Like Dorothy in *Wizard of Oz*, told to “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” Ontario voters & media have little or no access to the leader of the Conservative party during this election.

It was Jan. 29, I believe, the very first day of the current provincial election campaign. The London Police Service hosted an appreciation and awards banquet. And wasn’t it convenient for the premier that he was invited to speak to what Mr. Ford considered his peeps.

I guess he decided to take the opportunity to slam federal lawmakers and judges for being soft on criminals such as home invaders. And according to the Toronto Star’s Queen’s Park Bureau, Ford went way off script.

“God forbid they kill an innocent person,” Ford mused in front of a thousand police personnel and guests at the banquet, adding that he’d prefer that judges simply send home invaders found guilty of murder to the electric chair. (more…)

Last Sunday, about 1 o’clock in the afternoon, I disappeared. I wasn’t hiding. I wasn’t trying to escape. In fact, I’d just returned home from a getaway-weekend hockey tournament in Bancroft – an annual event my oldtimers teammates and I enjoy.

As I arrived home, however, I felt my pocket, noticed my wallet was missing. I began retracing my steps. One of my hockey buddies and I had stopped for coffee. I’d paid the cashier, picked up the coffee cups and pastry and promptly forgot my wallet at the cash.

“Did anybody turn in a wallet left on the counter?” I asked an employee over the phone.

“Not that I know of,” she said.

I asked her to check with a supervisor or manager. But the answer was the same. Nothing in the lost-and-found. Nothing on the counter, the floor, anywhere. The wallet I’d absentmindedly left behind was gone. (more…)

Ted Barris

author | journalist

Posts with the Service Ontario tag

Pay more attention to the man behind the curtain

Identity lost and found