Showing posts with label Ford (Rob). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ford (Rob). Show all posts

07 June 2018

The Amazon Customer Review 2018 Ontario Election Edition: Interesting and Easy to Read



Election Day in Ontario. If the pollsters are correct, Doug Ford is set to become the province's twenty-sixth premier. That's him smiling on the cover of Ford Nation, the book he wrote with his brother Rob.

Ford Nation ranks as one of the most remarkable achievements in Canadian publishing. Doug announced that he was writing the book at a 13 September 2016 news conference.  Two months later, there is was, finished and in stores.

Again, a remarkable acheivement... made more so by the fact that co-author Rob had died nine months earlier.


At that news conference, held in his mom's garden with Rob's widow Renata by his side, Doug described the work in progress as "the most exciting book that this country has ever seen when it comes to politics."

Does the finished product live up to Doug's claim? I haven't read Ford Nation myself, and so rely upon Amazon customer reviews:

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06 November 2015

Ezra Levant and the Crude Art of Bowdlerization



The Rainmaker: A Passion for Politics
Keith Davey
Toronto: Stoddart, 1986

Pity Ezra Levant, not nine months ago he was making good money hosting his own show on the Sun News Network. True, ratings hovered around five thousand, but Brian Lilley and the rest of his stablemates fared no better. It was a dream job. Sun stood by its man as he smeared, misinformedinsulted, fabricated and spewed racist vomit. Job security seemed guaranteed. Separatist Pierre Karl Péladeau was committed to the "unapologetically patriotic" network… until he wasn't. There were no takers when it was up for sale.

Ezra Levant, Pierre Karl Péladeau and Rob Ford,
Sun News Network Launch, Toronto, 1 April 2011.
Levant has since turned to the internet, following Glenn Beck into irrelevance with a website supported in part by ads for mail-order brides. He calls it "The Rebel". Write him if you're interested in contributing. Don't bother if you expect to be paid (those ads for mail-order brides don't bring in much).


I'm not sure what The Rebel has by way of staff. Last May, Levant put out a call for an intern. Salary: $1000 a month with free lunches at McDonald's. Clearly, there's no researcher. Just last week, in an effort to expose Liberal bias, Levant told us that this man, James Armstrong Richardson, after whom Winnipeg's airport is named, sat in Pierre Trudeau's cabinet.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau was a teenager when James Armstrong Richardson died. The airport was named under Stephen Harper.

This week has Levant claiming that "Justin Trudeau is demanding that 24 Sussex Drive be totally rebuilt before he moves into it." This isn't a cock-up so much as another of Levant's fictions. Trudeau is demanding nothing, rather he's following the recommendations of a seven-year-old Auditor General's report that Harper chose to ignore. Maybe Rona Ambrose told him that asbestos isn't all that dangerous.


Levant makes no mention of the Auditor General's report, which deemed the renovations urgent, nor concerns coming from the National Capital Commission. Using his very best indoor voice, he tells us that the idea is Justin Trudeau's alone:
This is his first real fight – fighting for his own perks. Well, what was Pierre Trudeau, his dad, like when he was prime minister living in 24 Sussex? Was he a spoiled millionaire, too? Pierre Trudeau, like Justin Trudeau, inherited millions of dollars when he was born. He didn't have to work a day in his life.
Yep, didn't have to work a day in his life – except that he did. What follows is Levant at his most disingenuous and deceitful:
Let me read to you from Keith Davey's account of how Pierre Trudeau demanded a swimming pool at 24 Sussex Drive and threw a tantrum until he got one. Davey was a Liberal senator and senior campaign advisor to Trudeau. So, I'm going to quote now Davey's account. I'm just going to read it.
Bullshit.

What Levant reads is a bowdlerized passage from Davey's memoir with all words, sentences and paragraphs that challenge his narrative removed. Here is the late senator's true account of what transpired, with the words Levant struck out:


So, there you have it, Keith Davey's account of "how Pierre Trudeau stamped his feet and had a tantrum like a spoiled child just like his millionaire son is doing now."

Pity Benjamin Harper, son of millionaire Stephen Harper. How long before Ezra Levant passes judgement?

Who am I kidding.

Levant won't say a word. After all, he's never gone after this billionaire's son.


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27 October 2014

Loving the Mayor of Toronto



Firebrand
Rosemary Aubert
Toronto: Harlequin, 1986
Breathless, she couldn't say anything, and taking her silence as acquiescence, he kissed her again, whispering, "I'll call you tomorrow."
     Then he was gone. Before she went in, Jenn took a good look at the spot on her front porch where she'd just been kissed – twice – by His Worship, the mayor of Toronto.
 
Municipal elections take place across Ontario today, meaning Rob Ford's time as Toronto's mayor is nearly over. Given the man's current health struggles, it may be unseemly to feel good about this, but I do. Ford did considerable harm to Toronto. Barring the election of his brother, which is unlikely, the city will be better off.

Fifteen years ago, when I was living in Toronto, a clownish figure named Mel Lastman was its mayor. Come election time I cast my vote for transgender rights advocate Enza Anderson. She came in third.

Enza Anderson and Mel Lastman, Toronto, 1999
Toronto politics seems to swing wildly between the conventional and unconventional  – or maybe that's just me. In 1986, the year Firebrand was published, the city's mayor was Art Eggleton. Then in the third of his four terms of office, he'd go on to Ottawa, where he served as President of the Treasury Board, Minister of Infrastructure, Minister of International Trade and Minister of National Defence.

When he was through, Lastman returned to his Bad Boy furniture stores.


Michael Massey, the hunk at the centre of this novel is more like Eggleton than Lastman, though I'm betting on John Sewell as the model. Like Sewell, Mike starts out as an activist politician, gets his face smacked by a fellow alderman, and rises to become mayor of our largest city.

The Globe & Mail, 14 March 1972
We first meet Mike in a police van after he's been picked up for disrupting the demolition of an old house (see: Sewell, John). Seated across from him is tearful Jenn MacDonald. Mike got himself arrested on purpose – something to do with bringing attention to the cause, I think – but Jenn is along for the ride only through a misunderstanding. Whatever will husband Bobby think? Fast friends, Mike and Jenn spend the night in neighbouring cells, are freed in the wee hours, and part on the Gerrard Street Bridge. It's not that Mike isn't attracted, but that Jenn is a married woman.

The second chapter begins fifteen years later. Jenn has split from Bobby, and is now working as a librarian at Toronto City Hall. After all this time, her thoughts drift back to the innocent evening spent with Mike. It wasn't that she wasn't attracted, but that she was married.

Mike got married himself – to a Rosedale ice queen – but is recently divorced. Now mayor of Toronto, Jenn sees him from time to time walking through the lobby, but he never sees her. Then, one day, they happen to stand next to each other while watching skaters on Nathan Phillips Square.  


Firebrand being my first Harlequin Superromance, I had no idea what to expect. Still, these things surprised:
  • Elizabeth II as a character.
  • Ribaldry.
  • A debate over whether the Toronto Police Service should be armed with Uzis.
  • A rally against arts cut-backs (with allusion to the cancellation of The Friendly Giant).
  • A sex scene that takes place in the mayor's office.
Yes, a sex scene in the mayor's office. What's more, it takes place before expansive windows overlooking the city:
Suddenly the room behind her was plunged into darkness, and the square outside seemed to spring into full vibrant light. The fountain in the middle gleamed beneath its lighted arches. Queen Street and Bay Street glowed from Saturday night traffic. The clock tower of Old City Hall shone the hour with benign dignity, while all around, office buildings, banks, insurance companies and hotels cast glitter from myriad windows into the night. And above it all shone the full moon, golden, warm, familiar, seductive.
Firebrand is as much a novel about the love between Jenn and Mike as it is the author's love for her hometown. This is no brilliant observation on my part.


The couple stroll through Chinatown, drive along the Danforth, and sneak out of a ball at the King Edward Hotel. There are times it's all a bit forced, though I'm ready to blame an editor's heavy hand for sentences such as this: "She was in The Room, the most exclusive boutique in Simpsons, a huge department store on Yonge Street not far from City Hall."


"I love you, you big heap of brick and concrete," Jenn cries out one morning as she gazes upon the city. The greatest threat to the budding romance between mayor and librarian is found in their disagreement over the future of the Leslie Street Spit. That obstacle evaporates unresolved; others, promised by cover copy, prove no more intrusive than Timothy Eaton's left toe, and things move along toward the usual conclusion. Like City Hall itself, Firebrand alternates between the conventional and the unconventional. Or maybe not. It's my first Superromance.

Note to cleaning staff:
Before her, all six-foot-four of him glowing in the soft window light, stood Mike, fully and gloriously a man. Hungry for her with a hunger that was obvious in every part of his huge body. She dropped her eyes, suddenly shy.
     That gesture of shyness pushed him right over the edge of longing. He wanted her so much. He took a single step closer.
     And she fairly ran into his arms. Sweet, wise, willing Jenn. She had his heart, his soul, his body and his love.
     Tenderly he lowered her onto the deep, soft rug.
Dedication:


Trivia: The man who slapped John Sewell was Alderman Horace Brown, author of The Corpse was a BlondeThe Penthouse Killings, Murder in the Rough and Whispering City.


Object: A 306-page mass market paperback with and additional four pages of advertising. Today's bibliophiles will regret having missed out on this exciting offer:


My copy was given to me by Amy Lavender Harris, author of the acclaimed Imagining Toronto. I have Amy to thank for bringing this novel to my attention.

Access: Published in April 1986 – and never again – it's held only by Library and Archives Canada. There are plenty of used copies available online, ranging in price from 1¢ to US$44.60. Pay no more than one dollar.

The only translation of which I'm aware is Um homem inatingível [An Unattainable Man], published in 1986 by Brazil's Editora Nova Cultural.

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06 November 2013

Harper Hockey Book Watch: Fin (et raison d'être)



Good things come to those who wait, but so do the bad and the ugly.

Nine years and 138 days after it was first reported, one year and 321 days after he announced its completion, the prime minister's hockey book was released yesterday. Given authorship, website and book trailer, the launch for A Great Game seems to have been rather muted. No copies were in evidence at the Conservatives' frightening Hallowe'en convention. Costco catalogue copy aside, the only advance notice I spotted came this past Saturday in the form of an ineptly worded, poorly punctuated "Suggested Post" on Facebook:


Pub date publicity – the best being this video of stumbling Leafs –  was by mid-morning overshadowed by a confession from Rob Ford, the prime minister's fishing buddy. The afternoon brought the "political executions" – John Ivison's words, not mine – of Brazeau, Duffy and Wallin. The prime minister's will be done.


Power & Politics passed without a single mention of our prime minister's hockey book. Nevertheless, A Great Game had risen to #16 at Amazon.ca by that point, 782,390 places higher than on Amazon.com. Its placing south of the border must have come as a disappointment to agent Michael Levine, for whom American distribution played an "extremely important" role in selecting a publisher.

I wish Simon & Schuster well, and very much look forward to reading the prime minister's book. While recognizing that Chris Selley, who has written the most thoughtful review thus far, dismisses A Great Game as "dry, dispassionate and detailed as to induce test anxiety," I spot some fun. For example, the first chapter begins with the prime minister cocking a snoot at the world of academe by quoting "The Life I Lead", an American song written for a 1964 Disney musical set in pre-Great War England, as a means of anchoring Edwardian Canada.


Such wonderful childhood memories.

I recognize that some correspondents may question my good wishes for the prime minister and his book. One follower of the Harper Hockey Book Watch has accused me of "picking on the Stephen Harper" (before warning that I best not set foot in Alberta). In fact, my criticism has naught to do with the prime minister, but the fourth estate (and I've visited Alberta without incident).

For nearly a decade, the press picked up and dropped the story of the prime minister's hockey book with the enthusiasm and attention span of a playful, inbred puppy. Back in April 2006, when BC boy Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" topped the charts, Mr Harper announced that he expected to finish the book within months. In the midst of the 2008 election – "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry – he again told reporters that it was on the cusp of completion. In December 2011 – Rhianna's "We Found Love" – the prime minister revealed to Jane Taber and Tonda MacCharles that he'd actually finished his book, adding that a publisher was in place and that it would appear in 2012. Each pronouncement launched a flurry of news stories, but never a follow-up. Not a single news source commented when the promised hockey book failed to materialize last year.

Not one member of the press has pursued Heritage Canada's sudden, unexpected and unexplained decision – which I support! – to allow Simon & Schuster Canada to publish Canadian books.

Hockey is not the only great game.

And so, I close the Harper Hockey Book Watch with two related queries and a gentle suggestion.

Queries: Has the beneficiary of proceeds, the Military Family Fund, received an advance on royalties? If not, why not?

Suggestion: Those who are choosing to boycott A Great Game may wish to consider donating directly to the Military Families Fund.

Note to the Conservative Party of Canada: A website update is long overdue. Rumours are fuelled by things like this:


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