Rob Ford - going off the rails!
Looks like Rob Ford is going off the rails (pardon the pun) already.
He wants to kill all of Transit City eevn though hundreds of millions have already been spent and hundreds of millions worth of cancellation penalties would have to be paid. He says he wants $4 billion worth of subways instead. He is making a good start in finding the money for all this - his proposed cuts to perks for councillors and city hall office budgets will add up to a grand total of $800,000.
During the campaign, when Ford was challenged about how his numbers didn't add up - ehw ould say "My mother always told me that if you watch the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves".
I think the new line to be used should be "Rob Ford: A penny wise, A pound foolish"
http://www.thestar.com/news/transportation/article/899641--war-on-the-ca...
Reads like he is posturing, and knows that he alone can do nothing, as such, he is setting it up to "blame" others for his inability to follow through with 'his' election promises.
In the end, what will probably happen is the worst of both worlds - no LRTs AND no new subways. Ironically, the people who will suffer won't be people downtown who didn't vote for Ford. We already have subways and streetcars. The people who will be hurt will be the very people in the distant corners of Etobicoke and Scarborough who voted for Ford and who will now see any progress on building more transit to those areas go down the drain.
Right.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/sheppard-east-lrt-v...
Scarborough LRT: $1.1 billiion all in (vehicles/maintainance/storage) 12 km and 26 stops.
Our Ford's subway: $3.6 billion (inlcudes vehicles but not potential $500 million yard) 8 km and only 7 stations)
brilliant! less service for more money! good thing the gravy train's over!
Ford's transit "plan" contains plenty of comedy gold. The best thing about it, is that he actually screws over his own constituents worse than anyone else in the city. At least North York and Scarborough will get a new subway, such as it is. Downtown will have service that will get appreciably worse, while Etobicoke is still a public-transit wasteland.
Proving once again: you get the government you deserve.
No one is getting anything. Remind is right. Rob Ford only knows how to do confrontational politics. His aim is to have a show down with McGuinty and make hay for the provincial election in the hope that this fight will continue to depress the Liberal vote. Then when Hudak is in... who cares... they can just sell off the whole transit system.
Cue, that is absolutely what I got with all his posturings. He is putting ducks in a row, beyond this municipal win. And he is going to "make hay" while the winter wind blows, setting himself up as McGuinty's 'victim' and by extention selling his electorate that they are 'the victims' as well.
He is keeping them initially lulled with posturings of no tax increase, afterall no tax = wealth creation, in the indoctrinated world. Then he will find no way to reach a consensus with McGuinty, meanwhile Harper will say "no problem", thereby making McGuinty look even worse. In steps Hudak, and promises the world.
While I don't disagree Cueball, I think this is about more than municipal and provincial politics. This is also about federal politics and the desire for the Conservatives to win some suburb seats in traditionally Liberal areas. I would bet we will see some kind of Ford-friendly gift in the next federal budget that targets those areas.
It's not a fait accompli. From Stockholm's link in the o/p:
Given that council has to vote to kill Transit City, and the mayor is just one vote in council, what are the chances? How many councillors will vote in favour of Ford's disastrous plan?
Considering this asshole (Ford in case anyone doesn't get it) shut out all progressive councillors, it could go one of two ways:
1) the progressives back him in order to get their items through or
2) they defend Transit City
My guess is Transit City will die, and the fools who voted this clown in will suffer the most.
Progressive politicians could take notes here on getting to the more controversial aspects of the platform you were elected on first.
i don't doubt it. Though we should be mindful of how Council votes too. In order to kill Transit City, he would have to get a vote at Council and, if they don't vote it down, he doesn't get his fight with the Province to begin with.
He didn't quite shut them all out. The ever pliable Adam Vaughan managed to find a seat on the new gravy train by getting to represent City Hall at the AGO, and he is still lobbying to stay on the TPSB. Neither of these appointments guarantee Vaughan a seat on the executive, but I don't doubt his abilities to find his way on there sooner or later.
Doug Ford said he was "impressed" by Vaughan, and that we could "quote him on that", so I am.
Rob Ford was also impressed with Joe Pantalone:
Doug's statement was made as a response to actual negotiations that they had around appointments, not some theoretical "what if" Radio 680 News trivia question. Most people say basically that about Joe.
If given the oppotunity to be a player, I predict that Adam Vaughan will not:
A) Oppose privitization of the curb side garbage pickup.
B) Oppose downsizing City Hall staff through attrition.
Both of these items were on both Ford's and Smitherman's "to do" list, and Vaughan never suggested he would oppose these parts of Smitherman's plan when he endorsed Smitherman.
Doing that will open up Adam to a challenge from the union/ndp left. He may be pliable, but the ward he represents constrains him.
He already beat the NDP in Trinity Spadina, and Mike Yen proved there is even some wiggle room to move further right, coming in with 3600 votes. The real constraint upon Vaughan is the fact that if his real ambition is to run for mayor against Ford next time around then he had better distance himself from Ford and run clearly in opposition. But, I am begining to doubt the idea tha Vaughan has any intention of running in 2014.
What "union/ndp left" are you talking about?
a. I actually don't think Adam Vaughan has any plans to run for mayor. His family is too young and the reality is that the only way anyone remotely progressive can get elected major is if they have credibility in the 'burbs and I think he knows that. The councillor for the downtown core in Ward 20 will never have that. You need a Shelley Carroll
b. I'm not sure what the big deal is about being named the City of Toronto's rep on the board of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Most city councillors get named to one or more "special purpose bodies" and the AGO board is just about the least important one I can think of of. The fact that Vaughan gets to vote on whether or not the AGO should host a travelling exhibition of Monet's water lilies is hardly evidence that he has any influence whatsoever and being on the AGO board means diddly squat in terms of being on the executive of the city of Toronto.
Trinity-Spadina has a significant number of leftists living here. Some of them orient towards working in unions and/or supporting the NDP. Others are more independent. If Adam makes anti labour moves the people who are union/NDP oriented will run a candidate against him. Adam won the first time by running to the left of the NDP on the democracy issue, if he starts making anti union moves he will lose the leftists in the ward, and those are the people who decide municipal elections here. They come out and vote.
Your assumption is that Vaughan did not defeat those forces when he defeated Helen Kennedy. Kennedy represented those forces, and the NDP core in Trinity Spadina. Alone those forces were not able to defeat Vaughan, so there is no evidence that he could not defeat them again, especially if he manages to capture more of the right wing vote.
I really don't think there are more than the 5500 people who voted for Helen who will stick fast to those labour issues on principle. The NDP needs that PLUS something else to make the seat winnable for them.
I am not sure what being left on the "democracy" issue means, or how that relates to bedrock collective bargaining rights.
Adam Vaughan has a voting record that is to the left of many councillors who are NDP members in the first place - so why would anyone run against him? Now, if he did some sort of a 180 degree "volte-face" and became a total cheerleader for Ford and joined his executive committee and voted to scrap Transit City, voted to get rid of all bike paths and voted for a budget that was a total assault on basic services etc... it would be a different story and he would face opposition from someone and there would be ISSUES to oppose him on. But I think the chances of any of that happening are nil.
Vaughan beat Helen Kennedy because it was clear to people that they had exactly the same policies and so it became a matter of who is a bigger name and more of a big shot. The Labour Council didn't even endorse anyone in 2006 because Vaughan and Kennedy were seen to be so equally pro-labour.
And there is the rub Stockholm, the only equivocal statement in your list is the one referring to the two points I just mentioned about reducing the work force at city hall and privatizing garbage collection. You recognize implicitly that Vaughan is flexible on these issues, and not only that if cutbacks and privatization were handled in terms that you think are "reasonable" you would likely vote for him again. And this is coming from the heart and soul of the Trinity Spadina NDP riding association.
We can just imagine what Liberals in Trintiy Spadina think, and with the soft liberal vote in the NDP and the Liberals to count on, as long as he doesn't scrap bike lanes (something that Ford is unlikely to insist on in Ward 20, since he proposes that such issues be handled at the community level) then everything will be fine with you.
In other words all that Vaughan has to do is convince you that these cuts were not a "total assault" (however that is defined) or perhaps merely "the best deal that could be hoped under the Ford regime" and you would be trotting out your excuses for him next time round.
Indeed, you have already started.
Thank you for putting words in my mouth with your usual witche's brew of needling, manipulative innuendo.
I'l be surprised if Adam Vaughan and Mike Layton don't vote the same way 100% of the time over the life of this council.
Come now Stockholm, surely you aren't trying to convince me that you have a 100% hard line pro-union stand, are you? You don't think some of those overpaid CUPE managers might not be extraneous to the functioning of city hall, or that privatization of some garbage collection might not be acceptable?
You have shown no qualms about defending Smitherman and Smitherman councillors who overlooked these two points of Smitherman's agenda and defended Smitherman as the "least worst" viable option on numerous occasions. Its ok to admit that you are flexible on these issues.
As long as someone comes to pick up you garbage it doesn't really matter much to you what they are paid, does it? At least city services are being maintained. These are not make or break issues for you.
A serious answer here...
... honestly...
The way things are framed now, someone claiming to represent the labour/union/NDP constituency vs Vaughan would be lucky to do much better than Mike Yen did. I mean, we're getting to the point where "sticking up for labour" is a little like provincially vouching for Joe Flexer or Amani Oakley in 1995...
Reinforcing that framing doesn't help.
Salient article in the Globe and Mail:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/councillors-insist-...
Metrolinx is a big player - Rob Ford would not be able to carry forward with his plan without Metrolinx' buy-in. And stopping Transit City is potentially very expensive.
I urge Toronto babblers to contact the mayor's office or your councillor to show your support for transit city.
When a certain activist got back to Toronto today after a very productive stay in Dauphin, a friend welcomed him back as follows:
It still doesn't always work. When Jean Charest was elected Premier in 2003, he moved very promptly to introduce proportional representation (which Quebec provincial Liberals actually need, and the PQ had promised but stalled on for 30 years because it would hurt them.) He appointed a Minister and told him to move quickly, which the Minister began to do within a few months. Didn't help. The details got debated and re-debated for a year in the Liberal Caucus, and when the plan emerged it was so partisan (little five-MNA districts, three local MNAs plus two district "top-up" MNAs, calculated district-by-district) as to help no one but the Liberals. So the public tore it apart, and it's stilll adrift at the design level.