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Wednesday, November 24, 2010
The Battles of Vaughan & Julian Fantino's Caledonia Legacy
More than partisan maneuvering is at stake in next week's Vaughan by-election:
If Fantino, the 68-year-old former OPP commissioner, wins "it would be a feather in the cap of the Conservatives," said Nelson Wiseman, an associate politics professor at the University of Toronto. "They have been picking up byelections and they think they have an excellent chance here."
Nor is it about Julian Fantino's "law and order" credentials:
Fantino, who retired from the OPP in June, said he wasn't ready to devote his life to golf, a game he doesn't even like playing.
"I will be forever concerned and conscientious about that (crime)," he said, adding that the issue is more important now that he is a grandfather of four. "It's a huge issue. Any crime is unacceptable and I shudder when I hear people talking about or minimizing the impact of crime. For me as a statement, unequivocally in this regard, any crime is unacceptable."
It is about how bitter, and frankly insincere, those words from the former OPP Commissioner must seem to the residents of Caledonia. The image of the crime-fighting crusader contrasts sharply with the OPP's inaction during the occupation of the Douglas Creek Estate. Fantino's status as a star candidate for the Conservative Party belies opposition from genuine conservatives.
In his four years in power Stephen Harper has played bait and switch with the Canadian electorate. He has talked of conservative values, and fear mongered on the dangers of a Liberal-NDP coalition government, while running a government which is fiscally to the Left of those of Paul Martin and Jean Chretien. In Julian Fantino he has again offered Canadians a false bill of goods, a law and order candidate who, as OPP commissioner, failed to uphold basic law and order.
What has allowed the Prime Minister to get away, so far, with the candidacy of Julian Fantino is the near silence the MSM has offered on the Caledonia tragedy. With the honourable exception of Christie Blatchford, the media has largely ignored the near anarchy which persisted for years in a Canadian small town, all within driving distance of Toronto. Canadian television journalists should long ago have stopped, if only for a moment, chasing down crooked used car salesmen, and paid attention to what should have been the biggest news story of the last five years. Placing the violence of Caledonia in Canadian living rooms, might have ended the tragedy and pain much sooner.
Media stories, like political rhetoric, are wrapped in narrative. The tribal loyalties of Blue Tories and Red Liberals belie differences in what might be called applied public policy. Thus the Liberal Party is the party of spendthrifts, even though most of Canada's post-war balanced budgets were delivered by Liberal Finance Ministers. The Conservatives are the party of law and order, even though their law and order platform consists mostly of picking on low-level marijuana users and dealers, rather than focusing their energies on genuine crimes such as theft, assault and murder.
Our universities, and their journalism schools, dutifully teach their wards the new version of the white man's burden, that descendants of Canada's original colonizers grew rich on the suffering of the pre-Columbian inhabitants. In consequence the sins of the great-grandfathers must be expiated by the apologies, and subsidies, of the great-grandchildren.
This involves a selective observation of the facts. Many reservers are third-world hell holes not because of corrupt unaccountable quasi-tribal governments, but because Ottawa hasn't spent enough money. Land claims are portrayed as honest attempts by modern day Davids - pardon the Euro-centrism - against the Goliath of the federal government That many of these claims are on the filmiest of pretexts is ignored. We must feel sympathy for the victims of land allegedly stolen centuries ago, as if these events were fresh in the memories of their participants.
The aboriginal is aways right, the non-aboriginal is always wrong. Racism employed to fight long-dead racists. Journalists, scholars and even police officers are today re-enacting long ago wars in modern twenty-first century Canada. The price of observing these multicultural pieties was the break down of law and order, in one pretty spot of rural Ontario. For that Julian Fantino must share the blame. For that the voters of Vaughan must reject his candidacy for the Parliament of Canada.
Posted by Richard Anderson on November 24, 2010 | Permalink
Comments
Politics is tribal warfare, by other means.
Thanks for staying on this Publius, and for your excellent commentary.
Posted by: Kalim Kassam | 2010-11-24 6:34:07 AM
Whether its Fantino, the Liberal candidate, the Green Party candidate or the NDP each one of these guys will bow down at the throne of political correctness! Fantino's law and order record is a joke! However, when have the Liberals, NDP, or Greens ever come down hard on murderers or rapists! It's because of the Liberals and NDP that we don't have a death penalty. It was the Trudeau government that softened many of our laws(with NDP support). In 1971, the Liberal Party government of Trudeau established(again with NDP support) the government policy of multiculturalism. How is that working for you over say assimilation of all peoples into one uniting Canadian culture(lie the U.S. has traditionally done)? The Conservatives have been guilty of wimping out and going along with these leftist blueprints. This is because for too many years Red Tory types(like Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, Bill Davis,etc.) have called all the shots in the PC party(later Conservatives). Do you ever hear of a blue Liberal? You know a Liberal that favors tax cuts, is pro-death penalty, pro-gun rights, and pro-life? At least in the U.S., some of the Democrats in the south and midwest fall into this category! These guys thought that there was only room for left-wing parties(NDP, Liberals, etc.) and a centrist party(Progressive Conservatives). So, they presented themselves as moderate supporters of the Liberal Party programs. The current Conservative Party is an improvement only in that it is more right-wing than the old PC's. Would the old PC's have opposed Kyoto, the gun registry, defunded certain radical feminist groups, cut the GST(or really any other tax), and stood up for Israel? Probably not! The problem is that the Conservatives have not moved sufficently right enough. They need to restore much of the old Reform agenda. One, balanced budgets with the probable help of a balanced budget law of some sort. Two, do away with all Human Rights Commissions and Civil Rights offices(nothing more than political patronage posts). Three, devolve as many government responsibiites as possible to local and provincial governments. Four, hold a binding referendum on making senators subject to election. Impose term limits of no more than 10 years in the House of Commons(or a period equal to 2 majority governments) and a limit of two 8 year Senate terms. Five, give citizens the ability to hold a binding referendum on recalling activist judges. Six, allow binding public referendums on issues such as the gun registry, death penalty, and abortion. Seven, give voters the ability to recall their member of parliment. Eight, allow parlimentarians to have free votes on all issues(including the budget). Nine, pass a law banning the use of foreign laws in civil and criminal proceedings. Ten, pass legislation allowing for either a national school voucher law or to allow the provinces outside of Alberta to set up charter schools. Eleven, push for provincial right-to-work laws. Twelve, find ways to deunionize federal employees. Call this platform 12 points of light or whatever but I think these changes would greatly help Canada. They would give us a leaner government that would be more responsive to the voter. Also, it would probably give us more conservative social policies(i.e. death penalty, gun registry, right to self defense) that more accurately reflect the views of the average Canadian.
Posted by: Elmer | 2010-11-24 12:11:14 PM
Good points Elmer , but i wont go along with the death penalty. I would also encourage the conservatives to end the war on drugs, and set a priority to defend liberty.
Posted by: don b | 2010-11-25 1:23:39 PM
Fantino was acting at the behest of the politicians . Does anyone really think that he wouldn`t have gone in there busting heads if not for the Liberal wimps at Queen`s Park . Treating the Indians as children is a time honoured traditon and no law and order type like Fantino is going to interfere with the century old extortion and grand standing. It might ignite a fire storm of common sense and demands for these loafers to start assimilating and get a job.
Posted by: daveh | 2010-11-27 7:39:13 AM
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