YPQ
Active Member
Nobody is more pedestrian than Doug Ford.
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Rob Ford's Toronto
- Thread starter MetroMan
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Nobody is more pedestrian than Doug Ford.
AlbertHWagstaff
Senior Member
Scarberian
Active Member
2010 Rob had a knack\instinct with knowing which anger to tap into, to get the most effect. Doug's attempt at the same tactic may not get the same traction as Rob. I hated Rogers negative billing, but it's 2014 now and I've cut the rogers tether a while back and could not be happier. But a cable bill is not like the VRT, or perhaps I should say I don't believe Doug can sell that outrage as well as Rob. And unless the CRTC continues it's boneheaded and tone deaf move against Netflix, the iron is no longer hot on that one.
Smearing Tory with accusations of bankruptcy\not minding the store may get something, sorta kinda. But I'm not sure if most voters care that much if the company is somewhere else. Most people will not want to decipher some legalese and minutiae, so reducing it to bite sized sound bites is Doug's best chance of making it stick. But again Doug's retail politicking skill is not on Rob's level, and he may have a hard time selling this.
pud99
Senior Member
The difference between bankruptcy (in the US Chapter 7, in Canada the BIA, for companies such as Charter) and financial reorganization (in the US Chapter 11, in Canada the CCAA, for companies such as Charter) is more than sophistry. (Fundamentally, it is not a requirement under Chapter 11 that the corporation be insolvent - for example, Johns Manville Corporation went through Chapter 11 in order to put a regime in place to handle asbestosis claims; at the time JMC was the most cash-rich company in the US. However, the 'absolute priority' rule in Chapter 11 required that, if some of Charter's debt was exchanged for new shares, then the existing shares had to be cancelled. Since some of the existing shareholders owned some of the debt that was converted, they ended up with a larger percentage ownership of the company going forward - what the Americans call 'loan to own'. Charter is an example of a company going through Chapter 11 not because it was insolvent and incapable of operating as a going concern at the time but because the prospect of ending up insolvent in the medium or longer term was real - welcome to the US economy in 2009.)
But of course I agree that no politician could reply to a smear such as the one that I think Ford & Silverstain are planning by offering free tuition to Financial Restructuring Law 101 and the link to EDGAR. A blunt, simply worded, forceful response by Tory would be the way to go - amongst other reasons because, as I said, I think that very few of the people to whom the smear would try to appeal would be capable of understanding that it was 'truthy'.
Personally, if I were Tory, I would be trying to figure out how to reply to two things: "bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy!!! don't let him near your wallets!!! and "he tried to hide it from you when he submitted his resume!!!". I know that some people who are aware of the possible impending smear think that the first aspect will earn nothing more that "meh" from non-FN voters. The more I consider it the more I am inclined to think they may be right, since it ought not to be very difficult for Tory to hit back hard on it. Also, the way that Ford is giving out daily hints of 'scandal to come' tells me that Ford & Silverstain think that the real power of the story is "he tried to bamboozle* you on his resume", not what he (supposenly) lied about.
*Chosen because it just, to me, sounds like Doug.
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pud99
Senior Member
He has already tried that one a few times. The daily hints at 'scandal to come' mean that Ford & Silverstain think that they have something that would be news to the generality of voters.
James_D
Active Member
They may also have nothing but think letting people speculate will be damaging enough. Doug has certainly implied improprieties about people in the past that were baseless.
Kilroy
Active Member
I'm not a big fan of negative option billing and think that companies that do it are kind of scummy. But its NOT illegal. A lot of companies make it difficult for their customers to get out of contracts, or bundle things so your paying for more than you want. It frustrating in the very least.
In the big scheme of things? It pales in comparison to the things Hash Dealer Doug and his 2 brothers did back in the day.
pud99
Senior Member
I doubt that it is Deco. As one of the beneficial owners, Doug automatically would be implicated in anything done by Robbie involving Deco, whereas JM seems to be focused on Doug getting dragged into whatever it is via his constantly trying to claim that the decisions of the "Ford administration" ("our administration") were as much his as Robbie's.
SFO
Active Member
Wonder if things are "moving quickly" as we speak. Argh, hate waiting for stuff like this.
pud99
Senior Member
The Twitter timeline of the ever-so-charming Graeme McEacheran suggests to me that they think that they do have 'something' to 'reveal' after Doug has built up enough phoney suspense with his daily hints.
pud99
Senior Member
AlbertHWagstaff
Senior Member
It was also almost 20 years ago. How many voters are there in Toronto that were not around when that happened? Many people will remember it, but to younger voters and those who were not here locally when it was in the news it won't mean much, if anything. It would be sort of like bringing up the Minaki Lodge scandal against the next PC leader.
SFO
Active Member
Whatever it is, wondering how it's going to come out. A press conference? Twitter?
the lemur
Senior Member
It's also the sort of thing that Tory actually could point to and say 'Yes, that was a mistake. I learned something from that, namely listening to customers/taxpayers, etc.'.
the lemur
Senior Member
Doug's insinuations are about as valuable as his threats of legal action. It's just a more high-flown-sounding version of 'Maybe you're perfect ...'. When the question of Rob's drug use came up in council, Doug was quick to imply that everyone on council was on some drug or other, so let's have drug tests to show Robbie's just as imperfect as you are.
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