Disgruntled Star Editor Takes Constructive Revenge
Drop Fees, End Poverty! And Also Do All These Other Things!
Kensington Market's Business, Soon to be Improved
Live Green Toronto's Bright Idea
Stacks of Tracks (in the Stacks)
Photo of Carolyn Bennett by Jerad Gallinger/Torontoist.
If residents of the midtown Toronto riding of St. Paul's were to have an official motto this election, "Keep calm and carry on" would be it.
The World War II-era slogan, a copy of which sits prominently on the desk of Lynne Steele, campaign manager to Liberal incumbent Carolyn Bennett, is good advice in any election. But the words have taken on a new significance in recent days, which have seen Grit supporters in St. Paul's and the neighbouring constituency of Parkdale–High Park (profiled yesterday by Torontoist) targeted by criminals in a rash of politically motivated vandalism.
At least thirty residents displaying Liberal signs have had their houses spraypainted, cable and phone lines severed, cars keyed, and brakes sabotaged. In the most serious incident, vandals cut the brake lines on the car of Bennett's official agent, causing him to careen through a stop sign and narrowly avoid slamming into a bus. And on Monday, several Liberal supporters received anonymous phone calls making the chilling proclamation: "Take down your sign or you're next."
Voters are doing their best to keep calm in the face of this political intimidation, Bennett said yesterday in an interview with Torontoist, "but people are just shocked, really sickened by it, and it hasn't really gone away. People just don't want this in Canada."
"I don't think it matters what sign was on anybody's lawn," she continued. "This is a horrific attack on democracy."
Local residents of all political stripes are standing together in the face of these attacks, and Bennett has received more than one hundred new requests for Liberal signs since the first incidents were reported. Some supporters already displaying signs have boldly asked for even larger ones, and a few residents with no intention of voting for Bennett are requesting signs nonetheless, outraged at those who would use violent means to take away their neighbours' democratic rights.
"If people think that this works, in terms of intimidating people, it isn't," concluded Bennett.
Two blocks away from Bennett's Eglinton Avenue West campaign office, crossing guard Eve Christodoulou said that she will vote Liberal, threats of violence or no.
"It doesn't matter what [the vandals] are doing," Christodoulou declared. "Whatever they want to do, they're going to do it anyway. But they're not going to change the mind of people who want to vote for somebody."
Keeping calm and carrying on. That's Toronto. That's true grit.
Bottom photo by Jerad Gallinger/Torontoist.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Demonize the opposition... isn't that a Republican tactic? Why would any Canadian political party or its supporters embrace that? Hmm.
I'm curious about the motive of this coercing. I'm thinking this might be a group which wants this to happen, and strengthen the Liberal vote. It's too wide spread which means they want their message out there and they want the dog to bite back. Who knows, maybe it's a bunch of Avaaz followers trying to be shit desturbers with the "Anything but Harper" campaign.
Honestly, Gaulder? I take it you know nothing about Carolyn Bennett, her beliefs, what she's done for the people in St. Paul's (prior to becoming an MP) and how she's handled herself in this election.
If you need a reason that St. Paul's was being targetted, maybe it's because Carolyn is that strong. She still garnered over 50% of the vote in the last election, and that was against Peter Kent and Paul Sutherland (an economist... running for the NDP). This is pure intimidation on someone's part, but I doubt it's a self-created Liberal diversion.
I live in St. Paul's and had been uncommitted to whom I would vote for until the weekend. I had no reason to vote against Carolyn, being such a stellar MP, and was thinking of vote swapping... until this. Now I'm seriously thinking of voting for Carolyn, to show that she is a valuable MP and deserves to be there, intimidation be damned.
It pretty much was just speculative thought without knowing absoultly anothing about her, thanks for filling me in on your opinion. I'm still curious to the motive of the intimidation group though. Whatever they were planning to do it definatly had an effect on the outcome.
I live in St. Paul's, too. Though a little flakey, Bennett's voting record is as good as a Liberal can be and I don't for a minute think she or her campaign have their hand in any of this local terrorism. But I've seen some of the stuff pulled in Davenport by the Liberals there and this stuff is mighty similar (though I'm not sure they've cut brake lines). It wouldn't surprise me if a subset of Liberals from the Jim Karygiannis school of politics were involved.
I just wish we had more women in politics like Carolyn Bennett and Elizabeth May.
What's really odd is that these are opponents of Dalton's policies and decisions. I wonder if these people realize that giving Dalton an adversary or two (i.e. Jim Flaherty & King Stephen) just takes some of the heat off the provincial government.
[sarcasm] Oh, maybe that's the real conspiracy! It's Dalton doing it! [/sarcasm]
For Gauldar and Green Sulfur, courtesy of Wikipedia: [1] and [2]
Even if the criminals were aiming to boost Liberal support, neither of you would appear less of a slimeball for insinuating so without grounds or justification.
Paul, I must commend you for your efforts in setting the record straight on a blog comment board which might have not have lost it's pure virginity to spur of the moment remarks. I say to you my friend, good job!
Isn't the author a registered Liberal?
"Demonize the opposition... isn't that a Republican tactic"
Because of the liberal use of "American-style" as an epithet during the Canadian debates, one could also say that demonization is a tool of a few of our parties.
But the Conservatives have also done their fair share of demonization this campaign. So rek, please don't assume its limited to Republicans. Canadian politics loves to demonize.
Regular political mud-slinging, versus encouraging your supporters to believe the opposition and its supporters are out to ruin and betray and destroy you.
Wait... isn't that how Mulroney won in 1984... and how Turner tried to win in 1988?
Oh, and of course, there's Kimmy's folly with Chretien.
When it comes to politics, Canadians really have a short short-term memory.
rek: The Conservatives have done the latter that as they sought to portray the Liberal Green Shift as something that would raise the prices of essential products; that it would destroy the livelihood of the middle class.
Speaking of the left, there is an NDP commercial that tries to do the same thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2gC-fvhRrY. It portrays Conservatives as generally disinterested in the average family, and that their policies only aim to benefit the rich.
In both instances the right and left is trying to describe the other side as a force that is out to "...ruin and betray and destroy you".
Joshua E: To answer your question, I used to be a speechwriter to a Liberal MP, but am not currently active with any political party.
Tell that to Maclean's bro! They listed you as a Young Liberal a month ago, when you were campaigning for the Liberals.
But it's good to hear you're not a Young Liberal anymore and just contributing to the Liberal website and this one. True grit.
PickleToes - Spin aside, there's an obvious difference. The central message in the Con campaign has been spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) about Dion, playing up undefined risks and "you have too much to lose", whereas the NDP at least says concrete things about what Harper has failed or promised to do. To illustrate by abstraction: the former tells you to imagine the worst thing he could do to you, the latter tells you he'll steal your shoes.
And we shouldn't forget Flaherty's role earlier this year, slamming Ontario and promising economic doom, (then changing his mind to shore up the Con assertion that everything will be fine and we can stay the course under Harper's leadership) and now economic doom is the top story around the world, though it has nothing to do with McGuinty or how things are done in Canada.
Josh - Like I said: I used to work for a Liberal MP. I don't anymore, and I'm not currently active with any political party.
I'm not sure what you mean about "contributing to the Liberal website." I'm doing no such thing. I have my own political website, which is progressive but non-partisan. The Libs have picked up on some of my research, but I'm not working for them or tipping them off.
If you think this story is biased, feel free to say so. If not, well, congratulations on Googling my name.
And just to be as clear as possible:
Regarding the Maclean's thing, that was from the last Liberal event I attended, a month and a half ago. I haven't stepped foot in a campaign office this entire election, except to interview Dr. Bennett.
I'm not denying my past partisan involvement, but I'm not drawing a paycheque from or volunteering for the Grits anymore. As far as I'm concerned, that's the end of the story.
It's Bias with a capital B. No honest person would write that last line.
You're right there's no denial you're a partisan, but you should be up front that you still contribute to the Liberal campaign/are a Liberal. Not declaring this is sneaky at best. I'm left to think you just started writing here to promote the Liberal brand during a general election. And I'd be surprised to see your name on this site after the election.
No honest person would use a play on the word "grit" in a story that's about a) a Liberal MP, and b) people showing courage in the face of adversity? I think that's a bit of a stretch.
Josh, your claim that I'm still contributing to the Liberal campaign is absolutely, 100% false. Maybe you should read my new article posted today and see if there's some sort of Liberal slant, then get back to me.
Joshua, so what? Why does it matter that he still is a Liberal supporter or not? Take a pill, or perhaps some Pez. Just relax man.
I do not think that there is a Karl Rove–style conflict of interest here. Jerad was brought on staff to cover politics, and his former affiliations with the Liberal Party are just that—former, and only former—and I don't believe they have any significant bearing on his articles; If they did, we'd be disclosing as much. The idea that we should be up front about one of our contributors simply supporting the Liberals, in spite of them having no active affiliation with them in any capacity, is totally silly.
If your argument, Josh, is that former affiliations constitute current conflicts of interest, shouldn't you—as a former Torontoist Editor-in-Chief—either not be commenting on Torontoist at all, or fully disclosing your past relationship to Torontoist every time you do?
Several Pez taken and I still feel this partisan is taking advantage of the site and goodwill of the readers. How did the Liberals get a hold of the Harris speech video? They say they got it from the author of this site. How did he get access to Carolyn Bennett? She doesn't let just any bloggers go into her office and take pictures. Why was he campaigning for the Liberals a month ago? I think these questions are enough to warn readers he's a Liberal.
(And there should be no question this piece is bias. The headline, for one, is misleading. No violence occurred.)
Think about it, Dave: You used to have a Green campaigner writing on here. Notice he took off after the by-election was over? Because he used the site to campaign for himself, his party and his political beliefs (such as electoral reform). Don't let yourself be used like that, no matter how desperate you are for content.
Check this article. They disclose former speech writing of the author, and so should you.
Once again, you have the facts completely wrong.
1) The Liberal site says, "The revelation of the similarities between Mr. Harris’ and Mr. Harper’s speeches was first reported by political blogger Jerad Gallinger," which is true. However, I did not post the video on my site, give it to the Liberals, or tip them off to the story in any way. It was independent research performed by me and posted on my site, which is not affiliated with any political party.
2) I got access to Carolyn Bennett by calling her office, telling them I was a writer for Torontoist and requesting an interview. Easy as that.
3) Cutting a person's brake lines and nearly getting him killed is most definitely violence.
4) Like I said, I used to work for a Liberal MP, which is why I used to campaign for the Liberals. I have done zero campaigning for any political party this election. Your implications to the contrary are a shameful twisting of the facts.
@Josh, again, I disagree that Torontoist is being used, or that Jerad writing for us is a conflict of interest, for reasons both he and I have stated above. By "Green campaigner writing on here [who] took off after the by-election was over," you mean Chris Tindal, who wrote for us (quite well, too) from December 2006–May 2008, and whose involvement with different organizations we regularly mentioned if we saw it as being a potential conflict of interest, right? I didn't see a problem with his contributing to Torontoist then, and I don't see it now. Frankly, it's quite clear to me that you don't know nearly enough about what you're talking about to be making a case for one side or the other.
Wonderful article, thanks for putting this together! "This is obviously one great post. Thanks for the valuable information and insights you have so provided here. Keep it up!"