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pman said:
Yes and in Toronto the politicians stuck in the 1950's are almost exclusively from the suburbs, and are sufficiently numerous to be able to impose their will on the whole city.
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When it finally dawned on Toronto's out-of-touch progressive/liberal community ... equally clueless media ... condescending cultural elite ... milquetoast and comfortable conservatives ... members of Council ... Rob Ford *might just win this thing*, many started to quietly chirp the results won't matter, because they'll simply refuse to work with him.

On October 25th, 2010, well over 380,000 Torontonians cast their ballot for Ford, not knowing they helped in what surely is still one of the greatest/improbable victories in the history of Canadian politics.

Fair and square. Ford's finest moment.

Yet ... despite being the only man who earned a healthy city-wide mandate, there were already members of Council publicly stating they will NOT work with the Mayor come Council meetings, and instead try and work *around* him.

This was known as the "parallel Council."

Anyone else remember this?

Looking back, were they right? Yeah, probably. Sadly, Ford unravelled on his own accord, and didn't need the "help" of those cllrs. unwilling to work with him. Still ... that to me, is probably the greatest example of imposing the will of a few (his opponents weren't yet quite so united/powerful ... his addictions weren't quite so out of hand) ... on the whole city.

(That, or what BLM TO is doing to Pride.)
 
Nice revisionist history there. Anyone who had paid attention or worked with Ford for the decade prior to his election was well aware of who he was and his predilections and behaviours. As a Councillor, he was kept in check because he was a "lone wolf". As mayor, with his narcissistic personality on overdrive, he was an embarrassment and a liability.
 
PinkLucy said:
Nice revisionist history there. Anyone who had paid attention or worked with Ford for the decade prior to his election was well aware of who he was and his predilections and behaviours. As a Councillor, he was kept in check because he was a "lone wolf". As mayor, with his narcissistic personality on overdrive, he was an embarrassment and a liability.
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Everything I said is true.

Have a lovely day.
 
Bob Burnhamthorpe said:
Yet ... despite being the only man who earned a healthy city-wide mandate, there were already members of Council publicly stating they will NOT work with the Mayor come Council meetings, and instead try and work *around* him.
Click to expand...
Well, that's not how I remember it. Early in his mandate, Ford had support of council. It wasn't until he started to go off the rails that more and more councillors backed away from supporting him.

From this link http://munkschool.utoronto.ca/imfg/uploads/218/imfg_perspectives___fault_lines_at_city_hall_(jan_2013).pdf

"Following his election in 2010, Mayor Rob Ford also identified his priorities for his term of office. He has had some success in pursuing them, notably in the area of cost containment.
Constructive labour settlements were secured with two of the City’s major unions. Council endorsed a review of core city services, a freeze on councillor salaries, essential service status for the TTC, and proposals to explore outsourcing. Mayor Ford also secured support for a property tax freeze in 2011 and the elimination of the vehicle registration tax. As the Council term progressed, however, he had increasing difficulty controlling the policy agenda and maintaining Council’s support.
Council opposed Mayor Ford on a growing number of issues. For example, the “insurrection” over the 2012 city budget saw a group of newly elected centrist councillors garner support for a motion to reverse a series of planned cuts.
The most prominent example of Council opposition to the mayor’s agenda has been the transit file. Elected with a subway-building transportation strategy as a platform centrepiece, Mayor Ford cancelled the previous mayor’s transit plan on his first day in office. By early 2012 though, after months of debate, Council deemed the mayor’s subway expansion strategy unworkable and rejected it in favour of a compromise plan that restored investments in light rail.

More generally, the degree to which Council has increasingly contested the Mayor’s agenda is reflected in a rough scorecard of voting patterns for major Council decisions compiled by Matt Elliott of Metro News, which suggests that the percentage of councillors voting with Mayor Ford has declined from about 70% in 2011 to just over 20% through much of 2012."
 
Bob Burnhamthorpe said:
Everything I said is true.

Have a lovely day.
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DSC said:
I think you are living in an alternative universe filled with alternative facts.
Click to expand...

Bizarro Toronto more likely.

Rob Ford - Bizarro.jpg
 

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Someone seem to have forgotten we have a weak mayor system as well. A mandate to do what, exactly? In any case, the out-of-touch progressive/liberal community ... equally clueless media ... condescending cultural elite ... milquetoast and comfortable conservatives turned out to be right - the guy couldn't perform.

AoD
 
If he hates downtown so much, we should just close the Yonge line north of Eglinton now. Besides, this is the guy pushing for "North York Relief", so he knows a thing or two about taxpayers dollars

AoD
 
The problem isn't the fundamentally anti-core, anti-urban nature of the majority of these individual councillors. The problem is that they were elected by people who share their retrograde, 1950's, car-centric view of what a good city should be. If the likes of DMW, Pasternak and Hodyday - I could name many others but you get the point - were to retire tomorrow, they'd be replaced by councillors with more or less the same antipathy to enlightened city building. Toronto will never amount to the exciting, liveable city that residents of the core deserve as long as planning decisions about our neighbourhoods and our streets are made by imbeciles from distant suburbs. Any hope of a walkable King with decent transit will be killed by a suburban majority that literally hates cities.
 
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