July 28, 2003
"Where did all the tourists go?" is the question defining Toronto in the summer of 2003. Babyboomer Liberals MP Dennis Mills and Senator Jerry Grafstein have been out there trying to "Woodstock" T.O. Add to this state of affairs the twin threats of SARS and West Nile virus, and who’s going to notice that there’s a municipal election campaign underway? With the local restaurant, bar and hotel industries still hanging tough, there’s more sizzle coming from the backyard barbecue than from the mayoral campaign.
Mayoral candidates Barbara Hall, David Miller, Tom Jakobek, John Tory and John Nunziata are showing up for occasional debates in economically plagued Toronto. While you may be more concerned about just surviving summer in the city, municipal politicians have been getting downright personal as they duke it out on the hustings.
Hall, whose political career brought more subsidized co-op housing to the city than any other living politician, keeps playing her "Tom is a liar" card.
The fib is a prime trump card in the repertoire of most contemporary politicians, and ex-budget chief Tom Jakobek isn’t the only liar in this posse.
During one of the most recent of the mayoral debates, Coun. David Miller confronted Hall in North Toronto about the creation of the Friends of Barbara Hall committee.
Not only did a staffed Yonge Street campaign office spring up with the creation of the committee, it was up and running long before Hall, a former mayor, bothered to get herself down to City Hall to register as a mayoral candidate.
(Toronto Free Press broke the Friends of Barbara Hall story back in April).
"Fundraising before you’re a candidate is wrong," Coun. David Miller told Hall. "It’s a clear contravention of the (municipal) act."
Hall went on the defence.
"I got advice as to whether it was possible to raise money to do some polling to determine whether it made sense for me to run," she said.
Notice the former mayor never did deny collecting money before she was registered--a clear contravention of the Ontario Municipal Elections Act.
At the same debate, mayoral candidate John Tory got in on the act by informing Hall she should be prepared to release information on the donors and the amounts--including how the money raised was spent.
Hall retorted: "It’s certainly my intention."
Problem is that there is no way that voters will be privy to that information unless a citizen or individuals force Hall to divulge it through the Ontario Municipal Elections Act.
The Friends of Barbara Hall Committee would have had to operate without Hall’s participation. It did not, and that’s exactly what Hall admitted in North Toronto.
Due to the ongoing, taxpayer-paid, expensive MFP computer lease inquiry, lies and City Hall corruption have been the bedrock of mayoral candidates campaigning for Toronto’s vote.
Misfortunes such as SARS have damaged Toronto’s economy to the tune of billions of dollars and have thrown thousands of decent hotel and restaurant workers out of work. Wouldn’t you think mayoral candidates would have more to talk about than accusing City Hall of being corrupt?
There is no doubt that raising money before registering as a candidate would fall under anyone’s Big Lie Category.
Before the mayoral campaign heats up, let’s look at how the other mayoral candidates fit in the B. L. Category.
City of Toronto election regulations dictate that politicians can not use staff paid for by city taxpayer dollars in their re-election campaigns.
Back in 2002, Michael Booth, head of David Miller’s constituency office, registered the Internet domain name www.millerformayor.ca in breach of city election rules.
This is what will be found by any taking the trouble to look it up:
Whoismillerformayor.ca
Domain millerformayor.ca
Status: EXIST
Organization: MICHAEL BOOTH
Date approved: 2002/02/17
Last changed: 2002/11/05
Renewal date: 2004/02/17
Registrar: Webnames.ca (UBC Research Enterprises Inc.)
Description:
DNS1: ns1 fitcanada.com
DNS2: ns2.fitcanada.com
Administrative Contact: MICHAEL BOOTH
Did mayoral hopeful New Democratic Party (NDP) spendthrift David Miller, a lawyer by profession, not know that election regulations bar taxpayer-paid staff from working for re-election campaigns, or did he think he could get away with breaking this rule?
It was Miller who saddled taxpayers with an inquiry into a multi-million dollar computer lease scandal that is gobbling many millions more from the public purse--after a full-scale Ontario Provincial Police probe came up empty.
Next in the Big Lie Category comes The-Man-Who’s-trying-to-buy-the-mayoralty candidate John Tory, media-dubbed, "the cable guy."
The cable guy, anointed candidate of long-term, backroom municipal powerbrokers Blue Jays President Paul Godfrey and lawyer Ralph Lean, has not had much to say out on the hustings about the MFP computer lease scandal.
Nor should he. When the computer lease was signed, a guy called Mel Lastman was mayor. The cable guy was Lastman’s campaign chair for his last two elections. And that’s not even counting how when Tory ran Kim Campbell for prime minister, he left Canada in locked-in, hopeless, one-party state status.
Ex-budget chief Tom Jakobek lied to the media about being on an airplane taking him to Philadelphia for a playoff hockey game, and admitted he lied under testimony at the MFP inquiry. The media was miffed; Barbara Hall, her personal friends NDP Councillors Kyle Rae and Howard Moscoe were outraged. But were John and Josephine Q. Public?
Thus far, with Toronto teetering on the verge of a major fiscal disaster, Jakobek is the only candidate in the mayoral race who has a solid plan to get this city out from under its $2-billion debt. (Readers don’t have to take the word of Toronto Free Press for that. The Toronto Sun’s Sue-Ann Levy was first to acknowledge it).
A man called Harold Perry arranged the flight to Philadelphia for Jakobek.
Perry is the boss of anti-city hall corruption mayoral candidate John Nunziata. Nunziata works for Perry’s firm Mandrake as a lobbyist.
Nunziata is a Liberal making like a right-wing candidate and brother to Coun. Frances Nunziata. Some pundits say Nunziata’s presence in the race all but guarantees the election of a left-wing mayor by splitting the vote against any right-wing candidates.
There you have mayoral candidates assessed in the TFP Big Lie Category.
Politicians have been known to resort to lies--particularly when they’re wooing the vote. Who, among the current crop of candidates for Toronto mayor has never told a whopper?
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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