{"id":4536,"date":"2013-11-06T14:58:21","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T19:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=4536"},"modified":"2013-11-13T17:30:05","modified_gmt":"2013-11-13T22:30:05","slug":"politics-as-usual-anything-but-usual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-anything-but-usual\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: Anything but Usual…"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, after taking a week off from my columnist duties, I am back to the task at hand \u2013 writing about Politics as Usual. But, my goodness, things are anything but \u201cusual\u201d, are they?
\nFirst, we have Duffy\u2019s explosive allegations that have resulted in nearly two weeks of tortuous, embarrassing deliberations in the Red Chamber. His dramatic pronouncement, \u201cthere were TWO cheques, folks, yes TWO\u2026\u201d was calculated drama.
\nI do think it\u2019s interesting that he has only made his statements in the chamber \u2013 where he has privilege (i.e. can\u2019t be sued). I\u2019d be interested to hear what he has to say when that privilege is removed, but I digress.
\nNow, mercifully, shunting the near-endless coverage of the Senate debacle off the front page of the national dailies are the even more explosive allegations about the \u201cactivities\u201d of the Mayor of Toronto and massive police surveillance regarding the same.
\nHundreds of pages of police evidence have been released to the public, about the Mayor of Toronto and alleged drug dealings and clandestine meetings at all hours of the day and night.
\nBut, worse than that, we have none other than the Police Chief Bill Blair, stating that not only does the infamous \u201ccrack\u201d video exist, but he confirms that it is Mayor Ford on the video and he is doing something that is \u201cconsistent with\u201d various media reports.
\nIn other words, The Star got it right. Video evidence of a Mayor smoking crack \u2013 allegedly \u2013 is not a first. Washington Mayor Marion Barry, I believe, has that dubious honour. But, it is a first for Canada \u2013 and it is indeed shocking.
\nWhether or not the video shows the Mayor actually smoking crack or, rather, marijuana or tobacco, as his lawyer suggests, I think the jig is up.
\nThe message for months was that the video did not exist. Now, as the police have revealed, it does exist (despite someone\u2019s best efforts to destroy it). The Mayor was videotaped allegedly smoking what is described as a crack pipe, while sitting in what the police describe as a crack house, with alleged drug dealers and criminals, so what\u2019s in that pipe is entirely beside the point, quite frankly.
\nQuibbling about whether one can \u201cprove\u201d what\u2019s in the pipe \u2013 and hence parsing out just what the Mayor lied about \u2013 the video or the crack in the video – is, to my mind, less relevant. It\u2019s the existence and context of the video that\u2019s relevant.
\nAnd it\u2019s an odd defence anyway, if you ask me; a bit reminiscent of Clinton\u2019s famous line of defence when caught in a whopper, \u201cIt depends on what the meaning of the word \u201cis\u201d is\u2026\u201d
\nThe strategy didn\u2019t work for Clinton, and I doubt it will fly for Ford either.
\n I, for one, am surprised that the Mayor\u2019s advisors did such a poor job of managing this situation. Clearly, they must have known that the Mayor had some personal issues, shall we say, and given the public nature of his position, that someone, somewhere had videotaped him in a rather a compromising position or two.
\nTo deny such evidence exists and fail to plan for its release and publication seems, well, stupid.
\nBut, for all we know, they did have a plan \u201cB\u201d and it\u2019s being ignored. Many politicians operate in a sort of bubble, oblivious to the fact that they may be held to account for their actions.
\nWhich gets us back to Aurora\u2019s political world. We\u2019ve not had any embarrassing reports on our community in national newspapers, at least this term, thank goodness, and we have certainly never had anything like what is happening in Toronto. Indeed, Aurora\u2019s current issues look like very small potatoes by comparison \u2013 and almost embarrassingly so.
\nGetting our proverbial knickers in a twist over access to a phone and desk, or the disposition of three trees on private property, for example, seems positively picayune. I said it before and I will say it again \u2013 some folks, and especially those sitting at the Council table \u2013 need to regain their perspective.
\nYes, things can always be improved. Yes, there are areas of concern. But let\u2019s leave the pitchforks and torches at home, shall we? Let\u2019s not lose sight of the fact that we have a great community, great people and a clear sense of pride in our Town. We have much to be thankful for.
\nUntil next week, stay involved, stay informed because, this is, after all, Our Town.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas Well, after taking a week off from my columnist duties, I am back to the task at hand \u2013 writing about Politics as Usual. But, my goodness, things are anything but \u201cusual\u201d, are they? First, we have Duffy\u2019s explosive allegations that have resulted in nearly two weeks of tortuous, embarrassing deliberations in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1ba","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 19:35:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}