Rob Ford's Toronto

[Lenser]

Even worse than black and white, the current system is grey; it's never clear what any councilors vision for the City (let alone the region) is beyond the exceedingly parochial.

In our age (and perhaps in many ages), politicians often reserve the right to be quite grey, slippery and noncommittal - I think it stems from a desire not to be pinned down on issues. Speaking in vague, general terms offers a kind of safety not afforded politicians when one is addressing a specific point.

Yes, council is fractious enough as it is. I just can't see how the introduction of formal party politics would eliminate or even significantly reduce the squabbling and grandstanding.

 

[nfitz]

The current system may not be 'broke,' but its hard to look at our municipal politicians and see an uplifting example of civic virtue.

It most certainly is easy to see such uplifting examples, compared to Montreal.

In the 15 years since amalgamation we've been totally unable to come up with a permanent transport policy.

And Montreal is doing any better? There's been little progress there since Drapeau left office - in fact there hasn't been a single Metro station started in Montreal without Drapeau being mayor. The 3 recent ones were all off the island, and it was all done at the provincial level, with little involvement from the city.

We've actually made some incredible progress recently, with first the Spadina line, and now also the Eglinton line under construction, all with council on board, and even spearheading it in the case of Eglinton.

 

[W. K. Lis]

The Toronto "Taxpayers" Coalition came out with their report card on Toronto City Council, at this link. I am a taxpayer, but they do not definitely represent me in any way. To me, I think the marks they presented should be mirror image, those who got A's should be F's and those who got F's should be the ones with A's.

 

[Torontovibe]

^^ Now that is complete horse manure. I also would reverse the marks.

 

[W. K. Lis]

According to the Toronto "Taxpayers" Coalition's PDF (see this link), the following were key votes:

• Voted for subways on Eglinton and Sheppard
• Voted to reopen debate on bag ban
• Voted for small reduction in Library operating budget
• Voted for charging a token $2 fee to swim at city pools
• Voted for assortment of cost-cutting measures

According to the Toronto "Taxpayers" Coalition, those who voted FOR those keys were in their "good" books. Definitely not in my books, though the last key is open-ended.

Their comment on Rob Ford is as follows:

Mayor Ford continues to push for a positive, lower tax agenda, but sometimes finds himself in controversies that distract from the important issues at hand. His commit-ment to expanding our subway network is laudable.

My comment on his report card would be: Does not play well with others.

 

[nfitz]

Their comment on Rob Ford is as follows:

Mayor Ford continues to push for a positive, lower tax agenda, but sometimes finds himself in controversies that distract from the important issues at hand. His commit-ment to expanding our subway network is laudable.

That's just absolutely bizarre. What commitment to expanding Toronto's subway network? Commitment is actually doing something other than saying it should be expanded. If you say you won't provide one cent to expand the subway, and at the same time promise to support the provincial candidate who has said that if elected they will cancel the Eglinton line, and won't build any more subway in Toronto until such time that the provincial budget is balanced (which of course will never happen as they are also proposing cutting taxes before the budget is balanced).

Such ludicrous statements only demonstrate that this organization is not reality-based, but seems to be some bizarre collection of wing-nuts.

 

[sarnya]

The Toronto Taxpayers Coalition is run by Matthew McGuire, a card-carrying member of the Conservative party and Nita Kang, a real estate agent with a very right-wing sounding Twitter account. Yes, these two conservatives make up an entire coalition representing the taxpayers of Toronto. Don't worry though, their website claims they are bi-partisan. What they do with your membership money is anybody's guess.

Matthew McGuire claims,

"There are things that council may not know about because people have busy lives and can’t pay attention to absolutely everything these people do, we’re the watchdog and this is our year-end evaluation of how their elected officials are doing."

Fair enough but a lot happened within the last year on city council. I don't think you can break down a councillor's overall performance to five "key votes" as listed above. We all have different values and expectations from our elected officials.

Regarding their so-called report card... currently the only news organizations who ran the story are Newstalk 1010, AM 640 and the Toronto Sun... all Ford-friendly media outlets. No surprises there... it suits their agendas.

Right away you can look at the "report card" and know it's B.S. because Minnan-Wong has an A+. The guy who pushed for the removal the Jarvis bike lanes, which has cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars, is who they consider one of the best councillors of 2012. For a group who wants to slash council spending, their grades already don't make any sense.

If you need further proof it's B.S., the "coalition" is launching "legal action" against the city because of the bag ban. The "coaltion" is part of the reverse the bag ban movement... or whatever you want to call it.... the Canadian Plastics cheerleading team would do. Councillor Shiner, who proposed the ban, gets a B.

The rest is just gravy I suppose...

Compare their list with Matt Elliott's Ford Nation percentage chart. The more a councillor voted alongside Ford, the higher grade they received. Not a single councillor who consistently voted opposite of Ford got anything higher than a C... most get F's. It's not until you get to the "mushy middle" do you see some B's. If you vote alongside Ford, expect a high grade.

Then there's the council attendance records, which were recently released.

The following councillors are numbers 2 through 10 in the poorest attendance records. They all received B's and A's from Matthew and Nita.

Giorgio Mammoliti 26.93%
James Pasternak 26.30%
Mark Grimes 25.10%
Karen Stintz24.84%
Denzil Minnan-Wong 24.75%
Michael Thompson 24.42%
Michelle Berardinetti 23.76%
David Shiner 23.46%
Jaye Robinson 22.56%

People like Adam Vaughan or Gord Perks, who have some of the best attendance records are given F's. There's a few exceptions like Moeser, who's been very sick and missed a number of votes... he of course, get's an F. How can you give the guy poor grade for being sick?

I don't know about you, but showing up to council meetings matters to me as a real Toronto taxpayer and homeowner.

There's also office budgets.

Councillors Glenn De Baeremaeker (20,582.97), Shelley Carroll ($19,759), James Pasternak ($19,583), Michelle Berardinetti ($19,469) and Peter Milczyn ($18,526) round out the top five budget spenders as of September 30. Only Shelley Carrol got an F... I'm sure the fact she doesn't share a single key vote with Ford in 2012 doesn't have anything to do with it. The rest have decent "grades."

Like the attendance records, Adam Vaughan ($2,064) and Gord Perks ($5,054) get F's despite the fact they are 2 of the lowest spenders on council.

Personally, I don't mind my councillor spending their budget... that's what it's there for. The "taxpayers coalition" is supposed to care about government spending but doesn't even take this into consideration.

So what really matters to the Toronto Taxpayers Coalition? How much they push forward Ford's agenda. This coalition is nothing more than Rob Ford cheerleading squad. The "coalition" and their "report card" are a total joke and even interpreting their meaningless grades in this great of detail is futile. I just felt the need to point out how painfully wrong their grades are.

 

[jje1000]

The problem is that these folks are recieving far more attention than they deserve and have succeeded in their goals.

Perhaps it's time for some of Urban Toronto to launch their own group and get some attention? Maybe the Toronto Citizen's Coalition?

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

The problem is that these folks are recieving far more attention than they deserve and have succeeded in their goals.

Perhaps it's time for some of Urban Toronto to launch their own group and get some attention? Maybe the Toronto Citizen's Coalition?

Absolutely!
That report is just plain offensive and entirely inaccurate. Pam McConnell & Adam Vaughan an F? Kristyn Wong-Tam, the woman who just slept outside on concrete for a night last week with homeless street youth to better understand their issues and challenges got a C+ the same day our "Mayor" skips out of his defamation trial to watch his football team play and gets a B? This propaganda piece is rubbish.

 

[Ice_Burn]

The Toronto "Taxpayers" Coalition came out with their report card on Toronto City Council, at this link. I am a taxpayer, but they do not definitely represent me in any way. To me, I think the marks they presented should be mirror image, those who got A's should be F's and those who got F's should be the ones with A's.

Any report card where Giorgio Mammoliti gets a B+ in literally anything should be immediately tossed out. These fools claim to be about lower taxes and lower spending but want people to vote in favour of non-funded, expensive, unnecessary subway lines? The hell you say.

 

[canmark]

I guess Christopher Hume can forget about being invited to the next Ford family picnic.

Two years after he was elected mayor, Rob Ford’s victory has become Toronto’s humiliation.

Every week, if not day, brings fresh revelations of the chief magistrate’s genius for incompetence. Few manage ineptitude as brilliantly. His talent for doing the wrong thing apparently knows no bounds. Just when you think he can’t do anything more ridiculous or reckless, embarrassing or inappropriate, he does.

So no one was surprised last week when Ford was conspicuously absent as the mayors of the country’s largest cities gathered in Ottawa to tackle urban Canada’s chronic state of fiscal starvation.

While the mayors discussed ways to raise the funds they — no, we — so desperately need, Ford was in court defending himself against defamation charges. And when he wasn’t in court, he was on the field coaching a high school football team.

That’s the kind of week it was for the mayor of Canada’s largest city, one that has pretensions to being “world-class.” Today that ambition is hard to take seriously, not with Ford around.

To be blunt, it would be hard to find anyone more inappropriate or ill-suited to public office, let alone the mayor’s office, than Rob Ford. The truth is Toronto’s pain would have been worse if Ford had gone to the mayors’ meeting. That’s how bad it is.

 

[cdr108]

Toronto "Taxpayers" Coalition is nothing more than a pro business, low taxes mouth piece.

 

[typezed]

With Toronto hosting the special anniversary Grey Cup in which the Argos are playing and with his high school team challenging for the city championship, this might be the greatest week of Rob Ford's life. Notwithstanding that pesky lawsuit. If we're lucky maybe he'll realize that it's all downhill from here and quit the week after.

 

[spider]

What does Christopher Hume do for a living? Surely the Star doesn't pay him a living wage to write his column.

 

[W. K. Lis]

What does Christopher Hume do for a living? Surely the Star doesn't pay him a living wage to write his column.

Christopher Hume is just a mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper.