City
Will city council be stalled under Rob Ford? I doubt it
The night of Toronto's municipal election was surreal. The quick result and decisive numbers weren't what I expected. George Smitherman made a titanic effort in the last days and his list of high profile endorsements, together with the claim that he was the only one who could stop Rob Ford, were supposed to put him over the top, but it all collapsed so quickly.
For me, the weirdest thing about election night, however, was how quickly my perspective of Ford shifted. I made no secret throughout the election that I couldn't stand him or his policies. And as I've suggested before, I was seriously considering casting a strategic vote to stop him. But by 8:20 on Monday night I became cautiously optimistic about the next four years.
As much as I wanted to, in the end I couldn't bring myself to vote. I felt I had two equally bad choices. Either I support Smitherman, the typical politician and professional bureaucrat, or Ford, who never struck me as very competent but would at least be able to deliver a major change and a fresh start for Toronto.
So there I was on Election Day, feeling a very strong curiosity about a Ford administration and a lukewarm enthusiasm (at best) for voting for the best of the worst. These two feelings effectively cancelled each other out, so not voting was my only choice.
I didn't feel good about it, especially since I followed the election closely from day one. But within minutes of turning on CP24 on election night I knew I made the only decision I could've.
It immediately hit me that a Smitherman victory would've been anticlimactic. It would have been a disappointment in so many ways, a settling on second best with little genuine enthusiasm--he wasn't capturing the spirit of the city and it just wasn't his time to win.
I didn't become a Ford supporter overnight but I quickly saw some hope for his mayoralty. Ford's impressive victory by more than a 100,000 votes gives him a stronger mandate than expected, meaning lots of political capital that will help him get his policies through.
The election returned a strong right-wing caucus to city council. Doug Holyday, Karen Stintz, Frances Nunziata,David Shiner, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Mike Del Grande, Michael Thomson, Giorgio Mammoliti, Peter Milczyn (by a hair), target=_blankCeasar Palacio, John Parker, Norm Kelly, Gloria Lindsay Luby, and the newly elected Doug Ford and Vincent Crisanti are all poised to support at least parts of Ford's platform.
Also in Ford's favour is his victory in five wards that elected left-wingers: Ward 8 (represented by Anthony Peruzza), Ward 9 (Maria Augimeri), Ward 25 (Jaye Robinson), Ward 31 (Janet Davis), and Ward 38 (Glen De Baeremaeker). These councillors will have to think twice before opposing Ford, lest they care to risk upsetting those who voted for him.
This leaves only a few councillors to form the hardcore opposition, meaning council might actually be productive, and not deadlocked as many of us feared. Much will depend on how Ford manages his rivals, but as has been commented in the major papers recently, his decision to bring in veteran councilor Case Ootes (deputy mayor under Mel Lastman) to head his transition team bodes well for cooperation on city council.
Finally, Toronto will be a very interesting place to watch from now on. And though the policy might not always mesh with me, I can be pretty certain I'll be regularly stimulated by city news sections.
How bad can it be? It's only four years before we choose again...
Photo by bigdaddyhame in the blogTO Flickr pool.
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Bah, what does he care, he's retired now.
In every election we say, "the young people don't vote". Turnout for the polling place in the middle of the University of Toronto was something like 15%, way way way below average.
And now we have a writer justifying his laziness.
ATTENTION BLOGTO: Please prohibit Tomasz Bugajski from any further political posts over the next four years. Having declined to vote, he loses his right to complain. Thank you.
The former is inexcusable, the latter requires the kind of engagement you want from all citizens and is as valid a choice as voting for candidate A or B.
I am not surprised. I had virtual strangers in my building turn to me and proudly announce they were voting Ford - and I live downtown.
Now Magazine and all the other leftie hold-overs from the '70s just don't get it. There is life north of St. Clair and people do have to get around. No way, no how is the TTC efficient or desirable, unless you live on the subway line and work on the subway line.
As awful as our roads are, they are orders of ten better than our transit. And cycling is just not an option for 97% of the people with lives and real jobs.
I have no problems throwing more $$$ into the sinkhole that the TTC has become, but motorists are getting zero benefits, while paying more ($60 license fee) and getting less (Jarvis St. bicycle lane.)
One of Miller's biggest mistakes was not in earmarking the $60 license fee for road improvements, or at least transit improvements. I would pay $100 extra on my sticker, if it went toward the Front St. extension, widening Finch St. or something that made things in this city move a little better - not into more subisidized housing by the lake!
I, too, am optimistic about the next four years, and I voted for Joe Pantalone. I'm an arts loving liberal like the rest of you, but I think the claims that this city is going to take massive steps backwards under Ford are an exaggerated load of crap. Even if it does, there is no reason to believe things would be any different with Smitherman. He just would have pushed us backwards down a different hill.
i agree there is a massive divide in this city, you point to north of st clair and i would agree. i dont think the divide is left and right necessarily though. i think it is people who are blindly following ford compared to those who are asking him serious questions and getting empty rhetoric back.
the only upside i see to this election result is watching people who bash the left constantly trying to defend ford's inept policies or outright lack of action. somehow i fear you will still find a way to blindly blame the remaining "socialist" faction for the lack of action by ford. i bet a year from now, no one will admit they voted for him.
Miller was 'their' guy and look how they rewarded him: with a strike.
I agree that this often turns into a left and right debate; however, that divide is often split amonst the younger/eager and older/know better camps, or those who have had their taxes pissed away for 30 years and those who are feeding off those taxes.
See the other thread on this site about the $11M luxury hotel for the homeless.
If Ford actually finds a way to reign in the unions and run- away expenses in this city, maybe, just maybe, there will be money for transit.
"How bad can it be? It's only four years before we choose again..."
Before we choose... again not to vote? Decisions are made by those who show up.
This is bull. What makes Ford even worse is Nenshi. All I know is I don't know if I'm going to move back to Toronto in the near future.
You might be interested to know that I work in a large downtown office building full of well-paid people in suits with important-sounding job descriptions and mortgages and all the rest of it. The bike storage facilities in our building are constantly being expanded because hundreds of those people (with "lives and real jobs" as you put it) are biking to work. And no, not just the interns and subordinates, but people from all across the spectrum.
I don't recall the the parking garage ever being expanded.
What a ridiculous, self-satisfied post.
Make the effort, it matters.
I might guess, by some comments, that committing murder and voting makes you a better person than the opposite.
And a lot can happen in four years. Four years ago there was no economic crisis, for instance. The most trivial survey of history will show you how much time four years is.
Your article here undermines your own credibility in a rather severe way.
$275,000 per bed is LUXURY, buddy.
Your comments that the you don't recall the garage being expanded are clever: the millions of dollars necessary and the hurdles the city would put the developer through are daunting. Any $10 an hour clown can paint lines in a parking spot and turn it into bicycle parking. It's all very fashionable to add bicycle parking at the expense of car parking. Too bad the bikes don't have to pay $15 a day, too.
If you didn't spend most of your public school in detention hall or playing pocket pool, you would re-read my post whereupon you would discover that I said 'virtual' strangers, not 'complete' strangers. However, you obviously a complete idiot, not a 'virtual' idiot. Or English is foreign to you.
Having had a very friendly dog (until he died last year), my neighbors know me by sight or to say hi. I suppose yours just avoid you.
When I finally moved into my condo after it was built, they had 50 spots for bikes. But were pressed into putting in more once many many owners complained.
The thing is, I wouldn't have cared much if they lets up bring our bikes into our units. But no... That wasn't allowed. No bikes allowed in the elevators. Even if brought in through the basement. What ended up happening was hundreds of bikes locked up around the building on public property. Made the surroundings of the condo look like a biking garage.
Gadfly, do you also work in NYC?
http://gothamist.com/2010/10/27/cop_blocks_bike_lane_to_ticket_cycl.php
No building would allow bicycles into the common areas, especially the elevators. The wear and tear and potential for damage is too great. Plus, nobody wants to be standing in their suit or dress for work next to a mud-caked bike: that much is common sense. We cut the locks off any bikes found locked anywhere but the designated bicycle area. Real quick.
Scooters are another nuisance. I have had to post signs that the next scooter we discover connected to building power, will be confiscated and the ownner will be charged with theft of building power. Really, the nerve of these people. Who do they think pays for the electricity that is recharging their scooter? Some of these things are huge. We found one in the hallways of the PH level! It barely fit in an elevator when we confiscated it. The idiot seriously saw no problems recharging it on the building's dime.
Idiots.
When Parliament votes, they know exactly who Abstained because those people were sitting in the House, and CHOSE to not vote.
When pollers are collecting data about public elections, they don't have
- DID VOTE
- DID NOT VOTE
- ABSTAINED
If you went in to spoil your ballot, or vote for a fringe candidate, that would be one thing. But your choice to not vote in a public election puts you in that 47% of people who didn't vote. Not exactly "noble"