Mayor Tory the Tory
Now that the election campaign is over I think its time to start a new thread on Toronto under the new mayor.
The big question is whether Tory will govern as a big tent centrist "de facto liberal" or if he will return to his lifelong conservative roots. So far the evidence is mixed but disturbing. On the one hand he has appointed an "advisory committee" of 20-odd people some of whom are good people such as Gord Cressy (father of Joe)...but I have no idea whether people on that "advisory committee" are anything other than tokens with no actual power and that any "advice" they give will be ignored if it isn't conservative advice.
More disturbingly, Tory has appointed the top two people in his office Chris Eby and Vic Gupta - both are hard core rightwing conservatives who used to work for cabinet ministers during the Harris era. In fact Eby worked for Tim Hudak for several years. If Tory was really going to be this cuddly David Crombie-style red Tory, i might have expected him to staff his office with non-partisans or people with more liberal pedigrees - instead he is putting rightwing fanatics in the positions of power.
Caveat emptor.
Stock, I was equally unconvinced by his "diverse" transition committee when he appointed two ex-PCs and lobbyists to head his office.
Also, ex-Lastman worm Case Ootes is heading the transition team, who also headed Ford's transition team in 2010.
John Tory is so conservative that his name is John Tory.
I see a continuation of Ford policies,in fact he will probably go further.
WTF is happening in Toronto?
I wonder the same thing. Used to be that there would be one progressive option against one conservative option. This election, there were two conservative options that were splitting each other's votes, and the progressive option still lost behind BOTH of the conservative options. What is happening in Toronto?
Olivia discouraged all the other progressive candidates from running, because she felt Tory & Ford would split the right-wing vote. Leaving the entire progressive/left plank to herself.
The problem was 25% of NDP voters supported Ford, while the other 50% went to Tory to stop Ford. Leaving Olivia with 25%.
Which will be the same case if Doug Ford becomes Ont PC leader. He will steal so many NDP votes, Horwath would be lucky to keep party status.
Dippers voting for Ford?
Somebody's on acid.
Actually, Olivia Chow was talking to people about running looong before Tory was even going to be a candidate - and as late as February it was unknown whether Tory would even run. Everyone has a right to run for mayor - someone else on the left could have also run...but when you look at who was on council from the progressive wing - no one would have been a serious candidate.
It will be interesting to see how Tory proceeds. He's promised both the Scarborough subway and the SmartTrack rails. Both need environmental assessments and work to get underway. The Scarborough subway, if construction even begins in this term, will disrupt traffic hugely just like the tunneling along Eglinton has. There probably won't be any action on this initially.
I imagine one of his first actions will be similar to what one of Mayor Ford's first actions was: to privatize waste collection. Ford did this via reallocating workers in waste collection west of Yonge to other positions (since many were part-time and/or contract). I'm not sure how exactly Tory'll do this on the east end, unless he resort to layoffs (which would be even more draconian than Ford).
Does it really matter? Isn't one of the NDP's "Ten Commandments" that the Liberals and Conservatives are EXACTLY THE SAME?
Note that I used a small "l" and a small "c"
I don't need to link to report on private conversations I've had with small "l" liberals who are very disturbed by the signals Tory is sending out by his staffing decisions. Since you terrytowel are a Liberal why don't you tell us how it makes you feel to see John Tory stack his office 100% with radidly rightwing CONSERVATIVES with backgrounds working for Harris, Hudak and FORD? Are you happy or sad to see this happen? is it what you expected or not? Are you disappointed or not?
Surely there was an expectation that Tory didn't just pretend to be a Liberals for the last three months but was actually going to govern like one...how does he do that with a office entirely composed with people who worked for Harris, Hudak and FORD?
Of course not, Ford campaigned with his belly out, and Tory campaigned without a tie.
I see that Tory has the tie back in now that he has been elected. :)
So far all of our worst fears about Tory look likely to realized. The newspapers are reporting that he will KEEP the braindead Ford-lover Frances Nunziata as speaker of council and he is planning to move forward on privating more municipal services and 100% of the names being leaked as his picks to head the major committees are rightwing Ford Nation members.
I hate to say i told you so, but i told you so!
The papers report that he will chose big-C and little-C conservative Denzel Minnan-Wong as deputy mayor.
That must create a glow in your heart TerryT.
Yeesh, Minnan-Wong for Deputy Mayor? Frances Nunziata, Ford's BFF, back as Speaker? I knew Tory was a wolf in sheep's clothing, but I thought he would atleast attempt to seem conciliatory.
Its all confirmed in the Star. Tory is packing his executive committee completely with rightwing conservatives most of whom had the same jobs under Rob Ford. Its way WORSE than anyone expected. He has shut out anyone from the centre or left from having any influence whatsoever.
The only remotely progressive councillor on Tory's team is Pam McConnell who has been given a powerless ceremonial role as one of four deputy mayors - just window dressing
http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2014/11/30/mayorelect_john_tory_un...
To all those people who said we had to vote for John Tory to stop Ford all I can say is FUCK YOU!!@!!!
I guess Toronto voters didn't really vote the Fords out of office after all?
I would be interested in TerryT's views on this.
Perhaps he should revise his mantra to "if you want Ford Nation to stay in power you must vote Tory."
Here is a comment from a Liberal blgger expressing disappointment that Tory's appointments are so conservative.
http://blunt-objects.blogspot.ca/2014/11/torontos-new-government.html
TerryT, your silence is deafening.
What can I say? I'm disappointed so many of Ford former appointments are still in powers of positon.
But several Liberals are. Shelley Carroll, Josh Colle, Michelle Berardinetti, Glenn De Baeremaeker, Ana Bailao, Mary-Margaret McMahon, Chin Lee, Paul Ainslie, Cesar Palacio and James Pasternak
The way the Executive committee and chairs work (even going back to David Miller) once you sign on, you have to support the mayor on all votes.
Can you imagine any NDPers voting along with Tory? Plus none of them endorsed Tory, rather they backed Chow. How it look now that they backed Chow, but now vote Tory's way on council.
In addition this is about bringing the city together. Tory won downtown, but he needs to reach out to the suburbs. Those on his executive represent those areas that didn't vote for Tory, but Ford.
By having councillors who represent Ford strongholds on his executive he is sending a message those areas are important and will be looked after.
OK I know you are going to take it as spin, let's hear your spin. I'm sure I'm going to get an earful Nicky. btw long silences means I'm offline, having lunch or working out at the gym.
well if you'd rather have Ford in the mayors chair fine. Toronto has spoekn and they didn't want Ford back. Period.
To be fair, Tory did drop Nunziata from the Police Services Board. And the speaker does what - kind of a clerical position really. She seemed okay at that whenever I watched debates, although she does seem pretty useless otherwise. Her ward borders the one I live in and I swear the streets turn to shit when you cross the border - a pothole fiesta compared to the generally good condition in the ward run by the car-hostile Perks.
And Denzil... a legend in his own mind. But I can kind of see it. Tory has no experience on council, so appointing a strong deputy mayor with years of experience might have had the effect of making himself a lame-duck from day one. No danger of being outshone by Denzil.
No fan of Tory, and generally agree that he's likely to be worse than Ford, but on those two appointments I'm not that concerned.
Imagine how the suburbs would feel if Olivia got elected, and stacked her executive with councillors from the downtown. And the suburbs got completely shafted.
The NDP dominates the old city of Toronto. If Tory just put in NDP councillors on his executive, the suburbs would feel completely ignored.
Which is how we wound up with Ford in the first place. This suburban ailenation where Downtown gets all the perks and committee chairs.
The whole point is to make the suburbs feel included, not excluded.
He had to reach out to councillors from the suburbs (who did vote for Ford) to show that part of the city they are important.
The suburbs feel the cities have had enough attention. It is now their turn.
By making it ONE Toronto. If councillors representing the old city of Toronto has to take a backseat, so be it.
So you think Mike Harris's forced amalgamation was a good thing? Seems more like an unmitigated disaster to me.
Amalgamation was NOT a good thing. But like it or not it what's done is done, and we all just have to move forward.
What a bunch of bullshit double-talk. For one thing Miller distributed power, even putting people like Giorgio Mammoliti, Gloria Lindsay Luby, Norm Kelly, Glenn De Baeremaeker on executive. And Lastman did his best to accomodate left-leaning councillors like Layton, Chow and Pantalone.
"Including" the burbs, does not mean excluding the inner core.
Both Ford, and Tory have followed the same formula.
I can see why you hold the opinions that you do. You have no clue.
We were talking about Olivia, not Miller.
Last time I checked Shelley Carroll, Josh Colle, Michelle Berardinetti, Glenn De Baeremaeker, Ana Bailao, Mary-Margaret McMahon, Chin Lee and Paul Ainslie are all left leaning councillors
Sorry, but Downtown has to take a back seat to the suburbs to repair the ailenation they feel.
But of course you want the Downtown to make the decisions for the suburbs, which is how we wound up with Ford in the first place.
Yeah.
I'm not sure what universe you're in to think that Berardinetti, Lee, Ainslie, Palacio (BARF!) and Pasternak are Liberals. Or liberals.
It's all of Ford's Gang of FuckHead Doofuses.
My only question, as I weep into my corn flakes about another FOUR GODDAMN MORE YEARS of this, is where is the Head Doofus, Mammoliti? Dare I risk being happy that he's been banished from any corridors of power and will just rot in Ward 7 where he belongs until he constituents wise up and boot him?
Huh? So your presumtions about how Olivia might have governed justifies Tory using the Ford governance formula? We voted for Oilivia precisely because she would not have used an exclusionary formula -- that was the whole point!
Miller and Olivia come from the same "civic" tradition, for one thing, and it is certain that she would have distributed power, as opposed to locking out some of the most talented peopl on council for ideological reasons.
Gord Perks is easily one of the smartest people on council, even if he might come off as tad arrogant, and even on that score he far better than Vaughan.
Good news for you though, Tory is snug as a bug with Kathleen Wynne's Conservative government at Queens Park, so you should be happy about that -- I can see Toronto Hydro being sold off on this council.
Michelle Berardinetti, Liberal - Centre-Left (Husband is Liberal cabinet minister)
Paul Ainslie, Liberal - Centre-Left (Former assistant to Liberal MPP Annamarie Castrilli)
Cesar Palacio, Liberal - Left (Entered politics as volunteer to Liberal Charles Caccia, worked as EA to Liberal Betty Disero)
James Pasternak, Liberal - Centre-Left (Close affiliation with Liberal MPP Monte Kwinter)
Chin Lee unknown
And yet she threw Tam Goosen and Joe Cressy under the bus the first chance she got. All for her own political survival. So much for 'distributed' power
My friend, it is highly doubful that the provincial Liberals are "liberals" -- we are talking about political world view, not lapel pins.