Robbie, did we make another big fat mistake?

We thought you were a team leader, not a solo player

By Frank Touby –

Twannnggg! Oh, Robbie! Have we made another big, fat mistake? Was electing you to the top office in our city just strumming another frayed string in that ukulele of dopey Toronto mayors? There are moments when you make Mel Lastman seem brilliant by comparison and the Blond Bomb, David Miller, appear almost competent wearing the chain of office.

We know you’re a knee-jerk Tory, but not all Tories are wicked control-freak nightmares like our current prime minister who’s selling us out to the Americans and any other foreign powers with money to spend. Many local Tories are actually well intentioned toward their fellow Torontonians, regardless of their circumstances.

We thought you were that kind of guy, given your generosity in volunteering as a football coach with troubled youth, helping them batter each other on the field of symbolic combat rather than the streets. Body-contact sports can reorient aggression and focus it on socially acceptable targets, thus sparing the rest of us.

And you were coaching a team. We figured that means you know how to shepherd co-operation among disparate individuals and groups to effect a common goal.

So we thought you would help your constituents—the entire amalgamated mess Mike Harris hobbled us with in his dumb, blind hatred of our city—to retain their individuality as distinct and separate communities.

The previous mayor was so enamoured of the notion that he was chief honcho of the “sixth largest government in Canada” that to recognize the reality he was mayor of six distinct municipalities would pierce the balloon of his ego and drain his buzz.

Your opponent, George Smitherman, had come off two dicey portfolios in the right-wing Dalton McGuinty government. He was in charge of Energy when the windmill fiasco and other “green” boondoggles came down and of Health during the dress rehearsal of the Ornge comedy show. Both his portfolios were so in bed with (let’s say, “ambitious”) business types you’d think the Grits were actually Tories.

So you won. You sounded better than you looked, of course, but you do like your brewskies and they’re not the tipple of fashion models or action heroes.

At first it appeared you were the right guy for the job. You had a 100-day honeymoon when you were able to coach the non-aligned newbies and it looked like you were going to run things for the betterment of residents and not largely for the betterment of staff.

Miller knew almost nothing about the city, despite having posed on council for several years, and so staff were able to lead him around by his belt.

Then you started falling apart. Oh, Robbie, how we ached for you to be good at this job! We longed for the wisdom you seemed to convey on right-wing talk radio as you uncovered spending scandals and appeared to have your thumb on the entire financial mess of council.

Gravy! What a brilliant image! Every bit as clever as the broom that Miller adopted. Lamentably, your gravy seems to rest around your belt line and beneath your chin; Miller’s broom only swept things under the rug.

You’re making such dumb, insensitive, unrealistic statements now that are too numerous to quote. You rail against gangbangers and now you’re driving a pimpmobile like a successful drug lord. We thought you were more of a Studebaker kind of guy.

Sadly, you’re not the guy we thought we elected. That’s not unusual in politics, it’s just that you seemed to show such promise.

There’s still the faint hope that you’ll see the fulsome errors of your ways and act like our real mayor:

• That you’ll separate this ungovernable amalgamation of what properly would be suburbs independent from the city and from each other;

• That you’ll enable community councils to govern like municipal councils, similar to how it was under Metropolitan Toronto, with you at the top, since you were elected area-wide.

You can still save your political face and become a true GTA hero.