Well, we have another story in today’s Toronto Star over vandalism targeting Liberal supporters in that city:
Toronto police patrolled a midtown area overnight, after vandals cut brake lines on at least 10 cars parked at homes with Liberal election signs on their lawns. Affected residents live in the riding of St. Paul’s, in a swath of the city around Eglinton Ave. between Bathurst St. and Mount Pleasant Rd., and had Carolyn Bennett signs on their property. The cars were also damaged in other ways; some were scratched and keyed with L signs. Phone and cable lines of some homes were cut.
This is chilling, because this is EXACTLY what was done to Guelph Liberal supporters during the Guelph byelection campaign. Here are some pictures in the Guelph vandalism blogpost I did on that particular story.
This appears to be a concerted campaign of intimidation tactics aimed at Liberal voters. Call me paranoid, but I find it highly suspicious that the tactics would be almost the same in both cities (no spray-painting of houses was done in Toronto apparently). Do I blame any formal organized political party for actively doing this? Of course not, but it appears some folks are taking things into their own hands. I also mirror what Impolitical said at her blogsite; these disgusting criminal acts will not work at intimidation of those of us proud to call ourselves Liberals.
UPDATE @ 11:00 am: A press release sent to me from the Carolyn Bennett campaign indicates there was graffiti spray-painted at the Toronto homes as well. One of Ms Bennett’s campaign workers informs me that one house had spray-painted on it “B.Rae lies” and another said “McGuinty lies”.
Apparently, we’ve got people who can’t tell the difference between federal and provincial levels of government or the people running in them.
UPDATE 2 @ 11:50 am: The official Carolyn Bennett press release posted at the Liberal website talking about this despicable incident.
UPDATE 3 @ 12:38 pm: David Graham, who is a Guelph blogger, notes another similarity in this pattern:
To add to the “coincidence,” the Guelph attack took place exactly eleven days before by-election voting day, and the Toronto attack took place exactly eleven days before the general election voting day
UPDATE 4 @ 5:46pm: Impolitical now has a blog up that says Parkdale-High Park Liberal supporters were also targeted. This is getting ugly.
Whoever is doing this is utterly psychotic and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Hopefully it is only a sicko copying a sicko and NOT some coordinated effort -which would suggest a network of demented individuals.