Tag Archives: War on cars

Vision Quest III

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Now I don’t know if this’ll work the same magic as it did last week when we wrote about Sarah Thomson’s candidacy and a few days later – voila – she dropped out of the race. But here’s hoping…

Vision Quest III. Up this week, Rob Ford!

There’s really not much more that can be said about Councillor Rob Ford and the race he’s run so far that hasn’t been said over and over and over again already. It’s all so improbable. It’s built on misguided anger and faulty numbers. It makes sense only to those who’ve pledged blind loyalty to the wacky internal logic at its molten core.

(Wacky internal logic, you ask? OK, how about this. Increase councillor responsiveness to their constituents by cutting the number of councillors in half. Wait, what? Won’t that just double their workload and make it that much harder to serve their constituents? On the face of it, sure, but since there’ll be fewer council seats, the competition to get elected will be fiercer and, as anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Free Market 101 can tell you, tougher competition means only the fittest will survive. So, fewer council seats equals better councillors, all who’ll work harder which, and I’m not even sure the hardest core of Ford’s hardcore supporters have thought this thing as far through as this, it will also increase council’s diversity. How, you ask, again? Well, as Rob Ford is on record saying, the Orientals work like dogs. Such hard workers will make them more fit to be councillors. Under a Mayor Rob Ford and his smaller council, the Orientals will take over council! Two birds with one stone.)

That, in a nutshell, is how our mayoralty campaign has gone since Ford entered the race back in March. As we’ve written here frequently, regardless of the outcome on October 25th, Rob Ford has already won. Or at least, his cause can be declared victorious. His ceaseless harping on City Hall as out of control – bloated, profligate, corrupt, onerous on the citizens – has essentially salted the grounds around Nathan Phillips Square (concrete and all) and created a poisoned environment where every politician and bureaucrat can now be painted with the same unforgiving brush. In it only for themselves with their grubby little hands always in taxpayers’ pockets, demanding more from us and giving less back in return.

That there’s but a sliver of truth to any of that is entirely beside the point. Perception is everything, and as in most talking points emanating from the small government, libertarian leaning sect, simply repeating the same message over and over again at higher and higher decibels passes as truth or fact. It sure beats having to take the time to work through a coherent policy platform.

And why would they, for godssakes? Since the beginning of his run, Ford’s been amply rewarded for the discipline he’s shown staying on message. His lead in the polls is, at least in part, credited to delivering an easy-to-remember brand. Stop the Gravy Train! Cut Wasteful Spending! A War on Cars! (Credit for that should really go to Rocco Rossi but Ford’s it made his own.) It makes for great headlines and editorial chatter.

But just how difficult is that, I have to ask. We used to demand that high school students memorize the fucking periodic table of elements. Now, we’re applauding a man who wants to be mayor for his amazing ability to string the same five or six words together over-and-over again regardless of context or much, if any, meaning? Perhaps an admirable trait to posses in the advertising and marketing businesses but something short of desirable when looking for someone to oversee the nuances of governing a large city.

That’s the rub, of course, for Rob Ford and his ardent supporters. There is no nuance to governing a city big or small. Just fill the potholes, fix the streetlights, rid the roads of crime, bikes, streetcars, the homeless (see crime), festivals and marathons, and respond to every single inquiry and demand from every single voter that makes one. Outside of that, leave it up to the private sector to take care of all our other needs. Easy-peazy.

Aside from Europeans and their apologists, who wouldn’t want life and governance to work out just like that? Just like it was back in … the imaginations of those who actually believe there was such a time when all our needs were met, our taxes low and when we could keep our doors unlocked because crime is what happened somewhere else. That is, in a 1950s sitcom.

There has been some recent pushback to these simple minded sentiments. Since Ford became the presumptive favourite, his candidacy has come under more intense scrutiny. The results have not been pretty. His transit plan (or something approximating that) is a mess. Budget numbers don’t add up, with his proposed tax cuts leaving a large whole that he can’t fill without service cuts he’s refusing to divulge. His track record in council suggests that he has very few allies at City Hall which might render him ineffectual as mayor if he does get elected. Continued personal gaffes evoke images of Mel Lastman bringing unwanted international attention on the city.

Even the Toronto Sun has questioned the viability of a Rob Ford mayoralty. Sue­-Ann Levy took a powder and hiked on over to the Rocco Rossi camp. If a radical right wing candidate can’t even maintain the support of a radical right wing rag, is there the critical mass in place to be elected? Plenty of people remain angry out there at what they perceive to be our local government’s vast shortcomings but are there enough of them who will ignore their better instincts and put their ‘champion’ in place so he can take back City Hall for them?

That will be the question between now and October 25th.

— quizzically submitted by Cityslikr

An Open Letter To Rob Ford Supporters

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Dear Supporters of Mayoral Candidate Rob Ford,

I’m writing to you not to mock or belittle you, or to denigrate your candidate of choice for mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford. I’ve participated in such easy activities in the past but now want to build a bridge between us. Your man just might win the election in October, so I want to understand how that could possibly happen and how you imagine a Mayor Ford administration is going to help make your lives better. Consider this a letter asking for some clarity from you.

In his column last week, the Toronto Star’s Christopher Hume suggested that Ford represents the suburban anger that has reached a boiling point more than a decade after the enforced amalgamation made us all one. Your concerns have been marginalized by downtowners such as myself, shrugged off while we’ve been busy eating our brie and sushi, sipping lattes and demanding bike lanes, increased transit in the core and conducting our War on Cars, your cars no less.

Fair enough, and undoubtedly true. None of us wanted to be part of the megacity and it seems that those of you living in the outer ring of it in places like Scarborough, North York and Rob Ford’s home turf of Etobicoke feel you got the raw end of the deal. You’ll get no arguments from us here about that. Amalgamation’s miracle of efficiency and money savings never really worked out as well as we were to told it would, especially for you folks out there on the fringes.

Interestingly, Mr. Ford, the fighter for the little guy, takes every opportunity to evoke the memory of his beloved late father, Doug Ford who, as a backbench M.P.P. in the Mike Harris government, sat on his hands during the debate over amalgamation except to raise it in favour of the motion when it came to vote it into law. In direct defiance of over 70% of his constituents, Rob Ford’s father helped usher in an era of municipal governance his son and his supporters now rail against. Nothing more than an example of irony, I guess, but I do hope his father’s anti-democratic tendencies didn’t brush off on his son.

So let’s say your man becomes mayor and is able to muster a majority of the new council to support his way of thinking. (The second scenario much less likely than the first.) A frenzy of cutting taxes and slashing spending ensues. You wind up with a little more money in your pocket and fewer services at your disposal. Now what? How is it your lives are going to be improved because of that?

Transit City – a plan put into place to deliver better service to the areas of the city you live – will be gutted. Replaced by some mystical, magical building of subways your candidate insists the private sector will do for some strange reason that they have not yet thought of. That’s as detailed as his transit plan goes. Aside from making the TTC an essential service, the matter isn’t even referred to in the Issue section of his website. How is that going to get you from point A to B any faster or lessen the traffic congestion that is now part of your life?

I’m also mystified how cutting council numbers in half is going to increase Mr. Ford’s vaunted customer service agenda. I know you love to believe that every other councillor except Rob Ford simply sits around doing nothing more than counting ways they can steal your money except for when they’re partying with Kyle Rae but that is nothing more than an ideological fantasy. Fewer elected officials at City Hall (plus their respective staff) can only deliver better customer service if there’s less services to deliver. Maybe you’re content with that. Fair enough. That’s a different vision than making people’s lives better.

And all that money the city will supposedly save? Even taking Mr. Ford’s numbers at face value which is always an iffy proposition (take a moment to read Simon McNeil’s Writing and Tutoring blog post for an analysis of candidate Ford’s questionable numbers and spotty savings), he claims that eliminating 22 councillors and their staff will save the city $9 million a year in direct savings plus another $6 million due to some sort of nebulous “reduced burden on City Hall staff”. Reduced burden? Would someone please explain that one to me? Less demand on City Hall because it’s doing less?

Even giving Ford the dubious $15 million annual savings with cutting the council in half, what’s that going to do? In terms of a $9.2 billion budget it represents less than a percent. Much, much less. How much less? Let me write it out to 18 decimal points if it helps. 0.0016304347826086956. You know what $15 million will get you in terms of subways even factoring in the lowest estimated cost to build one subway stop? Half one percent of one. So with that cost savings, Rob Ford will be able to build one subway stop every 20, 000 years.* Oh right, I forgot. In Rob Ford’s world the private sector will step right up and build subways once governments get out of their way.

His candidacy just makes no sense to me, Rob Ford supporters, and it’s not like I won’t personally benefit if he becomes mayor. My taxes will go down (although user fees will very likely gobble up much of those gains.) I don’t depend on the city services that a Mayor Ford would attempt to cut. Oh sure, I’ll probably lose a bike lane or two but mostly my life down here in the core will be unaffected if your candidate wins in October. Except that, the city will feel a little more… vindictive.

Because that’s the vibe I get from your campaign. Vindictiveness. It doesn’t feel like what’s driving you is justified anger or outrage. It’s more of a temper tantrum. Rather than fighting to secure a better place for yourselves within the amalgamated city and thereby making the entire city a better place to live and work, you simply want everyone to be as pissed off as your are, as your candidate is.

It’s purely the politics of destruction and wherever it’s been tried before has never made anyone’s life better. How will it work this time around?

— earnestly (and unironically) submitted by Urban Sophisticat

* Math may not be exact but it’s no more than one decimal point off. Either way, savings are going to miniscule.

Rossi Rocks The TBT

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I know what you’re thinking, Rossi. Is it enough? Can a Board of Trade/Empire Club-Toronto Sun coalition deliver you the mayor’s chair in October? To tell you the truth, I’m not sure myself. It’s kind of hard to keep tabs, what with the high-pitched oinking and squealing noises coming from all your shameless pandering. But the question you have to ask yourself is.. do you feel lucky? Well, do you, Rossi?

Because frankly, I don’t see much growth potential in terms of the proverbial Big Tent for the Rocco Rossi campaign, given that to date he’s pitched little more than a two person pup job. There’s room enough for the increasingly strident neo-conservative Toronto Board of Trade along with the Toronto Sun editorial team. Who else is going to join them inside especially if it means having to squeeze up that close to Sue-Ann Levy?

There is the tough to measure anti-incumbent factor swirling around out there that both Rossi and George Smitherman are hoping to cash in on and, not surprisingly, are helping to foment. In case you haven’t heard, Rocco Rossi is not a career politician although he certainly sounds like one every time he brings up the tale of his friend Amanda Belzowski who runs a lemonade stand to raise funds for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. “She has a multi-year plan and she isn’t even a teenager yet!”

Rocco Rossi wants us to know that he hasn’t run for office before because he’s been busy running things in both the private and not-for-profit sectors while professional politicians at City Hall have run things into the ground. You got it? Rocco Rossi’s not a professional politician. Vote for Rocco Rossi!

It’s tough to say how deeply that’s going to resonate with the general electorate outside of the hardcore, non-sports page Toronto Sun readers. But where else is Rossi going to pull in votes? He’s sided with drivers in the War on Cars, the myth of which he’s helped perpetuate. He wants to keep bike lanes off main arterial roads and take back the 5th lane of Jarvis Street from bikers. This may endear him to the mid-and-uptown crowd who drive into the core everyday but they’re probably already on Board (of Trade, The).

His views on public transit are all over the place. He castigates the present city council for not having multi-year plans (see Amanda Belzowski, above) which would help bring the provincial and federal governments with their big purses to the table but has vowed to stop Transit City which comes loaded up with both federal and provincial funds. Citing cost and time overruns on the St. Clair LRT as the reason for such a rethink, Rossi lays the blame on TTC and council mismanagement, ignoring an independent report that pointed out both the provincial government and local residents also contributed to the problems. It went on to state that mistakes and miscalculations made on St. Clair would be lessons learned and could help future projects run more smoothly.

But never no mind all that chatter for Rocco Rossi. Transit was the last mayor’s thing, therefore it must be bad. Everything about the previous administration must be bad or else Rocco Rossi’s flag doesn’t fly.

Which it was at full mast with his speech to the Board of Trade earlier this week. Full of empty platitudes, simple-minded solutions and tough talk against easy targets, Rossi did little to build on what is now merely a reactionary platform. Even a wannabe supporter like Sue-Ann Levy was reserved in her accolades.

“While Rossi’s bones may need some more meat…,” Levy wrote in the Sun after the speech, “…and some of his assumptions a tad naive, at least he’s delivering some meat to citizens…”. Ignoring the creepy sexual undercurrents of the statement, it seems Rossi failed to fully win over even the likes of Sue-Ann Levy. Maybe Sue-Ann was a little put out at not fully understanding what Rossi was saying as she pointed out his language was “somewhat erudite”. If you want Sue-Ann in your corner, you better dumb it down, buster!

And if you don’t have Sue-Ann Levy, you don’t have the crazy vote. If Rocco Rossi doesn’t have the crazy vote, he remains merely a fringe player albeit a heavily media hyped fringe player. Despite surrounding himself with much of the crowd that brought us the honorary Mayor of Crazytown, Mel Lastman, Rossi lacks one quality that made Lastman a viable candidate: big name recognition. If you’ll excuse the grammar because I’m going for the joke, nobody didn’t know who Mel Lastman was. Nooooooo-body!! Without that, Rossi’s just another candidate trolling for votes among deeply deluded conservatives, the demented and disaffected. Is that enough to propel him into City Hall? For the sweet sake of our city and children, let’s hope not.

— sanely submitted by Cityslikr