So,
I’m sitting around, minding my own business, scrolling through the afternoon news feeds when I startle across this headline:
John Tory says he hasn’t ruled out another run for mayor
And I’m like,
are you fucking kidding me with that?!
This can’t be serious. Can it? No. Not possible. It’s June now, right? Not April. April the first.
“Tory was spotted having a meeting at Dineen Coffee in the lobby of Commerce Court West on Tuesday afternoon,” said the article. “Approached by TorontoToday, the former mayor appeared amused when asked about the rumours that he might be running again…”
There are really rumours about John Tory re-running for mayor?! Why am I just hearing about it now?!
Tory ‘appeared amused’ and then, when asked about those rumours, laughed.
Phee-ew!
I thought.
So even the man himself thought the idea was laughable, him, John Tory, running for mayor of Toronto again. Nothing but rumours. Gossip. Idle chitchat.
But then Tory, as John Tory always does, went on.
“The former mayor said he ‘couldn’t say yet’ about another mayoral bid, and that running again is ‘a big decision’ with ‘many factors’ he had to take into account.
I mean,
jesus fucking christ.
“Sources at Queen’s Park say Tory,” Alex Ballingall wrote in the Toronto Star a week or so ago, “who resigned from office in February 2023 after the Star reported he had an affair with an aide that he called a ‘serious error of judgment’—is being encouraged to make a comeback.”
Encouraged by who?! Whom? Who? Whom?
Who could possibly be looking around at the state of this city, the state of disrepair, the unhoused and the unsheltered, the woeful transit, the relentless congestion, the general shoddiness of our streets and public spaces, and think: You know what we need? More of that magic that John Tory delivered over the 9 years or so that he served as mayor. That guy deserves another kick at the can.
In my very biased view, John Tory ranks as the third worst mayor in post-amalgamated Toronto, landing behind even the abysmal Mel Lastman because John Tory was a backroom advisor to the guy, so his dirty fingerprints have been all over this city for more than a quarter century already. Doug Ford. Rob Ford. John Tory. The Troika of Terrible.
And yet, some, some unnamed some, are encouraging him to get back in the ring. Not for nothing, I’m assuming, that Tory was spotted in a coffee shop at the Commerce Court deep, deep in Bay Street’s bowels. Hanging out with the money men, I guess. The man is, after all, a money man himself. These are his people. He is their kind of people. They are his backers. His encouragers, his enablers.
A person with an iota of self-awareness, and perhaps feeling even so much as a lick of contrition, having slunk from office under the cloud of scandal, two breaches of the city’s code of conduct after revelations of an affair with a junior staffer hanging over him, and who thought that maybe his political career hadn’t yet been entirely flushed down the crapper, might have spent some of his time out of elected office in attempt to rehabilitate his reputation. Garner some goodwill. Be seen not just acknowledging his shortcomings, but actually working on them, fixing them. Display some humility in the face of your failings.
As a former mayor, maybe, recognize where you fell short during your time in office. Work on that. Advocate for the residents who were left out or behind because of the policy issues you pursued and enacted. Be humble.
John Tory?
“He has retained a high profile in the city with frequent appearances as a host and commentator on Newstalk 1010 and CTV News Channel,” according to the Star.
Not to mention, hanging out with the boys in the Commerce Court on Bay Street.
If the current mayor. Olivia Chow, had proven to be the wild-eyed, radical left winger that voters were warned she would be, an orange dyed-in-the-wool ‘unmitigated disaster’ the premier of the province predicted she would be, this amassing of forces from the right might be understandable. The reality is, Mayor Chow’s approach has been one marked by timidity. She’s spent her time nibbling at the edges of the mess her predecessors left behind. Improving decrepit parks and other public amenities and spaces. Trying to repair transit service. Bolster housing and shelters to improve the lives and opportunities of those living on the streets.
All of it, incremental. Nothing extreme or revolutionary. Just necessary.
In fact, she’s gone out of her way to reach out to those not part of her natural constituency. Made nice with the Toronto Police Services, championing its ever-burgeoning budget demands. Been unconfrontational with Doug Ford in the face of his ongoing assault on the city. Ontario Place. The Science Centre. Bike lanes. While extracting some important concessions for her silence, the uploading of the Gardiner and DVP to the province, she’s left the defense of the city to outside activists. Just last council meeting, Mayor Chow voted in favour of the protest bubble zone that will almost inevitably be deemed unconstitutional, in order to curry favour with the law and order types and to allay criticism that she just might not be pro-Israel enough.
Her weak spot will be property taxes, and the fact that she’s pushed for higher rates than too many Torontonians believe they should not be faced to endure. The same Torontonians who refuse to make the connection between low tax rates and the sorry state of the city they complain about. 
Mayor Olivia Chow’s other failing is the fact that she’s not one of the Boys, one of John Tory’s Bay Street Boys. Worse, she carries the taint of being NDP. And if there’s one thing the local Conservatives and Liberals can agree on it’s that there’s nothing worse than the NDP being in any sort of position of power. That, and the fact John Tory, warts and all, is one of them, speaks their language, and, apparently, can do no wrong in their eyes.