Stephen Harper and Rob Ford - Canada's Conservative Bedfellows

Poor Stephen Harper.  His conservative-leaning pals are having a pretty rough go of it lately.  First, it was the Duffster and "The Boxer" and now it's Rob Ford.

Thanks to a posting by Montreal Simon, I happened on this pretty interesting little video on YouTube:

Apparently, the two gentlemen in the video were at the same fund-raising event on August 2, 2011 where 700 attendees gathered in Ford's Etobicoke backyard.  According to the Star, the guest of honour, Jim Flaherty, is a long-standing friend of the Ford family dating back to the 1990s when he served with Rob Ford's father, Doug Sr, in the Mike Harris government.  In fact, Jim Flaherty endorsed Rob Ford's candidacy for mayor back in 2010.

Just in case you didn't catch it all and want to ruminate over the Prime Minister's words, here they are:

Doug Ford:  "We have a very, very, very, very special guest.  He's my new fishing partner.  He took me up north a couple of weeks ago and we went fishing and I love to fish.  Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada (cheers)".

Stephen Harper:  "Thank you for that warm welcome.  I want to thank Rob as well for that introduction (laughter).  I, um, I've heard about these events here.  This is a wonderful place to have a barbecue like this.  But I want to thank Dianne (Ford's mother), not just for hosting us, but for really giving us this great conservative political dynasty that we have here with the Fords (applause).  It's fantastic and as, uh, you know, Rob, uh, many of you may remember that Rob endorsed us in the election that helped alot.  Rob is, un, doing something that is very important that needs to be done here.  He is cleaning up the NDP mess in Toronto (laughter and applause)...that's great.  I have to get this plug in, I'm not paid for this one, but we started cleaning up the ND, uh, we started cleaning up the mess, the left wing mess federally in this area.  Rob's doing it municipally and now we've gotta complete the hat trick and do it provincially as well."

I wonder if Stephen still feels the same about Rob now that there is the potential for yet another rather significant mayoral scandal?  Will this be yet another case of "bus tossing"?  Apparently, as in the cases of Mike, Patrick and even Pamela, one has to be very, very careful about who one gets into bed with politically.  You've gotta feel sorry for Stephen, apparently friendship isn't all that it's turned out to be!  I guess our mothers were right all along, you have to choose your friends very, very, very carefully.

As an aside, I'm also wondering if Rob gets to call our Prime Minister "Steve" when they are out fishin'?