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Rob Ford's Toronto

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AlvinofDiaspar said:
S&M:

I know accounting might not be the strong suit of the F'Nation, but the so called cultural renaissance has a total amount of government funding (Federal + Provincial) in tune of what, less than 300M. That's less than 1/10th of the BD extension, to put it in perspective.

AoD
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But it's all about optics, right? I could be wrong that the cultural renaissance had anything to do with the suburban sense of resentment, but I did speak with Ford voters back in 2010 who said something like "Miller could spend millions of dollars on a fancy new art gallery downtown, but what has he done for us??" I know it's a completely inaccurate statement, but it definitely captures that sense of suburban resentment that supposedly put Ford in the mayor's office.
 
Silence&Motion said:
People on this thread seem to have some weird hindsight where they think Miller was a fundamentally flawed candidate. Let's keep things in perspective: he was tremendously popular throughout his tenure (typically getting 60% approval, and at times hitting 80% approval). His approval only sunk below 50% after the garbage strike. In his first campaign he beat Tory in many suburban wards, and in his second campaign he crushed the conservative Jane Pitfield. This was not some out of touch elitist. There were even polls that suggested that he would have won the 2010 election if he had campaigned.

It also really annoys me that people are building Ford into this unstoppable juggernaut when the majority of Torontonians consistently disapprove of him, and his only election victory was against an extremely weak slate of opponents. I've said it many times already, and I'll say it again: Ford could win re-election, but there are many more scenarios in which he looses than wins.
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Excellent post.

Miller was far more popular than Ford has ever been.
 
Silence&Motion said:
It doesn't get raised much, but I feel like the "Toronto Cultural Renaissance" of the last decade (i.e. construction of the ROM, AGO, Opera House, Gardiner Museum, RCM, OCAD, etc) contributed to the sense that downtown elites were taking money away from the suburbs to spend on themselves....
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I don't think Ford Nation could identify more than two of those acronyms. And I doubt they identify the "cultural renaissance" as a key reason for their Ford support. They just want a guy who is like them, keeps their taxes low, and whose office can assist them when raccoons invade their green bins.
 
S&M:

Of course, but just saying that none of it would have hold up to scrutiny...especially considering that city spent pretty much nothing on said cultural renaissance.

AoD
 
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mjl08 said:
This is a really good point. I remember being at a ribbon cutting event in Agincourt in 2008 and residents were fawning over Miller like a rock star - almost identical to the pictures of the Ford Fests. Miller won all but two wards in 2006, including all of Etobicoke, York and Scarborough. He WAS the mayor you could have a beer with (remember Miller Lite?). The garbage strike was definitely the game changer.
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And let's not forget that in 2006, he received just short of 60% of the popular vote. Rob and Doug may continue to spout the line about his win being the biggest in Toronto history but at less than 50% of the vote, it surely doesn't stand up to the facts.
 
Nanny State... hmmm... I guess the competition for Toronto's "Big Brother" is to stressful, having to compete and all for the minds of the "common folk". He know's when your sleeping, and he knows when you are awake. :O

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mjl08 said:
I don't think Ford Nation could identify more than two of those acronyms. And I doubt they identify the "cultural renaissance" as a key reason for their Ford support. They just want a guy who is like them, keeps their taxes low, and whose office can assist them when raccoons invade their green bins.
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I'm not talking about the specifics, just the sense that the government is taking their money and spending on useless shiny things for elites.

AlvinofDiaspar said:
S&M:

Of course, but just saying that none of it would have hold up to scrutiny...especially considering that city spent pretty much nothing on said cultural renaissance.

AoD
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Agreed.
 
dbailey62 said:
And let's not forget that in 2006, he received just short of 60% of the popular vote. Rob and Doug may continue to spout the line about his win being the biggest in Toronto history but at less than 50% of the vote, it surely doesn't stand up to the facts.
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And of course Mel Lastman got something close to 80% against that political powerhouse Tooker Gomberg. At 483,277 actual votes, it also dwarfed Ford's victory in absolute terms as well.
 
hawc said:
Problem is downtowners (and I'm one of them) think they're 'real' Toronto. Well guess what... THIS is no less 'real' Toronto than Queen and Ossington. Maybe we need to unamalgimate and go back to insane overduplication of services and everyone will be happy.
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I'm sorry, but Queen + Ossington (or even Sheppard + Finch) is way more "real Toronto" than a country road is. And that's exactly why amalgamation is a terrible idea. I'm going to go out on a limb here but, anyone living in the area you linked to doesn't necessarily want to see their taxes going towards improving the local park, putting in bike lanes, getting rid of potholes, and improving the local library and community center. Someone at Queen + Ossington, however, is highly likely to want to see those things... and is even OK with tax dollars being spent to study how to best accomplish those things.

Depending on where you live, you have a different set of values and concerns. People downtown are more likely to be concerned about timely streetcar and bus service, people in suburbs are more concerned about their commute and whatever will help them get around better by car. Which is fine - we all have priorities and where you live has a huge influence on what they are. But so long as we're forcing people in suburbs to share downtown values - and vice versa - there is always going to be a huge amount of tension.

If we had a Mayor who actually understood this as more than "gravy" and "us vs. them" and "fuck these downtown people who do they think they are anyway", we might actually be able to craft a set of policies and a framework for discussions around the idea of "How do we satisfy everyone's needs when their values are so disparate?" Instead, everyone (regardless of class or income) is either a downtown elite who should get off their bike and drive a vehicle (which doesn't even make sense) or a hard-working suburbanite who needs their commute reduced by a minute or two at the expense of everything else.

Personally, I think the first step in the right direction is to get people out there voting. Obama wouldn't have had the colossal amount of support he did if it weren't for basically getting an army to go out, register people, and get them to the polling station. I have yet to see a city councillor or candidate talk about how important it is to actually get out there and vote... which isn't to say they haven't, but if they have, they haven't said it loudly enough. Something like less than half the city went out and voted last time around, and that's pretty dismal.
 
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