I created him? I'm not the one that is falling for the cheap slight of hand tricks. Transity City does not equal the bridge to the island in any way. i also didn't create amalgamation or shill for slitherman. The 53% that didn't vote for Ford can still fight him.

A truly idiotic statement.  Even if Pantalone dropped out, Smitherman still would have lost, unless you make the ridiculously unrealistic assumption that about 97% of Pantalone's voters would gone to Smitherman.

At no time did I suggest anything to do with Smitherman>  I meant that people with the same attitude as our craxys over the top councillor Davis, Fletcher McConnelland vaughan allowed Ford to win>

That is a bunch of crap. It was the Liberal shills at the Toronto Star that made Ford by crapping all over the Miller administration for an entire year after the garbage strike after a successful tenure in office of fairly substantive achievements. The Liberals figured they could come in on the anti-Miller bandwagon that they created with pretty much constant negative press about not much of anything. They thought they could do a whole lot better if they made Smitherman Minister of Toronto for the McGuinty government, so that he could P3 Transit City.

It is no accident that Ford registered to run for mayor the day after the Miller/McGuinty split on Transit City implementation became official.

The result was that Ford came in on an anti-Smitherman ticket aided and abetted by the Stars anti-Miller campaign that they hoped would get their man elected. Instead, if they had actually promoted the real benefits of real Miller initiatives like Transit City, instead of using every opportunity to trash Miller, Ford might have lost on the issues. Instead they tried to panic the voters, making Ford the key election issue, and in the cacophony of fear-mongering all logic and issue based politics was lost.

Fact is that no one really knows who Vaughan or McConnell is, except in their respective wards, and trying to cast blame in that direction is just sour grapes laden with misinformation.

I do too.

Partially.

I think the Star definitely made the miscalculation that they could take out Miller and replace him with Smitherman. (As an aside, this speaks to the major miscalculation the Mayor when he decided to abandon the NDP and put his chips down with the Liberals)

But as the election results showed the Toronto Star's ability to deliver elections is pretty limited.

I also think the profoundly anti-populist instincts of Miller, Perks, Vaughan, Fletcher, Bussin etc. made it pretty easy to paint the "establishment" at City Hall as arrogant, out-of-touch and downtown elitist. I'd disagree that "no one knows" se hgwho these Councillors are. Every Rob Ford voter knows that Kyle Rae was the guy who threw himself a $12,000 party. Sandra Bussin was the Councillor who called John Tory's show and lied about it. Paula Fletcher was the woman who yelled at a citizen because he asked for a tax cut. And that Miller's team charged you $60 on your birthday if you own a car (which is a virtual necessity in the poorly planned inner suburbs).

If people want to win back City Hall they have to win back voters that Miller easily won in 2003 and subsequently alienated. And you can't rely on the Toronto Star for any help. They're wrong on almost everything and hopelessly partisan.

Many cyclists were mobilized by the Michael Bryant case, when the former AG of Ontario got off without so much as a traffic ticket after he killed a cyclist with his car.  

If Rob Ford tried to enact any anti-cyclist bylaws, we (cyclists I mean) would bring this city to a standstill.  He's definitely not going to be "allowed" to roll back any gains made.  For instance, if bike lanes got painted over, there's an army of people who would instantly repaint them.

Rob Ford has said that with his election, "the war on the car is over."  There actually was no such thing, but if he enacts anti-biking legislation, the war on the car will surely begin.

I'm not sure if I agree with all this. First of all, how was it a "miscalculation" for Miller not to renew his NDP membership? I'm not saying I'm happy he did that - but so what?? (I don't recall him ever "putting his chips with the Liberals" - if he had actually done that the Toronto Star would have fallen in love with him!) Its not exactly unprecedented for mayoral candidates and mayors who are trying to appeal to voters in more than one party - to get rid of some of their "partisan baggage". I wouldn't be surprised if Shelley Carrol let's it be known in the near future that she has let her Liberal Party membership lapse - that way she can start amassing support from NDPers and non-partisan progressives.

The litany of incidents you mention about some of these councillors have nothing to do with being "populist" or not. Paula Fletcher has been a firebrand defender of the poor and underprivileged since the days when she was leader of the Manitoba Communist Party (lol) - so she got angry and told someone to shut up at a meeting - compare that to the countless incidents where Ford as councillor ran amok - including getting drunk at a hockey game and hurling racist epithets at people. Kyle Rae was retiring anyways - so he wasn't on the ballot - but let's not forget that Ford's newly named TTC chair Karen Stintz was on the front page of the Star for spending $5,000 of her office budget on public speaking lessons for herself - remind me why she's a populist and Kyle Rae isn't?? The city councillor who would always spend the most on questionable stuff was that great "populist" Giorgio Mammoliti (aka as "gino boy" according to Ford) - and he's now a major ally of Ford's. Gord Perks is out there every day fighting to protect city-delivered social programs people depend on - to me THAT is what being a "populist" is all about - fighting for things that benefit the average person. I'm not exactly sure what is "anti-populist" about Adam Vaughan - he seems to champion the issues that "the people (ie: the root of where the word "populist" comes from)" in his ward care about.

I usually think of "populism" as something I associate with the left - since the whole point of leftwing politics is to help the common people against the rich and power. Now, people seem to think that the only way to earn "populist credentials" is to be some crude anti-intellectual who talks in code about racism and gets endorsed by Don Cherry (you know, the guy who gets paid $800,000 by the publicly funded CBC to talk nonsence on Hockey Night in Canada).

Stockholm, you're right and I wish/hope you're providing advice to the folks on Council.

Rightly or wrongly (and I agree it was mostly wrongly) the "Left" on Council got branded as "not caring about the little guy" and Ford took a series of incidents and weaved them into a potent narrative - and the "Left" never got off the defensive.

But you're right, the petty crimes Ford used to indict Miller were also committed by members of his team and by Ford himself. Moreover, he's about to launch a series of measures that will brutally screw over the "little guy" he claims he's fighting for. The people waiting an hour for the bus at Jane and Finch won't be getting a train line. The mom who needs that City run daycare or she'll lose her job stands a good chance of losing that daycare. etc.

Paging Andrea Horwath: Make sure saving Transit City features prominently in your party's election platform next year.

I got this one too

Four years?  Has there been any detailed plans (like engineering) done at all for a subway along that particular line?  Four years sounds pretty unrealistic time frame to build something like this from start to finish.  Let alone something that isn't even funded yet and is going to costs oodle more then the transit plan that now exists for that route.  

Forgive me I haven't read these threads in detail or much about it in detail but has Ford even talked about where the $$$ is supposedly going to come for the changes he wants?  I'm assuming he's promising to somehow pull this off without any new taxes etc etc.   The money pulled from the 'gravy train' maybe?   I know this whole thing is about much more then money but I'd really like to know where the "Ford is awesome' peeps think it's going to come from.  The only thing I've heard so far is some airy notion that more then what has already been promised will come from the Feds or the Province which in the case of the Cons and their political motivations could happen.   My reply 'oh I see you have no problem taking more from other people then' didn't go over very well.   That was my selfish gene speaking there.  I'll admit it.   Regardless this money for this great and wonderous project has to come from somewhere.  There's no magic money tree. 

My guess is there has been exactly no plans made for the line, except for the one drawn on the back of a napkin earlier this year.

Four years is an impossible time-frame to build a subway line, even if you've got all the resources in the world (which the city doesn't). Environmental Assessments need to be done, consultations need to be made, contracts have to be haggled over, materials need to be ordered, all before you've moved a gram of dirt. If you go faster than you should, well: garbage in, garbage out.

I have a funny feeling that Jim Flaherty is going to have an attack of generosity just around the time the line needs, you know, funding. It'll be an overfunded mess that serves only a few. But hey, if it helps Hudak get elected, it can't be bad, can it?

First real victim - the library. I guess books are just for elitists or something like that.

Despite this, budgetary bureaucrats have put together a provisional plan that suggests taxpayers can save money by shutting the urban-affairs library branch. Its holdings would move to the Reference Library at Yonge and Bloor. A new branch is to open up in the neighbourhood – eventually....The budgetary proposal also envisions the Toronto Public Library – which touts itself as the largest urban library in the world – buying thousands fewer books than it has in years past.

Eglington line back on track?

Error corrected.

I'm seeing this as a hopeful sign.  That last thing Toronto needs is for Ford to pull a Mike Harris and stubbornly stick to all his promises in defiance of common sense.  The whole "respect for taxpayers" stance may result in a retention of large parts of Transit City.

We'll see in a couple of weeks, when Ford releases his transit plan.

I thought the Sheppard line was the only one to have broken ground. Got a link for that?

A great way of responding to library cuts

The library in Stony Stratford near Milton Keynes, England, urged its patrons to check out every book on the shelves as a way of proving to the local council that its collection and facilities provide a vital service to the community. Stony Stratford is one of many towns across the UK that are facing severe library closures as the Tory-LibDem coalition government recklessly slashes its transfer payments to local governments (while breaking their promise to rein in enormous bonuses at the banks, even the ones that are owned by the taxpayer).

Sounds like that should endear him to the rabid right wing voters who formed a proper part of his base.

The 2011 budget figures show the city wants to cut about 470 positions - but then add 518 new ones.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2011/01/24/toronto-ford-city-jobs.html#ixzz1C16OKcCv

Rob Ford has announced that the subway to the east end will be built partly with private capital in a 3P venture. His brother told CBC Radio 1 this morning that the city does not have the money, and "there is lots out there" in those pension funds, looking for someplace to land.

Is anyone surprised?

Yes, so the focus of the TTC can become how to best get the 905s to all those great jobs downtown while the inner suburbs continue in isolation.

It is now a 2-hour commute from the city's edges.  The Ford argument is that a subway would reduce that to 25 minutes. And of course, marginalized people aren't going to argue the private/public contest.  Nope, there has to be a better argument against 3P, like it is really coming to be an albatross for Brits since its inception in 1992.

Has anyone on this board come across a site that tells the story of the British 3P experience over the past two decades? Monbiot? Anyone with broadband service?

Something not so tight-assedly academic as this:

[PDF]

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
by T Krumm - 2010 - Related articles

I was just speechless when I read about this little bit of news:

Mr. Ford’s was the only dissenting vote against a motion reinstating $100,000 in provincial funds for syphilis and HIV screening – a budgetary addition that won’t cost the city anything.

Though I should mention that some gravy has been found at long last - but let's hope it doesn't get used as an excuse to chop funds for social housing.

As Fiorito mentions at the end of his piece, the fundamental problem is that the Mike Harris government downloaded all of their bady maintained provincial social housing onto the municipal government.

But yeah, there's a good chance that Ford will use this managerial stupidness at TCHC as an excuse to cut funding.   It's the kind of thing that right-wing populists do.

This is very much what he did at the budget consultation meetings.  At the one I was at he stayed until his "plant" made their presentation and then left and told the assembled media that everyone supported what he was doing.   Meanwhile the next couple of hours were filled with folks making presentations opposed to Ford's cuts...in particular cuts to local bus routes.

Ford is prone to saying stupid things and it looks like his handlers are telling him to stick to campaign talking points.

I think that the Ford gang is willing to completely write off the old inner city.  The majority of inner city voters supported Smitherman and Pantalone in 2010 and will be even more likely to support someone from the left in 2014.

Ford won the election by sweeping most of Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough where there are more voters.   The challenge for the left in 2014 will be to win in the inner suburbs.

This is why whoever runs against Ford in 2014 (if he even runs again) MUST be someone progressive from the suburbs and not an easily parodied inner city type (are you listening Adam Vaughan?). Its time for Shelly Carroll.

He's making me miss Mel Lastman.

I wouldn't go that far.

Or maybe it's time for "progressives" to ask why a city built on Anishnaabe land and whose population is mostly racialized people has been exclusively lead by white people in the Mayor's chair?

...or Michael Thompson???

My gut feel is that this poll is bought-and-paid bullshit.

My gut feeling is that the G&M article is also a piece of crap. They left out how he blew Miller's surplus to balance his budget, cut the cop budget instead of hiring 100 cops, made major cuts to services though he said that he wouldn't and went to the province for money. I guess after they tried to make a story out of Ford being a documented repeat liar and no one cared, journalists have just started letting his mound of lies fester in the corner without picking it up.

Ford is also 22% below where Miller was at the same time in their terms. Likely much lower than whoever white-knights Ford's mess in 3.5 years.

Yup, here's the Toronto Star's article onthe Tea Party North: http://www.thestar.com/news/article/949127--building-ford-nation

Closed for length.