Campaign Bubble 2006: The Archive

This is a “backup” archive version that should be more aesthetically pleasing than what’s left of the original at this point. Of course, many links to campaign-related sites are long gone, while some posts below don’t contain them anymore …

Campaign Bubble pops, stage gets set for 2010

From this vantage point, the breakthrough in the 2006 municipal election involved the first signs of genuine civic engagement among those born after Toronto finished being ruled by the Orange Order — that’d be 1972, give or take, when a retired William Dennison was replaced at the helm of New City Hall by David Crombie. The campaign trail return of one maverick thinker from that era, 66-year-old former mayor John Sewell, put a face to the disenchantment with the faulty aspects of the post-amalgamation system overall, although it’s safe to say that Boynton Beach Club ended up being eclipsed by Broken Social Scene as the evolution’s best cultural reference point. But this kind of generational transition takes time to reach the top, and the mass media attention lavished upon the activities of younger brains trying to frame Toronto in a more imaginative light than the unspectacular sprawl they grew up in, risks making it look like a fleeting novelty (see also: handmade zines, tongue piercings, swing revival) instead of the building blocks for something grander. A couple of mayoral showdowns downtown might’ve drawn a healthy crowd of young bike-riding voters less likely to follow their parents into the car-dependent conventions of suburbia, but election events held in other corners of Toronto have remained mostly geriatric affairs. With an aging population overall, one would expect more candidates influenced by Mayor David Miller, who has managed to reinforce his connection across every demographic. The hard-fought Trinity-Spadina victory by Adam Vaughan — who went from opinionated political reporter to having to navigate his way through an NDP-controlled spin cycle over the past month — does plant an advocate of the finer points of independent creative expression in the thick of the system, along with his staunch determination to make urban Toronto a place where people won’t be intimidated to raise their kids. Gord Perks, who cut through a field of 14 to fill the vacancy in Parkdale-High Park, has followed a similar road from media protest to municipal power, although time will tell if he asserts himself as more than an environmentalist — even if that’s what the mayoral challengers obsessed with the subject of trash seemed to desire most. The runner-up status of mayoral aspirant Alex Munter in Ottawa apparently reveals what kind of Generation X career politician type doesn’t rouse passions at the voting booth — after spending his entire adult life grooming himself for the job, and being repeatedly told that he represented the future, it seems he was blind to his own blandness. But it’s kind of a drag that it will be another four years, rather than three, before another opportunity to witness how wired dynamics can impact a local campaign.

Thanks for reading this attempt to hold the municipal election up to a funhouse mirror. Just as interesting was the chance to be part of a Toronto mini-blogosphere that involved the seminal Spacing, surprise (and surprisingly even-handed) entrant the Toronto Sun, and my long-lost alma mater Eye Weekly. Being part of a national news organization also meant casting the Campaign Bubble net as wide as possible across Ontario, something that was easier said than done from a 416 base — most of those pajama-clad “citizen journalists” went into hibernation this fall, not that they ever really existed in the first place. Yet, working the circuit in tandem with the reporters who cover the beat was a breakthrough for this often sloppy blog genre. The archives can be perused below, and you can always write.

City Idol claims big victory amidst idle coverage

The cast and crew of the City Idol competition watched the Toronto municipal election results come in at Paupers Pub in the Annex, even if the television coverage hardly had the suspense of a World Cup match. Citytv proclaimed David Miller’s re-election as soon as they signed on-air, and went to rival Jane Pitfield for an instantly incredulous reaction: “They’ve already decided on the winner?” The effort to make no-contests like Kyle Rae’s inevitable victory in Toronto-Centre Rosedale sound suspenseful was a pretty fruitless allocation of CityNews resources, especially when the four political neophytes who won their campaign in an ambitious year-long contest were celebrating their achievements, having a chance to play in the municipal campaign field that is historically hostile to neophytes. “Only two candidates really had a chance in Trinity-Spadina,” Citytv reporter Dwight Drummond opined from the party of his former colleague Adam Vaughan, who clinched a majority win in what was presumed to be a horserace against Helen Kennedy — but third place, with almost five per cent of the vote, belonged to Desmond Cole (pictured), the most visible of the City Idol winners, due to his running in a heated downtown ward. (Anthony Reinhart has a profile of Cole in the Tuesday morning Globe.) While the screens showed Senator Jerry Grafstein hailing his “warrior queen” Pitfield following her concession speech, Cole was much more modest in addressing the crowd of about 50 campaign supporters, pleased with them for mounting a campaign rooted in “dignity, friendship and respect”, in contrast to the surrounding crossfire between Vaughan and Kennedy. The story of City Idol has also been captured throughout for a documentary, and Cole didn’t fail to thank the camera crew for obsessively preserving his experiences during these months “because I don’t know what the hell has been going on”.

Voting day: Not quite 88 lines about 44 wards

Prior to getting this freelance assignment from globeandmail.com — the latest stop on a seven-year tour of duty through the catacombs of online journalism — I’d been to exactly one City of Toronto mayoral debate, back in 1994. The event was held in a half-full OISE Auditorium on Bloor St. W. — and I was lured along by a colleague who was reluctantly going. This was the municipal election where 69-year-old June Rowlands was dethroned by younger-but-grayer Barbara Hall, with one of those charismatic millionaire types named Gerry Meinzer acting as spoiler, plus eight other registered hopefuls — most of whom took their place at the table, including one who was campaigning on the information superhighway. Perennial candidate Ben Kerr closed the show by strumming a tune about cayenne pepper, and everyone seemed to leave the event satisfied that Hall’s affection for the city was a better choice to replace the harsher Rowlands. Who knew that, a dozen years later, a recurring theme on the campaign trail was nostalgia for how personable the pre-amalgamation system used to be? This fall, I hiked out to 10 such mayoral candidate meetings for this site — including one debate on the topic of trash that Mayor David Miller didn’t show up for — along with five face-offs in downtown wards, and have been left even more confused about what constitutes a successful message. Who can be blamed for this? Well, the reluctant creation of the Megacity was accompanied by the emergence of a computer for every pothole, transforming how local issues get addressed. Now you’ve got public space advocates, transit fetishists, crime statisticians, waste management specialists and message board mudslingers, plus ratepayer associations, BIAs and heritage advocates — all of whom are making their own new media, which feeds the old media, which forces the candidates to become magnified into larger-than-life caricatures to project the image of power that the aforementioned groups keep reminding them that they don’t actually have. And that’s how you end up with a mayor who is constantly being decried by pundits as a disappointment sweeping back into power, a challenger who never quite got around to communicating that she actually likes living here, and a blustery third “frontrunner” who seized this opportunity to heckle city hall from its own stage.

The experience of trailing David Miller on a 15-minute perp walk from Bay and Bloor to the subway at Yonge, in the middle of a nondescript Sunday afternoon — where Coke Blak sample hucksters were a more disruptive presence than the panhandlers, even if this account suggests otherwise — was surreal enough, just because his campaign-closing 44 wards in 44 hours stunt was catering to the stalkerazzi media culture that has trained Torontonians to find it newsworthy that a familiar face is standing on their street. A pack of reporters stroll astride the mayor, with cameras trying to keep the pace in front of the pack, and everyone is hoping for that serendipitous moment which can’t possibly occur with all of these media wretches in the way. More often, at least along this strip, Miller has to compel passers-by to succumb to his shadow — rewarding them with a tiny button as a keepsake of their encounter. Generally, the mayor looks ready to get back to his day job, where he’ll have four years to show if he remembers anything from this forgettable campaign.

Plenty of municipal topics were given their time in the spotlight over the past five weeks, though. The words Section 37 of the Planning Act came up repeatedly in all-candidates meetings, as the often arbitrary nature of vertical downtown building was complained about — even though the concept of developers seasoning their high-density applications with funding for city initiatives, and how that money warrants being spent, rarely comes up in the coverage. (A primer by John Lorinc in The Globe and Mail a couple months ago noted Section 37’s nickname as “the crack cocaine of planning”.) And while residents were left to feel satisfied they were doing their part for reducing the number of garbage bags at the curb with the advent of the Green Bin, the purchase of the Green Lane landfill became one of Jane Pitfield’s main crusades against David Miller — even though she voted for the deal a couple weeks before deciding that the mayor’s stance against incineration was just another “hidden agenda”. Stephen LeDrew was hung up on “secret deals” — particularly the decision to splurge on new subway cars from Bombardier without openly tendering the contract –- although the lobbyist tactics rebuked in the report following the computer leasing inquiry were precisely what intimidated power brokers from the Mel Lastman era from fielding their own candidate against Miller. The remnants of protests against the dedicated streetcar right-of-way on St. Clair Ave. W. never really galvanized people not directly disgruntled by having their main drag torn apart in favour of concrete barriers, and a couple years of loud grumbling must yield to the reality that Pitfield’s suggestion that a subway line be built beneath every congested street is fairly unfeasible. And have you heard the news? People with money don’t like paying taxes, something which Miller is now seeking to mollify with a pledge to skim a percentage off the decreasing GST rate, or increasing the PST, or whatever else can be done to affirm the importance of Toronto to the future of Canada, especially given how a world-class contrivance like Expo 2015 won’t be doing the trick anymore.

Some fresh smears right before the finish line

Given how construction of the St. Clair Ave. W. dedicated streetcar right-of-way turned into a debate dominated by John Sewell’s braying against the re-election of Joe Mihevc, the third contender in that race has been forced to work a new angle. John Adams, a councilor through the 1990s looking to bring hysteria back to city hall, distributed a last-ditch letter to voters in the substantially Jewish neighbourhoods of St. Paul’s pointing out Mihevc’s support from CUPE Ontario — the same group that recently called for a boycott of Israel, a decision the left-leaning Mihevc and Sewell have both spoken out against. John Lorinc’s column on this desperate development at Spacing Votes generated a comment thread that swerved into a discussion over mudslinging against Adam Vaughan, as he battles to take over the seat vacated by rival candidate Helen Kennedy’s former boss Olivia Chow — Vaughan has been critical of the role of NDP party politics in Trinity-Spadina, especially on matters of urban planning, and has spent many days defending himself against accusations of “heterosexism” due to repeated arguments about how the shoebox condo culture is stifling opportunities for families to be raised downtown. This weekend, Vaughan posted “a special message” refuting the content of Kennedy flyers being distributed around Ward 20, which attempt to hang him based on a suggestion that laneways should have gates, presumably for the sake of safety. A lengthy thread at Rabble also delves into whether Vaughan is being surreptitiously backed by the Liberal Party — he got a hearty endorsement on the ever-strategic blog of Warren Kinsella — while another Rabble babbler tries to make sense of whether Vaughan’s sophisticated website is within the boundaries of campaign spending limits. Meanwhile, over in Davenport, candidate Fred Dominelli fired off a press release boasting of his verbal shots at incumbent Cesar Palacio and challenger Alejandra Bravo in Ward 17 during a debate on the Rogers Television show Goldhawk Live. Dominelli dragged out the matter of Palacio getting his campaign office space donated by the Police Community Partnership charity, accusing Bravo of withholding the information she obtained on the deal until after she was able to use it to her own political advantage, thus closing the window on a proper investigation. Bravo was also accused of “embellishing her involvement in local achievements and taking credit away from local residents” according to Dominelli.

Church polling stations ‘offend’ some Jews, candidate says, is a close rival to the John Adams smear of Joe Mihevc for the most far-fetched invocation of anti-Semitism in the municipal election. Elliott Frankl, a city council candidate in Vaughan, earned some ink in the National Post by claiming the low voter turnout in Thornhill was due to such feelings about having to vote in a house of somebody else’s worship. (Frankl’s name is also tied to a long term abuse history on Wikipedia.) Meanwhile, back in Toronto, an advert in The Jewish Tribune newspaper for Eglinton-Lawrence candidate Howard Cohen cites a mysterious “latest poll” that puts him at 41.5 per cent public support to just 27.8 per cent for TTC chairman and legendary lout Howard Moscoe, underlining the claim that Ward 15 “voters have had enough of 1) Arrogance 2) Secrecy 3) Embarrassment”. [* Toronto signage pic snapped on Beaconsfield Ave., north of the Drake Hotel, by Joe Clark]

The election as viewed by a Warholian warrior

Himy Syed opened a campaign office in the storefront of the Metro Theatre (677 Bloor St. W.) because he figured it was the perfect place to advocate for the reunification of north and south Koreatown — two sides of the street that fall into two different electoral wards. Syed has claimed residence in about a dozen different parts of Toronto, ever since his family moved from the U.K., flipping houses that flipped them around the town. Being a local nomad comes naturally to 36-year-old Syed, who lives in one part of Trinity-Spadina while running for council in the other, but has spent this municipal election campaign maneuvering between events, just to ensure this season’s rhetoric gets preserved on YouTube. Syed’s camera and curiosity have been a presence at many events over the last couple years reflecting the new, if sometimes forced, vision of uTOpia. But he approaches it with a neurotic feeling of unease. “Groups like the Toronto Public Space Committee have made peace with this city,” Syed says. “I have yet to have that peace.” The quest nearly led into the electoral arena in 2003, when he got the last-minute spark to run against mercurial Giorgio Mammoliti in York West, but ran in with the registration money seven minutes too late. Syed threw his name into the ring to serve as city council fill-in for the past year after Olivia Chow bailed to run federally, and was left dismayed by the undemocratic process that handed the job to city hall workhorse Martin Silva. So, he ran in the City Idol contest — seeking the opportunity to win a customized campaign — but lost the downtown run-off to Desmond Cole, now running in Ward 20. Brooding home from the event, Syed found a crisp $100 bill on the pavement outside the long-shuttered Hungarian Castle in the Annex, now being renovated into a bookstore. He took that as a sign to spend the money on getting his name on the ballot as an alternative to Ward 19’s resident deputy mayor Joe Pantalone. You can’t be a serious candidate without a campaign office, however, and that’s why Syed plunked down $800 for a week or two in the terminally vacant space under the dilapidated marquee of Toronto’s last XXX picture show, one that he — along with many locals of a certain age — remembers for the “Metro Theatre hot … Hot … HOTline” where a woman described the alleged plotlines of that week’s triple feature in the throes of ersatz ecstasy. But for the days leading up to the election, the faded poster for Summer of Laura is being overshadowed by signs and flyers not only for Syed’s campaign, but other registered candidates from around the city who arguably haven’t been given a fair shake by the system.

Serving as a delegate at the World Urban Forum in Vancouver last June gave Syed some insight into new possibilities: “The city-state needs to be replaced by neighbourhood civilization,” he concluded after the trek, which reinforced his belief in developing a culture of civic engagement and a culture of sustainability. “This sustainability isn’t just a matter of planting a tree,” insists Syed, who is challenging tree advocate Pantalone to reach a deeper level of consciousness than seeding a few lawns. Then again, Syed has been contemplating this stuff since childhood. “Other families would sit at the dinner table and talk about sports. We’d be talking about how to defeat Machiavellian tendencies — if the end doesn’t justify the means, then what does it justify?” And this led him to devour the ideas of Jane Jacobs, who Syed figures wasn’t too impressed with how her name was bandied about: “This city was full of her disciples who hadn’t even read her books. She believed that if someone talks about neighbourhoods, and other people don’t pick up the ball and run with it, then it’s just a long drawn-out conversation,” he explains. “We have arias, but we don’t have choruses.” The expectation that a city councilor will make decisions affecting their jurisdiction without absorbing as many perspectives as possible is against his nature, Syed explains, and therefore advocates a system where each neighbourhood boasts a co-council of its own. Pantalone used the one and only Ward 19 all-candidates meeting, Tuesday night at Dewson Street Public School, to liken himself to a good country doctor. Why would you want to change the doctor after all this time? “Well, if in the past 26 years we have new treatments, new cures, new medicines, new therapeutic techniques for healing, and new research into health care,” responds Syed, “having a doctor who isn’t up to date on today’s health sciences scene is probably not a good idea.”

The notion that Pantalone doesn’t need to work very hard to secure his council seat is also being challenged by George Sawision, a master electrician who also established an unorthodox office, amidst the espresso sippers at Caffe Brasiliano at Dundas and Bathurst. Since the Metro Theatre space isn’t large enough, Sawision offered his headquarters for Syed to host a Tuesday morning press conference regarding The Invisible Election, giving a soundbite opportunity to a bunch of relatively credible un-incumbents who haven’t earned much mainstream exposure — including mayoral candidate Rod Muir — amidst a mayoral non-race that’s earned more gratuitous media glare than ever. Five weeks of running with the herd to listen to every reminder that Mayor David Miller has taken the city back and now wants to move it forward, while a short semi-sensible lady and a tall bombastic man admonish him for doing everything wrong, might be the greatest wastes of time ever inflicted upon the electorate. Syed must see something in these dreary debates, though, since he’s obsessive about capturing every moment he can through his Nikon Coolpix 7600 viewfinder — which portends a future scenario where the election debate takes place through more technologically sophisticated mass-appeal means than the old-timey campaign tactics meant to foster the illusion of everyone being represented at city hall. Pantalone hasn’t even found it necessary to fight his fellow candidates — therefore, throughout his half of Trinity-Spadina, it’s hard to even tell there’s an election campaign going on. “If this thing was going to be determined by the number of signs,” smirks Syed, “then the next Ward 19 councilor would be named ReMax.”

Toronto Municipal Election 2006 [YouTube]

Jane Pitfield tries to win the bingo door prize

“I am not running to help David Miller become a better mayor. I am running to replace him,” Jane Pitfield reminds herself and everyone else at the Wednesday night showdown of main mayoral candidates — the 10th and final such encounter covered in person for this here weblog. But much like The Political Party event earlier in the week, where Pitfield’s vision for the city fell on deaf downtown ears, she was addressing ratepayer types at the Runnymede United Church — in the Parkdale-High Park ward that Miller calls home. The packed church basement is more conducive to bingo games than raucous political debate, but perhaps it’s the only place for a larger meeting in the neighbourhood ever since all the Bloor West Village movie theatres closed down. Armed with copies of their last-ditch Miller attack advert, Team Pitfield seems to have at least earned the respect of supposed spolier Stephen LeDrew, who no longer comes off like he’s auditioning for a remake of Inherit the Wind, apparently having determined that it’s better to respond to his non-existent support by remaining visible for the sake of future job opportunities, rather than the delusion that his endorsement would be worth anything. While there would have been no greater opportunity for LeDrew to spin his bowtie and have it point at Miller, it was just another round of rapid-fire eyebrow-raising, if considerably toned down compared to his initial bluster. The greatest audience indignation surrounded the matter of professional dog walkers making High Park less comfortable for individual dog owners — although it hardly seemed like a topic anyone would rally against David Miller for. Four straight weeks of being told by Pitfield that burying garbage is “medieval” has seemingly softened Miller’s hard line against the alternatives, though, for which his opponents lauded him. The last-ditch voter appeal by Pitfield involves scrubbing the streets of panhandlers through a “quality of life” plan, but Miller repeats how city hall philosophy has evolved from bringing beggars a blanket to figuring out how to get them housed. “I don’t just want this city to survive,” exhales Pitfield, “I want it to soar.” But, because she spent most of the past year projecting anti-Toronto sentiments, her final reward is looking like a paltry 20 per cent of decided voter support.

The last waltz for the mayoral threesome was preceded by a lineup of Ward 13 council candidates, with Miller’s replacement Bill Saundercook looking quite confident that he’ll extend a two-decade municipal politics career. Greg Hamara is needling him on planning matters like letting the redevelopment of the Humber Odeon theatre site get out of hand due to “dithering”. Frances Wdowczyk is playing to the Bloor West Village moms (see her recent blog entry, The Meatloaf concert and other things I love about living in Toronto). David Garrick is a veteran player on the world-class city scheme scene who has repositioned himself as a community maverick: “Every time I see that Capital One commercial with the song that goes ‘Hands in my pocket, hands in my pocket’,” Garrick croaks, “I think of city hall and all of those politicians.”

Grups redux: More takes on The Political Party event, which marked the emergence of aging hipsters as a special interest group, from JB’s Warehouse and Curio Emporium, A Funkaoshi Production, Metroblogging Toronto, CBC Radio reporter David Michael Lamb, and Eye Weekly co-blogger Chris Bilton, all of whom heard things that a pair of ears sulking at the back could not.

Second chance gets challenged by first impression

Simon Wookey is running a campaign in Davenport that asks a question not being raised in any other downtown Toronto riding: Can city hall be successfully fought by throwing out the young guy with one term under his belt? Adam Giambrone must be the only incumbent in town taking his seat at an all-candidates meeting in a nursery school classroom, inside the Mary McCormick Community Recreation Centre near Dundas and Dufferin, only to have a sign perched at the top of a Jeep Cherokee hovering over his head through the window: “DO NOT VOTE GIAMBRONE”. The point of contention isn’t his NDP affiliation, or Giambrone assertively aligning himself with Mayor David Miller — rather, it’s a situation where long-ignored no-parking rules have been enforced with the installation of bunkers around auto body shops following the emergence of townhouses just north of Dupont Ave. Flyers posted around Ward 18 accuse the councilor of engaging in some unspecified “communist and dictatorship act”. (The poster gets dissected in a Spacing Votes comment thread, with responses from Adam’s detractor, Danny Nardelli.) Raised in this debate is whether Giambrone isn’t doing a good enough job communicating with constituents because he’s too young. Wookey jumped into the race after hearing 29-year-old Giambrone say that he assumed the job was his to keep for another term — and, with other potential candidates fixated on overhauling the overall city systems rather than shooting the messenger, no one seemed likely to match the towering appeal of a trained archeologist whose main hobby involved grooming himself for a career in politics. But ties binding Giambrone to both the mayor and the federal NDP are being questioned by 35-year-old Wookey, who is young enough to get away with referencing Star Wars, yet old enough to argue that experiences outside the system give him the credibility to fix it from within.

The nightly ritual of door-knocking suits the Type A personality that Wookey has switched into hyperdrive to counter the incumbent’s Type B tendencies, seizing every opportunity to leave a first impression, faster than the potential voter can possibly absorb it — even if it’s a game played out in a matter of split seconds, a la Malcolm Gladwell’s theories from Blink. Red colours on his campaign literature transmits a message of its own, especially since Giambrone’s popular predecessor Mario Silva sailed off to Ottawa, and the Liberal Party hasn’t lost the affection of the mostly Portuguese working-class homeowners. There’s no shortage of affirmation when Wookey asks them if it’s possible to plant a cartaz on their front lawns. Reasons for voting for him dominate the campaign brochure — including a “Citizen Service Guarantee” promising that all complaint calls are returned within 48 hours, and an emphasis on showing respect for seniors — but backed up with more rational reasons why the Giambrone era should come to an abrupt end than simply calling him a pinko commie bastard: Tax increases, TTC fare hikes, salary increases, excessive spending on bike racks and bike lanes, ignoring the community and dividing them on issues and, most contentiously, has stated his desire to follow in the steps of Jack Layton from City Hall to Parliament Hill. Wookey’s connection to the neighbourhood seems genuine enough, given how he bought a house on Havelock St. when his career goals were transitioning from Cordon Bleu chef to underwater cameraman. Lately, he’s been busy investigating green technologies for his father Richard’s real estate development business — which, most significantly, involved the re-imagination of Yorkville. “I grew up learning to appreciate the idea of creating great communities where people could live, work and play”, Wookey references his own platform. But those neighbourhoods didn’t include buildings like 1011 Lansdowne Ave., a 23-storey apartment complex of ill-repute where the most recent murder investigation found that the laundry room security videotapes were erased by so-called security guards.

Wookey’s first debate since he was a student at Jarvis Collegiate is a pretty small-scale Tuesday night affair, and not just because the room is usually occupied by 3-year-olds. The four other candidates on the ballot are more like talk radio callers than city council contenders — all of them a generation or two older than those dashing young gents seeking to win local affections. An audience question about whether Giambrone intends to dump out of his starter marriage with Ward 18 in favour of a federal seat comes early in the proceedings, and his response is a slippery one: “I have 37 years to go before retirement …” he pontificates. But for all of Giambrone’s evasive boasts about how significant he feels the role of a Toronto city councilor can be, possibly more than the job of an MP, the main concerns in Davenport seem to teeter between downtown and small town, except the rinky-dink matters surrounding strange men who flash their genitals in public, kids who leave beer bottles strewn around the park, and Coffee Time locations whose tables remain mysteriously popular after 2 a.m. “At what point did we stop telling people it was wrong to do these things in public spaces?” Wookey wonders rhetorically. Yet, all the planning chaos associated with the renewed desire to purchase homes downtown has placed Giambrone’s effectiveness under regular scrutiny. Wookey spouts off against the “build and bail” approach to development, wondering why everything that goes wrong ends up being blamed on “the boogeyman at the OMB“. The meeting also gave Giambrone’s most dogged detractor an opportunity to step out from behind the wheel of his SUV, wondering why his body shop customers can no longer plunk their jalopies on the industrial street after complaints from people who’ve moved into residences erected nearby. When challenged, Giambrone launches into a defensive soliloquy that shows off his political mettle, every word seemingly accompanied with a different hand and/or arm gesture, a reminder that Wookey has to keep hammering away at the argument that he’d be quicker on the draw when responding to the concerns of constituents. Not even being proverbially spat on from clear across the nursery classroom seems to dishevel Giambrone, though, as he gracefully concludes after stating his controversial case: “It’s good to finally meet the man who’s been putting up the posters.”

Miller gets embraced at aging hipster softball game

The Political Party was the name of the hybrid event, a fairly blantant effort to re-enact the success of Trampoline Hall vs. David Miller back in 2003, where an overflow crowd at the Gladstone Hotel basically anointed him the sort of mayor worthy of West Queen West. (See starry-eyed account of the event here.) That neighbourhood has since sprouted a revamped Drake Hotel, disparaged condo complexes with names like Bohemian Embassy, and late-night noise complaints. Things are relatively sober in the stretch of Little Italy that houses Revival, though, a renovated church that seems to be the sort of nightspot that post-adolescent suburbanites flock to when they’ve tired of the skeezy club district. Monday night, however, validated the presence of a deadpan demographic not given much thought in civic election campaigns prior to Miller’s love-in — the closest thing to a term for this category of middle-aged generation gap-closer is grups. (Coined by Toronto ex-pat Adam Sternbergh in New York magazine, the word might prove too silly to catch on, maybe because its roots are found in an episode of Star Trek.) Culturally speaking, this group is most responsive to messages delivered in “medium funny” (termed by Rob Sheffield in Rolling Stone), as represented by the radio show This American Life, publications like The Believer, and the demi-celeb status of enigmatically unprolific local writer Sheila Heti — who initially ran the Trampoline Hall lecture series, and was in the audience for this opportunity to provide equal time to Jane Pitfield. The Political Party emcee, Misha Glouberman, is yet another personification of this sensibility — he’s got all the stage presence of a comedian, yet lacks the motivation to construct a joke. “We encourage you to internalize your feelings,” he admonished the audience. “Bottle them up and let them rot you from within.” Protocol at this event did not allow for booing, see. The relatively genteel format involved Pitfield and Miller each getting 15 minutes of spotlight to themselves, followed by questions from a panel of three Spacing and/or Eye Weekly-affiliated pundits, and then the forum for closing platitudes. Those seeking an argument this season would’ve been better off attending mayoral showdowns in Leaside, Weston or Upper Canada College, all of which were scrappier.

Regardless, this wasn’t going to be Jane Pitfield’s show, even if she stacked the room with 30 of her supporters, leaving at least that many grups to attempt to listen to the proceedings from the sidewalk. Yet, in some sort of perpendicular universe, she’d be the ideal candidate for girls who wear glasses — and the men who awkwardly stalk them — with the enhancement of a vintage wardrobe, and maybe a pillbox hat. Without the mayor in the line of fire, she kept the scolding tone to a merciful minimum, although a woman who scaled the corporate ladder by 30 and had three kids by 35 can’t possibly connect with overeducated female voters waging the war against spinsterism in the mid-‘00s. Pitfield observed how the healthy turnout must’ve had something to do with the fact that alcohol was being served — even if all the drinks were at weekend prices, and bar service was barred during the speeches, in deference to the headliners. She certainly wasn’t going to use this setting to harp on the need to bring the suburbs into the city hall conversation, let alone suggest that Toronto residents are filled with envy of the 905, but she did point out how urban police officers looked to the outlying region as a better place to raise their families. Yet another faux pas in the Spacing arena, however passively mentioned, was her suggestion that street posters were an eyesore — yet she was quite emphatic that her dream of future subway stations underwritten by corporate sponsors would keep the tie-in subtle, especially since the city owns the TTC no matter what. The audience was predictably comprised of people whose concern for the underprivileged was inversely proportional to their own upbringings. “I don’t want to use the ‘G’ word”, cautioned Pitfield in the course of making a point about eroding social services, but since that reference didn’t register, she began to spell it out anyhow, “G-H-E …” She also boasted of being a friend of the Aboriginal Peoples — having chaired their committee at city hall — which then forced Jane to express hope that members of the 98.6 per cent Caucasian audience weren’t snickering at her.

Following an intermission, Mayor David Miller leapt to the stage in his business casual wardrobe and slightly less didactic speaking style to match, seeming a bit flu-ish but nonetheless empowered by his one-sided opportunity. However, he was also playing to a more jaded assembly than perhaps envisioned, since several of his cues for audience enthusiasm were met with no stamping of feet. The speech was a recital of his pragmatic playbook, with emphasis on the need for a transit strategy funded on the federal and provincial levels, something that “even the United States” has gotten around to embracing. There was the inevitable Clintonian reference to a recent first-person encounter. (”Junior” graduated from a carpentry program facilitated by the city — and now he looks people in the eye around his neighbourhood, rather than gazing at the ground.) Folks from Take the Tooker, a campaign to build a bike lane that links Bloor St. with Danforth Ave., made their presence visible with a sign — Eye Weekly city editor Edward Keenan questioned Miller about how Mel Lastman managed to get farther along with the Bike Plan than a supposedly greener city council has over the past three years. “I’ve been campaigning since May,” chuckled Miller, “and no one has compared anything I’ve done to my predecessor until now.” The mayor managed to smoke out anything that resembled a provocative question, though, only looking a bit vulnerable when the collapse of the Expo 2015 bid was cited by Keenan as the fifth consecutive failed mega-project that was supposed to rejuvenate the derilict Port Lands. But the fact that Miller’s affection for a world’s fair was emotionally motivated by the fact that his mother took him to Expo 67 in Montreal the day after they moved from England to Canada resonated even less with this GenerationXY crowd than a faded NFB filmstrip would.

The second part of the party was a performance from the band Hot One, featuring Nathan Larson and Emm Gryner — two beneficiaries of the tail end of major record company largesse who’ve since gone on to more lucrative careers on the fringes. Nice idea, but the abrasive music was cranked too loud, and those remaining cleared out faster than they would have if Stephen LeDrew stormed in demanding equal time.

[* pictured is David Miller beside "J.P." of JP Public Relations -- no relation to Jane Pitfield, although he’s been working with her this campaign … "J.P." traveled to the event via limousine, and stands to inherit the rung of local show business previously represented by Gino Empry, for whose recent funeral he served as media liaison …]

Flashback to the groundbreaking attempt to bring something artistically subversive to a Toronto mayoral race, circa 1982: The Hummer Sisters: The Art of Satire.

The following takes place between two midnights

Garry Green kicked off 24 hours of consecutive campaigning late Friday night with a streak of conversations with drunken revelers, fatigued shift workers and York University bookworms — with his fuel provided by the Tim Hortons at Jane and Finch. But, as the candidate nears the end of his marathon, he’s seeking attention from the toughest crowd yet. Politicians aren’t a common sight on the Saturday night-drop in scene at the Oakdale Community Centre on Grandravine Dr., where little kids are bouncing off the walls past 9 p.m., older kids are dribbling on the basketball court, and pasta and chicken are being dished out of big aluminum trays. The relatively modern facilities provide distraction from the drab high-rise life, yet the accommodations can’t convince kids old enough to vote that the system is on their side, either. Green, who manages employment projects for the Toronto District School Board, decided to take a run for city council after York West mainstay Peter Li Preti voted against childcare subsidies, and wanted to drag the issue of social housing neglect to the forefront. Learning that Li Preti’s campaign donor list runneth over with names of familiar developers and numbered real estate companies provided even more incentive to run. But even after buying a new house in Ward 8, it turned out Green’s wife would be due with their second child days before the election, and he considered saving his energy for next time around. Moreover, the former MPP Anthony Perruzza has been challenging 21-year incumbent Li Preti in each municipal election for the past decade, and decided to try again. Where does that leave a 34-year-old first-timer? Well, a few months ago Green sent a note to John Sewell — after years of admiring his work before, during and after pursuing a master’s degree in public administration — and was invited to be part of a couple of all-star platform announcements advocating the overhaul of the post-amalgamation system, which has only made Jane-Finch issues more invisible on the municipal scene, unless it related to someone getting shot. And shaking hands while handing out flyers from midnight to midnight, one week prior to voting day, is another campaign tactic that Green’s elder rivals probably wouldn’t have enough stamina for.

Political conversations with the lads spending Saturday night at the community centre aren’t tough for Green to initiate, though. Growing up in the era where hip-hop culture became entrenched in the mainstream, these late teens have an acute sense of rhetoric, and are quick to counter the candidate’s pitch with lucidly dismissive arguments of their own — involving Freemasons, the Illuminati, and how nobody ever talks about reparations for the black community. “You can’t compare me to what’s been happening over the last 21 years,” argues Green, “because I’ve never had the opportunity to change it.” But having a voice at city hall isn’t going to have the cachet of words from rap entrepreneur Russell Simmons, who spoke at last month’s local Hip-Hop Summit, plying a few of these guys with his advice on how to make $500 million for themselves. “I don’t think you getting elected is going to change perfectly plotted genocide”, one baggy jeaned debunker fires back: “It’s not that we don’t want to vote for you. It’s that we don’t want to vote.” Still, despite all the dismissive words about the system — and aloof attitude that goes along with being amidst peers — many of these guys can’t conceal their desire to be engaged. Following a vociferous discussion on the basketball court with another skeptic, who shares his cynical worldview between shooting hoops, Green comes away feeling quite satisfied about the impression the impassioned dialogue left behind: “The look on his face told me something entirely different from the words that were coming out of his mouth.”

The clock strikes 11, and the final hour of the canvassing streak is dedicated to a walk through the Shoreham Court projects, whose aesthetic shortcomings are at the foundation of Green’s campaign. Last week, he got Citytv to report on a gas leak, after repeated complaints to the Toronto Community Housing Corporation didn’t produce results. The cluster of social houses are detached from the main street, constructed in the 1970s above Black Creek — which theoretically makes it sound like a point of calm refuge from the urban bustle, except for the fact that emergency vehicles can’t readily enter the space, and raccoons, skunks and snakes have become especially fond of dropping into living rooms. The surveillance cameras and penitentiary-style bright lights don’t help with the ambiance either, not to mention the basketball court whose “hoop” consists of a plank attached to a skinny orphaned tree. “Growing up here means that you can only retreat into yourself,” reflects Green. “There’s a certain pride that goes along with surviving that, but after you’ve been inside this electric fence for so long, it doesn’t create any motivation to strive beyond it.” A sense of community has been fostered, where residents often look after one another, yet there never seems to be enough on the city hall agenda dedicated to looking after them — even if Mayor David Miller has pledged to inject such “at-risk” neighbourhoods with $28 million, a figure that may not add up to much in the grand scheme. “I have to admit,” concludes the contentedly sleep-deprived Green, “that the last thing that’s been on my mind over the past 24 hours is what we should be doing about the Gardiner Expressway now.”

A pair of platform heels, and warding off the tedium

Mayor David Miller began November with a 6 p.m. platform release party for supporters at St. Lawrence Hall, which was preceded by an announcement on a different platform, on the second floor of the St. Lawrence Market a block away. Was it the Canadian launch of the Dr. Laura talking doll? Close enough, given how Jane Pitfield — in a pricey black pinstriped suit and a layercake of camera-ready makeup — was striving to trump Miller’s position on the six o’clock news with her manicured effort to articulate to the masses what exactly she’s been running in this election for. The speech was accompanied by a prehistoric PowerPoint (a/k/a large-print placard) listing the areas in which she feels Miller has fallen short, points that have been inclined to slip off the agenda at the Stephen LeDrew-infested debates: Transit! Garbage! Crime! Financial! … Transparency!!!. And while reciting the details into the microphones, but otherwise barely audible above the hum of the meat lockers below, she made a point of enunciating three little anti-Miller words: “Special. Interest. Groups.” Her pitch was all about reaching those supper-hour viewers outside of downtown, pledging to serve as mayor for all of Toronto – and might as well have been extending her promises to the 905 region, too. The bottom of the board depicted a roadsign reading “WRONG WAY”, with a slash through it, alongside the oddly placed comma in the ultimate assertion, “Toronto, deserves better!” Emboldened by a Toronto Star/Decima front page poll, concluding that 91 per cent of the city supports burning trash to produce energy, a new word entered Pitfield’s lexicon, to remind voters what exactly will continue to be trucked each day to the Green Lane landfill: Sludge. But her tone had also shifted from the traditional scolding monotone to a more gossipy type of indictment – like David Miller is the guy who’s been coming home suspiciously late from work, and was once seen in a jewelry store with a woman who wasn’t his wife, and his wife has been getting hang-up phone calls from an unlisted number, and hmmm …? Jane dropped the hostility and reverted to her usually personable during the reporter questions, evidently contrite for having dragged print reporters out to hear what amounted to another “hidden agenda” spiel, even as the imaging operative was gesturing at her to wrap it up. No greater evidence of the ad hoc nature of this event was needed than the media release that came fresh off the office printer, with a conspicuous typo, fixed in ink — “Another mayor difference she defined was garbage disposal …” Jane Pitfield does have the courage to admit that she has made a few mistakes, after all.

Miller time at the St. Lawrence Hall, in a room that couldn’t have been any pinker if Jayne Mansfield designed it, was enhanced with some tasteful dinner jazz — a marked contrast to the deranged Dixieland that accompanied LeDrew’s campaign office opening some 22 long days before — and the same Shopsy’s catering featured at his shambolic campaign kick-off at the Steam Whistle Brewery last spring, except with fewer people feeding at the trough, and just two or three who looked like they needed the free meal. The platform release provided the first opportunity to grab the official re-election window posters, which show an acquisitive Miller taking up one-sixth of the page beneath semi-self-deprecating claims, a firm-but-mellow variation of the towering blond imperiousness of his earlier posters (as pictured behind the microphones). Farley Flex, the hip-hop impresario turned singing contest judge, was first at the podium to extol the virtues of a politician whose city hall experience has already lasted at least 12 times longer than the career of any Canadian Idol winner. The mayor then entered the fray, returning high-fives amidst all the fanfare of a victory celebration, to outline the highlights of the 20-page booklet outlining his 2010 vision, confident that he can fend off any opponent seeking to tear every last ambition apart. Save for Senator Jerry Grafstein, who’s got Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy on speed-dial. (The Globe and Mail’s Jeff Gray filed a report, too: Miller unveils final campaign pledges.)

A long ride on the 504 streetcar landed right outside the gargantuan Bishop Marrocco-Thomas Merton Academy at Bloor and Dundas, hosting the last of the Parkdale-High Park debates, where 14 candidates are bidding for the seat vacated by Sylvia Watson in Ward 14. But sitting through an all-candidates meeting with that many hopefuls — perhaps 10 of whom are articulate enough to hold public office — is like trying to follow the action of the bowling tournament a few lanes over, only without the opportunity to munch on some coagulated cheese nachos. All but one of the registered candidates showed up to the cavernous auditorium, including David Miller’s endorsed aspirant Gord Perks, the provincial NDP upsetter Cheri DiNovo’s pick Rowena Santos, and one-time councilor and current Front St. Extension protest leader David White. At least one candidate, Ted Lojko, is gambling that a law-and-order platform in eternally troubled Parkdale will cut through the divided lefty vote. The less connected candidates tried to work in asides about how they weren’t part of somebody else’s agenda, or trying to perpetuate a career in politics, or residing outside of Ward 14. Santos was even compelled to print a statement explaining how she made a point of moving into the ward after registering her candidacy, and her mail was forwarded to an address she didn’t live at so that she wouldn’t miss any important correspondence. A few of the other faces could be contenders in a less crowded situation: John Colautti is the current constituency assistant for Ward 14; Tom Freeman started the River Restaurant whose staff consists of formerly marginalized people seeking to rehabilitate their lives; Diolrece South is a business owner in south Parkdale who can’t understand why the residential area surrounding the Exhibition Place has never been granted economic respect; Anthony Quinn used to work as the executive assistant to Moses Znaimer; Walt Jarsky is a New York-born psychotherapist with a pragmatically compassionate disposition to match. Were this presented as a tournament consisting of three divisions, leading to a final run-off, it’d allow for compelling debate. There was no time for droning, though, so everyone just drowned. This race is one that can only be won by imploring for support from door to door to door — unless all it really takes is David Miller’s bear hug for Perks to clinch this seat.

Right-of-way exhibition twice viewed in the wrong

Two years of protest against the dedicated streetcar right-of-way by Save Our St. Clair were being documented through the camera of area resident Krystyna Henke, who was hoping to open a show of her photojournalism this month. But, while preparing to hang her work for the start of a three-week show at the J.J. Piccininni Community Centre, which happened to be hosting an all-candidates meeting for Davenport the following night — where anti-ROW councilor Cesar Palacio is having his stance challenged by both Alejandra Bravo and Fred Dominelli — she was informed that her exhibit violated municipal policy against displays with a political slant. “She indicated these were photos that highlighted the history of St. Clair,” explains Ward 17’s supervisor of community recreation, Terrance Duffy. “We were put in a difficult situation after we found out what the pictures were about. We’re here to serve the entire community, and that means being governed by policies saying we’re not allowed to make it look like we’re taking one position over the other.” Henke then found an alternate venue along St. Clair Ave. W., in the basement gallery of Ellington’s Music & Café, until owner Winston Ho-Sang also found out the pictures depicted a divisive issue. “There was a misunderstanding,” he says. “I never spoke to her directly, and the details of the exhibit weren’t explained fully to me. I don’t want to get involved in the issue personally — although, for me, I think the right-of-way is a great thing. I watch the traffic flow going past here all day, and if they think this is the way to fix it, I support the idea of people being able to get to work as fast as they can.”

A crawl along the avenue, in one of the cramped buses being used until the ROW construction is complete, leads to Henke’s home in the St. Clair and Oakwood area. For now, the contents of the exhibit are piled on her dining room table, evidence of a community trying to make their voices heard at city hall. “I felt a real kinship with my neighbours over this,” she recalls. “We were wondering how we were going to get home with all the traffic created by this. How were our kids going to safely play outside without being hit by a car?” A former columnist and editor for a Dutch community newspaper, Henke had her views on the subject published in the National Post two years ago. Save Our St. Clair ringleader Margaret Smith is managing the council campaign by John Sewell to unseat Joe Mihevc, one ward over. Ward 17 incumbent Palacio is disappointed the rally pictures won’t likely be seen by voters who may not remember the breadth of the protests: “This was proof that the residents would not take this lying down.” For her part, Henke can’t comprehend why the exhibit is being regarded as threatening, when the protesters represented a diverse cross-section of locals. “Why is it so dangerous?” she wonders. “You’d think I was trying to put on a show about abortion or something.”

Fencing in the enormous ego of the Annex

Helen Kennedy and Adam Vaughan, the main contenders for city councilor in Trinity-Spadina, resemble rival characters who’ve stepped out of a black-and-white graphic novel: Silver hair, dusky wardrobes, and sharp edges. Both are seeking to replace the federally departed Olivia Chow with their respective political pedigree — Kennedy with vast NDP credentials, culminating in seven years as Chow’s assistant at city hall; Vaughan filling the shadow of his late Citytv reporter dad, attempting to reverse Colin Vaughan’s alderman-to-newsman transition for Ward 20. The increasing Spy vs. Spy-style animosity between Kennedy and Vaughan gives the Monday evening all-candidates meeting at the Al Green Theatre some big-city spark, as denizens of deepest Annex expect their emotional needs to be reflected in their leading council candidates. When it comes to speaking skills, Kennedy’s otherwise eloquent brogue — imported from Ireland in 1979 — becomes increasingly brusque when forced to fend off Vaughan’s ability to encapsulate every position into an impeccably paced report-ending stand-up. But making Vaughan vulnerable was an online video advocating that certain alleys get fitted with fences, in order to send nefarious nightcrawlers back into the light. This suggestion is now being spun by Kennedy into a movement to “privatize our laneways”, even though Vaughan clarifies he was just trying to be conscientious — make a public space secure at night, so a garden can grow, or end up with residents planting steel bars on windows to prevent those criminals from breaking in.

Downtown development becoming hostile to children has served as Vaughan’s most passionate campaign point. Just over one per cent of the residences constructed in the riding over the past decade contain more than two bedrooms, which means a pattern of short-term occupants, which means a gradual devaluing the whole condo-littered atmosphere — not to mention the affordability crisis facing older neighbourhoods, too. Kennedy snaps back with demographic evidence: “Building condos did not change the birthrate in downtown Toronto.” But counter-aggressive feminism doesn’t sell like bigger picture thinking here at the corner of Bloor and Spadina, so Kennedy stresses her own involvement in developing four new childcare centres closer to the lake, and other credits to make herself sound more qualified than a familiar face seeking greater civic access than a press pass would allow. “You have to work with what you’ve got,” she feigns addressing the audience — since her sparring partner is on the opposite end of a table lined with other candidates. “It’s not about you. It’s about how you engage with your community.” Vaughan isn’t enamored with “the group hug approach”, and token public space projects funded by developers (through Section 37 of the Planning Act) have left him unimpressed.

The symmetrical exchange between Kennedy and Vaughan was cramped by the presence of six other candidates, who fit three different categories: Two stammering municipal geeks who were too nervous to sit on such a big stage — Douglas Lowry and Joseph Tuan — two senior deviants determined to fill the progressively exasperating “Borat” role — Devendra Sharma and Carmin Priolo — and, mercifully, a pair of under-30 upstarts — City Idol winner Desmond Cole and online idealist Chris Ouellette. “Every candidate’s favourite word during an election is the word ‘change’,” contemplates Cole. “Do you know what would really be a change? Some humility in politics, that would be a change.” Ouellette was even blunter in his assessment of the surrounding action: “The real question is, has Adam pissed off enough of the other councilors over the past few years — and will they want to work with him now?”

Conspiracy theories incinerated in weekend wasteland

 

Saturday night was alright for fighting, far as mayoral candidates Jane Pitfield, Stephen LeDrew and food marketing executive turned environmental agitator Rod Muir (pictured) were concerned, but Mayor David Miller declined his invitation to the MaRS Discovery District conference room. Part of the Alphabet City TRASH Festival, the panel drew just 50 people to hear words on a topic that, in the context of mayoral debates, just provides another hysterical excuse for Miller’s two regular rivals to needle him for being wrong. Furthermore, the fact that the purchase price of the Green Lane landfill site cannot be disclosed has thrust the discussion into the conspirazoid anti-Miller realm of “secret deals”. Muir’s role heading Waste Diversion Toronto makes him the most legit of the one-issue fringe candidates, although he goes one step beyond evoking Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth: “David Miller cares as much about waste as Bill Clinton did about marital fidelity.” Muir doesn’t think the mayor deserves to bask in the success of the Green Bin recycling program, which had been under development for several years, when 200 high-rises erected in Toronto over the past three years are stuck with just one disposal chute — and the municipal government culture isn’t setting a good example, either. “Why is it that the cafeteria at city hall sells a coffee cup that is neither recyclable nor compostable?” howls Muir. “The inmates are running the asylum, and all their decisions are based on whether a union job is won or lost.” Contrary to Miller’s vocal opposition to the Adams Mine landfill in 2000, the haul to Green Lane isn’t going far to reduce the existing Michigan route ratio of two pounds of tailpipe pollution for every pound of buried trash, Muir explains. “When it comes to waste, all David Miller has done is waste the last three years,” recites Jane Pitfield, reiterating her support for a synthetic gas solution, which would create clean energy from waste. Stephen LeDrew, meanwhile, still doesn’t believe incineration is all that bad. Both familiar candidates repeat their desire for a “made-in-Toronto solution”, but Muir isn’t buying the idea that this discussion is about David Miller’s disloyalty to a local cause: “It’s only a consultant who would want you to believe that your situation is so unique.”

The following afternoon, Jane Pitfield floated the theory that Stephen LeDrew was working in collusion with David Miller to keep her from winning the mayor’s race, during a debate on Newstalk 1010 CFRB. “You’re both looking a little red-faced,” she illustrated, for the benefit of the Sunday afternoon radio audience. “I don’t know what kind of school board politics you’re bringing into this,” sputtered LeDrew, whose rural dialect sounds more pronounced without the benefit of his twerpy new waver appearance. This confrontation marked the first time Pitfield asked her bowtied sidekick what the hell he was still doing in the race, after he made an initial promise to bow out early if he looks like a sure loser, now that a Toronto Star/Decima Research poll calculated that no one was explicitly planning to vote for him on Nov. 13. Somewhere in there came the most yokelish exchange of all. Pitfield: “People in this city want inspiration”. LeDrew: “You should go to church for that.” Pitfield: “I do.” Then came Pitfield’s insistence that Miller has been absent from city council meetings half the time: “Of all the falsehoods you’ve said in the election, that is the most astonishing,” said Miller. “I thought I couldn’t be astonished in you anymore.” LeDrew brought up her history of flip-flops, and Pitfield started grasping for sympathy, the angle that would theoretically increase her support among older female voters: “Leadership is about defining reality,” she countered. “It does take courage to change your mind … I’m such a straight shooter that’s the only thing that can be held against me.” A political science discussion between LeDrew and Miller over the strained relationship between levels of government, and how it’s sabotaged the Expo 2015 bid, gave Jane an opening to fall through: “The buck stops with you,” she scolded Miller. “You’ve been a bad manager. You’re a limited person … I try to like you as a person. But as a mayor … I can’t admire you.”

A more fatigued debate Friday afternoon, on 640 Toronto — a radio station where Stephen LeDrew usually appears as a pundit and David Miller is lambasted for not being enough like Rob Ford — generated afterthoughts from moderator Mike Stafford: “During one particular argument over the ‘homeless’ I thought David Miller was going to explode like Louis Del Grande in Scanners. He really, really hates to hear the homeless described in a way we talk about our garbage or subways.” Pitfield on AM 640 cited an unscientific Toronto Star online poll that had her within grasp of Miller, but Decima’s numbers were more confounding: 68 per cent were certain of a vote for Miller, or seriously considering it, compared to 62 for Pitfield and 32 for LeDrew, although the committed numbers were 30, six and zilch. How does one “seriously consider” percentages that add up to 162?

Shaking the foundations of streetcar desire

Joe Mihevc just wants the best things for his community, even if those things require building a dedicated streetcar right-of-way that has turned into Mayor David Miller’s most dubious achievement, according to everyone seeking to overhaul city hall. Mihevc is a compact fellow, a stature which comes in handy when leaping around the St. Paul’s ward, even if his enthusiasm has been temporarily restrained by the construction tearing up St. Clair Ave. W. But enthusiasm for Mihevc’s history has also been hamstrung by the track redevelopment. For the Ward 21 debate in the sanctuary of St. Matthew’s United Church on Thursday night, the councilor is dwarfed by two huger dudes, both coveting his job, on the grounds that they’ve both done it before. John Adams and John Sewell are hulking on opposite sides of Mihevc, belligerent quarterbacks whose determination belies their retirement age. Adams, a city councilor through the 1990s — and a Globe and Mail reporter before that — projects everyman warmth with his Bill Cosby sweater pinned with a remembrance poppy, and works the crowd with a rhetorical style that owes a sizeable debt to Phil Donahue. “I’ll even make house calls,” he vows. Sewell, the former mayor who never went away long enough to be missed since first being elected to council in 1969 — thanks to writing gigs and municipal activist antics — is also using this election as a platform for his overall views on the future of the city and its management. So, what’s he doing running against his lefty friend Mihevc, not to mention being on the record as a past supporter of dedicated streetcar lanes? Because this is the riding in which Sewell resides.

And this is where Mihevc earns a round of thunderous applause, for having been more involved in developing a future for St. Clair than the ROW opponents struggling to “save” it. The councilor even resorts to braggadocio that verges on rap jargon. “This is where I hang”, he asserts. “They’re going to have to take me away from this community in a box. And you can’t criticize if you’re not a playa.” Good thing Sewell is in shape from all that bike riding, otherwise he’d be the one leaving this church in a box tonight, for all the anxiety caused by Mihevc’s rebuke. The provincially mandated meetings on the future of the area were a waste of time, shrieks Sewell, who stayed away from the consultation process while it was happening — only to have his campaign coordinated by Save Our St. Clair firebrand Margaret Smith, herself no stranger to throwing a wrench into the process. John Adams has also drafted a document, What To Do about Mr. Mihevc’s Mess on St. Clair, which involves halting the construction process, and then getting to the root causes of all this dissonance. “I don’t support dumb old technology,” Adams attacks. “The mentality of the TTC is 30 years behind the times.” But his strident suggestion that concrete barriers will keep an emergency vehicle from reaching the scene of a catastrophe doesn’t impress this crowd, and Adams flew off the rails when he responded to a question about the fate of drop-in centres with a tirade about how the provincial health system didn’t believe newborns should be screened for sickle cell disease, until Adams used his political talents to rally around that cause: “We were letting! babies! DIE!” The woman who dropped in to bitch about the GIGANTIC DITCH ruining her restaurant business was left unsatisfied by Mihevc’s lip service regarding St. Clair’s impending “renaissance” once all the concrete is erected and sidewalks are narrowed along the avenue, but at least she didn’t howl like it was part of a grand conspiracy against her.

Given how no other ballot contains familiar names representing three distinct eras of Toronto City Hall, the clash of these candidates didn’t disappoint, and the audience contained a broader range of ages than any recent mayoral debate — including parents who dragged their kids to watch the fireworks. But because this was an all-candidates meeting, the panel included Tony Corpuz, who earned 107 votes last time around to Joe Mihevc’s 10,875. Corpuz, who was born in the Philippines, apologized for his broken English off the bat, then played the role of Chauncey Gardiner in Being There, only that no one was impressed with his schtick. “My only asset is my guts,” explains Corpuz, “my strong faith in myself that I can deliver to city hall.” He currently works as a janitor: “I know what is clean and what is dirty.” His best line seemed scripted, even though something was lost in translation. “I have three skills: I know how to push a broom, I am a licensed pest control technician, and I am a licensed driving instructor …” The punch line was obvious, but he kind of blew it, suggesting he didn’t like men in nice suits even though he was wearing one himself. Corpuz hates taxes, because he’s being pinched for installments every month, but would be content with earning “nine, 10 … 15 bucks per hour”, eventually upgrading his salary expectation to $17. Discriminating against his unabashed lack of debate skills would mean questioning the validity of anyone looking to parlay a protest vote into a resurrection, of course, so Adams and Sewell hold their tongues instead of attacking each other. And, for those left unsatisfied with any other dedicated right-of-way rationale, Mihevc finds himself justifying the entire concept with a conciliatory shrug: “Work on the streetcar tracks had to be done, regardless.”

Corporal punishment not required at heritage squawk

Enoch Turner Schoolhouse, steps away from King and Parliament, hosted a Wednesday night mayoral debate on heritage preservation issues. The relative obscurity of this 158-year-old institution itself — a place where the water pitchers have the taped-on label “LAKE ONTARIO WATER BEING SERVED” — was raised as an example of the frustrations felt by those dedicated to keep monuments to Toronto history intact: Mayor David Miller noticed the schoolhouse wasn’t mentioned in an official walking tour guide, recent promotion of the city’s cultural renaissance has given short shrift to current activities in old buildings, heritage sites don’t earn the promotional benefits granted city-run museums — and then there’s the matter of the methadone clinic that moved in right next door. Dissatisfaction was expressed with more restraint than the typical candidate meeting, though. Jane Pitfield began the evening with her “this city has lost its focus” sermon, but settled into asserting her dedication to keeping century-old properties intact. Retaining examples of mid-20th century Modernism has been an entirely different battle, though: Inn on the Park met the wrecking ball, after the suburban hotel resort suffered years of wear and tear since opening in 1963. Completed that same year was the half-round Riverdale Hospital building, endangered by a new complex development tied into the restoration of the 1864 Don Jail, although not going down without a fight. Stephen LeDrew might look and act like he stepped out of that Modernist era, although expressed no particular enthusiasm for retaining those monuments. Maybe the problem is the word “heritage” itself, which relegates any building that was actually used during our lifetime to a lesser status, even though the effort to preserve archeological sites — like Knapp’s Roller Boat buried at the foot of Sherbourne St. — has become a battle, too. The pace was kept brisk by Globe and Mail city hall bureau chief Jennifer Lewington, nearly everyone in attendance had their own personal preservationist cause, and there was no difference of opinion between candidates — not even LeDrew gave a reason to be sent to wear the dunce cap in the corner.

Yet, an all-candidates forum about senior citizens, held earlier that day at the Native Canadian Centre at Spadina and Bloor, was a more chaotic matter. Twelve angry men — in this context, LeDrew fit right in with the fringe — were eventually joined by David Miller and Jane Pitfield, plus tiara-wearing latecomer Diana-De Maxted. The setting suited the speakers — completely unrefined, as this was possibly the sole mayoral debate taking place in a room with a basketball hoop, along with a sign warning “PLAY AT YOUR OWN RISK”. The panel of experts included Fergy Brown, the former mayor of the City of York, taken aback by one question apparently prepared for him: “When you’re 80 years old, you may not have 10 years left … oh … oh, that’s bad news, because I’m over 80.” For whatever it was worth, Pitfield repeated her insistence that the city has become a “slum landlord” in running municipal properties, in this case the senior homes where married couples find themselves living in separate studio apartments. Regardless, an aging population means this sort of forum will be more prominent in future campaigns, ideally in a less brutal setting. “Iraq wasn’t made safer by putting more soldiers on the ground,” Glenn Coles offered as parting words. “Toronto will not be made safer by putting more police on the streets.” Most names on the mayoral ballot need a game show host to help harness their agenda, or at least take a few etiquette lessons from the 22-year-old Zamboni-driving mayoral candidate Shaun Bruce, smart enough to stay away from this grump parade.

David Miller collaborating on campaign signs in Parkdale-High Park with his environmentalist pal Gord Perks can’t help but draw attention, especially when two other candidates, Rowena Santos and David White, are courting voters with well-connected activist platforms for Ward 14 — which dumped Liberal representatives for NDP both federally and provincially during the past year. So, what’s a candidate in a field of such squishiness to do? Ted Lojko is playing the law and order card, announcing his alliance with former police Chief William McCormack, along with the endorsement former city councilor Chris Korwin-Kuczinski, in the collective effort to create a Parkdale safety task force to rid the area of prostitution and drugs once and for all. Korwin-Kuczinski boasts of his own success in cleaning up the area during Parkdale’s darker years, yet claims the troubles have returned over the last three years: “It’s like a cancer, basically.” Lojko announced his plan of action from a lectern outside the public school at Landsdowne and Queen in the late morning, while the surrounding crackhouse residents ostensibly slept. Meanwhile, contempt for Gord Perks hitching his wagon to David Miller’s success is expressed by Toronto Sun election blogger Rob Granatstein: “Always pick a winner. But come on. If you can’t win on your own, get out.”

Debate No. 8: Catch the last ride to Leaside

Fred Williams, one of 14 candidates hoping to take over Jane Pitfield’s council seat on behalf of Don Valley West, hovered at the entrance of the William Lea Room of Leaside Memorial Community Gardens on Tuesday night, brandishing the scythe of the Grim Reaper. “If we don’t rein in spending at city hall,” he warns through his muffled mask, “there’ll be a great reckoning”. Just in case people didn’t get the message, he was holding a copy of The Great Reckoning: Protect Yourself in the Coming Depression, too. But, in this setting, Williams came off more like the kind of jerkass dad who subjects you to three minutes of his performance art before letting you have your piece of Halloween candy. While the mayoral debate hijack in Hart House the previous evening promoted speculation on increased security at future events, this gathering organized by the Leaside Property Owners’ Association was in a setting that was pure church basement, its décor reminiscent of a polka television show. The only home field advantage Pitfield might’ve had was due to the atmosphere, which forced Mayor David Miller to refrain from being too corrosive in his counterattacks, while also restraining Stephen LeDrew from his court jester role. With a format almost entirely directed by the audience, the cheaper shots came through an audience microphone that was especially fond of piercing feedback, although input tended to tirades punctuated by the words, “Don’t? … You? … AGREE!” in order to phrase things in the form of a question. Could lady Jane reinforce support by once again claiming her rational views are under assault? Her stock response to criticism of flipping and flopping: “When a mistake has been made you need to be able to stand up and say, ‘This is an error’.” Seems that no one on this upper-middle-class side of Leaside is eager to vote for unfeasible ideas, although Miller’s public transit strategy, unveiled earlier that day, was assailed by Pitfield for no other apparent reason than to remain consistent. Maybe the most unfortunate thing about Jane’s bid for mayor is her yielding the opportunity to represent the residents of Ward 26 over the next four years, given how they returned her to council by the highest margin in the city last time around. Meanwhile, the rivals hadn’t gotten around to calculating an angle at which to attack Miller for pinning his future waterfront hopes on a bid for Expo 2015, now that both the provincial and federal governments are passing that buck.

Rock the vote! Vote or die! Die of boredom!

The halls of Hart House were reverberating with the voice of Kevin Clarke, the homeless mayoral candidate who seemed hep to the fact that University of Toronto’s own Policy on the Disruption of Meetings indicates that nobody will be ejected from a debate unless they are making physical threats. Those enjoying the complimentary guacamole dip around information tables petitioning against perennial tuition hikes — and saucy suffragettes sporting “VOTERS are HOT!” T-shirts on behalf of gaining women an Equal Voice in politics — weren’t unamused by Clarke’s ranting about racism, which might as well have been a skit from the lost episodes of Dave Chapelle’s show. And once most of the audience finished filing into the Great Hall, the ratty suited Clarke commandeered the stage to wave his ratty broom, hollering about how and why he was being denied. But as a mayoral candidate who claims to have his ear to the ground, doesn’t Clarke know that Toronto university tension has shifted from skin colour issues to beating one another up over the Middle East? The organizers announce a delay of 20 minutes, and nervously deliberate their official options. A few comical attempts to lure Clarke down from the podium, including the pack of reporters extending Clarke an offer to take it outside, are ignored. Jane Pitfield tries to defuse the situation and is greeted with a comment on her husband’s anatomy. Meanwhile, filmmaker Albert Nerenberg is preoccupied with capturing the commotion for his latest piece of irritainment, Let’s All Hate Toronto. The room is cleared, but photographers hover — explaining they aren’t here to cover a debate, they’re here to cover the news. But shouting in a big room when all the ears are out in the lobby isn’t too useful, and Clarke finally comes to grips with that democratic reality.

“I understand there was a long wait tonight,” Stephen LeDrew intones after taking the stage an hour late. “I assume it was very entertaining. We hope to be just as.” No one is amused, and over the subsequent 60 minutes, LeDrew might as well be one of those oil paintings of long-dead university chancellors hanging on the wall. David Miller has already solidified his connection to this crowd — they’re instantly enthusiastic about his laid-back professorial presence, and he’s not even wearing patches on his corduroy elbows, or bell bottom jeans. Jane Pitfield tries to connect by pointing out she has a couple of kids of her own university, with a couple more soon to follow, but who wants to get excited over mom? The limited involvement of younger people in the political process is a recurring theme tonight, naturally, although LeDrew — who, in this context, looks like he’s been a 53-year-old since birth — shares the story of how he ended up being recruited for the Liberal Party of Canada: “It was 1968, and I was 15, riding my bike along the Danforth. A woman stops me to ask, ‘What do you think of Pierre Elliot Trudeau?’ I said, ‘I think he’s alright’.” The rest might be Canadian wonk history, resulting in LeDrew becoming the party president 30 years later — but the anecdote is pretty useless, given how it doesn’t end with a deflowering of some sort.

But if LeDrew’s bluster merited a comparison to Sam the Eagle from The Muppet Show, the overall condescending tenor of the three might as well have been a reading of My Pet Goat. “The city really benefits from having universities and colleges in our city,” says Pitfield, a Queen’s graduate. Yet she drew jeers when accusing Miller of just buying votes with his scheme to inject a million bucks into 13 specific at-risk neighbourhoods, after the mayor boasted of his role in establishing a community radio station for youth in Flemingdon Park, which just happens to be the most troubled part of Pitfield’s own ward. Reviving the argument that Miller was somehow unethical in fast-tracking the subway car construction order to Bombardier in Thunder Bay, instead of sending the job to China, was a good case study for PoliSci 101, but dweebish LeDrew was about as compelling to this crowd as one of the deflated balloons dangling from the Hart House rafters. Pitfield’s closing metaphor, “We don’t want to be the donut in the middle of the GTA” might play in the donut shops, but even the fact that U of T law school tuition is 10 times what it was when David Miller went there is not enough to make politically active students feel despondent about Toronto’s future.

Television debate fails to inspire drinking game

“We said no to gangs and guns,” David Miller reminded viewers during the Sunday night mayoral debate at Citytv, in case there was any doubt. But his sedate televangelist approach didn’t seem to impress gang-and-gunbusting Pastor Orim Meikle, who was among a dapper set of avowed Jane Pitfield supporters stacked in the small audience. Presumably, most of Miller’s campaign enthusiasts had better things to do than plant themselves in the middle of this painfully contrived production. Jane couldn’t come up with a snappy comeback to the mayor saying she’d dispute what day of the week it is, and the futility of the entire exercise was summed up by Toronto Star reporter Vanessa Lu giving up on any effort to formulate an intellectual argument by simply asking the question: “Councilor Pitfield, it’s well known that you flipped on your vote on the garbage, you couldn’t vote correctly,” she blurts. “How can … howcanyoubemayor?” Pitfield looks visibly uncomfortable beneath the hit lights, stiffly shifting like a hand puppet, distracting her from the kind of connection she’s been relatively successful at in the flesh. And even the telegenic Stephen LeDrew — who started off wearing his trendier red square frames but then switched back to his white-shelled goggles — had his hamming skills unfairly restrained by moderator Gord Martineau’s fist. Miller wrapped up with some Clintonian anecdote about “Heather”, who waited for five minutes at the Coxwell subway station at 7 a.m. just to shake his hand and explain how she recently moved back from New York, reaching the conclusion that “This. Is. Such; a great city.”

Friendly giant wants to save St. Catharines

Garry Robbins was working as a nightclub bouncer a quarter-century ago when all 7-foot-5 and 380 pounds of him was recruited for a role in the Canadian slasher flick Humongous, where his character stalked a group of teens shipwrecked on an island. Now, after years on the professional wrestling circuit, parts in every comedy show that required the services of an overly large gentleman, and a starring role as a disfigured cannibalistic mountain man “Saw-Tooth” (pictured) terrorizing pin-up girls in 2003’s B-movie Wrong Turn, the 49-year-old is ready to be mayor of St. Catharines. The job has belonged to Tim Rigby since 1997, a senior politician who wants to move into a seat on Niagara Regional Council. That’s left the field open for new candidates including former curling champion Marilyn Bodogh, noted photographer Preston Haskell, and five others. Robbins has a resume quite unlike anyone running in this civic election, though, even if his campaign brochure emphasizes his volunteer work over his stunt work. Formerly known in the wrestling ring as “The Paul Bunyan of the North”, Robbins is confident enough of a victory on Nov. 13 that he’s already rebranded himself as “The People’s Mayor”.

Where did you get the idea to run? I was approached, because other people knew I had ideas of how to make this city work. The tax system has been making people crazy, with all sorts of secret deals going on, and priorities have gotten all mixed up. I opened my campaign office in the worst part of town, and just by being here the prostitutes, crack addicts and drug dealers disappeared. All I need to do is walk the streets, and my presence is enough to clean things up. Not because I’m big, but because I’m not afraid to get them all arrested.

Who do you blame for this sorry state of affairs? The mayor kept passing the buck on everything and, as a result, this town went from being known as The Garden City, to becoming a ghost town. I want to make things blossom. What a beautiful city we had, and now people hardly talk to one another, they walk in the other direction. We’ve lost our pride and dignity, and I’m here to bring it back, to the era when we had Joe McCaffrey in charge. I’ll be following in his footsteps, as “The People’s Mayor” — my advisors will include everyone.

What is it with you big tough guys running for public office? The wrestling circuit teaches you how to be a fighter, a performer, and a businessman, all rolled into one. Arnold Schwarzenegger, he’s a perfect example of an honest man — I ran into him while he was filming Terminator 3 while I was making Wrong Turn, and he told me the things he was going to do, then he went ahead and did them. I followed the news about Jesse “The Body” Ventura when he was governor of Minnesota, he knew how to market things, including himself. Terry, on the other hand, has chosen a different path for his talents. But I want to do this job for the people St. Catharines, because this is my home. I’m not thinking of the fun I could be having in Hollywood instead of here.

How do you expect to transform the image of St. Catharines? We might have cheaper homes here, but we’ve ended up with bigger taxes, and that’s a problem. The other candidates don’t have a vision or, if they claim to, it’s one that they stole from me. There’s a need for a new hospital — we could have a lottery, and get all of Canada to help pay for it, I’ve even offered to put up the first $50,000 out of my own pocket. We need more police walking the streets, there’s a shortage of doctors, not enough business development. I want to get a waste incineration and power facility up and running to make money, build affordable housing, and establish programs for youth.

Does that mean you won’t be mauling people in horror movies anymore if you’re elected? I recently did a commercial for Kellogg’s Froot Loops, but otherwise I’m going full tilt on this mayor’s thing. I’ve got 2,700 election signs out there already, and a few kids have been stealing them, because they want an autograph. It’s a gift I was given to make these other characters come to life, in wrestling or in the movies and television, but now the time has come for me to give back to the city to the greatest extent that I can. People are sick of the word “politician” now — before this, I don’t think I could even spell the word “politician”.

Caustic candidates try to charm weary Weston

Toronto’s mayoral roadshow parked at Weston Collegiate Institute at Jane and Lawrence on Thursday night, where the candidates faced an audience especially rankled by the federal maneuvers to install a fixed rail link from Union Station to Pearson International Airport. The saga of Blue 22, an express train slated to barrel through this area without even a stop or two for neighbourhood residents, is symptomatic of a community accustomed to feeling left out of any boom times in Toronto — just because its layout has instilled a certain sort of modesty. Now, they’re fighting back against the plan, which threatens to tear areas like Mount Dennis and the Junction apart before they’ve even had a chance to clamber back from quasi-oblivion. The high school appears to have an awful lot of dignity, though; the debate takes place in a permanent auditorium suited for actual theatrics, not one of those halls designed to convert into a cafeteria at lunchtime. The moderator, Katie McGovern, hosts the proceedings with a homespun charm straight out of Hairspray. “These young men down here are paid to be tough,” she gestures at the A-V club members running the soundboard, admonishing the high-voltage trio. “If things get really out of hand, I’ve got a cane. I’m not afraid to use it.”

David Miller occupies the chair on the left, with Stephen LeDrew compactly folding himself into the middle, a buffer between the mayor and Jane Pitfield. And, no matter how redundant the rhetoric gets, LeDrew is guaranteed to keep things entertaining. With no table to conceal the action below the belt, he’s like the world’s tallest marionette, his emphatic eyebrows serving as the strings. Miller’s default position finds one leg crossed over the other, while Pitfield’s knees are usually locked, finishing school style, although her toes start diverting in girlish directions as the evening ambles on. LeDrew, however, sits with legs spread apart with clasped hands set in front of his groin — most of the time. The recurring point of attck is that Miller represents downtown elitism, where tearing down the Gardiner Expressway is more important than giving Weston a decent recreational facility, as high-profile power squabbles over transit, the waterfront and police have eclipsed the real concerns of real people. Cue the hidden agenda accusations — among which, in this case, the most newsworthy, at least for the Toronto Sun, was Pitfield accusing Miller of forcing out “top cop” Julian Fantino with two years left on his contract, and having to pay him a hearty severance as a result. Miller’s position on the board of GO Transit was also derided, as Pitfield accused him of being complicit in planning decisions destined to destroy this area forever.

This crosstalk made LeDrew euphoric, of course — the blood visibly rushed through the mayor’s skull as he listened to Pitfield, but the man in the middle leaned back and directed a cartoonish cavalcade of grimaces at Miller. “They seem to think we’re running the City of El Dorado”, bellows LeDrew. “They’re looking for gold, and they find it — but then it turns out to be fool’s gold.” Contrary to the determination of the panel of community activists onstage, the audience didn’t express much hope for Weston itself — seems that a Toronto neighbourhood without an accessible main drag doesn’t seem to stand much chance of being viewed as a legit Toronto neighbourhood at all. Maybe the “NDP dogma” mocked by LeDrew could be doing more for this area than not, which Miller reinforced by discussing his plans to priotize 13 at-risk communities, and Pitfield expressed her empathy for the passion to keep the area’s legacy intact, especially when giving new monikers to streets duplicated in the city. “If we’re ever going to change any names,” she purred, “it won’t be the names in Weston.” (A questioner who identified himself as a resident of Church St. may or may not have felt placated by this promise.) These three white folks were grilled by a white woman about whether they had ever undergone cross-cultural training. (They all answer no — with explanations about why they don’t need it.) Yet another read a proclamation that multiculturalism has destroyed Canadian society. “Madam, if that statement were true,” vaunts LeDrew, “then all we’d be eating is iceberg lettuce topped with Kraft French dressing.”

Sewell goes psychogeo, and more dirty tricks

John Sewell led the first of four different Sunday 2 p.m. psychogeographic walks through the St. Paul’s ward last weekend, marching up Spadina from Dupont station to Forest Hill Village — the next three begin at Dupont and Christie, St. Clair and Vaughan, and Eglinton and Bathurst. Just be sure not to lose sight of the tour guide, who was usually a few hundred paces ahead of his audience. “Long legs can cause big problems”, Sewell shrugs. A recurring theme for the first stroll was the spectre of the Spadina Expressway, whose construction might’ve been halted 35 years ago, yet remained an aspiration for some bureaucratic factions through the late-‘80s. The result was a Dupont subway stop planted in a somewhat unnecessary place, rather than somewhere along Bathurst, where the line would’ve been more practical. Plus, the City Archives complex and townhouses were set back from the road just in case the expressway was resurrected. Further up the line, Spadina House doesn’t earn enough affection from the city, Casa Loma’s future management will be a big debate for the next council, and the Casa Loma Stables remain a cryptic mystery. However, the Sir Winston Churchill reservoir area leaves Sewell feeling warm and fuzzy. The walk’s denouement took place on the St. Clair streetcar tracks, in the midst of transition to a dedicated right-of-way, with left-turning drivers honking and shouting over the Ward 21 candidate’s diatribe. Sewell was also back Thursday in the dank basement of George Brown House, along with five other candidates, announcing their collective idea for a financial plan for Toronto based on overhauling the property tax system. This announcement turned out to be little more than a chance for Adam Vaughan to pontificate into a Citytv camera, but the candidates promise their next proposal will be unveiled in a more appealing place. Spacing Votes columnist John Lorinc took a stab at Sewell’s bid to become leader of the opposition: “Some of his positions have real substance, while others are troublingly disingenuous.”

Accusation corner: Globe reporter Omar El Akkad rounds up tales of dirty tricks around the GTA, including the packet of e-mails between Vaughan mayoral candidate Linda Jackson and a police officer, printed out and left on the front porch of Mayor Michael Di Biase. Yet another story involves a woman being arrested and charged with theft in Scarborough Ward 39 for replacing pamphlets for incumbent councilor Mike Del Grande with those of rival candidate John Wong on several floors of a condo. The latest round of Mississauga mudslinging concerns Ward 5 Councilor Eve Adams, accused of strong-arming residents to plant election signs on their property or face bylaw infractions, and enlisting city employees to work for her campaign under false names. And did you hear the one about David Miller supposedly using black kids as paid “props” at a Scarborough campaign event, where the mayor pledged more money for youth programs?

Toronto’s provincial potential; Mississauga’s worldly wrongs

A campaign to turn Toronto into Canada’s 11th province earned just 271 of the 692,085 votes cast for mayor in the 2003 municipal election. This time around, the thirtysomething lawyer who ran on that platform, Paul Lewin, has handed the reins over to David Vallance (pictured), a 69-year-old community activist and former insurance salesman, who describes his current occupation as “the flea in the dog’s back”. But the conference room they booked at the Marriott Eaton Centre to meet the media Wednesday ended up coinciding with David Miller pledging funds for beautification at Bathurst and Wilson, and Jane Pitfield standing at Bathurst and St. Clair to rail against the dedicated streetcar right-of-way while floating a new subway scheme. But much of the haggling with the Province of Ontario about new projects, and the economic insecurity that keeps public space from reaching perfection, would be overcome if Toronto struck out on its own — at least according to the Province of Toronto platform, which evokes the Constitution Act, 1871. “I knew Jane Jacobs relatively well,” says longtime Annex resident Vallance, “and she agreed that the best solution for Toronto was to become a province.” The city as we know it would be divided into between six and 10 smaller cities, the provincial legislature would move to Brampton or Newmarket, and Toronto would gain control of its destiny. So, why not run for a council seat, where a supporter of the cause would have a more realistic chance of being elected? “The nasty answer is, would you come out to hear a local councilor if they held a meeting?” asks Vallance. “The only way to get people to think about this idea is to bring it in front of the whole city. Could it be an issue? Well, that depends on how far the message gets out, and if people want to support it.”

Meanwhile in Mississauga …: Charges laid against city council candidate Adnan Hashmi, who allegedly impersonated a police officer in the effort to get landlord of rival Ishrat Nasim to sign a paper saying she didn’t live in the ward, are stoked by accusations from former MP Carolyn Parrish that she received a mysterious phone call asking her to bribe Matanat Khan to prevent him from moving his candidacy from the infamous Ward 10 to her Ward 6. Khan denies the allegations and claims Parrish fears losing the significant Pakistani-Muslim vote in her strategic effort to secure a council seat, toward taking over Mayor Hazel McCallion’s chair by 2010. “People will even kidnap others to win elections in Pakistan,” a community newspaper editor helpfully explains. Mississauga News Random Access blogger John Stewart pleads, “Could we please have an election where the police blotter isn’t the main source of political news?”

Pitfield to NIMBY nabobs: ‘I’m not a politician!’

The meeting of mayoral candidates at Upper Canada College was hosted by the Federation of North Toronto Residents’ Association (FoNTRA), who boast of being “21 Neighbourhoods Strong” – although only about five people per neighbourhood made a point of hearing from David Miller and Jane Pitfield in person. The uninvited Stephen LeDrew and his crew circulated before the discussion started in the 5/6ths empty Laidlaw Hall, where UCC old boys like Harold Ballard, Conrad Black and Michael Ignatieff once sulked in the pews. It was also the first sighting of Jane Pitfield’s range of campaign paraphernalia, including a T-shirt whose back text reads “Watch Jane Run/Watch Jane Win!”, and graphic design aesthetic that resembles a post-ironic Tyler Brûlé branding job, if only you squint a little bit. FoNTRA, took root around the time the 51 and 38 storey Minto tower project at Yonge and Eglinton was being berated, just the sort of battle that Pitfield cut her teeth fighting in Leaside. (However, all Jane’s media attention for this day surrounded the campaign blog cut and paste from Spacing Votes, for which she apologized — but not before they tried to pull a Sam Bulte on her via online badgering.)

A couple hours of dialogue about building sustainable urban regions risked feeling like a rubber chicken dinner without the poultry, although some sparks flew across the onstage table. Pitfield plunged into her sermon against backroom dealings, nepotism, cronyism, transportation gridlock, waste mismanagement and other signs of inertia under the current mayor’s shadow. Miller cursed the Common Sense Revolution of the mid-‘90s for downloading pressure that canceled out all the provincial affection that once enhanced Toronto. “People in this city want to be inspired, they want hope“, retaliates Pitfield, insisting that panhandlers and public transit problems are linked to the “NDP controlled agenda”. Miller counters that intensification remains a viable idea at the intersections capable of handling it, and the new official plan will amplify the local voice, forcing developers to heed people who already live around there. Pitfield plays to the thinning crowd: “I don’t mind NIMBYism if it means standing up and protecting the neighbourhoood you’ve invested in” and “I don’t make promises, I make commitments that produce results” and, perhaps most resonantly of all, “I’m a business person, not a politician”.

Questions from the floor lead to more garbage talk, grousing about the 905, and Pitfield crowing about how the recent Bombardier subway car purchase proves the straw has fallen out of Miller’s broom. Mayoral candidate Joel Rubinovich (his campaign flyer promises to “STOP St. Clair In It’s Tracks”) stepped up to quote David. “Not you, David, the David who wrote Psalm 115: ‘They have eyes but do not see … they have ears but do not hear …”

Honk if you still love Scarborough

A rapid transit glide on Monday led directly to the Scarborough Civic Centre, where their annual community summit took over the rotunda with information tables, and real live candidates eager to speak to anyone who considered the election a valuable distraction from the neighbouring mall. A late afternoon information fair wasn’t exactly attracting the civic groupies, though — plus, the building itself was constructed to accommodate a kind of municipal hustle and bustle that packed up nine years ago for downtown. That post-amalgamation remoteness has further isolated the status of Scarborough on the media map. Councilor Michael Thompson earned his share of notoriety, as a politician with the guts to point fingers at black kids for the outbreak of gun violence in 2005, but the overall contrast of comfortable ratepayers with struggling immigrants makes for a place still waiting for respect. Yet, all this insecurity has bred a certain kind of quirky pride, as captured by a magazine called 54east and those “Honk If You Love Scarborough” T-shirts. Scarborough Centre candidates Kirk Jensen and Dan Sandor (pictured) showed up to mingle, at first mostly with one another, as they share the desire to snatch votes from Ward 38’s one-term incumbent Glenn De Baermaeker, and find a few new supporters, too.

“If what I’m hearing at the doorsteps is any indication,” confides Jensen, “then 50 to 75 per cent of the incumbents will be gone.” Disaffection with Mayor David Miller is a big topic out here, apparently, regardless of how unsuccessful his combatants seem. “It’s the Canadian way,” offers Sandor. “Most people don’t vote for who is best — they vote for who will do the least amount of damage.” And, in the case of Jane Pitfield, her blunders might have endeared her to a certain percentage of the population. “They see Jane making mistakes and can relate to that,” explains Sandor, who figures some voters are reaching the conclusion that “Jane is a human being just like me.” Wayne Cook, a seasoned muckraker running in Scarborough-Agincourt, joins in the conversation about the changing demographics that surround him. “I remember when it was important for your credibility to say you lived in a ward for at least 20 years,” Cook says. “Now, if I’m out canvassing and tell people I went to Agincourt Collegiate, they don’t seem to care.” Cook stirred things up last week, reminding voters that incumbent Mike Del Grande was on the record pointing out the diminished number of “white people” in Ward 39. What does spark conversation with voters born outside of Canada, claims Cook, is a de facto endorsement at the top of his photocopied flyer: “I have great respect for your dedication,” Wayne was once told by Pierre Trudeau.

Briefly spotted at the Civic Centre was Stephen LeDrew, who ended up chatting with Scarborough East candidate (and City Idol winner) Amarjeet Chhabra (who we first met here). LeDrew was regaling her of stories of a Liberal strategy where Trudeau won the 1980 election by staying 30,000 feet in the air at all times. But the Strong Mayor is being benched tonight, since the North Toronto ratepayers, organizing the debate at Upper Canada College, didn’t care to accommodate a lateblooming third candidate, and he doesn’t seem to mind. “I have a date with Rick Mercer,” chuckles LeDrew — hastening to add that he is heterosexual.

Waterfront: So far, so good, so close, yet still so far

Navigating the urban labyrinth between the heart of Parkdale and the water’s edge was the mission of the Ward 14 residents group who got half the 14 candidates for the vacant council seat to participate in this stroll of frustration. Monday afternoon, Parkdale-High Park Residents Waterfront Group ringleader Roger Brook led a hike from the corner of King and Dunn that required a complex set of navigational skills — walking across the Gardiner, around a pedestrian-unfriendly manure-scented entrance to Exhibition Place, then a two-stage crossing at a Lakeshore Blvd. light that all but begs people to don’t walk. Patches of parkland, which are used as a parking lot during events at the C.N.E., leads to an ad hoc boardwalk renovated with federal funds for dragon boat races. But made perfectly clear is how planners didn’t regard the bottom part of Parkdale as more than an autobahn, and area residents would be expected to satisfy all of their recreational cravings by smoking more crack.

Naturally, if a sense of grandeur can return to the surrounding landscape, the lakefront access should live up to those restored aspirations. After finally reaching the destination on this brilliant autumn’s day, city council candidates Tom Freeman, David Hanna, Ted Lojko (and his dog Luke), Gord Perks, Rowena Santos and David White all had two minutes to articulate their vision for what the area should be. (Walt Jarsky didn’t make it to the finish line.) Santos (pictured, with Roger Brook in background) stressed the obvious point that a summertime getaway spot for those who can’t exactly afford a Muskoka cottage is situated right here. White is advocating a transit line on the west end and central waterfront to replace the Gardiner, and reduce car use in the process. The recent restoration of the Palais Royale was frequently cited as an example of what is possible, if only the city got over the assumption that people only want to get down here by car.

Leaving the scene, the group was led along another circuit that would be all but impossible to navigate on rollerblades, let alone a wheelchair, across the railway corridor and around a complex path. The tour ended along the Jamison Ave. bridge, on a narrow excuse for a sidewalk, with the Gardiner traffic roaring below. The noise drowned out whatever closing remarks the tour guide was making — and while it might have helped to get closer, the possibility of getting run over just wouldn’t have been worth the risk on a blogger’s salary.

Mayors touch female voters in weekend windup

London: Giant Douche meets Turd Sandwich. Pardon the South Park reference, from The London Fog blogger Lisa Supersmall, equally discouraged by the campaign literature of Mayor Anne-Marie DeCicco-Best as the cynicism of challenger Joe Fontana, a former MP (pictured). Fontana is viewed as disconnected from the locals, according to a local citizens’ group quoted in the London Free Press — DeCicco-Best is favoured by 58 per cent in the latest poll, compared to 38 per cent for Fontana. The mayor is even more popular with women and folks under 30. Reacting to those results, Fontana promises his campaign will find a focus, after weeks of throwing initiatives against the wall hoping a few might stick.

Ramara: Mayor Bill Duffy charges that he’s the target of a sexual assault smear campaign because his reform policies are unpopular with township staff and a block of councilors. The alleged indiscretions involve “unwarranted touching in the workplace” on five occasions. The Orillia Packet & Times reports on Duffy bristling at opponents who referred to the “charges” against him at a council meeting, then lodged a complaint of his own — with the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Was he accused of fondling a female firefighter because he suggested the department budget should be cut back? That’s the story Duffy is sticking to.

Ottawa: Baird breached three statutes and should resign, federal Liberals are braying to The Hill Times. Treasury Board president John Baird announced the Conservative feds wouldn’t be releasing $200 million for Ottawa’s newly approved north-south light rail initiative until after the election. Baird’s public release of parts of the contract is a breach of the contract, and violates federal privacy and access to information laws, according to his parliamentary opponents. Mayor Bob Chiarelli is blaming the decision on rival Alex Munter, who plans to cancel the contract, and accelerate an east-west line. Bound By Gravity blogger Andrew Anderson is nonplussed by Nepean-Carlton MP Baird meddling in any municipal business.

Toronto: A weblog from mayoral candidate Jane Pitfield featured a post debunking the news value of David Miller pledging $28 million to 13 distressed Toronto neighbourhoods over four years. Pitfield’s dispatch turns out to be a cut and paste of John Lorinc on Spacing’s election blog — the item was hastily attributed, and then disappeared altogether, followed by the blog itself getting scrubbed from Pitfield’s site. Then, it’s noticed that another entry about the city becoming a bedroom community of the suburbs resembles a Globe and Mail column by Anthony Reinhart. Pitfield points at the “young man” who looks after her site when the plagiarism is pointed out. Spacing editor Matt Blackett is still seeking a simple apology.

Windsor: Blue Blogging Soapbox mogul Paul Synott checks in with a link to his blog aggregator W.E. Speak, and is also keeping tabs on the online activity of candidates over at the Windsor Municipal Campaign. Do you know of any other election sites or candidate blogs from around the province worth following over the next four weeks? Check out Building a better blogroll for the Bubble for other discoveries, or write in with suggestions right here.

Six candidates seek remedy for Megacity malaise

After two consecutive days within earshot of would-be pro wrestling manager Stephen LeDrew, it was a change of tone at a Thursday morning press conference hosted by a more seasoned iconoclast — John Sewell, now running for council in St. Paul’s, along with five other candidates who want to improve the way city government functions. Huddled around a table in a rustic basement room at George Brown House on Baldwin St. were candidates Amarjeet Chhabra (pictured, Scarborough East), Garry Green (Jane Finch), Ed Shiller (Willowdale), David White (Parkdale-High Park) and, the most familiar face, Adam Vaughan (Trinity-Spadina). Their agenda essentially brings the Sewell-led anti-amalgamation Citizens for Local Democracy campaign into the Megacity era, now that they’re equipped with evidence of how inefficient the system can be. This gang thinks council meetings should be held every second week rather than once monthly, community councils need power to make decisions on local matters, and a task force should be struck to untangle the system. They believe non-citizen residents deserve a vote, more women should be encouraged to run for council, and more strategies oughta be created to increase overall participation from people who aren’t old white guys.

Sewell might have been the oldest white guy in the building, but entered this race to continue fighting the dedicated streetcar right-of-way on St. Clair W., a project whose flip-flop construction process has come to represent everything wrong with local bureaucracy, particularly among those who didn’t like the idea in the first place. Sewell has settled into the role of City Hall psychotherapist, eager to dispense his ideas for healing, after a couple decades writing columns about the unfulfilled promise of Toronto failed to achieve the desired effect. Council meetings that last a week or more, filled with more agenda items than the average wonk can absorb, are blamed as a contributor to citizen apathy. A downtown councilor being forced to form an opinion on an issue related to Scarborough isn’t terribly effective, either.

Years of having to hunt down soundbites for the evening news led Adam Vaughan to realize that a council debate dragged out over multiple days results in diluted public passion over time, because “the best clips have left the room”. He points to the recent vote to tear down 48 Abell St., a warehouse residence for artists recently put up for condominium sacrifice, despite passionate protests from the West Queen West set. But, the final decision was ultimately swayed by an effort to gain favour with the developer, related to a project in North York, explains Vaughan — who also despairs that most of the talented architects in town aren’t being hired by the city, and how community projects to improve neighbourhoods are being actively discouraged by a system built to be mistrustful of initiatives from ordinary people. Vaughan wonders if the 123 local agency boards and committees are just too much for 44 councilors: “Maybe, we could use more politicians.”

Working together for a more effective council [John Sewell]

‘Doom’ and ‘Gloom’ share despair with cardigan crowd

Showing up less than early to the first debate that found Mayor David Miller seated between his arch-conservative rivals, a petite woman dubbed “Doom” and her new bowtied foil “Gloom”, meant watching from outside the quaint council chambers of the Etobicoke City Centre. Wednesday night’s action — or lack thereof — was also being projected on a screen in the foyer, and a television set in a meeting room, a single-camera shot that provided nothing else to heed attention to besides the body language of the candidates. Jane Pitfield delivered her pursed-lip discourse with claws planted on the table, her typically antagonistic council meeting posture; Stephen LeDrew pensively leaned back in his chair while stroking the lower half of his face, then folded his arms across his chest or behind his back to enhance hostilities when standing upright, tucking a hand into his pocket when feigning a promise of his own; and Miller went through the motions of defending three years of mayoral experience with a vocabulary of measured gesticulations.

There wasn’t much reason to get raucous when speaking before this aging cardigan crowd, in a part of the city where all those supposedly harsh realities associated with Toronto life are a tedious drive away, which meant the priority topics were taxation, accountability, and where’s the park by the lake worthy of taking the grandkids to. A couple of Doom and Gloom operatives clapped like seals at any streak of anti-Miller sentiment, but any effort to stir up enthusiasm clashed with the institutional pre-amalgamation atmosphere. Fortuitously, a promise released by Miller earlier that day vowed to get waterfront development plans completed by 2010. Pitfield repeatedly emphasized that all this activity comes with a price: A few extra coins every time you buy a smoke, or a drink, or a lap dance — thanks to the powers vested in Miller through the New City of Toronto Act — are destined to fall down the drain, apparently, what with 62,000 layabouts currently on the municipal payroll.

Miller pandered to the bungalow dwellers with an anecdote cutting a swath across several levels of criticism: A lowly local “litter picker” (Miller’s description) who found a wallet in the middle of the night, and promptly returned it to its rightful owner, a tourist from California. The kindness, and cleanliness, and scrupulousness of a civic worker prevented Toronto from being eternally associated as the place where Americans come to have travelers cheques fall out of their pockets. Yet, this self-consciousness about the overall city doesn’t seem of much concern in Etobicoke, although the two blond candidates responded enthusiastically to a suggestion that Toronto get itself in synch with ISO standards. Pitfield, in a rare display of desire, added that she’d like to get the city some unspecified Best City in the World honour, even though such things might as well be as easy to come by as all those mysterious “top website” trophies that people used to slap on their home pages.

Stephen LeDrew’s got trouble in River City

Oh yes, we’ve got trouble, trouble, trouble, announced Stephen LeDrew at his Toronto mayoral campaign launch on Tuesday. And while the Dixeland combo did everything possible to set the mood of a summer stock production of The Music Man, the last-minute candidate comes off more like a 1970s sitcom second banana shoved into the forefront with a storyline about running for public office, only because the star of the show went off to make a movie. Fears that the past president of the Liberal Party of Canada was given too much of a makeover were soothed when he barreled into the vacant Yonge and Yorkville condo storefront with his patented white-framed round glasses, rather than the redder and squarer specs the man who would be Strong Mayor sports on the campaign literature. His courtroom-ready bluster is entertaining in moderate doses, much in the same way that Stephen Colbert can project hilarity while saying objectionable things. And, if you think David Miller has failed to earn himself four more years at Toronto City Hall, then there’s probably nothing too objectionable about Stephen LeDrew at all.

What earned the first headline was LeDrew’s promise that he will stop the dedicated streetcar right-of-way on St. Clair W. in its tracks, literally, turning it into his own version of Miller’s cancelled bridge to the island airport. Based on the official script, the candidate was just sitting around with his pals, including his campaign manager Arthur Potts, who reached the conclusion that Miller would be unemployed as soon as “the soft white underbelly of what is wrong is exposed”. John Barber pokes a few holes in those conspiracy theories in his column, The secret behind he who will end secret deals. Turns out that the campaign manager is the very kind of lobbyist that LeDrew’s platform promises to send to the political electric chair.

Yet, there’s enough to like about this bowtie, who looks like he’s eager to hand out treats at every turn — even if the only refreshments supplied in the unfinished space were warm cans of generic brand soda. Besides pandering to the Save Our St. Clair crowd, LeDrew was determined to address the state of our local garbage — both the incineration issue, and how wastebins in Kensington Market somehow manage to increase the amount of litter on the streets. LeDrew also tittered at the opportunity to use the word “pervicacious” … even if it was hurled at him first.