Visions of Toronto in the Ford Administration

The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna Toranna are now all that remain

-Bob Dylan, Visions of Johanna

When David Miller assumed office in 2003, the legacy of Mel Lastman provided a great challenge. Toronto had a crumbling infrastructure from years of deferring maintenance in favour of property tax freezes and the city’s signature cultural achievement in this time was a series of fibre-glass moose, an idea taken from Chicago.

In his inauguration address at City Hall, Miller recognized existing challenges but struck an optimistic, forward looking tone:

“So, my first appeal to you as Mayor is this: Let this Council -- let us -- be guided by that spirit of openness, which is built into the very walls that surround us. Our challenges are great. The opportunities are greater -- let us start today.”

Miller unveiling the City Hall green roof, a symbol of a newly green city.

Although he inherited a city marred by corruption and limited accountability, whose governance was most marked by gaffes and short-sightedness, Miller saw the potential for something larger. He had a vision that Toronto could be a better place, the aspirational world-class city to which he often referred.

His vision was that with civic engagement - active buy-in to dialogue and ideas from citizens and stakeholders- an open and transparent foundation could be laid to provide opportunities to exercise community-building.

The same cannot be said for Team Ford. The Ford inauguration was filled with the blustering divisiveness of Don Cherry criticizing left-wing pinko cyclist kooks, a marginalizing tone that has continued in various forms throughout the administration.

In contrast to Miller, Ford’s vision is not about building of any sorts, but cuts. As David Rider persuasively writes in a column for the Toronto Star, these cuts are more representative of an animus towards government than the fear of structural deficit. After all, why freeze property taxes and cancel the vehicle registration tax before balancing that deficit?

Rob and Don give the thumbs up at inauguration. National Post.

Granted, Rob and Doug have revealed glimpses of vision here and there. However, the projects they mention include a monorail leading to an NFL stadium, a triple decker Gardiner and compounding Lastman’s Shepperd subway to nowhere.

These proposals, all of which have claims that the private sector will love to pay for them, are laughable enough that satire seems unneeded. Actionable, forward-looking projects like the Fort York bridge or the Jarvis redevelopment have been spitefully killed (the latter due to bike lanes) while Team Ford has mused about selling off Waterfront assets. 

But earnest, realistic city-building can still be found at City Hall. Three councillors, Adam Vaughan, Kristyn Wong-Tam and Josh Colle, currently have projects underway at different stages of development. These projects are each private-public-partnerships (P3s), a favoured form of engagement by the Fordites. While the structure of each deal is appealing to the administration and provide strong value for development money, there are shallow reasons that Team Ford could find to oppose each proposal.

Adam Vaughan and the John Street Cultural Corridor

Artist's rendition of proposed John Street corridor.

Adam Vaughan has been working on the John St. development for some time now in an effort to capitalize on an identified cultural corridor. The street has a lot going for it in terms of different cultural landmarks. It runs from Queen’s Quay and the Rogers Centre Skydome in the south, touching on: MuchMusic, the National Film Board, the Bell Lightbox, Scotiabank Theatre, Princess of Wales and Royal Alex theatres, Roy Thomson Hall and CBC headquarters before ending at Grange Park in front of the Art Gallery of Ontario. The idea is to link Toronto’s cultural institutions together in a way that encourages people to make the connections as they engage with the street. John is currently broken up by stretches with narrow sidewalk, a disengaging streetscape and little infrastructure.

Partnering up with the local BIA for the $50 million project ($10 million to be paid by the city) the proposed plan seeks to preserve historic buildings, promote business and tourism. More controversially, it would also ‘pedestrianize’ the street (although with removable bollards to allow necessary traffic through) while lining the street with trees and stylized benches.

It’s a pretty good plan that has local business and institutional support and would be a good goal to have complete for the 2015 Pan Am games. It’s not perfect either; Dave Meslin rightly took issue with the cycling stats compiled by consultants in the environmental assessment for instance. The biggest challenge though will be passing the perception test that the project is not ‘gravy’ and doesn’t represent a ‘war on the car’.

Kristyn Wong-Tam and Downtown Yonge's Public Space

Kristyn Wong-Tam’s nascent project will face similar challenges. Working closely and remarkably quickly with the Downtown Yonge BIA, Wong-Tam co-ordinated with local business owners and hired urban planner Ken Greenberg (all money paid by the BIA). The idea is to decrease traffic lanes between Dundas and Gerrard in order to increase room for pedestrians which their study shows is the dominant user of the area. It would also give potential to block off the road for festivals or events and aims to re-vitalize the declining stretch of businesses from Dundas to Gerrard. As with Vaughan’s plan, it uses the P3 structure encouraged by the administration but likewise would limit car use. Also, there’s the fear that as Wong-Tam is another left-leaning councillor the project could be spitefully nixed.

Rendition of Yonge closure by KPMB Architects. 

It’s a fear that would be nice to dismiss as misplaced paranoia but the record on the Jarvis bike lanes and Fort York Bridge shows otherwise. It’s something that Mushy Middle councillor Josh Colle has most certainly noticed. The newly elected councillor for Eglinton-Lawrence had a hold placed by Rob Ford on the Lawrence Heights Revitalization project in advance of the Jarvis Bike Lane vote. (The project aims to renew the neighbourhood through strategically placed mixed housing). The hold was somehow lifted after Colle voted in favour of the bike lane removal, an idea he previously opposed. The message was sent: approve our vision of cutting this part of the city down or we will cut your ward down.

Josh Colle and Cynical Games with Lawrence Heights

Having a vision is difficult. It requires nuanced planning, forethought and engagement. This is not how Team Ford rolls. They operate on divide and conquer strategies as they did with Colle, not collaborative stakeholder buy-in. They operate on slogans like ‘gravy train’ and ‘the war on the car’, ephemeral taglines designed to dismiss actionable, forward-thinking project like John St. and Yonge St. They threaten or axe projects not for policy but for political gamesmanship. 

******

But most of all, they operate without a vision. Miller wasn’t perfect, but unlike Ford he exhibited this quality. If Toronto is to have a vision during the Ford years, it will be led from the darkness by the wisdom of councillors and citizens who see the shortcomings in the administration’s outlook. Politicians are expected to be leaders, and the hallmark of leadership is the ability to see beyond.      

Team Ford's Terrible July: A Review

Most people can probably agree July was not Team Ford's best month. But looking back on each day with some excepted for weekends or slow news days, it was exceptionally bad. Bad enough to affirm the most cynical views of what a Rob Ford mayoralty would look like-- filled with gaffes, spite, bad policy-making, juvenile taunts and divisiveness. 

Team Ford's July in all its glory is below:  

July 2: Giorgio Mammoliti videotapes Dyke March and alleges some people unfurled a QuAIA sign.

July 3: Rob Ford conspicuously absent from Pride Parade and any Pride Week event

July 4: Mammoliti says all Pride funding should be withdrawn because of QuAIA appearance

July 5: Former TTC manager David Gunn says TTC planning is heading off a cliff, calls Sheppard subway plan ‘a joke’.

July 6: Sue-Ann Levy furthers the sense there is tension between Team Ford and TTC Chair Karen Stintz by attacking her performance in a Toronto Sun column, suggesting she has to go.

July 8: KPMG releases their first core services report. It concludes 96% of services provided by Public Works and Infrastructure are essential. Other reports will suggest high numbers for essential services and point to libraries, pools, Riverdale and High Park farms, fluoridated water as areas that could legally be cut. 

July 11: Ford ally Denzil Minnan-Wong declares community consultation and surveys statistically invalid, irrelevant. 

July 12: Denzil Minnan-Wong moves up Jarvis bike lane debate by a day in a move that seems designed to avoid bike supporters showing up. They pack the chambers at 2:00 when debate starts anyway. Rob Ford votes against all community grants .

Denzil Minnan-Wong's pitches to cyclists were always awkward

July 13: In addition to voting down Jarvis bike lanes, Team Ford votes to not debate accepting provincial funding for two public health nurses (this includes Ford votes by Mushy Middle councillors Beradinetti, Moeser and Lindsay Luby). Rob Ford also votes against AIDS grants.

In the Toronto Standard, writer Ivor Tossell adds a new word to the Toronto political lexicon, ‘uncompetence’.

July 14: Ford loses a vote on implementing a stop light in a school zone (he was against). His team huddles in response, presumably over how the war on the car has continued.

On the radio, Doug Ford claims that the library system is bloated and that his area has more libraries than Tim Horton’s (there are 39 Tim’s and 13 libraries in Etobicoke).

July 15: Ford does a fact-allergic interview with John Oakley to spin the opposition to the KPMG reports coming at the standing committee meetings.

Marcus Gee, a Ford sympathizer during his campaign and to this point, writes a scathing critique of Ford’s budget numbers and mayoralty in the Globe and Mail.

July 17: Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler, the co-founder of Fair Elections Toronto, is allegedly threatened by Doug Ford who is one of the councillors his group has an outstanding audit request against. 

July 18: At the Public Works committee, Ford loyalists Mark Grimes, John Parker, David Shiner and Minnan-Wong vote against having the Medical Officer of Health report on what the implementation changes would mean and against comparing the savings in the KPMG report to priorities from the public consultations. 

July 19:  The news that left-leaning councillor Janet Davis was unanimously kicked out of a Civic Appointments meeting hits the media. Giorgio Mammoliti unironically calls her a bully.

July 20: Organized by Critical Mass, over 900 cyclists protest Jarvis bike lane removal by taking over the street.

Photo by Hyedie Hasimoto of bike protestors at City Hall. 

Also today, Fair Elections Toronto loses their audit application for the campaign finances of Giorgio Mammoliti, Doug Ford, James Pasternak, Michael Thompson and three losing candidates.

July 22: The Toronto Star and Globe and Mail report that Team Ford is looking to fire TTC head Gary Webster due to a lack of support for their Sheppard subway plan.

Meanwhile, Ford answers another softball-laced interview, this time from Stephen LeDrew, with misrepresentations and falsities. He then implores Ford Nation to come speak for five minutes at the Executive Committee meeting on July 28. 3 of the 169 speakers go on to support service cuts in the committee meeting.

July 26: Breaking the mainstream news after being posted on Facebook, Rob Ford allegedly gave a fellow driver the finger as she and her six-year-old daughter gave him a Mammolitieque thumbs down for speaking on his cell phone while driving.

More importantly on this day, Mushy Middle councillor Josh Colle essentially admits he was squeezed to vote against Jarvis bike lanes due to a hold Ford put on a development project in his ward. 

Discussing her criticism of potential library closures, Doug Ford engages in a war of words with Margaret Atwood, dismissing her as someone he doesn’t know, wouldn’t recognize on the street and doesn’t have standing to contribute to the debate as she didn’t run for office. 

July 27: Doug Ford ‘clarifies’ his Margaret Atwood comment by saying exactly the opposite of what he originally said.

Doug Ford in media scrum. Globe and Mail photo. 

July 28: Executive Committee Meeting begins at 9:30AM with a vote on limiting speakers’ time from five minutes to three minutes and deciding that the meeting will not be broken up into separate days. 344 people sign up to speak.

July 29: At 7:57AM after a wide array of creative, thoughtful and passionate deputants the Committee votes on moving forward all measures. Ford’s executive, including Mike Del Grande, Giorgio Mammoliti and Denzil Minnan-Wong dismiss the strong opposition as union supporters, a vocal minority and a ‘socialist party’.

July 31: Mercifully, the month finally ends. 

Ford at Executive Committee meeting. Carlos Osorio/Toronto Star

The Citizen's Filibuster: Backlash to Ford Nation

Sometimes it's just a matter of physics. What goes up (Rob Ford's poll numbers) must come down, and for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In politics, reactions might not always be equal, but last night's was sure forceful.

Everything was set up to fulfill the most cynical of expectations about the city hall administration and politics in general. Earlier Denzil Minnan-Wong had dismissed people who responded to the public consultation as statistically invalid (that is, not Ford Nation) and Doug Ford chalked up the backlash at standing committees to organized union theatre. Even Margaret Atwood's opinion didn't count because she didn't run for office. 

By the end of the night, there were many Red Bulls on the table. National Post.

The meeting took place in Committee Room number one which holds slightly more than 100 people. On Wednesday, Kristyn Wong-Tam asked multiple people for the meeting to be held in council chambers to better hold the 344 deputants and spectators but her suggestion was rebuffed. And unsurprisingly, the executive immediately voted to reduce speakers' time from five to three minutes. Later on the executive committee would vote twice (in clear violation of committee rules) to limit councillors' question time to one minute (previously two).

Rob Ford left for an hour to participate in a TSN podcast where he made his weekly CFL picks (page two). And Giorgio Mammoliti, that Pericles of Ward 7, asked the city clerk to check the disabilities of deputants who spoke early on.

Toronto the Good, Respect for Taxpayers and other slogans weren't embodied on this executive committee. Everyone knew the meeting was just a formal exercise and that no number of deputations would change the Executive Committee's mind.

But rather than becoming dispirited or letting the default posture of apathy consume the proceedings, the opposite occurred. In the face of Fordian bullying, arrogance and condescension the committee room-- and the two packed overflow rooms-- were filled with what Jonathan Goldsbie referred to on Twitter as the energy of a TIFF Midnight Madness screening. 

Toronto Star photo of deputants waiting.

And past Midnight it went, for 22 and a half hours in fact. It was the longest continuous meeting in Toronto's history (an early motion said the committee would not break it up into several days-- some councillors had flights the next morning), but it wasn't a death march. In the face of the absurdity and manipulation of Ford, people responded with whimsy and earnestness.

Dave Meslin organized a lunchtime city hall picnic that sadly had a damper put on it by the weather. Later on, the #cityhallslumberparty hashtag took flight with Meslin (and myself, natch) wearing pajamas and carrying around stuffed animals.

There were memorable deputations, such as 67-year-old Mary Hynes who trolled the executive committee with steaming sarcasm, "As you can see from thousands of petitions and emails complaining about proposed service cuts, far too many people use the library to improve literacy and to learn about government and politics. You would save millions." She even generated her own hashtag, #yellygranny, something she most likely would not have anticipated in her lifetime.

There was 14-year-old Anika Tabovaradan who finally got the chance to speak at 2AM and through her tears and fear of public speaking asserted the importance of public libraries to her suburban ward.

There were devoted crossing guards, one of whom wouldn't mind an RPG to better marshall cars, and a humorous allegory 'about a house called Toronto', suitable for city hall slumber party storytime.

Punchline: Councillors, don't be a puppet for the mayor.

 Artist and writer Brian Cauley gave a rhyming spoken word deputation, Susan Wesson gave people a boost with a singing deputation at 4AM and former candidate for council Desmond Cole gave one through his sockpuppet Roy.

Laura Heslin Piper eloquently spoke about the need for animal shelter subsidies and as Ford was off to the side chatting with Giorgio Mammoliti she scolded him for not listening. When challenged by the committee on the Toronto Animal Service's high euthanasia rate she gave a knowledgable, nuanced and impassioned answer detailing how the TAS policies differ from other organizations to make the number deceptively high.

Kevin Clarke, above. 

Toronto Star food critic Corey Mintz, dressed in a dapper suit, brought in a tasty chili to Committee Room 2 where supporters yelled barbs and support at the two streaming screens. And Kevin Clarke, dressed in something of his own, gave the proceedings a different spice and flavour as he interrupted to yell that Ford stole the mayoralty from him.

Maureen O'Reilly, head of the Toronto Public Library Union, spoke about the public support and need for their services capping it off with a Miracle on 34th Street-style procession of 39,000 petition signatures. The standing applause lasted more than a minute and Ford ruled that the audience had used Joe Mihevc's questioning time in the process.  

Team Ford will spin the events as much as they can, saying that they stayed up all night listening to the public, that it is a proud civic moment for them. Simultaneously, they'll dismiss the 168 speakers as a vocal minority unrepresentative of the strength of Ford Nation and make up numbers to go along with it, like Mammoliti saying he doesn't want a 30% tax increase like some people do (no one said this). 


But on a bleary-eyed Friday for many, none of that really matters.

Corey Mintz offers chili with Goldsbie on left. Photo by Torontoist.

From Thursday to Friday morning, all the way to 7:57AM, citizens turned Ford's obstacle of democracy into an affirmation in the strength, spirit and dignity of Toronto. With creativity, passion and resolve an unprecedented number of individuals spoke to their vision of the city in contrast to the scorched-earth proposals the executive committee prefers.

For one day, it's OK to step back. After all, these events don't happen often. Ford Nation will spin their wheels and the media, but it's enough to admire the 'citizen's filibuster' from both the usual suspects and completely new individuals.

There will be more pitched battles down the road, and with people energized by the electricity in the rooms last night there will be all the more strength to push against the backwards thinking motions from Team Ford. It's that strength and energy that represents Toronto the Good, not the institution of city hall itself, and, just for a moment, things feel alright.

How Doug Ford Can Love Margaret Atwood

I get it Doug, I really do. Earlier today when were saying how useless libraries are and how you didn't know Margaret Atwood and wouldn't recognize her, I understood. You see, she's really an acquired taste. But like in an Atwood novel, even if things look bleak there's a glimmer of hope. You see, you can ease into some of her best work if you change the plot just a bit. Do this and I'm sure you'll be hanging out together on the library bean bag chairs like old pals. 


Just read the summaries I've prepared below. Fortunately, the library system has lots in stock of each book, even in Etobicoke:

Cat's Eye / Eye Formation

A middle aged painter football player looks back on childhood and growing up when attending a retrospective of her work hall of fame ceremony in Toronto, a place purposefully forgotten. Focusing on the complicated and nuanced emotional relationship of young women the totally heteronormative and fun jock culture of high school, Atwood gives the reader a chance to re-consider how understanding female relationships gives rise to a more assured sense of self awesome that season with 13.5 sacks was.

Blind Assassin / Full-Sighted Sniper Dude

This tale of two sisters brothers structures its central mystery of the death of one of the sisters case of the stolen piggy bank around several nested, layered stories a really linear plotline. Showing off her literary legerdemain straight-talk Atwood crafts a story that features political shenanigans, social unrest and sibling rivalry brotherly love, in the totally cool way.

Alias Grace / Grace is for Namby-Pambies

This 19th century period book, written in appropriate Victorian detail high-level business prose for easy-reading, details the trial and life of 16-year-old convicted murderer Grace Marks. Grace has her sentence commuted spends the rest of her life in prison because we need to show her that we're tough on crime. The end.

Handmaid's Tale

In this dystopian novel, far-right wing religious ideals are carried out to their logical extreme. Women are segmented from society only to be used for their reproductive and gender categorized utility, because that's dang efficient.

The Edible Woman

Ok, I'm not touching this one.

Oryx and Crake / Adrienne and Mark

It's a crisis on a scorched earth beset by problems created by genetic technology, social inequality and global warming and really random non-human-made unpredictable events. The two last people on earth are Oryx and Crake Adrienne Batra and Mark Towhey, and together they have a chance to re-shape the world in their image using their unique vision and skills communication and crisis management expertise. 

The Year of The Flood

For years a group predicting environmental catastrophe has protected it from occurring through diligence and persistence. But now that it has happened two marginalized women must go on a quest to right all that has been wronged. A straightforward and easy guide to six sigma management, this book will teach you how to lean out your organization quickly and minimize those one in a million errors.     

The Arguments of Team Ford: A Case Study

The logic of the Ford world can be difficult to decipher and unpack sometimes. And I also know that we've been encouraged to think of Toronto and politics in more business terms, so I thought I would make a chart to help us all understand how Fordian reasoning works. If I missed any, please add to the comments. 

Learning from Rob Ford to Defeat Rob Ford

In his first eight months as mayor, Rob Ford has had a relatively easy time passing the motions he has prioritized with a handful of minor setbacks. While people theorized during the campaign that there might be enough opposition to Ford to effectively run a shadow mayoralty, that has not materialized. Team Ford has run a tight ship, whipping councillors to get in line and swaying just enough of the mushy middle to get more controversial items passed such as turning down provincial funding for two public nurses.  It's worth looking at how Team Ford has accomplished this, and what this in turn means for the right response to counteract the policies put into place.

Ford has been able to pass motions for three principal reasons:

1) Strict Messaging

2) Whipping Councillors when needed

3) Capitalizing on Perceived Popularity

Ford on election night, Ian Kelso for Inside Toronto

 1) One of the most remarkable aspects of the mayoral campaign was how disciplined Ford was at staying on message. Repeating the 'gravy train' and 'respect for taxpayers' mantra ad nauseam was effective in framing the debate and instilling quick, memorable ideas in voters' minds. This strict messaging from the campaign is maintained in the administration in the face of easily falsifiable claims, as The Grid's Edward Keenan has pointed out lately. But most observers don't follow politics closely enough to know they're being sold a bill of goods. Hey, even Stephen LeDrew doesn't call him on it!

2) As is oft-repeated, councillors have the vast majority of power at city hall while the mayor only has one vote. Things haven't worked out this way during Ford's brief time, with most moderate councillors being resistant to the idea of standing up proposed policies. Part of this is out of the fear of reprisal, as with Josh Colle voting for the removal of the Jarvis Bike Lanes perhaps due to an extortive hold put on a development project in his ward by Mayor Ford. Others may want to keep their committee assignments or don't want to be made targets like Mike Layton and Kristyn Wong-Tam were for the Fort York Bridge and Jarvis Bike Lanes. The administration has so far demonstrated a vindictive and spiteful side to it that is perfect for whipping councillors against standing up for their principles.

Mushy. 

3) Moderate councillors are not only looking for their cues from the Ford Team due to point number two above, but also because of Ford's perceived popularity. Not only did Ford receive a healthy pluarlity for his mandate, but he has framed himself as a straight-shooter who is in touch with the common man and woman. When he speaks, he speaks as though he knows what all taxpayers want, claiming that the silent majority connects to him through his magic divining rod of a cell phone that no one can dispute. Other councillors want to deliver 'what the people want' regardless of the fact that their constituents also voted for them to follow their principles. But the moral suasion of the mayor's office carries public significance and it's tough for many of the moderate councillors (a number of whom are rookies) to feel comfortable challenging that.

Where Team Ford has been successful in crafting a message and image that allows quick and successful passage of their goals, opponents can use what they do well against them. This is a much more difficult task in the absence of formal parties or co-ordinating tools for the opposition in Toronto's city hall structure. But it's still possible to make a lot of headway.

1)    Consistent Messaging Alternatives

2)    Pressuring the Mushy Middle both positively and negatively

3A) Connecting with communities

3B) Raising Ford's negatives

1) Ford's amazing consistency with phrases and terms has had an impact on the language that is used in Toronto's political discourse. As Downtown Pinko Elitist as this sounds, those terms matter, such as the difference between a taxpayer and citizen. Heck, even Mark Towhey and Nick Kouvalis would admit that. As has been pointed out before, citizen implies a a dual relationship, a contribution to the community and using the benefits of it. Taxpayer only implies the latter, and that's a pretty lousy vision. 

Team Ford also uses 'entitlement' language to speak derisively of things like the Riverdale Farm, low-income nutrition and childcare subsidies. It's pretty effective language, but language that can be co-opted and subverted. After all, what's a bigger entitlement than not keeping property taxes, the lowest in the GTA, at the rate of inflation during consistent structural deficits? After all, this dispropotionately helps the wealthiest whereas KPMG cuts disproportionately affect the neediest. That's entitlement. Flipping this kind of language can help to lift the facade from Fordian rhetoric and deconstruct the impact that it has on how the city's policies treat its citizens. 

Via @joshuahind

2) There's been some chatter lately about Project 23 over at All Fired Up in the Big Smoke. The project, which sounds like something Nick Fury might organize, aims at focusing on the Mushy Middle votes that assure Ford passage of most of his priorities. Daren Foster (Cityslikr) writes:

"...we need to concentrate on those in the so-called mushy middle. Let’s call it the vulnerable middle. Councillors, both new and old, who are regularly siding with the mayor out of either fear of the mayor’s tactical pressure or plain old political expediency. The going’s good now and they are aware of fallout if they are seen to be bucking Ford Nation. So they’re skulking in the shadows, hoping no one notices them and that come election 2014, they’ll be able to continue under the radar of their own ward races.

Let’s start informing them that that’s not going to happen. They will have to answer to their voters if they continue their craven allegiance to this administration. If they think there’s a price to be paid not being a Team Ford player, notice needs to be served there’s going to be no free ride for such slavish devotion."

I think Foster is right in encouraging people to inform Mushy Middle councillors that their votes enable Ford to pass motions without any consideration or compromise are noticed and ill-advised. But I think that more than threats have to be offered, that assistance is needed too. As Foster points out, many of these councillors are in vulnerable wards and will need help to be re-elected. Rather than threatening to simply unseat them, a co-ordinated effort is needed to support those that oppose awful policies in the face of electoral difficulties. Not offering that alternative may force them to side with Ford who can offer Sopranos-like protection and resources to help. It's this kind of coalition building that can go a long way in establishing a large enough opposition to stem the bloodletting from the current administration. 

3) There's two main ways to defeat an opponent in politics, to raise your own positives/sell your own ideas and raise your opponents unfavourables. So this will be split into those sections.

Connect to communities and raise negatives. Also, people like cats. 

3A) First, the idealism. It's pretty tough to raise positives in city hall due to relatively low name recognition/public interest and the individual structure of city hall. But it's possible. There are two aims here: to connect to directly impacted communities and make the larger connection to communities who are not directly impacted.

The Jarvis Bike Lanes Debate is a good example. Led by Dave Meslin and the Bike Union, the cycling constituency was out in force. It was an impressive display even if it fell short. What is more difficult is making the connections to people who are outside that issue. I don’t ride a bike, but the process by which the removal was passed impacts me as a cheapening of our democratic discourse. If I have an issue at city hall, I want fair, open and transparent means to discuss it. It also impacts me as a friend and family member to those who do cycle or as someone who cares about the environment (some of this was done, but I feel more of it was possible). Building those coalitions and connections is tough work but it’s needed to fight the populist-style politics at city hall.

3B) The second cynical portion is, sadly, easier to accomplish and often more politically effective. Ford’s negatives are already dramatically up (from 17 to 24% strongly disapprove) according to the latest StratCom poll and his slash and burn politics may gradually continue that trend and erode cover given to the Mushy Middle in supporting him.

What the opposition needs to do is speed up that deserved process before too much damage can be done. This can be done by making Ford earn his credibility. This requires holding him accountable for his facts (80% of budget goes to employees! 10x the traffic on Jarvis!), campaign promises (repeat, no service cuts), and cutting into the myth of the populist everyman that has been created for him. Because really, he cares more about his ideology (facts be damned) and image than he cares about you.

The TL;DR version for those of you (like me) with Twitter-attention spans:

§          Develop consistent messaging and terms to undermine Ford’s

§          Nudge the Mushy Middle using both the carrot and the stick.

§          Tailor messages for both narrow constituencies and broader communities to demonstrate how it impacts their  lives

§          Drive up Ford’s negatives to show how his disrespect for facts, process or promises disrespects each citizen

A lot of this has already been done in less formal ways, but if the Ford administration is to be limited in the damage it can inflict then opposition must be their equal in organization and focus, a difficult task given the loose structure at city hall.

Lizard Brain Planning

Over on Twitter, City Hall All-Star (or Mongoose, according to Torontoist) Jonathan Goldsbie points out an interesting observation in Toronto Star article, “Road to Privatize TTC Would be Bumpy”. In the article CD Howe Institute analyst Ben Dachis asserts that making the TTC an essential service makes it more difficult to contract out as arbitrators are sympathetic to the group’s status when making decisions.

Of course, this is contrary to inclination of the Ford administration to contract out whatever possible. Isolated as an ideological principle, contracting out city services is fine. You may not agree with it or its underlying vision for the role that government plays in building communities, but it’s an intellectually grounded position that can be discussed. It’s the contradictions, lack of intellectual planning and grounding that make the Ford administration’s logic (or what there is of it) so tough to follow.

Photo by Flickr user chewie2008

The decision to make the TTC an essential service was a curious one in the first place. Mark Towhey, Ford’s top strategy and policy adviser, had argued on his personal blog (link to Steve Munro's commentary, blog post has been deleted) during the campaign that the city should not run the TTC at all. Not that funding arrangements should be different or the province should run it, but that the city could save a lot of money by not offering the service. Plus, it would encourage neighbours to share taxis! Seriously, that was a reason he offered in a since-deleted blog post. Granted, Towhey doesn’t share all of the views of Ford, so the mayor shouldn’t be held to that silliness (although he did hire Towhey).

But to go in completely the opposite direction is something else. The logic behind the TTC being made an essential service went something like this: TTC strikes are disliked and the union is disliked so let’s stop strikes and disempower the union by making it an essential service.

There are problems with this. Dachis published a 2008 study for the CD Howe Institute- considered a conservative leaning organization- that argued making the TTC an essential service is not a definitive way to stop strikes, will lead to higher wage increases ($25M over 3 years) and makes it more difficult to win union concessions in the future despite limits in union negotiation. In other words, none of the aims would be achieved. But those warnings were ignored. Planning was thrown out the window in favour of sticking it to unlikeable TTC Union boss Bob Kinnear right away.

What’s troubling about this- policy considerations aside- is the fact that the Ford administration set their sights on a small short-term goal in making the TTC an essential service that they lost sight of their own team’s goal of making the TTC smaller organization with fewer employees and outsourced services. In other words, they even failed to plan for their own ideological goals.

The lack of planning extends to other important areas of governance. In the 2011 budget deliberations Speaker Frances Nunziata, presumably acting on orders of Ford, forbade councillors from referring to the 2012 budget. Knowing that there would be a 2012 shortfall but wanting to focus on the immediately gratifying Ford tax cuts, the ruling against prudence and planning forced left-leaning councillors to refer to the 2012 budget as the Voldemortesque budget-that-must-not-be-named.

Now that the 2012 budget is topical with the KPMG core service reviews, the planning is equally poor and short-sighted. Even the normally vanilla-opinioned Josh Matlow criticized the framework on his website:

"While I believe it was necessary to review how, and what, services our municipal government delivers, it is clear to me that the review process announced by the mayor's office was done hastily and did not properly take into account the feasibility of the proposals in the consultant's report nor the needs of most Torontonians."   

Lizard Brain Instincts

By conducting a piecemeal review that separates city services from the value they create, the service review fails to provide a wholesale look at how the city can operate better. Instead, it is a knee-jerk reaction to the most immediate desired outcome, in this case to cut off as much government as possible, sort the consequences later. While the policy effect may be different that the TTC essential service argument (reducing vs. preserving city paid employees) the same flawed process and management underlies the decision making. 

It’s a kind of decisions making and governance style that is visceral, where the rhetoric and discourse appeals to our lizard-brain. The underlying philosophy doesn’t even have to be consistent so long as the emotional resonance is. By focusing on emotional, short-term and immediately gratifying outcomes, Team Ford abandons planning, leading everyone to wonder just what could happen next. And it’s that emotional effect, the fear and uncertainty of what might happen, that is one of the few consistent things coming from the administration.