Tag Archives: PRIDE

The Immoveable Mayor

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Mark it down in your calendar, folks. The week of June 20th, 2011. It’s the date the mayoralty of Rob Ford officially jumped the shark. (If such a thing is possible. To jump the shark suggests that there’s a point of quality from which to jump. For example, can it be said that a Full House or Who’s The Boss? ever achieved the necessary creative heights to attempt the shark jump?)

Within a matter of days this week our very own Mayor Danny Tanner signaled that he’s unwilling, unable or just downright uninterested in reaching out past his core constituency. First, in Executive Committee he deep-sixed an offer from the province to pay for 2 public health nurses. Then the mayor announced that he would not be marching in the upcoming Pride parade, opting instead for a family long weekend at the cottage. In two fell swoops, Mayor Ford made it clear he was not the mayor of all Toronto.

I wouldn’t for a moment be presumptuous enough to try attaching a motivation for these decisions of the mayor aside from a reluctance to accept things that he doesn’t understand. Public nurses? We’ve got hospitals for sick people. Use them. T’eh Gays? Well, it’s all just a little too.. err… queer to him. Have at it. Live your life. Just don’t expect the mayor to endorse something he’s unfamiliar or uncomfortable with.

The real takeaway message here for me is that Mayor Ford doesn’t feel a need politically to broaden his appeal among Toronto voters. He’s perfectly happy wallowing in the pond of support that brought him to power, and that shares his uneasiness with extra front line health workers and homosexuality. These are his people and the decisions he made in both cases make perfect sense to them. His intransigence might even solidify his reputation as a straight-shooting, uncomplicated, apolitical, little guy. Our mayor doesn’t bend to special interests. Just like us hard working, taxpaying, regular Joes.

Or something like that. We who are flummoxed by the choices our mayor makes need to get used to it. He ain’t ever going to change, so stop expecting him to. That trait may be his greatest strength, his best political asset.

So, let’s stop trying to find common ground with the mayor. It is a small and barren patch of land. A my way or the highway mentality means that the only compromise we can ever hope to reach is all on our part. We give. He takes.

We need to set our sights elsewhere. The time has come to turn up the heat on those at city council who continue their willfully blind support of Mayor Ford and who continue to enable him to do the things he does. If the standard operating procedure so far has been to back the mayor or suffer the political consequences, we have to find a way to point out that such unstinting support will also come with adverse political consequences. A light must be shone on those councillors who have, so far, been quietly cowering in the safe shadow the mayor casts.

Sure, Team Ford is made up of a handful of councillors sharing the mayor’s limited view of politics and the city. Brother Doug, for one, and the Deputy Mayor. They will be immune to such pressure. You might throw in Budget Chief Del Grande and Councillor Shiner as well although, they like Speaker Nunziata and QB Mammoliti, former Ford non-allies present now because the going’s been good but alert to any changes of fortune that might come if the mayor’s destructive and narrow-minded policies become something of a drag on their standing with the electorate.

Even in toto that’s a pretty small group and won’t be able to help dig Mayor Ford out of any holes he gets himself into.

The councillors I’m talking about are the rookies who haven’t established any sort of real foothold besides being the mayor’s flunkies. There’s Vincent Crisanti, Gary Crawford and James Pasternak (the two latter elected in 2010 with the slimmest of pluralities, within the margin of error.) Councillors Michelle Berardinetti and Jay Robinson, undistinguished members of the mayor’s executive committee. And the deadweight veterans, Cesar Palacio, Mark Grimes, Frank DiGiorgio, Chin Lee.

Then there are the moderates from both sides of the political spectrum that have already started bucking under the weight of Mayor Ford’s missteps. Peter Milczyn, Michael Thomspon, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Norm Kelly, Joshes Matlow and Colle, Ana Bailão, Mary-Margaret McMahon. TTC Chair Karen Stintz could be counted on to bail out if things get a little rocky.

Let’s refocus a grassroots effort from the mayor to these councillors, the non-ideological hidebound and opportunists, and start holding them accountable for participating in this war against the city. Alert their constituents with loud announcements of their collaboration and facilitating of this ruinous administration. We need a catchy name for it. Project 23 comes immediately to mind but may not be ominous enough.

Mayor Rob Ford is a lost cause for anyone hoping to build a strong city. It doesn’t interest him and he wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to even if he had the inclination. That’s not going to change.

What can change is the support he now has at City Hall if more councillors begin to realize a price will be paid for their ongoing association with a mayor determined to do his thing and his thing only.

— start a firingly submitted by Cityslikr

Selling Off Stock

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(In case you missed it at the Torontoist on Wednesday, we’re reposting the post. With new, pretty pictures.)

* * *

Just before the May 24th fireworks reignited the ongoing Pride/anti-QuAIA debate at yesterday’s Executive Committee meeting, the Toronto Community Housing Corporation’s (still) one-man board was given the go ahead to sell off 22 properties. While possessing moments of drama and emotion, the TCHC debate ultimately lacked the highly charged personal edge that gripped the Pride v. anti-QuAIA deputations. Perhaps that’s what happens when only one side holds all the cards.

What Tuesday’s TCHC process was also lacking in was concrete answers. And not just answers to pointed questions from visiting councillors looking to score political points. Honest to goodness answers to honest to goodness questions asked by the mayor’s allies on the Executive Committee.

Like much of the rush to foist the Ford Nation mandate onto Toronto, there’s a sense that the mayor and his team don’t have to explain themselves. They won the election, so they’re free to do as they want. All this back-and-forth is simply wasting time. Pitter patter, let’s get at her!

It was in evidence at last week’s council meeting and the debate over proposed garbage outsourcing in district 2. The staff and privatization advocates were all a little hazy when it came to the numbers and figures. Would it save $8 million? If not, how much? Any? What about diversion rates? Different? On par? Improved?

Stop with all the questions, already! We campaigned on privatizing garbage. We won. We’re going to privatize garbage.

Likewise, TCHC Managing Director Case Ootes and CEO Len Koroneos didn’t seem particularly driven to talk turkey about their recommendation to unload the 22 housing units. How many tenants would be affected by the sell off? Ummm… let me check my notes. 32. Who would be in charge of relocating the tenants losing their homes? Ummm… not sure. “The Planning Department’s not here,” the mayor offered up by way of an answer. What would be the difference in cost to the city between putting in necessary repairs and renovations and continuing to rent out units and simply unloading them as is? Ummmm… we’ll have to get back to you on that, councillor.

“A huge absence of information,” Councillor Janet Davis suggested.

The Committee wasn’t even provided with definitive numbers when it came to such fundamental inquiries about how much the city could really expect to get for selling the houses. Mr. Ootes is thinking close to $16 million. Others like Michael Shapcott at the Wellesley Institute aren’t convinced the number will be that high. Whatever sum it ends up being, the money will be applied to the backlog of repairs on other TCHC properties that is now in the neighbourhood of $650 million.

Another number that came as a surprise to some councillors at the meeting, more than a tripling of repair costs in just two years if true. And if true, it’s hard to imagine how $16 million is going to make a lick of difference in their bigger picture even 1 elevator repair at a time. Especially if we’re ultimately reducing the amount of rental units available to a list that’s already 10 years long to do it.

That seemed to be one thing we could safely conclude would happen if the sale gets approved by city council. Less TCHC housing to go around. “A reduction of capacity,” as Mr. Ootes admitted reluctantly. But, he was quick to add, we weren’t responsible. “We’re not reducing capacity,” Mr. Ootes spun. “Capacity’s being reduced because we don’t have the money.”

It is a new age, a new reality, according to Councillor Mammoliti. “We’re on our own,” he informed the room. We should never expect to see money from senior levels of government ever again. That was that.

So, wave the white flag and agree to be the hatchet men, to do the bidding of the provincial and federal governments’ respective and collective negligence in the social housing portfolio. Instead of standing up and fighting to protect the most vulnerable in our city, members of the mayor’s Executive Committee voted to use them as fodder, sacrifices to the new order. Making tough choices, it seems, means making other people pay for your lack of imagination and willingness to go to bat for your constituents.

“This particular sale of 22 houses is a start,” the unelected, unaccountable Case Ootes told reporters, undoubtedly striking fear into the hearts of every TCHC tenant.

For all the talk of having to go it alone and make choices out of enforced necessity due to fiscal restraints not personal preference (the mark of all small-minded municipal politicians who operate happily under the umbrella of not bearing ultimate responsibility), the irony of the decision to sell the houses is that, even if city council agrees, it is still pending provincial government approval. What the Executive Committee signaled with its vote to sell off TCHC properties was that it was willing to get its hands dirty and be the bad guy. That answer seems firm and unequivocal.

— repeatedly submitted by Cityslikr

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Sue-Ann?

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I’m not really sure this is worth the effort.

Or at least, my subconscious isn’t convinced which might explain the hours and hours of procrastination I’ve been subjected to, trying to sit down and write this out. Ignore it, my better me tells me, no good can come from harping on it. But my ugly me (who I’m partial to) leans in and badgers me to do this thing. This cannot stand, unchallenged, I’m challenged. Nonsense must be called out. Yeah but… good me whines… Some things are better left ignored. Let them simply rot in their own putrid, bilious juices. My God, you are so fucking naïve, ugly me yells at good me, and so the argument continues as does the procrastination.

Oh, Sue-Ann Levy. How can such a mean-spirited, talentless typist cause me so much consternation? I mean, I don’t even read the Toronto Sun and highly suspect anyone who does aside from gathering their sports news. Yet she and it represent the nasty, squalid side of the Ford Nation. Ignoring her and the paper that employees her services allows for misinformation and character assassination to stand. However, addressing what spills seemingly unedited from her poisoned pen (or whatever passes for the modern equivalent) may only lend credence to it.

Decisions, decisions.

It all started (again) last week when SAL got caught up in the whole Pride-QuAIA situation which she has been very vocal about. To do the brouhaha justice, read all about it in Xtra! where it was covered much more thoroughly by Andrea Houston. The thing you need to know is that in a flurry of Twitter activity, Ms. Levy managed to toss around an anti-Semite accusation (misspelled) and taunted another journalist with a ‘Johnny Jew’ epithet. Many deletions and one apology later, she was then removed from covering the ongoing Pride-QuAIA story for the Sun.

A peaceful silence ensued.

And then came this.

So many things coalesce along with the assorted bacteria and other single-celled beings in the pit of my stomach when I read a Sue-Ann Levy article, none of which makes me feel better as a human being. The least important but most glaringly apparent is the fact she is a terrible, terrible, terrible writer. Is that enough terribles? A terrible, terrible, terrible, monstrously terrible writer. Just terrible. There. That’s better.

To call her a hack is to heap unjustified scorn and derision on true hacks everywhere. Hackery suggests some form of organized, systemic badness. That’s a bar Ms. Levy simply doesn’t possess the creative vertical leap to clear. It’s all a stream-of-consciousness, spewed forth like the expressing of a dog’s anal glands, ideology and vitriol trumping logic, truth and basic construction of thought at every turn. No literate adult should write as poorly as Sue-Ann Levy does. Certainly, no literate adult should write as poorly as Sue-Ann Levy does and get paid for their efforts.

My offended artistic sensibilities aside, the real damage inflicted by Levy’s rant writings.. wrantings?.. is on the political discourse in and around City Hall. Like the radical right wing City Hall pols she so slavishly shills for, SAL now basks in the glow of Mayor Ford’s ascension to power, having been on the outside looking in during the Miller administration. To a one, they claim the exclusion was because the Millerites brooked no dissent although judging from their performance so far in office and in print, one could just as easily conclude that an inability or unwillingness to contribute anything positive to the proceedings might also have been factored in.

It’s Team Ford time now and no one epitomizes the nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah triumphalism better than Sue-Ann Levy. Because they won the election in October, they don’t have to justify themselves. They don’t have to defend or debate their ideas. The only fact that matters is the fact Rob Ford is mayor now. Suck on that, left wing kooks.

So it’s invective name-calling and innuendo from the mayor’s court reporter, Sue-Ann Levy. Reading one of her columns is like eaves-dropping on a teenager’s phone call with a friend. It’s all like, gawd, why doesn’t she just, like, shut up and mind her own business! I was talking to Dougie and she, like, all butted in. (Hint to Ms. Levy? If you really want to conduct a private interview with a councillor? There are these places at City Hall called ‘offices’. Go inside, close the door behind you and have at it.) I mean, did you hear her laugh? All horsey. Maybe we should start feeding her sugar cubes. Tee hee, tee hee.

Perhaps it’s because she herself lacks any principles other than obsequiousness to right wing power, Levy can only impugn the motives of anyone at council she disagrees with. And she disagrees with no one at council more than Adam Vaughan. There is nothing he does to SAL’s eyes that isn’t due to him angling for a run at the mayor’s job in 2014 and his bitter resentment Rob Ford now occupies that place. He has become her new bete noire, David Miller incarnate. It’s surprising that, nearly 6 months in, and she’s yet to come up with a derogatory nickname for him yet. Here’s a tip, Sue-Ann. Vaughan rhymes with yawn. Run with it.

Most disturbingly, Levy shares a dim view of council meetings at City Hall with her right wing bestest friends. “An exercise in sheer madness” she wrote about the debate over the city’s proposed new appointment process of agencies, boards and committees. “Look, I’m all for democracy,” Levy claimed in her article which, loosely translated, means she isn’t really, leading inevitably to this thought finisher, “but it was all just nonsense, grandstanding by a bunch of petulant councillors who can’t get it through their heads they no longer run the show at City Hall.”

In Sue-Ann Levy’s world, democracy is little more than ‘sheer madness’, ‘nonsense’, obstructionism, interfering in the city’s business and a “waste of time and tax dollars”, as duly quoted from the paradigm of democratic thought, Doug Ford.

Which is what makes Sue-Ann Levy more than simply an innocuous albeit annoying wingtard (oops. I meant, wingnut.) As eye-poppingly ludicrous as much of her wrantings are, she has a significant enough platform to amply pollute public discourse. She serves those seeking to push through an agenda with as little democratic input as possible and who believe that winning an election grants 4 years of autocratic rule. By belittling the established democratic process at City Hall, she undercuts democracy itself.

Of course, my good me suggests I may be giving Sue-Ann Levy a little too much credit. Is she really capable of thinking that far through things? She’s probably just writing love notes to those who are paying any attention to her whatsoever. Maybe all David Miller and his allies needed to do was give Sue-Ann the occasional scratch behind the ear and they would’ve had her eating out of their hands. Ooooooo, says ugly me. Listen to good you, getting all catty and stuff. It looks like Sue-Ann Levy brings out the worst in you.

Sue-Ann Levy brings out the worst in all of us.

— dividedly submitted by Cityslikr