EDWARD KEENAN

Ford says “the people” but he means “my people,”

Catching up on the all-night debate hosted at Queen’s Park earlier this week, one point jumped out at me.

“All city council wants to do is build bicycle lanes,” Progressive Conservative MPP Roman Baber said, as justification for slashing the size of Toronto city council against its own will, and doing so in the middle of an election campaign, thereby throwing that elec- tion into chaos. And, as he was arguing at the time, for using a constitutional override to do so.

It isn’t remarkable because he hates bike lanes — that’s a Fordinista litmus test. It wasn’t remarkable because it was patently false — as my colleague Samantha Beattie wrote this week, council passed more than 3,500 items this term, on topics ranging from street parking to heritage conservation to rebuilding the Gardiner Expressway. And it wasn’t even remarkable because that very day, two different cyclists were struck and injured by vehicles in Toronto, indicating that perhaps city council should have spent more time building bicycle lanes.

The reason it jumped out at me is that it was an argument that the reason for restructuring Toronto’s elected government, and for doing so in such a way as to effectively ruin the ongoing election, is simply about rigging the game so people who disagree with Premier Doug Ford and Baber lose. The people fairly elected by Torontonians do things we think are bad policy — things like building bike lanes — he seems to be saying, so we need to change the rules to get the people we agree with elected.

He dispenses with even the pretence that democracy, fairness, or even efficiency have anything to do with how an election or a system of government should operate.

He isn’t even willing to conceal how he and his government are operating in bad faith. He’s embracing it. Bragging about it. Baber is taking his cues from his leader. How many times in this whole fiasco has Premier Ford stood up to relish how he’s putting the boots to “downtown NDP councillors” — going so far as to name those on his hit list (Joe Cressy, Gord Perks, Mike Layton, Paula Fletcher). He makes token nods, sometimes, to ideas like “efficiency,” but when the argument picks up, he always turns to how he’s turning the screws on his political opponents.

And, of course, how he’ll make it rain for his friends. Ford has the unique habit of repeating that he is going to deliver for “2.3 million people that elected this government.” Now, the job he has is to govern on behalf of all Ontarians. That’s 13.6 million people. But there’s Ford, boldly insisting he’s there to serve the minority who voted for him. He says “the people,” but then makes it pretty obvious he means “my people.”

And that he is so shameless about it suggests it seems normal to him. That it never even occurs to him that “fairness” and “giving me what I want” are not exactly the same thing.

Consider his response when a judge initially struck down Bill 5 as unconstitutional back on Sept. 10. He was aghast that an “appointed” judge could strike down a law passed by an elected legislature. He said it was undemocratic. But the same week, he launched a court challenge asking an appointed judge to strike down any carbon tax law brought forward by the elected federal government. The governing logic is obvious. What’s fair depends on who wins, he seems to think.

By now a lot of people will be rolling their eyes and claiming that this is just what everyone does. But it is not true. I am among those who still actually believes in the importance of a fair and democratic system and the rule of law.

I mean look at recent history: I do not defend the current system because it has given me the policy outcomes I want. Over the past eight years (pick a topic: Scarborough subway extension, Gardiner East, tax rates ...), on most major files, city councils under Rob Ford and John Tory have made decisions I strongly disagree with.

I don’t think the system is perfect, but I think it does a better job than many alternatives at fairly reflecting the will of the voters of Toronto. I make policy arguments to try to change people’s minds. But I do not think — and never have thought — the rules should be changed just so I can get my way.

The changes I support — like ranked ballots for elections and more active community or neighbourhood councils — are ones I like not because I think they’ll give me the policies I favour. In many cases I suspect they may accomplish the opposite. But I think they’ll do a better job of fairly and accurately representing the wishes of the people of Toronto. And that, I think, is fundamentally important.

Which is just to say I believe in democracy. Ford and his government, in pretty blunt language, keep telling me they do not.