Category: Municipal Politics

Ford’s Advice from Afar.

by Peter Lowry

Ontario premier Doug Ford needs to stop taking advice from his dead brother. We hear that he is thinking of giving the mayors of Ottawa and Toronto powers similar to those of the U.S. ‘strong mayors.’ Ford seems to get all of his ideas from séances.

The older brother, Doug Ford served as a city councillor in the four years that his younger brother Rob was mayor of Toronto. With the younger brother’s use of crack cocaine and then falling ill with the cancer, that ultimately killed him, it was a turbulent time in Toronto City Hall.

It was assumed to be ‘get even’ time when the elder Ford became premier and one of his first acts was to cut the number of Toronto councillors from 47 to 25. This was despite the fact that the election was already underway.

Doug Ford, coincidently, was based in Chicago for his father’s label printing company during part of the reign of Richard M. Daley as Chicago’s super mayor. Ford never got the label business off the ground in Chicago but he should have understood why the Ontario approach to mayoralty is more challenging than the American system.

I have never known a mayor in Ontario who did not complain at one time or other that they only have one vote on council. What you need as mayor is something most good mayors—such as Toronto’s John Tory has—panache.

As chief magistrate of their community, our mayors are well-paid greeters and honours dispensers. The smarter mayors use their appointment privileges to strengthen their clique and to get objectives through the council agenda. The lazy ones leave the heavy lifting to the city clerk and often have to settle for a single term.

The most annoying problem that our mayors face is that they have to go ‘hat in hand’ to the senior levels of government to get the money required for large expenses such as subways and other high debt load projects.

Toronto is one of the five major cities in Canada recognized as a Charter City. That means it gets additional funding sources in addition to property taxes. Yet, as is always the case: The more you give them, the more they want.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Brampton Brown Bifurcates.

by Peter Lowry

It is amazing how Patrick Brown always seems to find the fork in the road of least resistance. For someone who has never held a real job, it seems he can always weasel his way out of one mess and get into another. His only problem seems to be, whenever he gets where he is going, he does nothing.

It was seven years ago, that Brown went from being the apparent do-nothing member of parliament for Barrie to leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative party. There are various versions of what went wrong there. Needless to say, he was soon applying for the regional chair position in Peel Region. When Doug Ford arbitrarily cancelled that position, Patrick took the fork in the road to the mayor’s role in Brampton. It took some promises but with the aid of the South Asia diaspora in Brampton, the MP, come party leader, became mayor of Brampton.

I have been meaning to stop by some of Brampton’s parks to see how the big change is coming. Patrick promised members of the South Asia diaspora in Brampton that he would turn some of Brampton’s lovely parks into cricket pitches. South Asians dearly love their cricket games.

If there is one thing that Patrick knows, it is politics. He made quite a show of announcing that he was quitting the conservative leadership race (since he was already kicked out). That was a carefully chosen crowd that he had assembled—probably from lists of people who wanted something from the city. They all seemed pleased that he was running for mayor again.

And he even brought along his kids because they are at the cute stage. After all, who would want a picture of Patrick.

If there is any progressive running who thinks he or she can beat Brown, I would be pleased to come down to Brampton for a day and discuss how he can be beaten. Mind you, the gas is on you. Just once, I would like to see Patrick have to get a real job.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Ford is No Tory.

by Peter Lowry

There seems to be no doubt at all that Torontonians are very pleased that Doug Ford did not defeat John Tory for mayor of Toronto eight years ago. Four years ago, the city was collectively pleased to re-elect John Tory as mayor. In fact, he won in every one of the city’s 25 wards. I am sure that most voters are pleased to see that he has agreed to run for re-election this year.

I mention this by way of suggesting that Doug Ford is no John Tory. Ford is also not even a progressive conservative. He might call himself a conservative but he sure seems unfamiliar with that brand of politician. He seems more like Donald Trump, who did little to enhance America’s reputation when he spent four years as president of that country.

Some reporters refer to Mr. Ford as a populist. Populism, as a political theory, is based on separating the political parties’ political ends from the will of the people. The closest we have seen to populism in Canada was the foolish attempt earlier this year of a bunch of truckers to disrupt and replace our current federal government.

If anything, Mr. Ford has shown disturbing signs of megalomania. This is a person obsessed with power and wealth and who likes to promote grand schemes. Practically on day-one of becoming premier in Ontario, he stopped the election of an enlarged Toronto city council. He was getting even with some of the enemies he made during his days on city council.

Doug Ford did not get his political training from his father. His father was a conservative who served one term at Queen’s Park on the back benches of the Mike Harris government.

Doug Ford Junior got his training from his younger brother Rob. Rob spent 10 years as councillor for Ward 2 in Etobicoke. When he ran for mayor in 2010, he asked his older brother Doug to run for his council seat. They both won and that was the beginning of Ford Nation—in their mother’s backyard. The younger brother’s penchant for crack cocaine made for an interesting term as mayor. He died of cancer before Doug Ford ran for mayor of Toronto and lost to John Tory.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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What’s in a Name?

by Peter Lowry

When you live in a large city, you find naming streets and places more difficult as time goes on. Proposed names have to be researched. Maybe not to the extent that the Roman church checks out its saints but you have to be wary of later embarrassments.

But I am sure many of us are sick and tired of this constant witch hunt for people in the past who might have made a mistake in judgement. I think this particularly relates to heroes such as Egerton Ryerson (1803 to 1882) and Sir John A. Macdonald (1815 to 1891).

I think those people running Ryerson University failing to charge the nincompoops who tore down Ryerson’s statue did far worse than anything Ryerson did in his lifetime. Defacing that statue was a criminal offense. Ryerson did a lot of good in his lifetime. He created Ontario’s public school system. He also helped design the residential school system and Sir John A. Macdonald signed off on it. And ‘Metropolitan Toronto University’ is a stupid name. I will just continue calling it ‘Ryerson.’

John A. and old Egerton did what they thought was a good thing at the time. They might not have been aware of a weakness among the Roman church’s celibate clerics. They failed to recognize the harm they were doing in separating the children from their parents and they failed to protect the children from their minders.

And it is hardly the worst mistake in Sir John A. Macdonald’s lifetime. He was not only a drunkard; he was also a conservative. Yet, he contributed a great deal to the founding of this country and deserves our respect for that.

But we need to do something about this naming problem. Maybe we would be better off if we just numbered streets and avenues. And you should only sell naming rights once. I miss a place called SkyDome in Toronto. The same for the O’Keefe Centre.

I remember one time when our council member in North York was telling us that a nearby nature walk was to be named after his mother. I told him that it would be wrong because she was still alive. He was even more annoyed with me when I said she still had time to rob a bank.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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Toronto: Tory’s Town.

by Peter Lowry

Toronto Mayor John Tory has been the perfect mayor for Toronto during the pandemic. No doubt many Torontonians were pleased to hear that he will stand for re-election this fall. John can certainly get the city on the right track for progress over the next four years.

It really means little that John is a conservative. His instincts are those of the late Bill Davis. Bill Davis’ legend was decency. And you can’t beat that at any level of political endeavour.

John found his niche when he entered the mayoralty race eight years ago. He has shown what a good mayor should be. He has been there for city council and for the citizens. Initially, he went up against Doug Ford, who was standing in for an ill brother Rob, and Olivia Chow, widow of the late NDP leader Jack Layton. It was soon obvious that he was by far the leader in the race.

He had tried provincial politics first. It was just poor timing. No conservative was going to follow in the footsteps of the disavowed premier Mike Harris. His adventures at Queen’s Park were not encouraging.

Yet in Toronto, as incumbent in the 2018 civic election, Mayor Tory won 64.49 per cent of the vote. He proved that planning was not all that important for ‘pie-in-the-sky’ parks over rail lines and future transit solutions.

Tory proved that it is being there that works. It was almost as though there was a batman signal that went up every time a crowd gathered and the Batmobile arrived with the mayor. Whether it was down the Danforth, on upper Yonge Street, or Dundas Square, John Tory was there.

Even in a pandemic, John Tory led the public to the inoculation sites, encouraged everyone to get their shots. In a city of 2.8 million, he set a record in vaccinations.

I think there was a collective groan from the left-wing of city politics in Toronto when John Tory made his intentions clear. Toronto is John Tory’s town and don’t you forget it.

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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry

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The Last Christmas Card.

by Peter Lowry

The wife and I were surprised and pleased by the number of season’s greetings we received this December. This damn Covid-19 is not wiping out our entire generation. What we expect to be the last card for this year arrived while we were having breakfast on December 30. (Yes, we get mail delivery to our door.) As the crow flies, the distance that card travelled would be measured in metres. We live just a couple blocks from Barrie city hall and this card was from the Barrie mayor.

It was appropriate, as at the time, we were discussing the political prospects for Mayor Tory of Toronto. We agreed that John Tory had done a fine job for Toronto and merited a third four-year term. Despite Mayor Tory being a conservative, I think he is the first mayor of the amalgamated city of 6.8 million, who really understands the city and the kind of mayor it needs.

John Tory has been a voice of compassion and reason throughout the last two years. He has been everywhere in the city and has helped it handle the problems of close living during a pandemic.

And I wish I could say that for the mayor of Barrie. It is typical of Mayor Lehman in Barrie (a city of 156,000) that his Christmas card would arrive six days after Christmas. And despite living so close to city hall, the last time I think I talked to the mayor was four years ago when he had no trouble running for a third term. I did hear him on a local radio station recently about some problem with the pandemic but his voice was so muffled, the station should have been embarrassed by the sound quality.

And Jeff Lehman is a liberal. At least, he was when I helped him win the mayoralty 11 years ago. He was the ideal candidate. He drove at door-knocking like an old-time Fuller Brush man. He was tireless.

If only he had brought that same level of energy to the mayor’s job, there is no telling how far this city would have come through his three terms. He can blame it on the majority of conservative party adherents on council if he wishes, but as John Tory has proved in Toronto, leadership matters.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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There’s got to be a pony.

by Peter Lowry

Here it is Christmas Day and I am still looking for a pony in all the piles of political poop we have endured in 2021. Maybe it has been a year when people who insist on writing about things political need to get a life.

I would be smart to use the wife’s approach to news. We always watch the evening TV news together. The wife starts out by commenting on the fashion sense of the newscasters. Before we have heard the latest Covid statistics, she is criticizing the men’s ties or the suit jackets they might have slept in. And the blouses and dresses on the women can be criticized or complimented, depending on her mood.

And if you think she is a distraction from the TV, you should see what happens when she gets the newspaper ahead of me. What I get, along with my morning coffee, is an annotated newspaper with penned question marks and underlining of editing errors or things confusing.

But we are having a slight disagreement on what to do about the Toronto Star. The Star is, once again, raising the price for home delivery out here in the boonies, and delivering less. The new publishers are getting fewer writers to pump out more words but I have seen small town weeklies that give you more news. We are thinking that we could get a larger breakfast table and each have our own i-pad with the Internet newspaper of our choice. I cannot decide between the Economist and the New York Times. The wife is threatening to switch to the electronic version of the Toronto Sun. We might have to compromise.

She is probably expecting something exciting for a major anniversary next year. When that event arrives, we will be in the thick of a provincial election. That is something to look forward to.

My main hope for next year is that this pandemic will be over and we can start to live a normal life again. And that would certainly contribute much to a Happy New Year.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Brampton Brown Battles Bigotry.

by Peter Lowry

We just heard that Brampton mayor Patrick Brown has waded into the war with Quebec over their Law 21. That is the law that the provincial bigots in the Quebec City assembly passed against the wearing of religious symbols. Brown’s remarks are part of the mounting effort to force federal politicians to oppose the Quebec law in the courts.

Brampton Brown, who used to be Barrie Brown, has stuck his oar into the controversy probably to test his potential comeback to the federal political scene. At the very least, he is shoring up his hold on his present job in Brampton with its large number of immigrants from the Indian sub-continent. With the World Sikh Organization, one of the parties fighting the Quebec law, Brown is at least ready to take on anyone with thoughts of replacing him as mayor of Brampton.

We learned about his stand through the unusual route of Althia Raj, who normally reports these days on events in Ottawa for the Toronto Star. She tells us that prime minister Justin Trudeau is still straddling the fence on the issue until the Supreme Court gets involved.

The only federal party leader who has had a change of heart is Jagmeet Singh of the new democrats. Mind you, the involvement of the World Sikh Organization might have had something to do with Singh’s conversion. As a turban-wearing, kirpan-bearing Sikh and a follower of the Tenth Guru, Jagmeet could hardly stick to his previous provincial-rights stand.

There are some conservatives also pushing at Erin O’Toole to turn his back on the Legault government in Quebec. That might be a tough fight as Legault’s CAQ in Quebec is the closest party to conservative in that province.

The Quebec law is a non-starter in the rest of Canada. When you consider that the wearing of crosses, or turbans, or yarmulkas or versions of the hijab are just a fashion statement in a pluralist society and very few care. You have to admit, Canada is quite a diverse society and we are better for it.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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And a Man Named Mel.

by Peter Lowry

In a life in politics, you deal with many a municipal politician. I expect the dorkiest I ever had to deal with was a little guy named Mel Lastman. Mel was an entrepreneur in business and in politics. He was a showman. He dealt with political controversy as though it was a marketing problem. He was a conservative without the philosophy. He was a politician who liked people. He died the other day at 88.

Mel sold himself short when he first ran in North York. At a time of shifting alliances in Toronto and its surrounding boroughs, he ran to be one of the four controllers in North York. Many of us liberals in North York were amused by his campaign but he had strong name recognition because of his furniture and appliances stores. The old hands at North York city hall and Metropolitan Toronto gave him a rough time. It made him more determined. The next election, he ran for mayor in North York and was unstoppable.

It is easy to admit that it was always fun to deal with Mel. He had the only city hall office that I had been in that had its own telephone booth. He was a bit quirky. I thought of his office as Mel’s Cabinet of Curios.

But he was also very fair. As a ratepayer president for my community, I always considered Mel the last resort. We shared a lot of platforms together for various events and elections. He was always unfailingly jovial and interested in what I had to say.

Once there was a dust-up over some proposed high-rise apartments and Mel stepped in to mediate. I knew darn well that he was a good buddy of the developer and that the only sensible solution was to get the most out of the deal for my community as possible. That meant taking a middle of the road position and I can tell you from experience that going out into the middle of the road in politics gets you run over.

I think Mel made his mistake when he took the leap from North York to the cloistered clamshell of Toronto’s city hall because of the forced amalgamation to the larger city. He had moved out of his comfort zone. He was too old and I think he missed his telephone booth. Mel Lastman was one of a kind.

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

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Carry on John.

by Peter Lowry

Despite having sat on many boards over the years and chaired a few—and this includes business boards as well as charitable and political and (the very worst) condominium boards, I have never been paid a cent for my efforts. I thought it was all done for free. Sure, I know that there are honoraria for outside business directors but when you are also an employee, it is part of the job.

But lately we have been hearing about annual honoraria in the category of $100,000 and up. And we are wondering why?

Why would Toronto mayor, John Tory, be paid $100,000 per year by Rogers?

Many of us were aware that Tory had worked for Rogers in previous years. Until the Toronto Star dropped the bomb on us the other morning, we might not have known he is still being paid by Rogers. The Star tells us he is paid for being an advisor to the family trust that runs Rogers. No doubt the Star’s minions at city hall are busy searching the voting records to see how many times the mayor should have, or did, declare a conflict of interest.

I would expect that a person of Tory’s integrity would have bent over backwards to avoid any complaint or possible conflict.

With this present term, Tory will complete eight years as mayor of Toronto. And despite his conservative party background and leanings, I was delighted to support his initial candidacy. He might be old school, but he is one of the good guys.

In the past eight years, John Tory has earned our trust. He has been an outstanding mayor in a rapidly growing and complex city and in troubled times. He has been there for the city, for its people and has been relentless in serving their needs. He has been a mayor in the style of a Hazel McCallion of Mississauga, a Naheed Nenshi of Calgary, though not quite as acerbic as the famous Charlotte Whitton of Ottawa.

More than anything else, John Tory has been there for Torontonians in the face of a 100-year pandemic. He has provided leadership, confidence and good sense for millions. He has done the job.

And we can view his annual stipend from Rogers as just part of his pension. He deserves it for what he has to put up with. And if he wants a third term as mayor, the only answer is: Carry on John!

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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to:

[email protected]