NEWS

From insults to subliminal persuasion on Eglinton

Jeff Walker Walkabout column logoIf you haven’t noticed as yet, the infamous billboard “Fire Wynne: Stop the Corruption; Stop the Lies” is gone. For several months it loomed over Premier Wynne’s constituency office on Eglinton Avenue East, west of Laird, from atop the north side of the street.

It was Ezra Levant’s brainchild and he surely must have succeeded in mortifying any Liberal who stopped by Wynne’s office over that period, especially Wynne herself. Levant is the in-your-face conservative activist and author who runs Rebel Media. He informs us that the controversy-stirring billboard was crowdfunded, so perhaps those funds finally ran dry.

I always thought his timing was off, here. Wynne, stunningly, had returned the Liberal Party to majority status in 2014, a seeming impossibility at the outset of the election campaign. Ontarians had spoken, announcing that the gas plants scandal could be set aside, and had awarded Wynne a four-year mandate.

The appearance of the billboard, first placed around the corner on Laird before being moved even closer to home, seemed like a mere schoolyard taunt to me. What were a couple of Ezra Levant insults — even if conservatives were right about her — compared to Wynne’s spectacular political crushing of the Conservatives? Fire her? After that? I think not.

Perhaps four years on. That’s what elections give voters the chance to do, and they were obviously in a Wynne-hiring and not a Wynne-firing mood two years ago. Most people today can’t even remember the name of the Conservative Party leader — you know, that guy who looked rather like Michael Keaton in his Batman era. As I recall, it was the Conservatives’ intended mass-firing of civil servants by way of a job-creation program that sank the party’s fortunes as soon as the campaign ship left the dock.

So the illogical notion of firing Wynne — the peoples’ choice, like it or not — just reminded many of us of the Conservatives’ pathetic attempt at a campaign they should have won easily after a decade of Liberal rule and misrule.

Along the continuum between Canadian civility and American no-holds-barred free speech, Levant stood up for the latter, in defiance of the former. It would be nice to have both. In this case, the billboard was both uncivil and ill-timed. I’m sure a future Conservative government would much appreciate being spared the Levant treatment at the hands of angry defeated liberals. Certainly, nothing makes one appreciate bedrock civility more than witnessing its ugly and complete obliteration in America during the run-up to the latest national election. On both sides.

The new billboard will doubtless attract attention, as people look upward, surprised at its forerunner’s disappearance. Given that during the Trump/Clinton wars I occasionally checked in online with Alex Jones’ Infowars, I became wise to the new world order and all its liberal machinations. So, look closely at that sneaky replacement billboard, likely a Liberal/restaurant-chain collaboration.

It’s not just not-Levant.

It’s a subliminally subversive Liberal coup. They might have erected a “Premier Wynne Forever” billboard.  Obviously the bright red “Baton Rouge” invokes Wynne conducting the Ontario legislature with her Liberal-red baton.

Obviously “Chef Miriam” or the “Iron Chef” invokes Chief Kathleen, a Liberal version of Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher. The “Winning Creation” invokes Wynne’s stellar cabinet.

The “2016 Winner” accolade reminds us of Wynne’s 2014 triumph. Also, put those wing-y Kathleen glasses on Chef Miriam, and you have a dead-ringer for Premier Wynne herself (sort of). Sneaky, yes, but eminently civil.

So take that, Ezra Levant.