Gay Pride: A Proviso

Yesterday I wrote about the considerable pride that we should all take in the progress we are making as a society, World Pride in Toronto being a sterling example. However, as Star letter-writer Blair Bigham of Toronto points out in today's edition, there is still room for improvement:

Political stripes aside, Ontario (population 13.5 million) elected the first gay premier in Canada. Other than Iceland (population 300,000), no other people has elected a gay leader.

The fact that Kathleen Wynne’s sexuality was not even an issue throughout the campaign speaks to the equity and inclusivity Ontario offers. What a place for gay people to grow up in.

And yet, despite living in one of the most gay-friendly places on earth, I learned being gay was wrong long before I learned it wasn’t. Still today slurs are thrown my way by strangers, words are chosen carefully in new social settings, and there is the perpetual evaluation of every person I come in contact with, a super-subconscious Gestalt judgment about how welcoming they would be if they “could tell.” Like the annoying buzz-hum of a wonky fluorescent bulb, barely noticeable, but oh so persistent.

The constant stress that we face here, rarely acknowledged because it shames us that we can’t just accept ourselves, cannot compare to what people feel elsewhere. Minority stress affects me, and surely as an Ontarian I have it better than nearly everyone else.

So while I offer Ms Wynne and all of Ontario accolades for making history and demonstrable progress, I pause to think of the rest of the world, and check my privilege. If anything, it recommits me to spread the amazing agency I have as a gay person in Ontario with those elsewhere and take nothing for granted.

World Pride: Our Pride

While it is never good to feel smug or self-satisfied (we've seen where that takes the right wing), there are things about which we should feel very good. Although I do not live in Toronto, as I was watching the news last night covering the opening of the 10-day World Pride Festival being hosted in that city, I said to my wife that it really is something that we should all feel proud about. The fact that Toronto, and indeed Canada as a whole, is looked upon as a place where diversity is embraced is a measure of our potential for growth as a species.

I was struck by the essential truth in the words of Mr. Gay World, Christopher Olwage, who said, "It should just be a matter of being human and respecting that fact."

As well, those of Christopher Wee, Mr. Gay Canada: “It shows how progressive we are in Canada and in Toronto about our human rights direction and the LGBT direction.”



No one would dispute that we are deeply flawed. A recent trip to The Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta reminded me once again of what an incredibly small space we occupy on the timeline of earth's evolution. So many species came before us, and so many will continue after we are gone. Yet there are days when I think that were our world not so environmentally imperiled, making our own continuation very questionable, we really could evolve into something quite special.

Oops!

But at least young Tim manages to retain his boyish grin during yet another campaign gaffe.

The Small-Mindedness of Rob Ford

It has been said that to be a great leader, a person has to have a great vision. I'll let you decide where Toronto May Rob Ford fits into this equation by reading this story about what he thinks people should be marching and demonstrating for.

The Absurdity Continues

I feel just a tad guilty writing this post today, given that world events are of their usual dire nature, the slaughter of protesting Syrian students by a brutal and repressive regime not the least of them. Nonetheless, I will deal briefly with a more parochial issue, the brutal and repressive regime operating out of the Toronto mayor's office.

As I am sure the details of the confrontation between Rob Ford and Star reporter Daniel Dale are now well-known, I won't rehash them here. The mentality of the mayor, however, got me thinking about my 30-year teaching career, and I realized that Ford reminds me very much of some of the students I encountered during that career.

While the vast majority were good kids, there were always those who believed the rules weren't made for them, that the normal standards of decorum didn't apply, and that respect for institutional traditions was for others to follow; they laboured under the delusion of having a special dispensation from them. Needless to say, these tended to be kids for whom academic success was elusive.

The problem these students posed for the classroom dynamic were significant. Their presence tended to contribute to a lowering of the tone of discussion and in the behaviour of their fellow students. Oftentimes, their parents were enablers, attempting to bully teachers into accepting their rather warped view of reality. In short, they were the kind of people who attempted to exert a disproportionate influence over the classroom which is, among other things, a microcosm of society.

So in many ways, Rob Ford is like those errant students of yesteryear - he defines reality and the rules by his own worldview; like a wanton child, he is having a tantrum as he threatens to end the public's right to information about the goings-on at City Hall unless a reporter he takes exception to isn't removed from the City Hall beat; he is enabled by a family member, brother Doug; to conclude, the mayor is a disruptive influence on the rest of the citizenry.

It is sad that today when I opened The Star I was confronted on the front page by what should be a trivial matter, while important issues such as Dalton McGuinty's political machinations and Harper's move to limit democratic debate on the omnibus budget bill are pushed to the inner pages. Like those pesky students of my earlier life, Rob Ford is disrupting our larger classroom once again.

I Am Mayor, Hear Me Roar!

My question: Is anyone listening?

No Surprise Here: Rob Ford Fails in His Civic Responsibility Again

Not that I expected any better of the brazen buffoon wearing the chain of office in Toronto, but Rob Ford once more amply demonstrates that he is not the mayor of everyone in his once-proud city.

Another Poke At An Easy Target

A busy day ahead of me, so I have chosen the path of least resistance for my post today. Enjoy.

Rob Ford Continues to Embarrass Himself

'Mayoral ineptitude' is probably only one of the many terms that could be used to characterize Toronto's Chief magistrate, Rob Ford. Not only has he regularly demonstrated his unfitness for municipal leadership over his inflexible position on public transit (subways, subways, subways), but he continues to embarrass himself and demean his office through the vehicle of his and brother Doug's weekly radio show.

Apparently happy to burn all bridges with councillors who don't share his monomaniacal enthusiasm for underground transit at any cost, Ford used his show to try to recruit candidates for the next election. Declaring a 'fatwa' against those who have a different perspective, one based on reason and cost analysis, Mayor Rob intoned:

“But you know what? We need to run a slate next time,” Ford said. “We have to get rid of these other 24 councillors.”

He was referring to the 24 councillors who backed light rail over Ford’s proposal to extend the subway system.

Continuing in the demagogic and absolutist vein so loved by the right-wing, he continued:

“You’re on our side or against us. You’re on the taxpayer’s side or against them. There’s no mushy middle. It’s left or right down there.”

Thus the campaign for the next municipal election in 2014 has begun. But what becomes of Toronto in the interim?

Today's Star Editorial Cartoon

I trust this needs no further comment from me:

A Tale of Two Cities

Yesterday, while my wife was in the store, I, the ever-dutiful chauffeur, waited patiently in the car, first listening to my favorite station, Jazz FM, and then tuning into the CBC news. A story about the impending closure of bookseller Nicholas Hoare's Ottawa store caught my attention.

According to the story, the National Capital Commission, the Crown Corporation that administers federally-owned land and buildings in Ottawa, told Hoare that it was raising his rent 72%, from $84,000 to nearly $145,000 annually, the reason being that it had received complaints from private landowners that its rents were too low. I'll return to this in a moment.

The news from Toronto, under the inept leadership of its bumptious mayor, is even more grim. The city's library workers are out on strike, last-minute talks having failed to secure an agreement to afford some job security for the 50% of library workers who have only part-time hours.

So what does this tale of two cities have in common? In my febrile mind, they both bespeak the often pernicious influence of the right-wing mentality that pervades these times. For example, the NCC is allowing its decisions on rentals to be influenced by the demands of private landowners, while in Toronto, two things occur to me: first, the library situation would likely not have escalated into a strike were the city not led by people with palpable contempt for the social contract, the one that stipulates the primacy of the collective good over individual wants. Indeed, my 'gut' tells me that Toronto civic 'leaders' have little appreciation of the importance libraries have for so many people; secondly, I have a strong suspicion, judging by the rightward drift we are all aware of in the world today, that if public libraries did not exist and were just being proposed now, the concept would be dismissed as too expensive and unfair competition to bookstores.

Without question, our world would be far poorer. Costs cannot always be measured in simple dollars and cents.

Lament For Ontario's Capital

Oh, how the mighty have fallen ...

UPDATE: Urban studies theorist Richard Florida offers his views.

Rob Ford's Influence Grows

Rob Ford, long known for his antipathy towards those pedestrians and bikers and other eco-freaks who have conducted a war on cars, may have found an ally (or perhaps a relative) in Florida.

One wonders if he regrets not sending Gary Webster on a junket there.

Does It Run In Their Genes?

I guess the ideological apple doesn't fall far from the tree. While contempt for democracy is egregiously evident in the behaviour and pronouncements of Stephen Harper and his minions, it seems that young Tim Hudak, the Ontario Conservative leader, has also become infected.

In his latest column, Christopher Hume observes the essentially anti-democratic nature of the conservative mentality, using the example of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's assertion that the city council vote to defeat his transit vision is 'irrelevant.'

He adds:

Within hours of Ford’s dismissal of council’s decision, Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak and one of his legislative bright lights, Peter Shurman, were adding their voices to the din.

Council, they argued, should simply be ignored. Like Ford, they believe it is irrelevant, a body that can be forgotten.

Though Hudak’s anti-democratic sentiments come as no surprise, it isn’t often we are treated to the spectacle of a senior leader of a mainstream political party so openly displaying his contempt for civic democracy.

Is there a common source of the water or the kool-aid that the right-wing true believers are drinking from?

Why Don't Politicians Like Democratic Participation?

Yesterday I opined on why democratic participation in our country is so muted, and offered two examples of what can be accomplished when people are willing to get involved.

One of the obstacles to greater participation is surely the belief that we have little chance of making an impact because our elected representatives do not listen to us, indeed, seem to actively discourage us from becoming involved.

I definitely got them impression while following the budget debate in Toronto, which saw a record number of citizens making deputations on the cuts that were being proposed. One of the city's most obnoxious councillors, Giorgio Mammoliti, a man quite happy to belittle anyone who questions him, a man who seems to have changed political stripes for the allure of power offered by conversion to the Ford agenda, is now getting his shorts in a twist over ' repeat deputers,' those citizens who have the temerity to make more than one deputation to City Council.

In a story appearing in today's Star, Catherine Porter reports how Mammoliti takes grave exception to people like Mary T. Hynes, a retired teacher whom he lumps into a group he has decided are exercising their democratic duties far too much.

Perhaps the best answer to Mammoliti's carping criticisms comes from Ms Hynes herself:

“I learned that people can make a difference, if they struggle long and hard and respectfully,” she says. “If people hadn’t come down to city hall, what would have happened?”

I suspect there is a lesson for all of us in her words.

Shark Fin Ban Update

The latest news on shark finning, the ugly and barbaric practice of killing sharks so their fins can be used to make a soup prized as a status symbol in the oriental community, comes from two communities, Mississauga and Toronto.

Last night, the former voted to move forward with a bylaw banning the possession and sale of shark-fin products in the city, capping nearly an hour of debate on the matter. The bylaw decision — which will not be formally voted on until next week’s council meeting — comes a month after city staff suggested municipalities do not have the authority to ban shark fin.

Toronto, sadly, is being offered the same timid staff advice to the effect that the city has neither the legislative reason nor the manpower to enforce such a ban, first proposed by two councillors, Glenn De Baeremaeker and Kristyn Wong-Tam.

Said senior licensing and standards manager Bruce Robertson:

“The matter is one that clearly and more properly rests with more senior levels of government.”

He added it would be “very difficult, at best, and nearly impossible, at worst, to enforce the ban on a product that can be legally and easily purchased,” outside Toronto and brought in.

The committee will instead be urged to call on Ottawa to ban the importation of shark fin, cartilage and all other derivative products to Canada, and to protect shark populations in Canadian waters.

While the call for a national ban seems like a good idea, given the Harper government's reluctance to impede commerce in any way, I am doubtful about the fate of such a proposal. As well, there is nothing to stop Toronto council from passing its own ban as an interim measure.

Nothing, that is, except perhaps the political will to act with integrity.

Please sign this petition urging Prime Minister Harper to stop threatening Michaela Keyserlingk and to stop exporting asbestos.

The Power of the People

Despite our almost legendary passivity as a people, one small part of Canada is offering an example of what can happen when citizens shed the mantle of political disengagement that our politicians have long cultivated and counted on in order to push through their misguided policies unchecked.

The small part of Canada to which I refer is the City of Toronto whose people, it is becoming increasingly apparent, now realize the ghastly mistake they made in electing a mayor who told them what they wanted to hear during the campaign and uncritically accepted his lies, only to be faced now with the cost of that misplaced trust.

As most people know, Rob Ford won the Toronto mayoralty race by promising low taxes and no service cuts, miracles that would be wrought by elimination of the 'gravy' that his profligate predecessors had swilled with abandon. Hundreds of millions of dollars in savings would thus be available. Of course, it turned out that there was almost no gravy, unless one were to reclassify services regarded as vital to a well-functioning city under that designation.

Earlier in the summer, impassioned citizens made public representations protesting many of the proposed cuts. Yesterday and early this morning, they did the same in a 20-hour executive committee session in which the delegates were allowed only two minutes each to make their case, down from the previous five minute allotment in the first confrontation. Nonetheless, it is clear that their voices have been heard.

In an online Star report entitled Ford backs down from cuts, for now, we are told that by the end of the marathon session,  Ford voted .... to reject some proposed cuts and to put off decisions on almost all of the others to the 2012 budget process, which begins in November and ends in mid-January.

While the issue of service cuts is not dead by any means, I suspect that as long as public anger and political engagement continues over the prospect of living in a city robbed of its vitality and habitability by philistines like Ford and his council supporters, the citizens of Toronto will have the influence they should have over forthcoming budget deliberations.

Now if we could only export that engagement to the federal level .....

The Ford Gang Stays True To Form

Although I don't live in Toronto, it has become an object of fascination for me since the election of Mayor Rob and Doug Ford. Within their fiefdom resides a psychology that provides fascinating examples of and insights into the darker aspects of human nature: our propensity for selfishness and short-shortsightedness, our fear of ideas that conflict with our worldview, our tendency to demonize those who disagree with us, our happy reliance on propaganda and absolutism, and our elevation of ideologies over critical thinking.

I may return to each of these aspects in future posts, but I have time for just one short illustration now. As predicted in a previous post, while some councillors are feeling the heat, Team Ford is officially dismissing the results of a recent poll showing an overwhelming majority of Torontonians strongly opposed to the cuts in city services under current consideration because it was paid for by CUPE Local 79.

You can read the full story here.

Score Another One For Rick Salutin

Consistently able to 'think outside the box' of the current North American mindset, Rick Salutin, one of my favorite critical thinkers, has a column in today's Star well-worth perusal. Entitled The sector that dares not speak its name, the thesis of his argument can be summed up by the following excerpt:

"We are a society that has largely lost sight of the fact that there is anything to debate in politics except how to save money."

Using examples from the cost-cutting crusade of Toronto Mayors Rob and Doug Ford, Salutin amply demonstrates how we have forgotten that there are dimensions to civil society that transcend the dollars-and-cents-mentality of the extreme right wing.

I hope you have time to check out the entire column.

Willful Ignorance in the Ford Administration

Toronto Mayors Rob and Doug Ford and their minions, like so many of the extreme right, tend not to let facts, reason, and data interfere with the purity of their ideological vision. Someone who describes city employees as 'the gravy' and denies that eliminating daycare subsidies are cuts, but rather 'efficiencies' will likely be unfazed by the latest poll showing Torontonians overwhelmingly opposed to service cuts.

Published in today's Star, the "Forum Research telephone survey of nearly 13,000 people reveals that more than three-quarters of Torontonians want their local councillor to protect services rather than comply with the mayor’s wishes. And only 27 per cent of residents say they would vote for Rob Ford if an election was held tomorrow."

Particularly interesting is that the results involve a ward-by-ward analysis, with wards of some of the most extreme right-wing councillors showing the strongest opposition to service cuts.

But for an administration that refuses any interview requests from The Toronto Star and excludes them from invitation-only events, the poll results, despite the very large sampling, will likely be dismissed.

After all, it was commissioned by CUPE Local 79, one of two major unions at city hall. Sometimes hard data isn't hard data, especially when your opponents are involved in its collection.