Glass Houses

McGuinty’s mouthpiece has stones, and should be careful where he throws them

Former journalist and failed by-election candidate Ben Chin called in to CITY-TV’s lunchtime news show today to attack Toronto councillor David Shiner. Shiner appeared on the call-in segment to discuss David Miller’s failed attempt to hike taxes and subsequent slashing of services (a politically dumb gambit aimed at punishing the councillors who opposed his tax hikes, but puts zero pressure on the province – but never mind).

Chin’s beef seemed to be that Shiner is a candidate for Ontario PC leader John Tory (in the Willowdale riding) in the October 10th provincial election while continuing to do his job as a city councillor. Shiner wore a tiny “PC” lapel pin during his appearance, but did not – that I saw – mention his candidacy.

A brief scan of the Liberals’ MPP and candidate list, however, reveals a tidy handful of Liberals who held municipal or school board positions while running on Premier Pinocchio’s slate in 2003:

Kathleen Wynne
Donna Cansfield
Wayne Arthurs
Brad Duguid
Lorenzo Berardinetti
Bill Mauro
Mario Racco

Oh, and what about McGuinty’s current “star” candidate in Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock, Rick Johnson? Johnson is the current vice chair of the Trillium Lakelands District school board, and president of the Ontario Public School Boards Association. How’s he managing to cover those duties while on the campaign trail?

A final note on the low-profile Mario Racco, who ran several times for federal and provincial nominations while a Vaughan city councillor. His behaviour in 1994 was particularly egregious: Racco ran for re-election to Vaughan council in the 1994 municipal election, while simultaneously running for the provincial Liberal nomination in York Centre. He was re-elected to council in November, then continued to run for the nomination that was scheduled for December. He lost the nomination to Mario Ferri, who lost in the general election to Al Palladini (who I worked for when he was Mike Harris’ transportation minister).

Update: According to today's release from the Fiberal campaign, Rick Johnson has resigned as head of the Ontario Public School Boards' Association, a post to which he was acclaimed just three months ago (er, thanks for all your hard work!). Oddly, the OPSBA's website does not mention his resignation.