Sunday, September 23, 2018

Doug Ford, Faith Goldy, and the Company They Keep

Last night was Ford Fest in Toronto, an event that used to be organized by the late Rob Ford and his brother Doug, however as Doug Ford is now the premier it seems that the event is now a Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario sponsored event; the party claims that no tax dollars paid for the event. Ford Fest has always brought out.... er.... the best of the Ford family base of supporters, including one a few years ago in which Ron Banerjee shouted homophobic slurs prior to assaulting a gay rights protester.

You know, as one would do at an event touting conservative family values.

Truth be told, Doug Ford has attracted quite a significant following among members of the far right who count themselves as his staunchest supporters and at last night's Ford Fest saw a few of those supporters turn out:


Kevin "Poodle" Johnston arriving with Faith Goldy and her incel alpha-male entourage (including the Proud Boy member shooting the video above) wasn't exactly surprising. Goldy has been rather desperate to garner media attention for her fringe mayoral campaign and I'm probably falling into that trap myself by giving her even a little bit of oxygen:


Then again I sort of think of Goldy and her ilk as being more akin to anaerobic bacterium such as Clostridium botulinum where exposure to the air ultimately proves to be lethal.

Now regarding Goldy's presence, the big news being covered by most journalists is the fact that she and her boi toys had a selfie moment with the premier:



There have been calls on Ford to condemn Goldy by the NDP, but really, despite suggestions from insiders that Ford was unaware of Ms. Goldy's rather sordid history....
.... I'm personally somewhat dubious about that claim myself:

Still, what interests me now are those who have decided to work on Goldy's campaign:


Readers have met "Jack Tyler" before on the blog. He participated in the ID Canada (formerly Generation Identity Canada) banner drop that occurred on August 11 in Toronto and which Goldy herself promoted afterwards:


In addition to being an ID Canada member, "Jack" is also a member of Students For Western Civilization, another hate group that Goldy also has strong ties to:


ARC has already offered ample evidence that both ID Canada and Students For Western Civilization are in large part behind Goldy's campaign:


The presence of "Jack" at Ford Fest with Goldy, who also participated in the defunct far-right podcast "This Hour Has 88 Minutes" as Cracker Jack (as well as another similar and more recent podcast) is further confirmation:


Interestingly, "Jack" isn't all that much of a fan of Ford as evidenced by a video that he posted not long after Ford won the PCO leadership race:


The part at the end of the second clip was some not-so-subtle antisemitism in case ya'll didn't catch it.

So why support Ford now? Well, he actually said that people should vote for Ford at the end of the video as he is a means to an ultimate end:


I'm especially interested in "Jack's" suggestion that they need to act "crypto" in the political sphere until such time as they take power to implement their white supremacist policies.

"Jack" isn't the only one who has rather ambivalent views about Doug Ford:


I don't think the Proud Goys like me much


This past June, I noted in an article focused on the Proud Goys, an even more racist offshoot of the racist Proud Boys that the Proud Goys didn't think was racist enough, that Doug Ford followed them on Twitter:


In what may or may not have been a coincidence, Ford "unfollowed" the Proud Goy Canada Twitter account, something for which I have been credited while also providing a link to "Jack's" video:


By the time he won the election however, it looks like Proud Goys Canada has sort of kissed and made up with Ford:


Not at all surprisingly, the folks behind the Proud Goy account are also tickled pink that Goldy is running for mayor:


Looking through the other posts, as well as the Twitter profiles Proud Goy Canada follows and is followed by is very interesting and will be revisited at a later date, however I want to touch on this screen shot for the time being:


Readers will recognize "Jack's" profile as well as that of the head of ID Canada's Sudbury chapter "CarloNord" whose first name appears to by Tyler; the article that was published about him confirms ID Canada's and Students For Western Civilization's active involvement in Goldy's campaign.

Then there's this guy:


Connor Johnston is also working on Goldy's campaign as evidenced by the following:



Johnston was also present at Ford Fest last night:


So, what's this guy's deal? Well.... how's this to start with?







Yeah, this all seems a bit alt-rightish if you ask me.... and since you're here than I assume you are asking me so let's go with that.

Johnston working on Goldy's campaign isn't the only connection the two have.

One reason Goldy is no longer employed by Ezra Levant is because of what happened in Charlottesville in August 2017. Goldy was there providing sympathetic coverage for the white supremacists when a car driven by a far-right extremist plowed into the counter-protesters leaving one woman dead and several injured. She was later fired for appearing on a neo-Nazi podcast linked to The Daily Stormer soon after.

Guess who else was planning on going to Charlottesville?


I don't know if Connor Johnston ultimately went or not after the cancellation of his Airbnb account and reservation, but it is clear that he was planning on attending the event. It is also clear that he holds the same views as those who attended the event:


This is the company Faith Goldy keeps.

No doubt we'll be learning more about some of the others associated with Goldy and her campaign as time goes on.

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