The morning after the night before, which is to say barely 24 hours after Rob Ford offed TTC chief general manager Gary Webster, the city awoke Thursday, February 23, to news of another coup orchestrated by the brothers Ford – this one to control the airwaves.
Mayor Rob and Councillor Doug were announced as the new hosts of The City, Newstalk 1010’s call-in show. See ya later, Josh Matlow. Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Torontonians were also treated Thursday in the Globe to a front-page shot of the mayor and an op-ed piece inside extolling the virtues of subways and a plan to pay for them using parking fees. The guy who promised to build subways without a cent of taxpayers’ money now wants taxpayers to pay for it. Horrors.
Note to Ford Notion: it would take 25 years’ worth of parking fees to raise the billions the mayor needs to finance his subway scheme.
But back to that Newstalk business. I’m no communist, but seems to me the mayor is taking a page out of Che’s revolutionary handbook on how to win over the masses. Or is it the CIA’s?
The folks over at Newstalk are denying suggestions that the station was “bullied” into the decision, playing favourites.
Programming director Mike Bendixen, afforded space in the Toronto Sun to respond to the charges, revealed that Doug had put the wheels in motion a few weeks back.
That timeline would seem to fit the theory that the Fords’ overture to Newstalk had at least a little something to do with payback for Matlow’s role in killing the mayor’s subway dreamin’.
Bendixen’s response to the “non-believers” veered incomprehensibly into comparisons to 9/11 – as in there are still those who think the 9/11 attacks were not carried out by terrorists.
Matlow’s silence on the matter (he did not respond to a request for comment from NOW) speaks volumes. But since we’re engaging in conspiracy theories, he sent out this Tweet around the time he found out he was getting the axe:”Toronto is better served when we have open, honest dialogue informed by factual evidence rather than manipulative spin & narrow ideology.”
But I have it on pretty good authority from a source close to the mouth of madness at City Hall (see if you can guess who from this scramble: WLOAQKMANEPAVLOAQPWM) that Matlow was muscled out.
“They’ll never get him back now,” says this source, whom I’ll call Deep Throat.
So goes the continued self-destruction of Ford & Co.
“A fuckin’ disaster,” is how DT describes the current state of affairs at 100 Queen West in the wake of the Sheppard subway defeat and news that a growing bloc on council is about to bounce the TTC commissioners involved in Webster’s firing.
Behind closed doors, the situation is worse than even the mayor’s harshest critics could imagine.
Let me set the scene: an exhausted political staff being run off its feet a meddlesome older brother with zero political acumen who thinks he’s chief of staff running the show and a mayor who prizes loyalty above smarts and refuses to take advice from the high-priced help around him.
The arrival of Amir Remtulla as chief of staff was supposed to smooth the turbulent political waters, helping to build more cordial relationships with opposition councillors (remember that?), but the opposite has occurred.
Things between the mayor and Big Brother Doug aren’t so hunky-dory either. “Hate” might be too strong a word to describe their relationship, but the Fords were barely on speaking terms before that perfect storm that blew them into office.
In case you think I’m making this up, did you catch the “disclaimer” with which the mayor started off his 1010 show on Sunday, when he talked about not being responsible for anything his brother might say, do or text? Robo was only half-joking. “I have no idea what he’s going to do,” he said.
It was downhill from there, with more commercial breaks than callers and more talk of Oscars, hockey fights and the good works of the Good Shepherd than why his subway plan beats the LRTs backed by council. The radio “ride” promised by Doug, as in the roller-coaster kind requiring a seat belt, never materialized. Exchange of ideas? Nope. The end result can be summed up in a few letters: zzzz.
I’ll leave it to others to decide if those commercial breaks were timed to let the Fords think about their responses to callers’ questions – like where they’re going to get the money to fund subways.
Some of the music that introduced segments were more to the point in commenting on the Ford radio experience: Led Zeppelin’s Communication Breakdown, Jeff Beck’s Going Down, U2’s City Of Blinding Lights (“The more you see, the less you know”). Was the producer sending subliminal messages?
There were a few illuminating moments, though.
Andy Byford, the guy named interim general manager after Webster’s firing, disconcertingly used the word “company” more times than I care to remember to describe the TTC.
Giorgio Mammoliti, the mayor’s right thumb, was called upon to tell listeners about the Emery Village BIA in his ward threatening legal action over council’s plans to go with LRTs on Finch West. It’s not clear they have a legal leg to stand on given the fact the same BIA supported light rail on Finch West under Transit City back in 2008.
But it’s not the truth the Fords are after. It’s to sow confusion in the public’s mind. And judging by some of the callers Sunday, there’s plenty of that when it comes to the subway debate. The more dysfunctional the mayor can make council look on the transit file, the better for the mayor.
It’s not difficult to understand Newstalk’s motivation for giving the mayor his own show. Radio is a ratings game and, if nothing else, people will tune in to hear what dumb thing Ford may say next. It’s reality radio.
What Ford’s new radio show is really about is salvaging Ford’s mayoralty.
But there’s no saving his subways. That decision has been made. Over at City Hall, opposition councillors are pulling straws to determine who among them will replace commissioners on the TTC board who helped orchestrate the Webster coup.
enzom@nowtoronto.com
