I think most people consider there to be substantial difference between things you did during your wild and crazy youth, and things you did last week.
There is also the question of putting your own thugs on the government payroll and having them try to acquire (and presumably conceal or destroy) the evidence by force. Even in America that’s considered a bit, how you say, screamingly corrupt?
Yes I smoked crack. But I only did it because I love this city so. damn. much. People were telling me that the B.C. rock was finer than Toronto rock and I just had to find out for myself. Well they were wrong. I even compared our rock with Oshawa rock and Mississagua rock and ours was still better. It’s better than the rock from Brampton or Hamilton or even from Windsor. The rock from Guelph was pretty good and I had to test alot of it, but ours was still better. The rock in Kingston was surprisingly good…
Here in Canada all you have to do is apologise and say you are seeking treatment. That worked for the premier of BC when he got busted driving completely plastered when on holiday in Hawaii - he even got re-elected again a couple years later on ‘fiscal responsibility’ despite running huge deficits… Compare that to the preceding leftie premier who got run out of town on the perception of wrongdoing (of which he was exonerated) after having balanced the budget repeatedly.
I should qualify. You have to do those things if you are a right wing politician. Left wing (NDP and sometimes Liberal) politicians receive no quarter and are consumed by the howling masses if they so much as fart at the dinner table.
So the ruling Conservative party can be accused and even convicted of election fraud and suffer no consequences of meaning. They can have massive fraud and criminality, but they are the party of ‘responsibility’ so actually being responsible is not required. The other parties and politicians can expect constant hostile scrutiny, and any slight possibility of wrongdoing will result in the echo chamber going completely nuts.
I despair for our democracy. This doofus is just a symptom of a much larger problem.
Ford will survive this and may be even get re-elected, to the sound of facepalms across the country. One of the best opposition MPs of the last 40 years had a breakdown and committed petty theft, it destroyed his career and and it is still all anyone will talk about 10 years later (nevermind his 25 years of excellence).