{"id":6510,"date":"2021-07-27T22:00:18","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T02:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=6510"},"modified":"2021-07-27T22:33:21","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T02:33:21","slug":"otooles-gay-candidate-calls-cops-has-the-rebels-reporter-david-menzies-arrested-for-asking-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=6510","title":{"rendered":"O&#8217;Toole&#8217;s Gay Candidate Calls Cops &#038; Has The Rebel&#8217;s Reporter David Menzies Arrested for Asking Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Thornhill CPC candidate Melissa Lantsman has David Menzies arrested for asking prickly questions<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rebelnews.com\/journalist_david_menzies\">David Menzies<\/a><\/li><li>|<\/li><li>July 26, 2021<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rebelnews.com\/thornhill_cpc_candidate_melissa_lantsman_has_david_menzies_arrested_for_asking_prickly_questions?utm_campaign=rb_7_27_21&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=therebel\">https:\/\/www.rebelnews.com\/thornhill_cpc_candidate_melissa_lantsman_has_david_menzies_arrested_for_asking_prickly_questions?utm_campaign=rb_7_27_21&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=therebel<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In politics, they call summer the silly season. Hardly anything of substance seems to happen, and the politicians are typically in their ridings having BBQs and whatnot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such was the case on Sunday in Thornhill, Ontario, just north of Toronto. The outgoing MP, Peter Kent, was having a summer shindig in the parking lot of the Promenade Mall. I dropped by not so much for Mr. Kent, but to interview the replacement candidate for the federal riding of Thornhill, Melissa Lantsman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I assume most people don\u2019t know who Melissa Lantsman is, but they should. She was Ontario Premier Doug Ford\u2019s war room director in 2018 and helped create slogans like \u201cFor the People\u201d and \u201cOntario: Open for Business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alas, we all discovered that when the COVID pandemic hit last year, the Doug Ford PCs were not \u201cfor the people,\u201d and Ontario was very much closed for business. Oh, not all businesses, mind you. If you were a U.S.-based multi-billion dollar conglomerate such as Costco or Walmart, it was business as usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And speaking of Walmart, by 2020, Lantsman had resumed duties as a lobbyist. And she lobbied mightily for the Arkansas-based superstore chain. Lantsman went to Premier Ford and successfully ensured Walmart would be exempt from any lockdown rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So now that Lantsman is the Conservative Party candidate for Thornhill in 2021, I wanted to ask her a simple question: how can she possibly run to be the MP to represent the people of Thornhill when she was personally responsible for engineering a lockdown policy that caused so many businesses to fold and so many people to be thrown out of work? I mean, her nickname is actually \u201cLockdown Lantsman.\u201d How do you recover from that? And it was hard to believe this woman is a professional communicator, given how tongue-tied she got when it came to answering hard questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then I wanted to know how she became the representative for the Thornhill riding in the first place. You see, a few months ago, Ontario PC MPP Gila Martow was vying for this position. Martow is a veteran politician who is well-liked and well-respected. I think she would\u2019ve been a slam dunk to win the riding in the next federal election. When Lantsman was declared the winner, it was a shock to everyone \u2014 including Lantsman herself, who did not have a victory speech prepared! So, either those exit polls were mightily flawed or this was a screw job of Herculean proportions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I reached out to members of the Martow camp, none of whom want to be named. Why would the Conservative party go with a candidate who has more baggage than the Arrivals terminal at Pearson International Airport?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the answer was this: it had everything to do with Melissa Lantsman\u2019s sexual orientation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You see, the Erin O\u2019Toole Conservatives are obsessed with the party being a so-called \u201cBig Tent\u201d operation \u2013 it&#8217;s not just a bunch of old white guys anymore, you see. They\u2019re sick of the CBC calling them names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And what better way to prove that point than to promote a LGBTQ candidate representing the Conservatives in the suburbs? Wow, look at that diversity!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, folks, I personally do not give a rodent\u2019s rectum if a candidate is a lesbian or a Martian. I think it\u2019s irrelevant. But Lantsman and the Conservatives can\u2019t stop talking about her gayness \u2014 it was their main selling point. Is the Conservative Party now fully invested in identity politics and playing the race card and gender card and sexual orientation card? What about who is the best person for the job \u2014 no matter what<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I asked Melissa: is she the candidate for Thornhill based on merit, or her sexual orientation? She sort of answered the question and didn\u2019t object to it. I asked it again, and she ignored me. And that was that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had more questions about Walmart, but then I was interrupted \u2014 by police! The Lantsman campaign called the cops on me. But there is no crime of asking prickly questions, so they lied to the police, making accusations that I assaulted people. It was the other way around. They were purposely bumping into me and trying to block me. They knocked my hat off. They threw water on me. And for what? Asking questions<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And how about this slice of unethical behaviour: while I was being arrested and handcuffed by police, one of them stole my clipboard notebook and took photos of my notes. What\u2019s the deal with that? What kind of political party has a reporter arrested, and then steals their notebook and takes pictures of it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It looked awful on the Conservatives \u2014 especially having me arrested. So after ten hours, they decided to revise history. They say I engaged in homophobic slurs against Lantsman? What? I did not \u2014 you can see my question and her answer to it. It wasn\u2019t homophobic, and she obviously didn\u2019t think it was at the time \u2014 until later, when her spin doctors needed a way to change the subject from having me arrested, throwing things at me and stealing my notebook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My final question to Lantsman was this: when Erin O\u2019Toole was running to be the Conservative leader, he was the pro-free speech\/anti-cancel culture candidate. And then he becomes leader, and it turns out he is pro-cancel culture\/anti-free speech. So I asked Melissa what\u2019s the deal with that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Could you imagine a real leader such as Donald Trump saying \u201cno comment,\u201d and even running away? Can you imagine a politician of substance calling the cops to have a reporter criminally charged? And that\u2019s what Lockdown Lantsman did on Sunday \u2014 she or her minions called the cops. She later issued a press release saying it was a safety issue. A \u201csafety issue\u201d \u2014 yeah, my safety! I was pushed, shoved, splashed with a liquid and arrested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And in the department of perverse irony, check out the tweet Mr. O\u2019Toole issued around the same time I was being stuffed into a police cruiser based on lies from the Lantsman camp: \u201cIf you don\u2019t support free speech, you have four parties to choose from. If you do, you only have one: Canada\u2019s Conservatives.\u201d Sorry, Mr. O\u2019Toole. Sorry, Lockdown Lantsman. Actions speak louder than words. And just like Andrew Scheer, you are already blowing this election. Big time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video controls src=\"https:\/\/www.rebelnews.com\/thornhill_cpc_candidate_melissa_lantsman_has_david_menzies_arrested_for_asking_prickly_questions?utm_campaign=rb_7_27_21&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=therebel\"><\/video><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thornhill CPC candidate Melissa Lantsman has David Menzies arrested for asking prickly questions By David Menzies | July 26, 2021 https:\/\/www.rebelnews.com\/thornhill_cpc_candidate_melissa_lantsman_has_david_menzies_arrested_for_asking_prickly_questions?utm_campaign=rb_7_27_21&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=therebel In politics, they call summer the silly season. Hardly anything of substance seems to happen, and the politicians are &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=6510\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1235,1991,1358,2130,3627,932,3626],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6510"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6510"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6518,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6510\/revisions\/6518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}