Municipal Politics – Page 23

Looking for Mr. Mayor for Toronto.

January 9, 2014 by Peter Lowry

In the 1977 Richard Brooks movie Looking for Mr. Goodbar, the character played by Diane Keaton might as well have been looking for a mayoralty candidate as for someone to share her bed. Either way, it seems to be a self-destructive quest. In looking for a mayor for the city of Toronto, people are spending more time on resurrecting past fantasies than dealing with the hard reality of what the city needs.

Frankly, as presently structured, Toronto needs a referee not a mayor. The current and future city council are a ragtag group of misfits that no degree of leadership is able to handle. There is simply no common ground between the mainly downtown left-wing and the suburban right. And nobody is about to listen to any rhetoric about the common good.

Nothing points the problems out better than the second generation taking over wards. If your name is Layton or Vaughan for example, you get to carry on regardless. The very thought of Olivia Chow running for the mayor’s job makes you alternate between severe laughing jags and bouts of tears and hysteria.

Olivia Chow is no Jack Layton. Anyone who thinks Chow has something to contribute to city council should check her record as a former alderman and then try to figure out what is about to change.

Karen Stintz is a North Toronto Conservative who, at least, has the common sense to realize that the eventual solution in Toronto is to have political parties run in the wards and the winning party can then appoint its mayor. Her only serious drawback at the moment is the mess the Toronto Transit Commission is in after her chairmanship.

And Stintz hardly gives a leg up to her fellow Conservative John Tory. You can just visualize him standing at his bathroom mirror in the morning, adjusting his toupee and saying, “Do I really want to get involved in that B.S?”

And then you consider “Mr. Goodbar.” That role is being overplayed by the home-loving, Conservative mayor who has made Toronto famous for all the wrong things. Under the sage political management of his stalwart brother, Doug, Rob Ford is allowing the citizens of Toronto to give him what he calls “Ford more years.”

If you enjoyed the original movie, you will be on the edge of your seat on election day, October 27.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Mastering the mayoral marathon.

January 3, 2014 by Peter Lowry

The most daunting marathon in the New Year is the long-running campaigns for mayors and other municipal candidates in Ontario cities. Technically, your campaign cannot start before registration, which opened January 2. It ends on election day, October 27. There are those such as Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford who are always campaigning anyway and registered early. Others can register as late as September and still be there to lose in October. It is just a question of strategy.

(And, an aside for political neophytes, do not get your strategy mixed up with tactics. Tactics are what you use to carry out your strategy. Let us just talk strategy here as tactics in politics are endless.)

It is extremely important to remember that you cannot accept or spend any campaign money until you have registered to be a candidate. And if you really do not know how anybody would find out or care, what do you think your opponents are watching for?

Both winners and losers are among the early birds in registering. There are the candidates who think they can scare off opposition by marking their turf early. There is also the relatively unknown candidate who only has until October to become a household word. Every day that you waste between now and election day is a day you cannot get back. Holidays are for losers.

And January, February and March are not months to be wasted. This is the time you will be organizing and training the troops who are going to assist you. Official agents, fund raisers, campaign managers and foot soldiers are to be recruited, your finance team has to be in place and working, your ground game has to be planned and scheduled, literature has to be developed and distribution decided, signs and social networks have to be designed and art work prepared, coffee parties and speaking venues have to be in the works and there is critical effort on headquarters and major sign locations.

And if you are not known, you have to get out there, make noise and get known. There are thousands of tactics for that.

By April, you need to be having a relationship with your voters. The next seven months is the time to meet and greet and listen to them. They will remember better what they told you than you told them. It hardly pays you to be flapping your mouth at them when they are very likely to tell you why they should elect you. That is what you need to play back to them in the final two months.

That is the real election in September and October. Now you are going to have signs and serious literature and all candidate meetings. And if you are running for mayor, you have to be meeting your voters from when the plant gates open in the morning until homeowners complain about you waking them up at night. Nobody can promise you it will be easy.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Some political thoughts on 2014

January 1, 2014 by Peter Lowry

You don’t need a crystal ball to guess,

That 2014’s gonna be a political mess.

Those city, province, federal hopefuls,

Will make promises by the bucketfuls.

Years of campaigns don’t reveal it all,

You never know who will win or fall.

Nor do we come last amongst fallible.

Pollsters we find are far more gullible.

There’s an election coming in Ontario,

Watch for Horwath trying for her solo.

Quebec’s Marois will be beating pans,

For votes by bigots and péquistes fans.

Ontario cities get their votes in the fall,

Dogooders wait so eagerly for the call.

Also mayors like Toronto’s Rob Ford,

He’s more than a city’s rep can afford.

It’s gonna be a fun year to write about,

Commentary is not for those in doubt.

If it sounds sometimes like we’re mad,

Cus’ nobody cares what makes us glad.

——————-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Should auld acquaintances be forgot?

December 30, 2013 by Peter Lowry

This is a look at political baggage Canadians are dragging into the New Year. And none is more fascinating than Nigel Wright. The former chief of staff to the prime minister has been keeping his own counsel long enough. Is there a six figure book deal in the offing? Could there be vindication for Stephen Harper? Was the prime minister really clueless about the deal Wright cut for poor Senator Duffy? We need Nigel’s testimony (under oath) to hopefully clear the air.

And then there is that gross friend of the prime minister and finance minister who is now one of the two mayors of Toronto. Nobody cares how really, really, really sorry he is that he smoked crack but he should wash out his mouth with laundry soap. That crude, calamitous creature is going to run for mayor again in 2014 and his opponents need to rethink their strategies. No likely winning candidate has come forward yet and if all the possibilities get into the race, Mr. Ford has a cakewalk.

One of Mayor Ford’s federal critics is also someone to watch in 2014. Having seen many pretenders over the years worry the edges of an incumbent’s patience, it looks like Employment Minister Jason Kenney is going to continue to rag Stephen Harper. While Kenney shares the honours with Foreign Minister John Baird as the Bobbsey Twins of the Conservative government, he is the least appealing as a prime ministerial pretender.

Kenney is on the extreme of the religious ideologues in the Conservative party and no Canadian woman who values her freedom and rights would want Kenney turned loose as prime minister. He is also abrasive. He has failed at getting cooperation from the provinces on the Conservative cornerstone job grant program and he was hardly subtle in dumping on the Premiers’ suggestions on the Canada Pension Plan.

The only question in doubt about Prime Minister Stephen Harper is the exact size of that hairpiece. Only Harper and his hairdresser know for sure.

Premiers to watch in 2014 are Christy Clark in B.C. and Pauline Marois in Quebec. Christy Clark has already been bought on the Northern Gateway pipeline and will be hung in effigy along with Stephen Harper by environmentalists. Pauline Marois is trying to prove that bigotry works and there is an ugly election looming in Quebec.

We would mention Kathleen Wynne in Ontario but it looks like she will be history after an Ontario election in 2014. There is no way she can win a majority. Mind you, there was a real glimmer of hope for Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa when he roared back at the Fed’s Jim Flaherty recently. He needs a budget that will dumbfound everyone to save himself if not his premier. We will give him a good price if he asks this writer to pen it for him.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

No wipes please, these asses are Canadian.

December 6, 2013 by Peter Lowry

When does a biodegradable product not degrade? It seems that when the product crosses a border there are different levels of biodegradable. And it is causing trouble. It seems that the new wipes designed to replace toilet paper from companies such as Kimberly-Clark and SC Johnson are promoted as being biodegradable. Now it seems there is a rising chorus of municipal waste water plants that say “Not so!” This is causing concerns.

We Canadians have come a long way since we used to use dried corn cobs, Eaton’s catalogue pages or handy icicles in winter to finish the job out in the out house. We were just kids when mother first found out about flush toilets and paper actually designed to be flushed down the toilet. It was a big day. Mother explained that for safety sake, we should always use at least two layers to prevent the embarrassment of our fingers going through the paper while wiping.

When the idea of baby wipes was introduced, most new parents knew that the wipes went in the garbage and not the toilet. The roto-rooter experience easily convinced many parents that cloth diapers definitely did not go into the toilet.

But it hardly answers the problem of the wet wipes. While not subjecting these innocent looking wipes to analysis or serious microscopic attention, they appear to be polymer rather than paper. That would seem to be the reason that they can stay wet in the box as it sits on a store shelf. It can still be biodegradable—just not as fast as cellular paper.

Paper fibres are actually good for water treatment plants because the fibres degrade quickly and assist in the production of methane. The methane produced from sewage enables the plant to produce electricity and heat used in the treatment process. Polymer wipes would act like plastic bags from the grocery store. If you put grocery store bags in your garden compost, they would probably still promote Loblaw a year later.

The conundrum for the wipes manufacturers is that if the wipes are to stay wet in the box, they are obviously not able to biodegrade overnight. You have to use the garbage for them, not the toilet.

And if you are wondering why a political commentator would get off on this subject, you just need to understand how people feel about Canadian politics these days.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Bye Mr. Ford. See you in the funny papers.

November 23, 2013 by Peter Lowry

There is an unsavoury anger in Toronto these days. It is directed at Mayor Rob Ford. It has to do with the fact that the city appears to be stuck with that guy until the municipal election planned for October next year. He has dragged the city through the muck of world-wide derision. It has caused an anger that might only be alleviated by the police gathering enough evidence to arrest him. And few believe that is going to happen.

But this anger people are expressing is serious. It has to have an outlet. It can drive wedges between families and friends as people take sides. Yes, there are still people who think Ford makes a good mayor. They seem to be simple folk but they can be vocal. They seem to represent a selfish and mean-spirited underbelly of the city. This is not the metropolis in which most of us believe.

Toronto is no small-potatoes backwater. It is no longer hog butcher to the nation. It is a thriving city that is the financial and business headquarters of Canada. It is a cosmopolitan centre that attracts émigrés from around the world. It speaks the manifold languages of factors, faculties, fashion, finance, film, food and fame. It is a centre of liberalism in culture, the arts, in life style, in tolerance and in politics.

It grates on Torontonians to be the butt of jibes by late night entertainers. We are appalled by the innocent questions of contacts in other parts of the world. Why are these troubles the source of questions from afar? How can this gross individual, with his rudeness and vulgarity wear the chain of office of mayor of the city? How can he represent the caring, the diverse, the liberals, the devout and intelligenstia of Toronto?

Toronto is home to two illustrious universities, a prestigious art gallery and a world-renowned museum, a thriving theatre district, world famous hospitals—and to Ford Nation. In our openness and acceptance, we let anybody in.

But even in our pit of despair the pendulum still swings. The laws of physics say that an equal and opposite reaction is possible. The concern is that the Ford debacle does not result in a victory for the downtown left wing of the city council. There is no leadership there. And without fresh, forward looking leadership in Toronto, the city will gridlock into an unmanageable quagmire of old and broken infrastructure. The city will no longer be capable of repairing and renewing itself. And we will deserve the depths of degradation to which Rob Ford has delivered us.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Rob Ford’s evil twin Stephen Harper.

November 21, 2013 by Peter Lowry

It seems appropriate. While the Toronto Police are sniffing around Mayor Rob Ford’s purported dealings with crack houses and drug dealers, the RCM Police are sniffing around Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s dealings with the Senate and expense account fiddlers. Are they not all the same?

Do Canadians have one law for mayors and another law for prime ministers? How many times have we heard that Conrad Black would never have gone to jail in Canada? Does anyone protect the shareholder in this country? Does anyone protect the consumer in this country? Canadians want to know.

We know that nobody protects the poor voter.

And is there even a possible court case against Mayor Ford? The man can say he tried crack cocaine but unless the police have more than his claim, they can hardly charge him with anything more than braggadocio. There is no law against being a buffoon. If we could charge people for lying to us, the Conservative’s jails would be overflowing with politicians. Rob Ford got to be Mayor of Toronto by promising to put an end to the “gravy train” and he ended up wrecking his own choo-choo.

But is Stephen Harper any different? This man, who started as an acolyte of Preston Manning, schemed and worked behind the scenes to rest the Reform movement from him. He then (after the Alliance debacle) absorbed a moribund Conservative Party and made it his. Sure he is smarter than Rob Ford. There must be millions of people smarter than Rob Ford. Do our federal police give dispensation points for IQ?

Anyone who saw the 2008 English-language debate of the party leaders knows that Stephen Harper can lie with an absolutely straight face. Elizabeth May of the Greens was the only leader in that debate that would acknowledge the economic troubles the world was facing. The absolutely flat look on Stephen Harper’s face has become his standard stance for any problem he faces as Prime Minister.

Will he skate on the RCM Police investigation? Can he? Here we have a micro-management freak who claims to have no idea what the underling in the next office was doing. Do you believe that? Do you believe anything Stephen Harper says? If you do, you must also believe that nice Rob Ford.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Rob Ford, Civic Commando?

November 20, 2013 by Peter Lowry

The Rob Ford mayoralty situation in Toronto is just like trying to get rid of a Condo Commando. These are tenacious troublemakers for condominium boards. They are the bane of property managers and boards because they use the Ontario Condominium Act to terrorize the condo to get their way. Whether they are right or wrong is irrelevant as little else gets done while the war continues. Rob Ford is just like a condo commando on a much larger scale and even more difficult to control.

And the fault for both situations can be laid with the Ontario government. The laws governing the Corporation of the City of Toronto are cluttered, confusing, contradictory, and created by and for lawyers. They enrich the legal profession and beggar the rest of us. And if Rob Ford takes the city council to court, he just might be a bigger fool than we thought. It is a conflict that nobody can win.

The same Ontario Legislature wrote the Ontario Condominium Act. If people in Ontario had to pass an examination on the Condominium Act before they were allowed to buy a condominium apartment or town house, there would be very few condominium homes in this province.

And it never has been who is right or wrong. City Council in Toronto has just trampled over the power of the mayor. They have created a precedent that can now be used by any council against any mayor in the province. It is a threat. It crushes what little authority mayors previously had. They never really had much other than what custom allowed. Now they can be second-guessed at any time.

The province will have more and more civic conflicts. The Legislature will have to take the blame for more and more conflicted councils. And when the councils become conflicted, the civil servants will play. It all becomes an anti-democratic shambles.

The province has a responsibility to fix this. In the same way that it is looking at fixing the Condominium Act, it needs to look at how municipalities are supposed to function as opposed to how they really function—or not.

And in a city the size of Toronto, the citizens have to have responsible government. The city’s governance can no longer be left to a haphazard resemblance of democratic action. The people elected by citizens of the city must choose their own mayor. It must be a fellow councillor who can garner the most support. Sure it can cause party politics. It will enable the voters to know what they are voting for. It will create stability. It could even be honest government.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

What is Wynne running from?

November 18, 2013 by Peter Lowry

There is a television advertisement running these days of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne running. It should have a warning on it to tell kids not to try this at home. Maybe the Premier can close county roads for her run to be recorded. Try running like that in the city and you would have imprints on your ass of automobile grills. She is not even running in the correct lane, against the traffic.

In the voice-over dialogue, she is not the slightest bit winded. She tells us she loves running. Maybe she should prove that and run for election. Waiting for next spring and to have an election when her government’s budget is defeated is a cheap political evasion.

And do you not love how she evades problems?

Wynne lives in Toronto and obviously does not understand the city. She tells us she got into politics because she did not agree when former Premier Mike Harris and his government amalgamated Toronto into a single city. He took a city that was not working and made it worse. And Kathleen Wynne disagreed with Harris’ part solution. What she had was no solution. And she has none now.

It was 40 years ago that we fought tooth and nail to bring party politics to Toronto. It was so damn obvious then what would happen—and by God, has it ever happened. We foolish young politicos at that time wanted a mayor who was responsible to the majority of councillors. That is what is called responsible government. What we have now—thanks to many years of myopic politicians at Queen’s Park—is irresponsible government. Nobody wants to admit the solution to the problem is to have the candidates for mayor run as councillors and then let the elected councillors pick their mayor. That causes party politics.

The solution has been there all along and Kathleen Wynne cannot run from it. If the Ontario Government would just once live up to its responsibilities, the province would have stepped in a long time ago. Toronto has become ungovernable. Council has been a constant contest between the inner city and the suburbs since Mike Harris left it in the present mess. A council that constantly wrangles about priorities cannot function. A council that hates its leadership is self destructive.

But Premier Kathleen Wynne says she does not know what to do. Opposition Leader and Conservative Leader Tim Hudak does not have a clue what to do. New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath does not seem to have a clue about anything.

Run Kathleen, run. You can run but you cannot run away from it.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Rob Ford needs his fishing buddy Stephen Harper.

November 15, 2013 by Peter Lowry

There is no better form of bonding between men than fishing. It is a quiet introspective time that you share with a true buddy. And what better buddies could there be than Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Toronto Mayor Rob Ford?

There are not many people who have been invited to the Prime Minister’s private Harrington Lake in the past few years. To drop a line in these waters puts you in the company of elites. It is a company of world leaders, great thinkers, of political power brokers and people who understand the pressures of leadership.

And you do not even have to eat what you catch. Mayor Ford admits that he does not really like to eat fish. He is strictly a sport fisherman and likes to stand and cast for bass.

The Prime Minister is more the type of fisherman who drops his line in the water and waits patiently for the fish to come to him. This tells you much about the two men.

They are unusual buddies. After all, how many buddies do you have who will kick in some $660 million to help you build a subway—after you have rejected an offer of $1.4 billion in funding from the Province of Ontario. It is one of those political games that can cause you to wonder if any of the principals knows what they are doing.

Both of these men are proud to be Conservatives. Along with Timmy Hudak, leader of the Ontario Conservatives, they make an interesting trio. Mind you, it is unlikely that Timmy Hudak has ever been invited to Harrington Lake.

Regrettably none of Stephen Harper’s more hooded personality has ever rubbed off on Rob Ford. You can just imagine the Prime Minister trying to explain political strategy to someone such as Rob Ford. Rob is hardly the type to understand caution, restraint, planning or scheming.

It is even more interesting to try to think of the lessons, Stephen Harper can learn from Rob Ford. And after thinking about it for a while and nothing comes to mind, it can make your head hurt.

It is really too bad that Harrington Lake will be freezing over soon. Rob Ford desperately needs to get away and gets his act together. And he needs the advice of his fishing buddy.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]