It was like tossing a bomb over his shoulder as he was leaving a room. And flagging Toronto mayoral candidate John Nunziata tossed his over-the-shoulder stink bomb with the most incredible of ease.
According to the former Liberal rat packer, in late September, senior representatives of the John Tory campaign had offered him a $150,000 "bribe" to drop out of the mayoralty race in late September.
Nunziata kept this secret close to his chest until spilling it out in an October 22 interview with Radio CFRB reporters.
Is the former Liberal MP toying with the rest of us when he says: "Those who made the approaches--made the offers--know who they are and I’m calling on them to come forward."
It’s not too likely that the bribe makers will be stepping out of the closet anytime soon. Where’s the impetus when he’s been so adamant about refusing to name names?
There are those who would like to know precisely what Nunziata is prepared to do if the perpetrators refuse to come forward on demand.
At the beginning of the week, Nunziata said representatives from a "rival" camp approached members of his campaign and offered the bribe a few weeks ago. Claiming that he found the offers to be completely unethical, he says he rejected them.
That was John’s story when the scandal broke and he didn’t stick to it long for long.
Nunziata points to John Tory’s camp were the headlines in Saturday’s Toronto Star.
Why Nunziata didn’t call rape before the rapist got away is a matter of speculation.
With a little help from the media, Nunziata has been making like a right of centre candidate in the mayoral race.
Toronto Free Press/Canadafreepress.com wasn’t too wide off the mark when it dubbed Nunziata "the spoiler" at the beginning of the campaign.
A Liberal to the core with a media willing to portray him as a Conservative, his presence in the race splits the vote for any right of centre candidate and all but guarantees the election of a left-wing mayor.
Can it be all that surprising that the genuinely right-wing John Tory is the candidate Nunziata’s charges happen to hurt most seriously?
"As an officer of the court," Tory wrote Nunziata, "you are under an obligation to immediately provide police authorities with every piece of evidence you possess to validate this extraordinary claim.
"You should also be aware that, had any person in my own campaign ever behaved in such a fashion, my first call would have been to the police and not the media."
(Both Nunziata and Tory are lawyers.)
Does it give the Toronto electorate any comfort that candidate Barbara Hall views Nunziata as "a man of his word"?
(If what he said is true) "The candidate responsible must answer some hard questions to the people of Toronto and to the police," said Hall.
Hall herself only recently escaped police investigation into allegations that the Friends of Barbara Hall group had raised money before she had officially registered as a mayoral candidate.
Toronto police should "assess" Nunziata’s charges of bribery attempts, and if they find no proof for those widely publicized charges, they should promptly charge Nunziata with public mischief.
