Remember when it came out last summer that Rob Ford had been arrested in Florida for drug possession and drunk driving in 1999 (see mug shot to the right)? The revelations followed other incidents which included Ford being thrown out of the Air Canada Centre in 2006 intoxicated after berating a couple of strangers and in 2008 being accused of beating his wife (the charges were eventually dropped). None of these real scandals seemed to hurt Rob Ford, who went on to win the Toronto mayoralty.
Now the alleged wife beater and drunk driver is endorsing Stephen Harper in this election.
The Sun quoted the mysterious cop: “To have arrested him and charged him would have served our egos a lot more. Layton was a thorn in the side of the police, siding with the anti-poverty movement in ’96 or ’97 … Jack was anti-police,” the ex-cop said.
Olivia Chow, Layton’s wife, denied her husband had done anything wrong in an e-mail statement late Friday night.
“Sixteen years ago, my husband went for a massage at a massage clinic that is registered with the City of Toronto,” Chow wrote. “He exercises regularly; he was and remains in great shape; and he needed a massage.
“I knew about this appointment, as I always do.”
In a letter from his lawyer, Layton recalls “being advised by police at the time that he did nothing wrong.”
I’m sure Layton did nothing improper in this incident. Certainly nothing as bad as Rob Ford.
It seems to me that Sun Media and all its affiliates are just yellow journalists and fiction writers pushing a partisan agenda. I think this lousy smear will actually be seen by the public for what it is – and it will backfire dearly against Sun Media’s political wing, the Conservative Party.
