Stephen Harper’s son sticks up for Kingston costume partiers. Photos of Queen's University students dressed in stereotypical ethnic garb gained inevitable attention after surfacing on Twitter. The school hopes to turn the snafu into a teachable moment, even if the event appears to have no official affiliation with Queen's. Globe and Mail commenters largely wonder what the fuss is about, but it’s the kind of news item tailor-made for Vice. “I’m watching my classmates discover that media pushes agenda at the expense of facts,” Ben Harper tweeted in response.

Doug Ford has already driven off the high road. HarperCollins Canada publicists did their best to ensure the Ford Nation co-author had softballs to answer in his Twitter Q&A, then acknowledged that they might need therapy after it was over. (Still, he was a good sport.) But the softer approach that he claims mom Diane wanted isn’t likely to sell many books, so he went for the jugular in a Global News interview with Alan Carter—laying into police-chief-turned-MP Bill Blair and the Toronto Star for never formally apologizing for its inaccurate original transcript of the crack video.

Leslie Roberts returns to where shilling isn't shunned. Global News ditched the anchorman for failing to disclose his co-ownership of a PR firm whose clients regularly appeared on camera, but now he's back. Bell Media has hired Roberts as the nine-to-noon talk host on CJAD, in his native Montreal, a job he did a few years ago in Toronto at CFRB. “There is absolutely zero reason to be concerned about that issue going forward,” program director Chris Bury told the Montreal Gazette. Roberts is the second personality Bell has hired whose perceived conflicts were exposed by Kevin Donovan—ex-CBC host Evan Solomon is now on radio and CTV’s Question Period.

Prank kidnapping scene is enough to rattle Richmond Hill. A woman driving home from the dentist spotted a young man bound and gagged in the trunk of a parked car, with another young man standing over him making gestures. She called the cops with the licence number, but the incident turned out to be a couple of 17-year-olds making a video promoting a clothing line. They’ve been charged with public mischief.

"Real Fashion Santa" vows to rise again somewhere. Paul Mason pitched the wildly successful concept to Yorkdale Shopping Centre, but, after two years, the mall has dumped him for a more baby-faced beardo. For now, he doesn't seem to be accepting his fate. Mason filed a trademark request just before Christmas last year, two weeks before the mall did. The persona was also exported to a Mexican department store, albeit with a more modest name: “Mr. Claus.”

Electric Circus cowboy Kenrick Pompey gets the hit he always hoped for. When Toronto Mike confirmed that Blue Jays outfielder Dalton Pompey’s dad was once a gyrating legend of 299 Queen West, a reader dusted off a house-rap track under the name K. Pompey. “Summertime Summertime,” released in 1992, featured backing vocals from a teenage Deborah Cox—for a very Canadian-sounding knock-off of C+C Music Factory. The call is now on to make the song Dalton's walk-up music.

Charlie Angus used to be in the band L'Étranger. Which is noted here because a very anglo typo in yesterday’s 12:36 had it as “L’Entranger.” The Timmins-James Bay MP remains coy about assumptions that he’ll run for the federal NDP leadership, but that didn't stop him from posting a new video outlining his “Donald Trump hangover cure.”