Doug Ford's government has only been in office for five months. But already it is engulfed in scandal. Robert Benzie and Rob Ferguson report in the Toronto Star that:
Chaos is swirling around Premier Doug Ford with his right-hand man forcing a departure at Ontario Power Generation, costing taxpayers up to $500,000 in severance, and another top Tory fighting back over his ouster in the wake of two sex scandals.
Three Progressive Conservative sources confirmed to the Star that Ford’s chief of staff, Dean French, phoned OPG chair Bernard Lord to demand that veteran Progressive Conservative political staffer Alykhan Velshi be removed from the Crown utility.
Also Tuesday, former PC caucus head John Sinclair broke his silence to say he did not leave his job last Friday over the way another key Ford adviser, Andrew Kimber, was forced out of the premier’s office for sexually inappropriate texts showing himself in a thong.
“Mr. Sinclair will take all steps necessary to defend his reputation against any defamatory and false statements regarding his character or conduct,” lawyer Scott Hutchison warned in a statement.
“Any innuendo or allegations of wrongdoing on his part are without foundation and should be treated with the profound skepticism they deserve.”
The province is being sued for shutting down a wind farm in Prince Edward County. The bill for that could be in the millions of dollars. Ford claims he knows how to control expenses. But the stench arising from that claim is getting pretty rank:
“Once again, it looks like the people of this province are going to be stuck with the bill for one of Premier Ford’s decisions and paying the price for settling his political scores,” said New Democrat MPP John Vanthof (Timiskaming-Cochrane).
Green Leader Mike Schreiner said it’s “certainly fishy” that OPG would hire and then immediately look to fire a senior executive.
“That doesn’t pass the smell test. It’s a waste of taxpayer money,” Schreiner said.
It's a time honoured axiom that a government take on the personality of the man who leads it. What's happening in Ontario these days is what happens when the provincial government is run by a thug.
Image: Niagara At Large
18 comments:
"in a number of ways, Ford might be trying to write a Harper sequel" said Susan Delacourt in IPolitics. Indeed there seems to be many similarities but whilst Harper took years to bring about such destruction Ford is there in just a few months.
.. 'thug' .. apropos re Doug Ford.. but the thug is certainly 'glib' - These political animals can spew contrived posturing or bald faced deceit at the drop of a hat.. and they can do so, dozens of times a day. They get so much practice gabbling with their caucus colleagues, condensing their ideology, talking points, partisanship, policy, polls, fantasy etc etc for ever n ever Amen.. Much of it if not all, is holier than thou posturing and preening.. after all, its all about 'their Brand'
But Dough Ford got lucky.. a majority political landslide landed in his lap.. courtesy the many flawed McGuinty flops and ultimate collapse under Kathleen Wynne.. Then the last astonishing break - Patrick Brown falls like a concrete block thrown off a bridge and seemingly zillions of candidates worth jack.. diffuse n disperse each other. Thug Ford scoops up the pot
The Alykhan Velshi saga just seems endless.. I know he knows 'where the bodies are buried' and thus the endless stream of plum patronage appointments. He flits he floats, election to election.. and since his early days as a reformertory hack has done wondrously, without a doubt a multimillionaire. He's sat in so many toxic partisan 'war rooms' his ass deserves the medal of stinking distinction. Go way back with him.. or just start with Harper, Kenney, Hamish Marshall, Kellie Leitch, Jim Flaherty, Laureen, Dimitri Soudas, Eve Adams, Nigel Wright, Ezra Levant, Ray Novak, Jenni Byrne & her twin sister, Arthur Hamilton, Michael Sona, Ray Giorno, Ken Boessenkool, the Great Election Fraud.. hell, the list is endless and the trail of dirt and partisan stink to him is astonishing (but I could safely say that about most of them). Somebody high up places a call & Velshi gets a soft highly paid landing toute suite.. and here he is again, laughing all the way to the bank.. ugh.. I do wonder why Doug the Thug went after him.. did he want that position for one of his favored droogs ?
Your George Carlin photo says it all, Owen. I also see in the latest poll that Ford's party is neck-in-neck with the Liberals. Unfortunately, expressing buyer's regret does nothing for the rest of us for the next four years.
Watch for corruption, somebody making money under the table.
Ford rode a wrecking ball to power, Rural. And he's taking it to everything within his grasp.
Ford plainly needs a makeover. He should hire a pro, a coach. Christy Clark seems to have time on her hands and we'd be pleased to send her anywhere at least a thousand miles from here.
It really is quite a list that you've compiled, sal. Yesterday's ghosts keep getting resurrected.
Corruption is what it's all about, Toby.
When the only thing that drives the electorate is anger, Lorne, all we get is more anger. The issue is always how well voters can critically diagnose the problems they face.
I would not be surprised in the least, Mound, if Ford invited Christy into the tent. As sal suggests, all of these people have a remarkable shelf life.
.. It may be interesting to see how mainstream media examines the Doug Ford takeout of Alykhan Velshi.. not to mention how (all the W5's of fundamental journalism) he got hired or placed or appointed (and via whom) in the first place. They all better hope Kevin Donovan at the Star or any of his young investigative reporters, don't decide to shred the mist, spume or stewing pots of ReformerTory Partisan Political Animalism or Cannibalism.
Specifically.. what of Jenni Byrne - currently Principal Secretary to Doug Ford. Quite a comedown from being the she witch of Stephen Harper's back room black ops menagerie.. the PMO dirbag short pants gang, the complete fuckery of Nigel Wright, Ray Novak et al, the crucifiction of Michael Sona as sacrificial goat for a red goatee robo genius guy in the Fantini back rooms with Stephen Lecce.. In/Out bagmen coming and going from Richmond Hill - Vaughn & whoops.. is Laureen Harper living in the Chateau Laurier with her RCMP lover ? Ulp, got an MP purportedly.. named Ms Guergis allegedly snorting cocaine off sex workers sweaty chests and her hubby gets busted but not busted for speeding & holding cocaine.. Oh sorry, the bust was not righteous enough. Arther Hamilton riding to the rescue of all n sundry & saving his last breath specifically for Stephen Harper
This is the 'stuff' of Alykhan Velshi, Rob Ford and bro Dougie, Jenni Byrne.. encompassing Civic, Provincial, Federal politics pretending to be 'public service' - We elect one of the riding candidates put forward.. as if we had any choice.. But what we really get is Velshi of the fake citizenship fiasco with Jason Kenney, or dear Jenni who certainly knows exactly who accessed the Electoral data base.. or deleted log-in password & names.. but hey c'mon it was just 240 plus federal ridings that were hit when Harper got his majority.
If this was Vegas, they'd go to jail.. for years. but the double standards hold true.. too big to go to prison.. find a small fry to crucify.. and as one politician said.. feed them to a woodchipper evangelical lawyer like Arthur Hamilton, briefed by Jenni Byrne.. and here we are today unravelling the puzzle of Doug Ford and Alykhan Velshi.. one days work for a half million they say.. Sure beats being a boxer eh ? !
I think the D’ohFo is some kind of equivalent of The Donald in the USA and Jason KKeKenney in Albetar: they all signal the death throes of the Neo-Right, a post-Soviet branch of the neo-liberal movement that specialized in usurping traditional conservative, or ‘Tory’, parties that were struggling with their basic traditionalism trying to keep up with the accelerating pace of globalization. The neo-rightists did a pretty thorough job of it: there are vanishingly few Tory parties left anywhere in the Western world anymore, party rivals to the left meeting the neo-right juggernaut by shifting rightward themselves (NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, for example, was accused of this supposed sin and summarily dumped, ostensibly, for winning only the second-highest number of seats for his party), social program spending, regulation of private enterprise and taxation have all been slashed (while persaonal wealth disparities deepen and widen, and global pollution accelerates degradation of vital ecosystems), and a cabal of stateless corporatists is thriving in the optimized global environment of sovereignty-undermining, investor-protecting trade deals and untraceable, tax-dodging electronic money-movement (while starved public coffers and neo-right fifth-columns continue to weaken and diminish trust in public enterprise and government activism). Yet, despite these achievements, factionalism and extremism among today’s Neo-Right signal the movement’s decline from its heyday when Bush, Campbell, Klein, Harris and Harper reigned supreme. Nowadays, the likes of Trump, Ford and Kenney are brought in, not to advance from yesterday’s zeniths, but to circle the wagons into a redoubtable lagger and throw the all-or-nothing ‘Hail Mary’ pass deep into far-right field. For all their bluster, these late neo-right blooms are affecting a rearguard manoeuvre —and its fascinating to watch.
Can the Neo-Right turn its decline around? How long will the zombieCon clowns prolong the Neo-Right’s death throes? And how much more damage to society and the environment will be suffered before neo-right policies are chucked and we can start to deal with the many challenges facing us.
It seems almost an academic question, but I’ll make it, quite sincerely, anyway: given the number of traditional or moderate conservatives who’ve been driven out of nominal conservative parties by extremists the moribund neo-right leadership has invited in, presumably into alternative parties (former centre-left parties have moved rightward to accommodate them), will this politcal diaspora ever regroup and resurrect real Tory parties again?
I'm sure Christy would be more than happy to join Gordo the Greedo in Ford's tent, Owen. After all, there's no teat like the public teat! The Greed Superbowl could become an annual event.
They really are a sad lot, sal. But they do make the kind of mistakes which could cost them dearly.
I'm not sure they're in decline, Scotty. I wish they were. But they keep being resurrected from the dead.
Libertarians want smaller government but they sure have a unique fondness for the paycheques they generate. That severance package swindle is an innovative wrinkle. Using public funds to pay the bribes encountered of necessity is definitely one for the people. Awesome! Why use your own or your friends’ money when you’ve got signing authority over all this other cash that the people left in that pile over there? Give them a two-dollar tax break and they’ll never notice where it went.
What will they think of next? Wait a minute. Chainsaw Mike and his boys already thought of it and did it. Nobody cared then, so why would they care now?
That's a really good question, John. We've seen this movie so many times before you'd think we'd be wise to the plot. But we keep rewinding and replaying it -- again and again.
I'm beginning to think we learn nothing, Lulymay. We keep repeating the same mistakes.
Post a Comment