In the avalanche of news about Patrick Brown’s attempts to clear his name of multiple scandals this week, one particular piece of attempted vindication stuck out to me. “Let me be clear, like many young Canadians,” he wrote in response to suspicions raised about his finances, “my family loaned me the money to help with the down payment on my house.”Unlike so much we have learned or heard alleged about Brown in recent weeks, this one sticks out because the excuse is so plausible, so normal. Relatable, even.He’s a 40-year-old man who has climbed nearly to the absolute height of his profession? A lawyer by training who has held elected office for almost 20 years? Someone who has held a series of high-profile, six-figure-paying, taxpayer-funded jobs for more than a decade? Is also the co-owner of a bar?This is a guy needs help raising the rent? Sounds about right.If he’s buying a house in Toronto cottage country, many Torontonians are by now conditioned to think, of course he’s gonna need rich parents. How else is a successful, highly paid professional going to buy in this market, if not with a loan from the bank of Mom and Dad?And you know, in a nutshell, there’s the problem.Not Patrick Brown’s problem, obviously — though clearly he has many. And not the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario’s problem, though they have even more (starting with Brown).It’s our problem. As a city, as a region, as a province. The fact that it is completely mundane for a potential premier of Ontario to claim he cannot afford GTA real estate on his own income is everyone’s problem. It ought to be an issue — arguably the issue — in the upcoming provincial and municipal elections. That the various likely players in those elections are currently spending most of their time debating sexual education, federal carbon taxes, and restricting car traffic on a couple of key main streets might indic ...
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