Worst Candidates 2019: Justina McCaffrey’s Faith, Hype and Bankruptcy

It’ll take more than just another cut-and-colour to transmogrify Justina McCaffrey from air-kissing frock maven to jus’-folks servant of the people of Kanata-Carleton, but the celebrity bankrupt is giving it a good twirl.

“Life is getting more expensive under Justin Trudeau. Conservatives will scrap the carbon tax so that you can get ahead,” the star Tory candidate promised her Tweeps-at-large Aug. 19.

What a vertiginous volte face it’s been for “Canada’s Vera Wang,” who once flogged her custom wedding gowns for $7,500-plus, plus.

The “Justina McCaffrey bride,” she once told the Ottawa Petfinder a few bankruptcies ago, “wears a Tiffany bracelet, bought by a fiancée who happened to be at Tiffany’s picking up a $25,000 U.S. engagement [ring].”

It’s even a step down from two years ago, when Justina and her goose-steppin’ galpal Faith Goldy went on the hunt for a suitably rich straight white conservative goy on their reality-show pilot, A Wedding Dress For Everyone But Me. (The Goldy-Diggers: Looking For Mr. Alt-Right, Frank, Sept 5, 2017)

Justina: “So I have my girlfriend, Faith, who’s wonderful. We hang out, have glasses of wine, martinis, spend some time with each other. She gives me ideas, we go out and meet eligible men.

Faith: “I believe in a little thing called the ‘girl mafia’: If you’re hot, you’re smart, you’re pretty, you roll in the right crowds.
“And when it comes to [Toronto], we’re about as close as you get to being called the ‘socialite.’ Anywhere you go. The ‘It’ event, you’ll see Justina McCaffery and Faith Goldy there…

“Justina and I were hanging out and I get a call from this well-to-do bachelor who’s older than me, so you have an idea of what I’m dealing with. Men who want to fly us all around the world, promising us all these, you know, roses and, uh, you know, red carpets. But for some reason, we haven’t found the right people.”

The mystery endures. But these days, Justina’s married to her work.

“When you’re small business owner, you sleep like a baby,” she declares in her candidate vid. “You get up every three hours and you cry uncontrollably.”

And it’s all Justin’s fault. “At least Pierre Elliot Trudeau never declared war on small business, she rages.”I’ve paid payroll out of my own personal bank account, and to be called a tax cheat is something that [asynchronous chopping gestures] makes me very, very angry.”

And to be fair, when Justina and then-hubby /biz partner David McCaffrey pulled the chute on their his-and-hers personal bankruptcies in 2008, only he left revenooers sucking the pipe ($107,000 in Quebec tax arrears). Among the reasons for the failure of their bridal biz? Er, a shrinking envelope of Quebec government handouts for small business.

Creditors bilked in self-made Justina’s $1.495-million flameout included  Desjardins ($500,000), HSBC Canada ($114,461), oh, and the Business Development Bank of Canada, which kissed goodbye $43,724 in loans. Something borrowed, something blew.

Stay tuned for more Worst Candidates 2019. Reader nominations at: info@frankmag.ca subject line: Worst Candidates,
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