Premier abuses his power to punish former foes

There he goes again, Premier Doug Ford, the human wrecking ball, the Steve Bannon of Ontario, saying all disruption is good, chaos is cleansing, and the rules of democracy are contemptible.

He is slicing city council in half, midelection campaign, to save, he claims, $25 million. His strategy is clear. Long may the Toronto elites wither while sewer pipes collapse and water comes out of the taps red and already coagulating. The only infrastructure we’ll have left is gullies. This is Ford’s mad dream. Blood moon eclipse! Government deconstruction!

Back to the normal world. When Mayor John Tory spoke to media Friday morning, he used words like rules, orderly, proper, legal, discussion, cooperation, consultation, thoughtful, careful, wise, process, hearings, referendum, Fathers of Confederation, legal opinion and fair.

Asked if he was angry, Tory replied, “I try to be a rational person.” By 3 p.m. city planning expert Jennifer Keesmaat had decided to run against him. Election day, Oct. 22, will be fraught. And then came Ford’s brief appearance, in which he rattled off a formless, boneless, campaign-style speech, took five questions, failed to answer them, and had a microphone removed from a reporter. Then he left.

Ford was asked why he had not mentioned his violent municipal plan during his campaign. He wouldn’t answer but said voters always tell him they want smaller government.

And yes, if they want it, they can have it, but not in the middle of an election. It took years of consultation to increase the number of councillors by three, from 44 to 47. It is a shock to see them decreased to 25 without any consultation at all, Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechnya-style.

Ford is playing Monopoly with the city of Toronto, and he owns all the real estate. Voters will have no say. The change will hand more power to the suburban wards as the crowded downtown wards continue to grow.

I understand why 11 suburban councillors support Ford. They’re selfish people who do not understand the concept of principle. If an unprincipled move happens to benefit you, that’s no reason to seize it with both hands.

You walk out, even more so if you find your group contains the infinitely crass Giorgio Mammoliti, a shameful councillor elected only by stellar voter inertia in Ward 7 York West.

Tory accuses Ford of “meddling” in Toronto’s election. Ford didn’t meddle, he took an axe to it. Neither did Putin meddle, he led a digital attack on the 2016 U.S. election on many fronts. Mayors like Tory don’t get irate. I notice that they don’t get their way much either, not in these times.

Worse, it appears that Ford is as personally vindictive as Stephen Harper. He has outmayored Tory, who beat him in the 2014 mayoral race. Cancelling regional elections in Peel hits Patrick Brown, his loathed rival (he has since popped up in Brampton like a whack-amole Patrick), and in York, at former Liberal cabinet minister Steven Del Duca.

All three men crossed Ford at some point in the past, apparently by existing. Ford has the power to punish them. He is now abusing that power and taking vengeance.

Tell me Ford doesn’t have an enemies list. I’m betting it will include Toronto libraries and public parks. I don’t know how he’ll manage it, perhaps with some light arson, and salting the soil of pointless, non-monetized pockets of downtown green.

I was congratulating myself for coping with Trump turning his country into a tire fire. I had said farewell to Britain, which is probably looking forward to returning, postBrexit, to rationing and wearing mud-coloured cardigans and high-waisted pants. Everyone loves the era of their youth the best.

But I did not think the coming Ford-planned demolition of Ontario would include Toronto. I thought he would maybe contract out Kenora and the Ottawa Valley and build a wall around federal Minister of Border Security Bill Blair, who once said he was disappointed in the late mayor Rob Ford for that crack thing.

But now I’m recalling that councillor Doug Ford missed 53 per cent of council votes in 2014. He hates city hall, the people, the building, the stationery. Maybe he thinks Toronto should be provincially owned — it will be “provincialized,” a lower form of nationalization — and unless the tough and very smart Jennifer Keesmaat becomes our next mayor, it may well be.

I was always in contact with my local councillor, the wonderful Mary-Margaret McMahon, the one who ethically stuck to her own term-limit rule. In a huge ward, that will be harder to do. We shall have to mail formal legal letters to the new councillor about raccoons intercoursing in our green bins.

A referendum is a good idea though probably a no-go. If it happens, could we have a vote on recalling Doug Ford? No, the entire Ford family. They’re not good in cities. Like raccoons, they need their own secret separate place.