MF: but you must admit it ain't much to work with, is it?
Leaving how the mayor deals with the homeless aside for a moment, the transit vision is rather screwy. On the one hand, he grandly declares that the war on the car is over (meaning the war on the bike, and everything else, is happily renewed), and on the other, he's informing us his grim intention to at least complete the Sheppard line (and yeah, my mistake on the spelling, ta for pointing that out - been out last night doing pints with my brother at the Strathcona)... it's not as if the approach is really one which embraces mass transit or meaningfully addresses how to move millions of cars around the GTA without adding any new infrastructure beyond a single subway line in the north end. I am simply not impressed. We'll leave aside for the moment his desire to ignore his councillors and his insistence that he alone can effectively represent the will of the city's inhabitants, though the pretensions of grandeur there are astonishing, given his electoral ploy of presenting himself as a man of the people.
But your contention that the mayor has his hands full undoing the malfeasance of the Miller years rings hollow to me. I suppose I must expect such a gambit though. This is rather like the pendulum-like liberal/conservative blame game which plays itself out on provincial and federal levels in a grand nod to history and an abiding trust in the public's short memory.
But back to homelessness. I'm waiting for Mr. Mayor to see the light about how forcibly cramming the homeless into their shelters at night might have some unpleasant repercussions he's not foreseen in his rush to be the COTU's turnaround king. For starters, there's the high rates of infectious disease and petty crime in the shelters... not to mention the problems associated with getting the mentally ill to "see the light." I wonder how the cops will play into his envisioned scenario. Will a new detachment of them be created and given special new uniforms - to sweep the ugly homeless people off the street as each and every night falls, thereby saving them from themselves? WIll a new team of lawyers be put to work dealing with the trampling of human rights stemming from forcibly rounding up this sorry lot and stuffing them into their special nocturnal holding pens?
At this point I am not convinced that Ford is eager to understand the problems governing this city presents him - he's more into sound bytes and optics - politics as usual. I imagine that if he does start to grok it all, he'll be humbled somewhat and begin to sound some more conciliatory notes - provided it's in him to do so, I might add. Meanwhile Ford plays to the suburban belt, them whut brung him in, and he's scoring points with that crowd. That part of the political game he well understands.
But a mayor of the people, with a subtle, nuanced grasp of what makes this city tick? No evidence of that so far.
