Tag Archives: Jim Flaherty

The Mammoliti Meter

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I’ve written Rob Ford off before. Often and with a great deal of certainty. Gleefully, I’ll admit. As a mayoral candidate. As a newly installed mayor. He’ll never get elected. He’ll never command a majority of city council.

And I’ve been wrong. Each and every time. So I am hardly in a position to pass any sort of judgment at this juncture, at least not accurately or in a manner that would be deemed noteworthy, worthwhile even.

But I do think it safe to say that May was not the kindest month to Mayor Ford.

Now, that shouldn’t be all that surprising. Politicians have their ups and downs. None are capable of burning as hotly popular over the long haul as this mayor has seen himself since his election last fall. There will be dips, valleys. It’s inevitable. Only an idiot would stand up, just half a year into the mayor’s mandate and declare the man finished, done like dinner, fork sticking in time.

Still, I can’t turn down the opportunity to idiotically divine the near future just a little.

Suddenly last month, Mayor Ford started to lose the occasional vote at council. Nothing monumental or game changing. But the iron grip with which he pushed through the repeal of the vehicle registration tax, have the province declare the TTC an essential service and squeeze out the 2011 budget has clearly loosened a little. Councillors occupying the so-called ‘mushy middle’ weren’t falling in line as pliably and even some right of centre allies were not marching in lockstep.

When the mayor tried to by-pass council in his push to outsource garbage collection, he met some resistance in the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee and was forced to bring the idea before city council. Once there, it squeaked through but not without significant amendments. Getting the matter passed is now no longer the slam dunk Mayor Ford and his people might’ve thought it was a month or so ago.

His head-scratcher of a bid to eliminate all citizens advisory committees hit a bump in the road while in Executive Committee and was further delayed pending a staff report when it went to council. Good buddy Jim Flaherty came to town and essentially thumbed his nose at the Brothers Ford’s dim view of Toronto’s waterfront development. Appointee Gordon Chong openly mused about road tolls and congestion charges as ways of financing the mayor’s Sheppard subway line which the mayor seems to think only needs the power of positive thinking and the private sector to make happen. City Clerk Ulli Watkiss defied the mayor’s wishes to proceed with a by-election in Ward 9, choosing instead to appeal the ruling. Police Services vice-chair Councillor Michael Thompson asked Chief Blair to look at the implications of laying off 400-500 of his people, directly opposite Mayor Ford’s campaign promise of 100 new police officers.

And Transit City, long since pronounced dead and buried, is back, zombie-like to hound the mayor. As Matt Elliott reported a couple days back, in response to inquiries from Councillor Janet Davis, City Manager Joe Pennachetti raised the spectre of multiple votes that might have to go through council before the stake can be officially driven through the heart of Transit City and the mayor’s Transportation City (I still laugh when writing out that lacklustre name) plan anointed its true successor. With the viability of the Sheppard subway coming under closer scrutiny, Mayor Ford might just find that simply clapping his hands and chanting Make It So no longer constitutes a sound method of implementing his agenda.

Let’s not forget the order from the Compliance Audit Committee to examine Mayor Ford’s unorthodox financing of his mayoral campaign last year. All, hey, I’m an open book with nothing to hide, audit away last week, the mayor and his lawyer filed a last minute appeal to have the audit quashed in court. Even if successful, the real outcome may be tarnishing his common guy, I’m just one of you, folksy image that has served him well in the past.

Reality may well be crashing in on the mayor. It had to happen sometime because that’s just the nature of reality. Only the misguided and deluded believe otherwise.

How Mayor Ford deals with this altered landscape will ultimately determine the fate of his term in office. Edward Keenan over at The Grid last week saw the possibility of a softening toward consensus building not in the mayor himself but in his right hand man and older brother, Councillor Doug. Seen as more politically astute, Doug Ford may accept the fact that the winds are a-changing, and trampling over foes and striking fear into the hearts and minds of possible friends may no longer be the best course of action. The far-right territory Team Ford has staked out may not be comfortable enough for a workable majority of councillors, so the mayor is going to have to settle on a more moderate course.

Mayor Ford moderate, you say? Does not compute. C’est impossible. Leopard’s changing their spots and all that.

The thing is, if the mayor wants to avoid being reduced to little more than a sideshow freak as the city governance circus goes about its business around him, he might not have a choice but to reach out to at least some of those he has no natural political affinity toward. Failure to do so could put him into a position of ineffectual isolation many of us stupidly and ignorantly predicted he’d assume from the get-go. It’s adapt or die time.

As an outlying rogue figure of little consequence during his time at council, no doubt adaptation is foreign soil for Mayor Ford. He hasn’t had to play nicely with others before because, well, no one cared what he thought or how he voted. He’s the mayor now, so keeping at least 22 councillors on side matters. That’s been possible so far by power of his perceived popularity and ability to wield it threateningly. Do this or face the wrath of Ford Nation! Those councillors who don’t adhere strictly to his right wing doctrinaire will begin to wander once they feel there will be no consequences in doing so. Moreover, if supporting him starts to adversely affect their popularity, his fair-weather friends will make a point of publicly abandoning him.

Enter the Mammoliti Meter. Perhaps the most nakedly opportunistic member of the current city council, after his failed mayoral bid last fall Giorgio Mammoliti casually tossed aside a career of heated enmity toward Rob Ford and threw his lot in whole-heartedly with his one-time adversary. Seated to the right of the mayor, Councillor Mammoliti now proudly dubs himself Team Ford’s quarterback, helping to whip votes and giving a big thumbs up or down to signal which way his team mates should vote. He basks in the mayor’s status.

But it’s hard to imagine he’d be willing to go down with the ship if it starts taking on water. No, I won’t follow that analogy to speak of rats. As a measure of the tenuous nature of the alliance Mayor Ford has forged through division and intimidation, I’m willing to suggest that as goes Giorgio Mammoliti, so goes the Ford administration. It is a nation built on dodgy landfill.

— prognosticatingly submitted by Cityslikr

If We’re Not Going To Take Ourselves Seriously

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Friends and family often question my obsession with municipal politics. While recognizing its importance in the operation of our city, they express serious reservations about the cast of characters involved.

“Municipal politicians are clowns,” I’ve heard said. “Buffoons. Bush League. The B-Team.”

In part, I think such a dismissive view just comes with the territory. Municipal politicians oversee mundane but vital matters. Sewage, snow plowing, parking, pot hole filling. It all lacks a little nobility. Like sending off soldiers to die in faraway lands.

There’s also a degree of over-abundance, let’s call it. A problem of perception. Here in Toronto, for every 1 MPP or MP, there are 2 city councillors. So there are double the chances of experiencing clownish behaviour and buffoonery.

That said, it’s very difficult to ignore the fact that Toronto, especially since amalgamation, has flirted, courted and indulged in some very heavy petting with political folly. If Mayor Ford actually serves out one term (pending campaign financing audit), 10 of our first 17 years as a mighty megacity could, and very likely will be, deemed as an abject failure to take ourselves seriously. We’re all adults. How could we not foresee the consequences of our actions and realize that no good would come from the mayoralties of Mel Lastman and Rob Ford?

So yes. There are times, too — too many times it feels like — when following the municipal politics scene can only be viewed as a mug’s game. Rubber-neckin’ at a car wreck. Assistant coaching your kid’s t-ball team and your kid is the worst player on the team.

Why bother? Just step aside and let the big boys use the field.

Such a Bad News Bears moment played out last week when federal Finance Minister and Ford family friend Jim Flaherty came to town to last week to take part in the groundbreaking or another piece in the Waterfront Toronto development, Underpass Park. “This is transformative,” Flaherty pronounced. “It’s important not just for Toronto, but for Canada.”

Not just for Toronto. But for Canada.

Or as the mayor’s brother, Councillor Doug, has said, ‘a boondoggle.’ In fact, he wrote off all of Waterfront Toronto as “… the biggest boondoggle the feds, the province and the city has ever done.”

The Fords seem unable to toss up anything besides lifeless hanging curve balls about belt high for other politicians with even a modicum of ability with the stick to go yard with. It’s not even fun to watch. Switching sports analogies, remember the teachers-students rugby match in Monty Python’s ‘The Meaning of Life’? Just like that.

Even with his fresh majority win in last month’s election and a minor Conservative breakthrough in Toronto itself, it’s hard to imagine the Finance Minister taking his late friend’s sons out to the woodshed on this. But maybe there was a bull session over son beers and nachos at the family compound. “A boondoggle?!” Flaherty exclaims. “A boondoggle!? I’ll give you a boondoggle. How about a cool $35 billion for engineless fighter jets? I know my boondoggles, boys. Waterfront Toronto ain’t one of them.”

The Finance Minster along with the local MPP and city councillor then head off to witness the start of this transformative piece of waterfront real estate. The mayor and his brother are AWOL. Like the mayor has been for every Waterfront Toronto meeting he has supposed to attend as a sitting member of the board. As a councillor, he wasn’t a big fan either of the city’s involvement with the waterfront, voting against approval for private investment near the Sherbourne Common late last year. (h/t to Ford For Toronto for all the links. We swim in the beneficence of your knowledge pool.)

It takes some doing for someone to make this Conservative government seem like city builders or deep urban thinkers. Yet somehow we’ve elected that very person and his equally blinkered and terminally short-sighted brother as our dynamic duo mayors. What does that say about us, as citizens, taxpayers, residents of Toronto? That we don’t care about how this city grows and develops as long as it doesn’t cost us too much? Or are we just cognizant of the fact that it hardly matters who we elect municipally? Ultimate power doesn’t lie with us or our locally elected officials. So why not just go for the entertainment value and send in the clowns. There’s only so much damage they can inflict before the adults step in and sort the mess out.

Such a condescending view, with correspondingly low expectations for municipal politicians, invariably leads to candidates seeking only to limbo under the low bar and nothing more. High fliers and over-achievers need not apply. As Homer Simpson once said, ‘trying is the first step to failing.’ Municipal politics is only for those who dare not to dream big or are merely content to take marching orders from their betters.It may be fun to watch for a little while but like any Punch and Judy show, the spectacle grows dismal and dreary. Humour is replaced by cruelty, and you’re left wondering why the hell you continue to watch.

— clownishly submitted by Urban Sophisticat

Why Are You Asking Me?

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Three days into our federal election campaign and we’re all still breathlessly awaiting word from the Oracle of Etobicoke. As mayor of the country’s biggest city, just what issues does he want to see addressed by the politicians out on the hustings? How can Ottawa best contribute to the well-being of the nation’s cities? A national transit strategy? A national housing strategy? A more even split of tax revenues like the gas tax?

What? What? What? Oh, great silent One. Use this time when your leverage is strongest to put forth an urban vision. And no, a quick email missive repeating one of your campaign chants will not suffice.

The sad joke of our mayor’s failure to lead (hell, make an appearance even) as the federal election begins to take shape is that he had 7 months or so during last year’s municipal race to put forth some sort of vision for the city and failed miserably to do so. It was all about what shouldn’t be happening as opposed to what should be. Negative rather than positive. City diminishing not city building. So expectations for him to suddenly emerge with a concrete, Wish List of items that federal politicians need to check off to gain his approval shouldn’t be any higher than practically nil.

Besides, what kind of asks can Mayor Ford make of either senior level of government? Toronto doesn’t have a revenue problem, remember? It has a spending problem and while the mayor and his team are grudgingly realizing that the situation just may not be as straightforward as all that, how do you reframe such an important plank in your popularity? It’s like trying to reconfigure your very political DNA.

On top of which, this is an administration that’s proving unable to make requests or to seek any sort of consensus with anyone it sees as not being completely simpatico with its way of thinking. It demands, instead. Makes threats. Give us this or else. Or else what? The wrath of Ford Nation.

Or at least, that’s how it rolls with those who don’t share the same political colours like the current premier of Ontario, Liberal Dalton McGuinty. Premier McGuinty better play ball or else the mayor’s all in with the like-minded conservative, Tim Hudak. I want my ill-advised subway or else.

But what to do when a Conservative is already in power? Not to mention that one of the bigwigs, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, is also a family friend? To make requests or demands of them in return for your support would be to suggest that they’re already not doing enough. Almost like a criticism. Criticizing is what you do to opponents not brothers-in-arms.

So personally, I expect to hear very little from our mayor during the federal campaign. He’ll lie low, maybe even use the 5 weeks or so as a distraction, to pull off some stuff that might draw more attention if eyes weren’t otherwise focused elsewhere. And hope for a Conservative majority win. Once that’s in place, then it’s on to Queen’s Park to install a Conservative government there this fall.

With those ducks all in a row, a trifecta, city, province, country, then the real work can begin and our city will grow and prosper as cities always do under the beneficent and enlightened rule of Conservatives.

— submitted by Cityslikr