A rough right-winger takes charge of the country’s largest city

Well, he's a buffoon, and will probably choose bad solutions, but Toronto has a terrible track record with its municipal politicians, so who has the right to be optimistic about any of the choices?

Not that I've been in Toronto for the whole campaign, though I've followed it closely, but I doubt that his opponent's sexuality had much to do with the final choice. It may have, but that comment appears to be mostly speculation. After all, Toronto is an extremely gay-friendly city, at least outwardly. Pride week is a massive spectacle. And I recall reading that the gay population is something around 3-4%, so it's many times higher than the average in the population at large. Who knows? Maybe a lot of the population is secretly anti-gay.

@ Bfordc:

Since you don't live in Toronto and didn't have to endure the fool of Mayor we had, watching his tax and spending go ballistic, watching an unfolding folly of an LRT chopping up neighborhoods with rails, his inept handling of a senseless union led garbage strike (giving them back in overtime the wages they lost), lavishing salaries on flower girls ($80,000) that teachers could only dream of and ruling over a civil service that never returned phone calls,

YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY!!

The voters of Toronto SAID IT ALL - 50% voted for Ford to end the madness of fools running this city.

Economist readers, behold the amusing phenomenon of FORD SUPPORTERS writing in ALL CAPS when they COMMENT ON ONLINE FORUMS hailing the GLORIOUS DAY that THEIR MAN HAS COME TO SAVE US ALL.

Ironic, people voted for a fool to "end the madness of fools running this city."

Your column contains the following statement "They(the voters) may have been less tolerant of his opponent’s homosexuality".

This is an American assumption. Canadians do not vote based on such things. We have many gay politicians. A candidate's sexuality is totally irrelevant.

Mr. Ford was elected because his common sense appealed to voters. Voters are fed up with the sense of entitlement that people in the public sector have.

The most striking thing about this election was the dramatic split between Old Toronto, which went solidly against Ford, and the rest of the city, which was strongly for him. It is unfortunate that Toronto remains so divided, but as it is Ford was elected by the suburbs, not the city as a whole.
Also, while I don't think it swayed many voters, the sexuality of the cadidates was raised in negative ads targeted at conservative immagrant communities. So clearly someone thought it might be relevant.

50% of Toronto residents are immigrants? Sounds like a dodgy statistic to me.

Just to clarify, the "conservative" mayor that Ottawa threw out of office raised taxes more than any other previous Mayor in the history of Ottawa, and replaced the "expensive" light rail project with one that costs 4 times more.

I think it is incorrect to assume that a candidate's sexual orientation had anything to do with the election results. Thankfully, Canadians don't care who one sleeps with or what church -if any - one attends.

SSCPT: The statistic is not at all dodgy. Toronto is the most ethnically diverse city in the world. As of the 2006 census, 49.9% of the population was foreign born, and 46.9% of the population belonged to "visible minorities."

Good for the people in Toronto.

Toronto is the most ethnically diverse city in the world

False, You need to travel more. Miami-FL USA or even Sao Paulo-SP Brazil are more ethnically diverse than most cities in the world. Even the silly UN knows that.

My prediciton is that Toronot's experience with Mr Ford will be exactly the same as Ottawa's with the major they just threw out. He was radical right wing and unrealistically promised to cut cost everywhere and reduce taxes. Never happened. During his term costs and the tax burden increased dramatically. Rob Ford IS the gravy train.

Electing Rob Ford was a huge mistake.

Toronto has just jumped from the frying pan to the fire.

Not that there's a large talent pool among municipal politicians in Toronto to begin with... talented Canadians, in all professions, usually end up being poached by foreign (usually American) firms.

JBB1234 wrote:

I think it is incorrect to assume that a candidate's sexual orientation had anything to do with the election results. Thankfully, Canadians don't care who one sleeps with or what church -if any - one attends.

=======================

If only that were true. Some immigrants, especially from Muslim or Catholic background, care very much about these things.

It usually takes two to three generations for immigrant descendants to become "Canadian". Those who remain very religious, though, would usually still oppose a gay mayor.

We should also not forget that there are religious Christian Canadians (not immigrants) who hold such views but would not expose them to their friends and family.

Rob Ford did not get elected because people particularly wanted Rob Ford as mayor. He was elected because the previous mayor was the worst mayor in living memory, and people were fed up to the teeth.

The previous mayor seemed to like nothing better than to make life difficult for commuters. He completely botched a long and stinky garbage strike (noted above). He raised taxes on everybody who lived in the suburbs, and surrounded himself with a council that flaunted its disdain for voters.

They voted to close the Gardiner, which was unbelievably stupid. They voted to put a dedicated bike lane down the center of Avenue Road and down the Center of Jarvis (two main N-S arterial roads), just to stick it to car drivers. They didn't give a hoot for anybody who lives north of Bloor.

A few years ago The Globe & Mail (normally a fairly staid publication that fancies itself as a journal of record) ran a full page article comparing city hall to the Soviet Union under Stalin.

Well, the former council got the boot, but good.
It's not half what they deserved.

So now a man who I would have been reluctant to have hired to cut my grass is mayor. He has already backed off one foolish promise - to junk our streetcar system - which is a good sign.

Even though I voted for the other guy, the new Mayor has my best wishes for a successful term. There are difficult days ahead. This town needs a successful mayor, and a constructive council. May election to high office give him the sober gift of wisdom.

And finally, to the poster who says Toronto hasn't had good mayors -
clearly you have forgotten David Crombie.

Heads UP Toronto! We have effectively chosen a MUPPET to run our city.

He may be stopping the gravy train, but he is also cutting taxes (car + land transfer) - this will leave Toronto a further $250M short on top of the already mammoth $500M operating deficit. That’s $3.5B over four years. To compensate for this Mr. Ford will cut the services that Torontonians enjoy to save $2.8B over four years. The result: A $700M shortfall and fewer services to show for it. Let us also recognize that Ford intends to save Toronto another $9M by halving the number of councilors (all of which will be put towards 100 more police officers).

By analysis, over two thirds of the wards in which Rob Ford won, the majority of people are lower middle class and the largest area of employment is in the secondary sector and tertiary sector. This of course is circumstantial to the idea that there was as fair of a representation in the voting as there is demographically within each poll. The evidence is to the contrary. It is been proven over and over again that voter turnout has a strong positive correlation with the level of education and this would imply that the majority of Ford’s voters were middle and upper-middle class Torontonians.

What if this common belief is wrong? What if there was a fair representation in the voter turnout?

This would mean that lower and lower middle class Torontonians voted in Ford as Mayor. However, these are the people, if the city is doing its job right, that use the services the most and for whom they are most beneficial; and thus those that are going to be most hard hit when this apparent 'Gravy Train' comes to a halt. It is also NOT these people that will benefit from the majority of the tax cuts as they aren’t the demographic having alarms go off when a new MLS listing comes up or paying taxes on the mass of cars sitting in their driveways. There just aren’t any logical incentives to swing the vote in such a direction.

The questions lies, is this representation in Voter turnout possible? Torontonians spoke on October 25th 2010, but was it with a conscious voice?

Canada’s recent (and arguably, continuing) recessionary cycle as resulted in a GDP drop in 3.3%. The majority of this can be attributed to a slowdown in the secondary and tertiary sectors. The sectors that employ the lower and lower middle class citizens of Toronto. As with any message delivered, if it is repeated enough it often becomes a ‘truth’, especially when the circumstances are convenient. For the people that were most hard hit by the recession, the idea of a subway system instead of Transit city is not important. The idea of diluting democracy by reducing representation is not important. The idea of derailing Toronto’s progress in becoming more environmentally conscious is not important. The idea that Toronto’s already over policed streets will be seeing more cruisers is not important. The fact that Ford has little support of city council for proposed policies is not important. The notion that half of the policies are incoherent on the bottom line is not important.

What IS important? The Gravy Train is ending. Spending is being curbed. Taxes are being cut. Waste is being stopped. How this will be made possible? Not important. A message without analysis can be made to seem relative and possible to have a bearing on a situation where it will have minimal impact. The fiscally charged messages of the Ford campaign had the potential to make voters believe that he held the golden policies to relieve financial pressures - and that potential was reached. The reality: No change where its needed.

I congratulate the Rob Ford’s campaign manager, Nick Kouvalis, for having a clear cut strategy for getting his candidate into office. In four years either Ford will A) Hopefully have proven me wrong. B) Caused Toronto to stagnate due to no support in council or C) Created a catastrophe for the new mayor and Torontonians alike. For future elections I urge people to vote for a candidate with a vision. A vision that is created by the people and to be managed by the person elected. Let us, together, raise the caliber of our democracy

Rob Ford - Proving that fear mongering and homophobia are tools so strong that they can even draw immigrants to the support of racists. It's like Fox News...live!

Great choice, Toronto!

Nicholas_UBS: I've travelled plenty, thanks. It's true that Miami has a larger percentage of foreign-born residents, but the majority of them come from the same place (Latin America), whereas in Toronto no one country or continent comes close to a majority. Perhaps I should have been more cautious and said that Toronto is *one of* the most ethnically diverse cities in the world, since "diversity" is subject to multiple definitions. But I really don't understand your hostility or your smarty-pants tone. I was just providing some facts to answer the other commenter's question.

Salim,

You raise some interesting points about Toronto's deficit, required to pay for the many services required. You lament that the elimination of the car and land transfer taxes will make it worse.

Please tell us why Toronto has such huge deficits, even with these taxes. No other municipality in Canada has levied such taxes and yet, somehow, they are able to provide the necessary services to operate their city.

Does Mississauga have such taxes? No. Do they have such gaping deficits? No. Then explain how Toronto ended up in this predicament.

We await your answer. Please be concise.

Salim,

You raise some interesting points about Toronto's deficit, required to pay for the many services required. You lament that the elimination of the car and land transfer taxes will make it worse.

Please tell us why Toronto has such huge deficits, even with these taxes. No other municipality in Canada has levied such taxes and yet, somehow, they are able to provide the necessary services to operate their city.

Does Mississauga have such taxes? No. Do they have such gaping deficits? No. Then explain how Toronto ended up in this predicament.

We await your answer. Please be concise.