Doug Ford, the Conservative Premier of Ontario, is known for many things.

He is the brother of Toronto’s late, fun-loving mayor Rob Ford, is the canny businessman who led Deco Labels, Flexible Packaging and Cannabis Dispensary to a top 12 business ranking in the greater Etobicoke region for three of the last five years, and is an avid hockey fan who coaches a Peewee team in Etobicoke. What follows is the speech Ford gave to his players between periods during a recent game:

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“Great moments are born from great opportunity. And that’s what we have here, today, boys. This game sits before us like an undervalued property waiting to be bought and turned into condos by an alpha businessman! Do we have the necessary capital to make the purchase? You’re damn right we do! Do we have our mortgage rate advantageously negotiated?

I can’t hear you!

I still can’t hear you!!

I. SAID. DO! WE! HAVE! OUR! MORTGAGE! RATE! ADVANTAGEOUSLY! NEGOTIATED!

That’s better.

You’re damn right we do!!

We have the best flipping mortgage rate in the entire city!

We have all the talent and all the character we need to take this game from the Tornadoes, we just need to stop playing like a bunch of goddamn Midwives out there! You’re were playing like little girl witches out there in the first period. Sweeping your sticks about like ladies with brooms instead of chopping with them like they were axes. It’s like we’ve been cleaning up after the Tornadoes, not dominating them, and the Deco Labels, Flexible Packaging and Cannabis Dispensary Devils don’t clean up after nobody!!

Jesus H. Christ.

Defranco, please tell me I did not hear you interrupting me with a stupid question asking what a Midwife was. I will bench your skinny ass. Don’t think I won’t. I would welcome the opportunity. You just try me, Defranco. I dare you.

Yeah.

That’s what I thought.

Not so tough now, are you, you pitiful little puck bunny.

Okay, now that Midwife Defranco got his question out of his system, we can get back to strategy. Boys, I want you to think of the Tornadoes as a greenbelt that we are going to raze in order to develop. We are going to chop those little bastards down. We are going to throw their nests from their trees and shit in their brooks. We are going to show them what it feels like to be developed by the Etobicoke Deco Labels, Flexible Packaging and Cannabis Dispensary Devils! We are going to bring the full might of the free market down upon their socialist heads!

ARE WE OPEN FOR BUSINESS?

YES!

YES, WE ARE GODDAMN WELL OPEN FOR BUSINESS, NOW LET LOOSE THE HOUNDS OF WAR, BOYS, AND TAKE THIS MOMENT AND MAKE IT YOURS!!!

I was suprised to be contacted by Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently.

As many of you will remember, I was an old drinking buddy of his brother Rob, who was mayor of Toronto for a controversial stretch of time back a few years ago.

Rob and I attended Carleton University in Ottawa at the same time in the 80’s and it was there that we became drinking buddies at Rooster’s, the campus pub. We were never best friends or anything, but much later, when I moved to Toronto and we re-connected on Facebook, Rob would habitually open chats with me when he was drinking and looking to revive the “good, old days.” According to his brother, Rob truly valued what I had to say and as Doug put it, “If you were good enough for Robbie, you’re damn sure good enough for me!” and with that he offered me a job as a staff writer at his office. My first job has been to write some follow-up ads promoting that fact that Doug’s new government made good on their promise to make it legal for beer companies to lower the price of a beer—if they want to—from $1.25 to $1.00.

This is the script for my first ad:

( Doug Ford speaking to camera from his basement den )

“ I haven’t had a drink in over 25 years– not because I have any sort of problem. I don’t and I never did, and I will sue the bejesus out of anybody who says different.

Just try me. ( Two second pause)

No, I stopped because I’m disciplined. Good governance and fiscal restraint require discipline, a quality I learned as a shotputter and as the no-nonsense businessman who steered Deco Labels and Tags to be voted– by the readers of Etobicoke Style magazine– as one of the top three Label and Tag operations in all of the region.

For four years running.

We’re proud of that.

But none of this means I don’t remember what it was like to have a nice cold one. I do. And I remember how powerful it can make you feel. You and your crew, cruising the streets of the city looking to blow off some steam. Not looking for trouble, but sure as hell not afraid of it, either, and The Stones are blasting, maybe Street Fighting Man, and you’re all piled into your dad’s Beemer, roof down, and it feels so good. Oh, and all the ladies in their summer clothes? (Doug–make direct eye contact with then camera and then smile, teeth showing) Ah, the stories I could tell… (Doug– chuckle to self) Well, those were different times, I guess, but we felt like rowdy, young gods, and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario thinks everybody should be able to afford to have that feeling, too, which is why we’ve now made it possible for Ontarians– both men and women– to enjoy a 25 cent reduction in the price of a beer!

Government by the people, for the people.

I’m Doug Ford, and I’m your premier.”

( This is the first ad the Doug Ford ran before I got involved:

https://toronto.citynews.ca/video/2018/08/03/doug-ford-says-buck-a-beer-coming-by-labour-day/ )

and he just won the race to become the Ontario leader of the Progressive Conservative party after a controversial election. This is his acceptance speech:

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Thank you, thank you!

Thanks.

Hey, let’s give it up for The Dream Police, the best goddamn Cheap Trick tribute band in the entire GTA!!

Okay, okay, I know you’re all excited, but let’s bring it down a bit.

Now.

We can bring it down NOW.

I SAID BE QUIET DAMMIT

I MEAN IT

YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW HOW MUCH I MEAN IT

Ok, that’s better.

Well my friends, thank you for coming this evening.

Tonight we took the first step in defeating our opposition. The people of Ontario want the crappy Ontario Liberals cleansed from government, and I am more than happy to be the man to deliver that enema!

JESUS H CHRIST YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME

ARE YOU CHEWING GUM

YES, YOU IN THE FRONT ROW

YOU KNOW DAMN WELL I’M TALKING TO YOU

DO YOU SEE ANYBODY ELSE CHEWING GUM

SWEET CAROLINE DONT MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE BECAUSE I WILL AND I WILL TEAR THAT GUM OUT OF YOUR MOUTH LIKE IT WAS A TONGUE FROM AN ALBANIAN PIG…

Okay.

As I was saying, I want to thank my beautiful wife Karla, my girls, my whole family, and my brother, Rob upstairs. He was incredible. He sacrificed so much for the little man.

Rob, my brother, you always stood by me, you were my rock. I wouldn’t be standing here without your support. And to my incredible team, you were absolutely amazing, your dedication to our cause made this possible. The hard-working people of Ontario, I am truly humbled, very humbled, by your support. You are the ones who kept me going, you are the reason I am here.

We have a lot of work to do before the next campaign. We have a lot to do in a very short amount of time. But I promise you this. I will get our party back on track. We will put a platform forward that speaks to every Ontarian. Together we will return our province to where it belongs. We will make Ontario the leader of jobs and growth in Canada. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: Ontario will be open for business.

Nine to five.

Every single day of the week except Sunday.

Just like our family business Deco Labels and Tags.

We were always ready to serve the public. Always.

Does that sound like white privilege to you?

I didn’t think so.

YOU BETTER BE FUCKING KIDDING ME

AGAIN WITH THE GUM

IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU

DO YOU HAVE A MEDICAL CONDITION WHERE YOU HAVE TO CHEW GUM LIKE A MORON WHENEVER A MAN OF THE PEOPLE IS MAKING A SPEECH

HAVE YOU BEEN ON OPRAH TO TALK ABOUT YOUR CONDITION YET

HOW ITS IMPACTED YOUR LIFE

BUDDY I AM ABOUT TO IMPACT YOUR LIFE LIKE A GODDAMN METEOR

Yeah, that’s better, you just put that gum away.

Snowflake.

Friends, it’s been an awfully long night and I will have more to say about how we’re going to punch the Liberals in the gut in coming days, but for now we have to clear the hall for an Ayahuasca For Seniors Ceremony that’s supposed to be coming in and starting up at 5:00, so if everybody could just make their way, in an orderly fashion, to the exits…

Let’s not keep our seniors waiting.

We’re not doing some social science study here, we’re getting things done.

MOTHER AYAHUASCA WAITS FOR NO MAN OR WOMAN!!!

EVERYBODY OUT, GODDAMIT!!!

How could that be?

Look at her.

She’s stunning.

I, of course, had the blunt interests of a boy who knew nothing about women or sex– although I was very interested in both– and I simply accepted Hollywood’s casual objectification of these mysteries. I didn’t know somebody was attractive unless Hollywood signalled to me that they were, something they usually did by a display of nudity. And so the promise of Jessica Lange, Kim Basinger or Jamie Lee Curtis taking off their top in some accessible, high velocity movie was simply too much for me to resist.

Streep, who even at a young age seemed to be playing adults rather than sex toys for naive adolescents, was cast in the sort of films that my parents might be interested in, in “prestige” films, and even though she was of the same general age as all the other celebrities I lusted after, she was stood apart from them, a European cousin, or something.

As an adult I came to love Meryl Streep. Not so much for her acting, which was always somehow obscured for me by her reputation for “acting,” but for her presence. Talented, charismatic and beautiful, she’s also fantastically articulate and charming, and like everybody else I was super keen to hear her speak at the Golden Globes.

Her speech was widely celebrated.

Meryl Streep, Hollywood’s single-combat hero, called to our better angels, and as we sat there listening it was as if the Stature of Liberty herself was speaking. Expecting to love every word of it, I was surprised to discover that I did not.

Although she might have been joking when she referred to the roomful of beautiful, insanely wealthy and adored people sitting before her as, “The most vilified segment of American society,” it made me roll my eyes . Whether she intended it with any irony or not is unclear, but the thrust of her argument was that Hollywood, full of outsiders and foreigners, was representative of some sort of scrappy refugee success story rather than a consumerist ideal of near-unattainable privilege. She continued, saying that if Trump had his way, all America would have left would be football and mixed martial arts– and as she said this, her voice rising in certainty, finger wagging, she admonished, “Which are not the arts!”

The home crowd cheered.

I don’t know.

I had thought I was the home crowd, too, but was I supposed to believe that actors were rescuing America from the things that the people who lived there liked? That football and MMA were unworthy to watch unless they were recreated in movie format starring celebrities?

Something like that?

I wasn’t sure.

Her audience was rapt, hanging on every word. And they were all so beautiful and dewy, so earnest and self-congratulatory in expression, so not of this earth that I imagined them separating from the rest of the world and rising up, up, up in some magical balloon that they knew the rest of us, so smitten, would never be able to let go of.

Her condemnation of Trump’s nascent war on journalism struck me as wanting, too, because there is likely no industry that succeeds so brilliantly at manipulating the press as does Hollywood. The Hollywood Foreign Press, who are responsible for the Golden Globes, are little more than a marketing wing for the industry, trading off favourable stories for glamorous access.

When we see our celebrities on the red carpet refusing to be objectified by not revealing who made their outfit and thus striking a blow for equal rights, we have to keep in mind that they’re still accepting money to advertise that dress.

Hollywood is about money.

Period.

If art or diversity or empathy is a byproduct of this pursuit, all the better, but if Meryl Streep were being honest with herself and the rest of us, she might acknowledge that she, like Trump, depends on a compliant media to promote her work and spin her narratives.

And so it goes.

Everything touches everything else.

It’s not like Streep was saying anything crazy, though. She was trying to do good, but her blind spots were, well, Hollywood in scope. Her words were tangled in contradictions, a stinging disregard for those who might not agree with her, and an imperious detachment from the pedestrian, discount store lives the rest of us struggle to lead, and that actually demoralized me.

Politicians and actors, I have found out, have all too much in common.

Friends;

I am sorry for any broken limbs and shattered teeth that my enthusiasms may have caused. It was not my intention to hurt any of you, and you should know that Father Russia loves all of his children.

I must thank you very much for this training session. I needed it. Sometimes, the stresses of a global Alpha can be intense. Sometimes, you must break something or you yourself will be broken!

(Waits for applause to subside)

A man does not have it easy in this world, let me tell you.

But I am not here to speak of the unknowable hardships and cruelties a man such as myself must endure. No, I am here to congratulate Ezio Gamba for the powerful and autocratic judo lessons he has dispensed to the national team! He has made you all super hardcore, and that is the Russian way!

We are too hardcore for the Americans!
(Cheering)

We are too hardcore for the Japanese!
(Cheering)

We are too hardcore all the feminine states of Europe!
(Cheering)

We are hardcore!!
(Waits for applause to subside)

And Ezio, much of that is due to you, and I thank you.

I will tell you something you would not guess, but it is not conducting surveillance operations or gassing protestors where I feel most at home.

No, it is on the judo Tatami. It is there where I am my powerful true self.

I am a master of all flesh in the Tatami. There, in a tight embrace, I can unleash the unmeasured furies of my passion!

When I was a young and confused KGB agent, it was judo that provided me with a safe spot. It was there I could be my masculine self and share my physical feelings with other men, but elders grew concerned at the disorienting and often unsettling intimacies of the matches, and so they set me up to fight with Lyudmila.

She was very mannish looking and a formidable opponent. I did not know she was of the females until much later, after much rough combat. We were eventually paired in matrimony and an off-spring was made in the dark of the Russian night.

The American song Islands In The Stream played, I remember.

Yekaterina.

A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.

Our daughter, it is the one good thing Lyudmila and I did together. She is better than any judo moves we ever made, and I am not ashamed to say I would kill with my hands any man who would think to violate her with his primitive heterosexual urges.

No longer paired with Lyudmila, I was free to practice judo with whomever I liked, and those were glorious times for Vlad. Such beautiful judo! Truly, it is the sport of love.

Anyway, my old female partner has gone on to marry another man, a man 20 years younger than her! How about that?

I could have him killed, but I will not. He will suffer with Lyudmila as I suffered with Lyudmila, and I will continue to be the most powerful Alpha in the world, enjoying judo with as many partners as I choose!

You must eat the pain, comrades!!!

Long live Russia, and long live judo!!