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.”