I have lately been in search of new grazing pasture and have found just the spot. It's a modest abode, a mere 26,000 square feet, with an indoor pool, spa, seven fireplaces, and more bedrooms than I can count. Situated on eight acres in the right part of Oakville, the property has 330 feet of private waterfront and a docking pier, for the goat boat. It's so tony it even has a name -- Ballymena -- although I doubt the original Irish version was a tenth as grand. This plot was once owned by a son of Timothy Eaton. Its current owner belongs to gentry, too: Microsoft Canada CEO Frank Clegg.
Alas, having spent the past five years and countless millions restoring the main manse, the 10,000-sq.-ft. coach house and the grounds, Monsieur Clegg is packing up. No, he's not leaving Microsoft. It seems Madame Clegg has a rare allergy, aggravated by exposure to the gases emitted during reconstruction. So Ballymena is on the block. The asking price is so high that Clegg's agent, Oakville mover and shaker Chris Invidiata, will only whisper it in the ears of bona fide buyers. But if you guessed $25-million to $30-million, you'd be in the vicinity. Guess I'll just keep looking.
FRISK 'EM The Ontario government takes budget lockups seriously. Very seriously.
Making my goatish way from the front door to the media room on Tuesday, I stopped counting at 20 police officers, many of them armed; one was escorted by a German shepherd straining at its leash. After signing in, dropping off the cellphone, and submitting my computer to electronic scrutiny, I approached the inner sanctum. But before being given the precious document itself, I had to submit to a vigorous wanding, as thorough as anything carried out at a Canadian airport.
Federal budget lockups are more civilized. The RCMP sweeps the room for bugs before the media arrives, reappearing to accompany scribes to hear the world's most boring speech.
In between, Ottawa is content to let a gaggle of private security guards monitor us wretches.
In both venues, journalists sign a statement vowing to honour an embargo until the details are made public. You'd think that would be enough, since the penalty for violating it would be stiff. Not for Queen's Park, where press paranoia is a growth industry.
But maybe there's an upside: If downtown Toronto ever hosts another G7 meeting and turns into Terror Central, the Praetorians are ready.
AIR TORY So here we have the Canadian Auto Workers union haranguing the Liberals in Ottawa to organize a bailout of bankrupt Air Canada. And then I note, courtesy of the AC newsletter to employees, that the company has been "contracted by the Conservative Party of Canada to provide charter service for the upcoming election." The Tories have leased an Airbus A319, customized with fax machine, work tables and improved power supplies. Conservative insignia will adorn the aircraft. Apparently, Air Canada offered its service to all the major parties. Only the Harperistes succumbed.
PRIVATE CHEF I am so pleased to report that Toronto's Spoke Club, the swish new members-only enterprise launched by Galen Weston Jr. and old school pal Michael Shore, now has a chef. And not just any chef: local boy Robert Kirk, ex Centro and Splendido and most recently of London's Restaurant Gordon Ramsey, Britain's only three-star Michelin-rated restaurant.
Want to feed The Goat?