I'm sure Emmett Cardinal Carter is wrestling with the devil right now for pressuring Bill Davis to make good on their back-room deal to fully fund the separate school system as his last act of government before stepping down as Ontario premier.
You see, the good Cardinal promised Bill Davis that he could "deliver" him "the Catholic vote" in his initial election if he would agree to funding the separate schools beyond the elementary grades. But I'm guessing that since the provincial conservatives were already holding a majority government before Davis stepped up to the plate, and they won his first election handily with an even greater majority, maybe he wasn't convinced that the Catholic vote had won him his seat or his majority, so understandably, he dragged his feet and kept the issue off the table for 14 years of conservative party reign in Ontario. No doubt, when opportunities presented, being continually reminded by our good ol' boy Cardinal that he still owed him one, such that when Davis finally did decide to call it a career, his last act, to save his soul or perhaps buy Cardinal Carter's, was to grant the separate schools full funding to grade 13.
I'm privy to this story that had never been told because (at the risk of disclosing my identity to an able sleuth) my mother had been in love and engaged to a moneyed yet affable elderly widower named Claude McMurtry. Claude was the owner of the C.A. McMurtry Furniture factory, which older Torontonians will recall dominated the corner of Dupont and Ossington Sts. in Toronto.
I'm sure my mom never intended for me to tell this story, but I think she told it to me as kind of an "fyi" in how it's interesting how deals get made in the recesses off of the halls of power.
I thought about mentioning this when y'all were yammerin' on about Conrad Black, because I looked him up in the wikiworld to see if he was born in Canada (he was, therefor he's a citizen and that idiot Chretien had no right in my view to make him give up his citizenship. He was just being a dick who wanted to lord it over the Lord) - and lo and behold i discover he was friends with our hero Emmett Cardinal Carter, champion of our current separate school funding predicament in their not wanting to play the tune the piper has been paid to play. So I thought to myself, as I used to be a devoted reader of Barbara Amiel when she was a columnist for the Toronto Sun, I'll bet Conrad Black was privy to this story as well and his wife could dig it out of him to fill in all the gaps and tell the story right.
Now Claude had been the devoted husband of Rosamond Denton, who was the daughter of Judge Denton, who was also in this high-powered scotch or cognac sippin good ol' boys club that got together on occasion to chew the fat. He was also the uncle of Davis' Attorney-General Roy McMurtry. This group of friends would have included Davis and the AG, Claude, Judge Denton, Cardinal Carter and there's no doubt in my mind it also would have included (mainly because of the meat) Dominion Stores mogul, Conrad Black (he can correct me if I'm wrong - lol).
So mom tells me that Judge Denton had a penchant for painting and he was quite good. And he convinced the Cardinal to sit still long enough that he could capture His Eminence's unusual features which were rather elongated ear lobes (God knows what someone was doing with that boy's ears when no one was watching!) :?P And so there existed this painting of the Cardinal by Judge Denton which had been left to or otherwise acquired by Claude McMurtry.
Now as I stated my mom and he were planning to marry, but he became too ill and I'm sure would still have married her but appearances being everything, mother didn't like how that might seem to others and didn't fancy the gold-digger label. Regardless, Claude made her his Executor and so the painting and much of his possessions were also left to her; and so she had charged me with the task (with the added bonus of this story - which I was too naive at the time to pay enough attention to the better details she had provided with it - you know, there might have been a football game on, or something! : duh) ... the task of delivering this painting of the Cardinal and his holy lobes - I swear, it looked like a Rembrandt - the guy was good! - to Claude's grandson (I think) who had a flat on Merton St. not far from my mom's place in the Moore Park area, to the north of the Rosedale neighborhood where Claude had lived in the upper flat of his stately duplex at 11 Maclennan Avenue.
So... there you have it, the story of how the devil has the Cardinal by his ears!
:?D