Council votes 45-0 to stay the course on Port Lands

It's official. A short while ago Toronto city council voted 45-0 to support the continued leadership of Waterfront Toronto on the Port Lands redevelopment project. All signs leading in to today's vote indicated that the pillars of the existing plan would be endorsed, but you can bet that there are more than a few Torontonians out there breathing a sigh of relief right now. Although few of the councillors who initially opposed the Doug-Ford led re-envisioning of development efforts characterized the halt to the proposed new plans as a victory, it's hard to think of it as anything but for the left-leaning members on city council.

The question that now needs to be asked is whether or not this represents a watershed moment in the Ford mayoralty. Has the "mighty (or mushy) middle" now taken note of the power it yields? Will councillors once content to support Ford on all matters now dissent regularly? Or will the status quo quickly resume at city hall? I suppose it's impossible to know, but it's hard not to read this as a sign that the mayor's acolytes have lost confidence in him.

For more on what the consensus motion entails, check out our earlier post.

Photo by Andrew Snow in the blogTO Flickr pool