Our Long Municipal Nightmare Is Over

Of course one's first response must be an overwhelming sense of relief.  The Ford's are gone from power in this town, even though Rob reclaimed his council seat out in Etobicoke.  That's a sideshow. Peak Ford has passed.  Ford Nation is dead.  Even though they turned out in full force for this the Ford's have no true successors in T.O. politics.  Mammoleti is asshole enough, but he's got 0 charisma.  And you can literally smell the crazy on him.  So Ford Nation will  go back to drinking beer and watching football.

But its worth saying something about the campaigns, as they struck me, through this long dismal affair of an election.

I won't spend too much time on DOFO. Probably my biggest impression of him was derived from a couple of days ago,  They were showing one of his events on the tube and I was watching, with sound off, as this woman stood next to a life-side cardboard cutout of Doug Ford while she praised the man himself.  She talked for a good 30 seconds while the cutout smiled menacingly, as the real Doug Ford is wont to do.  And then cardboard cutout blinked, and I realized the it was actually DOFO! That was weird.  People shouldn't be physically  able to stand still for that long at one time, with their teeth fully on display.

As for Olivia.  Poor Olivia.  But wait, you might say, she doesn't need my sympathy!  And you're probably right.  She's loaded, after all.  They even did a movie about her dead hubby. But then why was she playing on my sympathies for the last month of the campaign?  Let's get something clear.  She was the subject of racial attacks throughout this thing and they stunk; they made the whole city look bad.  BUT THEY WERE NOT A REASON TO VOTE FOR HER!  She handled all of this stuff personally with great aplomb, but her campaign seemed to work it into their messaging, and her supporters have been hosting an endless pity party.  But: "Vote For Me I'm A Victim", as a slogan, don't attract flies in this town.  Oh, and along the same lines, why bring up her support for an inquiry for murdered aboriginal women as a reason to support  her as T.O. mayor?  It's a good cause, but I GOT STUCK ON A TTC BUS FOR AN HOUR TODAY, AND SPENT ANOTHER HOUR GROWING OLD IN MY CAR ON DON MILLS ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON!  A DUDE GOT KNIFED UP THE ROAD LAST MONTH IN A FIGHT OVER A LADDER!  AND UPPITY DOWNTOWN RICHY RICH ASSHOLES ARE SCREWING SCARBOROUGH OUTTA ITS RIGHTFUL PARKS & REC MONEY.  AND I'M SUPPOSED TO VOTE OUTTA SOLIDARITY WITH DEAD PEOPLE IN SOME OTHER FUCKING PROVINCE???????  WHAT KIND OF STONED-OUT HIPPYS Chillen'IN THEIR HAMMOCK AND SMOKIN' SPLIFF ON PLANET MORON THOUGHT UP THAT IDEA?  

And there was also the issue of Olivia's inability to communicate.  This charge was usually brought out in reference to her sometimes clunky  English, but I will just note  that her brush will Ramsey Hunt syndrome came at an unfortunate juncture.  She had gotten alot better towards the end of the campaign, but I still think this medical issue might have degraded the quality of some of her off the cuff responses.

As for mayor elect John Tory, the best thing you can say about him is that he is relatively harmless. He will attend gay pride events, as he should.  He won't publicly berate city staff, and when negotiations come up in a year he will probably be looking to extract fewer concessions from his muni workers than a second Ford administration would have.  The thing against QAIA will fade when he realizes that the city's human rights laws depend on the province and he can't do squat unless the province does. Mind you the city might get stuck with another subway that nobody rides, at the cost of billions.  But it can survive that.

Lorrie Goldstein May Be A Kook, But

...he's not necessarily wrong about this:

Chow doesn't want Ford out of the race because that helps John Tory: Chow stops short of calling for Ford to resign http://t.co/o6CXaAJfEL
— Lorrie Goldstein (@sunlorrie) May 1, 2014

You might make a counter-argument that in places like Scarborough, where there are a lot of new Canadians, Chow and ROFO are fishing in the same pond, and these folks might go Olivia's way if he's out of the race.  But I'll bet someone on her campaign team is looking at polls like this and thinking that with ROFO still in they are facing a devil they know, at a chunk of voters who will not redistribute en masse to John Tory.  But if ROFO goes all the dice get thrown anew.

Either way, by October it may be Rob Ford who winds up splitting the right-wing vote.  Who would have thought that?

Life In Scarborough: Olivia Chow On Better Bus Service

Olivia Chow will take downtown, but she has to do OK in the burbs if she wants to win the T.O. mayor's race.  In fact, I would argue that she has to win Scarborough.  And she can  if she plays her cards right.  Her pitch for better bus service is a pretty clever attempt to attract Scarborough votes while estabishing her fiscally conservative credentials at the same time.

The thing with Scarborough is that most of what what passes for the main drags out here (VP, Kennedy, Markham Road)  run North to South, and a huge portion of its sprawls East beyond Kennedy Station, the last subway stop.  So if you are using the TTC, you are mostly going to be using buses.  For example, when I go to work in the morning (around Don Mills and Ellsemere), that's all by bus.  If I go looking for used books on the weekend, that's all by bus.  Kennedy Station is a fifteen minute bus trip away and I don't go into town much anymore,  so practically speaking,  a new subway or an expanded LRT mean nothing to me.  Or, I would wager, for most of the people out here who choose  to use the better way, or do so from financial necessity.  And for us, the reality of the Ford years has been service cuts.  For instance, the 34 Eglinton rush hour bus, which took you all the way from Eglinton Station on the Yonge Line to Kingston Road, was cut this year.  Now you have to change buses at Kennedy Station.  When I called Councillor Crawford's office (a staunch Ford ally), his staff knew nothing, could do nothing, and etc.  Getting that route back would mean more to me and my wife, who will be hobbling around on a gimpy ankle for the next couples of months, than an expanded subway that starts miles away and goes no place we need to get to.  And I would guess this holds true for many Scarborough residents.

I particularly liked Olivia's reference to baby strollers (in her speech but not in the presser).  These are a real issue here in the burbs.   Its always a thing when someone boards a crowded bus pushing one of them.  Because these days they're about the size of an SUV, and if there's more than one, they block the aisle so that passengers pile up in front of them.  You could probably make an argument for banning them as a safety hazard, but of course that in itself would be unfair to the mothers of one (or zero) car families who have no other way of going out shopping.  Olivia Chow gets that.  John Tory, and the other candidates touting big ticket, way down the road projects like a Downtown Relief Line, haven't demonstrated to me that they do.

Another Poll: Chow Ahead

Olivia Chow led the field of mayoral candidates in a poll conducted the day of her official campaign launch event.

Chow had the support of 36 per cent of respondents, incumbent Rob Ford 28 per cent, John Tory 22 per cent. They all held wide leads over Karen Stintz at 5 per cent and David Soknacki at 2 per cent. Seven per cent were undecided.

Of course, as the story notes, this poll ran the day of her launch, so it comes in the midst of a wave of positive publicity.  Also worth commenting upon is how awful things have gone for Karen Stintz, who was willing to put the city 100-mil in the hole to fuel her base mayoral ambitions.  BURN IN HELL EVIL WOMAN!

And Dave Soknacki is holding strong at 2 per cent.

Olivia Chow On Scarborough LRT Vs. Subway

I am happy now.

On radio this morning, Olivia Chow endorsed the cheaper 7-stop Scarborough LRT over the now-approved/funded 3-stop subway and tax hike.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 13, 2014

And here's what a Leger poll back in February revealed about this issue:

An independent survey conducted by Leger found that 61 per cent of voters preferred a seven-stop LRT line over a three-stop subway extension that would lead to a $1-billion tax increase over 30 years. Thirty-nine per cent of those polled preferred a subway.

[...]

The Leger survey found that voters in Scarborough prefer an LRT over a subway for their own part of the city by 56 per cent to 44 per cent.

This latter figure has changed over the past year or two.  That's because, I think, Scarberians thought they were getting their subway for free.  Now it turns out we have to pay more in property taxes for transit most of us will never use.  Scaroborough is a big place.  That subway would serve just a tiny little sliver of it.

Olivia Chow For Mayor

That's a little premature, because I haven't decided 100% yet.  But I can't see who else it could be. Soknaki's stance on the LRT vs. Subway debate is refreshing, and his ad campaign clever, but he has all the charisma of a pair of used gym socks.  Stintz is an evil witch whose policy reversal on that same file cost this town $100 million, and all so she could buy a few votes out here  in Scarborough.  I wouldn't pee on her if her heart was on fire.   John Tory so far comes across as a rich, slightly dotty old fart...the GOP candidate from 1980 something.  And Rob Ford of course is a crackhead who must be stopped.  Thus we arrive at Olivia.   As for policy, I hope she puts forward something concrete on transit.  In particular, I hope she takes up Soknacki's anti-Scarborough-subway stance because, as I've said previously, I think that will prove surprisingly popular now that the price of the Ford/Stintz line has become apparent.  And lets just say it again: the Scarborough subway will be an absolute boondoggle--during off-peak hours, it will be empty cars stopping at a scrap yard and recycling plant before they deliver nobody to Scarborough Town Centert.  I've heard rumors to the effect that Olivia will stress greater federal involvement on this file.  Which is fine, but a little like praying to the corn gods.  They are fickle, and prone to not appearing when you need them most.  So she needs to talk concrete doables.  And finally, for people who are in general tired of arguing transit issues, well it's the biggest chunk of change in the municipal budget.  If you want to be progressive in T.O, you do it by expanding the TTC.  No other policy proposal amounts to a hill of beans in comparison.  So there you have it.  Olivia, probably, or perhaps Norm Gardner.  He called me up and gave me shit once once back in the 1990s (long story), so I still have fond memories. 

On The Idea Of John Tory As Mayor Of Toronto

Apparently, his nascent bid for mayor is "building steam".  Some might note that steam is all you ever get out of the guy, but that would be mean.  And of course there is this from Chris Stockwell, former Ontario minister and House Leader under Mike Harris

@KTBrushett @kinsellawarren Tory is a gentleman & if you are looking for political advice ask him & do exactly the opposite of what he says
— Chris Stockwell (@_cstockwell) November 16, 2013

As for me, there's no way I'll vote for John Tory if RoFo is also running.  We need an anti-Ford candidate that can score enough votes out in the suburbs to put a stake through that fat bastard.  And Olivia Chow looks to be the one.

But if Rob Ford were to go away tomorrow, or any time before next October, what then?  The possibility is not unlikely.   Some Liberals I know will for Chow reluctantly because the specter of a second Ford term gives them the shakes.  But in his absence,  a red Tory, a businessman with a conscience, might seem a compelling option.

And, as an aside, I think Ford Nation is ready to surrender. I'm a Scarborough resident, and I frequent many bars where working men go when they need to chill out after a crack binge.  The mood has changed over the past week or so, from "I don't care, he's my mayor!" to  jokes about cunnilingus.  The guy's a stiff.  But if a 1,000 people run he can still win with 20% of the vote.   So that's how things stand today.

Rob Ford Can't Win

And Olivia Chow beats John "Hamlet On The Don" Tory.  And this is before the campaign starts.  Before RoFo tries to run without any funds but those brought in by bobble-head sales, no Kouvalis to talk sense into him, and reporters following him around to see if they can get a shot of him drinking vodka while peeing on a tree.  Very hard climb.

And as for John Tory, well--story of the guy's life--he hasn't decided yet.   The guy reminds me of Schrödinger's cat.  It's time to be or not to be, John.  Quit fooling around.

Olivia Chow--Gonna Run For T.O. Mayor?

I just got a robo-call from Olivia in her role as MP asking me to tune-in to a live call later this week re public transit.  Since much of the country doesn't have and doesn't give  a crap about public transit, I am assuming it will have something to do with her alleged interest in the 2014 T.O. mayoralty race.  We shall see.

Save Toronto Olivia Chow!

Olivia, or John Tory.  Center-left or center-right. I don't care.

Someone please just send the clown away.

Toronto Star's Layton And Chow Story Truly Seinfeldian

...in that its about nothing. Probably the silliest part of it is how hard author Richard J. Brennan tries to crank this into a scandal. Oh my! The NDP party leader spends more than your typical MP on travel! And...a $2,000 per month Ottawa condo-apartment? The horrors! They should be staying at the Y!!!

PS. $2,000 per month gets you a below average 2-bedroom in the old City of T.O. (See the Central districts)

Olivia Chow Threatened

...for handing out fliers at a Toronto town hall copyright forum. The forum, part of the federal government's consultation process as it prepares new copyright legislation, was meant to facilitate discussion of issues surrounding this legislation from the various stake-holders. The fliers contained an interview with NDP MP Charlie Angus in which he called for "balanced" copyright legislation, but when Ms. Chow attempted to distribute this material, private security personnel hired by the event organizers--who appear to have been entertainment industry shills-- told her to lay off or be removed from the hotel at which the consultation was being held.

Members of the Canadian Federation of Students were also set upon for distributing similar material. Their news release re the incident can be found here.