Monday 7 September 2015

Canadian Politics Update: #PeeGate last night, #WankerGate today

Hello pee-ers, wankers, and followers of Canadian politics! Since the news sometimes moves so very fast in Canadian politics, I thought it would be fun to write a small update to the events of last night. Of course I got a kick out of writing about #PeeGate, and while peeing in a mug in a kitchen is a genuinely horrible thing one can do to an unsuspecting person, the humour factor is off the charts. This would have been an issue I wrote about, chuckled about and then moved on, but today brings more events that I wanted to write an update about all the goings on.

One Conservative Party candidate flushed for #PeeGate


According to the Globe and Mail, it took less than a day for Jerry Bance to get turfed as the Conservative candidate for the riding of Scarborough Rouge Park in Toronto:
A man who was reportedly caught on camera urinating into a coffee cup while working as an appliance repairman is no longer a candidate with the Conservative Party.
A party spokeswoman says Jerry Bance will not be running in the east Toronto riding of Scarborough Rouge Park.
The news comes a day after the CBC reported that in 2012 hidden cameras on its show Marketplace caught Bance doing the act while he was on a service call.
According to the CBC, Bance was kicked out by the party, rather than resigning in shame, for "failing to disclose information during the candidate vetting process."

When asked to comment on this incident, Thomas Mulcair, leader of the NDP, had this to say:
Speaking to reporters before the Labour Day parade in downtown Toronto, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair made light of the incident.
“We have, like a lot of you, taken note of the number of times Conservatives have broken the law,” he said.
“I guess this was one mugshot that Canadians weren’t expecting from the Conservatives.”
Mulcair added: “This must be someone who’s adept at Stephen Harper’s trickle-down theory of economics.”
The Conservative Party simply cannot afford candidates like this. Bance was a huge liability, especially with the Conservatives flagging in the polls. Which explains why a second candidate was turfed today.

One Conservative Party candidate whacked for #WankerGate


CBC News is reporting today that a second Conservative Party candidate has been kicked out of the party after it was revealed he was a prank caller called the "UniCaller." Tim Dutaud, the Conservative Party candidate for the riding of Toronto-Danforth:
Tim Dutaud, who was running for the Tories in Toronto-Danforth, was forced out Monday after he was identified as a man known as the UniCaller in prank YouTube videos that included him pretending to orgasm while on the phone with a woman and mocking people with disabilities. The videos appear to have been posted about six years ago.
When asked about both these candidates, Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded:
"What this means is that we keep the highest standard for candidates and these two individuals are no longer candidates," Harper said.
Harper said there would be new candidates in the ridings.
I think it probably says something about the Conservative Party's vetting process, how the Conservative Party never stood a chance of getting a candidate elected as MP in those ridings and thus they weren't inclined to try, and quite possibly to the quality of the characters of people attracted by the Conservative Party.

This scandal was actually reported a few days ago in a blog called "Some Random Political Blog," but was not picked up by the media until the Conservatives kicked Dutaud out as the candidate for Toronto-Danforth. "Some Random Political Blog" seems to be a blog devoted entirely to digging up dirt on Conservative Party candidates.

Twitter erupted in a hashtag tweet-fest over what's now been dubbed #WankerGate sending #WankerGate to the top today much as #PeeGate was sent to the top last night:





I would say that this has been a bad two days for the Conservative Party. There are, of course, the bozo eruptions that may help sink the Conservatives' fortunes that I wrote about last night. What effect these scandals will have on the polls remains to be seen.

Thanks for reading this update and follow me on Twitter: @WendelSchwab!

Wendel Schwab
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2 comments:

  1. Unknown8 September 2015 at 20:33

    If the Democratic National Committee headquarters were at Crazy Leonne's Discount offices instead of Watergate, I wouldn't have to suffer through all these #gate's.

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    Replies
    1. Wendel Schwab8 September 2015 at 20:39

      I know, right? Nowadays everything is This-Gate or That-Gate, which is the worst legacy Nixon ever left the world.

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