September 8, 2003
As a self-professed "consensus builder", Toronto mayoral hopeful Barbara Hall makes a good bully.
How else to explain the Hall campaign’s unsuccessful "bullying tactics" on the small but brave Town Crier group of community newspapers?
A Hall campaign worker took umbrage with a Town Crier reporter’s use of the word "investigation" in reference to the process that will follow the formal complaint of Ontario Municipal Elections Act contraventions, lodged against the Friends of Barbara Hall campaign.
When Town Crier editors stood their ground on their reporter’s use of the word "investigation", the Hall campaign worker voiced a complaint about the newspaper’s publishing of a Hall quote from an all-candidates mayoral debate, last June.
If there was an issue with the Barbara Hall quotes in the June story, why were there no complaints voiced until August?
Nor did anyone with the Barbara Hall campaign ever get back to Town Crier editors as had been indicated at the time of the story complaint.
A copy of the Town Crier story from the mayoral debate was part of the package, including a six-page complaint filed before a local Justice of the Peace by mayoral candidate Tom Jakobek.
Town Crier editors, who continue to stand by their story, will not be bullied.
Meanwhile, Hall’s image as a consensus builder seems to be crumbling.
Hall’s public pronouncement that she found it "embarrassing to share a public platform" with Tom Jakobek offended more than her intended victim. Jakobek is not a murderer or a child molester, he’s Hall’s political opponent.
The public tongue-lashing did not square with Hall’s claim to consensus builder status.
Not only were other mayoral candidates turned off by Hall, her remarks cost her the endorsement of previous supporters.
"It finished her for me," wrote Toronto Sun columnist Peter Worthington. "And even if her "friends" raising money for her is not ruled a violation of the Elections Act, it is still unseemly."
When Hall made her "embarrassed to share a public platform" comment, she was reading word-for-word from a note passed to her, by her husband, former Ontario Place General Manager Max Beck.
Mayoral candidate John Tory happened to be sitting next to Hall on the platform when Beck passed her the note. "I was bowled over when instead of making her own comments, she merely mouthed what appeared to have been written on the note," Tory told Toronto Free Press editor Judi McLeod.
Hall did little for her image as a feminist, by docilely reading out the words of a note passed to her by her husband.
In defending herself against the alleged Elections Act contraventions, Hall has reiterated that she had maintained "an arm’s length" relationship with the Friends of Barbara Hall group. The group raised $107,598 between June and December of 2002 from 638 individuals and companies--a full six months before Hall registered as a candidate on Jan. 2 of 2003.
Not only did Hall herself contribute to Friends; at least one newspaper editor told TFP he has retained a Hall card, with a Friends of Barbara Hall email address.
That’s arm’s length?
Hall’s verbal complaint about being embarrassed to share a public platform with Jakobek was vicious.
There were some that said she would live to regret the vicious remarks.
Within days of the formal complaint lodged against Friends, National Post municipal affairs columnist Don Wanagas began his column with the words: "People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones."
Given the charge against her, the words in a Friends of Barbara Hall letter, dated November 11, 2002 are ironic…"After more than a decade in public life, it’s clear that Barbara Hall is not one to play fast and loose with the public’s trust--or with public resources."
Then there’s the Sept. 12. 2002 letter sent out over the signature of Hall’s former city hall executive assistant George Smitherman, now a Toronto Centre-Rosedale Liberal MPP; the letter accepted by a Justice of the Peace as partial grounds for an investigation into alleged violations of the elections act…"Dear Paul, As a confirmed supporter of Barbara Hall, I am writing to ask you to sign on as a Captain for a covert operation that will be an important indicator of public support for Barbara’s candidacy."
Toronto Free Press broke the story of the Smitherman letter last January.
A news communiqué on Friends of Barbara Hall letterhead, dated September 2002 touts Hall as "a clear frontrunner in a Toronto Sun poll."
"Barbara Hall’s lead was particularly strong among women, where she led Lastman 34 percent to 22 percent," stated the communiqué.
When Hall ran against Mel Lastman in 1997 megacity elections, she portrayed herself as a defender of poverty-stricken single mothers, and gave the impression she was a woman of humble means.
"According to documentation in a corporate search, obtained by then Our Toronto Free Press, Max Beck, one of five shareholders in Redonda Sea Farms, British Columbia’s largest producer of oysters, is, in private, a wealthy man," OTFP wrote in a January 1997 cover story.
"Redonda, famous for its brand of Fanny bay oysters has 75 employees, and an annual sales range in the $5-6-million bracket."
Beck is listed as a director of Fanny Bay Oysters Inc., amalgamated with Redonda Sea Farms Ltd. to the present day.
If Hall’s September 8 (As of posting the judge as reserved the decision until Sept. 19) court date leads to a probe into contraventions of the Ontario Election Act by the Friends of Barbara Hall, it will be Barbara Hall who will be an embarrassment to the Toronto mayoral candidate platform.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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