The Fords' Toronto

July 26, 2011

So much for Monday's being the day that I write, eh? Anyways... I wanted to write about the latest stories involving Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his brother, Councillor Doug Ford. I get the sense that Toronto is becoming rather polarized with Mayor Ford at the helm and his brother seemingly in the wings helping out with the agenda.

I'm going to try to strike a middle-of-the-road approach with this post. Yes, I'll be critical of the two, but I'll also give credit where it's due. It is my hope that the comment section of this blog doesn't turn into the comment section of the Toronto Sun...

First, let's start with Doug Ford and his comments regarding Toronto libraries. As the city looks to cut costs, one of the plethora of options is to privatize and/or shut down libraries across the city.  When Canadian author Margaret Atwood took to her Twitter account to promote a campaign to save the libraries, so many people responded that the website linking to the petition crashed.

Doug Ford's response to all this? Well, to criticize Atwood and essentially telling her to seek a mandate before speaking out again. Ford also is on the record as saying there are more libraries in his ward than Tim Horton's, which was later shown not to be the case.

As I said in my last post, I have no problem with the privatization of certain things - as long as they are services that make sense to be privatized. Libraries certainly do not make sense. They belong in the hands of the public. They don't just serve as a place where books are "kept," they are centres for learning, they are meeting places and more. Privatization opens up yearly fees for borrowing books and for less options, in my opinion.

So, while I have no problem with the privatization of garbage collection, street cleaning and maintenance workers, vital public services - like libraries - must remain in the hands of the public.

In Mayor Rob Ford news, a rather bizarre story came out today where he is accused of giving a woman a "one-finger salute." While the story hasn't been proven, the mayor took to Twitter (seems to be a trend, lately) to call it a "misunderstanding." I'm not sure how it can be a misunderstanding - either he did it or he didn't, but I will not make judgement until the story comes out in its entirety.

The bigger issue in all of this is, as I mentioned earlier, the polarization of Toronto politics. While it seems to be a trend (a left-right divide in the federal parliament now as well), it's becoming pretty clear that, in Toronto, it isn't healthy.

Ford and the new administration have implemented policy I support. From a selfish perspective, I was able to register my car here after moving to the city, with the repeal of the $60 car tax. And I do support, discussed already, privatization of certain services that will have no impact on the current levels provided (or perhaps even improve upon them). But when there's talk of selling off and closing libraries, it's time to put a foot down.

I eagerly look forward to the responses from Ford Nation, telling me how wrong I am...