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I ran across a thinly veiled op-ed in this Sunday’s Star about the changes to Toronto police vehicles, specifically that they’re being rebranded to an indistinct grey and black, ostensibly in the name of efficacy and safety.

There were a couple of things in the article that stood out like dark grey vehicles against a grey cityscape on a rainy day.

First there was a comment about police uniform changes by former Toronto police chief, OPP commissioner, and aspiring poli-tyrant Julian Fantino:

“We got that with the black shirts, this flurry of rhetoric about stormtroopers and back to the Nazi era, and on and on. In a way it was comical if not ridiculous”

It’s a far stretch to say that nazi uniforms and those of Toronto/Canadian cops are the same but drawing comparisons between their obvious similarities is neither comical, ridiculous, or unwarranted.

Perhaps these similarities are simply the result of any sufficiently demagogic and militaristic mindset. Still, if projecting a certain outward appearance isn’t so important, as Fantino insists, why not allow cops to run around in t-shirts and sweat pants?

There was another comment that Fantino made that really put the whole thing into perspective. When asked about switching OPP cruisers to their current black and white colour scheme Fantino replied:

… what inspired me was the good men and women of the OPP who wanted them back.”

The article clarifies that “He listened to what they — not the experts — said on what made them more visible and safer.”

Because that’s policing is all about: appeasing cops and keeping them safe.

This around the same time that it was revealed that the Montreal police conspired with a judge to secretly spy on a journalist to discover who his sources were. It wasn’t that the writer was suspected of breaking any laws, as if that’d be a tough thing to do, it was that he’d revealed information about two cops who were accused of fabricating evidence, lying, obstructing justice, and soliciting sexual services.

There were no charges laid. No trial was compromised. Turns out that the public just needed to be protected from discovering such damning news about their beloved police.

A Durham police officer for six months co-owned a medical marijuana company that is not licensed and offers consumers pot brownies and other products the government says are illegal to sell.

And veteran Const. Phil Edgar, who once received a commendation for numerous marijuana busts, did it with the blessing of his police force.

…

Durham Regional Police Service refused to answer questions about whether it was appropriate for an active police officer to be involved in this kind of business, and why it approved Edgar’s request to co-own the medical marijuana company.

https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2016/09/08/durham-cop-okd-to-own-unlicensed-pot-shop.html

Meanwhile…

Police first began cracking down on marijuana dispensaries in May after Mayor John Tory told reporters that the proliferation of the stores was turning into a crisis.

Then on May 26 police raided 43 dispensaries, arresting 90 people and charging them with a combined 186 charges under the Controlled Drug and Substances Act as well as 71 criminal charges.

…“It is illegal to sell marijuana unless you have a license given to you by Health Canada. I have never minced my words on this. I said the investigation would continue and this is the result of what I said,” [Toronto Police Chief Mark] Saunders said when asked about the raids at an unrelated news conference on Thursday.

http://www.cp24.com/news/police-conducting-raids-at-a-number-of-toronto-marijuana-dispensaries-1.2958885

The message is clear: if you’re a government agency you can flagrantly violate the law with absolute impunity. Thank goodness government and friends are there to “keep us safe”!

Maybe if we just vote a little harder this system of corruption and hopcrisy will change. LOL

Random and arbitrary carding by police forces across Ontario will be illegal by the end of fall.

Yasir Naqvi, minister of community safety and correctional services, made the announcement during a debate Thursday where MPPs from across the province spoke out against carding. At the time they were considering a private member’s motion from an NDP MPP to ban random and arbitrary carding, also known as street checks.

…

Naqvi was asked what will happen if police forces do not comply with the ban or the other regulations his government will bring in.

“They will have no option but to comply with the regulation.”

Although it’s lacking teeth,  an op-ed piece in the National Post fairly succinctly summarizes what I’ve been blathering on about for God-only-knows how long now. You don’t need to have a PoliSci degree to see what’s happening but although I doubt I’ll ever be able to shake my ageing parents’ (and many of their generation’s) scorn at my “naiveté”, “ignorance”, and “radical” views on government, at least I know I’m in fine scholarly company.

…the prime minister seems to have the unchecked power to decide when the House should be in session, when elections should occur, and even, in some circumstances, when their governments do or do not have the confidence of the House.

In the past I’ve referred to this as fascism, sometimes as a dictatorship, and often as a tyranny, but as I’ve tried to point out labels ultimately matter far less than deeds.

In the House, the prime minister and government have considerable control over day-to-day operations. This allows governments not only to set the agenda, but to carry it out with ease. The prime minister commands the steadfast loyalty of his MPs, largely through a carrot-and-stick approach; co-operative MPs might be rewarded with cabinet posts or coveted committee positions, while rogues can be — and at times are — punished with removal from caucus or even barred from running as a candidate for the party in future elections. All of these are vestiges of prime ministerial power. The party caucus has little leverage with which to counterbalance the prime minister’s power because party leaders are chosen (and replaced) by the party at large, rather than by the caucus. Thus, the government’s MPs have no effective mechanism through which to stand their ground against a very powerful leader or effectively represent his or her constituents.

Critics regularly cite our seemingly dizzying array of market choices as proof that government has little control in our day-to-day lives. Although they can hardly provide a straight and articulate answer without sneering derision, state supporters are often stumped by simple facts. For example, all of the so-called “choices” that the so-called “free market” offers are all directly controlled by government.

No?

Okay, name any product or service in Canada that doesn’t require government legal authorization, licensing, approval, etc. In other words, you have only the choices that government allows and you’re coerced, backed by threats of violence and imprisonment, into paying for this through taxes. Yes, you can buy things on the black market but you face the wrath of government if you decide thusly to exercise your “free choice” and of course you’re guilty until you can prove otherwise (which they can still arbitrarily reject).

Because they’re now stumped, government lackeys immediately pivot their argument to deflect by claiming that this is necessary to “keep us safe”. To this I would simply suggest cracking open a newspaper – the evidence of how government doesn’t keep us safe is in the news pretty much on a daily basis. Whether this involves food, health, personal safety, privacy, and a litany of other claims about protections, there are regular and glaring examples of how this simply isn’t true.

The statist argument typically changes course once again at this point to demand that nothing – our hospitals, roads, water and electrical systems, etc. – would exist without government. I’ve addressed these obviously specious arguments a number of times in the past but I will concede that government vehicles with government employees do sometimes drive up to a pothole, and one labourer and three supervisors spend three to four weeks filling it with a cop or two gladly accepting extorted taxpayer money to text or browse the web on their cell phones or chat with the crew, while out of sight pedestrians and cars are left to their own devices to share the dangerous inches left for them. Sounds an awful lot like the lazy welfare whores that government is keen to trot out to justify how we should receive even less state “benefits”, doesn’t it?

In other words, government supplies a few services through a wasteful, overpriced, badly (if at all) regulated process, something that is typically done far more efficiently by the private sector. This makes sense – the private business has to look out for their bottom line, government can just raise taxes and you’ll be brutalized or extorted by “authorities” and go to jail if you don’t like it. There’s no incentive for government to be efficient or benefit citizens in any way, and every single government institution behaves according to this.

Don’t believe? Just try and apply for any government “benefits” to see how hard your loving, benign government works for you. Call up a government “service” phone line and see for yourself how much service you receive. While you’re at it, try calling the cops when you actually need them – I have and that’s why I know better.

Rather than becoming more like a system of presidential executive authority, this situation has left Canadian prime ministers in a position more akin to historical monarchs. The evolution of Westminster democracy in Canada is very much a story about the struggle to wrestle power away from the Crown and shift it to Parliament, and specifically the House of Commons, our primary democratic body and check on unfettered prime ministerial power. The ability of prime ministers to retain and use these Crown powers, alongside other powers over MPs and the House of Commons, is resulting in a situation where prime ministers have the power to make decisions, partisan and otherwise, that limit or negate Parliament’s role as a guardian for accountability in our democratic system.

This is not simply about politics or even personalities. Almost all recent prime ministers have used these powers to try to advance their partisan interests. What it is about is the erosion of our democratic institutions and the effect on democratic governance.

The next rhetorical recourse of any good government lapdog is to state that, yeah, okay, maybe government isn’t perfect but we have “checks and balances” to ensure that things more or less work out for most people. And if we don’t like it we can vote in someone else!

These are other points I’ve addressed at length and are yet more claims that can be factually rebutted with a mountain of evidence to the contrary (this blog is filled with it). And while it’s claimed that the media would surely alert us to these issues it’s easy to demonstrate that this is highly unlikely to be the case. Unless you seek out increasingly derided alternative sources you will only know what government and friends want you to know.

If your final argument is that people are too stupid to know what’s good for them, hence the need for unquestionable government, then kindly shut your ignorance hole – you’ve just brilliantly insisted that you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.

Put this all together and the will of the people is entirely irrelevant and, in fact, something to be suppressed.

It’s at this point when state defenders throw up their hands and exasperatedly exclaim, “Oh well! Then I guess we must be living under a King or Queen then, huh?!”

Yeah, smart guy. Flip over your Canadian money or do a Wikipedia search – Canada is a monarchy and whether the titular head is the queen or Harper the effect is the same.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/05/21/more-money-from-stephen-harper-for-rcmp-and-border-services-to-fight-terrorism.html

On Friday, York Regional Police and Peel Regional Police and the Canadian Bankers Association plan to hold a news conference in Aurora to publicize the $100,000 reward.

The robber is known at the Vaulter Bandit for the way in which he jumps over the counter during robberies, and he has been linked to about 20 bank heists over a five-year period across Canada.

…

He appears to work alone and may use rental cars.

“He’s probably pretty hush hush about it,” [Det.-Sgt. Mike] Fleischaker said.

He has used a silver Jetta and a Chevy Cruz for his escapes, and police are investigating whether they were rental cars.

“These are cars that are frequently rented out as economy cars,” Fleischaker said.

His method of robbery has changed over the course of his career.

Originally, he went into banks during regular hours and jumped the counter, taking whatever he could quickly from tellers.

Since May 2011, he has started to show up in the morning as employees prepare to open branches for business.

Last June, the Canadian Bankers Association raised the reward to $50,000 from $20,000.

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2015/05/15/vaulter-bandit-bank-robber-reward-jumps-to-100000.html

“We have yet to be provided evidence that carding impacts crime in any shape or fashion,” Rinaldo Walcott, an associate professor at U of T said at a press conference Wednesday. “We have yet to be provided evidence that the database developed from carding impacts crime and its resolution in any way or shape.

“We find this totally unacceptable in the age of information,” said Walcott. “We believe that by ignoring available evidence, that the mayor, the Toronto Police Service and its board have clearly declared black communities collectively a public safety threat.

“The only way to think of such a declaration is to call it anti-black racism.”

Walcott was joined by Anthony Morgan of the African Canadian Legal Clinic, Ryerson University professor Akua Benjamin, Pascale Diverlus who is vice-president of United Black Students Ryerson and a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto and academic Chris Williams, a vocal opponent of carding.

The group is asking for meetings with new police chief Mark Saunders, Mayor John Tory and Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Toronto police defend carding — during which people are stopped and documented in mostly non-criminal encounters — as an invaluable intelligence-gathering tool and say they police high crime areas of the city and not by race.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/05/13/group-questions-why-toronto-police-dont-have-stats-to-defend-carding.html

Now, I have to stress, this is totally just a theory. I have no evidence of any of this — it is a pure flight of fancy.

But let’s consider this: how come Rob Ford is still roaming the halls of City Hall, locking reporters out, and basically being good old RoFo again? And anyone have a pool going on when he officially (documented) hits the pipe again? How far off can it be?

But he does look slimmer, I’ll give him that. His stay in unbelievably picturesque Bracebridge must’ve been good. And not too cheap neither. Bracebridge is one of the jewels in what is basically the Canadian Hamptons.

In any event, and for whatever reason, the Fords are either intimidating to Chief Blair and many others, or they’re (Fords + Blair + others) working together. Whatever the case, the top cop refuses to touch Ford with so much as a fifty-foot pole wielded by a lackey who is on concurrent traffic duty. I’ve already established this point a couple of times.

So instead, Blair decides to shuffle the investigation over to various parties, thereby washing his hands of the situation. Enforcement won’t be involved.

The courts decide that, for perhaps the same whatever reason, they don’t want to deal with this either, so they hang it out to dry like the crusty laundry it is.

The complicit media behemoths provide watered-down analysis to ensure the public that everything and anything in God’s creation that could have been done was done. We’ll simply have to accept that our Mayor is a hard-drug-smoking, prostitute-cavorting, extortion-associating, gun-and-drug-running-related, murder-linked guy; he’s just a regular multi-millionaire like the rest of us except that he’s got a disease! So obviously it would be discriminatory to even suggest that he leave City Hall at this point.

And, of course, it’s completely coincidental that the Ontario Human Rights Commission declared that addiction is a disease just before RoFo made his ignominious return. Right?

Not to put too fine a point on it, imagine going to your office after hours wasted (on multiple occasions), harassing the security, and inviting “unknown persons” in for late night parties. Not only does this not get you fired, but you threaten to sue your boss for discriminating against you because of your “disease” – the criminal excuse du jour that ends up making legitimate addicts (who purposefully hurt no one but themselves), seem like degenerates. Rob Ford is using a real medical condition to legitimize his open criminality, lies, and ongoing scumbaggery. Pretty slimy thing to do, huh? Well, that’s Rob Ford for you!

The cops might be chicken shit for whatever reason, or they may be deferential for whatever reason. The courts may have equal whatever reasons. The end result in either case is that the law was not applied equally and neither was the investigation.

So could they be working together?

Wait, no, that’s no possible. Remember when Rob and Doug chewed the chief out?

Let me offer another theory.

What if there were some secret meetings that took place in which exactly this scenario would be hatched? Rob and Doug would publicly vilify the chief (easy) who would put on a stoic face (easy) and hand the matter off to a less improprietous body, which itself would turn around and just make the whole thing public (easy). Rob and Doug gain fans because they’re under such furious attack, Bill looks like the proper police chief, and the wise court gives the people what they really want — titillating, salacious details.

The whole matter: under the rug, RoFo & Co. are pleased (as are their masters), and everyone looks like they’re just doing they’re job. Except they’re really not.

Can you blame him?

With the shit show crest that Rob Ford is surfing, it’s hard to imagine that he gets any peace and quiet at all. It’s a shock that he doesn’t just do like his brother, who correctly decided to just not show up at Council after setting the record straight with the maggots down south and at City Hall yesterday morning. I mean, why the hell should he be expected to do his job when people won’t stop asking all those damn distracting questions? Don’t they know he’s a human being with normal human feelings?!

The spectacle was ratcheted up again this morning as Robbie expressed his disgust at what was said about him in the updated court documents that were released yesterday. In those documents, Ford’s former staff say all sorts of unflattering things about the mayor’s reluctantly intoxicated conduct which, as we all know, is all HIGHLY improbable given everything we know. Granted, the mayor’s memory may be a bit sketchy on unimportant details like smoking crack in an infamous crack house, or his association with drug and gun runners, or his involvement in the Anthony Smith murder, but we can be absolutely, completely, and unwaveringly convinced of the mayor’s guaranteed honesty.

Let’s be real; if any crazy person can just say whatever they think they saw or heard when being interrogated by the police, and then have the police publicly release those statements via the courts (regardless of if that crazy person had any hand in, or knowledge of, the subsequent release), that’s clearly the highest form of slander and requires nothing less than the most vicious retaliation. That’s just sensible.

So it makes sense that Robbie would be going after his former staff, not to mention the ballsy Bier Markt and its staff, for saying such awful things about him. Impugning his honour by claiming that he made sexual remarks and was cavorting with a hooker — obviously such statements are a direct assault on the entire Ford clan who only want to live in peace and to be left alone like any other normal family. They’re practically begging for privacy, and yet the press hounds them incessantly. They media’s chutzpah knows no bounds; not even Rob’s exemplary kids are off-limits, and Doug’s innocent kids are similarly in the media spotlight as though they had some say in the matter!

Apparently having his wife appear beside him in a crowded and boisterous press conference isn’t enough to get this simple request through their thick reporter skulls, so Rob and Doug are taking to TV in their uniquely titled “Ford Nation” on the Sun News Network to let everyone know how revolted they are with their lack of privacy.

Thankfully, after the abhorrent remarks made earlier by police chief Bill Blair, the police are not taking any actions against Ford’s obviously tongue-in-cheek remarks about his driving drunk and buying illegal drugs (sure to be typified as admissions of guilt but the media maggots). And at least the cops are not intervening as the mayor asserts his right to a little personal space at his media scrums (sure to be typified as physical assault by the media maggots).

Ford, like his buddy Sandro Lisi, is finally standing up to the tidal wave of injustice and lies swelling against him. If he’s guilty of anything, it’s in being a fair and an honest man who works his ass off for the taxpayers of this city to save every last penny and eliminate taxes from the clutches of the corrupt and wasteful government.