On Monday afternoon, two hours before the polls closed, I conducted a 13-minute interview with a candidate in the Ward 2 (Etobicoke North) by-election in which the name “Ford” did not come up once.
“We have to start understanding that the civic process has its own form of literacy,” Chloe-Marie Brown offered, explaining what she as a policy wonk learned from speaking with residents at the door. Public sector representatives such as herself, she said, “need to do more to engage the community in growing their capacity to understand what we’re doing.”
Brown, a 25-year-old project support officer at George Brown College and former director of policy and advocacy at the Toronto Youth Cabinet, had a 345-word platform on her site consisting of 15 bullet points covering topics of technological innovation, social engagement, and equity. She devoted a further 398 words to a tax plan that included mechanisms such as social impact bonds and development impact fees.
The platform on Michael Ford’s website consisted of 194 words conveying broad platitudes on the themes of “Customer Service,” “Keeping Taxes Low,” and “Sustainable Community Investment.” On election night, he additionally emphasized transit and crime. What about them? That the city needs more of the former and less of the latter, essentially.
Ford took 69.58 per cent of the vote to become the third consecutive member of his family to hold this particular council seat, which had sat empty since the passing of his uncle Rob in March. Brown finished fourth with 1.62 per cent, behind Jeff Canning (20.42) and Christopher Strain (3.77).
“I thank the residents of Etobicoke North for giving me this honour and privilege to serve them as their councillor of Etobicoke North,” he told reporters following his victory speech, delivered in the parking lot behind his Rexdale campaign office. “Our community faces some challenges, and I look forward to getting down to City Hall and working with other councillors and the mayor, coming together, and moving Etobicoke forward.”
At 22, Ford is the youngest Toronto councillor in at least several decades. He is also in vastly over his head on matters of municipal policy but not really any more so than a dozen councillors three times his age. The difference is that, with the younger Ford, there is at least in theory a capacity to learn and to grow and to absorb the immense complexity of the many issues he will encounter as a city councillor. There are few more useful qualities in that role than curiosity, a notion that both of his uncles — convinced they knew everything — furiously rejected.
“Is this gonna be Michael’s ward,” a CityNews reporter asked Doug Ford on election night, “or are you gonna be offering some advice having served there?”
“No, I think whenever Michael needs advice, I’ll give him advice,” said the man who held the ward for four years during his brother Rob’s term as mayor. “But again, if there’s a vote, and he believes in it, don’t be shy if it’s 43 to one. More than likely, you’re right and the 43 are wrong.” (Toronto City Council has 45 members.)
It will be Michael’s ward to the extent that Doug cares little about most of what a municipal government does. But on the big-ticket items on which the future of the city pivots — most frequently transit and revenue generation — you can safely bet that there will be certain expectations placed upon him.
“The most disappointing part of this campaign for me — and maybe that’s just me being naive and expecting too much — was…how little policy was discussed in the campaign,” third-place finisher Strain tells me the day after the vote. A veteran of the unrelated Russ Ford’s 2014 campaign in Ward 6 (Etobicoke-Lakeshore) — which saw the left-wing challenger come within striking distance of incumbent Mark Grimes — Strain hoped to have similar success in Ward 2. He did not.
An attempt to bait Michael Ford into a one-on-one debate about policy was very easily dismissed. And at the July 12 Rogers TV debate, Ford initially declined to discuss citywide transit policy, even after Strain pointed out that his position on the Scarborough subway was unknown.
“I think we should be focusing on Etobicoke North,” Ford deflected. “This is the job we are vying to hold office for.” He then launched into several sentences about “investment” and “the future” that said very little about anything.
Only when Strain pushed him a second time did Ford state that he supported the original three-stop subway extension on which his uncles and John Tory had campaigned. (Council has since endorsed just a single new stop for the Bloor-Danforth line.) There was no sense in which this was a surprising position for him to take, so there’s surely something to be read from his reluctance to share it.
In some respects, the Ward 2 by-election represented the essence of municipal elections, where even more than at other levels of government, it’s possible to glide into office on a combination of name recognition, resources, and meaningless banalities. Why risk complicating things with actual discussions?
Taped to a glass wall inside Ford’s campaign office on Monday was a list of dos and don’ts for canvassers. Do “be polite” “record all info” “mention July 25.”
Don’t, however, “debate policy.”
Jonathan Goldsbie
These were probably useful instructions for volunteers. But they also seemed to be the guiding principles for the entire campaign.
Michael Ford will be at home on a Council where a substantial portion of its members are elected on similar terms. But he’s young enough that there’s still time for him to grow beyond that.
jonathang@nowtoronto.com | @goldsbie
