Because we decided that the City Council decision to repay wasn’t legal, Ford didn’t contravene the MCIA (though he kinda did).

[46]           However, the matter before Council changed when thereafter a motion was made to rescind Decision CC 52.1.  From that point, Mr. Ford clearly had a pecuniary interest in the matter before Council, as he would be relieved of the reimbursement obligation if the motion passed.  Therefore, the application judge correctly found that Mr. Ford had a direct pecuniary interest when he voted on that motion, and s. 5(1) of the MCIA was engaged.

[47]           Nevertheless, as set out in the following section of these reasons, it is our view that Mr. Ford did not contravene s. 5(1), because the financial sanction imposed by Decision CC 52.1 was not authorized by theCOTA or the Code.  In other words, it was a nullity.

…

[89]           While he [Rob Ford] may have honestly believed his interpretation was correct, it would undermine the purposes of the  MCIA  if a subjective belief about the meaning and application of the law was sufficient to excuse a contravention of s. 5(1).  When an individual seeks to rely on an error of law, good faith requires that he or she make some inquiry about the meaning and application of the law, rather than rely on his or her own interpretation. Wilful blindness to one’s legal obligations cannot be a good faith error in judgment within the meaning of s. 10(2).

…

[96]           In light of our conclusion that Decision CC 52.1 was a nullity because of the nature of the financial sanction it imposed, the appellant has not contravened s. 5(1) of the MCIA.  Therefore, the appeal is allowed, the judgment of the application judge is set aside and the application under the MCIA is dismissed.

“Can you believe those teachers?! Some of them are making more than one-hundred thousand dollars a year! What criminals!”

Those are the words that a family member blurted out a couple of weeks ago, perhaps in an attempt to bait me, but in any event completely unexpectedly and forcefully.

“What do you mean?”, I asked.

She went on determined to teach me what criminal scum schoolteachers and their unions are, asking me repeatedly if I’d read Bill 115 (her own interpretation coming from a newspaper), and demanding that I answer her on the spot.

“Do they start off making that much?”, I asked incredulously.

“No, they start at forty-thousand, but because of the union they’re guaranteed a pay increase of two percent every two years!”

She was steamrolling over the entire conversation at the time so I didn’t get a chance to do the math, but I did know that historically the rate of inflation was 2% so such a measure would simply keep teachers from slipping into poverty.

My interlocutor wasn’t having such arguments. “No one else gets pay increases, why should they!”

“So you’re complaining that because everyone in the private sector’s getting screwed, people who have the ability to be represented and demand better pay should be fired?”, I retorted, having heard such nonsense many times in the past.

“That’s not true!”, she replied. “These people take tax money, your money and my money, and they’re getting ridiculous salaries. Everyone else is paying for them!”

At this point I wish I’d had the opportunity to do some basic math for her since she clearly hadn’t done it herself, but she was complaining that teachers, having come out of school with thousands in debt, would be paid roughly $19 an hour (increased by an astronomical $0.38 per hour every two years or so).

“How much did dad make?”, I followed up, thinking back to my father who worked for the city and who retired after a couple of decades making considerably more. I wasn’t even going to bring up the fact that teachers are taxpayers too — that old Fordite mentality.

“Well, more, obviously,” she replied,” but he was doing a real job. All these people do is babysit children.”

I’d spent some time teaching kids too. She hadn’t even come near a school for anything more than parents’ night. So of course she demanded that this is exactly what goes on in the classroom, that I’m completely wrong (and ignorant, just for good measure), they’re all completely wrong, and we’re all getting royally ripped off by the teachers and the unions. (She also loves Ford and Harper, if that helps to explain things).

After an hour of back-and-forth, we finally managed to reach the consensus that those responsible are mostly in government, unions can be a good thing (which took many recounting of my own experiences with private industry abuses), and that maybe people could be paid a wage that allows them to both live and pay off their debts (though this took a lot — Conservatives abhor this idea and expend a lot of effort in quashing it).

When I finally hung up I got to thinking whether or not the teachers would even be launching an illegal strike to meet their demands, so deemed by Premiere McGuinty and the Ontario Labour Relations Board. Then I remembered this little gem from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (right near the top):

Fundamental Freedoms

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

• (a) freedom of conscience and religion;
• (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
• (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
• (d) freedom of association.

So according to the highest law of the land, expressing your demands, peacefully assembling, etc. — basically everything a strike is about — are FULLY PROTECTED UNDER LAW.

The really sad thing is that no newspaper anywhere in the province has bothered to bring up the fact that the tyrannical government of Ontario, along with the OLRB, are the ones acting illegally. They are ignoring federal laws and instead simply saying  that they’re going to take these incredibly unlawful actions. And then to impose a contract on the teachers while telling them to get back to work — what the fuck is that?

And if you speak out about something so blatantly obvious, something so simple that a child can see it, you’re branded a conspiracy kook who should be spending time in solitary confinement with a tin foil hat.

Certainly that’s the high horse on which my family member rode in on – summarily dismissing such obvious signs of a tyrannical dictatorship because, clearly, people in positions of power have NEVER abused it, and because a “newspaper” sporting half naked women, ads for hookers, and more advertising and pictures than words, told her that’s how things are.

Perhaps the most bizarre takeaway from the conversation was my family member’s insistence that I need to read Bill 115 because it’s so gloriously correct, but all of the plethora of documents by and from the government, on their website, showing their criminality, malfeasance, and generally nefarious and outright evil plans for the future, are all blatant lies and complete fabrications.

In other words, Bill 115 must be true because it agrees with what she was told, and all of the other documents are a straight up lie because they’re just too unpleasant. You know — if you don’t see it, it doesn’t exist — kind of thing.

I remember asking my family member how she thought all of the other evil governments of the past and present managed to take a hold. After all, it’s a safe bet to say that most citizens would not choose to live under such conditions.

I was met with a deafening silence.

“Yeah,” I replied, “that’s exactly how it happens.”

Just when you think you’ve seen every form of stupidity that Rob Ford can muster …

Yesterday, for example, Rob Ford voted against the new city budget. Well, technically, not the whole budget, just the part that he himself had put in there!

Yeah, that’s not a typo — Ford actually voted against a part of the city’s budget that he pushed to get have included. The specific part in question has to do with the 2% property tax increase that, if you recall, he vehemently “guaranteed” year after year would be completely eliminated (just one of the many of Rob’s boldfaced, ignorance-laced, and denigratory lies).

Of course, being Ford, he reneged on that little campaign promise almost as soon as he was done telling pinkos where they can stuff it, but he kept on maintaining that he was doing everything he could to keep it at reasonable levels. Those ended up being exactly what they were prior to when he took office, so in effect Rob Ford has managed to completely fail on this end.

Just like his much-vaunted lies about all of the gravy at City Hall that never materialized, Ford has once again flown his true colours as an unabashed liar, and a bumbling buffoon of an unabashed liar at that. I mean, if this last-minute vote against his own measure is some sort of half-assed attempt to control the “optics” of his awful mayoralty (unsurprisingly, despite what the Toronto Sun says, with the help of useful idiot monkeys like Giorgio Mammoliti), he must be depending on citizen’s abject ignorance of what he’s been up to as late as last week, or he’s depending on them being so thick as to believe the crap he’s pushing.

Then again, this is Ford Nation we’re talking about here, the same small group of knuckle-dragging troglodytes who claim that black is white, up is down, “gravy” is everywhere at City Hall, Ford saves the city money (instead of costing everyone money), Toronto taxpayers is a group that only includes them (hence they are the only ones with the right to an opinion), and so on and so on. No, I wasn’t joking when I called them severely mentally ill — how else could you keep swallowing Ford’s blatant and fetid shit all this time and continue to call it candy?

Ahh, Giorgio.

Remember him?

The Councillor who once said he was willing to break laws to get what he wanted? He had a few interesting ideas, to be sure, but I think this particular one ended up being the truly visionary one, and it didn’t end up being the kind in which he assaults someone on live TV (though there were chances).

For now, it seems, Giorgio’s broken election laws to the tune of $12,000. Toss into this unfortunate bit of news the fact that he’s Ford ally (or was until recently). Ford is still in power, hanging on by his nails, and I think this is where we’re going to start seeing some genuinely interesting developments.

Consider that Mammoliti was, for about a year, part of Ford’s inner circle. He might know stuff.

And Ford will now be asked to choose sides with someone who publicly claimed he was under a great deal of “undue pressure” while working with Ford’s team.

Ford might end up relying on the “we’re both victims of legal technicalities” line, and it’d be a good one except in this case the numbers are a little higher. Four times as much — enough, and for purposes (to win an election), that I think even the most bitter “but it was just a small amount” clingers would be satisfied that the amount is not so small.

So will Ford be expected to criticize his former (current?) ally? And is he willing to say what he thinks an acceptable limit on going over the line is? (Oh, and by the way, what’s the possibility of legally moving the line instead of just telling the current one where to go?)

I mean, what would Ford say about something that ran at about the $12,000 limit? How bad of an infraction is that? And if, in theory, such an infraction was legal but looked bad, what would he think of an infraction that both looked bad but was also illegal?

Perhaps Doug et al. would like to weigh in too?

Should be interesting, I think.

By the way, Happy New Year!

Rob seems particularly coherent and lucid in this press conference. Seems…odd.

It’s still making the rounds!

Rob Ford was taken out on a technicality! He never should’ve been tossed out since the original decision forcing him to repay was invalid!

And so on.

Let’s pick this apart. It won’t take too long, it’s very simple!

1. Voting to let yourself off the hook for something is the very definition of “conflict of interest”. Had Miller put a motion before City Council to appoint himself Fuhrer of Toronto, and then voted on it, would that be considered a conflict of interest? Unlikely as that may sound, it would be within his power to do so, and yet it can easily be argued that it doesn’t involve any money. But I guess if you’re a Fordite, that kind of thing would’ve been perfectly fine — just so long as Miller didn’t make any money off of it. Thumbs up, Ford supporters; brilliant logic!
2. Let’s say that the decision forcing Rob to repay the money was in fact beyond the pale of City Council — if that’s the case, what’s to stop any councillor from abusing their office at any time? Let’s say Adam Vaughan decided that he would support the destruction of the Gardiner Expressway in exchange for donations to his personal  charity. That’s called “influence peddling”, and it’s exactly what Ford did. But guess what, Vaughan didn’t get any of the money, it went to his own charity, so once again it’s all perfectly fine and above board, right? Or is it only wrong if someone who isn’t Ford does it? Can’t have it both ways!
   Furthermore, if Fordo believed that this was completely out of the Council’s jurisdiction, why did he completely validate it all by not only “explaining” how important it was for him to abuse his position as mayor, but also vote on it? By the same logic, any Fordite approached by anyone claiming to be a cop on the street should immediately submit to anything that the “officer” says, because after all, that’s how you insist that your mayor behaves. Then, once you’re in the back of the unmarked van, complain about how fucking stupid you were to have trusted the “cop” in the first place — just like Rob Ford.
3. Maybe the mayor didn’t know that Council wasn’t able to make such rules? Maybe he didn’t read the handbook? Maybe he claimed complete ignorance of anything associated with his position? How about all of the above? But that’s okay — why would we need a mayor that knows how to do the job? It’s just like business: we should entrust the operation to someone who admits to complete incompetence and ignorance.
   Once again, bravo on your logic, Fordites!

And Ford should be allowed to continue to be mayor in the face of all of this? Anyone who supports this position supports all of the above: incompetence, lies, naivete, brazen self-indulgence, ignorance, and corruption — none of which Ford denied.

I’m getting sick of repeating these simple facts, but the media are pumping out so much blatant misinformation, misdirection, and just plain bullshit, we need to keep repeating it for them.

Nice … and slow … and simple.

Does Toronto need more condos?

It’s not that I’m against development, especially when new buildings appear on top of parking lots. And although there are always naysayers out there who are against any changes, I doubt that they lament the loss of paved lots that much.

But when it comes to places like the section of King west between John and Spadina, I don’t see why developers and people like the Mirvish family need to rip out an established and thriving chunk of the downtown just so they can put in their own condos.

But that’s exactly what they’re trying to do right now, with the help of councillors like Adam Vaughan who seem to think that if it’s not a giant tower, it doesn’t belong downtown. And it doesn’t seem to matter that no one along the so-called Restaurant Row wants to move, or that the Bell Lightbox tower, freshly built, is right across the street.

I’m not at all against progress or development, and I think Toronto’s often better for it. But this is a matter of cutting off the nose to spite the face, leaving little in terms of culture or uniqueness behind, and replacing it with private, off-limits property intended to only generate money.

The Mirvhishes, who at one time were pretty big patrons of the arts, have managed to do a full 180 since the death of Ed, and are now not only ripping up their own father’s legacy of love for the city, but also trying to push smaller business owners out of their way in what’s proving to be a lust for money and control. Pretty sure Ed would be furious to see what his kids are doing under his name.

And besides, a cold, heartless, exclusivist, and corporatist Toronto is not where I want to live.

Please visit for more information:

Someone (presumably Ford’s election team), recently created a video called “Respect Democracy“. Toronto City Life has responded by including a few inconvenient facts in the same video — and unlike them, we won’t hide behind anonymity:

(Yeah, I realized I’d made a spelling mistake after I uploaded it. Oh well.)

I know that the headlines prior to “Respect?” in the video are hard to make out, so here they are (all easily found using Google):