In today's Globe and Mail, columnist Marcus Gee is urging right-wing city councillor Rob Ford to run for Mayor of Toronto. The piece is titled, 'Rob Ford, please run. You're the right guy for a lefty race.'
Gee goes on to point out that two of the declared candidates - Rocco Rossi and George Smitherman - are Liberals; and there's Adam Giambrone, chair of the TTC and a former director of the federal NDP. While Rossi has been coming up with some right-wing ideas, such as killing planned bicycle lanes and selling Toronto Hydro, if Ford decides to run for Mayor he'll make Rossi's ideas sound like they're coming from a moderate.
Ford has developed a reputation for frothing at the mouth about over taxation and generally placing foot in mouth at a predictable pace. Check out this YouTube video where Ford berates John Barber, the Globe and Mail's former city hall reporter, in a manner worthy of a high school bully. Ford embodies the worst of what the right has to offer.
Which is why I want him to run for Mayor. Rossi is coming up with right-of-centre ideas because he thinks the electorate is so pissed off with incumbent Mayor David Miller that the voting public now has a hate-on for the unions. This is mostly because of the city workers' strike that dragged on last summer to a smelly end. If Ford makes a run for the city's top job, Toronto voters will wake up and realize how destructive these kinds of ideas are. Because, Ford being Ford, will come up with positions and statements so over the top that he'll draw attention like moths to a flame.
Torontonians should read Heather Mallick's informed and witty book of essays: Cake or Death: The Excruciating Choices of Everyday Life, to get a solid refutation of the right-wing idea that taxation is bad. Hell, you can even read the essay where Mallick logically and convincingly makes the argument for taxation on her website's teaser for the book. Ford's entry to the Mayoral race would provide a clear contrast between platforms that would hurt the city (Ex. Putting light rail transit projects on hold - Rossi, again), and a vision to improve transit, living conditions for the poor, and a host of other initiatives that Miller has devoted time and energy to. Then we'll see who agrees with Rob Ford's fiscal tightwad views.
Gee closes his piece by urging Ford to step into the ring, "Run, councillor, run." I couldn't have said it better.
I sincerely hope that councillor Adam Giambrone, despite his troubles running the TTC, can offer a platform and vision a majority of Toronto voters will get behind. He is the heir to David Miller - Giambrone just needs to show what he stands for and prove he's got the chops for the job.
No comments:
Post a Comment