This is an extended version of the Norm Kelly Q&A that ran in the Sept. 11 issue of NOW.
The programme book for TIFF 2014 opens with the customary greetings from dignitaries:
PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA.
PREMIER OF ONTARIO.
Flip page.
DEPUTY MAYOR OF TORONTO.
When Norm Kelly succeeded Doug Holyday as Rob Ford’s deputy in August 2013, he didn’t expect to usurp the mayor’s role as Toronto’s figurehead and nexus of government. It sort of just happened.
Acquiring Ford’s non-statutory powers and half of his staff was one thing. At the height of the crack scandal, Kelly received those almost by default.
But earning the moral authority to wield that mandate was his own subsequent achievement.
Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly was not the leader Toronto deserved, but he was exactly the leader it needed.
He saw the various constituencies the actual mayor had alienated – council colleagues, the public service, the media, entire segments of the population – and took active steps to reach out to them.
Kelly was bland, avuncular, and compassionate. Everything Rob Ford wasn’t. He wasn’t acting mayor, but he did act mayoral, and people reacted accordingly.
And he loved it, perhaps a smidgen too much he could bask in the fun parts of mayoring with little of the attendant bullshit.
In early September, Kelly invited reporters to his office for “exit interviews” (while also taking care to point out that he keeps his powers through December 1 at midnight).
Seated next to a large portrait of William Lyon Mackenzie – Toronto’s first rebel mayor and the man to whom Ford compared himself in his inaugural address – Kelly spoke to NOW for 45 minutes on topics ranging from the causes of World War I to the theories of Paul R. Ehrlich. We have cut those digressions. The Ward 40 (Scarborough-Agincourt) councillor is fascinating enough as it is: passionate about technological advancement, yet skeptical of anthropogenic climate change eager to build bridges with queer communities, yet makes reference to to their “alternate lifestyle” thoughtful about politics yet with little apparent vision for the area he represents, one of the poorest in the city.
The following interview, conducted by Jonathan Goldsbie and Ben Spurr on September 3, has been edited and condensed.
You really like being deputy mayor.
I do. “I’m gonna miss it!” he said. [Note: he said “he said.”]
You were appointed deputy mayor mid-summer of last year, when Doug Holyday was elected to Queen’s Park. And say the events of the fall hadn’t happened, you would have just been…
Ceremonial.
You probably wouldn’t have had as much fun, would you?
Well, I ran twice for the mayor’s office in the City of Scarborough in ’85 and ’88. I tend to believe that a split vote denied me the opportunity of being the mayor. But I’ve often wondered, in retrospect, just what kind of mayor would I have been? And, I think, not a bad one.
You’re sort of getting to do the thing you’ve always kind of wanted to do?
Yeah.
We all knew the Ford mayoralty would be a rough period and that there would be some challenges to it. But how was it different than you expected?
Well, I hadn’t gotten involved in the mayoralty race in 2010. I was basically neutral, and frankly was taken aback when Mayor Ford offered me the chair of one of the committees, because I had served in former mayor Miller’s Executive. So I thought that I would be a persona non grata. But the chair was offered, and I responded to it the way I did with Miller, when Miller said to me, “Hey, I’d like to offer you the chair of the Planning and Growth Management Committee.” And I said to him, “But I voted against you more often that I voted with you!” And he said, “You did, but your opposition was rational. You were capable of articulating a position, and I’d like to give you a chance to be on the inside of the decision-making process.” So I accepted that challenge. And I thought of this in a similar way.
What was the highlight of the term for you?
As chair of the Parks Committee, the Occupy Toronto park situation. There were people on Ford’s team that just wanted to get rid of them. “Get ’em out now. Move ’em on.” As the chair of the Parks committee, I asked people to reserve judgment. I went down. Walked through it. Talked with ’em. Tried to get a sense of what was going on. And one thing I noticed was that once you got a block away, you wouldn’t know it was there. So my advice was, “Take it easy. Roll with it.” And that’s the advice that the City chose to take.
Afterwards, in the nine months [as super-deputy], the highlight was the reattachment of the gay and alternate-lifestyle communities to life here at City Hall. I think that either ignoring them or not cooperating with them wasn’t fair. You know we had that struggle over the flying of the flag, and the mayor said no. I said yes. The mayor and I had different perspectives on it. Mine prevailed. And we reached out, and we met the leadership of the various communities. We made them welcome here at City Hall in the deputy mayor’s office.
Were you surprised when people began to relate to you as though you were the mayor?
I didn’t know what to expect at first. During the ice storm, there was some confusion. When [City Manager] Joe Pennachetti called me and outlined the severity of the damage, the first thing I did was get the premier’s phone number and call her and arrange a cooperative go-forward process between her government and ours. The mayor’s first call was to the media for a press conference.
So we had that at Metro Hall. And the first question was, “Well, who’s in charge? There are two of you here.” So I just made sure that the emergency team functioned as it was expected to and made sure that I was there talking with people and being kept up to date and holding a number of meetings so that we could all get together on the same page at the same time. And so at that point, there was an ambiguity.
And prior to that, I think the first step in all of this actually was to open the office to the media. Up until then, it was Rob bulling his way through a crowd of media. Or him running away and the media chasing him. And so the first thing I did was to engage the media. I don’t know whether you guys remember. I do. I’ll never forget, opening the glass door [of the deputy mayor’s office]. You know, on the second floor. And ffoom. There they are in battle array. I think I gave the best answer that I could at the time. Probably confused a few people when I talked about the two-consul system of the Roman Republic. So I think opening the lines of communication with the media was an important step.
And the second step, right up front, was to engage my colleagues on Council. And [Ward 22 St. Paul’s councillor] Josh Matlow remembers coming into a committee meeting and me doing a fist-bump with him. I did that deliberately. I wanted people to know that I was there to work with them. When we set up this office, we arranged it so that the door would be activated by the cards possessed by all members of Council.
As well, I went and I walked the second floor [where councillors’ offices are located]. I walked into offices, and I said hello to people. Not just the councillors, but their staff as well. And the feedback I got within a short period of time from my staffers who had been in the mayor’s office was that they were delighted to be welcomed in these offices. So I opened a line of communications with my colleagues.
And the budget came along. Now I might be wrong in my analysis, but I had a sense that there were two options. One was to hang tough in terms of fiscal restraint at the Budget Committee, followed by a similar posture at Executive, and then lose a ton of votes at Council involving a lot of money. And so I was pleased to instead accept motions from the left at Budget and Executive. And so we did well at committee. The budget that was presented to Council went through fairly much as we had presented it. And when you see Joe Pennachetti bounding towards you with a big smile on his face and he gives you a high-five, you know he’s happy and staff is happy. And I think that working with senior staff and councillors in an open and a mutually respectful way pivoted the attention from the mayor and his office over to the deputy mayor’s office for both staff and the second floor.
Do you think you’ll miss the spotlight? Do you think you’ll miss the position?
It’s not the spotlight. The spotlight sometimes is a drag. My wife loves, you know the Groupons? And she’ll say, “Oh, I found a Groupon for this little restaurant, and why don’t we go there? I’ve googled it and it looks terrific.” So you go out to a restaurant and when you walk in, the heads come up. And they follow you as you go in. And while you’re sitting there, people come over and they chat with you. But it’s not the spotlight. It’s the sense of being at the centre of political life in an exciting city.
You know the old saying, “All roads lead to Rome”? Well, all roads in Toronto lead to City Hall. And to get out there and talk with people who had ideas, money to invest, plans to work out. Or to have the ability to have them come in here and work with you, work with this office. That’s what I’ll miss.
When did Mayor Ford first approach you about succeeding Doug Holyday as deputy mayor?
It was a couple of days before we made the announcement [at Ford Fest in early July 2013].
So the first part of the crack scandal had already happened at that time. What did you think when he approached you, and how did you decide to take him up on that offer?
“He needs help.”
Were you worried at all that it would be seen as condoning his behaviour?
I remember at the first scrum that I had, just outside of his office, I said, “I’m not gonna comment on his personal life. I’m gonna focus on stuff that’s going on at City Hall.” And so I really felt that I had something to offer. And if not me, who?
You didn’t worry that it would be seen as tacit support for someone who had various unaddressed issues, both governance-wise and…?
No, I just felt that I would be put in a position where I would hopefully have his ear.
Did you, you think?
Um, he’s very much his own guy. And I certainly gave him my best advice, politically and personally. Privately. Candidly and directly. On a number of occasions.
What do you think it says that after all that he’s been through and all that he’s put the city through in the last few years that he still polls respectably well?
I grew up in Toronto the Good. And that sort of support would have been, I think, unimaginable. The city’s changed. And I think political scientists and historians are going to be mining this administration for a long time to come. And the focus will not only be on Ford, but on his supporters. And that symbiotic relationship between the two that was just as unexpected as it was unprecedented.
A lot of people think that it shows that there’s a lot of cynicism out there among voters about more regular politicians such as yourself and your colleagues.
We’re living in a time of tremendous change and the uncertainty that comes with it. We’re morphing into a global economy and social order. I was one of just a small number of kids that went from grade nine through to 13. Back in the day, you could leave school after grade 12 and do well. You could teach primary school. You can’t do that today. So I think that this is a period of tremendous change that has produced very high levels of uncertainty amongst many segments of society, and the mayor has successfully personified many of those concerns. He’s given those thoughts or feelings expression, and he’s given the people that hold them a voice.
Is that a troubling sign, though? That things are changing for the worse, maybe?
I think the role of the mayor is to explain these changes to people. “Look, this is the age in which we live. And here are the challenges that we face. And here are some of the options, some of the responses that people in academia, in the business world, in politics are proposing to address these challenges.” And I think a mayor should be out there talking to people. He should be thoughtful. He should read books.
Among those big changes, obviously as you know, is climate change…
The climate’s always changing. And so you make an accommodation for that. I’m aware of the changes in the character of rainfall in Toronto and the need to respond to it by changing the infrastructure that handles rainfall and its run-off.
There was a perception, though, when you made those comments at committee that you were perhaps a climate-change denier or you didn’t believe that climate change was generated by humans? Can you just clarify how you feel?
I don’t know what it’s like in university today. But I remember being taught to be critical of orthodoxy. You know, question it. And so I read widely. And there are people of considerable standing who expressed alternate opinions, and you know there’s that spectrum of perceptions and conclusions. But there’s been nothing in my votes that would suggest anything other than a preparedness for, if not more rainfall, certainly more concentrated rainfall, more extremes in the weather. So if I had to run on my record, I think it’d be a pretty damn good one.
You’ve been in politics for a long time now, and you’ve had this prestigious position for the last nine months or so. What do you hope to accomplish as a councillor next term? What’s left? Will it be tough going back to just the outer ring of the second floor?
I don’t know. It may be. But I won’t go into the next term with any expectations. My first job is to win an election. And I always take that seriously. And when I accepted the mayor’s invitation to become the deputy mayor, I had no preconceived idea of how I would do the job other than I was pleased to be in a position where I could offer him advice that I thought would make his mayoralty more productive. And when they handed me much of the authority of the mayor’s office, I just knew that my job was to bring calm to City Hall and rebuild confidence in its government. And based on my experience, the municipal order of government has as its founding premise a collegiality that you don’t get in the parliamentary order. And so it was my job to begin to reach out to my colleagues, in order to create that atmosphere.
What do you know now that you didn’t know four years ago?
That it’s important to understand the team aspect of politics. Even though in the municipal order, there’s a more pronounced individualism, an independent voice and vote, you still have to create a sense of team: a certain set of common values, common goals. One of the things I learned about the political process is that you’ve got to align three things:
Policy. And policy is the easiest thing to do. Anyone running for office can say, “This is my policy. And if you elect me, that’s the way it’s gonna be.”
But the second thing you have to do, to give effect to that policy, is you’ve got to find funding. Money – the lack of it – is at the core of so much that goes on.
And the third star that has to align is you have to have the style, the political style that allows you to harness the energy of those first two stars.
How did you discover that you could just talk to someone here and have them light up City Hall in whatever colours to honour one cause or another?
By accident! I remember one day saying, “Who controls the lights?” And we phoned around, we found out. “Okay, if I asked for these lights to be on, would that be okay?” “Sure.” Ta-daa.
