Watching the Toronto mayoral election from our safe vantage point on the south side of the lake has been a depressing experience, so thank the Lord there's only a week to go until polling day. It's hard to believe that a city of almost three million people is likely to elect one of the gruesome threesome who are leading in the opinion polls.
The best-known of the three is probably Doug Ford, who replaced his younger brother Rob on the ballot paper when Rob was diagnosed with an unusual form of cancer. Doug appears to have maintained his brother's support in the so-called "Ford Nation" (basically angry suburbanites) but has been unable to widen his appeal, if the polls are to be believed. His politics are virtually identical to his brother's -- "respect for taxpayers", implausible promises to build subways all over the place -- but he doesn't have Rob's odd likability. If you need a mnemonic to tell the Fords apart, then there's a rhyming one that will do just fine: for Rob and Doug, read Slob and Thug.
Doug also shares with his sibling an effortless, almost reflexive mendaciousness, even when lying serves no particular purpose. One example from the campaign will have to suffice. Responding to suggestions that he and his brother were borderline racists, Doug announced that this couldn't possibly be the case because his wife was Jewish. This came as a surprise to his audience -- and to his wife!
Close to Doug Ford on the ideological spectrum is John Tory, whose surname sums him up pretty well. If Doug Ford is new money (his father founded a successful manufacturing company). then Tory is old, establishment money. He's had a checkered career in business -- some successes but also one large failure -- but an entirely unsuccessful one in politics, having suffered several rejections when he's attempted to seek office in the past,
Tory's one and only notable campaign platform is a plan to build a commuter rail line dubbed SmartTrack to relieve Toronto's chronic congestion problems. It will be quite remarkable if this scheme propels him into office. For one thing, it's not really his idea: the Province has already announced plans for a much larger electrification of Toronto's regional rail network, including the lines Tory wants to use for SmartTrack. For another, to the extent that Tory has tweaked the Province's ideas for his own scheme, the changes are all for the worse. A quite pointless adjustment to one end of the route is almost certainly impossible to construct, especially in the 7-year timeframe Tory is promising, and his proposed financing technique (TIF or tax increment financing) is basically a shell game.
Opposing these two worthies from the left of the political spectrum is Olivia Chow. She started the campaign with a deep reservoir of voter goodwill, based on her long service on city council and the recent loss of her well-liked husband, the former Federal opposition leader Jack Layton. By virtue of a dithering, unfocused campaign and an occasional inability to make herself heard, she has squandered most of that support, and looks likely to finish behind both Tory and Ford on voting day.
One disappointment in watching Chow has been her lack of grace in dealing with her opponents. Again, one example will suffice. At one of the innumerable debates among the candidates, the moderator asked each participant to say something nice about one of their opponents. The other candidates managed this well enough, praising one another's commitment to the city, work ethic and such. When Chow was asked to say something positive about John Tory, all she could come up with was "he has an expensive suit and a very full Rolodex".
When the campaign started (back on January 2!!), there were some promising candidates in the field. Many have dropped out because of the expense of running such a long campaign and the difficulty of competing with the Ford family circus. There's one excellent candidate I'd be voting for if I were actually in Toronto (a left-leaning lawyer named Ari Goldberg) but the winner is going to be one of the three profiled above -- probably John Tory. Does Toronto deserve better? It's hard to argue that -- you tend to get the politicians you deserve. But it surely needs someone better.
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