Phil McColeman: Soft on Hate Crime

Phil McColeman's views on gender and sexual identity rights are clear: he has publicly stated that he opposes same-sex marriage, and was at one point associated with a coalition lobbying to make same-sex marriage illegal.

Phil McColeman's views on crime are also clear: he supports getting "tough on crime".

So how does Phil feel about hate crime against transgendered people? Answer: he doesn't oppose it.

A reader of this blog forwarded us an email exchange that he had with Phil McColeman regarding Bill C-389. That Bill would have strengthened the rights of transgendered individuals, including amending the Criminal Code to include the terms "Gender Identity" and "Gender Expression" to the hate crime offences. Getting tough on crime – Phil should love this, right? Wrong.

Phil McColeman opposed Bill C-389, arguing that "Gender Identity" and "Gender Expression" were not "clearly defined".

Well a lot of Criminal Code provisions are not clearly defined, but that doesn't stop the police and courts from enforcing them. For example, "sexual assault" is simply an assault that is "sexual". When the sexual assault provisions were enacted in 1983 nobody had any idea what they meant, but the lawyers and police figured it out anyway. Does Phil think that we should make rape legal just because "sexual assault" is not clearly defined? No way. Phil, as a "tough on crime" nut, understands how the Criminal Code works.

So according to Phil, men who wear a kilt have full protection of the law but men-cum-women who wear dresses don't. It's pathetic, but you know what there are still racist people out there too.

[for the entire text of the reader forwarded email, click here]

Phil Shirks Responsibility… Again

Phil McColeman has insulted Brantford's hard-working city councillors by blaming them entirely for the cost overruns at the Gretzky Centre renovation.

As this blog has repeatedly stated, the cost overruns are almost entirely due to an unreasonably tight deadline on stimulus spending – a deadline implemented by the Conservative government. (For DumpPhil's past coverage of this issue, see "Phil's Pointless Promise",  "Gretzky Centre Over Cost Because of Phil!",  and "Conservative government costs Brantford millions in wastePHIL spending")

When will Phil man up and take responsibility??

Dump Phil Reaches 100!

This post marks the 100th entry since DumpPhil started reporting on the poor performance of Phil McColeman. It's quite an achievement. In a little over two years literally thousands of unique readers have visited the blog – on which we have spent $0. We are proud to have raised the level of political awareness and discourse in Brant.

Some of our greatest hits have included "Phil McColeman: Soft on Crime pt 1" and "pt 2", "Phil decorates the Canadian flag...", and "Phili Vanilli", each of which garnered hundreds or thousands of page loads.

During this final week before the election we'll have some really hard-hitting posts so check back often and keep leaving lots of comments. In the meantime, here's a rundown of our posts since we started:

99 Phil Makes the List

98 Phil Does the Time Warp

97 Did Lazy Phil bother to read his party's platform ...

96 Phil Has No Compassion

95 Why…

94 Phil McHypocrite

93 Who's telling the truth?

92 Vote For Your Local Fire Hydrant

91 Hey Phil Where are the Jobs?

90 Gretzky Centre Over Cost Because of Phil!

89 Stay Anonymous Or Get Kicked Out

88 $3.1 million > $1.2 billion: Phil McColeman

87 Harper to Visit Hamilton Behind Closed Doors

86 Would You Accept a Bribe for Your Vote?

85 Attention Laurier Brant Students: Don't Vote for Phil

84 Phil Respects Taxpayers… APRIL FOOL'S!!

83 McColeman Speaks for Harper, Not You

82 Partisan Posturing and Trickle-Down Economics

81 Understatement Of The Year

80 Hulk Hogan Coming to Brantford

79 Phil McColeman: CBC Never Heard of Him

78 Phil Phakes Phamily Tax Cuts

77 Phil Finally Decides to Communicate with Constituents

76 "Who is this guy and why is he standing behind me?"

75 Phil Pretends to Care About Seniors

74 Phil Abuses His Position Once Again

73 New Look, New Address, New MP!

72 Nonsense Non-sequitur

71 Poll: Phil's Priorities

70 Don't Trust Phil's Claims on Land Claims

69 Do Phil McColeman and his staff know how the Google machine works?

68 Who would make a better Conservative MP: Phil or the fire hydrant outside his office?

67 Phil McColeman: Cheapshot Artist

66 Why did Phil choose guns over our local baseball team?

65 McColeman Supports Patronage Senate Appointments

64 Phil to Host Roundtable

63 Phil's Partisan Puerile Penal Preposterousness

62 Phil McColeman on the recent Cabinet $huffle

61 Phil McColeman embarasses himself again...

60 Quotable Quotes: Finance Critic

59 Phil Makes a Complete Phool of Himself

58 SNAP!

57 Phil on Immigration

56 What exactly are Canada's foreign policy principles?

55 Phil Blames the Liberals… again

54 Phil's Cronies Get Great Perks

53 Phil McColeman: Missing in action AGAIN

52 Phil's Silly Stats

51 Conservative government costs Brantford millions in wastePHIL spending

50 Phil's Pointless Promise

49 One Mouth, Two Tongues

48 Phil with an Automatic Weapon

47 Philnocchio lied about the gun registry!

46 Phil's Gun Crazy

45 Phil the Barbarian gets clubbed by Heritage Canada Official!

44 Phil McColeman's unFLAGging disrespect for Canada....

43 Phil calls Brantford "small-town Ontario"

42 Phil McColeman: Soft on Crime, pt. 2

41 Phil Investigated by Ethics Commissioner

40 Lazy Phil Worked One Day in 1½ Months

39 Dissatisfied Citizens

38 Phil's spending money like a "drunken sailor"

37 Demolishing Democracy

36 Lazy Phil Takes a Vacation

35 Gold-digga

34 Everybody to the YMCA – oh wait, we can't

33 Phil McColeman: Soft On Crime

32 Cheque it out!

31 Making the List

30 Cheques and Balances

29 Phil's Flag Flap Comes to an End

28 Phil Gets a Reality Cheque

27 Green Hope for Brant

26 Huffy Duffy Comes to Brant

25 Phil's Funds Fall Flat

24 Phil McColeman: Not with a strong voice but a whimper

23 Visas on Demand; Phil cubre su culo!

22 Food for thought: what does Phil stand for? Besides pork...

21 Footage of how Phil really scratched his face!!!

20 Phil does the darnedest things...

19 While Phil was busy sending "sexy" flags out...

18 Phil puts the FLAG in flagrant disrespect!

17 Phil decorates the Canadian flag...     

16 This must be what Phil's promised funding is being...

15 Phil McColeman, most spoonfed MP in the history of...

14 If you're happy to be sitting in the front row CLAP YOUR HANDS!

13 Phil McColeman, Ghostwriter

12 Phili Vanilli

11 Witness: Phil's Committee Meeting

10 A couple of MPs who also need to be replaced...

9 EMAIL, we know how to use it!

8 Dr. Phil’s Formula for Economic Recovery

7 Tased and ConPHused...

6 Phil's "Visit With Agriculture"

5 This blog got served!!!

4 New Post - Phil's Office Season 1

3 Phil's Boring Website

2 Phil McColeman sends Generic Holiday Mailout

1 Greetings!

Phil Makes the List

Phil made the list of Conservative candidates who chickened out of an all-candidates debate!

Brantfordians should be proud. Not only do we have an MP who takes his job for granted, we also have a Prime Minister who is chicken-scared wholesale of talking to the public and the media.

Phil Does the Time Warp

The other day Phil was talking to his boss. He asked his boss to give him credit for doing a good job on a project. The boss responded that the project had been completed before Phil was even hired.

That's basically how the Chamber of Commerce all-candidates debate went down on Wednesday. Phil tried to take credit for funding a new water treatment facility in Ohsweken. Well we here at DumpPhil.ca were naturally suspicious of this claim, so we did a little digging and found this press release:

The funding was ANNOUNCED IN 2005, THREE MONTHS before Stephen Harper became Prime Minister, and a solid THREE YEARS before Phil even came into office. Lyin' Phil is tryin' to take credit for other people's work!

So unless Phil has a time machine in his office, there is no way that he or his government were responsible for the treatment plant.



The worst part is that Phil has been telling this lie for years, even though people called him on it long ago.

Did Lazy Phil bother to read his party's platform this time?

Sadly this is a REAL question that needs to be asked:



"I HAVE NOT READ THE PLATFORM, IT'S SOOO NEW" - Phil McColeman, 2008 election debate

Phil also promised to e-mail the platform to someone who asked for a hard copy, not only did Lazy Phil not read his party's platform but he also does not know how to use a printer!



A reader spotted this image from yesterday's debate on the Brant News website, Phil with a giant debate binder full of notes in block letters:


Potential rebuttal from Lazy Phil: "I still haven't read the platform from the last election, so what do you expect?"

Phil Has No Compassion

The Burford United Church held a different kind of "debate" last Sunday – one that "had an emphasis on compassion, creativity and a positive vision for Canada." What a wonderful idea in an age of increasingly negative campaigning.

Nora Feuten talked about how to mend the increasing gap between the rich and the poor.

Mark Laferriere talked about a community garden project that contributed to the food bank.

Lloyd St-Amand talked about land claims and duties owed to Aboriginal peoples by non-Aboriginals.

Phil McColeman didn't say anything because he didn't attend.

Why…

…does Phil focus on "Tough on Crime" instead of issues that really matter?

Why doesn't he talk about land claims? Why does he distract us from talking about the economy?

Phil's focus on "tough on crime" is embarrassing. He has embarrassed not only himself in Ottawa but also his Brant constituents. Phil has behaved like a buffoon talking about "tough on crime" while the crime rate has been dropping for decades.

Study after study has shown that "tough on crime" simply does not work. It is just another tactic designed to distract voters from the real issues. It is also very expensive, an example of the reckless spending that has characterized this Conservative administration.

"Tough on crime" is a joke, a multi-billion dollar joke. Does Phil really think that people in Brant are dumb enough to fall for it?

Phil McHypocrite

Somebody call the waaahmbulance – Phil's been complaining about the cost of an "unnecessary" democratic election again:

"They're upset about having an election that's costing $300 million especially when it's the fourth election in seven years."

Well, Phil, let's crunch some numbers…

• $1.5 million: Annual cost of the gun registry that Phil wants to scrap.

• $3.1 million: "A lot of money" in "small town Ontario" Brantford, Phil says.

• $27 million: Cost of all those Economic Action Plan signs.

• $300 million: Cost of an election.

• $1 billion: Cost of hosting G8/G20 summit, including tens of millions of unaccounted-for spending.

• $2.7 billion: Conservative estimate of cost of "tough on crime" agenda, though the actual amount will likely be billions more.

• $28.5 billion: Cost of F-35 stealth fighter jets that Phil wants taxpayers to buy.

• $55.6 billion: Canada's current annual deficit.

It's extremely doubtful that Phil will address these numbers during our "unnecessary" election:

Who's telling the truth?

The Brantford Expositor asked all the candidates what most voters seem to be worried about. Here's the responses:

• Lloyd St. Amand: Land Claims and Jobs
• Marc Laferriere: Jobs and Healthcare
• Nora Fueten: Healthcare, Partisanship, and Nuclear Power
• Phil McColeman: Cost of an election

Three out of four candidates have something in common with another candidate. Those three also mention REAL policy issues.

And Phil McColeman? This is just more proof that he's living on another planet… or maybe not telling the whole truth.

Vote For Your Local Fire Hydrant

We've already written a blog post comparing Phil McColeman to a fire hydrant. That's because Phil speaks for Stephen Harper, not for you.

Well the Globe & Mail cartoonist must have met Phil too!

Hey Phil Where are the Jobs?

Looks like Harper the Economist still hasn't figured out how to run a country. Despite all those blue-and-green stimulus project signs, Brantford's unemployment rate hasn't improved since the recession:

When Phil was elected in 2008, unemployment was 5.9%. Within a year unemployment in Brant was 60% higher at 9.8% [source: StatsCan]. Coincidence?

Gretzky Centre Over Cost Because of Phil!

Phil was super-happy to brag all about the pork-barrel funding of the Gretzky Centre construction (in conjunction with Dave Levac). But the Harper government made an unreasonable deadline for using the money so that they could look good before an election. The deadline was eventually moved back, but the process had already been sped up. The shortened timeframe forced costs higher, and this was coupled with a bottleneck of contractors across Canada working on pork-barrel projects in Conservative-held ridings.

Pretty bad planning from a man who brags about being a contractor. Here's a replay of the Conservatives' moronic move:

Stay Anonymous Or Get Kicked Out

If you comment on this blog you probably shouldn't leave your real name. If you do, you might one day find yourself in a similar situation as this young politico:

Joanna MacDonald, a fourth-year environmental sciences student at Guelph University, says she pre-registered for Harper's election campaign event at the school Monday.

But after arriving with a friend, MacDonald says she was directed to a desk where she was told her name had been flagged and she was asked to leave.…

She demanded to know why she was being flagged. An unidentified official eventually told her it was likely because she had participated with the Sierra youth coalition on climate change at the Cancun conference last December.

If going to a climate change conference is sufficient to get you booted onto the street, leaving your name on this blog might end you up in a dark alley with a Conservative staffer ready to rearrange your face.

At the very least you'll wind up like this citizen, who recounts his experience from the 2008 election:

He will fight ticket

The Brantford Expositor, Wed Oct 15 2008, Page: A8

On Friday, Oct. 10, I went to Patriot Forge on Henry street to see the arrival of Stephen Harper and I was directed to park my car beside about 100 other cars on the lawn in front of Patriot Forge's main entrance. I was not asked if I was on the Conservatives' registration list or if I had been invited to be there for the visit of the Prime Minister.

While waiting at the arrival area, I had the opportunity to converse with Craig Oliver, a national TV reporter whom I have met on occasion at the National Press Club in Ottawa. I mentioned to Oliver and some other people standing near me that I intended to ask Harper why we needed a $300-million election one year before an election date mandated by Harper. I then was approached by three police officers and was asked to leave the premises. I responded that I intended to ask my question to the Prime Minister and therefore intended to stay.

At that point, I was removed from the property and I was given a trespassing to property ticket ($65).

There were no signs at the entrance to Patriot Forge prohibiting or restricting access to the property if you were not invited or a member of the Conservatives.
I intend to go to trial and fight this charge.

Gord Allan, Brantford

So basically, if you have ever in your life expressed an opinion different than Stephen Harper and Phil McColeman's, don't go to the Harper event in Hamilton on Thursday.

$3.1 million > $1.2 billion: Phil McColeman

Stephen Harper has decided to take aim at the gun registry, claiming that it's too expensive. The Conservative government had no problem spending over a billion dollars on a three day summit in Toronto last summer.

Phil tried to argue that gun control is too expensive but out of control spending is okay:



Phil is the same person who had no problem spending taxpayers' money on thousands of Canadian flags with his e-mail address on them and sending them out.



Forget a calculator, Phil needs an abacus!

Harper to Visit Hamilton Behind Closed Doors

Phil tweeted today:

Phil definitely has the ear of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper gave Phil a whole 3 days' notice that he was visiting near Brant.

More disturbingly, Harper is not willing to meet with the public at large. What kind of elected official is scared to meet with the public that she or he represents? It doesn't seem too democratic. You have to pre-register to go to the event. It reminds one of the last time Harper visited Brantford, where members of the general public were turned away at the gates of Patriot Forge.

However those who do manage to get approved for the event still run the risk of being thrown out on the street, as the plight of this young student shows.

Would You Accept a Bribe for Your Vote?

Would you accept a bribe for your vote… if you knew you'd have to pay back the debt later?

If you would, Phil's your man He brought Gary Goodyear to the opening of his campaign office. Goodyear lauded Phil for bringing pork-barrel funds into Brant, while neglecting to mention the structural deficit that the Conservatives have racked up. Watch the video:



Phil is so close to his boss Prime Minister Stephen Harper that he has no idea whether Harper will visit Brant. Oh well, it's not a great loss since Harper is only holding pre-arranged meet-and-greets and accepting only 5 questions per day. Not to mention that last election when Harper visited Patriot Forge in Brant, the event was only open to card-carrying Conservative Party members. Those who couldn't show their Conservative membership were left outside the barbed-wire fence surrounding the factory. Compare that to e.g. Jack Layton who, when he came to town last week, spent time on the street with random Brantfordians.

Attention Laurier Brant Students: Don't Vote for Phil

Phil McColeman has gone on record saying that he opposes giving grants to post-secondary students because it "could make some students ineligible for other loans and grants".

Let me get this straight. Phil opposes giving students money because then they won't be poor enough to qualify for high-interest loans. Of course, with education grants those students won't need said loans. Phil's reasoning makes perfect sense: it's better to keep students in debt instead of giving them tuition money up-front. Right.

Phil Respects Taxpayers… APRIL FOOL'S!!

No doubt that during the election tons of great letters to the editor will be penned. Here's a gem from the Expositor:

Taxpayers on Hook for Conservative Ads

The Conservatives like to pretend that they didn't want an election but I'm not buying it. They had hoped to be defeated on a budget that was unacceptable to other parties because it was so misleading, but they were slapped in the face with a Contempt charge instead. If they didn't want or expect an election then why did I get campaign literature from McColeman in my mail box the very day the government fell, and why did I hear a barrage of radio ads all weekend trying to sell their 10 billion dollar tough on crime prison building scheme? The saddest thing of all in this though is that when Stephen Harper talks out of both sides of his mouth, we pay for it.

By Nic Coivert

The Conservatives have wasted TONS of taxpayer dollars on advertising. Those Economic Action Plan signs that sprouted up like dandelions cost $27 million (a whopping $800-$7,000 per sign!!). Since coming to office the Conservatives have spent $130 million on advertising. That money should have been spent on tax cuts or lowering the huge deficit. Even spending it on Kanye sunglasses would have been a better use. Phil has no respect for taxpayers!

McColeman Speaks for Harper, Not You

Ever since day one people were worried about Phil McColeman being muzzled. They were worried that his boss Stephen Harper would control everything he said. Well looking at McColeman's voting record, it seems that he is just a puppet controlled by Harper.

McColeman voted 204 times in the House of Parliament since 2008. He dissented from the Harper line twice. That's 2 out of 204 times that McColeman voted differently than the rest of his party.

Is McColeman muzzled? 2 out of 204 is less than 1%. You be the judge.






[Ironically this isn't the first time we've seen Philnoccio the Puppet]