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BY ANDREW DOUGLAS A FUNNY THING HAPPENED WHEN MY OR- GAN’S CAPE BRETON CORRESPONDENT DIALLED CECIL CLARKE’S CAMPAIGN OFFICE A FEW DAYS BEFORE VOTING DAY TO FIND OUT WHERE THE ELECTION NIGHT VICTORY PARTY WOULD BE HELD. It’s safe to say that Murray Johnston was a bit miffed when Conservative campaign helper Jennifer MacDonald hung up in his ear after Murray mentioned his affiliation with Frank Magazine. Just imagine Murray’s surprise when, just a few moments later, Jennifer’s father Ian MacDonald — Cecil’s longtime $38,000/per constituency assistant — called to say that not only is Murray not welcome at any of Cecil’s functions, but Ian couldn’t guarantee the veteran reporter’s safety if he were to show up. Oh, yes, and, Ian informed Murray that if he’s going to “sling shit” at Cecil in Frank Magazine, that Cecil’s camp has plenty of stuff to throw Murray’s way. In Frank 610, which hit newsstands three days before the menacing phone call, chief reporter Dan Walsh explored Cecil’s views on, among other things, gay marriage, and asked the longtime bachelor whether questions about his own lifestyle had been raised during the campaign. Cecil answered that they had not. I’m informed that Ian, a teacher by trade, spent the weekend leading up to the election strutting around the campaign office with a puffed-out chest, proud of the threatening manner in which he spoke to my humble scribe, who incidentally had no part whatsoever in composing the offending piece. I imagine EDS toiler Jennifer, 30ish, was fairly proud of her poppa as well, considering I’ve heard from more than one source that she’s had a serious teeny-bopper crush on Cecil ever since he returned from the Northwest Territories more than a decade ago. Early on the morning of Tuesday, May 3, hours after Ian’s chest — along with Cecil’s electoral hopes — had deflated considerably, Frank Magazine again took lumps over the story, this time in the form of two angry phone messages left at the 4 FRANK MAGAZINE MAY 24, 2011 ELECTION 2011 Why Cecil really lost Cecil Clarke Coxheath vacation home of its Montrealdwelling publisher. “Your (expletive deleted) Frank rag cost us da election,” one drunk-sounding fellow shouted into his receiver at precisely 12:28 a.m. Then, an equally charming lass spouted her two cents’ worth in a voicemail message left at 4:13 a.m. “I hope you’re proud of the job you (expletive deleted) hacks did on Cecil,” she said, adding, “You would have been the first in line looking for a handout if he got in, just like you are with your (expletive deleted) chickenshit farmer friend.” I can’t be sure, but I think the caller refers to millionaire chickenshit, er, egg farmer Mark Eyking, who managed 14,805 votes to Cecil’s 13,945. Mistakes? He made them all Cecil Clarke had no business losing this election. His party swept to power with a majority government, and he benefited from two prime ministerial visits in four months. Cecil himself was considered a “star” candidate, having served as Cape Breton North MLA for 10 years, for much of that time serving in high-profile cabinet posts, including Economic Development and Justice in the Tory governments of John Hamm and Rodney MacDonald. Cecil, who turned 43 last month, is extremely well-liked, charismatic and congenial, and a fiery speaker. Most would agree that Cecil is a better candidate, at least on paper, than the incumbent. And the incumbent had to buck the trend of a sinking Liberal party, while Conservative support was solid as a rock throughout the national campaign. So what the hell happened? Sources familiar with the campaign say that while Cecil’s team was stocked with capable people, nobody wanted to do the hard work of politics, the door-knocking, the handshaking, handing out leaflets, working the phones, and so forth. A typical day around the campaign office, according to one source, featured an interminable, hours-long strategy session, where a never-ending stream of big ideas was bandied about. Then the Chinese food order would go out. They’d eat, they’d talk some more, and then they’d all go home, exhausted. The bull sessions were particularly grating for one older, longtime Tory volunteer I spoke to, who was so turned off by the attitude and lack of work ethic around the office that he quit halfway through the campaign. They got even lazier, I’m advised, after Stephen Harper’s April 22 visit. “The campaign went to sleep after that,” sez my source, recalling that Cecil spent a pleasant evening at Joneljim Construction mogul Jim Kehoe’s palatial abode (Whose House: Sydney Area, Frank 604) on April 26, casually shooting the breeze with a handful of Jim’s neighbours. Most political candidates would consider a night spent sitting on their arse drinking wine and eating canapes a fatal waste of time less than a week before the big day. Not Cecil, apparently. Then there’s the Dwight factor. CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
BY ANDREW DOUGLAS WITH ALL DUE RESPECT TO THE FAILED HALIFAX LIBERAL CANDIDATE, DR. STAN KUTCHER IS FULL OF SHIT. You might have heard that Dr. Stan successfully wrested an apology and retraction from the weekly freebie The Coast after it published a piece days before the election pointing out Dr. Stan’s involvement in an infamous study about the effectiveness of the antidepressant drug paroxetine in adolescents. The study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 2001, found that Paxil (the drug’s North American trade name) was “generally well tolerated and effective for major depression in adolescents.” In the piece, written by resident Coast muckraker Tim Bousquet, Dr. Stan is quoted as saying the study hasn’t caused “any particular controversy,” although there is “a group of people who would like to cause a controversy around it.” The truth is, controversy has dogged Paxil Study 329 for years. In 2004, a California law firm sued Paxil manufacturer/study sponsor Glaxo- SmithKline for using the study, among other things, to misrepresent the drug’s safety. Author Alison Bass, who was quoted in Tim’s article and has since been falsely pilloried as a Scientologist because of her views, wrote a book about the litigation called Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower, and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial. Rudderham Chernin Law Office solicitor Dwight Rudderham, a staunch member of Team Cecil, is a smart, capable guy, no doubt. But you could also argue that he’s political poison. Dwight, after all, infamously complained to the N.S. Barrister’s Society about comments CBRM Mayor John Morgan, a lawyer by trade, made to the CBC in 2008 about the political leanings of the province’s judges. The saga went on for two years before ELECTION 2011 Paxil study at centre of Coast/ Dr. Stan row was controversial Dr. Stan Kutcher In 2008, a joint Australian/American paper concluded that Paxil 329’s authors (including Brown University, Rhode Island psych professor Martin Keller, Dr. Stan and a handful of others) cherry-picked data to support their foregone conclusions. The paper, published in the International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine, entitled Clinical Trials and Drug Promotion: Selective Reporting of Study 329, says GSK documents — revealed as a result of CECIL, FROM PREVIOUS PAGE Mayor John, who won the last two elec- tions with more than 80 per cent of the popular vote, was finally exonerated. Now Dwight is the tainted one, the man who tried to take down the people’s beloved mayor. Instead of recognizing this, and urging him to work behind the scenes, Cecil made the mistake of putting Dwight front and centre. Every Thursday on Information Morning in Cape Breton throughout the campaign, Dwight was the Conservative voice on their political panel, remind- the litigation — state that “Study 329 was negative for efficacy on all eight protocol specified outcomes and positive for harm.” Translation: Paxil, according to their research and for their purposes, wasn’t worth a damn. The paper finds that Keller and his coauthors “searched for other outcomes that matched their beliefs about efficacy.” In other words, they had a pre-conceived notion about Paxil’s effectiveness, and went searching for data that supported it. According to the 2008 paper’s authors, such a technique is known as “data torturing.” “Confirmation bias could also lead authors who were unconcerned about adverse events (serious side effects among their human adolescent guinea pigs) to look less closely at that data and to attribute (such events) to non-drug causes such as ‘arguments with boyfriends.’” In defence of their methods, Keller has said that “they believed paroxetine was effective and therefore viewed the efficacy results as a false negative.” Incidentally, both Health Canada and the FDA, among other regulatory bodies around the world, recommend against using Paxil to treat adolescent depression. Doesn’t sound controversial to me at all. An automated “out of office reply” was the only response to an email I sent to Dr. Stan’s office requesting comment. His assistant didn’t return a phone message before press time. andrew@atlanticfrank.ca ing thousands of listeners that John Morgan’s mortal enemy wants them to vote for Cecil. So in the end, while Cecil and his crack campaign team are certainly welcome to blame Frank Magazine for their loss, I submit that they need look no further than in the mirror. The proof, I believe, is that a campaign as shoddily run as theirs managed to come within 860 votes of taking the prize. Imagine what would’ve happened if they’d used a little elbow grease? andrew@atlanticfrank.ca MAY 24, 2011 FRANK MAGAZINE 5
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Page 3: Letters Just testing... Dear Frank:
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Page 13 and 14: The case of the Crown and the court
Page 15 and 16: Lonely at Rowan BY DAN WALSH ONLY T
Page 17 and 18: One hopes former Chief Justice Lorn
Page 19 and 20: Jumpin’ Judy Hare makes more than
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Page 23 and 24: Mental Health Court news BY JACOB B
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Page 35 and 36: OH NO! WITHOUT OUR PRECIOUS X-WOMEN

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