Trinity Spadina & Liberal Elite

The Liberal power brokers in downtown Toronto turned a blind eye to what was happening in the Trinity-Spadina (T-S) Liberal riding association. Tony Ianno handed the Liberal nomination for the riding to his wife Christine Innes in 2008, apparently without a nomination process. The explanation given at the time was that it was Christine's turn to run for office. Twice she was trounced by Olivia Chow. We later found out that Ianno was under investigation by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC). He would subsequently be sanctioned, fined and banned from trading for 5-years.

If you read the campaign material from Innes during the last election you would see a photo of Ms. Innes and her children. What you did not see was a photo of her husband, or even mention that she was married. Ianno was scrubbed from the material. One brave soul dared ask Innes, a Bay Street lawyer, what she may have known about her husband's trading activities. Innes there and then threatened to sue him for slander. I'm not sure why that was not a reasonable question to ask? If she said she knew nothing then the voters could decide whether they believed her.

I consider myself a Liberal supporter. I voted for the NDP's Chow each election and would continue to do so until the Ianno family no longer ran one of their candidates in my riding. I emailed Bob Rae, then a prominent member of the adjacent riding and Warren Kinsella, a Liberal power broker in Toronto, wanting to know why the Liberal Party would throw away a winnable downtown seat, as supporters were smart enough to see that Ianno was controlling this riding. I did not receive a response.

Once the recent by-election was called for T-S riding I emailed the head of the Liberal riding association to find out if Innes was running again? I told the riding official that many Liberals in T-S would not vote for a member of the Ianno family. She emailed me back that indeed Christine Innes was running again for the nomination. Rather than provide me the names of other Liberals seeking the nomination she offered to direct me to nearby ridings. It was clear to me who was running the riding association. Days later Liberal leader Justin Trudeau barred Innes from running in the election. He blamed bullying from members of her campaign team. The word on the street was that her husband Ianno was bullying young Liberals.

Adam Vaughan, Turdeau's handpicked candidate for the nomination was elected as the local rep. Warren Kinsella and other defenders of Innes, outright stated that Trudeau just guaranteed that NDP candidate Joe Cressy would defeat Vaughan in the by-election. Local riding politics were street fights, not for the faint of heart. No reason to interfere with the process. What they failed to gauge was that there were far more disgruntled Liberals in T-S that abandoned the party because of Ianno than defenders of Innes. They were waiting to vote for a candidate that was not chosen by Ianno. Whether you liked Innes personally she could not whitewash the Ianno record of OSC scandals and poor representation as an MP.

I would have voted for Cressy over Innes, but because of the brave actions of Trudeau we now have a Liberal MP.