Rivers on dastardly deeds:

Rivers 100x100By Ray Rivers

October 19th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Raitt thumbs up

Conservative candidate Lisa Raitt describes the current campaign as the nastiest since Kim Campbell.

“Isn’t this the nastiest campaign” I asked, and Milton’s Conservative MP, Lisa Raitt, completed my thought with “since Kim Campbell”?

Andrew Scheer’s campaign started out short on policy but long on name calling and character assassination. He has taken the offensive in every sense of the word, hurling insults like ‘phoney and fraud’, ‘criminal’ and ‘liar’ at the prime minister. And his campaign has been involved in creating and disseminating so much disinformation, it makes the Russian troll factories look like amateurs.

Leaflets falsely claiming Liberals were going to apply capital gains tax on your primary residence. Adverts in the Chinese language media that Trudeau was going to legalize hard drugs. Rumours that Trudeau had been fired from his former teaching job; a} because he’d had an affair with a student; and b} because he had an affair with a student’s mother.

Catherine McKenna

A “Climate Barbie Doll”. Really?

Scheer’s campaign manager is Hamish Marshall, a former corporate director and contributor to ‘The Rebel,’ an ultra right-wing medium which has been soft on white supremacist stuff and/or anything sympathetic to the red neck crowd. The Rebel attempted to discredit Canada’s environment minister, labelling her Climate Barbie, until she faced them down for their pathetic attempt at character assassination.

The Conservatives started the campaign saying Trudeau is ‘not as advertised’. Indeed the Aladdin costume stunt did surprise/shock many of us, but older Canadians would have watched Justin grow up as son of one of Canada’s most flamboyant and longest serving prime ministers. We actually know a lot about the Trudeaus. And after four years as prime minister it is hard to understand how ‘not as advertised’ even makes sense.

But Mr. Scheer is that proverbial fella in the glass house throwing stones. He tried to lie about his work experience – neither a broker nor having met accreditation criteria to be one. He tried to conceal his firm position against a woman’s right to choose. He refused to apologize for his earlier anti-LGBT same-sex marriage rants. And he tried to hide his dual nationality, while attacking other party leaders and a former governor-general for theirs. And he must/might have broken US law by crossing the border without using a US passport.

ustin Alladin

Regrettable – it did take place 20 years ago when he was a much younger man.

But Mr. Trudeau apologized for his ethics violation, for having worn an Aladdin costume and for having mismanaged the SNC prosecution issue. Scheer had never accepted ownership for his past mistakes, has shown no remorse, and appears not to have learned from those experiences. And that just makes him look even nastier.

And it seems to be contagious. Jagmeet Singh has caught the bug. Making things up as he goes along, he has been taking shots at his Green Party opponents, trying to align them with the ‘nasty’ Conservatives. Then as his poll numbers started to climb he turned his attack onto the Liberals, claiming they are in the pockets of the corporate giants, playing the offended sympathy card. His pitch for Pharma care, which all three left-of-centre parties are promising, included erroneous claims that drug prices are rising, when generic drugs have, in fact, fallen over the last decade starting back in the Harper years.

May and Justin debating

Elizabeth May scolding the Prime Minister.

But unlike Mr. Trudeau, Elizabeth May has strenuously fought back against these false accusations. At the outset, Trudeau had pledged not to campaign on wedge issues, but the Liberals have now started to fight back, though it is probably too late. Mr. Scheer has been effective at tearing down Trudeau’s character – and in this election of personalities that seems to be all that matters. And the debates just made that all the easier.

kim-campbell

Kim Campbell

Kim Campbell’s 1993 campaign gets the prize for scraping the bottom of the barrel, and there have probably been other ugly ones before that. It is hard to believe that two seemingly likeable people, Kim Campbell and her campaign manager John Tory, would do such a dastardly thing. But desperation makes us behave in unpredictable ways. So take heart if you don’t think this has been the nastiest campaign yet, there are still a few days to go.

Rivers hand to faceRay Rivers writes regularly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking.  Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington.  He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject.   Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa.  Tweet @rayzrivers

Background links;

Kim Campbell –    Dirty Campaign –     Lies About Drugs

Conspiracy Theories –    Rebel Media –    Scheer Campaign

School Affair Lies –     NDP Lies –     Scheer US Travel

Scheer More Lies –    Scheer Angry –    Not the Nastiest

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11 comments to Rivers on dastardly deeds: ‘phony’ and ‘fraud’ or ‘criminal’ and ‘liar’.

  • Fred J Pritchard

    Ray, the CON’s can’t compete on policy, so they have nothing left but lies. Just look at Ford, beyond cheap beer in corner stores, he has nothing but cuts. Even with his reckless cuts, they have yet to see progress because he gave it away to corporations, wasted over $100 Million on breakup fees for the hydro acquisition, millions on severance for his friends. In fact, the Ontario Government has never had so many lawsuits against it by private corporations who provide services to the Government in it’s history. Ford thinks he can just rip up contracts without consequences. Imagine how much worse it will be with Scheer and Ford together. Two people with no plan. Sure he wants to give each of us $25 for gas money, yet he will cancel building projects like the 401 expansion, so that we spend hours more per week in the car and far exceeding the $25 in gas money he gave us. We can’t afford Scheer and is Harper like policies.

  • Joe Gaetan

    As a reminder, Trudeau apologized because of black face. In terms of dastardly deeds why don’t we start with Gerald Butts; Trudeaus’ pal and the architect of Ontario’s woes. Then, broken first past the post promise, calling small business owners tax cheats (by the way Karina did nothing on this file), Trudeaus lame defense to the alleged Kokanee grope, where we are told people “experience situations differently, the multiple black face escapades, the Aga Khan vacation in the Bahamas, not one but two ethical lapses, the firing of JWR and Philpott, inviting a Sikh terrorist to an event in India, Lavsam, uh, I mean political interference of prosecutorial independence (if anyone cares about the rule of law), etc. etc. etc. Our vote is a mirror of our own value system. If this man is the best we have, we are in trouble.

    • David

      Oh thanks Joe. I’d completely forgotten he called me a tax cheat; And Gould better not show up on my doorstep this morning….Im going for a walk.

    • Joe Gaetan

      And I forgot to mention the despicable treatment of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman and the hush money paid to him.

  • gfraser

    “but older Canadians would have watched Justin grow up as son of one of Canada’s most flamboyant and longest serving prime ministers. We actually know a lot about the Trudeaus.”

    I do remember the pirouette behind the Queen and the BC salute on the train. But Pierre would be rolling in his grave if he knew how his son has disgraced the family name and the standing of Canada on the world stage.

    My only hope is that JT’s racial predilections will keep him out of the coveted UN post he is hoping to acquire post-PM.

    gfraser

  • Carol Victor

    ZThanks for saying it how it is Ray!

  • Larry

    When Andrew S has nothing to offer except Ford’s ill informed policies, but on a national scale, the only avenue left is to become an attack dog ….

  • Phillip Wooster

    Ray, in your article, you state that Hamish Marshall was a former director of Rebel Media and also a contributor. I certainly knew of his corporate function but search as I might, I can’t find any articles written by Hamish for the Rebel. Could you please direct me to them?

  • Phillip Wooster

    Really Ray? Are you saying Trudeau hasn’t lied? He lied when he appeared in front of the press when the Lavalin story first broke in the G&M and claimed it was false. He lied when he said he had not pressured JWR. He lied when he rose in the House of Commons and said the Ethics Commissioner would have full access to all witnesses and documents to report on the Lavalin scandal. He lied during his vaunted apology for the blackface outrage when he said there were only two instances, and then we find there are three; almost immediately he quit quantifying how many there were, suggesting there are more. Hardly a paradigm of truthfulness.
    And of course we can consider his “promises” during the 2015 election campaign when he promised to run no deficit greater than $10billion but broke it almost immediately, running a $20 billion deficit during his first year in office. And his promise to do politics differently, to run an open and accountable government. Were these lies to the electorate or just badly broken promises? Finally we must consider his lie that the Lavalin Scandal was about protecting jobs–not only did the head of Lavalin state no jobs were at risk, but Trudeau has conducted a methodical cover-up of the Scandal. No paradign of virtue here.

    As for the Trudeau apology tour. Did he really apologize for the finding of a breach of the conflict of interest law by the Ethics Commissioner–he SAID he apologized but then said he disagreed with the finding–he apologized but didn’t! He said he apologized for the blackface scandal but if you listen to the apology, he isn’t sincere deflecting to “his upbringing” and of course he lied about how many times he appeared in blackface.

    There is no doubt that the Liberals intend to raise taxes. Just prior to the writ period, McKenna continually changed her story and obfuscated on how much carbon taxes were going to increase. On October 17, Karina Gould posted a blog that read, “To be clear we will not put a 50% tax on the sale of your home”; when asked to provide a simple clarification as to whether than meant “NO TAX, period” or “the rate would be different than 50%”, she did not respond. What does her silence say? Indeed, some of the posts questioning this were deleted.

  • Jim Thomson

    Trudeau apologised for the SNC ethics violation?
    When did that happen? Last I heard he still thinks trying to protect 9000 SNC jobs was the right call. Sad thing is Karina Gould agrees with him.