I've never been one to simply tinker with the edges when what's required is bold action.Toronto Centre MPP George Smitherman, aka "Furious George", promising to shake things up before he even takes the mayor's chair. Bully pulpit, or just bully? [NOW Magazine - 11/12/09]
'Furious George' Smitherman Was the Premier's EnforcerTHEY made the oddest of couples, the beanpole Dalton McGuinty and bearish George Smitherman.
The Ontario premier grew up a socially conservative, impeccably polite Irish Catholic from the Ottawa suburbs – probably convinced into adulthood he didn't even know any homosexuals.
The man who would become his unlikely political lieutenant was an out-and-then-some gay man, a hockey-playing, Whitney Houston-loving brawler who never went to college, started in politics as a lowly driver, confessed while in cabinet to a fondness for party drugs, and rose to become the second most powerful politician in the province. [...]
Smitherman Denies eHealth Influenced Mayoral Run
GEORGE Smitherman is brushing aside suggestions that he is running for the Toronto mayoralty in order to sidestep some of the political muck generated by the eHealth scandal.
Smitherman stepped down from his high-profile role as Energy and Infrastructure Minister on Monday to announce he will take a run at becoming mayor of Toronto in next November's municipal election.
Mayor David Miller announced in September that he wouldn't be seeking re-election in fall 2010.
Smitherman, who was the province's health minister before he took up the energy portfolio in June 2008, has come under fire as a result of the eHealth boondoggle, in which nearly $1 billion in taxpayers' money was spent over the past decade in a failed bid to create an electronic health record system. [...]
COMMENTS
Bend over Toronto - Smitherman wants to hit you baby one more time...
Remember his health care tax? And where are those thousands of new nurses that this tax was suppossed to pay for - did you forget that election promise? They only made it in two elections, so maybe it does not count like every other promise liberals make.
He’s a grade 12 graduate who worked in a camera store and he’s trashed every portfolio he’s had in the Ontario government.
I would really like to see Rob Ford run for Mayor - I think he is honest and tries to spend our money in the best possible way and to get the biggest bang for the buck. No spending on "favourites" like what we're used to being done.
I fail to see why people vote for a guy whose greatest accomplishments outside of politics are opening an unsuccessful photofinishing shop and overcoming cocaine addiction...My grandfather, a true man of the land, referred to people like them as having "bankers hands". He told me that if a man's hands are strong, rough, and calloused, you can probably trust him. If not, be wary. Those are timeless words of wisdom as far as I'm concerned.
George Smitherman Steps Down to Run for Mayor
"I AM a son of this city. It is where I was born, where I was raised. It’s a city that has been a source of great pride and a place where I’ve devoted a great deal of my energy trying to help build a stronger community. Toronto has had an amazing history, of which we should all be proud. I believe it can have an even brighter future." [...]
COMMENTS
Yes, the man who got the ball rolling on the E-Health Consultant scandal, and is now forcing giant windmills on communities throughout Ontario wants to step back and fix Toronto.
Just what Toronto needs in this time of fiscal mismanagement, an army of consultants wasting millions of dollars to force Torontonians to accept the latest left-wing pap. If we thought David Miller was arrogant and tin-earred, well George Smitherman will take both to a new level, and every taxpayer in Toronto, and Ontario will suffer for it.
As for the voters of Toronto Centre showing their faith in George, I would suggest that a fire hydrant would win the riding if it ran under the Liberal banner. At least the hydrant would provide a useful service to the riding after the election.
We certainly do not need Smitherman. We have lived through the disaster of one blowhard the last 6 years and do not need another thin skinned bully. The other question is why he is not resigning immediately from his seat. He is now in a conflict of interest raising money and running for Mayor yet sitting in the Provincial Legislature.
Smitherman represents all that is BAD in politics. He bounces from ministry to ministry accomplishing NOTHING. Let's not forget he has responsibility for Ontario's e-health spending scandal. He is a waste of time and money.
This is a man who thinks it's OK to spend Ontario taxpayers' money on sex-change surgery, while people with cancer wait over two months for treatment.
Sickening.
March 2010_______________________________________________
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