City council approved the 2013 operating budget just after noon today, and, despite $12-million in last-minute spending additions, this year’s debates weren’t nearly as dramatic as last year’s coup by centrist and left-wing forces. That’s not to say there weren’t shenanigans, the best of which starred habitual headline-grabbers Giorgio Mammoliti and Rob Ford.
All stories relating to politics
QUOTED: Rob Ford talks about his personal evolution
I’m Rob Ford. It’s going to be pretty hard to change…I don’t think I have. Some people might say ‘he has,’ but I can’t really see it.
Glen Murray hopes his killer lasagna will make him Ontario’s premier
The backroom politicking ahead of this month’s Liberal leadership convention is now feverishly underway, with rival candidates quietly meeting in restaurants, bars and each other’s homes, trying to establish alliances in the seven-way race. During the convention, the lowest-ranked candidate after each ballot must drop out, and usually throws his or her support behind a remaining hopeful, making this early, behind-the-scenes maneuvering all-important. That’s why would-be premier Glen Murray is unleashing his secret weapon: homemade lasagna, most recently deployed for a home meeting with rival hopeful Sandra Pupatello. It’s not quite as crazy it sounds: no less than British prime minister David Cameron has wooed politicians with a cheesy plate of pasta. However, Murray did acknowledge he may need another trick (or a nice carpaccio) to win the majority—he’s currently sitting in a distant fourth place. [Toronto Star]
(Images: Glen Murray and Sandra Pupatello, Facebook; lasagna, Randolph Croft)
Power Moves: six city councillors making early political plays following Rob Ford’s ouster from office
Since a judge took the unexpected, unprecedented step of kicking Rob Ford out of the mayor’s office on Monday, city hall watchers have alternated between pontificating and head-scratching. It seems that the only things everybody can agree on are that Ford definitely did something wrong and that nobody is quite sure what will happen next (and that transit is still a really, really big problem). Meanwhile, a handful of city councillors, who are ultimately going to be responsible for guiding Toronto through the turmoil, have already begun early jockeying for position in the brave new post-Rob Ford world. While Adam Vaughan, Kristyn Wong-Tam and other left-leaners have used the opportunity to loudly blast Ford and call for a new era at city hall, Ford’s supporters must negotiate the most delicate political manoeuvring. Below, we look at how Ford and six of city hall’s other power players are responding to the bombshell news.
Reaction Roundup: what Rob Ford’s removal means for him—and for Toronto
This morning, a judge booted Rob Ford out of office, finding that the mayor had breached conflict of interest law in February by voting on whether he had to repay donations that lobbyists had made to his youth football foundation. (The penalty won’t take effect for 14 days.) Ford’s allies are reeling, the press is hyperventilating, “Rob Ford” is trending and everyone is wondering where Toronto goes from here. Below, a roundup of the reactions from Toronto’s pundits, politicians and the main players in the drama.
Rob Ford and the Toronto Sun are breaking up—here, a pair of personal ads to help them move on
Read the rest of this entry »
Mayor Rob Ford and the Toronto Sun’s beautiful friendship—a years-long affair based on shared political beliefs, mutual staff members and a common disdain for the Toronto Star—is cracking. In court this week, Ford’s lawyer blamed the paper for the mayor’s current legal woes, arguing that an August 2010 article at the centre of the libel suit misquoted Ford and was more than a “distortion.” The Sun fired back with a column by Michele Mandel that defends the story, accuses the mayor of “bad form” and asks, “Is this how you treat your friends—by throwing them under the bus when the going gets tough?” Given a breakup sounds imminent, we’ve drawn up dating profiles for Ford and the Sun to help them find a new best buddy.
Michael Ignatieff makes doomsday predictions about the death of democracy
Michael Ignatieff is worried about democracy (Image: kyle mcmartin)
After being turfed retiring from federal politics last year, Michael Ignatieff has been on an intellectual crusade against political partisanship. In the last month alone, the former Liberal leader waxed academic on the subject during a lecture at Stanford University, on a BBC panel discussion and in an interview with Metro Morning’s Matt Galloway. Apparently, Ignatieff’s upset that excessive partisanship and political nastiness is eroding democracy—precisely the kind of ivory tower preaching we expected from Iggy before he went from talking about politics (which he’s good at) to actually doing politics (which he’s not so good at). Below, a recent collection of Ignatieff’s most high-falutin’ assertions on democracy’s end days.
• Iggy says: “In a democracy, I think, we have no enemies. We have rivals. We have opponents. But we don’t have enemies. Enemies are people you want to destroy. Enemies threaten you. Adversaries are simply people you compete with.” Someone please send this vocabulary lesson to Doug Ford.
Frank Stronach officially steps down as a director of Magna International
Our favourite Austrian megalomaniac and multimillionaire, Frank Stronach, left his position as a long-time director of Canadian auto parts tycoon Magna International this morning. The reason: he wants to focus on the national political party he recently launched in his native country. When he announced his grand political ambitions in August, he said one of his main objectives would be to eliminate cronyism and corruption in government. Magna has operations in Austria, and Stronach wants to avoid any confusion between his politics and his business. So, at least he seems serious about living according to his principles. No word yet, though, on whether daughter Belinda Stronach will be drafting party policy. [Toronto Star]
Glen Murray and Kathleen Wynne are running for the Ontario Liberal Party leadership
The race to be the next leader of the Ontario Liberal Party is now, finally, an actual race. Three weeks quietly passed following Dalton McGuinty’s resignation as Ontario’s premier before any of his political brethren launched a leadership bid. Then, in the space of 24 hours, a pair of contenders revealed their candidacy: Toronto-Centre MPP Glen Murray broke the silence Sunday night and Don Valley West MPP Kathleen Wynne will follow suit early this evening. Wynne already received an endorsement from Liberal caucus member David Zimmer, who tweeted his early approval, while Murray had former RIM CEO Jim Balsillie and former health minister and failed mayoral candidate George Smitherman in the crowd when he announced his bid at Maple Leaf Gardens. At this very early juncture, we’re going to say Wynne’s off to the better start, purely from PR perspective. Having Balsillie and Smitherman’s support would be a certain boon for a politician mounting a leadership bid back in 2007. Today, we’re not so sure.
(Images: Glen Murray, Shaun Merritt; Kathleen Wynne, Ontario Chamber of Commerce)
Sorry seems to be the hardest word: four lame city council apologies
Read the rest of this entry »
Given the number of times Rob Ford has had to say he’s sorry over his political career, it’s odd that he doesn’t yet have it down. This week, integrity commissioner Janet Leiper (whose job, incidentally, Ford has made noises about eliminating) slammed the mayor for his latest apology, which she says didn’t show enough remorse for some offside comments he made last spring. Of course, Ford’s not the only Toronto politician to issue a flimsy apology of late—we’ve counted four in the past month alone. Below, we break down half-baked mea culpas from the mayor, his brother Doug Ford, Giorgio Mammoliti and Gord Perks.
What Toronto Needs Now: Richard Florida offers a manifesto for a new model of leadership
The city’s great period of growth won’t continue if we don’t enlist the best and brightest minds from Bay Street, the universities and the public sector
Richard Florida believes Toronto should take a cue from innovative city-building strategies in Silicon Valley and Chicago
In 2007, when my wife and I moved here from Washington, D.C., Toronto was ascendant. I’d been offered a job at the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute, a think tank investigating the competitiveness of cities. Toronto, it seemed to us, was an open, tolerant place offering a superb quality of life for its wide range of citizens. It was a destination of choice because of its thriving, stable economy, world-class banks, medical centres and cultural institutions, safety and livability, and diverse neighborhoods. It appeared a model of social cohesion, where people from across the globe were attracted to the prospect of a better future. Toronto’s best days were ahead.
The Moment: Dalton McGuinty’s emergency exit
(Image: George Pimentel)
During his nine years as premier, Dalton McGuinty displayed a magical ability to maintain the squeaky clean persona of Premier Dad—that smiling paternalist whose ramrod-straight affect evoked a grown-up Michael Cera in a suit—while all hell broke loose around him. The eHealth boondoggle may have cost David Caplan his cabinet post and spiked George Smitherman’s run for mayor, but it never stuck to McGuinty. The same goes for the ORNGE scandal, from which McGuinty walked away with hardly a scratch. Over the past few months, Energy Minister Chris Bentley has become the public face of the cancelled power plants fiasco, and Education Minister Laurel Broten has morphed into the teachers’ favourite super-villain. Of course, you don’t stay premier for three terms without knowing how to bob and weave, but McGuinty’s decision to lock up the legislature as he stepped down was the first time he’s taken a direct hit for his party rather than the other way around. The unions will eventually settle, the Liberals will elect a new leader, and life will go on. McGuinty’s lasting image as premier, however, will be marred by the ignominious way he went out.
Reaction Roundup: Premier Dalton McGuinty steps down and adjourns the legislature
(Image: Communitech Photos)
We’ve never really thought of Dalton McGuinty as a big-surprises kind of guy, but Premier Dad shocked the province last night by announcing his resignation as party leader—and the prorogation of the legislature. Today, most of Toronto is speculating about why McGuinty stepped down, and where, politically, the province goes from here. We rounded up the main threads of the discussion, including who might replace him, whether McGuinty has federal leadership aspirations and what Rob Ford thinks about it all.
Read the rest of this entry »
Philip Preville: Shark fins, pet store puppies, plastic bags—why Toronto city councillors like to ban things
Rob Ford’s victories rarely last. In fact they only become more stunted as his mayoralty lurches along. For his opening salvo in office he killed Transit City; less than two years later it was reborn. Now his wins can be measured
in minutes.
On June 6, council approved Ford’s proposal to end the five-cent fee on plastic shopping bags. Before he had time to gloat, council members promptly voted to make Toronto the first major Canadian city to prohibit plastic grocery bags altogether. Starting next year, Toronto retailers will provide customers with paper bags.
Ford’s objection to the bag ban is quite simple: he’s a conformist. He wants Toronto to quit messing with the rules all the time and act normal like everyone else. It’s this aspect of his personality that chafes so gratingly against the city he ostensibly rules. Toronto likes to be an early adopter of righteous urbanist innovation, a forward-thinking, environmentally and socially progressive bastion of creative-classist policy-making. Our avant-gardisme has become part of
our identity.
Reason to Love Toronto: because we build parks under our expressways
(Image: Top and bottom left: courtesy of Waterfront Toronto; Top and bottom right: Jess Baumung)
Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday drew the ire of urbanites during a recent council debate when he said that downtown was no place to raise kids. “Where’s little Ginny?” he asked rhetorically. “Well, she’s downstairs playing in the traffic on her way to the park.” The design geeks at Waterfront Toronto don’t want Ginny to play in traffic, either, but they do want her to play under it. The organization’s latest revitalization project is Underpass Park, a boldly imaginative public space that features a playground, a skate park and a basketball court tucked under the Eastern Avenue, Adelaide Street and Richmond Street overpasses just west of the DVP. The one-hectare park, designed by Vancouver’s Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg (the landscape architects behind the award-winning Sherbourne Common to the south), turns a cold, dark, claustrophobic tract of land into an unexpectedly lively space. Looking east, giant concrete pillars recede into the distance like an industrial echo, providing a dramatic backdrop for basketball players and skateboarders; further west, the overpasses bow out from each other, creating an elliptical opening through which sunlight descends onto a swatch of grass and trees and futuristic climbing structures, all of it brightened by carefully positioned mirrors and an LED lighting system. Like the roads that snake overhead, the park connects streets, buildings and people previously cut off from each other. It also sends a vital message to both visitors and residents: this is downtown, and downtown is beautiful.
