Morning Brew: July 22nd, 2008

Fantino, Brant. They're both jerks.

It's hard to sympathize with either of them regardless of what the other one does.

we should through in a misleading the public and providing shitty service suit in there too...fastest and most efficient network my ass

Fantino needs to go. In light of the tensions that have existed between Aboriginals and cops since at least Dudley George's shooting, having a top cop threaten to make protestor Shawn Brant's "world come crashing down" is a very real threat.

Fantino has the clout to make those kind of things happen.

P.S. nice link to the CTV Toronto website....designed by yours truly - shameless plug!

I'd love to see whole sections of the crowd chanting "Ice... cold... beer".

It's more to cheer for than the Jays' record, unfortunately.

Fantino is definitely a moron for his comments, but Brant is hardly an angel. The First Nations community should do themselves a favour and tell Brant to stop pretending to represent them. All he does is gives the community a bad name.

Less Fantino, more cowbell.

Bad Cops, Bad Cops, Watcha gonna do? Watcha gonna do, when they come for you, Bad Cops, Bad Cops...

I don't know why everyone is so down on Fantino. Sometimes, tough situations call for tough cops. The situation could have been much worse. As Canadians, we want all of our law enforcement officers to be Dudley Do-Right. It's not an easy job, and sometimes you have to be a tough guy.

Personally, I support everything Fantino did last June.

It seems to me that the City of Toronto has gone to shit since his days as Chief. What the fuck does Bill Blair do, anyway?

I really hate Fantino from his Toronto days and his wasting money repainting OPP cars but some of the commentary above and elsewhere makes me want to defend him in a one-time-only-offer sort of way.

/begins
What precisely was Fantino meant to do? Shawn Brant and his supporters had blocked the 401 and had caused disruption to signals forcing the only railway between Montreal, Ottawa and southern Ontario to a halt. A strongly worded letter wasn't going to get it done.

The fact is this: Fantino did not threaten to shoot Shawn Brant - he threatened his reputation. Brant chose for whatever reason to end his protest without bloodshed. To my mind Fantino did what we pay him to do.
/ends

Fantino, you're still a dink.

Except that the crime rate has actually fallen since he left.

Fantino is a blowhard. He makes a lot of noise to perpetuate the impression that he's doing something. Bill Blair's more low-key, but somehow manages to do his job competently anyway. Who'da thunk it?

And no demands for new helicopters and planes and uniforms either. How does he get away with it!

Great Lakes issues - water bottlers are like less than 1 percent of the people taking water from the lakes. It's cities and companies like Ontario Power Generation that use HUGE amounts of water, as opposed to bottlers like Nestle.

I like the beer guy too, BUT if he had sold beer to underage kids, we'd want him fired. Calling him a hero is kinda dumb.

Can we see this 22-year-old "mystery shopper"? Not every 22-year-old looks that young.

While he wasn't going by policy, his actions weren't really all that bad. It's kind of sad they would fire him just like that without any sort of warning first.

I can understand if he was fired for actually selling beer to someone who was underage. But no, he was fired for something relatively objective. "Anyone who looks under 30" is a very grey term. Like Gloria said, maybe this 22 year old looked 30. That's not that far of a stretch for some people.

It is not a policeman's job to threaten to destroy anyone's reputation. Fantino was a disaster when he worked in London and neatly destroyed the lives of several men who were subsequently found innocent. He was an annoyance in Toronto, constantly appearing in uniform calling for changes in laws, which is contrary to the police act. Oh, and illegal phone taps are a problem too. Waste this guy, soon.