Straight up. Julian Fantino will win today’s by-election in Vaughan. That’s almost a certainty.
Another sure thing: the feds are planning for a spring election. Mark your calendar for April.
First, on the Fantino front.
Last I heard, the former OPP commish, who’s running for the Tories, is somewhere between seven and 11 points ahead of Liberal challenger Tony Genco.
It’ll take some seamy last-minute revelation to beat Fantino. (More on the possibility of that later).
The Liberals couldn’t come up with the star candidate they were looking for to take on Julie. The may end up regretting that big time.
As a bellwether of future Tory fortunes, Vaughan is an important potential “get.”
The nation’s conservative forces are watching.
A federal election is a given if, as expected, all goes according to Hoyle for the Tories there.
The PM’s plan is to bring down a budget beforehand.
Makes sense.
The Tories will have been in government for three-plus years by then – enough for any minority – and can’t wait much longer lest the economy goes into the shitter.
Pulled the same trick last time, if you’ll remember. The Tories don’t want the economy being the ballot question.
The Tories are keen on Vaughan. It may be overstating it to call Vaughan a beach head for a future assault on Toronto seats.
But it’s worth noting that the provincial Tory leader, Tim Hudak, who’s gearing up for a provincial election in the fall, drew 900 at a fundraiser in Woodbridge the other night. Fantino was there.
Conservatives could be ruling the roost in Toronto with Rob Ford, Hudak at Queen’s Park and Harp in Ottawa by this time next year.
It’s not like the Liberals haven’t been trying, or at least looking like they’re semi-interested, in holding on to Vaughan. They may smell a little blood even.
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has been in the riding.
True Grit royalty, aka Justin Trudeau, has been dispatched to remind voters in a video of Fantino’s loosey-goosey appreciation of the Charter of Rights while Fantino was a career copper starring in his own cop version of A Few Good Men as Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Nathan R. Jessep.
Now the Grits are scurrying like mad to get a hold of the expense claims filed by the OPP under Fantino’s watch during the G8 and G20 summits in June. Some of the expense claims have already been turned over by the OPP, after much badgering from the Opposition.
But the Grits say there’s something like $8.4 million unaccounted for.
Not that they think they’ll find anything untoward in the OPP’s expense claims. At least, that’s what Grits I spoke to in Ottawa are saying. Hard to imagine the former OPP head splurging on hookers for the boys for a job well done.
But the Libs point out that taxpayers have a right to know. And if there’s nothing to hide, then why the delay by the OPP?
The Canadian Border Services Agency and Canada’s spy agency, CSIS, have both turned over their complete list of expenses.
The OPP says it won’t until the agreed upon date with the feds – December 1, which is conveniently a couple of days after Vaughan voters go to the polls.
Just sayin.’
