WINNER TAKES ALL

Let's talk about Toronto's mayoral race.  Oh, I can hear the groans now.  Really?  Must we?  I don't blame you, because I used to feel the same way.  After all, I live 40 km east of the city.  It shouldn't affect me, but, the fact is, it does.  What happens in Toronto impacts all of us, whether we like it or not.  We used to be known as Toronto the Good, i.e. boring, but with our ersatz major lurching from one catastrophe to another, our notoriety is widespread.  These days we're on everybody's radar - from Hollywood to Hanoi.

What are we to make of this overly-long campaign that won't be over until the end of October  So far, we haven't seen much action; only from Hiz Honour, who spews insults and denials in equal proportions.  All the other candidates are dancing around the giant buffoon in the middle of the room.  No one has challenged him directly, with the exception of one reporter and a few students.  Well, they'd better sharpen their swords, because it's going to get ugly and the one who deserves to get skewered is walking away, smiling all the way to Ford-Land - just the other side of Looney-Tunes.  It's hard to reason with abject stupidity, i.e. bonehead voters who buy into his lies and nonsense about saving money.  The truth is that he has saved the city exactly 1/3 of the imaginary one billion dollars he brags about - 350 million, according to documentation that came directly from City Hall's budget committee.  And what about the money the on-going police investigation is costing?  He doesn't want to think about that or talk about it.  Only if and when the metal cuffs are snapped onto his wrist will he acknowledge that he's got a problem.  It's not every day that police officers fly to Apple Headquarters in California.  And they're not there to talk about apple pie.  They're onto something big and, I predict, it will all be revealed before the sun sets on the last polling station.

As for the other candidates?  Let's start with Olivia Chow, who began her campaign by invoking the word "children" into every speech she gave:  "Rob Ford is a bad example for our children.  We need more buses so people can get home faster to be with their children."  There's no argument there, but I find this rather odd coming from a woman who doesn't have children - at least not of her own.  She does have step-children, and an awfully cute grandchild, I'm sure, but I don't understand the point she's trying to make.  Mayoral candidates don't run for the sake of children.  In fact, the current Mayor is a child and a big one at that.  The man's maturity stopped on the football field.  What has this got to do with anything?  Children don't get to vote and I doubt if any of them give our bumptious fool of a mayor a second thought.  Kids have more smarts than we give them credit for.

Karen Stintz has picked up where Olivia Chow left off, playing up the Mommy factor by bringing her kids into the debate.  And she's as bad as Ford at sticking to her talking points.  In her own words, she's not going to talk about his transgressions, because "that's not policy."  Well, maybe not, but it's certainly relevant. Now more than ever we need to examine the character of candidates running for mayor of Canada's largest city, if for no other reason, to guarantee that voters don't make the same mistake again.  Here's a man who has dabbled in just about every substance a person can ingest and has a long list of shady dealings with shady friends, but Ms. Stintz wants to stick to policy.  I'm willing to bet that when Hiz Honour starts slinging mud and it hits her squarely in the face,  all her policies will go straight out the window. 

Only the men seem like viable candidates, with John Tory in the lead.  We need a sharp negotiator, a team-builder who can bring together an often fractious and divided council.  I can't help noticing that with Ford out of the picture - persona non grata - council seems to work just fine.  The volume is way down. Whenever he appears, it shoots back up again.  And he's loving every moment of his notoriety.  This man needs to be pinned to the wall and fast.  It shouldn't be that hard, but both of these gentelmen need to park their ties, roll up their sleeves and put their dukes up.  If you want to win, this is no game for nice guys.