Once, there was a house called Toronto. It was a big house with a lot of diverse families in it. It was well equipped with all sorts of useful amenities and people enjoyed them. The most controversial thing for the residents was the basement – it was full of these unsightly columns which were ugly and unpopular, but remained because some of the families were convinced that the house could not stand without them. There was the vehicle registration pillar, the land transfer pillar, the property tax pillar, and so on.
One day, a contractor named Rob Ford came and told everyone that he could get rid of all these foundations. Some were sceptical, but he promised them that everything they loved about the house would stay the same. They hired him to do the work.
After he had knocked down the first column, he told people that the house was not stable – it was going to collapse. He assured them it was a pre-existing issue and not his fault. “Don't worry,” he said, “the problem is just that your house is too heavy”.
He went about solving this issue by first selling the fridge and the stove. The people who cooked were all outraged, but those who didn't said “Why should we suffer so you can cook? We prefer to eat at restaurants.”. Then he sold the chairs and tables. More residents started to become outraged, but still there were supporters who said “We can just stand.”.
After all, Contractor Ford had still not eliminated the land transfer pillar and many still felt that it had to go. The residents had now forgotten that he had promised them no major changes and he convinced them that furniture was a small price to pay for all this improvement.
He announced that he wanted to get rid of the television, the shower, the laundry machine, the beds, and the toilet. Now people were starting to get upset. They told him they wanted to keep these things, but Ford answered “This is what you told me to do. We have a four-year contract!”.
The families were now scared of what would be left after four years. “What is even the point of living in a house without these things?” they asked. They decided to organize against the contractor. They hoped desperately that it wasn't too late to save the home they had spent so long building. They also worried that waiting and hiring a new contractor wouldn't be enough – after all, it is much easier to destroy something than it is to rebuild it.
Nevertheless, they were going to try. They didn't know if they could avert catastrophe, but their house meant so much to them, they couldn't just sit around and wait.