If Rob Ford is truly a conservative he will de-amalgamate us

frankFellow voters, we have been bamboozled. He had such a glorious start to his mayoralty career that seeing the guy step on his own (thing) day after day was a shock that quickly became run-of-business: How’s Rob Ford going to step on it and in it today?

When Rob was first elected he had it all. He had trounced a vigourous skilled politician (though one who also might have stepped too far onto it himself).Rob prematurely retired George Smitherman to the perks that might accrue to him from having been a high-ranking Ontario cabinet minister.
Rob had every chance to be great. During his first 100 days he could have had the “mushy middle” city councillors on his side and whipped the dickens out of the “left” he considers such wastrels and profligates.
When campaigning, he seemed so remarkably connected and knowledgeable about where the skeletons are at city hall; where the waste is. Phone Councillor Rob from anywhere in the city and you’d likely see him showing up in your driveway or at your door investigating your issue. What a great guy!
To top it off, he was a volunteer football coach and fundraiser for a band of rowdy high-school kids and his team performed very well for him.
We thought we had elected a top coach…a guy who could lead and organize this unruly council mob created by the Mike Harris vandals and make an ungovernable monster city into a real community, thus redeeming the Ontario Tory brand that Harris and his handlers had so disgraced and discredited.
Voters were sorely disappointed with Mayor David Miller, a guy who presented well but performed poorly as he turned city hall over to city bureaucrats, legitimized the corrupting practise of lobbying and remained blithely ignorant of how the city actually works. Rob ran against that legacy of ignorance and his opponent Smitherman, having been in charge of two scandal-ridden Ontario portfolios, Health and Energy, was perhaps running for mayor on hubris and hope rather than momentum.  (George is a decent man who has done a lot of good in his political career. No office-holder can have eyes on every aspect of a portfolio. He deserves his good reputation.)
So Rob literally danced into office. He seems shockingly ignorant and completely unprepared to be mayor of anything, much less a dysfunctional crowd like the conglomerated mess of 40 councillors from disconnected municipalities that were squished together by a mean-spirited premier.
Rob appears to be another ignorant octave of David Miller. Worst of all, Rob actually takes advice from Mike Harris, author of the mess our city is in.
His father, Doug Sr., was a brilliant businessman who made millions. Is Rob Ford a spoiled rich kid who never held a real job in his life? Is he the baby boy of a very rich family who dotes on his hobby of football which he has framed as a charity? He seems to think he can get away with seemingly corrupt behaviour when it’s for his football hobby. He can walk out on council, use his office to arm-twist lobbyists for donations to his hobby, ignore his mayoral duties and scoff at the resulting criticism because he’s doing it for his kids. His critics are the bad guys. Rob has been behaving like royalty.
frank

He doesn’t bother to read the rule book for council or the mayor’s office, trying to get by on professed ignorance of the rules. Not the rules for football, naturally, just for the office we entrusted to him. Baby Huey with a bullet.
It’s crooked for a politician to divert public crews to do personal work. So why is it okay for Rob Ford to have city workers on duty go to the site of his family company, Deco Labels, and spruce the place up so Rob and his family could throw a business anniversary celebration. That diverts assets from the public and from the citizens who were on the schedule for repairs and construction.
We’re uncomfortably accustomed to seeing too-big-to-jail elites in government and business avoid the gravity that ties us ordinary mortals to earth. Like Tony Clement. He took $50 million taxpayers’ G20 money intended for use in Toronto and spent it sprucing up his riding in Muskoka, just before a close re-election bid he might have lost. Is that embezzlement? Doesn’t matter. He’s royalty and now he’s in charge of the federal Treasury. How about the bankers who authored the crash of 2008 and beyond? They’re advisors to the leaders of the U.S., Britain, France and Germany.
So Rob is in good company, even if we’re not. But is that really what he wants his legacy to be?
Guy Giorno, Mike Harris’ former chief of staff and one of his key handlers, has admitted that amalgamating Toronto with the suburbs was a flop at saving money, which was the excuse the regime gave for going against the will of 76.8% of the city’s voters in a record turnout.
Stuff it down our throats was Harris’ style. Is that what Rob Ford is emulating?
He didn’t campaign on that platform. If he is really the conservative whom he claims to be he will do at least these two truly conservative things:
1. He will oppose the sort of big government that the megacity represents by immediately requesting Premier Kathleen Wynne to de-amalgamate Toronto.
2. He will stop poisoning his citizens with fluoride in our drinking water and follow the leads of Calgary, Windsor and many other cities that have abandoned that harmful practise.
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