Rosie DiManno
An undemocratic decree, but Toronto council should have seen this coming,
Well, this is gonzo. Agreeing with Doug Ford.
Let me just check the frequencies on my tinfoil hat, which otherwise filters out political argy-bargy.
Our neophyte premier hurled a grenade into municipal governance on Friday by confirming what the Star’s Robert Benzie had exclusively broken the night before, triggering a frantic media scramble to catch up.
Ford is sawing Toronto city council roughly in half and it doesn’t look like there’s a damn thing they can do about it, though doubtless legal challenges are being cooked up right now. The big KABOOM sent bodies scattering in the council rotunda, where your elected officials had until 7:30 p.m. to finish taking care of agenda business in their final conclave before the October election.
Naturally, it took some 40 minutes for municipal mooks to palaver aloud about whether to move a suddenly urgent matter to the top of the agenda or go ahead with the nuts and bolts items on the schedule. The up-go faction was defeated. Cue the hysteria. A chilling assault on democracy, fulminated NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.
“This is a Trump Toronto act,” blustered Councillor Paula Fletcher. “We are being singled out, only the city of Toronto. Alt-facts, alt-news.”
Meddle meddle meddle, harrumphed Mayor John Tory, whilst calling for a referendum on the issue, although the deadline for putting a referendum question on the municipal ballot has already passed.
Secede Now! social media thundered, which would make Toronto the fifth largest province/territory in Canada by population.
Jackboot premier, motivated purely by a lust for revenge against political rivals and enemies, settling past political scores from his own footnote as a one-term councillor and metaphorically joining hands with a brother reaching out from the grave.
Meanwhile, down in the queue as the deadline for registering a mayoralty bid ticked toward 2 p.m., former chief city planner Jennifer Keesmaat — she gave us a hodgepodge of bicycle lanes in an illogical gerrymandering of Toronto into Amsterdam and the silent urban canyon of streetcar-only King St. from Bathurst to Jarvis — clutched her purse (clutched her pearls, metaphorically), providing her first sound-bite as progressive alternative candidate to Tory.
And Patrick Brown, who would probably be premier today had he not been hit over the head with a scandal mallet, did a quick pivot from running for Peel chair — regional elections simultaneously ditched by Ford — to running for mayor of Brampton.
Whew. The news flashes were coming: Fast & Furious in the 6ix.
I’m no fan of Ford and his wacko clan. He’s a political thug, which is apparently what a majority of Ontarians wanted went they went to the polls on June 7 — or at least they weren’t sufficiently put off by his bully-bastard character to veer around the Tories, such was the disdain for Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals and fundamental distrust of shuffle-tothe-left NDP.
Ford’s out-of-nowhere shocker — he never campaigned on slashing bloated Toronto council — is clearly intrusion by fiat, cutting to the quick. Undemocratic, an up-yours to the city, especially the “downtown elite” he despises. Unless you consider rule-by-one democratic.
But man oh man, council had it coming. And Ford wasn’t far wrong when he slammed Toronto council as “the most dysfunctional political arena in the country.”
Forty-four councillors — which would have been expanded to 47 for the upcoming election — is unwieldy and unnecessary, a mosh pit of screechy voices since amalgamation in the ’90s, subsequent ward boundary redistribution and court decisions upholding the prioritizing of representation to balance out voter parity. A 2016 consultant report that recommended the 47-member option claimed voter parity would be reached by the 2026 election, when Toronto is expected to reach a population of 3.2 million from its current 2.8 million.
More people equals more politicians, as per that reasoning.
Except more politicians at city hall has equalled flatulent gridlock and endless political bloc manipulation, with the city’s business inching forward at a snail’s pace, left versus right versus centrist, while the city has not been able to make much progress on such pressing civic issues as public transit and burgeoning violent crime…
More politicians also equals more bureaucracy, more babble, more scolding to sit down/ shut up from the council speaker, which has been on eye-rolling view his past week as Frances Nunziata struggled to sheepdog members into procedural heel.
New York City, with a population of more than 8.5 million, functions just fine with 51 council members across five boroughs. Los Angeles has a municipal council of 15. Miami has six elected commissioners.
Of course it’s naked politicking on Ford’s part. That makes him no different from any other pol. And no politician will get an earful of grump by advocating for fewer pols on the public teat: 25 in a shrink-wrapped Toronto council, aligned with federal ridings, for a cost saving of about $9 million in salaries, offices and staffing budgets. The $25 million Ford had bruited about apparently refers to savings over four years.
Ford played his for-the-people tune when asked about a unilateral decision that wasn’t part of his campaign platform and minus any public consultation. “Very clearly I did.” Very clearly he didn’t. “I was very clear when I said, ‘We’re going to reduce the size and cost of government.’ I was down at city hall for four years. I was there when we would take 10 hours to make a decision and then find out everyone voted together after 10 hours.”
I don’t even know what that means.
“I consulted thousands of people right across this city and every person I talked to said, ‘You have to reduce the size of government.’ Nothing is getting done. Transit has not been built in 12 years. Under David Miller, never got built. Under Rob Ford, wasn’t able to be built because it was hijacked by too many councillors. Under John Tory, nothing has been built on transit. A shovel hasn’t been in the ground.
“We have to get the city moving. That’s what people are frustrated about.”
Ford and Tory had discussed this — behind closed doors, to nobody else’s knowledge. And obviously without two minds meeting or Tory wouldn’t be so ticked off. The taken-aback part, not so credible. Nor is that referendum the mayor floated yesterday.
It beggars belief that Tory was unaware time has run out to legally put a plebiscite question to voters on Oct. 22. This smells of deal-making: Tory appearing to oppose Ford, for public consumption, while actually benefiting from stronger mayor powers that would accrue to him with a smaller council depleted of loudmouth downtown voices.
The last time a referendum question was put on the ballot municipally was in 1997, over amalgamation. Three-quarters of voters rejected it, but thenpremier Mike Harris plowed on anyway, forcing a megacity upon us. There was also a wet/dry question specifically for the peculiarly dry Junction in that election, won by the wets in a narrow margin.
The pretend referendum is a Hail Mary. I doubt, if held, any prayers would be answered.
We now return to our regularly scheduled program of dumping on DoFo.