All Fried Up In The Big Smoke

Less political. More fictional.

Another Photo Finish in Ward 26?

Posted on January 16, 2014 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

Just a quick clarification before I jump right into the next instalment of 15 Wards to Watch (Previous entries here and here.)

This in no way should be interpreted as a list of worst councillors or bums that need to be tossed out. As I wrote at the beginning, if it were, the likes of councillors Frances Nunziata (Ward 11 York South-Weston) or Mark Grimes (Ward 6 Etobicoke-Lakeshore) would feature front and centre. While I’ve certainly weighted the calculations to reflect my opinion of the work councillors do at City Hall, it’s not what this about.

I’m looking at 15 wards that could be seriously contested in the upcoming municipal election based on a combination of councillor competency, the strength of their incumbency and the degree of their plurality in 2010. Obviously, high marks in category one is my way of subjectively skewing the results but as with the above mentioned councillors, incumbency and the ease of victory last time out also contribute.

Think of this as a primer, if you will. An All Fired Up in the Big Smoke guide to prospective candidates pondering a run for city council. The information contained within should be considered 85% reliable, 19 times out of 20.

* * *

Councillor John Parker (Ward 26 Don Valley West) seems like a nice guy. Well spoken, thoughtful and with a dry sense of humour. His biggest contribution to this term at city council has been in his role as Deputy Speaker. In what could only be best described as a perpetual and ongoing clusterfuck, Councillor Parker always brings a sense of calm, civility and decorum to the proceedings when he assumes the Speaker’s chair.

It also should not be overlooked that he quietly helped derail Mayor Ford’s plan to bury the Eglinton crosstown for the entire length of the route including, somehow, as it crossed the Don Valley. “We’re buying LRTs and asking it to do what a subway does,” Councillor Parker said back in December 2011. “It’ll be the goofiest LRT line known to man.” Parker helped TTC chair Karen Stintz take control of the board from the mayor and oust Ford loyalists who’d turfed then TTC CEO (and LRT supporter) Gary Webster.

He then stood opposed to the TTC chair’s move to build a Scarborough subway her way and was very vocal on the council floor, speaking out against the ultimately successful bid to abandon the planned and paid for LRT replacement of the Scarborough RT with a subway. So he’s got transit working for him. As long as you don’t consider cycling and walking an integral part of a transit network.

There’s the rub. Councillor Parker is still what you might call a fiscal conservative with an OK sensibility of city building but not outstanding. Money first. Ideas next.

And we cannot forget that he was a member of the Mike Harris government back in the 90s when subways were filled in, costs downloaded to the city and enforced amalgamation. Much of this burden we’re still living with currently. So it’s annoyingly ironic that here he is, a decade and a half later, contributing (or not) to cleaning up a mess he as an MPP helped create. Such a mess that Councillor Parker, during a 2012 budget debate, had the gumption to suggest was severe enough to force him to float visions of Detroit and Greece if we didn’t clean up our act.

John Parker is much smarter than that.

As mixed as I’d call his time at city council as, the real factor in making Ward 26 one to watch is his tenuous hold on it. He was first elected in 2006 with just over 20% of the popular vote. In 2010 in another tight race, this time a 3-way one, Parker increase his share popular vote share to over 31% but only 600 votes separated him from the 3^rd place finisher.

Slight shifts in either of these elections would’ve kept him from winning. Is he as vulnerable this time out? While I’d think his profile has been elevated (always a plus for an incumbent) especially in his role as Deputy Speaker if nothing else, does it move in a favourable direction for him?

He’s certainly become increasingly vocal in his opposition to Mayor Ford to the point that during the ice storm cleanup cost debate, the mayor’s brother-councillor-campaign manager told Councillor Parker that he was pathetic and a joke. So Parker might not want to count on any Ford Nation bump to help him out in a close race. That ship seems to have already sailed.

Will it matter?

I’ve said that regardless of what happens at the mayoral level, the mayor isn’t going to have long enough coat tails to settle many council races especially ones that aren’t in Etobicoke or Scarborough. So Ward 26 is Councillor John Parker’s to lose. Depending on who lines up against him and if there’s another vote split like occurred in both of Parker’s previous victories, I’m pretty comfortable in calling this one a nail biter.

— helpfully submitted by Cityslikr

Only Sure Thing Is There’s Never A Sure Thing

Posted on September 27, 2013 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

The sounds of much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth could be heard this week in reaction to John Lorinc’s Spacing piece, Subway Nation rises again. “There’s little doubt,” Mr. Lorinc writes, “that this long-awaited federal contribution marks a check mate move for Mayor Rob Ford. Barring a criminal charge relating to Project Traveller, he will walk away with next year’s race…”

Hmmm.

I’m hoping Mr. Lorinc states that as some sort of heads-up warning shot, a little chin music to stiffen the resolve of those grown complacent, thinking the mayor’s political future will destruct under his own volition. Focus, people! This bad dream isn’t over yet.

He’s too astute an observer of the political scene here in Toronto to honestly believe that statement. That this particular moment in time, more than 13 months before the actual election, will prove to be the defining moment in securing the mayor his re-election. This transit situation has been too fluid to imagine a sudden hardening in place. And Mayor Ford, well, he hasn’t shown himself to be the best in protecting leads.

Here’s a politician who took an electoral mandate in 2010 and trampled his way to surprise success for the first year of his term before squandering it with a potent mixture of hubris, over-reach and chest-beating triumphalism. Since that time, he’s established that he can take a punch like George Chuvalo, Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down. He has a solid base that hasn’t abandoned him yet. But that’s about the extent of it. Now suddenly, he’s snatched the ring from Frodo and has an undefended line straight to Mordor?

I think already this week since the fed’s announcement of funding for the Scarborough subway and Lorinc’s Spacing article, some loose threads have shown along the hemline of Mayor Ford’s cloak of invincibility.

The $660 million in federal funding seemed to secure the certainty of the city’s Scarborough subway proposal to replace the LRT. It also immediately exposed city council’s need to come up with nearly a billion dollars of its own to put some skin in the game as many of the subway’s supporters like to say. (For a crazy good analysis of the full costs of the Scarborough subway, David Hains’ post in the Torontoist is a must read. Click now. Go, read it. I’ll still be here when you get back.)

Back in July when council precipitated this whole transit fiasco, Mayor Ford would only agree to a .25% property tax increase to be dedicated to the Scarborough subway which, everybody else knew even in the best case scenario of funding from other levels of government, was woefully inadequate. It seems the mayor is holding tightly to that number despite the obvious shortfall.

So when city council meets next month to debate the issue, the mayor is either going to have to champion the subway but go on record as being not willing to pay for it or he is going to have to get behind a higher property tax increase. That one’s going to be tough because, while Mr. Lorinc suggests that subways were “the centre piece plank in his 2010 platform”, I don’t remember it quite that way.

Rob Ford’s centre piece plank in his 2010 campaign platform for mayor was about money. Transit was a hastily drawn up throw in when the campaign team realized his candidacy was actually being taken seriously. He was the numbers guy, stopping the gravy train, representing the little guy tired of being nickel and dimed to death with tax increases and money grab fees.

Now he’s going to hold the subway trophy above his head in 2014 and tell Ford Nation, oh yeah, about those additional property tax increases?

I get the concern that logic and reason don’t always apply to the supporters of Mayor Ford. Cognitive dissonance and magical thinking tend to be a way of life. But, come on, every house of cards eventually collapses.

On top of which, recent polls suggest that the subway preference in Scarborough isn’t nearly as maniacal as its most ardent supporters insist it is. Already soft, what happens when the true costs, ridership numbers, coverage become a campaign issue? When voters are being inundated with what they’re getting versus what they’re giving up?

This goes right to the matter of the mayor’s slam dunk re-election. Much of that supposition rests on the belief with both the mayor’s supporters and biggest detractors that somehow 2014 will play out just like 2010. That the 47% of votes he collected in 2010 are somehow an unmoveable bloc. That the power of incumbency will only play a positive role. That Mayor Ford will face no serious opposition in a candidate a plurality of Torontonian can rally around.

While I’m uncomfortable making any sort of prediction about an elections that’s still more than a year away, I will confidently suggest 2010 will be nothing like 2014.

Take former Scarborough councillor David Soknacki’s open musings about running for mayor. A pro-LRT, right of centre suburban candidate with past experience but no office to have to give up to run full tilt right to the end. How rock solid is Mayor Ford’s support to withstand an attack from not one of the usual suspects who is constantly calling into question the mayor’s fiscal credibility?

More than that, let’s atomize next year’s race down to the council level. What happens when Scarborough councillors running for re-election outside of the immediate area where a subway might be beneficial get assailed by opponents pointing out that their constituents are getting none of the pluses while paying their share of the costs? The Norm Kellys. The Mike Del Grandes. The Michelle Berardinettis. Paul Ainslies and Gary Crawfords.

Beyond Scarborough, what do incumbents in York, North York and Etobicoke tell their voters about asking them to pay additional property taxes for a subway that in no way will help them. In fact, it’ll probably set their transit needs back decades. Answer me that, Councillor Vincent Crisanti in Rexdale. Councillors Giorgio Mammoliti, Frances Nunziata and Anthony Perruzza in York. Councillors Mark Grimes and Peter Milczyn in Mimico. Budget Chief Frank Di Giorgio. Budget. Chief.

Campaigned on just the right way, the Scarborough subway could fracture this whole suburban as one myth that everyone seems to have accepted as fact based on just the past election.

From a transit perspective, the Scarborough subway is nothing but bad news. But I also fail to see how it’s all good news for Mayor Ford’s re-election chances. The electoral landscape may’ve changed, it’s just far too early to tell to whose advantage.

— wobbly submitted by Cityslikr

Everybody’s In Limbo

Posted on September 10, 2013 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

Well, if there’s any better example of the thorny problems engaging with someone who’s a Mayor Ford supporter than Connie Harrison’s appearance at the Ontario Press Council yesterday I haven’t seen one.

This is Connie Harrison writing in the Globe and Mail just over 3 years ago, nearly 2 months before the municipal election in which she voted for Rob Ford.

Now, judging from what I saw in her complaint against the Globe and Mail for the story that newspaper ran about Councillor Doug Ford’s alleged drug dealing days back in the 1980s, I’m guessing her backing of the mayor is soft at this point of time. In fact, it almost seemed as if she was begging the newspaper and those sitting on the council panel to put us out of our mayoral misery. She was willing to accept that maybe the Fords weren’t good for the city but needed more solid proof than anonymous sources or an alleged crack video.

If only the press in general and the Globe and Mail specifically would do their jobs properly.

Burn their sources! Go to the police with any incriminating evidence! Get some third party to go over their work!

Good on Ms. Harrison to take her grievance about how the Globe and Mail went about its business beyond just merely bitching about it or writing an angry letter to an editor. She got engaged, delivered a complaint and spoke out at the meeting. That’s 100% more than what almost 100% of us would do or have done. She should be applauded for her effort.

But… but… here’s the thorny part.

She’s wrong on almost every point of her complaint.

The use of anonymous sources is not the mark of tabloid journalism. Google ‘Watergate’. Sometimes there are very good reasons legitimate news sources want and or need to remain anonymous. Google ‘Edward Snowden’ or ‘Chelsea Manning’.

Even in matters of lesser import than national security, illicit drugs for example, reliable sources may want to keep their profile out of it even 30 years later. Yeah, sure. I smoked a little with Mr. X that we bought from Mr. Y. Is that right, Mr. Z. Let me jot that down in your personnel folder, shall I?

As was pointed out at the OPC meeting, the Ford brothers have a 2 hour weekly radio show that they’ve used to cast attack their political opponents. Who’s to say they wouldn’t do the same to anyone who came out on record with their recollections of youthful indiscretions in Etobicoke during the 1980s? Retribution doesn’t necessarily have to come in the form of physical intimidation.

And this notion of ‘burning your sources’, by which I guess Ms. Harrison means outing them, in order to prove the veracity of the story? Where do you even begin to address that? You start revealing your sources, you not only endanger them or threaten their livelihood but, from an entirely self-interested angle, your sources dry up. Nobody talks to you. Once that happens, any ability to deliver in-depth news or information becomes impossible. You wind up essentially writing press releases.

Ms. Harrison also wondered why if the Globe had evidence of any law-breaking on the part of Doug Ford, why it didn’t simply go to the police with that information. Seems only logical, if that were actually the job of the press or if we didn’t mind a free press in a democracy trading information back and forth with those with the power of arrest and detainment. Never mind the fact that if all this information was so readily available with some digging on the part of the Globe, why exactly the police didn’t know about it or – fingers collar here – didn’t act on that sort of information back in the day.

Such a skewed view of how journalism works and the role it plays in a functioning democratic society could be laughed off and mocked if it were coming from an obvious wide-eyed Ford-fanatic who’d swallowed whole the notion of a liberal media bias outside of the Toronto Sun and 1010 Talk Radio. Connie Harrison didn’t come across as that. She seemed to want answers, to know if the man she proudly voted to be mayor back in 2010 and his powerful councillor-brother were fit to be governing this city. If the Globe and Mail could show her that they weren’t, Ms. Harrison struck me as someone who’d withdraw her support.

“Right now I still feel as though we’re in some backwoods county in the U.S.,” she said. “We’re still in limbo here.”

What Ms. Harrison appeared to be asking was for some clarity so she could make a decision. Are the allegations the press leveled at the mayor and his councillor-brother true? Yes or no?

Unfortunately, Ms. Harrison was demanding answers from the wrong side in all this. The press was simply doing its job, delivering information that in no way so far has been proven incorrect or libellous. The ones who haven’t addressed the matter in any manner suggesting they’ve been unfairly targeted and slandered are the Ford brothers. They are the ones the likes of Ms. Harrison should be directing her frustration at. They’re the ones who’ve left all of us in a state of limbo.

— bent-over-backwardly submitted by Cityslikr