It has always been my observation that there are fewer ‘Come line’ bettors in municipal voting than ‘No line’ bettors. If you are not a craps player, I should explain that there are fewer civic voters voting positively for the future than there are people expressing themselves with a negative vote. (I should also mention that the ‘No’ side in craps gets slightly better odds.)
Despite this seeming negative advantage in craps, the casino still makes money on the game from what gamblers get hooked on, which are the propositions. These are all those funny markings in the middle of the craps layout that players throw chips at the stick-person to place for them.
But it has always been my observation that municipal politics is far more of a crap shoot than people realize. We elect people in municipal elections on far less information than a McDonalds’ would require from a teenager wanting an after-school job. We use rumour and name recognition to pay someone an outrageous sum and we cannot even fire them for four years.
I mention all this in response to the Toronto Star promoting the paper’s own version of confusion in how they promote candidates for office. I have noticed lately that columnists who might never have been to a city council meeting (or stayed very long) are now telling us how to vote for their candidate.
The best example recently was an op-ed piece by the Toronto Star’s Heather Mallick promoting Jennifer Keesmaat for mayor. Frankly, Keesmaat might not be the super solution that Mallick suggests. She would hardly be the first civic employee who thought she could do a better job than that bunch of elected screw-ups. I would like to know what she could not do as an employee that she could now do in the mayor’s chair?
The reason I say this is because Mallick is impressed with Keesmaat’ s level of planning in her plans for transit. Suggesting that Keesmaat must be better because she has made ten promises in regard to transit and John Tory has only four. Maybe Mallick should realize that Tory has a far better chance to achieve what he promises. Keesmaat has a lot to learn.
And if she had a way to get the downtown relief line for the Toronto subway system built three years sooner, she should have pushed for it back when she worked for the city.
Toronto is a rapidly growing city that needs a better form of governance. We need people who understand the problems and can help. Toronto news media need to fight for better governance—not encourage dilettante reporters to pitch their unqualified favourites.
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Copyright 2018 © Peter Lowry
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