They picked on the wrong Guy!

A key Michael Ignatieff leadership campaign organizer, who is also a top official at Queen’s Park, has been forced to end his “cyber-squatting” against a prominent Conservative.

Tom Allison, a senior adviser to Attorney General Michael Bryant and Ignatieff’s incoming Ontario campaign chair, quietly registered the website domain www.guygiorno.com four years ago.

The move outraged Guy Giorno, one-time chief of staff to former Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris, who complained in writing Thursday to Bryant’s executive assistant Adam Dodek.

“It is extremely disturbing that a senior member of the attorney general’s staff would engage in squatting on the domain name of a barrister and solicitor who formerly served as legal counsel in the Office of the Premier and is well-known to be a Conservative,” Giorno wrote.

“Neither the attorney general nor Mr. Allison has any legitimate claim to that domain name. It is improper for a senior member of the attorney general’s personal staff to be involved in what are commonly referred to as political `dirty tricks.’”

Giorno, who also advised former premier Ernie Eves and worked briefly as a Toronto Star columnist, has already registered another website in his name.

“I expect the attorney general to instruct his employee to end his cyber-squatting immediately. Not that it is anyone’s business, but I wish to make professional use of the domain name www.guygiorno.com. See www.guygiorno.ca,” he wrote.

While Allison could not be reached for comment, Giorno’s plea to Bryant’s office was successful.

“The attorney general had no knowledge of this until today. Tom had forgotten that he owned the address. Tom has no need or use for the address and he’s already made arrangements to turn it over to Guy Giorno,” said Bryant aide Greg Crone.

“(Bryant) is hopeful Guy Giorno has not been inconvenienced in any way and wishes him well with his enterprise,” said Crone, adding Allison owns many domain names from when he worked on a possible stillborn leadership bid of former federal minister Allan Rock.

The debacle recalls another bit of Liberal skulduggery from 1999 when party operatives registered the domain name www.mikeharris.com, forcing the embarrassed Tories to make the less obvious www.mikeharrispc.com as their election homepage.

At the time, those who went to the former site were treated to an unflattering photo of then premier Harris and a logo that read: “Ontario’s off-track.”

Language debate

With the federal Liberal leadership race wide open, all it takes is French lessons to raise suspicions about political ambitions.

Such was the case with Ontario Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Marie Bountrogianni, who admitted she's being tutored.

"This is a joke, right?" she replied when asked if she's boning up for a leadership run. "No, I'm not ... The last time I took French was 30 years ago in Grade 13."

  Bountrogianni said she simply feels compelled to become fluent in Canada's other official language, hopefully within a year.

  Her cabinet colleague, the bilingual Education Minister Gerard Kennedy, is seriously considering a leadership bid.

Death Rae Backfires

Government House Leader Jim Bradley loves to brandish a copy of Toronto Star columnist Tom Walkom’s seminal study of the NDP in power, 'Rae Days', whenever New Democratic Leader Howard Hampton asks questions in the Legislature.

It’s Bradley’s impish way of reminding people of what a disaster Rae’s government was at Queen’s Park.

So NDP MPP Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre) delighted in wielding 'Rae Days' on Monday in the House and taunting Health Minister George Smitherman, who is supporting Rae in his quixotic bid for the leadership of the federal Liberal party.

“I noticed that,” Smitherman said with a wince on Tuesday.

Adding insult to irony, Bradley himself is believed to be backing Rae.

Gallery Baby Boom

The Queen’s Park Press Gallery family just keeps getting larger.

National Post legislative reporter Heather Sokoloff gave birth on March 16 to a bouncing baby girl, Talia Rose, weighing in at seven pounds, eight ounces.

“She is the most brilliant, charming, beautiful and perfect baby ever!!! We are over the moon,” Sokoloff said in an e-mail message.

She is the first one out of the gate, so to speak, in the current boom as at least two other reporters are with child.

Must be something in that new water cooler on the third floor.

How The A-G Used To Spend His Summer Vacation

As a student growing up in Victoria, Attorney General Michael Bryant worked as a purser on a British Columbia ferry.

“Sort of like Gopher on The Love Boat,” the affable Bryant used to joke.

Alas, the ship he used to work on, the Queen of the North, sank last week, apparently killing two passengers.

On a much happier note, two of Bryant’s key staffers have new hobby jobs.

Nikki Holland, his director of operations and stakeholder relations, will be the chief returning officer for the federal Liberals’ leadership race to be determined in Montreal on Dec. 2-3.

Tom Allison, a senior adviser to the attorney general and veteran political operative, will be running the Ontario campaign for rookie MP Michael Ignatieff (Etobicoke-Lakeshore).

Bryant, for his part, will be helping his federal seatmate and buddy, Carolyn Bennett, a former federal minister, in her leadership bid.

So much for Premier Dalton McGuinty’s edict that provincial Liberals sit out the federal contest!

Fear and Loathing in the 2006 Budget Lock-Up: Spanky’s Gang Fare OK

The annual Ontario budget lock-up has come and gone and, unlike last year, Ministry of Finance staffers deserve kudos for not treating reporters like potential hijackers.

Gone was the electronic wanding and heavy-handed, airport-like security to ensure journalists weren’t sneaking in cellphones, WiFi connections and BlackBerries to transmit the earth-shattering news in the budget to a breathless world outside before Finance Minister Dwight Duncan could make it official after 4 p.m. last Thursday.

Of course, to the chagrin of Duncan’s Liberals, Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory, NDP Leader Howard Hampton and The Globe and Mail, most of the juicy secrets had already been published on the front-page of the Toronto Star days and weeks earlier.

Still, the respectful treatment of reporters was welcome - especially since some anxious scribes were fearing rectal searches, drug tests and other dehumanizing measures.

Now, if only Finance officials could do something about the tight quarters.

“Who arranged the seating, JetsGo?” complained one business reporter.

There were more than 400 accredited journalists in the lock-up - a mind-addling 25 from your Daily Star alone - so perhaps it is time to look for a larger venue.

That said, the free lunch of lasagna - both meat and vegetarian - and salad and cookies was devoured by reporters who rarely get the chance to belly up to the trough.

Some old-timers were reminiscing about the days when the press gallery used to wheel in cases of beer for the thirsty throng, but Thursday’s lock-up was a dry affair.

Maybe next year...

Where is he now? Outside, protesting.

Former Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris was famously dismissive of protests and demonstrators.

But Harris’s one-time principal secretary John Weir appears to be veering away from his former boss’s stance on rallies and the like.

How else to explain Weir’s bizarre attendance at a demonstration outside Whitby’s Anderson Collegiate High School on Monday.

The lobbyist and Tory activist was protesting a campaign-style visit to the school by Premier Dalton McGuinty, a tour that coincided with the March 30 by-election in Whitby-Ajax.

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” joked one Grit after spotting Weir.

When he’s not rabblerousing outside high schools Weir is managing the by-election campaign of Tory candidate Christine Elliott.

Elliott, of course, is the wife of former Whitby-Ajax MPP and federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

Flaherty’s seat became vacant after he won the federal riding on Jan. 23, defeating Liberal Judi Longfield.

Longfield, obviously not yet eager to abandon public life despite being shown the door by voters less than two months ago, is now running as the provincial Liberal candidate.

Wanted: A New President and Vice-President

First, Rick "Badger" Brennan, vice-president for print of the Legislative Press Gallery, abandoned Queen’s Park to become the Star’s Greater Toronto Area bureau chief.

Now, the gallery is losing its president.

Alan Findlay, who has been at the helm of the influential Queen’s Park Gallery since 2004, is leaving for Ottawa.

Findlay, a well-regarded reporter for the Toronto Sun departs later this month to work at the Parliament Hill bureau of Sun Media.

His departure and that of Brennan means the gallery is looking for two senior posts.

The annual meeting to select a new president and v-p, print, will be held in camera - because no one is as sensitive to leaks or as secretive about their own activities as journalists - on April 12.

From March 24, the day after the provincial budget, until the election, CH Television’s Randy Rath, the veteran vice-president, broadcast, will serve as president.

"He has no intention of running for the job beyond then," wrote Findlay in an internal e-mail, er, obtained by the Political Notebook.

"Rob Benzie at the Star has agreed to preside over the nominations process, which requires nominations and secondings by voice at the April 12 meeting," the president continued.

No one, it is safe to say, has yet approached the chief electoral officer about running.

However, Frank McKenna, John Manley, Brian Tobin, and Allan Rock have all ruled out a bid.

Desperately Seeking Communications Help!

Ontario’s Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Chris Bentley needs a press secretary. Badly.

Bentley - who has yet to find a replacement for ace communications adviser Peter Fitzpatrick, a former National Post reporter recently hired by Air Canada - suffered the most humiliating media event of the McGuinty era on Wednesday.

In a bizarre news conference in the basement auditorium of the MaRS research facility on College Street, the minister took to the stage, flanked by a billboard-sized backdrop, emblazoned with slogan: “Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher. Reaching Higher.”

Yes, 48 times.

And if that were not enough two other massive signs on stage right read, “Reaching Higher.”

And why did the minister convene a press conference?

To announce Higher Tuition Fees - or, as one press wag noted, to tell students they would soon be Reaching Deeper into their pockets to pay fees.

If only the communications bungling had ended with the visuals.

Some member of the Liberal brain trust - we’re too nice to name names - thought it would be cute to invite dozens of student leaders. To a press conference announcing, er, higher tuition fees. For students.

So as soon as Bentley revealed he would be lifting the government’s two-year freeze on tuition - a long-stated goal to give colleges and universities more money for programs - and would be increasing fees by up to eight per cent, the students went berserk.

“Shame,” they jeered. “You suck. You’re no better than Mike Harris.”

On and on it went for many agonizing minutes while the poor minister stood alone on stage.

Not that he could escape to do a scrum with the 20 or so reporters covering the announcement. Prior to the start of the students’ outbursts, organizers haughtily advised that the minister would be taking questions from the stage instead of the customary low-key scrum in a quiet adjacent room.

This enabled the angry students to continue peppering Bentley with insults and accusations as he tried to disseminate the government’s message to journalists.

If there was a silver lining to the fiasco, it was that the minister maintained his cool throughout and the two Ontario Provincial Police officers assigned specifically for the event never had to intervene.

Still, there was much schadenfreude-esque chortling in Liberal circles back at Queen’s Park from those who had urged a less public disclosure that fees were rising.

Memo to the Grits: when it comes to bad news, do what the Tories used to do - announce it in a press release on the Friday afternoon of a long weekend.

And hire Chris Bentley a press secretary!

Bye, Bye Badger

He's become a legend for giving politicians a rough ride during 16 years of reporting at Queen's Park, but The Star's Richard Brennan was innocently and inadvertently the cause of trouble as the Legislature sat Thursday for the last time before its three-week winter break.

When Energy Minister Donna Cansfield stood up to congratulate Brennan on his promotion to the job of Greater Toronto bureau chief for the newspaper, Brennan got a standing ovation from MPPs of all three parties.

Speaker Mike Brown was not amused, warning Cansfield that the Legislature's daily question period is not the time for such tributes.

Brennan, nicknamed the Badger for his tenacious approach to covering politics, graciously smiled and waved to the politicians.

Many of them had attended his farewell party Wednesday night, where the premier and opposition party leaders good-naturedly roasted him.