The path to victory for a progressive mayoral candidate
With a municipal election coming up in October, the search for a progressive mayoral candidate is getting frantic. As a long-time lefty insider told me the other day, “the thirst for a candidate is real.”
A strong progressive candidate is good for everyone. Having a range of policies debated by all candidates enhances our democracy. But to go from protest campaign to a realistic path to victory, a progressive candidate must put income inequality at the heart of a winning strategy.
This means unrelenting focus on the neighbourhoods whose incomes have declined over the last 30 years. Income inequality itself is a dry, academic term. No one in their right mind would lead with it in campaign messaging. But it’s the part of the proverbial iceberg that lies below the surface, the unseen element that really does the damage.
It drives our political fault lines on issues such as transit, housing, bike lanes or policing. As someone whose work focuses on creating economic opportunities in the inner suburbs and who was involved with the last election, I know a winning candidate cannot ignore this issue.
It’s also clear that income inequality fuelled our own homegrown populist movement: Ford Nation. Like any nation, it’s diverse; a coalition of voters with varied interests. A significant group are working class voters, many of colour, who are not naturally fiscal conservatives. They benefit from government services and don’t necessarily want them cut, but want them to work better.
This demographic, combined with progressive-leaning voters, could form a new coalition, one that could span the class and racial divides that are slowly tearing the fabric of our city apart.
To do this, a progressive candidate has to give those residing in Ford Nation their due respect. Rob Ford put respect in his slogan for a reason and people loved him for it. It was recognition that in our boom town, some communities aren’t getting shinning condo towers or Google neighbourhoods.
Too often progressives demeaned those who supported Rob Ford as dumb. Some may have been misinformed, but they weren’t dumb. Folks in Rexdale or Malvern understand what income inequality actually means.
Their support for the late mayor’s call for better customer service wasn’t gullibility; it was rooted in the reality of people who actually use government services more than the middle class. The city may be their landlord, mode of transportation and source of recreation.
The fact that they voted for a Ford doesn’t mean they are small-government, trickle-down economics cheerleaders; it was because they knew the truth we hate to admit: That in this city the service you get in a government office, the way police treat you, the quality of your kid’s education, all vary depending on your neighbourhood, your ethnicity and your class.
So a winning progressive candidate must have legitimacy in the suburbs of Toronto. It can’t be someone whose first appearance in Jane-Finch is on the campaign trail.
When Rob Ford spoke in patois (which today some would call cultural appropriation) many Caribbean people shrugged and said, “Well at least he has Jamaican friends.” We need a legitimately intercultural person, with a lived understanding of the diversity of this city; ideally someone from outside the downtown.
And this individual must understand modern progressivism isn’t just about expanding government services. It’s also about making the ones we have work better and become more human-focused. Making sure we increase access and usage, which means ensuring people have positive experiences with them.
But beyond effective services, the candidate needs to lead with vision. The Scarborough subway won the war of ideas in Scarborough because the LRT became misrepresented as a “second-class” option. The subway to the town centre became viewed as a plan about economic growth for a strategic part of Scarborough.
A progressive candidate needs to show we can also “go big” for the inner suburbs. If we can have a blue-ribbon panel and billions dedicated to revitalizing our waterfront, why not for our so-called priority communities?
In the progressive tool kit, community benefit agreements that tie infrastructure dollars to local job creation, green technology investments and social enterprises provide some strong ideas. But they need to be utilized as a hammer to break down the walls of class division that are shaping our society and fuelling our political divisions.
If a candidate can do these things, there is a path to victory.
We need a legitimately intercultural person, with a lived understanding of the diversity of this city; ideally someone from outside the downtown