After the results of Monday’s municipal election in Toronto came in, talk turned to analysis of those results. Do the results have implications that extend beyond the 416 area code? And how will what happened in Toronto impact on the provincial election that will be held next year and the next federal election that some are speculating might be held in the spring?
Rob Ford, whose mayoral candidacy sparked initial chuckles even from those who ended up supporting him, won the race with 47.1% of the vote. George Smitherman, the former deputy premier of Ontario in the governing Liberal government finished well back at 35.6% while Joe Pantalone, representing the status only managed to get 11.7% of the vote.
Some incumbents bit the dust; most notably one of Mayor David’s Miller deputy mayors, Sandra Bussin, who saw a political neophyte Mary-Margaret McMahon take the ward with an astounding 65.1% of the vote. Yet other left-wing incumbents such as Pam McConnell, Janet Davis and Adam Vaughan were easily re-elected. And voter turnout was 53%, much higher than in recent years when voting by one third of the eligible voters was the norm.
So what does all this mean? First of all, there was no major anti-incumbent vote. Nor was there a dramatic shift to the right as witnessed not only by the re-election of left wing councillors but by the election of rookies such as Mike Layton, son of federal NDP leader Jack.
At least in the past, many people who describe themselves as being interested in politics, paid little or no attention to municipal elections. But this campaign was different. People who generally have no interest in the political process can only be pushed so far before they sit up and take notice. They were fed up with secret deals like the one that helped bring Bussin down. They were fed up with a mayor whose reaction to the union thugs who prevented Torontonians from disposing of their trash during last summer’s strike, was to lecture the unwashed masses about littering. They were fed up with having to pay not only higher taxes but new taxes such as the land transfer tax and the vehicle registration tax, not to mention a 5 cent tax on plastic bags. And they were fed up with a mayor who used their tax money to jet off to Europe to save the world from global warming.
There are lessons to be learned from the overwhelming mandate that was given to Rob Ford on Monday. The left have to learn that that they can’t have it both ways when it comes to immigrants. They can’t keep saying that immigrants make contributions to Toronto and Ontario and Canada and at the same time not worry that like the rest of us, they don’t like to contribute to such things as pampering the homeless, buying homes for starving artists and $12,000 going away parties for retiring councillors.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty should take away a valuable lesson from Monday’s election results. Imposing higher and higher taxes after promising not to do so, smacks of condescension and arrogance. And it was this condescension and arrogance that brought down incumbent councillors like Bussin, not their politics. At least in the city of Toronto, taxpayers are sitting up and taking notice.
The media could also learn from the Toronto election but hopefully they won’t. The mayor’s race was a dirty campaign; but the dirt leveled against Ford came not from Smitherman or Pantalone but from the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail, both Smitherman supporters. Constant stories about Ford’s assault on high school football players (which wasn’t true) and about how “fat” he is, undoubtedly worked to Ford’s advantage.
Conservative candidates do well when they espouse conservative principles
But it is the small “c” conservatives that have the most to learn. Conservative candidates do well when they espouse conservative principles (Reagan, Thatcher, Mike Harris and now Rob Ford). Driving up the deficit and half apologizing for wanting to take away freebees is not going to cut it anymore. Nor will promising more outlandish social programs be a likely vote getter or shoveling money out the door for “stimulus”.
Ford’s victory makes one wonder whether the Ontario Progressive Conservatives and the Conservative Party of Canada would have made breakthroughs in Toronto had they only paid attention to the thousands and thousands of voters who cast their vote for Rob Ford on October 25.
There can be little doubt that there will be a lot of discussion at Queen’s Park and on Parliament Hill about what is now being referred to as the “Ford Factor”.
