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pman said:
Tory's support of a useless Scarborough subway and an eastern Gardiner rebuild are profoundly anti-urban, and both are right out of Ford's playbook. I agree Tory isn't a Fordite in the sense that he isn't an il-mannered bully; however, he wants to take Toronto exactly the same suburban place as Ford does.
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Tory inherited the Scarborough subway. If anything, recent events point to him trying to get council to quietly cancel the thing!

I am heavily on the pro-removal side, but I don't think there is any value in calling supporters of the 'maintain' option as "anti-urban". If there is one thing that I noticed in this debate is that even people that are pro-city building on this forum have fallen in support of the maintain option. As for John Tory himself, it seems his political interests lie in wanting to unlock the Unilever site rather than being a champion of the "war against cars".

Sorry but I just find polarizing unsubstantiated claims unproductive to social/political discourse. Tory does deserve criticism for putting political interests above the evidence-based decision-making he asserted his mayoralty would be, but not for being a 'Ford-Lite' as Chow-supporters love to suggest.
 
You are being entirely too kind to him. On several issues Tory has placed himself very much on the "wrong" side. His stance on carding is both mystifying and appalling. He did not "inherit" the Scarborough subway but rather pretended during the campaign that we could no longer debate the luscious and irresponsible decision to spend an extra billion dollars or much more on a subway extension through low-density. As for the Gardiner, I'm not sure how supporting the retention of an elevated expressway through a planned mixed use urban non-car-oriented neighbourhood at the cost of an extra half billion, all to placate a handful of drivers who have multiple other transit options, is not "anti-urban".

But I guess those of us who supported Chow and criticized Tory's platform and his character were just right after all.
 
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If you haven't already done so, see The Star this morning. Hume, James and Keenan are having a field day with Tory, re Gardiner, carding, rightward creep. It ain't pretty.

So Tory isn't homophobic or racist. Check.

Tory isn't the douchiest-of-the-douchy, like the FordTwins are. Check.

Tory appears to have listening skills and an attention span longer than 15 seconds. Check.

Tory the transformative-mayor-that-Toronto-needs? Double-uncheck.

This Tory character has his sights firmly set on sixties values. I worry for the initiatives that are yet to resurface -- revitalization of the Yonge strip, for one example. (And Tory did diss the truly fabulous Queens Quay effort, didn't he?).

… Tory may be a nice guy and he may have integrity, but he is absolutely uncool. Time is going to tell how his carefully crafted granddad image will sell -- I've got a feeling it won't do the job for him for so very long. Thank heavens we don't have a strong mayor system here in Toronto.

EDIT -- It is only 2015 but TonyV here is already surveying the field to see who may challenge Tory in the next election. I think Tory has put his weaknesses on display already.
 
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JGHali said:
You are being entirely too kind to him. On several issues Tory has placed himself very much on the "wrong" side. His stance on carding is both mystifying and appalling. He did not "inherit" the Scarborough subway but rather pretended during the campaign that we could no longer debate the luscious and irresponsible decision to spend an extra billion dollars or much more on a subway extension through low-density. As for the Gardiner, I'm not sure how supporting the retention of an elevated expressway through a planned mixed use urban non-car-oriented neighbourhood at the cost of an extra half billion, all to placate a handful of drivers who have multiple other transit options, is not "anti-urban".

But I guess those of us who supported Chow and criticized Tory's platform and his character were just right after all.
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I agree that I would have preferred a better showing from Chow, as I was more sympathetic to her platform than Tory's. But Tory was infinitely preferable to Ford, part 2. I think Tory is getting the lambasting he deserves this week. But let's not pretend he won the election unfairly. Chow was a terrible candidate.
 
Yes, there was no way I was voting for Chow after that disaster of a campaign. I would also never vote for a Ford, so what other choice was there? Tory is having a bad week and deserves all of the criticism that is coming his way. He never advertised himself as being the "hip" mayor, so anyone expecting a Nenshi-type was sadly misguided.
 
In October, I voted Chow as I expected that John Tory would be too right-wing for my liking, I had serious concerns about his transit plans (SmartTrack and the Scarborough Subway) and felt that he was very much out of touch; Mitt Tory, if you will.

In February, March, I thought I was going to vote Chow. I helped for a day getting her campaign office cleaned up. I was ready and willing to actively support her campaign. So much for that - I drifted towards David Soknacki.

From about May until he dropped out, I was supporting Soknacki, even contributing to his campaign. This left-leaning downtown urbanite should have been aligned with Chow from the start. But between her great campaign launch, and when it was too late, she ran a terrible campaign. Allowed Tory to take the lead early, and never fought back.
 
ShonTron said:
In October, I voted Chow as I expected that John Tory would be too right-wing for my liking, I had serious concerns about his transit plans (SmartTrack and the Scarborough Subway) and felt that he was very much out of touch; Mitt Tory, if you will.

In February, March, I thought I was going to vote Chow. I helped for a day getting her campaign office cleaned up. I was ready and willing to actively support her campaign. So much for that - I drifted towards David Soknacki.

From about May until he dropped out, I was supporting Soknacki, even contributing to his campaign. This left-leaning downtown urbanite should have been aligned with Chow from the start. But between her great campaign launch, and when it was too late, she ran a terrible campaign. Allowed Tory to take the lead early, and never fought back.
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I feel the same. I drifted to Soknacki over the sumer, even volunteered for a while. As a centrist or left-of-center urbanist I thought I was Chow's target demographic, but I didn't feel as if Chow fought for my vote once during her entire campaign.

Then she started evoking NIMBYs against GO-RER and showed herself to be dense when it comes to transit issues, I started to turn on her.

I would've voted for Soknacki, but instead I ended up voting for Tory and I am glad I did. I could not suffer another 4 years of a Ford in office. I have other left-leaning friends who were similarly dismayed by Chow and unwilling to vote for Tory, instead voted for Goldkind or Morgan Baskin.
 
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Kristyn Wong-Tam ‏@kristynwongtam 7m7 minutes ago
Working w @JohnTory on TorontoPride events. From flag raising to #TOCouncil parade contingent. What a difference a new Mayor makes! #TOpoli
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I guess there is this bit of positive news.
 
This is true, hence why Patrick Brown got in trouble.

Don Peat ‏@reporterdonpeat 4m4 minutes ago
Pro-hybrid councillors Stephen Holyday, Cesar Palacio, Frank Di Giorgio & James Pasternak joining Jaye Robinson here
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Looks like the Hybrid option could win...
 
Unfortunate Robinson swung that direction.

The Hybrid option is expected to win, but I still hold hope.
 
It looks like GraphicMatt's predictions for some votes are based on a record of voting with Tory rather than a stated preference for the Hybrid option, so there could still be some surprises next week.
 
Chris Caple ‏@chriscaple 31m31 minutes ago
Emerging as a fun thing about Tory's term: All the dud councillors whose crapulence was masked by Ford's 24/7 clownshow are getting exposed.
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Some of them were already known to be duds. It isn't surprising that they don't want ranked ballots for councillors.
 
I bet Tory's staff are doing some interesting wheeling and dealing with councillors for the the Gardiner vote. Like back the hybrid model and we'll support this and that project in your ward. Losing an important vote like this so early on would look really bad on him!
 
Videodrome said:
Some of them were already known to be duds. It isn't surprising that they don't want ranked ballots for councillors.
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Yep, a lot of them are incompetent and I'd go so far as to say unintelligent. Maybe Ford's plan to cut council in half isn't such a bad idea after all.
 
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