City now the last bastion of old-style conservatism

Suddenly, everywhere you look, Canadian conservatives are on the way out. First, the Alberta Tory dynasty was given the boot and then, of course, most spectacularly, so was Stephen Harper.

Outside of Saskatchewan, the only place left where the right still rules is right here in little old Toronto. Though a tad more progressive than some of his fellow fossils, Conservative brethren and predecessor, Rob Ford, Hogtown Mayor John Tory is starting to look like the man time forgot.

Though Ford is no longer mayor of Toronto, his grip on Dog Patch North — a.k.a. Ward 2 in Etobicoke — remains unshaken.

Still, in the brightly lit context of this newly sunny nation, Ford, Tory and their antediluvian allies are being revealed for the dinosaurs they are.

Small-brained, slow-moving and heavy-footed, the Conservative hordes now find themselves badly out of step with the times.

While the rest of Canada has awoken to the realities of the 21st century — the threat of global warming foremost among them — Toronto’s Family Compact remains mired in a muddy past. It longs for those glorious decades of the 1950s and ’60s, when cars roamed freely and shiny new expressways cut their way through the primordial urban jungle.

Time and again, Tory and his hand-picked executive committee have shown themselves to be out of touch and out of tune. When the mayor chooses councillors like Denzil Minnan-Wong, Frank Di Giorgio, Cesar Palacio and David Shiner as his allies, you know that maybe, just maybe, he has a little catching up to do.

The election of Justin Trudeau as Canada’s 23rd prime minister doesn’t turn Canada overnight into a global thought-leader, but it certainly marks a return to a level of normalcy not seen in these parts for ages. Perhaps it will take time, but Toronto’s leaders have yet to come in from the cold. Their reliance on tired Tory tropes might be touching if it weren’t so damaging to the city.

While the retro-mayor and his tin-eared minions struggle to justify the absurdity and enormous cost of rebuilding the Gardiner Expressway bigger and better than ever, the only real progress locally comes from the new federal government, which has, among other things, made it clear that Billy Bishop Toronto Island Airport will not be expanded just because it suits Porter Airlines CEO Robert Deluce’s ill-conceived schemes.

While Tory basks in the afterglow of a broken suburban dream, Trudeau has forged a modern urban alliance unafraid to address the mess we have made of Canada and its cities.

The Liberal rallying cry, Change, strikes fear into Conservative hearts across the country. Their failure of imagination has rendered them incapable of seeing beyond the usual. Tory’s unshakable faith in the Gardiner is only one example, but it speaks of a mindset long since carved in stone, one born of fear and denial.

The Toronto the car built is giving way to another city, one that’s dense, highrise and compact. It is a city where bicycles make as much sense as cars, and in which pedestrians are demanding freedom of the streets.

It is no longer a city defined by ease of driving, but quality of life. As Toronto adopts contemporary values, it’s clear the old guard isn’t up to the task.

Stephen Harper was so terrified of the future, he cancelled the longform census, yet another reason why the Tory generation had to make way for the Trudeau generation. Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca