CTV news reporting Jack Layton was caught by the police in a massage parlour 16 years ago.

[applegrove]

At the time it was found he didn't know what other illicit activities were going on there. His wife, Olivia Chow, says she knew about the incident.

The big story here,I think, is who leaked the story.

[provis99]

1. oh, come on.

How naive do you have to be to not know what goes on in a massage parlour?

[GomezLives]

2. massages??

[uppityperson]

6. Most of the time massages. Or do you mean prostitution shops?

[Nevernose]

12. My best friend bragged about his visit to the Asian massage parlor

Wouldn't shut up about it. Put it on Facebook. Told everyone how affordable and relaxing it was and how he planned to go back every week.

Even though we grew up together in Las Vegas, he's still legendarily naive. I know more prostitutes in person than most people will ever see (including on the TV), but this guy just never figured it out. Claims that the girls in porn aren't on drugs (because a porn star said it on Howard Stern), despite the fact that I have personally been on the sets of porn shoots and told him otherwise, and claims that strippers don't take drugs, either (I've been in a serious, long-term relationship with a "dancer," as well as having spent a lot of time in them for various business purposes, and trust me -- most of them are on some kind of drug). He married the second person he'd ever been with intimately, and she was less experienced. Also, his wife made him get rid of his pornography 15 years ago; he doesn't watch much TV; he never associated with the same kind of people I used to; never lived in the bad neighborhoods.

I said, "Are you sure you should be discussing this massage parlor thing so openly?"
"Yeah, why not?"
"Because most people don't brag about cheating on their wife with a prostitute?"
"They're not prostitutes! I know something about Asian culture" -- from comic books, mostly -- "and Asian girls' families would never let them get into something like that."

So I sat him down and began googling. Emailed him things at work over the next few weeks. Finally convinced him. "Ohhh... Maybe that's why my wife is so mad lately? She thinks I went to a prostitute?" Which was exactly the case, but neither she nor I could tell if he was genuinely that naive or just the world's worst liar.

Sadly, he really is that innocent and trusting, which is why she married him in the first place and why we've been friends since middle school. Of course, he hasn't been allowed to leave the house without at least one child accompanying him in at least five years.

(FWIW, I have never paid a prostitute and I haven't been to a strip club in years. Not that's necessarily something wrong with either of those things, but they're just not for me. And I used to be young and stupid.)

[Puzzler]

14. As far as I know, the "asian" and other jucier embellishments to the story ...

... were in the notes of anonymous cop who has long since retired. Apparently the Toronto police have no records of the incident since it happened so long ago and no charges were laid.

[Canuckistanian]

3. Sorry

We don't do sexual scandals here in Canada. And if his wife knew about it.... there's nothing there.

[JackRiddler]

4. This is supposed to stop the NDP surge? In Canada?

Good thing they're also too busy with the "royal" wedding to notice.

Yawn!

[kenny blankenship]

5. Let's hope Canadians can see and discount this as desperate last minute shit flinging

from a Bush-like primate, whose evolutionary line is at an end.

[johnfunk]

7. Putting the "Lay" in Layton?

:rofl:

[Puzzler]

8. It's amazing that this smear has only been brought up at the last minute

[chollybocker]

9. This is conservative smear tactics at the 11th hour.

The Cons are shitting in their boots right now.

:)

[Puzzler]

10. Story courtesy of the new RW Sun News network

According to the Globe and Mail:

"The story, aired by the Sun News television station, comes on the final weekend before an election in which Mr. Layton’s NDP has soared to second place in the polls."


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/layton-calls-massage-clinic-reports-a-smear/article2005025/


Here we go... with the new Canadian version of Fox News. Remember folks, this incident (for right or wrong) happened 16 years ago, and amazingly enough was of no concern to anyone ... until now.

[applegrove]

11. Thanks for sussing that out for me. Good that we found the source. I hope Harper and the neocons

tank in the days to come because of this. My dad was going to vote conservative until it came out that there was nothing on Helena Guergus. He said he could not vote for a man as cold as Harper. Let us hope a lot more people drop Harper now that it and sun tv have shown their colours.

[Puzzler]

13. And Sun News is operating just like Fox...

... they report a rumour, and the other news outlets report the report of the rumour. Meanwhile some undecided voters get swayed by the reports of the reports. Sigh.

[LiberalFighter]

15. Had to go thru all the sub threads to figure out who is Jack Layton.