DAVID MENZIES ｜ Toronto mayoral byelection： Winners, losers and the future of the city
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Summary
There are winners and losers in the Toronto mayoral election. The big winner is Olivia Chow, the big loser is the City of Toronto, the city s Tory party, and all the candidates who finished below her in a field of 101 candidates.
Transcript
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Tonight, post-Toronto Meralty Race, there are winners and there are losers.
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The big loser, the City of Toronto and Conservatives.
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I'm David Menzies and this is The Ezra Levent Show.
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As with any election, such as last Monday's Toronto Meralty by-election, there are winners and there are losers.
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Obviously, the ultimate winner on Monday was comrade Olivia Chow, garnering 37.17% of the vote.
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Alas, my feeling is that the ultimate loser is, well, the City of Toronto,
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which might end up being unrecognizable under three years of Chow's rule, but more on that later.
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The other losers, of course, are all those who finished below Chow,
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and that is a list comprised of a staggering 101 candidates.
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Sorry, folks, I almost said 101 Dalmatians there.
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Please forgive me, especially given that one of the candidates was actually a dog, Molly, who belongs to Toby Heaps.
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And 83 human candidates don't have to imagine that because they did actually finish behind that mutt.
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That's a list that even includes Selina Cesar Chavanis, who was once upon a time a Liberal member of Parliament.
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Check out this classic encounter she had with my former colleague, Kian Bexty.
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I just, I really have nothing good to say to the rebel.
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So I'm not sure why you're entertaining this line of questioning, but you could go ahead.
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Just wondering if you forgive someone who verbally assaulted you.
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Ouch rhymes with witch, but at least she did stand up to Prime Minister Blackface later on.
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Two candidates, Jack Wienan and Daniel Ermja, finished second last and dead last with 30 votes and 27 votes respectively.
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You know what that works out to in terms of voter percentage, folks?
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That's right, getting less than 38 votes in a field of 1.9 million eligible voters.
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Well, that doesn't even qualify as a rounding error, folks.
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And poor Mr. Ermja, do you reckon he's still dwelling on the fact that if he had only garnered four more votes,
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he would have overtaken Mr. Wienan for 101st place as opposed to settling for 102nd place?
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Little wonder stand-up comedian Ben Bankis decided to run.
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And the funny man received 203 votes for those keeping score at home.
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And I think the question that we have right now, and now is the time for choosing,
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is whether or not people want Toronto to continue this sort of decline direction it's heading in,
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And if you'd like that, I guess vote for Ms. Chow.
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And running as someone who, you know, I know the issues, I know the files, but I'm something of an outsider.
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I believe I'm the guy to step in and shake things up just enough to make the streets safer,
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better, more affordable for all Toronto families.
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But back to Chow, who was indeed successful in securing the mayor's chair
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in a campaign that was seemingly modelled after Joe Biden's successful presidential run in 2020,
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which is to say Chow did not have many press events,
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and seldom did she take questions after debates.
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I went to several debates to scrum her outside the venue, but she was like Batman.
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But apparently name recognition and having the backing of several unions
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was good enough for the leftist Chow to become mayor,
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receiving about 34,000 votes more than the second-place finisher, that would be Anna Bailao.
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Then again, most of the lamestream media folk are no doubt happy with that result, too.
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They are cheerleaders for the likes of Biden and Chow.
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Barely a media report went by without noting that
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Olivia was the daughter of impoverished immigrants coming to Canada for a better life,
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which is true, but lost in that narrative was how Chow and her late husband,
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former NDP leader Jack Layton, actually lived in subsidised housing in Toronto in the early 90s,
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even though both of them were making six-figure salaries.
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Oh, by the way, don't get the wrong idea, folks.
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Residents of Hogtown, especially those who own homes,
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better brace themselves for what is to come in the months ahead.
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I fear my beloved hometown of Toronto is the big loser.
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Trontonians can likely expect even more gridlock with Chow's plan to add some extra 200 kilometres of bike lanes.
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In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Chow, who actually brags about not having a driver's licence,
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if she doesn't tear it down, that is, which was one of her campaign promises.
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Trontonians can also expect more so-called safe injection sites.
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And Chow will most likely turn a blind eye to parks becoming encampments
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for hobos, misfits, and various social justice warriors.
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Remember that sordid scene we encountered in the summer of 2020
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when Dufferin Grove Park was occupied by, well, lunatics?
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Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am. I'm just reading your breasts.
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because you don't want to hear the difference in the game.
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It's not even the news of this footage anymore.
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Get out of here. Get out. Get out. Get out of my face.
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If you have white skin, you're always occupying every f***ing space in this f***ing street.
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Because you don't want to answer our questions.
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Toronto has the potential to become Portland North.
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Check out this excerpt from a CBN News report entitled,
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A Progressive Experiment That Has Gone Colossally Bad.
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This report depicts post-World War II Portland,
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when it truly took off as the West Coast embodiment of the American dream.
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the city of Portland is now an American nightmare.
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The citizens of Portland attend many fine churches.
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a viral video shows a man using drugs in front of a child.
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a man beat someone with a golf club in front of this Portland restaurant.
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The nervous owners then offered the attacker hot coffee,
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Our business has been vandalized over half a dozen times.
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Walmart and Cracker Barrel are part of a wave of businesses
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Indeed, Toronto is already bad enough in the here and now.
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The city of my birth was described by Peter Ustinov in 1987
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Today's version of Hogtown is no longer the Toronto Mr. Ustinov
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And indeed, what are the priorities of Toronto City Council today
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How about, oh, I don't know, spending tens of millions of dollars
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to rename Dundas Street in order to send a woke message
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Oh, to own a DeLorean DMC-12 with that uber-rare flux capacitor option.
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Of course, Olivia Chow has been out of politics for many years.
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She's not responsible for the Toronto of today.
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That dubious achievement award belongs to one of the biggest losers
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namely the fake conservative that is John Tory.
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Tory resigned in February because it turned out
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he was having an extramarital affair with City Hall staffer Emily Hilstrom.
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Personally, I think Tory cheating on his wife was a sidebar issue in this scandal.
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Tory's biggest sin, rather, was the hypocrisy he displayed during the COVID-19 years.
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We were all ordered to wear useless face diapers.
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Mom-pa businesses were told to close their doors
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or endure a visit from all the king's horses and all the king's men.
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But not the big guys ranging from Walmart to the LCBO, mind you.
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Or maybe it was a matter of membership has its privileges,
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as the old American Express tagline used to go.
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And of course, we were endlessly told to socially distance, you know,
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to avoid the transmission of those COVID cooties.
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And then there were those ridiculous COVID-19 circles
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And Mayor Tory, like all the other Pfizer cheerleaders out there,
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In some cases, you had to get the jab or, well, lose your job.
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The ostensible policy reason for all this temporary tyranny,
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John Tory himself was horizontally jogging with Hillstrom,
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Hey, I guess the heart wants what the heart wants.
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But can someone please explain how social distancing is achieved
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when, you know, you are so close to a subordinate
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that the end result is the exchange of bodily fluids?
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And yet, he turned out to be the biggest COVID-19 etiquette violator of them all.
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And naturally, Tory broke his promise not to interfere with the by-election
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But alas, an election is not nuclear war or a game of horseshoes.
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It reminds me of the sales contest depicted in the classic movie,
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one best not give Bailau the keys to any kind of vehicle.
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I don't ever recall Ford getting behind the wheel,
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No insensitive nor impolite questions for Diorana,
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who I imagine is still crying in her Chardonnay,
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At least let's all pray that she now has an Uber account.
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Another loser from Monday is that perennial political loser,
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for everything this guy touches turns to shite.
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Why are your henchmen campaigning for Mark Saunders?
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previously said he would not endorse anyone for mayor.
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they don't call Dougie flip-flop Ford for nothing.
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By the way, Saunders finished a distant third on Monday.
00:17:02.360
You want to know another big winner that emerged on Election Day?
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Only 38% of Torontonians chose to cast a ballot.
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That was actually a 9% increase compared to the turnout at Toronto's municipal election last fall,
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I don't get how people are not motivated to vote for those who will be directly affecting their lives.
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It reminds me of that lyric from the Jackson Browne song, Lawyers in Love.
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Yeah, too many people fall into this category, I think.
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all the while completely oblivious to the world around them.
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And by the way, for all of you who habitually do not vote,
00:18:15.980
yet then go on to complain about everything the government does that affects your lives,
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I'm speaking about not fixing potholes to implementing carbon taxes.
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Well, allow me to present one of Dwayne Johnson's best lines.
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As you sit your ass at that announcer booth, you take off your headset and you don't say a word.
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And I quote, you know your damn role and shut your damn mouth.
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Yet, it should be noted voter apathy is not merely a municipal phenomenon.
00:19:01.580
Consider last year's provincial election in Ontario.
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You know, the June election that delivered the Ford PCs a so-called supermajority?
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Well, crunch the numbers and you'll find that only 17% of Ontarians actually voted for the PCs.
00:19:23.040
Full disclosure, in the past two provincial and federal elections,
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I did not vote for the provincial progressive conservatives nor the federal conservatives.
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Friends ask me, why did I abandon the PCs and the conservatives?
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And I tell them nothing could be further from the truth, for it was these political parties who abandoned me.
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Case in point, my spidey senses were tingling mightily back in 2018 when Doug Ford was newly installed as the head of the PCs.
00:19:57.380
That's because he dropped Tanya Granik-Allen as a PC candidate.
00:20:08.440
At the PC convention, she steered her votes toward Ford, paving the path for his victory.
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She should have been installed as a cabinet minister in the government that would come later.
00:20:19.960
Instead, some ancient insensitive tweets that the left branded as Islamophobic emerged.
00:20:26.960
And Ford, who once spoke out against cancel culture, well, he now embraces cancel culture.
00:20:37.940
Look at the cancel culture existing right now on the lawns of Queen's Park,
00:20:42.540
where the Sir John A. McDonald statue remains entombed in a makeshift coffin
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with a garbage bag wrapped around his head, just in case the sight of our first prime minister
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triggers unhinged members of Antifa or Black Lives Matter.
00:21:01.840
But with Granik-Allen, not only did Ford show that he was suddenly down with cancel culture,
00:21:12.980
Check out the social media postings of the current PC MPP for Carlton.
00:21:21.540
She used to post rancid, hateful messages on social media under the alias The Persian Cat.
00:21:38.880
So get over it and stop advertising your religion.
00:21:51.840
Golly, I wonder what the political fallout would be if one were to replace Jesus with Muhammad
00:22:00.860
And would the PC party still be going to bat for Miss Gamere in such a scenario?
00:22:06.360
But as our head honcho cherry cheesecake eating enthusiast proved endlessly during the pandemic,
00:22:15.260
it's apparently one rule for thee and one rule for me.
00:22:21.320
A key plank of the PCs was to undo the grotesque sex ed curriculum of the McGuinty-Winn liberals.
00:22:29.760
Instead, under Ontario's milquetoast minister of education, Stephen Lecce,
00:22:36.280
the sex ed component has become immeasurably worse.
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We now have drag queen performances at schools and even pornography in school libraries,
00:22:48.760
with books featuring themes ranging from pedophilia to incest.
00:22:54.360
And if you dare don a t-shirt proclaiming there are only two genders,
00:23:03.200
Meanwhile, several boards now routinely lock out parents from attending school board meetings.
00:23:11.100
The question arises, is Lecce too scared to do anything?
00:23:15.760
Or does he actually approve of such radicalism?
00:23:24.660
And really, folks, what is one to think of this supposed conservative government?
00:23:29.700
After all, Ford himself turned on the grassroots members of Ford Nation during the pandemic,
00:23:38.460
merely for standing up to draconian mandates that were taking away their freedoms,
00:23:46.180
Mind you, business was booming at Ford's Deco Labo's company,
00:23:51.060
for there was such great demand for all those COVID-19 warning signs
00:23:56.080
and those floor arrows during the coronavirus hysteria.
00:24:01.360
Still, one thing has become crystal clear these past five years,
00:24:05.200
contrary to popular belief, Doug Ford is not Rob Ford.
00:24:10.920
Rob was genuine while Doug is so giddy to be premier
00:24:14.340
that he is totally willing to be led around by the nose
00:24:18.440
by those in his inner circle who are actually liberals in conservative clothing.
00:24:25.340
Suffice to say, count me among the 83% of Interians
00:24:30.480
who are not buying what the Ford PCs are selling.
00:24:35.200
As for the Federal Conservative Party of Canada,
00:24:39.360
what did we see happen these past two federal elections?
00:24:44.200
Well, Andrew Scheer is a nice guy, and we all know where nice guys finish,
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especially when handlers tell them to shun the independent press
00:24:56.700
which, of course, hates the Conservative Party.
00:25:03.540
But Mr. Scheer resembles Sir Winston Churchill compared to Aaron O'Toole,
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had he stayed the course in the 2021 federal election,
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as opposed to doing a colossal flip-flop midway through the campaign,
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suddenly professing his love for carbon taxes and a gun grab.
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O'Toole's legacy is condemning Canada to be lorded over by blackface for several more years.
00:25:41.720
apparently seeking affirmation from anyone who would listen
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Speaking of losers, I have one more for my list,
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For perhaps someone like me in Canada in this year of 2023
00:26:13.660
someone who wants a leader who says what he means and means what he says.
00:26:17.320
But maybe Canada, when it comes to the municipal, provincial, and federal levels,
00:26:27.340
Maybe the indoctrination tactics embraced by the education system
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and the public sector unions and the mainstream media,
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Maybe someone such as yours truly is about as relevant as a dinosaur
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The province is ruled by progressive Conservatives
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who are far more progressive than they are Conservative.
00:27:03.020
As for the federal government under the blackface Liberals,
00:27:13.180
At least for those who reside in Eastern Canada,
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choosing between the far left or leftists pretending to be Conservatives,
00:27:32.900
I think of that great scene from The Dark Knight Rises
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in which Commissioner Gordon tries to convince Detective John Blake
00:27:40.860
to reconsider his resignation from the Gotham City Police Department.
00:27:46.320
But Blake, well, he remains so utterly disillusioned
00:27:53.460
that changing his mind is now an impossibility.
00:28:06.280
You know what you said about structures becoming shackles.
00:28:09.280
You were right, and I can't take it to injustice.
00:28:16.780
The current Conservative leader, Pierre Polyevre is certainly saying all the right things,
00:28:24.120
be it defunding the CBC or standing up for gun owners' rights
00:28:41.520
Polyev committed a terrible fumble a few months ago
00:28:44.580
when he unfairly denounced German politician and freedom fighter Christine Anderson.
00:28:50.640
Hey, the not-so-dynamic duo of liberal dirty trickster Warren Kinsella
00:28:59.280
Well, evidently, they convinced the Conservative leader to smear Anderson
00:29:10.660
blackface was shaking hands with a bonafide Holocaust denier overseas,
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something the trained SEALs and the mainstream media chose to completely ignore.
00:29:21.160
I know many freedom fighters abandoned Polyevre over the Anderson fiasco.
00:29:28.060
In the months leading up to the next federal election,
00:29:40.620
Whether the next federal election is later this year or next year or in 2025,
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Can we really afford to have a Marxist in power in Ontario's largest city
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and a phony Conservative running Canada's largest province
00:30:06.940
and yet another term for the scandal-plagued Liberals running what's left of our great dominion?
00:30:16.100
Because should the blackface tyranny continue as we head into the next decade,
00:30:22.540
I truly believe people like me are indeed contemporary dinosaurs,
00:30:28.760
people who really need to plan our exit strategies.
00:30:34.180
Bottom line, Costa Rica is looking pretty good these days.
00:30:39.000
Well, folks, last Monday's Toronto mayoralty by-election,
00:30:55.300
With a staggering 102 candidates vying for the mayor's chair,
00:31:02.900
well, like any election, there are winners and there are losers.
00:31:07.160
The big winner, of course, is Olivia Chow for prevailing.
00:31:11.260
But one must wonder, given Olivia Chow's socialist leanings,
00:31:17.260
given her tax and spend ways, is the big loser the city of Toronto itself?
00:31:25.440
And joining me now from True North is the former Toronto Sun columnist
00:31:30.000
for many decades who covered City Hall brilliantly,
00:31:43.140
Well, I guess, Sue Ann, the first thing is, with Monday's result,
00:31:51.220
No, actually what came as a surprise to me was Anna Bios,
00:31:55.400
the fact that she did so well, and that for a while,
00:32:00.580
I would say probably a half an hour, when the results came in,
00:32:06.380
And, you know, although I'm not a huge fan of Anna Bios,
00:32:09.900
she would have been a heck of a lot better than Olivia Chow.
00:32:27.020
I hope we don't see some of the predictions emerge of people saying,
00:32:41.800
I mean, she's all about more so-called safe injection sites.
00:32:47.720
We know she won't do anything about homeless people camping in public parks.
00:32:58.000
So, get ready for yet more bike lanes, i.e. more congestion.
00:33:06.740
Is she going to be more moderate than we think she shall be?
00:33:14.520
She promised during the campaign, one of the few promises that she actually managed to etch out,
00:33:20.540
she promised 200 kilometers more bike lanes in the next, well, she said four years,
00:33:27.960
And she didn't mention one word about crime in her whole platform.
00:33:32.020
So, it's like crime doesn't exist in Toronto while it escalates.
00:33:36.960
Fueled, I believe, by the drug trade, she's a strong proponent of safe injection sites, as you said,
00:33:44.700
and a strong proponent of enabling, you know, the lawless to remain lawless.
00:33:57.320
You know, Sue Ann, 200 more kilometers of bike lanes, I mean,
00:34:03.720
where is she going to put some of those bike lanes on the Garner Expressway?
00:34:08.060
She also promised she's going to tear that down to even further add to gridlock.
00:34:25.500
Or maybe, are people like you and I who lean right, are we contemporary dinosaurs when it comes to the city of Toronto?
00:34:34.540
Is the city of Toronto that far left, that woke, that progressive, that this is the template moving forward?
00:34:43.580
Well, Toronto has always been a very liberal city, and it's really hard to break through as a conservative.
00:34:49.840
And you saw what happened to Rob Ford when he won, and people were so disgusted they wanted change.
00:34:57.840
You saw how he was harassed by the media from day one.
00:35:07.140
The downtown Champaign socialists were the ones, really, that put Olivia Chow in office.
00:35:14.020
And I fear that things are going to get so bad that, you know, people will be crying.
00:35:22.180
I mean, I don't know if you've been downtown lately, but it's, you know, it's shocking how much the city of Toronto's downtown has deteriorated with drug addicts, you know,
00:35:32.620
weaving their way from safe injection sites and storefronts up for lease.
00:35:43.220
And, well, let's just say that the previous mayor, John Tory, left it in a terrible state.
00:35:48.540
And, you know, I don't think the downtown leftists, well, they must not care.
00:35:56.480
They just care about their perks and what they're going to get from Olivia Chow.
00:36:00.920
You know, I was downtown last night, as a matter of fact, Sue Ann Levy, walking down Yonge Street, and what a different vibe.
00:36:08.280
The first thing I noticed, all the fast food restaurants, the Tim Hortons, the Subways, they had their dining area and washrooms closed because you open that up and drug users are going to come in and camp out there.
00:36:25.660
It's a Toronto that I've never experienced in my life.
00:36:28.120
But, you know, and I wonder how, you know, ready Olivia Chow is to tackle the problems of Toronto in 2023, especially with rising crime all across the board, at least in all the violent areas.
00:36:44.560
I remember your column going back to 2014 in the Sunday Sun.
00:36:48.820
And you had interviewed Olivia Chow, and your takeaway was how out of touch she was.
00:36:56.700
For example, you brought up the issue of what do you think about the Pan Am Games, which was coming to Toronto the following year, 2015.
00:37:07.260
She had no idea about this multimillion-dollar boondoggle.
00:37:10.800
So I'm wondering if she's up to snuff on so many of the important files Toronto is facing a decade later, Sue Ann.
00:37:22.940
Nine years later, well, nearly a decade, you could see from her campaign that she wasn't up to snuff on the issues that were affecting the city.
00:37:33.300
She promised more library hours and, I mean, the bike lanes.
00:37:38.880
And, you know, to tackle, and it wasn't even to tackle crime, to tackle, because lefties always think that it stems, the crime stems from mental health issues.
00:37:48.420
And, you know, it's not the mental health issues, my dear.
00:37:54.840
So she kept, you know, talking about she was going to beef up 911, the 911 calling center, and put more social workers out on the street to deal with crime.
00:38:07.240
So if I have a knife to your throat, Dave, and I'm in the subway, and somebody tackles, you know, and I call 911 and a social worker comes, do you think that the criminal is going to care one bit?
00:38:19.680
One bit about, you know, what a social worker has to say to them?
00:38:27.500
She doesn't have any fiscal, she's a fiscal illiterate, as far as I'm concerned.
00:38:33.020
She kept talking about how she was involved on Mel Lastman's budget committee.
00:38:37.680
Well, Mel Lastman kept her on a very short leash, because I was there when she was a counselor back in 2001, 2, 3, and 4.
00:38:44.100
And she got a few goodies to do her pet projects, but she had no handle on spending.
00:38:53.200
And, you know, and I don't know how she's going to get rid of the billion-dollar-plus deficit that John Tory left the city.
00:39:00.720
Oh, I think it's going to swell under her reign, Sue Ann.
00:39:07.980
But, you know, we mentioned how the unions are backing her.
00:39:14.220
And I noticed a lot of media outlets seem to be on Team Chow.
00:39:21.200
Visible minority woman, the daughter of a family that came impoverished to Canada.
00:39:26.900
What they didn't talk about was in the early 90s.
00:39:29.600
Do you remember, Sue Ann, how she and her late husband, Jack Layton, were making six-figure salaries?
00:39:42.040
I guess it proves the old adage correct, eh, Sue Ann?
00:39:49.160
Well, you know, I loved how all the champagne socialists were weighing in about how she's going to change the city.
00:39:56.220
Well, look, you just have to look at her track record.
00:39:58.560
And that was just one of many things that I tried to point out, you know, over the course of the campaign.
00:40:06.120
The fact that she left, she and Jack decidedly and deliberately left more than 100 people living on Home Depot lands in that infamous tent city for three years.
00:40:23.680
And then the only reason that got cleared out is because it made the Sunday New York Times.
00:40:30.160
So, you know, look forward to more encampments, Dave.
00:40:34.780
Say, let's set our watch for two months from now.
00:40:37.160
We can meet downtown at one of the many parks where, you know, there will be more encampments.
00:40:42.600
I mean, I just, I think it's going to be an open season on.
00:40:52.180
I think her campaign reflected the same messaging she gave 20 years ago, nine years ago.
00:41:00.400
And I call her, you know, remember David Miller, the NDP mayor that, you know, couldn't get along with the unions and caused us a garbage strike.
00:41:11.380
And by the way, on the subject of tent city, Sue Ann, I think yours truly had something to do with the demise.
00:41:17.340
I went undercover as a reporter for the National Post when I was freelancing.
00:41:29.340
What was even more disturbing was at least one couple had brought a new life into the world as residents of this filthy, disgusting, tent city.
00:41:40.260
On Monday, emergency meeting with the city and Home Depot.
00:41:49.000
But, yeah, I mean, I think that is indeed what we're in for.
00:41:52.520
And when we look at some of the other candidates, especially those who veered right, I personally really liked what your former colleague Anthony Fury was campaigning on.
00:42:08.660
And it was a little mystified, Sue Ann, that your old newspaper, the Toronto Sun, I think stabbed Fury in the back.
00:42:19.780
They endorsed Mark Saunders, who finished a distant third, only getting 8.58% of the vote.
00:42:31.340
And why did the Sun go out of its way to endorse Saunders over Fury, Sue Ann?
00:42:40.980
I think that probably they thought Saunders had a better chance of winning.
00:42:45.880
But, you know, that wouldn't have been my choice.
00:42:49.780
And I was actually very upset because, as you know, I worked on his campaign and I was very upset when I saw that.
00:42:57.580
And, you know, I think Mark Saunders, he didn't seem to be at all passionate about running for mayor.
00:43:07.100
He stole a lot of Anthony's ideas, particularly about the safe injection sites and more cops on the street and dealing with crime.
00:43:13.980
He always seemed to be following rather than leading.
00:43:17.660
And, you know, as to whether the right or the centre-right would unite, well, you know, it's all hindsight is all 2020.
00:43:26.060
But I think I personally was surprised with Anna Baio's strong showing.
00:43:30.600
And perhaps if one person, one, maybe Mark Saunders, has thrown his support behind her, we'd be, you know, talking about a different story today.
00:43:40.520
Well, indeed, that's what the numbers indicate, Sue Ann, that that very well could have happened.
00:43:46.340
And, by the way, do you attribute any of Anna Baio's surprisingly good showing as a second-place candidate to John Tory's endorsement?
00:43:58.100
Of course, John Tory said he wasn't going to endorse anybody and then he again broke his promise.
00:44:05.120
And, of course, it should be said, Sue Ann, one of the biggest losers in this, I think, is John Tory himself.
00:44:16.620
And my position, Sue Ann, is that the extramarital affair with an office subordinate, that's one thing.
00:44:23.700
And maybe the public are kind of forgiving about that in this day and age.
00:44:28.000
But what struck me and struck so many people was the fact that during the last few years, during the COVID hysteria,
00:44:36.400
this was the guy painting social distancing circles on parklands.
00:44:40.900
This was the guy sending in the mounted unit to shut down small mom-pa restaurants.
00:44:46.160
This was the guy advocating getting the COVID-19 experimental jab and wearing a face mask.
00:44:54.140
And meanwhile, this fraud was horizontally jogging with an office subordinate.
00:45:01.340
You couldn't get any closer to somebody than that, Sue Ann Levy.
00:45:06.120
To me, that was the real scandal of what he did.
00:45:09.880
Yeah, and don't forget, three years ago, and I will never forget this,
00:45:15.480
is that I named the squeeze in a story when he snuck off to London, England at the start of COVID.
00:45:28.280
I mean, not only with respect to COVID, but the fact that over the years, he continually presented himself or played himself or, you know, promoted himself as a family man and, you know, a loving husband and that sort of thing.
00:45:44.100
I mean, you know, something happens to people when they get in power.
00:45:51.920
I think he was a fraud with respect to the pandemic and with respect to his family situation.
00:46:00.520
He should not have run again in October with all this baggage.
00:46:04.040
And he's cost the city more than $13 million, but worse than that.
00:46:19.900
I believe he said more than eight years ago he would only stay for two terms and that was it.
00:46:25.120
So, yet again, John Tory screws up par for the course.
00:46:42.060
I am wondering if all the doom and gloom comes true regarding Olivia Chow and the swing to the hard left here in the city,
00:46:52.000
and the city just becomes decrepit, literally Portland North.
00:46:57.060
Do you think that will ignite a backlash, that one strong centre or centre-right candidate will emerge and say,
00:47:08.060
I am here to make Toronto great again, and he and his allies will be swept into office?
00:47:14.660
Or, given the progressive leanings of Toronto, is this the template for years and years to come?
00:47:26.520
No, I think that the first alternative is probably the best possibility.
00:47:33.060
But I think there's a couple of things that have to happen.
00:47:37.480
You know, Anthony Fury was a great candidate, and I would strongly urge him three years from now to consider running if all these things happen.
00:47:48.600
And I do strongly believe that they will happen.
00:48:02.900
And, you know, I don't know, when I started at City Hall, the voter apathy was terrible.
00:48:10.700
So now we're talking 20 years later, it's just as bad, if not worse, with a city in decline.
00:48:17.920
Are they too lazy to get off their couch and actually go to the polls?
00:48:24.300
They could have mailed in their ballots, advance polls, you know, that sort of thing.
00:48:31.020
These people will get the government they deserve.
00:48:33.660
Not you or not me, because I certainly didn't vote for Olivia Chow.
00:48:41.600
In the category of winners and losers, the big winner, again, was apathy, voter apathy here.
00:48:47.880
And that 38% figure, pundits in the media were saying, oh, what a turnout, given the last turnout, which was an even more dismal 29%.
00:48:58.080
Su-Ann, it's beyond my pay grade why people don't get involved, especially in municipal politics.
00:49:03.540
These are the people most directly affecting your day-to-day life.
00:49:08.660
I can go to Yonge Dundas Square and do a streeter.
00:49:18.440
But you ask them, hey, did you hear about Kim Kardashian's new bikini?
00:49:22.800
Oh, they'll talk chapter and verse until the cows come home on that topic, Su-Ann.
00:49:30.700
But, well, it's going to be a long three years, I'm afraid.
00:49:34.280
Hopefully, there'll be a happy ending with maybe Mr. Fury throwing his hat in again.
00:49:39.900
Maybe what we saw this month was a dress rehearsal for 2026.
00:49:45.560
And hopefully, all the doom and gloom won't come true, but I am not optimistic.
00:49:56.580
Well, folks, lots of feedback regarding Ezra Levent's interview with law professor Bruce Pardee.
00:50:20.040
I was told by a provincial court judge that the charter was more of a guideline than law.
00:50:31.340
Yeah, I don't think the charter of rights is supposed to be suggestions.
00:50:48.020
Democracy in Canada is like saying Trudeau is a good prime minister.
00:50:53.640
The only place you will find democracy in Canada is in a dictionary.
00:50:57.920
I think the more appropriate word is communist Canada.
00:51:02.540
Well, blackface wouldn't agree with you there, or that might be his wish.
00:51:06.940
Don't forget, it was 10 years ago, folks, that Justin Trudeau professed his love for the basic dictatorship of China,
00:51:24.580
Issues like Tamara Leach's don't happen all the time,
00:51:27.840
but certainly most of the time since Trudeau has been in totalitarian, tyrannical power.
00:51:36.220
But, you know, my friend, that's where the courts should weigh in.
00:51:42.240
That's when they should call offside when need be.
00:51:46.680
But I'm afraid these days, when we call it the justice system,
00:51:51.060
it sounds to me that a better descriptor would be the criminal law system.
00:51:56.900
Well, folks, that wraps up another edition of the Ezra Levent Show.
00:52:03.060
As we head into the long weekend, I want to wish one and all a very happy Dominion Day.