Arrogant, ‘above-the-law’ Fantino needs to be defeated

Nick Fillmore from Catch 22 Conservatives had asked me if I would post this entry for him.  Here goes:

The behaviour and track record of former Ontario police boss Julian Fantino, running to upset the Liberals in the Vaughan by-election on Monday, fits right in with the contemptuous behaviour demonstrated so often by Stephen Harper and his Conservative Cabinet gang.

Over the years, Fantino the cop has continually demonstrated that he is arrogant, often obnoxious, and that he feels he can act above the law. Like a cat with nine lives, he survives from one damning crisis to another – including charges of wiretapping and corruption that were later thrown out of court. Fantino has also sought glory by trying to associate sexual orientation, gay men in particular, with child pornographers. He’s ruined a few lives of innocent men along the way.

And it’s the same old Fantino, 68, during the Vaughan by-election. He has shown a lack of respect for the electoral process by arrogantly refusing to take part in campaign debates, (no efforts made to change the date due to his conflict), removing and confiscating perfectly legal Liberal Party signs “too …, and declining to be interviewed by journalists.

The Liberal candidate, Tony Genco, 43, has time and time again challenged Fantino to a debate. Genco is best known for playing a lead role in the transformation of Toronto’s Downsview military base into a park that can host major events. Running for the NDP is Kevin Bordian, while the Greens’ candidate is Claudia Rodriguez-Larrain.

The Liberals have held the riding since 1988, but there are indications that Fantino – largely because of name recognition and the fact that he served police forces for 40 years – has a fair chance of defeating Genco unless voters rally and support the Liberals on Monday.

Catch 22 Harper Conservatives, which was formed in January by a group of non-partisan citizens opposed to the Harper government, believes that, if Vaughan citizens want to see Fantino defeated, they should vote for the Liberal candidate, Tony Greco.

The Catch 22 campaign– named after the number of days Harper prorogued Parliament – is starting to build a strong, grass-roots, volunteer movement that will encourage voters in the next federal election
to support candidates who appears to have the best chance of defeating weak
Conservative incumbents.

With both the NDP and Green candidates polling well behind Genco, it is clear that Genco is the only one who can defeat Fantino.

Fantino continues to be hounded by many of his past actions when he was head of the Ontario Provincial Police, including his handling the Caledonia land dispute.

Most significantly, Fantino stands accused by anti-Six Nations provocateurs and vigilantes of not doing enough to crush the Six Nations protesters during a 200 year old land dispute in which a developer was building a residential project in 2006. While the claims are spurious at best, Fantino allegedly crossed the line by trying to illegally influenced municipal officials during the crisis. In December 2009, an Ontario Superior Court justice ordered that Fantino must face these allegations but Ontario’s Justice Department never acted on the order.

There are allegations that the HarperCon government is shielding the OPP’s ex… until after the by-election. Only about half of the more than $100 million
spent by the OPP has been accounted for. What is the government and OPP
trying to hide?

Leading up to the federal election, Catch 22 plans to develop strong campaigns in many federal ridings, particularly about 35 ridings where the Conservatives are expected to be the most vulnerable.

Catch 22, which is growing every week, currently has 285 members at our website, more than 500 followers on Facebook and over 100 people following us on Twitter.

Canadians interested in helping defeat Conservative candidates are invited to visit the Catch 22 website, review our goals and information and, hopefully, support us as volunteers in our campaigning.

We can also be reached via email at [email protected].