When I saw Rob Ford today, sort of apologizing for the first time in his life, I'm almost felt sorry for him."Looking back, maybe I could have expressed myself in a different way. To everyone who believes I should have done this differently, I…
Continue readingTag: Doug Ford
RedBedHead: Rob Ford Isnt The Mayor, He’s A Reality TV Show
Cue circus music: “It’s the Rob Ford Show” OK, OK, I get the joke now. For most of the last two years I’ve watched in horror as our metropolis was being run like a bingo game for compulsive cheaters. It was bad enough that his raison d’etre seemed to be
Continue readingTrashy's World: Well, I know of at least one safe seat for the Ontario Grits or NDP…
… if this comes true and Doug Ford runs for the Hudakites if McGuinty calls an election. (5) Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
Continue readingDriving The Porcelain Bus: Doug Ford + foot + mouth – brain =
Today on the Rob and Doug show. Doug Ford (speaking to Rob): “They’re so many great teams, I wouldn’t want to pick one over the other. I guess (in the) Euro, you go back to the ancestors — boy, we go back quite a ways, but I’m not too sure
Continue readingLeDaro: Mayor Ford of Toronto gets it from the vegans
This guy is a conjoined twin of Harper. They were separated at birth. He is so full of it – just like his twin Harper. Read the story here.
Continue readingRob Ford’s mayoral trajectory | #TOpoli
Yeah, yeah, I know. Originally I thought this was a good representation of George Smitherman’s campaign, but I’m an environmentalist, and I believe in recycling, and given Mayor Stupid and Brother Dumbfuck’s handling of the transit file (subways, subways everywhere … ) Related posts: Oh, look: everything Team Ford touches
Continue readingRedBedHead: Like You Needed To Be Told The Ford Bros Were Full Of S**T
Here was Mayor Rob Ford’s equally odious brother, Doug Ford at the transit debate on Wednesday: “The St. Clair streetcar is a total disaster.” Ahem..oh, really? Much maligned St. Clair line not so bad after all – The Globe and Mail: “Since the June, 2010, completion of the right-of-way from
Continue readingRedBedHead: Thank Occupy For Mayor Ford’s Big Defeat
Of course I know that it was a revolt by city councillors against the hare-brained, disastrous transit “policy” of Toronto Mayor Rob “I love gridlock” Ford. And it was the sweetest of sweet defeats against the Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum who like to think that they run the show
Continue readingCouncillor Doug Ford to probe anus of TTC
With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, Toronto City Councillor Doug Ford wants to give the TTC “a complete enema” . Whether the TTC would be a willing partner to such a procedure is unknown. Enemas are a popular sexual activity between partners in some cultures. Enemas can be pleasurable to either
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Doug Ford Rarely Disappoints
The Star’s Christopher Hume has an amusing column on the other (better?) half of that dynamic duo known as the Mayors of Toronto. For those who enjoy their political theatre broad and farcical, the brothers Ford have been working overtime since their election, and Hume gives a great deal of
Continue readingDriving The Porcelain Bus: Rob & Doug wasting Toronto Money – Again
Toronto agency backed by Mayor Ford spent $55,000 on single-source contracts – The Globe and Mail Asked if there was a discrepancy between his anti-sole-source rhetoric and his backing of sole-source waterfront proposals, he said “it all depends” before referring all further questions to Michael Kraljevic, president and CEO of
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Mayor rips Star in Hogtown pulp slapdown as hicks, slicks trade kicks
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford squares off against Toronto Star Board Chairman John Honderich in a cage fight. Actually, Hogtown politicians and media personalities may not be exactly as illustrated, but the picture really does come from a story about Toronto politics on the front of the Star’s website. Below: Mayor
Continue readingMayor Fordzilla Is Being Tormented–By a Real Newspaper
Poor Mayor Boss Hogg, He just can’t take it anymore! He looks like he’s about to go a cryin’ to his big bro, Doughnut Dougy. I mean, just take a look at how pathetic he is! Oh yeah! Since ol’ Angie Perischilli left the Toronto Star, the paper’s journos and
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Apparently They Don’t Hold With That Readin’ Thing Either
Or that might be the easy inference to draw about Mayors Rob and Doug Ford. As reported yesterday, The Toronto Star is filing a complaint with the City of Toronto’s ethics commissioner over the lads’ embargo of The Star of all official notices and pronouncements from the mayor’s office. Today,
Continue readingOne Ford down. Two to go.
Too bad it’s the wrong one. Krista Ford quits lingerie football. Now if the other two Fords would just quit their jobs, too.
Continue readingRailroaded by Metrolinx: Rally for Respect against the Silencing of Toronto
“Regular Programming in Dufferin Grove Park will be cancelled during the day time hours on Saturday, September 10, 2011 due to an anticipated, large, unpermitted event.” (sic) – Sign posted on a tree in Dufferin Grove Park by Toronto Parks and Recreation, as ordered by Mayor Rob Ford. According to
Continue readingRailroaded by Metrolinx: Rally for Respect against the Silencing of Toronto
“Regular Programming in Dufferin Grove Park will be cancelled during the day time hours on Saturday, September 10, 2011 due to an anticipated, large, unpermitted event.” (sic)
– Sign posted on a tree in Dufferin Grove Park by Toronto Parks and Recreation, as ordered by Mayor Rob Ford.
According to Mayor Ford, democracy is a large, unpermitted event.
On September 10th at Dufferin Grove Park, 500 people gathered to discuss core public service cuts under the banner of Stop Ford’s Cuts! Spread out on picnic blankets, Torontonians organized into twenty focus groups to strategize how to protect essential services, keep public sector jobs, and work together to draft the People’s Declaration for presentation to City Hall on Monday, September 26th, the ground zero of the cuts. The sum of these 2012 budgets cuts amounts to $100 million, which matches the 2011 revenue cuts by Mayor Ford, which include the $60 vehicle registration tax, and the refusal to increase property taxes by 3%. This infographic by ‘Ford for Toronto’ blogger, Matt Elliot, shows it a glance — Ford finds it necessary to privatize core services, eliminate the Hardship Fund, environmental monitoring, such as the Toronto Environment Office and Atmospheric Fund, and reduce transit service levels so that people can drive cars and own homes. Sound familiar? In August, Harper eliminated 776 jobs from Environment Canada.
At the Dufferin Grove rally, situated in the west end hotbed of urban hippiedom, Cleo Halfpenny was selling hand silkscreened voodoo dolls of Mayor Ford with Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti in his pocket for $25 a pop, $20 without Giorgio during the meeting. Colourful Mayor Ford graffiti is springing up on walls throughout the city, faster than the white brush of the Fords’ can erase. As one of his decrees, Ford said taxpayers should call 9-1-1 to alert them of graffiti, and in the Dufferin Grove sign, he asks park-goers to call 3-1-1 to stop outdoor meetings, but he cannot stem the fabulous graphics,incisive political blog entries and pithy information visualization charts protesting his efficiency-finding measures.
Toronto is awash with graffiti – – Ford as a corpulent octopus, with his tentacles in many jars, his white potato head saying ‘Spud’, the stenciled word ‘Nightmayor’, and online campaigns such as Margaret Atwood for Mayor and 500,000 citizens against Ford. The silencing of creative constituents has brought about agitprop resistance provoked by anger, and softened by mirth, pointing out how ludicrous this all is, while laughing at Ford’s anti-graffiti legislation as a ‘catch me if you can’ tactic. A photojournalist friend, R. Jeanette Martin, is documenting the Rob Ford graffiti art for posterity; she cannot keep up with the sightings. Whether it is ‘Brazil’, ‘Twelve Monkeys’ or ‘Jabberwocky’- it seems like Toronto City Council is directed and scripted by Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam. Mayor Ford tried to close the park washrooms during the Stop the Ford’s Cuts! rally through an edict to Toronto Parks and Recreation; local councillors had to formally request they remain open.
On September 19th, I witnessed the first morning of the second round of marathon deputations from an overflow room at City Hall. Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti asked for a motion to cut deputations down from five minutes to two; it was granted, and speaking time for the opposition was divided by more than half. Within the first several hours, when a blind PWA spoke eloquently to keep funding for HIV services, he paused to turn to face a councillor and consider his question. Mayor Ford cut him off brusquely, timing him out. Councillor Adam Vaughan quickly invoked City Hall’s policy for accommodation for disability. For the next twenty hours, in an absent, monotonous tone, Ford continued to recite the names of the deputants, ending their time to the allotted second, as his form of efficient, cattle call democracy. Mayor Ford no longer accepts interview requests with Toronto Star, or Spacing, the urban planning magazine, or any other publication held to be partisan to ex-Mayor Miller’s regime, from his City Hall throne. (The video of Dave Meslin pointing out the lack of respect for deputants can be seen here- 87 left because of how late the deputations went.)
Shortly after the PWA deputized, a nurse, outfitted in a beautiful Caribana headdress of her own design, spoke of her dependency upon rehabilitation services after a severe concussion, and mentioned a podiatrist who attended her homeless shelter, and offered services to her for free. You could almost hear the pens scratching by Ford’s note takers to ensure that this service was suspended; Ford has refused the hiring of two nurses who specialized in HIV caretaking from the province, but allowed three nurses who focused on the spread of bedbugs. Councillor Mammoliti threatened a young mother with a 35% tax increase if she demands childcare; 35% is the recurring refrain of tax hikes threatened by the Brothers Ford to budget dissenters, and is completely without factual basis. (See more here.)
Repeatedly, deputants said there is a revenue problem, not a spending problem, and were soundly ignored by the executive council, who pointed out the number of times they had deputized previously to discredit them. Many of these deputants were incensed by this tactic; they were representatives for large constituent groups, such as graduate student unions, and when Councillor Mammoliti pointed out they were being paid handsomely for their services, noted their $15,000 graduate student stipends. And in the most hypocritical repudiation of Ford’s campaign tactics conceivable, Nick Kouvalis, the principal architect of the Gravy Train campaign meme, has jumped the mayoral ship to work as a public relations consultant with firemen, on the site Notgravy.ca, to save them from 300 layoffs.
There is a reason why the neo-conservative tag team, or in an oft quoted tweet calling Ford, Hudak and Harper the future “trifecta of Republican-style, right-wing ignorance and bigotry”, is working so quickly to privatize core public services at the municipal level- they realize that sustainable urban planners, architects, grassroots organizations and citizens who build progressive movements are strong, organized and thoughtful in cities, and want to quash them. This was openly admitted by PM Harper when he attended a barbeque with Mayor Ford in his backyard this spring. Conservative PR flaks have made repeated attempts to take down this video from Facebook, but it pops back up again. This tactic is congruent with the Canadian European Trade Agreement, more comprehensive than NAFTA, which is presently in its ninth round of backroom negotiations, and will open up municipal services to European interests. PM Harper intends to ensure the rungs of the municipal-provincial-federal ladder are filled with his yes-sayers. If elected as the MP in Ontario, Tim Hudak wants to get rid of the Human Rights Commission to further silence leftist dissent; for more on his future initiatives, see the web site The Best Ontario Election Web Site, brought to you by Truthfool Communications, who put up the site Shit Harper Did last election.
Just last week, the inclusion of electronic surveillance in the Conservatives’ tough on crime omnibus bill was stymied through a Stop Spying petition with 70,000 signatures, organized by Openmedia.ca. These wiretapping bills are really about the censorship and control of social media by PM Harper and his media advisors – – they are well aware that Facebook and Twitter are the locii for grassroots organizing. Although their new media firms still monitor social media postings, these bills were drafted to ensure that their warrantless stalking of grassroots opposition would be admissible in court. These bills were excised from the omnibus bill this round, but will no doubt be revised, to crop up in different versions to be reconsidered in future legislation.
And finally the Ford Brothers have lost an important battle. A concerned citizen has registered a formal complaint against Doug Ford for meeting with an unregistered lobbyist, an Australian developer, to sell off the Lower Port Lands, putting in jeopardy the development plans of Waterfront Toronto. These award winning sustainable plans, developed over six years, and with thousands of hours of good faith consultancy of citizens’ groups, were supported by a letter signed by 147 architects, urban planners and professors in an emergency press conference to denounce the revised east end theme park version, replete with a ferris wheel, mono-rail and mega-mall. In addition, CodeBlueTO presented 7,300 signatures on their citizens’ petition to preserve the three key principles of the Waterfront Toronto plans – flood proofing the Port Lands and South Riverdale, renaturalizing the mouth of the Don River, and building urban neighbourhoods – citing them as essential. Media reports say this battle loss has created a rift between the Ford Brothers, and pundits have asked for the return of the unauthorized $500,000 for this unneeded, second consultancy, directly from Rob and Doug’s bank account.
The silencing of the dissenting left by the neo-conservative public relations policy apparatus continues on, whether in the careful handling of Mayor Ford to monitor his press access, his controlled role-calling during the marathon deputation sessions, the shortening of deputation time at City Hall, or the censoring of the barbeque video on youtube by PM Harper, and the hidden inclusion of all-inclusive electronic surveillance in their omnibus crime bills.
When citizens are being censored, they act with graphic ingenuity. As witnessed during the people’s wake for Jack Layton in Nathan Philips’ Square, internationally, chalk has become the unique identifier and ephemeral signature of hope and optimism for Toronto, easily washed away by rain, only to fill the square again. This Monday, during the People’s Rally at City Hall, chalk filled the square again with heartfelt requests to protect our core services, and question the unfounded logic of the Fords’ service cuts. Regular programming of democracy will resume one day, and together, we will make it happen. Torontonians have proven themselves capable of compassion through accepting property tax hikes, and additional taxes, as they realize services and jobs for many will ensure the health of all. They have said so through many hours of City Hall deputations, waiting patiently for their shortened turn to speak.
Update: Mayor Ford and Councillor Mammoliti showed up in new business suits, and debated for a day and a half; one-third of 1 per cent of the city’s $9-billion-plus budget, $28-million in “service adjustments” was found, and the votes can be seen here at http://torontoist.com/2011/09/budget-votes-at-city-hall/ By a vote of 22-23, The Hardship Fund, which offsets medical costs for the needy, was cut. Councillor Vaughan reminds those watching the cuts will be on the table again after the election in November. Mayor Ford is claiming a ‘huge victory’ for finding efficiencies.
Watch this excellent video for more on today’s 5:30 pm Rally for Respect: TORONTO’S PRICE TAG / Ayesha Adhami … ALL OUT MONDAY SEPT. 26 – 5:30pm at City Hall at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNuuR12HxBc
References:
Matt Elliott, City Hall budget infographic at http://fordfortoronto.mattelliott.ca/
New Port Lands Agreement Apparently A Win For Ford, http://www.torontosatire.com/2011/09/22/new-port-lands-agreement-apparently-a-win-for-ford/
John Michael McGrath, EXPLAINER: Where does this “35% tax increase” come from?
http://toronto.openfile.ca/blog/curator-blog/explainer/2011/explainer-where-does-35-tax-increase-come
Andy Radia, Harper Conservatives try to quash Rob Ford barbeque video: Liberal blogger http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/harper-conservatives-try-quash-rob-ford-barbeque-video-172632797.html
Firefighter’s site, Not Gravy.ca http://www.notgravy.ca
Truthfool Communications, The Best Ontario Election Web Site http://www.thebestontarioelectionwebsite.ca/
Truthfool Communications, Shit Harper Did http://www.shitharperdid.com
Openmedia.ca at http://www.openmedia.ca
Stop Spying at http://stopspying.ca
CodeBlueTO at http://codeblueto.com/
Railroaded by Metrolinx: Rally for Respect against the Silencing of Toronto
“Regular Programming in Dufferin Grove Park will be cancelled during the day time hours on Saturday, September 10, 2011 due to an anticipated, large, unpermitted event.” (sic) – Sign posted on a tree in Dufferin Grove Park by Toronto Parks and Recreation, as ordered by Mayor Rob Ford. According to
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Ford Gang Stays True To Form
Although I don’t live in Toronto, it has become an object of fascination for me since the election of Mayor Rob and Doug Ford. Within their fiefdom resides a psychology that provides fascinating examples of and insights into the darker aspects of huma…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Score Another One For Rick Salutin
Consistently able to ‘think outside the box’ of the current North American mindset, Rick Salutin, one of my favorite critical thinkers, has a column in today’s Star well-worth perusal. Entitled The sector that dares not speak its name, the thesis of hi…
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