Corrosive Politics

John Lorinc drops another great article today about transit planning and election races. As has often been the case recently, self-interest and narrow political calculation run roughshod over reasoned debate at every governance level involved. There ain’t no good guys in this story except the ones with almost zero chance of winning provincial office this coming Thursday.

Now, I know you’re going to get all up in my face when I quote the following passage from the story but I beg you to bear with me.

The broader point to make here is that Rob Ford’s corrosive influence on all the parties and the state of debate is writ large in this by-election. He’s given too many political people from all three partisan clans permission to be astonishingly dishonest and unprincipled with both the voters and themselves.

No, no. I am not pointing the finger of blame squarely at the mayor on this issue. He’s been remarkably consistent with views on public transit in this city. Horribly misinformed and willfully ignorant, but remarkably consistent.

The truly incredible aspect of this is that almost every other politicians of every political stripe allowed him to define the terms of debate, and continue to do so long after it seems simply politically expedient to do so.

The provincial Liberals could’ve stopped this latest debacle in its tracks back in 2010 after the newly elected mayor of Toronto declared Transit City dead. They could’ve stepped up and politely said, nope, sorry. The deal’s been signed and the books are closed on this.

Instead, lagging in the polls and intimidated by the notion of Ford Nation decimating them throughout ridings in Toronto, they shrugged. Whatevs. It’s our money to do whatever you want with.

And even after the Ford Nation wave failed to materialize and the mayor’s hold on city council has grown increasingly tenuous, his views on a Scarborough subway continue to hold sway. In the provincial by-election campaign. With sitting Scarborough Liberal MPPs. At City Hall.

I’d ask why that is but it’s pretty obvious. Pick a word. Pandering. Calculating. Craven. And put shameless as an adjective in front of them (or use its adverbial variation as needed).

It’s bad enough, the adverse affects this is having on actually trying to get transit — the right kind of transit – built in this city and region. Even more worrisome is how Mayor Ford’s ‘corrosive influence’ has been adopted. Rather than re-examine how he and his team, using catchy slogans, dubious claims and numbers, won the day back in 2010, many of his opponents have embraced those practices for their own purposes and not figured out ways in which to successfully combat them. In the end, it’s nothing more than an endorsement of cynical sloganeering and destructive obfuscation.

Not only does that short-circuit efforts to build transit in this city but it also poisons the entire political atmosphere, turning off public engagement instead of encouraging it.

— drippingly submitted by Cityslikr