Tag Archives: Terry Beech

Roundup: Ford’s Greenbelt corruption

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The long-awaited Auditor General’s report into the Greenbelt scandal was released yesterday, and it outlined some utterly bald-faced corruption as Ford’s sudden desire to develop the Greenbelt saw the chief-of-staff for the housing minister meeting with developers who had just bought these un-developable tracts of land and persuaded him to make those tracts developable, to the tune of an $8.3 billion benefit to them. That’s billion with a b. The process was flawed and contravened pretty much every rule. (The ten take-aways are here). But this all having been said, the Auditor General seemed to also credulously believe that Ford and the minister had no idea that this was going on—which…is hard to believe, considering how many of these developers were at events related to Ford’s daughter’s wedding. And while I can see Ford not knowing the details, because he’s a retail politician and doesn’t care about details, he’s nevertheless responsible for this as premier, and that responsibility absolutely extends to chiefs of staff when they “go rogue.” The report makes fifteen recommendations, which Ford says they’ll follow—except the one about stopping the process of developing the Greenbelt, because apparently his mind is made up.

But in spite of the outright corruption that happened, don’t expect any particular consequences—at least not in the near future. While the OPP’s anti-racket division is looking into this, the “rogue” chief of staff is keeping his job, and so is the minister, because we no longer care about ministerial responsibility when you have corruption to the tune of $8.3 billion. Ford says the buck stops with him, but he spent the afternoon rationalizing and insisting that this is necessary for housing (it’s not), and then blamed the federal government for high immigration numbers (which Ontario has been crying out for), never mind that Ford and company have been ignoring the recommendations of the very task force that they set up to look at the housing situation. And Ford will skate, because he’s not only Teflon-coated, but possesses the Baby Spice Effect™, except instead of her cute smile, he just says “aw, shucks, folks,” and everyone’s brain melts and he gets away with murder. (Well, negligent homicide as the pandemic showed).

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1689294359441604608

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1689323838343979031

In pundit reaction, David Moscrop demands resignations, firings and further investigations for this blatant corruption. Martin Regg Cohn points to the bitter irony of Ford riding into office alleging corruption everywhere only to be engaging in it much more blatantly here.

Ukraine Dispatch:

There was a Russian missile attack against Zaporizhzhia that hit a residential area, killing at least two. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that they have reached an agreement to get more Patriot systems from Germany.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1689329656481103872

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Roundup: Caught out for trying to be too clever

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There has been another ridiculous slap-and-hairpull fight happening between Liberals and Conservatives over Twitter over an article in the Guardian which cites a rights watchdog saying that there are no pro-choice Conservatives left. It’s not actually true, because there are, but the problem is that the Conservatives were trying to be too clever by half when it came to MP Cathay Wagantall’s latest anti-abortion bill. It was structured ostensibly to give legal weight to a foetus when a pregnant person was attacked or assaulted, and it was 100 percent a backdoor attempt to give a foetus rights, which was intended to start the process of enshrining those rights on the road to banning abortion. It was not very well hidden, and every anti-abortion group in the country was counting on this bill. A smart Conservative leader would have either nipped this in the bud entirely, knowing that it was a trap, or marginalised Wagantall and any of her supporters, to demonstrate that they are a very small minority in the party. But no—instead, Poilievre had every single member of his caucus vote for it under the rubric that it was about protecting pregnant people. And it is that vote that this Guardian article cites as the basis for saying there are no pro-choice Conservatives.

But of course, political hay has been made of this, and Liberals across the board are sharing the piece, because this works to their advantage and plays to their base, and Conservatives are howling that they’re sharing misinformation. Never mind that the Conservatives spread all manner of mendacious messages on the daily, most of it outright lies and disinformation, and they don’t even blink, but as soon as something comes along that catches the Conservatives out on something they through they were being clever about, well, suddenly that’s beyond the pale.

Everyone needs to grow up, but seriously, this is your own fault, Conservatives. You should have known this was going to happen, so acting all wounded when it did is really disingenuous.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Drones purporting to come from Ukraine struck a Russian warship and caused what could in fact be severe damage to fit. Ukrainian forces have working to retake more land around Bakhmut. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian security service says that Russia is planning a false-flag operation against an oil refinery in Belarus in order to blame it on Ukrainians in order to draw Belarus into the conflict.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1687503986008498188

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