Tag Archives: Adam Giambrone

Dreaming Of A True Ford Nation

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Hey.

Did everybody see that? At the NDP federal leadership convention this weekend, councillors Karen Stintz and John Parker, locked arm in arm, cheering the radical left crowd on, belting out Le Internationale.

Yeah, me neither. But apparently that’s exactly what Councillor Doug Ford and his brother mayor witnessed. “You’re on our side or against us,” Mayor Ford said yesterday on his radio show. “You’re on the taxpayer’s side or against them. There’s no mushy middle. It’s left or right down there.”

In what must be the most ridiculous case of repositioning ever, Team Ford is desperately trying to cast the world of municipal politics here in Toronto as a simple binary system, a black-and-white world of simplistic right-versus-left, us-versus-them. You’re either with us or you’ve been brainwashed by the vile and manipulative NDP. The mushy middle has drunk the koolaid.

Councillor Karen Stintz, a dipper. That must be news to the previous incarnation of Councillor Stintz who stood in strong opposition to former mayor David Miller. She was a chartered member of the Responsible Government Group. The other Councillor Karen Stintz speaking out passionately if misguidedly against a motion to reclaim about $19 million in service and program cuts in the 2012 budget.

And former Progressive Conservative MPP and Mike Harris backbencher, Councillor John Parker. Another member of the anti-David Miller Responsible Government Group, now suddenly a left leaning councillor, his blue hues changed overnight to that bilious orange.

Let’s not forget fellow Etobicoke councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby, a long time foe of the Ford family, clearly because of her political stripes. You see, way back in 1999, she had the temerity to oppose Doug Ford Sr. in a political nomination showdown for the… wait for it, wait for it… Progressive Conservative party. Clearly, a lost cause left wing wingnut. So much so that she was a member of Mayor Miller’s Executive Committee before resigning. “I never felt part of that small inner circle”

In the magical world that exists in the Ford family mind, bona fide conservatives become evil socialists the moment disagreement emerges. There is no middle ground, no third way. Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon, in her 2010 race to unseat David Miller Speaker, Sandra Bussin, endorsed by former provincial Progressive Conservative leader John Tory, is now a left winger. Councillor Ana Bailão ran in the 2003 municipal election against very left leaning Adam Giambrone and then won the ward in 2010 by beating Giambrone EA, Kevin Beaulieu. Councillor Josh Colle, offspring of Liberal MPP Mike Colle, and up until the recent rash of transit votes, sided with the mayor more than 40% of the time. Councillor Chin Lee, another member of the Responsible Government Group back in the day, backed Mayor Ford more than half the time.

Now, because of their disagreement with him over transit plans have all been hopelessly lost to the dark side, left wingers all.

There was a reason some of the more outspoken critics of the mayor and his brother began calling them ‘radical conservatives’. Actually, two. One, because the Fords are radical right wingers. Despite the election promise not to cut services and programs that’s exactly what they’ve done. They want to make government smaller under the banner of efficiencies. They are endeavouring the smash the unions. They want to privatize everything not nailed down.

That is, in fact, a radical right wing agenda.

The other reason to colour them with this label is to differentiate the Fords and their hardcore supporters on council from actual moderate conservatives. Despite what the brothers will try and tell you over the course of the next 2.5 years, city council is made up with a fair rump of moderate conservatives, those who are able to reach out and form a consensus with a majority of council members. That is what occurred on the transit vote. A consensus of 24 councillors from the moderate right to the left (29 when it came to assuming control of the TTC board) to take  the transit file from Mayor Ford when he failed to bring forth a workable plan to build a Sheppard subway that would almost get to Scarborough.

But the mayor and his brother see such cooperation as nothing short of betrayal and treachery. In their us-versus-everyone else who disagrees with us on any issue worldview, true conservatives march in lockstep. Since they are conservatives, you can’t vote against them and still be a conservative.

So now they’ve pledged to run a slate of candidates against any councillor that dares to defy them. This isn’t new. They did it on a limited scale in 2010. They nearly unseated Councillor Lindsay Luby as well as Councillor Maria Augimeri. Councillor Peter Milczyn similarly had to fight for his political life with a Ford backed candidate in the race. He, unlike councillors Lindsay Luby and Augimeri, has largely turtled and become a pliant supporter of the mayor except for some of his recent votes on transit.

In Ward 1, the Fords did manage to boot then councillor Suzan Hall, locking in undying fealty at city council from one Vincent Crisanti. Councillor Crisanti immediately assumed the position as a largely silent deadwood paper weight rubber stamp yes man for the incoming mayor. When he does rise to speak, he invokes the babbling oratory of councillors Frank Di Giorgio and Cesar Palacio. In the debate over transit and the Sheppard subway, Councillor Crisanti insisted busses ran faster than LRTs and endeavoured to ensure Etobicoke would not see improvement in transit in our lifetimes.

That, folks, is the slate of candidates the mayor wants to put together. Team Ford and Vincent Crisantis in 2014.

— sirenly submitted by Cityslikr

No Mayor Good Enough For Royson James

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Far be it from us here at All Fired Up in the Big Smoke to lash out at a fellow Ford basher. It just seems so natural now that the mayor has been revealed to be a complete and utter fraud. Only blinkered partisan hacks and fellow small government travellers could try and argue that’s not the case.

Still, we rankle somewhat reading a feisty, spittin’ mad Royson James tear into Mayor Ford. “City not nearly as broke as mayor suggests.” Is that right, Royson? Seems strange for you to say that since it was only a few short years ago that you hinted almost exactly the opposite.

“The quiet descent into near-bankruptcy is a deliberate strategy by Mayor David Miller and the ruling New Democrats at city hall,” Mr. James wrote back in 2007. “The bankruptcy isn’t deliberate, of course. But the strategy of underplaying its dangers – of governing as if there is a viable plan to right the ship – is a carefully studied one.”

Or how `bout this one?

“If Toronto is near fiscal ruin, as the numbers suggest, why wasn’t this a big talking point in last November’s election?

Why, why, why, why, why?

Because the political handlers didn’t want the mayor [Miller] tarnished or left vulnerable by a volatile election issue. Because no one has the guts to outline the tough road ahead. Because no one wants to be bloodied politically.”

Toronto, according to Royson James, was broke when David Miller was mayor but no one would face up to the fact. Under Mayor Ford, the city is not that broke so could we please stop harping on that it is. A tale of two cities, indeed.

An over-simplification of the Roysonian Jamesonian worldview, obviously, but there is certainly a smattering of hypocrisy to the high dudgeon in which the Toronto Star columnist holds the mayor. It’s almost exactly to the same degree he held the previous mayor. Is no mayor good enough for Royson James?

Granted, it took James a little longer to arrive at a similar level of outrage toward David Miller that he now bears Rob Ford. In fact, way back in 2003, James endorsed Miller in the final days of the election campaign. The blush was off the rose by 2005 and when Miller ran for re-election in 2006, Royson could be seen flirting openly with the competition, Jane Pitfield.

After Miller gained a second term, the gloves came off. James deemed him imperious, out of touch, beholden to unions and other activists, intent only to spend the city into oblivion. Sound familiar?

In late summer 2007, James wrote out 10 points that Mayor Miller needed to hear. Much of it could’ve been the template for Rob Ford’s run for the mayor’s office three years later. Point # 1. Cut councillors’ perks and salaries. (Done and frozen.) Point #3. Open the city’s books to public scrutiny. (Hello KPMG.) Point #8. Announce “Water-Buster” findings. (What do you mean there’s very little gravy, KPMG?)

The inference behind all this was that under the Miller regime, the city was walled off from its citizens and had become bloated, hidden away in the darkness. Royson James helped construct the platform Rob Ford would use to launch his successful bid to become mayor. He greased the rails with alleged gravy that rode David Miller out of town and Rob Ford rode in on.

That very little of it turned out to be true now has Royson James hopping mad. “Every evidence flies in the face of this characterization of wanton waste at city hall,” James writes. “Still, every crumb that falls triggers claims the whole bread is spoiled so let’s can the baker.”

2011 Royson James meet 2007 Royson James. You two should chat, try and clear the air a little bit. Then we’ll pop into the wayback machine and start setting the record straight.

Now, we’ve got no problem with contrarians. Some have brushed us with that very same stroke. Truth needs to be spoken to power. But, in reading through many of James’ columns during the last 5 years of David Miller’s time in office, it’s hard not to get the sense that it was more about having a grudge than having an actual axe to grind.  The animosity such that it extended beyond Miller himself to his apparent heir apparent, Adam Giambrone. No one was more front and centre finishing off Giambrone’s municipal career than Royson James who took self-righteousness and sanctimony to new heights with what should’ve been nothing more than gossip fodder about a public person’s private life.

Royson James worked really hard to rid the city of any vestiges of David Miller. Realizing now the horrors that he help wrought, he seems to have dialled up the indignation and alarm a notch or two. Better late than never, I guess, but if he’d only been a little more diligent, responsible and fair-minded a few years ago, the task ahead of him might not seem so onerous.

— miffedly submitted by Cityslikr

Don’t Speak Unless You’re Spoken To

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Another outrageous, highly dubious plan of action crawls up and out, Creature From the Black Lagoon style, from the mayor’s office. Another outbreak of indignant cries of foul (and worse) from opponents, compromising the typical cadre of left wing kooks, academics and not Toronto Sun readers.
Predictable, really.

Why doesn’t everybody just chillax, take a pill. The mayor’s just one vote on council, we’re told. What he says doesn’t automatically go. You’re just being hysterical. Team Ford loves making you hysterical. Don’t give them the satisfaction.

OK but, upon assuming office the mayor declared Transit City dead and in its place, Transportation City and a Sheppard subway that remains very much in a pie in the sky state.  He then pushed a plan through council for a report – and a report only — on privatizing waste collection west of Yonge. Now he proclaims throughout the land that he’s privatized waste collection west of Yonge. And on Tuesday, the mayor’s rubber stamp Executive Committee challenged council to stop him from seizing control of the Port Lands plans and disfiguring them completely.

It’s hard not to see this as a pattern. Mayor Ford declares it. The court of public opinion says it is so.

One can’t blame the media entirely for continually giving him a soapbox and bullhorn. It makes for great reading/viewing. Crazy statement ensures over-reaction. Conflict, conflict, conflict. That would be, what do you call it, their bread and butter.

But it is does a great disservice to our discourse, front loading it with what appears to be a done deal and foregone conclusion, relegating those standing opposed to the mayor’s moves to rolling the rock back up the hill. Why are you continuing to argue about this? What’s done is done. Let’s move on to the next apple cart we can tip over.

Without substantive pushback, the mayor isn’t just one vote of 45 at city council. There is an atmosphere of fait accompli in everything he does, everything he says. Councillors who defy his wishes are either whining left wing kooks, their noses all out of joint because they no longer have any power, or they’re obstinately denying the will of the people who gave Mayor Ford a mandate to do anything he wants.

Now, as in with every other criticism of the mayor, the usual response is that David Miller did the exact same thing. Well, bad behaviour should not beget bad behaviour. Post-war German leaders did not go on holocaust sprees and turn around in their defence and claim Hitler did it too. (Just for the analogy-challenged: in this particular instance I did not compare Mayor Ford to Hitler. I compared David Miller to Hitler. How’s that for bipartisanship?) Besides, a quick look at who Mayor Miller surrounded himself with, those that sat on his Executive Committee, reveals that it was nowhere near as ideologically hidebound as the current administration’s crop of councillors; nor were they as happy to simply sit around, silently nodding in agreement, ready to raise their hands in automatic agreement. (See the Saga of Brian Ashton.)

A semi-strong mayoral system that we now employ courtesy of the City of Toronto Act allows for our mayors to have an elevated upper hand. Great if you like the mayor who’s in power, not so good if you don’t. It’s the criticism of the mayor’s critics that seems new. While Royson James of that lyin’ rag, the Toronto Star, has set his sights on the performance of Mayor Ford, let’s not forget his shrill anti-Miller voice in the waning days of that administration and his single-minded crusade to chase Adam Giambrone from last year’s mayoral race. Did the Toronto Sun and its followers call him out on any of that? Was he just some kind of right wing kook then? David Miller was fair game and all criticism was justified.

Now, we’re supposed to sit back, keep our opinions to ourselves since Mayor Ford was elected with a mandate from the people of Toronto. To question is to whine. To disagree is simple jealousy or just disenguousness to use Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong’s favourite new word.

Reasoned disagreement doesn’t seem to stick. Much of that has to do with the fact that, well, facts seem to be irrelevant currently. The Port Lands debate is a good case in point. Of the mayor’s allies only Budget Chief Mike Del Grande is being upfront about what the administration is doing. “The truth,” Royson James claims, “is [Del Grande] needs revenues from the sale of the Port Lands to fix holes in his budget.”

If that’s the case, let’s debate the issue on that basis. Quick cash for a one time budget solution. Pros and cons? Instead, we must contend with obfuscation, misdirection and an outright distortion of the truth. We hear that Waterfront Toronto is a bloated, boondoggle of an organization that has done nothing to earn its keep. There is no plan. At the Executive Committee meeting on Tuesday, Councillor Minnan-Wong deliberately blurred the roles both Waterfront Toronto and the Toronto Port Lands Corporation play in the waterfront development. Read this from Jonathan Robson to see just how disenguous the councillor is being.

Faced with such an onslaught of ‘truthiness’ (and I’m being very generous using that label) what recourse do we have except to scream and holler and continually call out bullshit? If one side insists on conducting business in the mucky goo of misinformation and innuendo, some of us have to wade in there with them and start slinging mud. It may be noble and honourable to take the high road but it leaves us lagging behind in the race to save our city.

— loudly submitted by Cityslikr