Tag Archives: Rocco Rossi

Despite Its Best Intentions CP24 Delivers The Debate Goods

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In spite of its continued attempts to broadcast yet another substance-free televised debate last night, CP24 might just have inadvertently delivered one of those turning point moments that can define a campaign. Let’s not overlook the fact that it happened in Ben Mulroney’s absence. While not actually hard enough proof of cause and effect, I do think it’s worth conducting the experiment again with the next debate for further evidence. Do Toronto a favour, Ben, and stay home with the kids!

Although to be fair, it was apparently his grade school idea of picking names from a hat that delivered the seminal moment for me. If you haven’t been following along throughout the summer, each candidate picks another candidate’s name from a hat and asks them a question. Yeah, yeah. It is usually as lame as it sounds but last night Rocco Rossi had the great fortune of picking Rob Ford’s name and, surprisingly, he offered up a softball question that Ford, if he possessed an iota of sense amidst all the rage and indignation, could’ve/should’ve taken yard.

Rossi asked Ford to comment on a recent Toronto Sun article that suggested Ford didn’t single-handedly shepherd the Woodbine Live deal through council as he’s been spouting as an example of how he can work well with his colleagues and get votes passed. According to the rabidly pro-Ford rag, fellow Etobicoke councillor, Suzan Hall also had a hand in getting council unanimously on side. Here, Ford was handed the opportunity to reach out, seem collegial and show the city that he can play with others.

Instead, Rob Ford replied: “She had nothing to do with it. I was the one doing all the leg work.”

Yep. For the second time in a week, Ford’s gone out of his way to diminish, dismiss and generally kick in the slats everyone he works with. First, another councillor from Etobicoke and fiscal conservative soulmate, Doug Holyday, was paraded out to dejectedly state that maybe, just maybe, Ford shouldn’t call city council ‘corrupt’, at least not without some proof. And now this big fuck you to Suzan Hall.

So to you fanboys out there, trumpeting the ascension of Rob Ford and crowing about all the ass he’s going to kick and unions he’s going to bash and cyclists he’s going to run over, if your man gets elected, he’s going to be a mayor of one. All red faced and blustery, he’ll spend his time in office, stomping his feet and bellowing how he can’t get anything done, blaming everyone else but himself when the fact is, while pathological assholes who can’t work with others may be an asset when running an inherited business, it simply doesn’t fly at a non-political party municipal government level.

Oh, yeah. And there was that whole keeping newcomers out of Toronto thing that sprung up last night as well.

Now, I’m not going to call the racist card on Ford with this. I won’t even label him xenophobic because none of his followers will understand what the word means. What I will say is that his remarks in response to questions about the Tamil “migrants” on the west coast reveal a level of ignorance about urban demographic flow that no non-illiterate adult should possess. Like it or not, the world is becoming more and more ‘citified’, to use some hillbilly talk that seems highly appropriate, and we can’t or shouldn’t want to call a timeout so that we can make sure the house is all pur-dy for our guests’ arrival.

Spin all you want, Fordites, but it can’t mask the fact that you’re backing a talking horse who spouts Tea Party sentiments and everyone who signs on to the movement are simply porch sitting, AM radio listening, backwards looking Know-Nothings. What’s next? Building a fence around the city?

Despite that, there’s no reason to think that Rob Ford won’t be our next mayor. None of the other front running candidates are rising to match his simple-minded clarion call.

George Smitherman seems to be sharping his elbows and is starting to smother the talk of eHealth scandal and other provincial government nefariousness under his watch with a blanket of facts, figures and examples of positive things he oversaw. Now if somebody would just tell him that he doesn’t always need to use up every second of his allotted time. The more he talks, the more it becomes apparent that he’s not saying anything.

Sarah Thomson is no longer the doe-eyed valedictorian. She now just seems torn between two warring impulses. The more socially progressive Sarah which is the result of having two artist parents and the fiscally conservative Sarah who built a million dollar business by the time she was 30. What emerges is an utterly meaningless ‘Toronto has a management problem’ message. So I guess we should just fire all the managers then?

While being far more eloquent and sounding much more reasonable than, say, Rob Ford, Rocco Rossi is similarly one-note. “Value for Money” may mean something to business school types but to me it just sounds like Rossi’s talking to, well, business school types. We would all like value for money, Mr. Rossi. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way especially in government which is not nor should it be a for-profit enterprise.

Leaving us with the most perplexing campaign among the front runners, Joe Pantalone. I do not get what he’s doing at all. With the left side of the spectrum wide open to him, he insists on snuggling up to the cushy but crowded centre along with Smitherman, Thomson and Rossi. I understand with no ideological threat from that angle, he feels free to ignore voters positioned there because where else do they have to go? Still, he’s defining himself as indistinguishable from the other three and getting lost in the shuffle. Their “freshness” makes him seem stale.

Pantalone should just step back and vigorously defend the administration he’s been an integral part of. Despite what his opponents scream and yell, I don’t think there’s nearly the rampant anti-incumbency among voters that the other candidates are counting on. That’s something they have to believe is out there (and stir up) because they’re not offering anything else. Joe just needs to stop giving over to the reality his rivals are trying to create and show us that, despite being in the throes of a nasty economic downturn and the pains that we’re undergoing as we move into a post-manufacturing centre, Toronto remains a vibrant and healthy place to live.

That’s why people will risk their lives to endure an arduous ocean passage to make their way here. For a better life. We have it despite what all the nay-saying contenders for the mayor’s office are trying to tell us.

— dutifully submitted by Cityslikr

Tough On The TPS Budget? Crime Lover.

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Politics these days seem to operate counter to our ingrained, chivalric notion of how to behave during an emergency: women and children first. Maybe it was always thus, nothing more than a lofty ideal, entirely untested under real world situations. As a relatively able-bodied male, I’m all for jettisoning such quaintness when the tornadoes’ are coming and the ships are sinking. Every man for himself! (The gender specificity of the noun was entirely deliberate.)

With our political house on fire — at least that’s what’s being yelled in the municipal campaign theatre of operations by our front running mayoral candidates – it’s all about trampling the slow footed and weak on our way to the exits. Everybody’s vowing to get tough with the easy to get tough with targets. Faceless city bureaucrats who make our existence miserable each and every day. Outside workers bringing hell down upon this city with each strike they subject us to. Snoozing, break taking, booze-sodden TTC workers and their can’t-do attitude. Oh, we’re so going to declare you an essential service! Economics of it be damned!!

In typical bully fashion, however, nary a peep has been heard about what to do about the out-of-control spending the city’s lavished upon the Toronto Police Service. Shhhhh! Don’t mention the Police Service. They might hear us.

According to some numbers being bandied about over the weekend, during King David’s profligate reign at City Hall, the TPS’s budget has grown nearly a quarter billion dollars, from just over $700 million in 2004 to just under a billion dollars in 2010. That’s over a 35% increase in 6 years. In fact, just this past year when budget chief Shelley Carroll was asking all departments for 5% cuts in their budget, the TPS received nearly a 4% increase. That’s the kind of bird flipping candidate George Smitherman vowed to crush if elected mayor yet, so far, it’s been all quiet from him in terms of going to war with the Police Service.

Ditto tough guy Rob Ford. Nothing on the matter from Rockin’ Rocco Rossi’s camp. Sarah Thomson’s been similarly mum on the matter.

Why ever would that be, we wonder?

Now, I’m not here to say that the Police Service is being coddled and mollified, shown far more respect than all other city services. For all I know, they deserve every single penny the city hands over to them. It’s just the glaring double standard that our leading candidates for mayor are employing that has caught our attention.

Hey, hey, hey, you’ll yell at me, and point out the dropping crime statistics over the last decade or so. Shouldn’t we be rewarding a job well done? If we cut police spending, crime will climb. Probably.

Probably although I am no social scientist, so don’t know the ins-and-outs of that line of argument. But if we equate success with increased expenditure, why don’t we start throwing money at other problem areas? Increased spending on social housing could mean decreased homelessness. More money on infrastructure might translate into better roads and fewer water main breaks.

Imagine if we unleashed countless billions on the TTC! We could have a transit system that would be the envy of the—No, wait. We do spend billions on the TTC and everyone’s displeasure with it is near unanimous.

So a money-equaling-effectiveness argument is a tenuous one, as many of the mayoral candidates have stated themselves. We can’t just throw money at our problems, we are told. And yet no one is complaining about all the money being thrown at the TPS. Why the deference?

Much of the discussion about this that I encountered over the last few days began with variations of the familiar disclaimer, I’m as pro-police as anybody, It’s not that I’m anti-police, as if a pledge of fidelity is needed before anyone can offer up a critique of our men and women in blue. Where’s the similar sentiment – I’m as pro-TTC as anybody – when criticizing our transit system? It’s not that I’m anti-garbage collection, it’s just that I think we should open bidding up to the private sector.

You’re either with us or you’re against us is the established parameter when offering up any sort of police-related opinion. We saw that with the G20 fallout earlier this summer. Members of City Council fell over themselves to prove to our besieged police service that they were in no way siding with the criminal element on the issue. The doubters, the panderers to terrorists, simply ducked for cover. In this environment, it doesn’t pay politically to be seen as anything other than the law & order type. It is an easy exploitable sign of weakness.

So our cadre of tough talking front running mayoral candidates tip-toe past the TPS budget numbers without raising so much as a collective eyebrow. Should they? I’m as pro-police as the next guy but it just seems to me that if they’re all going to run around like Chicken Littles telling us that the fiscal sky is falling, there should be some discussion about one of the biggest ticket items in the city’s budget. Otherwise, it reveals either a glaring lack of attention to detail or a knee-jerk cravenness in the face of a powerful interest group. Neither quality is one we really should be looking for in our next mayor.

— law and orderly submitted by Urban Sophisticat

Terror Babies, Council Corruption And The Long Form Census

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The crazy train is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon, is it.

For anyone who caught a glimpse of this last week, you know what I’m talking about. Pure, unhinged, paranoid in-fucking-sanity. Yes, that is a double dare to all those not yet in the loop. Check it out, starting at the 1’12” mark although the warm up act is worth sitting through too.

In the days before our all pervasive high-speed internet and proliferation of cable channels, the kind of crazy on display from Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert was largely restricted to religious revival meetings, street corners and family BBQs where we all had some slightly touched Uncle Louie who, after a few rye and gingers and a pile of potato salad, started spewing forth about the coloureds, UFOs and braless women wearing short shorts. (Deny it as you might.) I remember back in the mid-80s when Morton Downey Jr.’s vitriolic rantings began wafting across Lake Ontario from some Buffalo affiliate station. It was nothing short of shocking and unsettling. We’re really giving airtime now to our crazy Uncle Louies?

Twenty-five years later, Morton Downy Jr. seems tame in comparison, what with the mainstreaming of TV personalities like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly and the radio behemoth, Rush Limbaugh. And we’re not just making media superstars of this crowd, we’re electing them to public office. Cranks and kooks from forlorn backwaters, striding to within almost a heartbeat of the self-proclaimed most powerful position in the free world.

After watching Gohmert’s video performance last week, I smugly tweeted something to the effect of wanting to travel down to the Texas district he represents to meet those folks who saw fit to elect him. Almost immediately, I rethought my arrogance. Who am I to cast aspersions on other voters when I live in a city that elected Mel Lastman as its mayor twice? Now, just seven years after that unmitigated disaster, the (possible) front runner for the job is perhaps even more unfit for the office and prone to similarly wacky, outlandish outbursts and behaviour.

Take away Gohmert’s dullard suggesting Texas twang and it could be Rob Ford talking. His entirely unsubstantiated council corruption smears last week were no less devoid of rationality and truth than Gohmert’s screeches about terror babies. No iota of evidence was needed. In its place, pure gossipy innuendo.

While the biggest culprit so far in campaigning purely on style and forgoing even so much as a scintilla of substance in order to plug into the resentment vein of the electorate, Ford is hardly alone. Both George Smitherman and Rocco Rossi are running on platforms built on ideologically unstable ether. Cut taxes. Cut wages. Maintain services. Build subways with money from… well, we’ll get back to you on that. Somehow in a way that no one’s ever thought of before, the private sector will swoop in and sort it all out. Just remember, voters, you’re angry at the direction the city’s heading!

Such illogical, visceral appeals to our dark side are all neo-conservative/liberal proponents have anymore since their cause had its brains bashed out on the sidewalk of reality. Reasoned argument is no longer part of the equation because they’ve been pedaling pure bullshit for decades now. All that remains in their arsenal is divisiveness and emotional sorcery.

Which brings us to the federal government’s War on the Long Form Census. When fact and reliable data become your enemies, undercutting your assertions at every turn, there is only one course left to you. Stop trying to ascertain facts and disable the apparatus for collecting reliable data. If you can’t win an argument through reasoned thoughts and rational discourse, why allow anyone else to? Freeing all of us from having to test and prove our beliefs means we’re all on equal footing. All points of view are valid and it’s only a matter of making a smooth, easy-to-understand case.

So who are you, Anderson Cooper, to demand proof of Louie Gohmert about terror babies? And if Rob Ford says that the council he’s been part of for a decade is corrupt to the bone, then anyone arguing to the contrary is obviously a shady dealer. Don’t tell us that building billions of dollars of prisons in this country and doubling up prisoners in cells flies in the face of a declining crime rate. How can you be sure the data’s reliable?

It’s the age of Orwell’s 1984 with a sadly unfunny touch of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass. We’re right if we say we’re right. You can’t prove otherwise even if, well, you can prove otherwise.

— sure-footedly submitted by Cityslikr