Ezra Levant thinks George Smitherman’s personal tragedy is somehow unfair to Rob Ford

Levant is essentially a professional loudmouth, working for Canada’s only real right-wing TV news service, so it’s not surprising that he would use a big news story as an opportunity to take an ideological stance. What is a little surprising is that he seems to be arguing that the media either shouldn’t cover politicians critically or should only cover politicians critically if everyone else can be covered equally critically (Smitherman hasn’t held public office since 2010).

Neither of those arguments makes very much sense. Toronto’s newspapers barely have enough reporters on staff between them to keep up with the latest city hall news. Asking them to pour resources into investigating people who don’t hold public office, all for the sake of some kind of cosmic balance, is a nonstarter. And it’s worth noting that when Smitherman was still an MPP, he was frequently called out on his mistakes. He also freely admitted to past drug addiction.

Levant didn’t stop there. Here he is appearing to say that the “Media Party”—an unclear label of his own coinage—wanted to make Rob Ford commit suicide.

With any luck, the city hall press gallery will never have an opportunity to prove him wrong.

Reaction on Twitter was swift and furious. Seasoned tweeter Sarah Thomson, who ran against Smitherman in the 2010 mayoral election, jumped on the comment immediately:

(The offending tweet seems to have been deleted.)

And here, on the other hand, is Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy:

And we’ll give the last word to Globe Queen’s Park reporter Adam Radwanski: