National Post (National Edition)
People see a bloated government
THE HALLELUJAH CHORUS OVER FORD CUTS
Ican’t say for absolute certain, but I’m pretty sure the overwhelming majority of people who voted for Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives in June are pretty pleased with their choice right now.
Ontario’s rookie premier ensured that when, out of a clear blue sky, he revealed he was taking the city’s municipal elections and dumping them by the side of the road. Plans for the vote were well under way, candidates lining up, forms being filled, money raised. Then Ford announced that, instead of 47 squabbling, money-draining, time-wasting city councillors, he would chop the number to 25.
Naturally, great squawking ensued. The beating heart of left-wing Toronto, having long ago decided Ford was the Canadian version of That Awful Man in Washington, is more than ever convinced that Canada’s biggest province has been abandoned to philistines.
Elsewhere, outside the great, bumbling, unwieldy, self-absorbed world that is Toronto’s grossly inefficient municipal government, people rolled their eyes, cried “Hallelujah!” and wondered how it could possibly have taken so long.
How hopeless is Toronto’s local government? The city has ruinous traffic problems, but has proven incapable of remedying them. Transit has been the No. 1 priority since Moses was in short pants, but — other than jabbering away endlessly about it — little ever gets done.
Public housing is an utter disgrace, and will continue to be for generations to come given the lack of willingness to address it. Housing prices are beyond reach, and the city bleats constantly about its lack of revenue, yet resolutely insists on taxing all that high-priced real estate at levels below every surrounding community.
When a local man heard the city claimed it would cost $65,000 to $150,000 to put some stairs in a local park, he built them himself for $550. The city tore them down and replaced them, for a mere $10,000.
The case against Ford’s move isn’t in the decision itself, but how he went about it. It appears he simply made up his mind and went for it, despite much concern among aides and caucus colleagues about the tumult it would create.
Mayor John Tory said Ford casually mentioned the idea to him, but the mayor didn’t think he was serious.
Though Ford made several promises during the election campaign, chopping Toronto’s council wasn’t one of them.
It’s fair to question any leader in a position as important as Ford’s who appears to act on impulse alone. We’re all too well aware of the turmoil the U.S. president is creating by trusting his own ill-informed, egotistical and shallow-minded opinions over anyone and everyone else.
Ontario doesn’t need rule by fiat, and the fact Ford won enough support to become premier doesn’t give him the right to remake the province according to whatever whim seizes his fancy.
But it’s early days in the new government and the substance of Ford’s actions to date — as opposed to the process behind them — doesn’t justify the fainting spells they’ve produced.
He’s done a lot in a very short time. Frozen salaries, ousted Hydro One bosses, cancelled cap-and-trade, shelved green energy projects, scrapped the sexeducation curriculum, confronted Ottawa over a surge in refugee claimants …
All of it fairly predictable, based on campaign pledges or well-known elements of the Ford agenda. Even Friday’s surprise declaration reflected a longtime Ford ambition. During Rob Ford’s term as Toronto mayor the brothers made no secret of their desire to sharply cut the number of council seats, and reduce councillors’ expense accounts as well. The trouble, not surprisingly, was their inability to find support among the council members who would lose their posts and perks. Now Doug Ford can do it on his own.
His decision to do so has been called abrupt, unfair, callous, bizarre, chaotic and undemocratic, among much else. It’s certainly abrupt.
As for the rest, it’s worth remembering that much of the antagonism being directed at political entities of all sorts results from disenchantment with the very processes Ford is bypassing.
Rightly or wrongly, people look at government and see fat, privileged, dysfunctional, self-serving, slowmoving bureaucracies that talk a great deal and accomplish very little. They wonder what they gain from the people they elect, and have trouble identifying much of substance. They see a world of red tape, where a man can spend $550 on a staircase and have it replaced for almost 20 times the price.
They don’t care much that candidates had already put time and effort into their campaigns, given that so many office-seekers strike onlookers as opportunists anxious for a public platform and a well-paid sinecure.
They’re unimpressed by professional office-holders who jump from one wellpaid public post to another.
They’re not upset that Ford also cancelled elections for regional posts in which candidates included Ford’s predecessor Patrick Brown, and recently-defeated Liberal cabinet member Steven Del Duca. With the regional vote vetoed, Brown immediately said he’d run for mayor of Brampton.
If more concerned about convention, Ford could have revealed his plan, but delayed implementation until the next election.
That would have provided time to prepare and some protection from the outrage.
It would also have meant four more years of posturing, waste and rank inefficiency, at a cost of many millions of dollars, while enabling opponents to mount delaying tactics of the sort that have done so much to successfully stymie change on other fronts.
Though this is Ford’s first time in high office — his brief stint on Toronto council hardly counts — he evidently understands that if he hopes to get anything done he has to move quickly, or risk getting bogged down by the same forces of bureaucracy and self-interest that upset the voters who elected him. Moving fast is itself a violation of process, and bound to upset those whose self-interests are threatened by it.
It’s entirely possible that at some point Tory voters will judge Ford has overstepped the mark.
But I bet they’re not nearly there yet.
IF HE HOPES TO GET ANYTHING DONE HE HAS TO MOVE QUICKLY.