't have a massive general strike, you're finished." He said, "You still have enough organized labour in Canada to mount a resistance."

Trapped in a Whirlpool : The Power of Irrationality 

And a reminder of Steve's 2011 bid for a Harper Hudak Ford "hat trick" :

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Dr. Kellie Leitch, Minister of Labour

A look at what we can expect from our new Minister of Labour.

So how many of you made it all the way through to Leitch at the Harper/Hudak/Ford TeaCon Trifecta BBQ?
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Patrick Brown, come on down!

When PMO communications officer Erica Meekes sent The Barrie Advance details and materials on a 2007 money-losing charity speaking gig Justin Trudeau did at Georgian College before he was an MP, she asked Advance editor Lori Martin to attribute her slag to an anonymous "source" rather than to the PMO.
Meekes further advised contacting Patrick Brown, “the local MP for Georgian College,” for comment, and Brown subsequently provided some suitably partisan disparaging comments about Trudeau.


Trying to remember where you've heard Patrick Brown's name before?

Here he is between Flaherty and Harper at the now infamous 2011 Ford family BBQ, listening to Harper thank Rob Ford for his help in getting elected and calling for a Harper/Hudak/Ford hat trick government.

Later on in the full video, FinMin Jim Flaherty thanked Patrick Brown and fellow MP Kellie Leitch, hidden behind Harper here, for "being key to organizing this event".

Dear Toronto Star : Looking forward to your adding the hat trick BBQ video to your continuing coverage of Patrick Brown's remarks.
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Rob and Steve in happier times

The fishing buddies at a Ford family BBQ in 2011. Steve gives thanks for the Ford Conservative political dynasty, thanks Rob for his endorsement in helping get Steve elected, and makes a plug for a Harper/Hudak/Ford hat trick government for Canada.

The Guardian did a nice piece on it yesterday. 

h/t West End Bob for Guardian link
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Steve plugs for Harper Hudak Ford TeaCon trifecta

At a barbecue this summer at Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's house, Steve lays out his hopes for a federal provincial GTA TeaCon sweep :



Flaherty endorses Hudak for premier; the National Post endorses Hudak for premier.

US Tea Party consultant Michael Prell, who bills himself as a "strategist for the Tea Party Patriots," has joined the campaign of Tim Hudak. (h/t Sabina Becker)

So how is Hudak's Ontario election campaign going? Oh, about as you would expect, as this Ontario Cons campaign flyer distributed across greater Toronto this last weekend shows :

Quotes are lifted completely and misleadingly out of context, I'm sure you will not be surprised to learn, from Corporate Television Vehicle and the Toronto District School Board Curriculum Resource Guide. Repeat : Resource Guide.

G&M : "The sex-ed curriculum being taught in schools is the one that has been in place since 1998 when the previous Tory government introduced it, and remains unchanged, the Liberals said in a statement on Monday."

That teeny tiny type at the bottom of the campaign flyer?
Click to enlarge : "Authorized by the C.F.O. for the Ontario PC Party."

Go, Hudak! Go, US Tea Party strategists!
Go, Harper Hudak Ford TeaCon Trifecta!
It's an election! Just make shit up!


Coincidentally, Charles McVety's Institute for Canadian Values(sic) - McVety himself being the very poster child for the need for anti-bullying programs in schools - ran a weirdly disgusting anti-gay anti-trans ad in the National Post on Sept 28 that the Natty Post later apologized for. Yesterday a similar version of the same McVety ad reappeared in the Toronto Sun.
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Update : Toronto Standard : Fact-checking Hudak's "Homophobic" Flyer
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