Mayor John Tory of Toronto should know better. He knows premier Ford. He knows how those guys at Queen’s Park think—or don’t think, as the case may be. From the time, that buffoon premier Michael Harris downloaded the province’s social welfare costs on Toronto, the province has been taking more than it gives.
And to offer to give back a third of the development funds, it has recently grabbed, is just adding insult to injury. Tory can hardly expect to see any of that funding before Ford has announced it at least three times would be breaking a Ford tradition.
Nor should mayor Tory bask in the glow of the super mayor proposal from Queen’s Park. How can he put up with such bullshit? There are some key words in the super mayor proposal that everyone seems to want to ignore. He can only use his super powers when he is doing the bidding of Queen’s Park. What kind of a ‘super power’ is that? What it says to me is that he can only get the extra power when he is doing what Doug Ford wants him to do. The word for that is “flunky” not “super.”
And John Tory should wonder what else Doug Ford has in store for the city council he hates. I think he still bears a grudge for how those people treated his poor misunderstood, late, younger brother with his crack-cocaine habit.
It reminds me of a preliminary meeting of people backing David Smith for mayor in 1978 that took place in a downtown Toronto law office. It was one of those huge board room tables and the lawyer chairing the meeting was no friend of mine. It took almost a half hour for everyone to introduce themselves. They were mostly lawyers but when it got to me, David interrupted and introduced me to those who did not already know me. David explained that he had never lost a campaign when I was involved. I was there as his good luck charm. That was my first and only involvement with that campaign—which he lost to John Sewell.
I took the family up to Muskoka for Christmas in 1979 and we were incommunicado for the holidays. The phone was ringing as we got home and it was David. He was very contrite and asked me if he could run in the February election in my riding?
I was involved in that campaign and we got him elected MP in a squeaker.
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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry
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