There is no one in politics more on his own than Emo Township mayor Harold McQuaker.
While he does have support from much of the public, outraged that the 76-year-old mayor had his bank account garnisheed for $5,000 to be paid to Borderland Pride who won a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) ruling against him, he has not got any public backing from any other elected officials in Canada.
Wednesday morning the world will find out what the mayor and his four councillors in the northwestern Ontario town on the border with Minnesota decide their next move is.
They either decide to throw in the towel and pay the $10,000 fine to the town, bow to the pressure from Borderland Pride and designate June to be Pride month, raise a Pride flag in the town and perhaps even accept an offer to have some of the money donated back if they hold a Drag story time event at the local library.
Or they tell the outside world to go to hell, appeal of this Orwellian madness to a higher court and fight on.
McQuaker told the Toronto Sun that he will make a statement on this issue Wednesday.
His protest has already been heard around the world. Many are outraged with the whole notion that legal instruments can be utilized and be weaponized to actually go into a personal bank account and take money out after a judgment has been rendered.,
It appears that is what happened to McQuaker who Borderline Pride said was able to successfully see $5,000 taken out of his CIBC account as a garnishment as a result of him telling the Sun he considered the ruling “extortion” and that he would not pay it.
So the stage is set. The tiny town hall, which does not have a flag pole but has seen protest posters pasted to it, has an open meeting that starts at 9 a.m.
On Wednesday, the world, which has followed this story, will find out who is in charge of that town. Is it McQuaker and his council or Borderland Pride and aggressive lawyer and board member Douglas Judson calling the shots now?
“We are seeing a pattern where online hate is giving rise to offline violence. It’s important that we not allow people to terrorize a vulnerable group in our community and that we demonstrate there are consequences for engaging in defamatory expression,” Judson told Dougall Media reporter Clint Fleury in August.
Just six months later Judson’s prediction that there would be a reckoning came true.
“Those of us who do this work have realized that we need to push back on this type of attack with force and we need to impose consequences,” Judson told Fleury. “As a lawyer who does this work that means I’m going to start taking people’s houses and their vehicles and their toys and draining their bank accounts and garnishing their wages because no one is going to stop behaving this way until there are real consequences. Until there’s real financial pain that attaches to it.”
It started with a great grandfather mayor who is not remotely a homophobe as described but more a guy a long way from “progressive” politics in big cities and was exercising his power with his councillors to decide what they wanted for their town.
But the truth of it is, nobody was asking. They were demanding. Ontario is set up to go after a mayor and council when it did not bend its knee to today’s woke mob.
While people don’t like Borderland Pride taking such a rapacious approach and even using social media to gloat, it has to be stated that they are merely legally following the rules in place.
This may be why Premier Doug Ford and Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre have been so silent. Perhaps they agree with this ruling or perhaps they don’t want to end up with their bank accounts raided and power taken from them?
And it’s not just them.
The public has not really got behind McQuaker. There are four crowd funding sites – two with GiveSendGo and two with GoFundMe and between all of them, just $17,500 has been raised so far.
Nowhere near the $300,000-plus raised quickly for the barbecue restaurant rebellion during the pandemic or the $20-million that was raised for the truckers during the Freedom Convoy – money that was later frozen, returned and in some cases caused job dismissals for some who donated.
Emo Township in Northern Ontario has been ordered to a $10,000 pay a fine by the Ontario Human Rights Commission for not voting to fly a Pride flag.
So what happens next? Perhaps early Wednesday this will become clearer.
While they have docked the mayor’s account, Borderland Pride tells the Toronto Sun “we have not yet taken any steps to enforce the order for the payment of money from the municipality, as the municipality has not publicly refused to comply with the Tribunal’s order.”
What stand will Emo council take Wednesday?
Refuse to cower and keep fighting with little backing? Or cut their losses, throw in the towel and bow to the powerful LGBT activists at the door?
Stay tuned.