Caviar Socialist No. 1, Ottawa’s million-dollar couple, Jack Layton and Olivia Chow
The name on Canadian NDP (read Socialist) leader Jack Layton’s birth certificate is ‘John’. And the only way voters ever got to know that was because Layton was a literal John when Toronto police found him naked as a jaybird in a ‘massage parlour’ in Toronto’s Chinatown. (Exercising says his NDP politician wife Olivia Chow).
Until the Toronto Sun drummed it back up, that was 15 years ago and he wasn’t charged by police but sent back home on his signature bicycle.
Jack Layton is proponent Numero Uno, Caviar Socialist Number 1, in the story of How the Left Was Won to become the ugly underbelly that all but dominates Canadian politics.
Far more important than the ‘massage’ which Smilin’ Jack--now ‘surging’ at the polls as likely Opposition Leader in Monday’s federal election--is the little discussed fact that Layton has milked the Canadian taxpayer for generations.
Like proverbial fleas on the backside of a dog, Layton, his family and friends, have lived on the avails of the Canadian public purse for most of their lives.
Layton, who spent his salad days as a radical Toronto city councillor, is married to Olivia Chow, former school board trustee and city councillor before being elected to serve as a Member of Parliament for Trinity-Spadina.
Until the feisty Toronto Sun unearthed the Layton ‘Massage Parlour’ story this weekend, it was something police joked about, the day when, standing there in his birthday suit, Layton had to admit to an investigating officer that John and Jack Layton were “one and the same”.
But the story of Jack Layton scandals goes well beyond being caught sans culottes in a ‘massage’ parlour.
Layton and Chow were caught living in the taxpayer-subsidized Hazelburn Co-op in the early ‘90s. A group of single mothers who picketed the co-op every day with ghetto blasters playing the song, Hit the Road Jack forced the issue long enough to drive him out, though Smilin’ Jack will contend that he left voluntarily.
When the Conservative provincial government of the day was debating who should rightfully be living in taxpayer-subsidized co-ops, the rally call was changed to “Housing for the Needy, Not the Greedy”, something that has stuck to Smiling Jack tar-and-feather-fashion for those who never forgot the hypocrisy of Hazelburn.
When they were living in the co-op with Chow’s mother, the combined annual income of Layton and Chow was $120,000. The rent on their 3-bedroom apartment was $880 per month.
The total salary of Canada’s most notorious couple is $369,156, a combination of Layton’s $211,425 salary as NDP leader and wife Olivia’s $157,731 as an MP. Both Laytons also collect municipal pensions from their days as councillors.
For Canada, this has been an unending family affair. Layton’s son, Michael was elected as a Toronto councillor last December.
Toronto’s only communist councillor, Paula Fletcher, re-elected in December, rode Layton’s coat-tails in the 2003 municipal election.
These days the Toronto Star-dubbed “Ottawa’s million-dollar couple” lives in a $2,000-a-month apartment just steps from Parliament Hill.
“Like other MPs from outside the National Capital Region, the couple is entitled to charge for their accommodation, meals while traveling and maintaining a constituency office. Chow’s expenses tallied $530,304.73 and Layton’s was $628,913.68.”
Like the far left who long ago seized the moral high ground to lecture the masses, Jack Layton has long been a progressive hypocrite.
When Our Toronto, the forerunner to Canada Free Press (CFP), launched its premier issue back in 1991, it featured a front page cartoon of Layton climbing into a chauffeur-driven city limousine with the bicycle he always used for photo ops strapped to the limo’s back. The cartoon limo’s license plate read: “Caviar Socialist No. 1”.
Anti-American to the core, Layton once led a protest against the Toronto docking of the USS Oliver Hazard Perry because as then Toronto Mayor Art Eggleton said, it was equipped to carry nuclear weapons.
Jack of all trades and Master of Publicity, Layton was an expert in communication long before the Internet.
Cheering Layton on election night will be Barack Obama. Both Layton and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff (media dubbed “Iggy”) relate to Obama. Ignatieff was only trained by Obama former economic advisor Larry Summers and calls Samantha Power married to Obama czar Cass Sunstein, friend, while Layton basks in the handle of “the Obama of Canada”.
During the last time Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper was preparing to call an election, Smilin’ Jack was in Denver.
“Democrats here are talking about the same kind of change we’re talking about in Canada,” said Layton. “Whether it’s real action on climate change, forging trade policies that work for working families or standing up for jobs and better health care, there’s a real desire here to put the concerns of the kitchen table ahead of the boardroom table.”
It’s ironic that until Layton surged ahead in this election that the majority of Canadians could afford to ignore him.
Ignoring the low-in-polls Socialist was so obvious even to his own party, that one of the NDP’s Quebec candidates was vacationing in Las Vegas instead of campaigning, another was spending last week in the Caribbean and yet another was planning to be in France on election day. (Les MacPherson, The StarPhoenix, April 30, 2011).
Layton’s surge in the polls does prove a few good things--most especially that Summers and Powers notwithstanding, Liberal Ignatieff has plummeted down, down, down.
Now that Canadians are being forced to take Layton seriously rather than make fun of him, Jack Layton stands before them--stark naked.
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