Tag Archives: Edward Keenan

Honeymoon? What Honeymoon??

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So yeah, tell me that one again about John Tory the progressive minded moderate. You know, that natty-nat-natter during the past municipal campaign, assuring us not to get all tied up in knots about his blue, blue, dark blue Tory leanings. canthearyou1Think Bill Davis, David Crombie. Forget his participation in the Mel Lastman years. John Tory was too red for the provincial Progressive Conservatives. He said he’ll march in the Pride parade. What more do you want?

I’m sorry. I can’t hear you over the grating, unintelligible noise once again coming from the Speaker’s chair. Or the glowing radioactive smugness of the newly appointed deputy mayor of this city.

Look. I’m fine with the notion Toronto went nearly 3/4s in favour of right of centre candidates in the mayor’s race. I think it’s a fair assessment to question if we live in as progressive a city as many of us like to think we do. Some 17 years in from amalgamation, it’s not unreasonable to wonder if David Miller was the anomaly rather than norm to our politics here in town.oneofthesethings1

Mel Lastman. David Miller. Rob Ford. And now, John Tory. One of these is not like the others.

There it is.

Clearly, Tory and his campaign team felt that this could provide a winning edge, blasting Olivia Chow as the ‘NDP candidate’ as soon as she entered the race, thereby distinguishing himself as the not far left alternative to Ford Nation. Progressive, but reasonably so. A moderate answer to the radicalism of the past 4 years.

With his choices yesterday for his Executive Committee and various other appointments, it’s equally obvious that his aversion to anything left wing was more than a mere campaign tactic. The Great Uniter. Seeking to heal the divisions between 75% of the city. So ideologically driven were these decisions that Tory felt comfortable under-representing the most populous former municipality of the city around the table of his Executive Committee. upyoursNo single chair of a standing committee. A couple of at-large pats on the head and a ceremonial fluffing of little meaningful significance.

John Tory, the uniter, the great undivider, has proven to be so partisan that he couldn’t even reach out to perhaps the most stellar of council performers last term, Kristyn Wong-Tam who is really only a raging far leftie in the narrow minds of the most ardent supporters of our previous mayor. Given the ward she represents, one of the epicenters of growth and development in the entire city, she would make for a great chair of the Planning and Growth Management Committee. But our new mayor couldn’t even bring himself to do that, opting instead to give that position to the empty shell of a dinosaur, Lastman era, expressway loving David Shiner.

Again. There it is. The mayor’s prerogative. But along with that, the first flashes of his true colours. (Hint: more blue than red.) Mayor Tory had the opportunity to signal bipartisan consensus and didn’t even feel the need to give it so much as a passing nod. backtothedrawingboardSo, I’ll just roll up the welcome mat because it’s pretty much now been declared business as usual at City Hall.

But perhaps the real take away for those of us feeling snubbed as much by the new mayor as we did his predecessor is this, my friends: it’s the norm not the exception. Stars aligned radically for the Ford Administration but Toronto seems to like its local politics right. That’s the reality we have to accept. Want to change it? We’re going to have to work to change it. As John Tory has just shown us, nobody else, including self-proclaimed social progressives like our new mayor, will change it for us.

— nothing newly submitted by Cityslikr

The Tory Story

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It has come to my attention from a couple trusted sources that maybe, just maybe, I’ve been irrationally hostile to the whole concept of John Tory for Mayor. irrationalSo blind I am to the possibility that a Tory mayoralty wouldn’t be all that bad that my pushback is too over the top, aggressive, emphatic and resolute in rejecting the positives. Missing the forest for the trees, and all that. Come on. Really? Mayor Doug Ford?

It’s a fair accusation to make. In style and appearance, in putting our best face forward, yes, John Tory is no Rob or Doug Ford. After 4 years of regular embarrassment and some 1500 days or so of What The Fuckiness?, electing John Tory would announce for all that world to see that Toronto is once more back to taking itself seriously. The man walks upright. He speaks as if he might actually be thinking about what he’s saying. His suit fits.

I even over-stepped the other day, demanding someone name a significant policy difference between John Tory’s platform and that of his rival, Doug Ford. There is one very noteworthy distinction in terms of policy between the two men. The Land Transfer Tax. Ford thinks it can be gradually done away with, no problem. deepbreath1Never mind the $300 million annual revenue it brings in. Done and done.

Full marks to John Tory. This week he stood before a very anti-LTT, real estate crowd and told them he wasn’t going to tell them what they wanted to hear. The city needs the revenue from the LTT. The LTT has not hindered home sales. The LTT would remain in place if John Tory was elected mayor.

But after that? In all honesty? I strain to come up with much daylight at all between John Tory and Doug Ford when it comes to stuff of substance. (And enlighten me, fill up the comments section of where I’m wrong in this.) John Tory does better copy than Doug Ford. He sounds better telling us he cares about things. Tory’s made a lifetime of personal dedication in the private sector to a multitude of causes throughout the city. His awards and accolades have been earned not purchased.

This isn’t, however, about merit badges for volunteer service. texaschainsawmassacreThis is about politics and policy, about ideas to enhance the lives of every resident in this city, about delivering opportunity to everyone regardless of where they live or work. This is about standing up and giving an honest assessment about where the city is now and how it needs to proceed forward.

As a candidate, John Tory has failed miserably on that account.

Like Doug Ford, John Tory sees Toronto having a spending problem not a revenue problem. Despite advice to the contrary from the city CEO, Joe Pennachetti, or counter-evidence from municipal governance experts like Enid Slack, Tory insists we just need to tighten our belts, root out all those ‘inefficiencies’ at City Hall and we’ll have all the money we need. Tory is on record saying “low tax increases, at or below inflation, impose spending discipline on governments.”makeitupasyougoalon

Actually, low property tax increases, at or below the rate of inflation, impose service and programs cuts or hikes in user fees. At best, they ensure no expansion of those service or programs. It’s a self-induced zero sum game where we have to unnecessarily choose between our priorities. A game we’ve been playing for the last 4 years during the Ford administration.

John Tory is offering nothing different.

His SmartTrack transit plan is only slightly less implausible than the Subways! Subways! Subways! mantra of the Fords, and that’s a mighty low bar to clear. SmartTrack is full of questionable construction details and a financing gimmick that is untested anywhere in the world at the level he’s pitching. His assurances that he will get it done by sheer force of will are as empty and meaningless as the Fords’ guarantee about building subways.handthekeyback

The endorsements now flooding in for John Tory from most of our mainstream newspapers and media want us to believe that we’d be voting for CivicAction John Tory, John Tory the magnanimous private sector benefactor. There’s little mention of Tory’s political track record. Not so much his career as a Progressive Conservative operative and elected official, but his time spent as a well-placed backroom figure in the post-amalgamated Toronto Mel Lastman administration.

Ahhh, Mel Lastman. Only slightly less eye-rollingly embarrassing in light of Rob Ford. Still. Who the hell’s the WHO? African cannibals. MFP. The Sheppard subway. 1st term guaranteed property tax freeze, and here we are. John Tory was close to all of that. In 2003, he wanted us to ignore that. We didn’t. In 2014, we seem ready to let by-gones be by-gones.

What’s changed? Rob and Doug Ford, you’ll tell us. Rob and Doug Ford.

If the endorsements are any indication, what we want as a city is just a little bit of peace and quiet, a break from all the rancour and partisan divide that’s ground the city to a halt over the past 4 years. The only candidate who can do that, it seems, is John Tory, our great white establishment hope. sternheadmasterToronto needs a nice big fatherly hug. We need some civic soothing.

Frankly, that’s like applying make up to cover the bruising we’ve taken from the Ford administration – an administration John Tory supported until it became untenable to do so. Let’s all pretend like it didn’t happen, like Rob and Doug Ford were mere anomalies, sprung out of nowhere for no reason whatsoever. That they didn’t represent actual grievances and political, social isolation that existed well before they cynically tapped into for their own hubristic political gain.

In his article yesterday on what a possible John Tory mayoralty might look like, Edward Keenan suggested that Tory’s ‘laudable charitable work’ could be seen not so much as attempts to change a system that doesn’t include everyone but “helping people network their way into the system.” captainstubingLadies? Take up golf, am I right?

John Tory isn’t a candidate for change. His campaign has been pretty much Steady As She Goes, Only Quieter and Less Scandal-filled. More Captain Stubing than Francesco Schettino. Everything’ll be fine once we get rid of the Fords.

The funny thing is, at the council level races, the push for change is popping up all over the place. There are exciting candidates throughout much of the city. In Ward 2 alone, the Ford petty fiefdom, I estimate 3 strong candidates challenging Rob Ford, one of whom, Andray Domise, is knocking on the door of knocking off the mayor. If that comes to pass, it would be a more significant result than whatever happens in the mayor’s race.

John Tory is yesterday’s man. He represents the values of the old status quo. knowaguyA top down leadership paradigm based almost entirely on who you know, connecting inward not outward.

The John Tory campaign message has little to do with where we want to go as a city. It’s all about re-establishing order. Order under the (fingers crossed!) beneficent gaze of he who knows some people. He’ll make a couple phone calls, get some stuff done. Just keep your voices down, if you don’t mind. It’s been very loud around here for too long.

— cathartically submitted by Cityslikr

You’re Going To Have To Trust Me On This One

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dougfordmayor

It’s hard to imagine, given the wholly frightening ride we’ve been on for nearly 4 years now, that you could pinpoint one particularly monstrous moment that so clearly and frankly epitomizes the entire era, let’s call it. But there is. This is it. Doug Ford, Mayor.

I cannot even begin to speculate on such dark family dynamics. The mayor, allegedly off cleaning up, getting his life together somewhere. His brother-councillor, occupying the seat of power, his name in a child-like scribble on a piece of paper, taped over the mayor’s. Just joshing, y’all. It was mad Giorgio’s idea. baroqueI couldn’t possibly comment on questions of running for mayor if my younger brother proves unable to work out his problems. I’m just glad he’s finally getting the help he needs.

Being no psychologist, not even of the amateur kind, little I might opine on this matter would be of any value. But I will say this. We as a city have been dragged, half willingly, half kicking and screaming, into this baroque psychodrama which has leeched into every nook and cranny of our politics. Nothing but grand bombast and unrelenting duplicity. We’ve come to expect it, demand it. Anything less is just boring.

We’re on the hostage side of a certain Stockholm Syndrome, growing empathetic with our captors. Their demands no longer seem outrageous. roughpatchEverything they say sounds reasonable. We’ve been locked up with them long enough that no transgression they commit, no grievous harm they inflict, strikes us unnatural.

Hey. That’s just how city council operates, isn’t it? It’s the nature of the beast.

We can only hope the damage isn’t lasting. It was just a rough patch we’ve hit like in any sort of relationship. A few lost years given over to petty vindictiveness and destructive frivolity. mybadIt all seemed to make so much twisted sense at the time.

I’m not the first to say it but I think it bears repeating. We have been swept up into a cult, a very definite cult of personality. Look at us right now. He takes a leave of absence, voluntarily removing himself from the political stage, and all we’ve done since is chase his trail. Where’s the mayor? Is he here? Is he there? It seems our mayor is everywhere!

Take a break. It seems we need as much of a time out as he did. Let’s embrace our separation. Try and remember what it was like before all this craziness, before we became consumed by one man’s battle with his demons, his councillor-brother’s hack Machiavellian antics.

Focus on what’s really happening in his absence, the slow, sure crumbling of his legacy. The now not so good news about one of his signature accomplishments, contracting out garbage. The squalid tale of his Muzik ties. The renewed misgivings in the operations of the TCHC.

regroup

Time to de-program, folks. Accept that we made a terrible mistake and got mixed up with the wrong crowd. It happens. Like the mayor said, nobody’s perfect. Let’s just move on. There’s a bit of a mess that needs cleaning up.

— hopefully submitted by Cityslikr