And They Wonder Why More Women Don't Get Into Politics

In an interview in 2012, Hilary Clinton was asked “Which designers do you prefer?” Her response was brilliant: "Would you ever ask a man that question?”

Says journalist Mary Elizabeth Williams:

That terse exchange over her wardrobe ... exemplifies everything that endears Clinton to her supporters – and everything that exasperates so many of us about the current state of womanhood. You can be the secretary of state, even a former presidential contender, and it still comes down to how you look.

Last night during TVO's coverage of the Ontario Election Debate, panelist Robin Sears criticized the suit that Premier Kathleen Wynne was wearing. With so many important issues facing Ontario today, how is that relevant?

Kathleen Wynne is an accomplished woman. Openly Gay and the first female Premier of Ontario. She is inspiring. Maybe I won't go to her for fashion tips, nor should I.

She went into the debate, with a handicap, having to bear the full brunt of the gas plant scandal. It's worth mentioning that Tim Hudak ran in 2011 on a promise to close the gas plants and when asked about the cost, he said a billion dollars.

And as to repeated accusations of corruption by Andrea Horvath, given that the NDP brand has taken a hit recently with the Nova Scotia scandal and partisan mail outs, she's hardly in a position to label anyone.

These kinds of attacks only turn people away from the polls, further eroding our fragile democracy.

Last night Tim Hudak graced us with his colloquial family stories, but we're not voting for his family. He did offer a bit of comic relief however, when he revealed how he acquired his "math skills".

As I've said before, I am getting tired of junk politics. Had Kathleen Wynne showed up wearing a halter and a mini skirt we might have questioned her sanity, but she wore a suit. It hardly makes her incompetent.

What if We Voted Based on the Size of a Man's Penis?

Just as the interviewer was wrong to ask who designed Hilary's wardrobe, Sears was wrong to critique Wynne's clothing during an important POLITICAL DEBATE.

Many question why more women don't enter the political arena. Do they really need to wonder, when our adversaries capitalize on our vulnerabilities?

During the 1997 federal election campaign, while heading up the National Citizens Coalition, Stephen Harper spent $ 200,000.00 on attack ads that ran on radio stations, coinciding with print ads and massive billboard visuals, in what he dubbed "Operation Pork Chop".

In Edmonton, where Liberal candidates Judy Bethel and Anne McLellan were running for re-election, he ran a newspaper ad featuring two pigs drinking champagne, while frolicking in a trough filled with cash. The pig's heads were replaced by those of the two women, and the caption read "On June 2, Chop the Pork. Re-electing these two MPs will cost you 1.7 million."

The ads worked, and though McLellan did squeak out a victory, Bethel was pummelled and never returned to politics.

Use of unflattering or trivializing animal terms is a common rhetorical ploy, especially when referring to women, and no doubt Harper knew that portraying Bethel and McLellan as pigs, would tap into female insecurities about weight.

Recently, during a question and answer session at the PC convention in London, a delegate told Hudak he calls Horwath the "Great Pumpkin" because her party's colour is orange and he thinks she "put on a little bit of weight."

Hudak did nothing to address this.

According to Michael Wiederman of Columbia University; "In Western culture women's bodies are objectified more so than men's, and other writers have noted the multiple ways that such objectification may negatively impact women's lives."

Not only are women's insecurities about body image exploited, but also their perceived frailties.

When Randy Hillier, the Conservative incumbent for the riding of Lanark - Frontenac - Lennox and Addington, was with the controversial Ontario Landowners Association, he launched a campaign against restrictions on hunting, especially when the animals are trespassing on your property.

So he sent a picture of a bullet ridden deer to Ontario Environment Minister Leona Dombrowsky, stating “The attached pictures are the direct consequence of government injustice, and when individuals no longer fear the tyranny of legislated abuse and intimidation. In keeping with tradition, all nuisance animals are consecutively named, enclosed are pictures of ‘Leona'".

This was clearly an issue for the National Resources Minister, but the Natural Resources Minister was a man. Hillier banked on Dombrowsky's shock and aversion.

What if the NCC or any political opponent, ran an attack ad on a male candidate, with his image holding a bottle of Viagra, and the caption "Does this man suffer from Electoral Dysfunction?"

Or "Not only does he suffer from jock itch, but has too much space in his jock".

I'm not always so indelicate but last night made me angry.

When politics are reduced to this level, it insults us all.

I thought all candidates were dressed appropriately, but I just don't give a damn.

Randy Hiller and Being Careful What you Wish For

We were in the Napanee area on Saturday and I noticed the Randy Hillier signs. Not a lot, but a few. Hillier is the Conservative incumbent for the riding of Lanark - Frontenac - Lennox and Addington. This riding was only created in 2003, so for the 2007 election, all candidates were new.

He won by a narrow margin of less than 1000 votes. But Hillier had the help of a controversial group called the Ontario Landowners Association, whose mandate is "...to preserve and protect the rights of property owners and to enshrine property rights within the Constitution of Canada and the laws of the Province of Ontario."

I had written before of an experience I'd had with the OLA. We had taken our grandson on an overnight to Peterborough to visit the zoo. When leaving our hotel we noticed that a rather large group of protesters had lined the drive. I was first drawn by their signs "This Land is Our Land", and assuming that they were First Nations, I told my husband to honk the horn in support. But then after a closer look, I realized that they were all Caucasian.

Later in the day I saw that the group had moved across the road, so I asked the desk clerk who they were and why they were protesting at the hotel. She explained that there was a young hockey team from a Native community staying there, in town for a tournament. They were trying to send them a message: 'keep off our land'!

How ridiculous. The kids just wanted to play hockey, not get caught up in a land dispute, real or imagined. As the OLA's president; Hillier led the charge. He stepped down as President to run in the election, but remains true to the cause.

The Property Rights Movement

The Ontario Landowners Association is part of a larger movement espoused by libertarians, conservatives and patriot groups like the Tea Party.

They claim to be fighting for land owners' rights to do what they want with their property, without government interference. But according to Libertarian and Republican Donovan D. Rypkema, that is rarely the case. As a real estate developer he has had opportunity to deal with many from the movement and found the opposite to be true (1).

He cites as an example demonstrations made by one PR group over the prospective opening of a nudist bar in their neighborhood. The protesters were not opposed on moral grounds, but the fear that it would drive the value of their property down.

The bar owner had to relinquish his right to do what he wanted with his property, because of how it would impact those around him.

What if your neighbour wanted to turn his home into a junkyard? A sex toy shop? A half-way house for sex offenders? Fortunately, you have the right to seek protection through government interference.

Rypkema also points out that rural property values can increase with the building and maintenance of roads and highways. In urban centres, the proximity of schools, public transit, parks, etc. all factor into the value of your real estate and all require government interference.

Hillier knows this but always contends that his Property Rights people would call them if they needed them.

So What is the Movement Really About?

Many people have tried to define their goals, suggesting everything from mineral rights to taking the law into their own hands when it comes to intruders.

Randy Hillier once gave a peek into their agenda when he emailed photos of a dead deer with bullet holes in its belly to Ontario Environment Minister Leona Dombrowsky, stating “The attached pictures are the direct consequence of government injustice, and when individuals no longer fear the tyranny of legislated abuse and intimidation. In keeping with tradition, all nuisance animals are consecutively named, enclosed are pictures of ‘Leona'".

How frightening for her. It almost looked like a death threat even if it was only meant as a sick joke.

But why target her? She wasn't the Natural Resources Minister. It was because she was female so he could get the best bang for his buck. Mysogyny 101.

However, back to the Property Rights Movement and its agenda.

Did Ontario really need such an organization fighting for farmers? There is already the Ontario Farmers’ Union handling their affairs in a sane and intelligent manner, looking at the broader picture of government and agronomics.

As Helen Forsey wrote in This Magazine:

The LLA*, however, either misses this larger analysis or deliberately rejects it. In private conversations and even in the occasional flight of rhetoric, members will say they’re against big corporations, but their public complaints and protests consistently target government, not corporate power.

Like the authorities they despise, the LLA* lets the big fish get away. Worse, members don’t seem to realize that the property- based solutions they propose actually represent a welcome gift to those very corporations. Deregulation and enhanced private property rights are strategies that could have—and quite possibly did—come straight out of right-wing think tanks or political party war rooms. In any case, such schemes are an integral part of the overall corporate agenda of privatization and the undermining of government. The rural revolution’s current groundswell of vocal support for these policy directions is a major achievement that the suits must be celebrating.(2)

Stephen Harper's Reform Party called for property rights to be added to the constitution, and in fact, Harper himself attended an Ottawa rally of the OLA, in April of 2004, where he ' addressed the crowd, endorsing property rights.' (3)

But the day '... when a handful of men met in the office of Scott Reid, Conservative MP for Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington' proved a windfall for the local Conservatives, their think tanks and the corporate sector. (Reid's family owns the Giant Tiger discount store chain)

Soon Reid was touting property rights in Parliament and with Reid by his side, Hillier joined the ranks of provincial politicians.

What I found interesting about Randy Hillier, when he started his group, was that his writings were not as much to do with rural issues, but his new found libertarian ones.

He fought for the repeal of public smoking laws, helmets for motorcycles and bicycles, seatbelt laws and corporal punishment ban for children. All things that could have been issues brought forward by the Fraser Institute.

There are several things I like about Randy Hillier, including his passion and willingness to stand up for what he believes in. Unfortunately, that passion has been exploited by those with an agenda.

So if you're voting for Hillier to have your voice heard in the Legislature, be careful what you wish for. It might not be your voice at all.

Racism by Any Other Name Still Stinks

As seen with the protest in Peterborough, that targetted an aboriginal hockey team; Hillier is also on a mission to challenge Native land claims. After breaking with the OLA over an executive decision, he has joined CADANCE (“Canadian Advocates for Charter Equality), a militia group claiming to be protecting the streets of Caledonia from "lawless natives".

This was in response to the conflict with the Six Nations’ reclamation of Douglas Creek Estates (Kanonhstaton) in February of 2006. The conflict did turn violent, but the Natives did not throw the first stone, nor the only one.

It's interesting that Hillier condemned police brutality during the G-20 but is pushing for police to brutalize protesters wanting a few land considerations of their own. They have since changed their message to promoting "peaceful Native protests", which is in itself a racist mandate, suggesting that Natives can't be peaceful without their guidance.

And CANACE suggests that they only want the same rights as our First Nations.

Really?

What rights would they be?

The right to have your daughters, mothers and sisters disappear with little more concern than if you'd lost your car keys?

The right to have someone come onto your land anytime they wanted with a bulldozer and blueprints for unwanted development?

The right to live in slums without clean clean drinking water?

The right to belong to a group most likely to be incarcerated?

The right to a high infant mortality rate?

Again I say: Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it.

Notes:

*Lanark Landowner's Association - sister group pf OLA

Sources:

1. Property Rights, Land Use Planning and the Competitive Community ULI Idaho, October 30, 2006; Donovan D. Rypkema

2. Betting the Farm by Helen Forsey, This Magazine, July-Aug, 2005

3. Wikipedia

Randy Hillier Takes a Stand: Is Tim Hudak Losing Control of His Caucus?

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Several years ago my husband and I stayed in Peterborough, as part of a mini-vacation. When leaving our hotel we noticed a rather large rally where demonstrators, carrying signs "This Land is Our Land", had lined the drive.

We honked believing it to be a native protest, but soon realized that there were no native faces in the crowd.

When we returned later that day, the protesters were still in full force but had been moved across the road and several police cars now guarded the hotel entrance.

I asked the girl at the desk what was going on and she explained that there was a hockey tournament in town that weekend and there was an aboriginal hockey team staying at the hotel. These people were protesting native land claims.

Why was an out of town group of young men, who only wanted to engage in a sporting event, being targeted by a rather large and noisy group of angry white "landowners", I wondered. When I posed the question to the hotel clerk, she rolled her eyes and said that "they were nuts" and did stuff like that all the time.

This Peterborough group soon became part of a larger organization, when an umbrella group was created in 2005, called the Ontario Landowners Association. Their first president was Randy Hillier, now Tim Hudak's MPP for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington.

Hillier had originally headed up the Lanark Landowners Association, whose motto was “This Land is Our Land: Back off Government”. They had become notorious for stunts though Hillier would refer to it as civil disobedience.

This "civil disobedience", included blocking highways, barricading government offices, staging illegal deer hunts, and publicly breaking laws that the Landowners regarded as unjust. This was primarily done as a tactic to draw media attention to perceived injustices, and thereby to pressure the provincial government to amend the laws. Hillier has explained the illegal actions of the Landowners as follows: "I believe in non-violent civil disobedience. I believe when a law or rule is blatantly wrong it is a part of our democratic process to challenge that law. At times civil disobedience is used to illustrate and further bring attention to the absurdity." (Wikipedia)

"I sent [Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty an email containing] a picture of a dead deer saying the people of Lanark County were removing nuisance deer because the Liberal government had revoked those licences [for farmers to shoot deer that were eating their crops]. I did it four years ago... and I would do it again ... " (1)

His group scored a victory on the illegal out-of-season deer hunt, fuelling their cause and in April of 2004, launched a large protest on Parliament Hill. Stephen Harper attended the rally and addressed the crowd, promising to make property rights a priority if elected prime minister. It was pretty clear that he was not only trying to woo the theocon vote, but was also trying to draw in the right-wing fringe groups.

You would have thought that he would have learned his lesson after the problems this imposed for the Reform Party. They had passed a motion at their opening assembly to allow extremist groups to join the party. When the question was posed, even Doug Christie? someone in the crowd spoke up. "Ah, leave him in, we may need him later". (2) Christie was leader of the Western Canada Concept, a Party pushing for the Western provinces and territories to split with Canada and form their own nation. Stockwell Day's father was a member of this group.

Eventually the extremists all but took over the party, necessitating a reinvention, though many of them are still around. Stephen Harper handles them by silencing them, but in a democratic country, elected officials should never be "silenced". It flies in the face of democracy.

Randy Hillier and the Religious Right

Once the Ontario Landowners Association was established, Hillier decided that instead of simple acts of protest, to move the group into the mainstream, by attempting to infiltrate government and implement changes from within.

So with the endorsement and help of his group's members, he successfully won a seat in the Ontario Legislature in 2007. Hillier not only endorsed "land rights" but backed a social conservative agenda, bringing him to the attention of Tristan Emmanuel, a controversial leading member of Canada's Religious Right.

Emmanuel backed Randy Hillier's bid for leadership of the provincial party, and though a long shot he became a kingmaker for Tim Hudak, when he threw his support his way:

Landowner leader Randy Hillier brokered a deal with former PC leader John Tory to avert the possibility of Landowner candidates. It is widely believed this resulted in the inclusion of anti-environmental clauses in the PC Party’s platform in 2007 and Hillier’s own candidacy for the PCs in Lanark.

Hillier’s leadership run last year was fueled by the Landowners, and Tim Hudak’s anti-Human Rights Commission positioning was designed to broker a deal with the Landowners and other radicals. Hudak will need to come to terms with these Landowners if he doesn’t want a problem on his right ... (3)

However, when you sell your soul you have to expect that eventually those who hold the lien are going to expect payment, and I think that Randy Hillier is beginning to become a problem for the Mike Harris protege Hudak.

We first saw this with the sit-in at Queen's Park in December:

For novice PC Leader Tim Hudak, his party's protest over the Liberal government's proposed harmonized sales tax produced a couple of unforeseen outcomes. The first was his own loss of face when a caucus member apparently defied the boss's wishes in a stunt that spun out of control ... As it unfolded, eastern Ontario MPP Randy Hillier hopped aboard, apparently ignoring instructions from caucus elders that he leave the Legislature when ejected by Speaker Steve Peters. Hillier's defiance of not just the Speaker but his own leadership raised embarrassing questions as to who was running the PC show. (4)

Now Hillier is once again challenging the authority of his leader, by posting a column on the handling of the G-20 security.

Instead of a choosing a more controlled and less populated location that would not be such a powerful magnet for the few juvenile anarchists, Stephen Harper agreed to host the G20 in a location that he had to have known would draw the greatest opposition and most violent response, therefore justifying an outrageous expenditure of public dollars and creating an army of police equipped with a siege mentality.

Both the provincial and federal governments now attempt to shirk responsibility for their actions by shifting blame to one another and to the police, who were acting under political orders ... .They both use the common theme that upholding law and order required usurping our civil liberties. Any elementary school student knows these are not mutually exclusive — in fact, they are wholly interdependent. As numerous failed dictatorships have proven, you cannot have law and order without civil liberties. (5)

His column was a direct contradiction to one inked by Tim Hudak, where he placed all the blame on the protesters and backed the police action. How Hudak will handle this is any one's guess, but I think he is learning the hard way that once you court the Religious Right, they hold all the power. Stephen Harper is now learning this and while bringing in fringe groups for support, both leaders are facing the problem of knowing what to do with them.

I think this will end badly for citizens who only elect officials to govern, not appease right-wing factions.

Sources:

1. "Debate one last swipe before vote", Napanee Guide, October 5, 2007

2. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, By Trevor Harrison, University of Toronto Press, 1995, ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6

3. Tests and double tests, By Andrew Steele, Globe and Mail, February 5, 2010

4. Hudak and the Tory sit-in bring to mind Wile E. Coyote, By Jim Coyle, Toronto Star, December 7, 2009

5. Opinion: G20 crackdown reeks of tyranny, By Randy Hillier, Toronto Star, July 12, 2010

Tim Hudak and His Gang Are Making Complete Fools of Themselves

I don't know if they think these ridiculous tactics will work, but I can't believe the horrendous display that Tim Hudak and his gang of misfits are putting on in the Ontario Legislature. Who does he think he is? Mike Harris?

If I ever contemplated voting PC in Ontario again, the actions of these thugs would convince me not to even consider it. They are Reformers to the bone. Hudak used to belong to a group called "Canadians for George Bush". Enough said.

Coyle: Disgraceful show put on by PC caucus
By Jim Coyle Queen's Park
December ,2 2009

There are two lines that appear in most speeches by Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak. Among the values he purports to cherish are "respect for the rule of law." When he talks about his immigrant grandparents, he extols those who "play by the rules."

This week, as Hudak led his caucus in a disgraceful show of contempt for the Legislature and its rules, those words were revealed for empty rhetorical boiler-plate.

Heir, as he is, to the legacy of former premier Mike Harris, it's unsettling to many to imagine what a Tim Hudak Ontario might look like – especially since a Hudak PC caucus looks like something right out of Trailer Park Boys, an outfit where yahoos rule and where rules, when inconvenient, are to be defied and mocked.

This week, Hudak did himself considerable harm. He let his party be defined by its least credible and most ridiculous MPPs – bumptious contrarian Bill Murdoch from Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, and renegade libertarian from eastern Ontario, Randy Hillier.

The PC need for growth in urban Ontario will hardly be aided by the antics of those two smirking loudmouths, as pleased with their disruptive antics as a couple of adolescent spitball throwers.

Given the wide support already on the record for tax harmonization from Ontario PCs, the caucus's outrage about the Liberal government's proposed harmonized sales tax has always been opportunistic and contrived. This week, it bordered on the obscene.

Reporters were told ahead of time that Murdoch was going to put on a show. Dressed in a kilt, he stood Monday in the Legislature and pointedly called Premier Dalton McGuinty "a liar."

This, he knew, violated rules. Asked three times to withdraw the remark, he refused. He was expelled from the Legislature, but refused to leave. Then, he was quickly surrounded by caucus-mates and the standoff was on.

Both Murdoch and Hillier were expelled indefinitely by Speaker Steve Peters for continuing to defy his rulings. But the two Gong Show refugees carried on. They occupied seats not their own and defiled them, roaring spittle-flecked insults at the government.

Frankly, it's hard to imagine an image less likely to help Hudak in the longer term than that presented to Ontario by two rural, middle-aged tantrum artists as they defied the Speaker and the rules.

It's no great victory for Hudak that his PC party now wears the flushed and foolish faces of Bill Murdoch and Randy Hillier.

They were faces of raving irrationality that any woman abused by her mate would recognize. They were faces of incoherent fulminating that any child terrified by a drunken father would know. They were the faces of inane intransigence with which most beat cops are wearily familiar.

It was conduct of a sort Hudak would surely have denounced were it a student defying a teacher or a defendant defying a judge. It was evident by the body language of some PC MPPs that they were uncomfortable. Still they went along.

So shame on Christine Elliott and Sylvia Jones for letting the biggest bozos in their number rule the day.

Shame on Ted Arnott and Elizabeth Witmer for participating in the debasement of an institution in which they have worked honourably for decades.

Shame on elder statesmen Norm Sterling and Bob Runciman for demeaning a Legislature to which they will utter sentimental paeans in the retirement speeches in their not-too-distant futures.

And, most of all, shame on Tim Hudak, who, if his grandparents did put great stock in playing by the rules, can be no credit to them.

MPP Randy Hillier Considers Resigning While Trying to Create Another Walkerton Tragedy

See how clever that headline was? Unrelated video with Hillier promising to contemplate his resignation, while the story is about his interference in municipal matters.

Seems like Hudak and Harper have Randy Hillier and Scott Reid well trained in the school of Leo Strauss. Divide and conquer politics that pit residents against each other, while they pick off their core support.

Dean Del Mastro did this, using our funds to put citizens of Peterborough in conflict. Helena Guergis caused an uproar when she announced an indoor soccer field for a private religious school.

This divisive style of politics is part of the neo-conservative strategy. In the case of Reid and Hillier, they use our money to send out 'surveys' ... comb through them looking for the rednecks, and then start soliciting them for campaign funds.

They also know how hard they can drive "hot button" issues and keep things stirred up to ensure their supporters vote, while turning others completely off the process.

Great strategy if it wasn't tearing this country apart.

Ballots distributed in Lanark Highlands despite County Council's opposition
November 26, 2009
By Chris Must

EMC News - The solution to Lanark Highlands' polluted wells being promoted by MP Scott Reid and MPP Randy Hillier was tried in the 1980s and didn't work, the township's deputy mayor told the EMC this week.

In a letter accompanying a mail-in ballot sent to township residents by Reid and Hillier, the federal and provincial representatives argued that well remediation should be carried out immediately by installing filters in private wells which have been contaminated by leakage from neighbouring septic systems.

The letter also takes aim at the estimated cost of the proposed $28.5 million municipal sewer and water system, which is the solution township council has chosen to address the problem ....