Who Will Challenge Rob Ford?

[W. K. Lis]

Margaret Atwood for mayor of Toronto

See Star article at this link.

 

[greenleaf]

Back to the point. these past 36(?) hours have been eye-opening to many. But the reality is, that this will need to happen again on the 19th of September at Executive Committee once more, on the 26th of September at Council, and again on the 27th of September at Council. And guess what, this will happen again in 2012 and the year after that, and the year after that. If you're an elected Official with a specific agenda that goes beyond simply being re-elected or getting onto a specific ABC because that's the extent of your sense of self, that is precisely upon what you are counting. You're relying upon the fact that at some point, people will tire because they have lives to lead, families to which they have to tend, attempt to save for their retirement and emergencies, and generally shit to do, and you will get your way.

The shape of this City going forward will be crafted as much by a long game as much as these victories/defeats in the interim.

Thanks for the insight. Much appreciated.

It's true though: how many times do we have to howl in dismay before something happens? I guess we just have to keep showing up and keep reminding Ford and the other right-leaning councillors that there are many of us who are willing to pay tax increases to support programs and the city.

 

[Tacoma]

Shelley Carroll is still my top bet and I'm confident she could beat Ford.

I live in the Ward that Shelley Carroll presides and, IMHO, she is a career politician mostly concerned with her career. We had issues on our street that required her attention but she had more imporatnt things to do than to deal with the petty issues of her constituents. Shelley didn't run last election because she knew she couldn't win. No way I'd vote for her as Mayor.

I'm not sure why some folks are digging from the past to get Miller back in office. Heck... where's Lastman? I think we need someone new to be able to challenge Ford, not someone from the recycle bin, with all due respect.

 

[Automation Gallery]

I live in the Ward that Shelley Carroll presides and, IMHO, she is a career politician mostly concerned with her career. We had issues on our street that required her attention but she had more imporatnt things to do than to deal with the petty issues of her constituents. Shelley didn't run last election because she knew she couldn't win. No way I'd vote for her as Mayor.

I'm not sure why some folks are digging from the past to get Miller back in office. Heck... where's Lastman? I think we need someone new to be able to challenge Ford, not someone from the recycle bin, with all due respect.

Yeah, the lefties might as well start recruiting someone out there soon to challenge Ford...cause i doubt anyone still around from the stand-alone Miller circus stands a chance.

 

[Irishmonk]

Kristyn Wong-Tam can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned.

Watch her in this video, @2:04 to 3:10 right after Mayor Fraud's chilling response to this impassioned 14yo girl's deputation.

[video=youtube;3WE_ehrlJec]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WE_ehrlJec&t=2m3s[/video]

 

[Automation Gallery]

Please....What a bunch of fake manufactured rubbish.

 

[Ak2809]

I want a mayor who is pragmatic, diplomatic and compromising. The mayor shouldn't be the source of partisan bickering, but rather the mediator that sees the best in both sides.

I don't like the idea of a mayor with a vision that he is unwilling to change. Toronto is constantly changing, and its mayor should reflect that.

 

[jje1000]

Please....What a bunch of fake manufactured rubbish.

As compared to Ford's "public consultations" (aka pushing deputants through the night and ignoring their claims in the end)? I guess that only the left can be wrong!

 

[Tacoma]

I want a mayor who is pragmatic, diplomatic and compromising. The mayor shouldn't be the source of partisan bickering, but rather the mediator that sees the best in both sides.

I don't like the idea of a mayor with a vision that he is unwilling to change. Toronto is constantly changing, and its mayor should reflect that.

I do get the sense that this 22-hour (or whatever) marathon public session is just a charade and Ford and his deputy brother are going to do what they're going to do. However, having said that, fiscal responsibility is not a vision but a requirement.

 

[TonyV]

Now that we have a remote chance of getting back on topic, all through last night's meetings, one name kept coming back to my mind as the next mayor of Toronto: John Tory.

As the present situation with the offensive Ford twins wears on, the idea of an 'outsider' candidate with some class and patience, and a good set of ears, will become more and more attractive.

As for insiders, can anyone point out a current city councillor with some charisma, smarts, listening skills, and the ability to build alliances? Who shines? I have not spotted any insider with all of the above just yet, but there's plenty of time to do some observing.

John Tory turned down the opportunity to run in the last election, his best shot ever at winning. The right was practically begging him to run. I doubt he'll run against Ford in the next election.

Josh Matlow has been winning me over as a centrist. However, the star of the show was Wong-Tam. She's really impressed me over the last couple of months and more still last night. However, both Matlow and KWT are rookie councillors and will likely want to keep their jobs for at least one more term before betting the farm. Shelly Carroll is the obvious front runner for me. Adam Vaughan was impressive last night as well but I can't see him winning over the outer city. He's too polarizing and non-compromising with the non-downtown crowd.

If Carroll runs and doesn't win, either Josh Matlow or Wong-Tam have a very good shot at being our next Mayor.

I note that you are focusing on insiders, while my point is that city hall may be ripe for an outsider next time around. I admire both KWT and Matlow, but at this point in time they are still rookies (although KWT is impressing the daylights out of me). I still think that there is a strong chance that a powerful outside presence may pounce on city hall because of the polarity that is resulting from Ford's regime. I was not strongly in favour of Tory but I think that at this point in time he'd clean anyone's clock. There may be other external presences that will make themselves known in the next 2 or 3 years, too.

 

[MetroMan]

I note that you are focusing on insiders, while my point is that city hall may be ripe for an outsider next time around.

(...)

There may be other external presences that will make themselves known in the next 2 or 3 years, too.

Alas, my whole point of creating this thread:

With three and a half years to go until the next municipal election (or maybe not), finding somebody with the charisma, a progressive agenda and a positive message to challenge Rob Ford may seem far from most people's minds.

I however, believe that a campaign to challenge Ford must begin at least 2 years before the next election. Ford won because the left's standard bearers lacked the like-ability and trustworthiness to overcome his negative message.

The current crop of potentials residing within City Hall are no more likely to defeat Rob Ford than Jane Pitfield was able to challenge David Miller. Incumbents have a history of staying as long as they like, because a strong enough alternative needs to come from the outside to justify the "change" label yet has to be well known to beat the incumbent's name recognition. This is why his or her campaign must begin soon.

Toronto needs a progressive visionary. While David Miller didn't live up to his "Superman with a broom" expectations, I feel that he put forward a positive vision for Toronto. There is plenty of talent within the corporate world, but the Mayor's paltry six figure salary is a deterrent for most. Nonetheless, there must be a crop of them who would do it for civic pride and personal accomplishment.

Which City Hall outsider do you see as viable strong challenger to Rob Ford -- whether you believe they will run or not?

So which CEO, community organizer, powerful person in the city can get the support, inspire Torontonians with a vision and pull off a rare outsider win of the Mayor's chair?

 

[cdr108]

Please....What a bunch of fake manufactured rubbish.

yeah, RF couldn't even fake a smile or express any concern.

 

[ibhattac]

So which CEO, community organizer, powerful person in the city can get the support, inspire Torontonians with a vision and pull off a rare outsider win of the Mayor's chair?

I submit that this last election was lost/won (depending on your viewpoint) in the suburbs, for very good reasons. One doesn't need to poke too far to hear suggestions that those who were campaigning for the Mayoralty, apart from Ford, never really spent time in the suburbs. Ford did, and his campaign team crafted the appropriate message to tap into the immediacy of the economic challenges that so many people face, disproportionately more so in the suburbs than the downtown. Despite all the invective many now reserve explicitly for him and his brother, his campaign team got out there and said the things that needed to be said. And guess what, the shrewdness of his anti-gravy manifesto is that even if he loses credibility, the next conservative can simply pick up the baton and say there's still waste and inefficiency at the City because those left-wing/libtard/pinko/commie Councillors from downtown kept us from doing a proper review of the City, e.g. "Why should you at Jane and Trethewey or Meadowvale and Sheppard have to pay for a public art on the waterfront for some Annex hippies?" It won't matter if it is true or not, or if procedurally its impossible, it just feels like it makes sense because there's no tangible investment in your part of the City.



It is expensive to live in Toronto, and the means to live in Toronto are slipping away for far far too many. That's why pocketbook issues worked, and will work again the next time around. A few hundred dollars here and there does add up to a lot, and it is immediate. Whether or not those few hundred dollars across the ratepayers of Toronto can amount to a shiny new beach for the waterfront, or a maybe LRT or Subway replacement twenty years from now doesn't hold a lot of water for people when you can promise them that they will have their money now. For instance, this past election, no progressive Mayoral candidate, to my recollection, ever spoke about getting better paying jobs into the City or to elevate the quality of life in the suburbs. It was one long campaign about the gravy train and six ways from Sunday worth of transit plans. Yes, there was Transit City, but which candidate actually read the environmental assessments and explained in what way the routes would not take away lanes for vehicles? The field was crowded out by a different transportation plan everyday. And ultimately, it is fact that for far too many in this City the only way to get to work and home to spend time with your family, is by car. It's no one's fault. This is simply the way we've crafted our world here - it was the promise of the modern age.

I submit that if a candidate were to go out there with a credible plan to move through environmental assessments and approvals in the space of one calendar year, and design and build in the space of another calendar year (or two), just maybe it would be easier for people to accept that their money will be spent effectively, and they will see tangible returns. Because for those people that depend on their vehicles, who in this example, we're trying to convince that they will be better off on transit, know that regardless of our promises mass transit construction (especially surface) will lead to incredible challenges on their commute. And to contend with that for an unknown period of time? It feels better to hold on to their own money and deal with the commute. Why should they have to pay the price for better transit for sometime the next five to ten years? They got kids to put through school, through university, take care of aging parents, take care of their own health, organise for pensions, all the while contending with rising food/fuel/energy/housing costs - and now you want them to pay how much more in property taxes for something that may or may not happen in the next five to ten years but you're guaranteeing them that it'll be that much more difficult to get to home and work? Good luck with that. I'm not saying this to suggest that people shouldn't try. What I'm trying to suggest is that pocketbook issues are real, and for a very long time investments have flowed into the downtown (and I understand why) with very little flowing into the suburbs. Sure, there were the priority neighbourhood designations, a definite leap forward, but my understanding as someone who's been involved indirectly with agencies and workers that were trying to make it mean something, there was very little money or programming attached to it unless you were a truly destitute person or marginalised youth, and even then, good luck.

IMHO, simply hanging one's hat on an individual to pull off a win against the brothers Ford, be they an insider or an outsider, is difficult at best. Mayoral campaigns don't happen in isolation. This Mayoral campaign possibly had access to the best oiled election campaign machine this country has ever seen, or at the very least, the lessons that it learnt. That machine is not going anywhere. Moreover, Councillors have to feel the pressure as wellsincee the Mayor, despite pretensions to the contrary, has limited authority beyond the bully pulpit and the ABCs. The reality, I think, is that if those who consider themselves progressive in amalgamated Toronto want the next Council to reflect that worldview, they have to get into the suburbs yesterday and lay the groundwork to challenge not only the Mayor, but perhaps foremost, the local Councillor. If Cllr Del Grande can be led to believe that there are 11000 votes lined up behind an alternate candidate, then he's going to start listening to you really quickly because he, like all the others, really really wants to be a Councillor, if not the Mayor or MPP or MP.

Anyway, back to my point. I feel that any push for a progressive council the next time through has to be from community organisation, including people not unlike ourselves through meet-ups and engagement over the next 1100 days or so. Most importantly, it has to go beyond the downtown. John Tory or Gail Nyberg or whoever in 2014 isn't going to magically swoop in and save us. At minimum, it is going to have to be meetups at the local cafe/dive/resto to commiserate and dream up what your neighbourhood/city should look like and what it should offer and seeing which candidates recognise it, be they Mayoral or Council.

You know, sometimes the best way to do this is to have a macguffin. I don't mean to diminish it, but I just want to suggest that it is far easier to get people working on an activity of personal consequence than simply talking the talk, and come September 19/26/27 we're rehashing this exact same discussion once more. Then again during the budget cycle next year. And then again the year after that.

I submit to you all that there is an official plan review underway. Trying to make an alternative official plan by organising a meetup for interested UT people might be a great way to start. People, I find, tend to care about their neighbourhoods and the activities they enjoy/wish they could enjoy in their neighbourhood. It can't be that hard to crowd-source an official plan from the neighbourhood up, and along the way we'll have developed secondary plans because of the neighbourhood scale at which we'd started.

If anyone's interested in the above idea, drop me a line and let's get this started.

Also, what's everyone's forward sorting area postal code here? Kinda curious if we're all downtown types caught up in an echo chamber. I'm from M6H.

 

[greenleaf]

I submit that if a candidate were to go out there with a credible plan to move through environmental assessments and approvals in the space of one calendar year, and design and build in the space of another calendar year (or two), just maybe it would be easier for people to accept that their money will be spent effectively, and they will see tangible returns.

The same argument is being made in the US. Essentially, people see the left as the government and the government is not working for them, so there is a rightward tilt. (See: "Tuning Out The Democrats" in the NY Times)

You are also advocating (although, not quite in the same way) the Big Society movement in Britain: "to create a climate that empowers local people and communities, building a big society that will 'take power away from politicians and give it to people'." (via wikipedia)

In a way, Rob Ford is unintentionally already doing this, as an example: Councillor Wong-Tam's Yonge Street vision and buy-in of local businesses for the stretch between Dundas and Gerrard.

 

[jje1000]

I submit that this last election was lost/won (depending on your viewpoint) in the suburbs, for very good reasons. One doesn't need to poke too far to hear suggestions that those who were campaigning for the Mayoralty, apart from Ford, never really spent time in the suburbs. Ford did, and his campaign team crafted the appropriate message to tap into the immediacy of the economic challenges that so many people face, disproportionately more so in the suburbs than the downtown. Despite all the invective many now reserve explicitly for him and his brother, his campaign team got out there and said the things that needed to be said. And guess what, the shrewdness of his anti-gravy manifesto is that even if he loses credibility, the next conservative can simply pick up the baton and say there's still waste and inefficiency at the City because those left-wing/libtard/pinko/commie Councillors from downtown kept us from doing a proper review of the City, e.g. "Why should you at Jane and Trethewey or Meadowvale and Sheppard have to pay for a public art on the waterfront for some Annex hippies?" It won't matter if it is true or not, or if procedurally its impossible, it just feels like it makes sense because there's no tangible investment in your part of the City.

It is expensive to live in Toronto, and the means to live in Toronto are slipping away for far far too many. That's why pocketbook issues worked, and will work again the next time around. A few hundred dollars here and there does add up to a lot, and it is immediate. Whether or not those few hundred dollars across the ratepayers of Toronto can amount to a shiny new beach for the waterfront, or a maybe LRT or Subway replacement twenty years from now doesn't hold a lot of water for people when you can promise them that they will have their money now.

Quite true. Ford won because Smitherman and Pantalone represented a 'culture of waste- Smitherman was tainted with the e-health scandal while Pantalone was seen as being too close to the unions. Ford was really the only popular choice that had no political baggage. That being said, Ford was and still is a creation of the press. When they gave coverage to him, they also helped spread his promises of gravy among the apolitical parts of the suburbs.

I predict that the city will have problems balancing the budget again in 2013 and possibly in 2014. By then, the suburbs may tire of Ford's political rhetoric (you can only spin so much). As for 2014, it remains to be seen if the presses will side against him; if at least the Globe and National Post joins the Star in condemning Ford, the public may be swayed against voting for him.

As for a challenger, they need to prove that Ford stands against everything he campaigned for (Fiscal conservatism).

1. Show that Ford is incapable of balancing our budget and has his hand in our pocketbook.
If Ford cancels the Land Transfer Tax, this makes it even easier to campaign against Ford. Ironically, his raising taxes also helps those opposing him. Shrinking government isn't easy and can cause harm to citizens if it isn't done properly.

2. Show that Ford is wasteful and ineffectual.
Show that Ford has wasted money cancelling projects around the city. If the streetcar order is cancelled, this makes it even easier to attack Ford's agenda. Ford's relationship with the unions will be played out by the end of this year(?), when some union contracts expire. He might put up a fight, but if he ends up capitulating, then it makes it easy to target Ford for 'being weak with the unions'.

3. Show that the city is impacted by Ford's cuts to city services.
The library closings may not have an affect on all people, but other cuts might. If some terrible accident/tragedy occurs because of cuts to services, it opens up the empathy vote against Ford. As for TTC cuts, if the streetcar order is cancelled and streetcar and bus routes are removed, it will likely have benefits for the candidates who chooses to blame this on Ford.

4. Show that Ford is not clean in governing.
Ford has a clean political record, but his method of governance is already seen as pretty shady (like cancelling projects in other wards, pushing last-minute bills, lack of community consultation). Throw in some corruption claims for fun!