Not only is Stephen LeDrew a bonehead, a tax cheater and delusional, he's also an asswipe.
In today's Globe:
It's all in the details
JOHN BARBER
I knew I was heading for trouble yesterday when I learned that Stephen LeDrew was calling a news conference to announce his candidacy for mayor. The proposal is so preposterous I worried I might blow up and start shouting at him if I attended.
But when I read in yesterday's Toronto Star what Mr. LeDrew said about not paying $364,140 in back taxes, I knew I couldn't go. I would have ended up in jail.
He said he didn't pay his taxes because he had to put his children through private school. "The taxpayer can wait," he said. "My children cannot."
Has any would-be politician ever said anything stupider than that? I considered sending, as my delegate to the conference, a taxpaying Somali labourer with five kids in a crumbling suburban high school to ask Mr. LeDrew to explain. After all, that $30,000 per head Mr. LeDrew diverted to Branksome Hall or wherever could have helped him a lot had it been put to its proper use -- e.g., building public schools.
In the end, I handed my tape recorder to my mild-mannered legman. "Ask him what he thinks about the business-education tax," I said. The business-education tax is a discriminatory provincial levy that Toronto businesses pay at a significantly higher rate than suburban municipalities, resulting in an overpayment of almost $1-billion a year. Most experts agree it imperils the city's economic future.
I just wanted to know whether or not Mr. LeDrew would be so arrogant as to pretend he knew something about it. So after he made his way through various dissembling excuses for his tax evasion and bankruptcy -- saying the revenuers wouldn't let him pay in instalments, even though the judge who ruled against him noted that Mr. LeDrew "consciously and continually neglected to pay income tax instalments when due" -- my legman piped up.
"What's your position on the business-education tax?" he asked.
"I'm not going to talk about all these details," Mr. LeDrew replied.
"But it's a major issue," the legman protested.
"It's not a major issue in this city," Mr. LeDrew shot back.
My legman became unusually agitated. "You seem to be running for mayor with no policies whatsoever," he noted. "You've no positions, no policies, no ideas," he said, returning to the business of education tax. "You said it's not an important issue.''
"No!" Mr. LeDrew replied. "I didn't say it's not important."
"You said it's not important. That's what you said."
"Well, if that's what you took out of it . . . I'm not going to deal with that right now."
"Cause you don't know what your stance on it is?"
"Not at all. It's just not a major issue right now to deal with at this press conference."
Mr. LeDrew allowed that his superior leadership quality is what counts. So with him leading, landlords will know what to do about the business-education tax. Just don't pay it! The taxpayer can wait.
