Rob Ford’s first public appearance in front of the City Hall press corp after his big election victory may have lacked excitement, but that’s not to say it wasn’t revealing.
The weight of great expectations seems to be getting to Ford already (see the oft-pulled handkerchief to wipe his sweaty brow).
The task before the mayor-elect on Monday (and as of December 1 the mayor) was a simple one: to officially unveil his appointments to the various committees of council (anti-climactic, since the names had been leaked for weeks), say a few words about their qualifications, and sign off. But things didn’t exactly motor along without a hitch.
Ford was uncomfortable from the start, stumbling over the prepared statement and shifting nervously at the podium when he wasn’t wiping his face or tugging an ear – secret signals to his crew, perhaps, who took in the proceedings from various vantage points in the clamshell.
Without an election script to follow, Mista Ford will have to dig a little deeper in that bag of tasty Fordisms if he’s going to at least appear to be engaged on the issues. The “customer service” shtick, Monday’s talking point, is already sounding tired.
If it wasn’t clear to the men and women of the press during the campaign, it is now: it’s going to be a long four years. Will Ford even survive his term before some scandal of his making, or someone else’s, takes him down?
Exhibit A: Doug Ford. The Ward 2 councillor and older brother of the mayor is the supposed brains behind the operation, but he hasn’t been appointed to anything. Still, there he was getting his photo taken with the rest of the angry white men brigade in Ford’s cabinet and being scrummed by the media long after baby brother Rob had left the scene.
His Honour had to be called back after leaving before the all-important photo with his new crew had been snapped.
Question is, who made Doug Ford mayor?
Much has been made by the Ford crew, and some members of the media, it must be said, of the “moral authority” supposedly granted Rob Ford to push through his agenda, given his sizable election win.
Let’s get a grip.
Fifty per cent of eligible voters turned out for the October election, and Ford got a little more than half those ballots. The simple truth of the matter is that he does not represent a majority of Torontonians. A look at the makeup of council will tell you that: as a whole, it tilts more centre-left than right.
Ford’s win adds up to a mandate to push through some of the policy planks on which he ran, but it doesn’t give him the right to rule by the divine right of kings. Besides, what happened to Ford’s election-night promise to earn the respect of those who didn’t vote for him?
The mayor and his team are relying on the divide between the burbs that voted for him and the core that voted for his main challengers to drive his agenda along geographical lines.
Queer thing about that is that the guy he’s replacing and viewed as too downtown-centric did more to help the burbs (check out Transit City, priority neighbourhoods, Tower Renewal) than any other mayor in recent history – or Ford ever will. Can you say Transit City RIP? Too late.
So what will it mean for Toronto’s economy and place on the world stage nurtured under David Miller when the agenda is driven by suburban priorities like filling potholes and snow removal rather than tourism-drawing culture and the arts? Yeah, you get the picture.
Ford has been getting some bad advice.
His top two senior advisers come with backgrounds in military strategy, but politics is the art of compromise, not war. The smart thing for Ford to do would have been to bring a few political foes into the fold. In time, he may find that having his enemies outside the tent pissing in is worse than inside the tent pissing out.
All the names of councillors selected by Team Ford for the plum jobs had to sign off on a checklist of five priorities. Support those priorities and, presto, there’s your committee chairmanship or seat on the executive. Easy.
The appointees are a motley crew, with few surprises except maybe rookie councillor Jaye Robinson’s recommended appointment to the executive committee along with babe in the woods Michelle Berardinetti. She’s supposed to be a Liberal, but that scarlet letter on her snazzy get-up looks like an A for ambition.
Robinson is a curiouser piece in the Ford jigsaw puzzle.
As a former bureaucrat in the city’s economic development department whose resumé includes arty megaprojects like Nuit Blanche, Robinson’s brand of politics doesn’t seem to mesh with Ford’s strident, budget-thwacking conservativism.
But some of the other key bureaucrats in Miller’s administration have suddenly adopted the Ford cost-cutting mantra, so perhaps Robinson’s no different in that regard.
John Parker, the former Harris-era MPP whose name was the only one of the bunch that hadn’t been heard in prior media speculation, copped the role of deputy speaker. Did that have anything to do with the guffaws that met the choice of Frances Nunziata (and her reportedly tenuous grasp of Robert’s Rules of Order) as speaker?
Parker’s appointment may have been the first bit of damage control undertaken by the Ford crew. Maybe there’s hope for, you know, actual debate of the issues. Nah.
The partisan lines have been too radically drawn, and there’s no turning back now. There’s an agenda to be rammed through.
enzom@nowtoronto.com
