animatronic
Senior Member
"Unelected" is definitely overstating the case. Wynne is clearly elected on the basis of being elected in a party based electoral system. However, there is legitimate criticism to be made, regardless of PC precedent in Ontario, about switching leaders almost immediately after the election.
Need to separate the two issues. All things being equal, a leader who has won an election has a stronger mandate than one who has inherited a government. By that i mean they have greater moral authoriry to enact major change (e.g., mulroney was pm and he still called an election to get a mandate to implement free trade). However, a leader who inherits a gov is just as legitimate as any other.
The Fordists don't care about that stuff. The mayor of Toronto is directly elected by more citizens than any other politician in Canada, so their voice is more important than any other. Indeed, to deny the primacy of their mandate is to deny democracy.
This argument is, of course, complete horseshit. We don't elect dictators. Every politician in the country is subject to checks and balances. In Ford's case this includes democratically appointed courts, the democratically elected legislature and the democratically elected city council.
More effort needs to be spent debunking the notion that the size of Ford's constituency somehow puts his actions beyond scrutiny.