In the race for the next Mayor of Toronto, right-leaning candidate Rob Ford is out to a substantial lead in the polls. This begs the question; is our nation's largest city is shifting to the right? The only mention that the CBC makes about the race are questions asking if radicals are subjugating Toronto. If I had to guess on the impetus behind this shift, I would have to point to the garbage strike last year. If public opinion sours on the public employees unions, then the left wing political parties who cater to them are going to suffer, especially in Ontario. I believe that garbage strike by overpaid CUPE trash collectors has shifted Torontonian public opinion to the right, which could create big problem for the federal Liberal Party.
If Rob Ford wins, what does that say about voter intention in the heart of the Liberal Party? You could not simply credit it to "chubby chasers", it would be a clear bellweather about voter psychology in general. I won't hold my breath, but I will be very interested to see who Toronto chooses to be the next Mayor.
It was also the TTC’s sudden walkout 2 years ago that anecdotally left nurses going home at 11PM stranded in the middle of nowhere. The middle class was literally left stranded. And they realized that they don’t have the salary and benefit packages of government unions so they are fed up with union strikes.
ReplyDeleteThis is really about union busting and Rob Ford is the right guy to sit on the unions until they say uncle. It isn’t complicated, it’s simply about having the will to win. But it is going to get very nasty because Ontario and Quebec are controlled by militant government unions and if Toronto can bust it up then we’re on a roll.
Ohhh and unions leaving 50,000 York University students in the lurch for months and McGuinty doing nothing did not endear youth to Liberalism. The establishment in Ontario who have made a pact with the devil Liberals/unions are very very worried.
nomdeblog
I'd say it was the strike but also the taxes and wasted spending. If you dig through the polls, he is pulling support from every demographic and both left and right pretty equally. It is more about being fed up with politicians and their abuse of our money and their attitude that our money and our government belong to them.
ReplyDeletePlus Ford has run a great campaign with focus and a clear "raison d'etre" whereas the others? Who knows why they want to be mayor.
Plus Ford has a certain "ah hell" quality of not being a politician's politician like the other candidates who are all clearly much smarter, more polished, fewer rough edges. There is a genuineness in Ford's many serious flaws.
As a Toronto resident totally bemused by this election spectacle, I think Rob Silver has got it just about note perfect right here.
I disagree with Rob Silver on one point: I do think there is the potential for this to be replicated elsewhere, but it is not so much a right-left thing or a Tea Party North thing.
The lesson for other politicians is that there is a sentiment that Canadians everywhere think that our governments are underperforming, abusing power, abusing tax dollars, treating our money and our government as their own. You can see this in polls with large undecideds and declining voting. It takes a spark - like a Rob Ford or, for 2 years at least, an Obama - to tap into that and turn it into votes.
It is an awful way to elect a government, like sleeping with an outlaw biker to get back at your ex, only to wake up in the morning and exclaim 'what the h**l did I just do????'
This does not bode well for the Harpers, McGuintys and Campbells out there.
It is just that more and more people who thought they would always be payees have become payers due to liberal / socialist policies. The politiicans have run out of people to tax and the ones left getting the benefits are ungrateful for the most part.
ReplyDeleteNice spin Ted,
ReplyDeletebut this is about the 'elites' vs regular folk.
The snotty know-it-all's vs the stupid people.
Liberals read the tea leaves,
dressed Iffy up in tight fittin' jeans and a plaid shirt, stuck a straw between his teeth and booted him onto a bus.
Proved he could function without his afternoon nappy, but not much else.
Times up for special interest groups, unions and the elites.
Preston Manning and the Reform Party were 10 years ahead of the times.
Referendum, recall, accountability, personal responsibility......
This is not about partisan politics. It is bigger than that.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWilson:
ReplyDeleteYou have such a hatred for all things Liberal that you can't even see that that is pretty much what I am saying, albeit with a bit more understanding, detail and focus and less partisanship.
You want to talk about "elites" which is kinda facile actually. Who are you talking about? Business leaders? Academics? Artists? Labour? Because the so-called elites are just as supportive of Ford as the rest. Limiting the analysis to "elites" and "regular folk" is part way there, but doesn't really even begin to scratch the surface.
Which is why this is about more than elites, but about government and the kind of government Torontonians are getting. And by extension the kind of government Ontarians and Canadians are getting.
If you want to use the term "elites" then, yes, the political "elites" like the career politicians like the Millers, Pantalones, Smithermans are having a hard time convincing voters. As are career politician "elities" like McGuinty and Harper.
These elites haven't made it on their own like the rest of us, have lived off the public teat their whole professional lives and they are at risk in this environment.
I'm not saying the likes of Campbell, McGuinty or Harper are dead. Far from it. All three continue to benefit from a fractured and ineffective elected opposition. Which is why I say it takes a Ford like spark to ignite and unify that opposition.
In a couple of polls in mid-August, Ford lost out to Tory in one and, incredibly, Miller in another. That tells me that voters don't like Ford and aren't moving "right" but do have a sort of unexpended frustration with the way governments are spending and wasting our money.
That is a dangerous sentiment for the likes of McGuinty and Harper who have spent our money like it was their own for highly partisan purposes, including record breaking spending by Harper on self-promotion during a recession and record breaking spending on the PMO itself, not to mention fake lakes, sidewalks to nowhere, gazebos, etc.
Elite, Ted, to us knuckledragger, is a state of mind.
ReplyDeleteIt's not about power, position and money,
it's about how high you hold your nose in the air, illustrating the sense superiority, when one talks to and/or about people who don't agree with them.
Like Iffy saying PMSH stinks of sulfur.
Like 'beer and popcorn' Scott Reid,
like what's his name saying Sun readers are illiterate,
like Coyne calling the CPC the stupid people's party and getting the nod of agreement from the rest of the elites at Macleans and their readers.
Like you going on non-stop with your opinion, as if we didn't get it the first time.
ps, I don't hate all things Liberal,
ReplyDeleteI hate that the coalition of losers would give the West's voice to the f'n separatists.
The Liberal and Democrats in Toronto are in shock. The Toronto Star and their media has failed to damage Rob Ford.
ReplyDeleteThe current minority federal government is nothing like the bloated Liberal Government in Quebec,Ontario or BC.
The Federal Government is trying to lower taxes and shrink government.
Opposition are upset a priority is to upgrade prisons, our military and lower taxes.
This leaves less money for the CBC and tax funded abortions for Africa.
Clearly the priorities of the Liberals are not Conservatives.
Federal Liberals are stealing the McGuinty platform daycare, early education. They should disband and join the Ontario Liberals before they collapse completely.
I think the Rob Silver column that Ted linked to is bang on. I think whats happening in Toronto is a response to a specific set of circumstances, and likely will not have any carry-over into the provincial or future federal election campaigns.
ReplyDeleteThe only cross-over I see is that the get-able vote for Ford is likely similar to the get-able vote for Harper. Although, Harper won't get the same broad support because he's the incumbent as opposed to the challenger.
I seriously doubt that Toronto is shifting right.
ReplyDeleteSure, they might be a little choked at how they’ve been slapped around by the current local civic leaders but you have to realize that Toronto is a Big-Government town.
It has a big City Government and a big Provincial Government. It has Big Government agencies like the CBC and even the business community is heavily depended on Big Government. The concerted attack by the Toronto media on the Sun TV proposal is just another example of this. The place is practically wall to wall leftards and crony capitalists.
This country has always been rigged for Toronto’s benefit. They ain’t going to do anything to change that.
The major difference in the money the conservatives spent on advertising, and other things is that the money went for said projects, and created jobs, not to phoney invoices, kickbacks and brown paper bags. Hosting major political events cost money, and having 2 at almost the same time is expensive. Toronto could have benefited from this, by being on the worlds radar but they chose to object and support and encourage the protesters. Maybe the support for Ford is from some of those that opposed the protests, and the way the city handled the whole event.
ReplyDeleteFord staked out his territory with clear messaging and early in the game.
ReplyDeleteToday the Harper govt (Flaherty) did the same.
And Monday, so did Baird.
Historically Toronto was conservative to Montreal's Liberal swinging reputation. That changed after the FLQ and Quebec crisis when Montreal Liberal elites fled down the 401 to Toronto. Ever since, year in and out, Toronto has been shifting left. But its heart is conservative though and this is not as strange as it appears, the current mayoral race we see. (rc)
ReplyDelete"The lesson for other politicians is that there is a sentiment that Canadians everywhere think that our governments are underperforming, abusing power, abusing tax dollars, treating our money and our government as their own."
ReplyDeleteSomehow you think this is NOT what the Tea Party is about???
Attila:
ReplyDeleteThere are some similarities but what Ford represents is not a nascent Tea Party movement, not by a long shot.
For one, people from across the political spectrum are supporting him, left, right, labour, business, etc. The Tea Party Movement is decidedly very right wing and conservative.
For two, the frustrations of Torontonians in particular is the discrepancy between the waste and taxes and the level of services we get for that. The Tea Party movement is about that but probably more accurate to say it is about eliminating government services and reducing the size of government so that the taxes are not even needed. Rob Ford is very careful not to talk about cuts and in fact is talking about increasing spending if you actually add up his talking points.
For three, there is no social conservativism at play in the support Ford is getting in the way that it is a core element of the Tea Party.
Torontonians are frustrated with the lack of common sense but they are not looking for a revolution in what government does, just how it does it. Ask anyone around here (Toronto) and I think that is what you will find.
And by extension, I think to a lesser extent that is whay you will find people will say about McGuinty and Harper. For example, angry and frustrated with McGuinty is not so much focused on the deficit he has or even the many broken promises (didn't affect him in the election) or even taxes (polls show Ontarians are indifferent to favourable of the HST change), but they are might pissed with ehealth and OLG waste and mismanagement. The issue is governance and good management.
As for Harper, no one is all that angry with him for expanding the size of government to its largest ever (biggest spending, most employees, more and more regional development programs, corporate welfare... all before the recession), but they did get angry when he wasted almost $2 billion to try to get Tony Clement re-elected, built fake lakes and sidewalks to nowhere. No one is all that angry or frustrated with Harper for his arrogance and bullying/controlling nature (in fact, I think I read a poll where it was almost considered an asset), but we do get angry when he continually breaks the law (Privacy Act, ignoring court orders, ignoring subpoenas), breaks fundamental promises (fixed election dates, income trust taxes, increased taxes on businesses during a recession, etc.) and avoids accountability (preventing civil servants from doing their jobs, proroguing Parliament to avoid a confidence vote and accountability, etc.)... all governance and management issues just like with McGuinty and Toronto.
Ted, you are being too specific in your definition of the Tea Party and I disagree with the assertion that the rise of Rob Ford is bad news for Stephen Harper...but whatever gets you to sleep at night...
ReplyDeleteAnd "wasted almost $2 billion to try to get Tony Clement re-elected" is not an accurate statement. They didn't host the G8 or G20 to get Tony re-elected. Tony won quite handily in 2008 and is popular in his riding (like jumping into a raging river to try and save a drowning woman). If where they hosted the summit was entirely about getting cabinet members re-elected, there are others of higher stature in more vulnerable ridings that would have been more prudent.