You're viewing an archive page. To see the current content on wickens.ca, please go to the main page.

9 November 2003  

Election Tidbits

I had to laugh this afternoon as I watched the Toronto Star/Toronto 1 debate I'd taped earlier in the week. Each candidate was asked to name his or her favorite intersection in the city and Barbara Hall immediately answered, with smiling insincerity, "Parliament and Wellesley." Now, it doesn't take a former resident of the area like me to know that that is one of the most depressing places in the city. It was run down 15 years ago when I lived on that very corner of St. Jamestown and it's far worse now. But I wasn't at all surprised to hear a politician as savvy as Hall give that answer. After all, the corner is found in by far the most densely populated area of the city.

In other amusing election news, this from my own Ward 27, a transvestite candidate is charged with election law violations and a clown assualts the same-sex husband of a city councillor.

01:29 AM |

An 'Undecided' Decides

Not that I'd recommend this course of action to you, but a distinct advantage of leaving your decision in an election until the last minute is that a lot of potential choices get eliminated by virtue of their remaining at, or descending ignominiously to, the bottom of the polls. In the case of the Toronto mayoral election this strategy has left me with a choice between David Miller and John Tory who are, respectively, at 44% and 37% in the latest poll. The 4% margin of error makes it possible that each has a real shot at winning Monday night.

Of the other three main candidates Tom Jakobek was the only one I'd considered voting for. Barbara Hall is mixed, but still way too far left for my tastes, plus I'd really rather not hear that whiny yet monotonal voice constantly for the next three years. As for John Nunziata, the former Liberal Rat Packer, if his former alliance with Sheila Copps hadn't been sufficient to turn me off, his bizarre behavior in the bribery "scandal" would have been. First he accuses an unnamed rival of bribery in an editorial meeting at a radio station, then he does nothing about it for a week, then he goes to the police, and finally he says he doesn't think any laws were broken. Thanks, but you know, I think Jon Stewart has had enough fun at Toronto's expense as it is, with Mel Lastman's Tourette's-like outbursts.

The choice between the remaining two is easy. Not, unfortunately, because one is clearly so good. A really good candidate — i.e., one who would cut taxes, promote development, privatize city services as much as possible, and get the mentally ill and/or drug addicted people off their sidewalk mattresses and sleeping bags (by force, if necessary) — if such could be found in Toronto, would be unelectable. No, the reason the choice is easy is that one candidate is clearly so bad.

David Miller: Looks like a socialist. Thinks like a socialist. Talks like a socialist. (PDF brochure for those outside the city and who didn't find the hard copy version on their doorsteps today.) It's a no-brainer for even a mild conservative to be opposed to a candidate who is as consistently and clearly statist as Miller. For a freakish laissez-faire capitalist like yours truly, it's as if the decision had been made for me.

I only wish John Tory were someone I could actively get behind. There are good things: He wants to freeze taxes (eventually), hire more police officers, and is in favor of incineration to get rid of a garbage problem that has convoys rolling down the highway from here to Michigan around the clock. Otherwise, he's more of a Liberal than his name and supposed party affiliation would indicate. He wants to build more public housing, talks constantly about multiculturalism, and is very much a central-planner when it comes to development.

But like I said, you learn to lower your expectations when you live in a city where your political views are likely to elicit expressions of condescending amusement from half the population and accusations of fascism from a not-insignificant chunk of the rest.

So, I hope all you fascists (and even you Red Tories) in Toronto will join me on Monday in voting for John Tory. A city run by an unapologetic leftist like David Miller is not something I want to contemplate, let alone live in.

12:38 AM |