Fiorito: Mayor Rob Ford is Toronto’s Schettino
The difference between disaster and the brink of disaster? It is not hard to figure out.
Let me also remind you that it is also a disaster to live on the brink of disaster all the time, and that is life in Toronto now.
We are the Costa Concordia of cities, sailing too close to the municipal rocks. I beg you to make the appropriate allowances for his lines — jaw, waist and hair — but Commodore Ford is our Schettino.
It gets worse.
On the HMS Toronto, Doug Holyday is our Captain Queeg. You see it the way he stiffens and bares his teeth any time anyone disagrees with him.
Holyday mutters about “jobs for life.†He has repeated this odious little lie so often that the weak-minded passengers on the lower decks have come think it must be true.
Here’s a little repetition:
No such thing as jobs for life. No such thing as jobs for life. No such thing as jobs for life.
There is seniority.
But in spite of the seemingly successful last-ditch negotiations over the weekend, we remain stuck between Scylla and Charybdis; make that Rob and Doug. And the lesser crew members of this ship of fools are not much better.
Giorgio Mammoliti, the pettiest of officers, is a nasty little red-baiter. Norm Kelly, a not-so-able seaman, thinks global warming might actually be good for trees.
A little nest of lubbers — John Parker, Cesar Palacio and Frances Nunziata, along with the aforementioned Kelly — sit on the board of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation; they are prepared to toss the poor overboard like so much jetsam.
I was never fond of Karen Stintz at the helm of public transit — I have seen her in action and had her pegged as brittle, humourless and ambitious — but I was pleasantly surprised when she tried to reverse the mayor’s course and rescue urban transit.
I have an image of her calling from the bridge: “Rocks off the starboard bow.†Her reward?
Ford keelhauled her.
But the Commodore and Captain Holyday do not waver. For months, they have kept the Costa Toronto in danger, betting that labour would blink; betting also that any disruption would be blamed on the union.
It was a lousy bet.
The last labour disruption in Toronto was wrongly blamed on the mayor, who got no credit for its successful resolution.
At the moment, our labour problems are the fault of the mayor, and he alone will wear the results of any disruptions in his term.
Okay, so if Rob Ford is our Schettino, what of his brother Doug? Call him Ahab and the great white whale rolled into one. Doug said, with his usual eloquence, that the TTC was in need of an enema.
What does Doug know of enemas? Has he had personal experience? Is this part of his weight-loss program? The people have a right to know.
In this instance, however, the people know all they need to know about Doug Ford. He is a foul-mouthed fellow who has nothing but contempt for the people who provide city services. If we had planks, I’d make him walk one.
These are difficult times?
Yes, and the construction cranes on the horizon stand out like the masts of ships at sea; our credit rating remains high; the price of real estate is solid; and the tax base is growing.
If there is peril ahead, we need Horatio Hornblower at the helm, or Mr. Roberts, or even Charlie Allnutt of the African Queen, who was heroic when it counted.
Fictional, alas.
Instead, we have our very own, all-too-real Schettino, and his bunch of little schettini.
We can’t abandon ship; perhaps it’s time to mutiny.
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1126542--fiorito-mayor-rob-ford-is-toronto-s-schettino
