Ezra Gets His Date

Ezra Levant

Type: Hearing First Date of Hearing: Feb 29, 2016 Last Date of Hearing: Mar 02, 2016 Date/Status Details: Calgary Hearing Detail:         CO20142249 / HE20150107 It is alleged that you were publicly discourteous or disrespectful to a Commissioner or Tribunal Chair of the Alberta Human Rights Commission and that such conduct is deserving of sanction. It is alleged that your public comments regarding the Alberta Human Rights Commission were inappropriate and unbecoming and that such conduct is deserving of sanction. CO20140632 / HE20150107 It is alleged your public comments regarding the Alberta Human Rights Commission were inappropriate and unbecoming and that such conduct is deserving of sanction.

Some background.  The road to this hearing has been long and winding, passing through Alberta Law Society Appeal Panel.  Their decision was pretty damning:

Bit more background here.  FWIW, the law society website now has Ezra's status as "non-practicing".  Given how often he screws up, you'd  think he would want as much practice as he could get.  He's obviously not very good with this law talking thing.

A Modest Proposal: A Trudeau Government Should Restore Section 13 Of The Canadian Human Rights Act

That's the hate speech provision, which I've written about it at numerous occasions in the past.  The CPC ditched it after a years long smear campaign engineered by white supremacists, Ezra Levant, various scribblers in the press, and a few easily gulled artsy farts.  But the point is--and this should be obvious when you considered the ill-favoured crowd that pushed it--the repeal was never popular. The deed was accomplished via a private member's bill in the dead of night and pundits who had howled for repeal for years suddenly found something else to ruminate over.  And while we may argue over the philosophical underpinnings of any hate-speech law, its worth noting that the concrete misdeeds ascribed to various government agencies in enforcing S13 were fabrications. Furthermore, some of the real weaknesses in the Human Rights Commision/Tribunal system pointed out during the ongoing debate (the possibility of forum shopping among federal and provincial bodies) were fixed at the adiministrative level by the bodies themselves.  So these issues will not likely come up again.

The CPC just ran one of the ugliest campaigns in living memory, and the repeal of S13 gave them a little more rhetorical space to propogate their various hate messages during this campaign.  I would love to watch them try to frame their opposition to a reinstatement; however, I suspect those of those left will cave out of pure embarrassment.  And I would love to watch the punditorcracy shit themselves in blind fury.  Remember, all they've got now are philosophical arguments against, and a few obviously self-serving economic ones like "If we have to live up to standards, we won't be able to publish as much."

Fun times ahead, hopefully.

Federal Election: Thanksgiving Dinner Edition

At the in-laws last evening, dinner never really deteriorated into a discussion of federal politics. However, it appears that the choices have been whittled down to CPC vs. LPC, with the NDP falling out of the equation. They're all longtime liberal-leaners, so I suspect when the final decisions are made it will go that way.  More interesting is the fact that one of father in-law's McDonald's friends says he'll bring PCPO leader Patrick Brown down to a local McDs one day for a chat.  I've put in a call to the Premier's office, to see if Kathleen is willing to come around and clean father in-law's eaves-troughs.  Or at least send around a minister or two to rake his back yard.  You gotta work for folks, or they'll turn on you.

Why Is Kathleen Wynne Running So Hard For LPC?

Because the Ontario Pension Plan is dead otherwise.  Harper has already said he won't cooperate. That means Ontario can't piggy-back everything onto the CPC, then pay the feds a cut to use their infrastructure and manage the money.  Ontario would have to start from scratch, to build a whole parallel bureaucracy.  Expensive and inefficient.  Wynne's most significant campaign commitment depends on a Liberal government taking power in Ottawa.

Harper Hanging With Crazies (ie Andrew Lawton)

Prime Minister Harper went on Andrew Lawton's show?  To bash dark skinned foreigners and liberals? That's a pretty low move, even for this campaign.  Andrew's history of Muzzie baiting can be seen here, for example.  So it looks like Harper is using the Niqab thing to reconnect with his lunatic base. But its interesting that he thinks they need to be given such personal attention at this point in the campaign.  As I've said occasionally in the past, Harper and Co. have made efforts to distance himself from these people in order to be seen as fit to govern  Now suddenly he thinks he needs them all on-side.

The Munk Debate: A Quickie Review

Jt looked fine.  Got in a few zingers, gave quite a good answer when asked about the LPC position on our ISIS mission. In fact he seemed to echo my position, so you know he's thought about it deeply.  Harper did fine.  Or rather, he did what he always does.  To me it's starting to sound like mumbling in bureaucratize; others might see it as evidence of competence.  Mulcair did poor.  His beard looks awful; he sounds oily and arrogant, passive aggressive; hiding an essential unlikableness via vigilant self-medication.  But, though the debate was about as entertaining as it is possible for such things to be, nobody except hardcore polinerds watched.  So it won't matter but to the the extent some of the "zingers" become headlines.  And in that regard our boy did good.

Trudeau Vs. Suzuki: A Brief Note

During the course of a campaign, its always good to prove your center right creds by kicking a few hippies https://t.co/Wdw5WNH7Ts

— Bigcitylib (@Bigcitylib2) September 27, 2015

The Problem With Hosting Trolls

As you can see, The Sun chain of newspapers (now part of Post Media) have decided to kill off the comments section to most of their stories.  But all is not lost!

...we will continue to post our stories, columns and editorials on social media, including Twitter and Facebook, and you will be able to comment on them there as you always have.

In other words, the trolls can still have the cheap seats.   But there may be a problem.  They've apparently tried this before:

Not a surprise, since the non-Sun PM sites did this awhile ago. That said, a few years ago, a similar ban on comments was attempted by the Suns. PKP was all for it. Then the web traffic just cratered.... and comments were allowed again. So it will be interesting to see what occurs since, these days, clicks are all that count.

In other words, while you and I may call them the scum of the Earth,  the sun chain calls them readers and they need 'em to to convince advertisers to place banner ads on their various websites.  So, a conundrum.

Cannibalized From Within: The Fate Of Postmedia?

From The Toronto Sun Family blog:

If you want to glimpse the future, consider LaPresse, which will no longer be publishing weekdays. One paper a week on Saturdays - otherwise, it's all on their tablet app.

Expect similar things in PM along with the merging of various products. Several sections of the Post, for example, are now going to be running within copies of the Edmonton Journal and other PM broadsheets.

The Leap Manifesto: Naomi Klein, Communism, and The Hollywood Hippys

CBC says:

"This is a document that was written collectively," [author Naomi] Klein said, flanked by national indigenous Anglican bishop Mark MacDonald and environmentalist and broadcaster David Suzuki.  Actor Tantoo Cardinal, author Joseph Boyden and newly crowned Mrs.Universe Ashley Callingbull were also at the press conference.

...which is good to know, because the IQ emenating from this document surely reflects some lowest common mental denominator.  And its fucking out there.  Among other things, it proposes a kind of Universal Law of NIMBYISM with respect to energy projects.  In technical language, Klein's bunch are BANANAs.  They write:

The new iron law of energy development must be: if you wouldn’t want it in your backyard, then it doesn’t belong in anyone’s backyard.

...which dictum, if ever followed, would pretty clearly result in no clean energy projects ever being built in Ontario ever again.  Because its not just wind people hate; they bitch about solar, too.  In fact, people will bitch about anything.  Deciding a priori that all their bitches are worthy is ridiculous. The iron law also borders on rejecting the notion that a man, within a certain regulatory framework,should be able to use his property as he sees fit.  That the fate of what was previously considered private land is determined...communally.  Lets just put it that way: communally.

You can't really blame Tom Mulcair for this stink-bomb, though people will anyway, and he has a couple options for dealing with it.  One is silence.  This whole bag of silliness is  an elaborate stunt by Naomi Klein on behalf of her hubby's new film at TIFF.  The controversy will leave town with her and the Hollywood crowd.  Or Mulcair could emulate Bill Clinton when he repudiated Sister Souljah; ie during one of his appearances Mulcair could do the rhetorical equivalent of dragging a hippy on stage and kicking them to death.

Life In Scarborough: A Lost Generation Of Scarborough Youth

Was on the bus today, and listening to a couple of young kids talk about rock music.  One of them wore a Motley Crue t-shirt, out of teenage irony.  Another one thought Alice Cooper was a girl.

These kids are doomed.  You can't get through life with this low degree of cultural knowledge. There's no hope for them other than gangsterism.

In The Internet Age You Have To Watch Your Fringe Candidates

Nothing wrong with this piece.  Candidate fuck-ups are stories finished in a day.  But of course, as Tim Powers notes, you lose that day's news-cycle. There's a way to think of it in economic terms; the money you spent that day to get your message out has gone up the flue.  So when someone like Jago greases a Tory, you can measure what it cost the campaign in cold hard cash.  "Winning the debate" is nice.  Making them bleed money is better.

The Story Of Gerry Bance

From Canadian Cincinnatus, some background:

I attended the Conservative nomination meeting, which was held this spring, in order to support my favoured candidate, Paul Egli, a retired and distinguished businessman. In the contested nomination flight, Egli sold about three hundred memberships and felt pretty good about himself. In contrast, Bance sold over a thousand memberships and most of them showed up that night to vote for him. Egli was buried. The attendance at nomination meeting was bigger than at any nomination meeting I have ever attended – by an order of magnitude.

Gerry Bance, you see, is that character that should be familiar to anybody who has ever been involved in riding-level politics: the ethnic fixer, somebody who wields mysterious power over the people in his own ethnic community. In a democracy where the guiding principle is one man, one vote, somebody who can mobilize a thousand voters out to a nomination meeting is a powerful man indeed. Gerry Bance is (or was) such a man in the Tamil community.

More through the link.

Another Day Spent Off-Message

Conservative candidate Jerry Bance was caught on CBC-TV's Marketplace in 2012 urinating in a homeowner's coffee mug and dumping the contents into the sink.

I'm betting the guy gets sacked by dawn and Harper takes no questions during tomorrow's GTA visit.

PS.  This guy apparently ran for CPC previously.  They've been in power 9 years and this is the kind of talent they attract in T.O.

Life In Scarborough: Scarborough Monday Nights

Stuck waiting for my wife t'other night, I hung around the Markham/Eglinton bus stop. The parking lot of our local Metro turns into the neighborhood meeting spot after dark.  Guys toting Goodlife bags get on and off the bus in steady streams, coming and going from the nearby gym and saying hello to one another as they pass at the stop.  There's a long bench against a big stone planter between the stop and the Beer Store where old Sri Lankan men gather on hot afternoons to drink tall-cans under  planted shrubs.  Now they have been joined by rough local kids of various racial persuasions, and an old hippy in the wheel chair who keeps his beer in the side-pocket, and a scrawny old rocker chick who is passed out on the grass when I get there, but who wakes  20 minutes later, sits up, and is welcomed back to consciousness with cheerful hellos from the gathered rummies. This is a Monday night before 9 pm, mind you.

Quote Of The Day

Not about polls or the lousy economy, but newsworthy nevertheless:

“...as  Christian business owners, our personal beliefs will not allow our conscience the freedom to work with a labour union, as we are required by scripture to ‘live peaceably with all men’ and not to use force to gain what we want or for what is required to succeed.”

First a union, then armed conflict...

On The Theory Of The "Sleeping Electorate"

From ONW's Susanna Kelly:

Most people take two, perhaps three weeks vacation a year.

That means that for all the other summer weeks, they're back at work, starting the day as usual by listening to newscasts in their car during commutes, spending lots of time on their computers and Internet-rigged up (CHANGE) devices and chatting around the water cooler - just like they do the rest of the year.

On top of that, even if they are at the cottage, many of those same cottages have now been equipped with the Internet.

And there are fewer and fewer people who live in rural Canada, making their living by working the soil in relative isolation.

So the idea that many people haven't heard of, or heard much of, the Duffy trial is pretty unlikely.

It was the lead story on Internet, television and radio newscasts as well as on newspapers' front pages for many days.

And even if, as is the case with many in the electorate, they only remember the headlines, those very headlines have been very damaging.

I'm about half-ready to buy this.  Today's Forum poll suggest's that the Duffy trial has had a major negative effect on CPC numbers, though these are supposed to be the dog days.  But of course that's only Forum.  There will, however, be an EKOS poll tomorrow and Frank Graves is hinting at some pretty interesting results:

@Mikercorcoran @coreydahl nope. And some real movement. Duffy definitely registering.

— Frank Graves (@VoiceOfFranky) August 26, 2015

So there you have it.

Robert Jago Soldiers On

I think Robert and I were the first two bloggers in Canadian history to force a candidate to step down for things they'd said  on the Internet.  But in '08 Robert only scored one Green (for anti-Semitic comments, I think); whereas I nailed a Tory, a Dipper, and a Tory campaign official.  That's why I've got part of an exhibit devoted to me in the Museum of Civilization and Robert doesn't.

As usual, the Yankees were ahead of us by a decade.  In 1996 one of Bob Dole's campaign staffers had to step down when he and his wife were found to have participated in a listserv for swingers, if I remember it correctly.  Anyway, I've not got time to put the detective work in these days, but Jago is still at it.  He's greased one or two Tories already this cycle, and is promising that there's more to come.

 This is his latest.  Keep an eye on his blog.   By the end of election 2015, someone might owe Robert a Senate appointment.

Coming To An Attack Near You

To go with this.  Not a good day for the CPC campaign.

Not A Communist: Tom & Maggie

Actually this doesn't look bad on him.  Equivalent to finding out that Harper once played drums in a Hendrix cover band (he didn't).  Not sure there was any reason for the campaign to even formally address a clip that old unless they figured it worked in their favor.  And it does; if Tom secretly dug Thatcher  he can't be that bad, some might think. I imagine any real problem will come from the party base.  Mulcair has the delicate task of convincing the nation that the NDP's not  communist anymore while assuring the faithful that it still is.