Or, “How to Rebuild a Political Party, in as Few Words as Possible.”

As the rhetoric leading up to this weekend’s Liberal convention in Ottawa begins in earnest I must—I simply must—say my piece.

I am a card-carrying member of the Liberal Party of Canada. I joined… gee I don’t know, back when what’s his name with the squeaky voice beat out Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae for the party leadership. I joined because I was interested in having a say in who would replace Jean Chretien or Paul Martin or however you want to look at it. At any rate, I’ve stuck it out for exactly that reason: because I want to have a say in the party going forward but as the outlook turns grimmer every year I’m beginning to wonder if I can get my money back.

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Hey people who are surprised at Mayor Rob Ford’s behaviour now that he’s in office: You voted for him!

The big news in the Big Smoke the past couple of weeks has been Mayor Rob Ford. But it’s not what the mayor’s doing, actually, but what he’s not doing that’s been making headlines.

Rob Ford was the candidate who ran on a platform of stopping the gravy train (toot! toot!), cutting waste in Toronto’s municipal government (slash! slash!), and the promise to answer every single phone call and e-mail he received to his office once he became mayor (huh?).

Right, it can’t be done. And you’re surprised he isn’t doing it?

What’s worse though is that Mayor Ford isn’t just reneging on his campaign promises (which is to be expected) he’s actually going even further to avoid the public.

Ford, now carefully controlled by his Public Relations wing, isn’t even taking questions from the media anymore. In his only appearance for the Canadian media this week, in a photo-op promoting his new anti-graffiti campaign, Ford wouldn’t answer questions about the federal election, the TTC, Toronto Community Housing, or his cost-cutting measures. Despite numerous controversial issues unfolding at City Hall, Ford refused to say a word. Talking to CBC Radio, he explained that he talks about what he wants, when he wants.

In a democracy? Really?

More over, according to journalists, Mayor Rob Ford’s daily itinerary, which you’d think would be publicly available as mayor of Toronto, can only be obtained through a lengthy Freedom of Information request. Seriously, the mayor of Toronto doesn’t release his public schedule unless you legally require him to. Talk about tight control.

And the thing is, there are issues that Rob Ford needs to be held accountable for. Like appointing former transition team members to prominent city jobs. One, to the position of sole head of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation. Another, as a private consultant on the new transit plan.

Other issues exist too that you would think warrant comment from the city’s mayor. The selling off of Toronto Community Housing rental units and resources despite long waiting lists to get into those same units, for one thing. Funding for Ford’s revised transit plan including finding billions of dollars worth of investment and the expense of canceling all those contracts (pegged at at least $64 million last time I heard), for another.

But Rob Ford is, apparently, accountable to no one—despite his promises.

Instead, he’s blown through the surpluses left behind by Mayor David Miller. He’s quashed that mayor’s transit plan which would’ve seen an expanded, more accessible transit system serving more neighbourhoods and people across the city. He’s facing an upcoming fight with the unions, a subway system that he can’t cost for, and a record deficit next year. He’s freezing property taxes, he’s cut the vehicle registration tax, and he’s got no real plan for recouping that money, or for making up for the city’s shortfalls in the next budget.

Through it all, however, he keeps on smiling, and laughing—just don’t ask him why, he’ll likely have no comment. Should we be surprised though? I don’t think so… and you vote for him!

Ah, the sunny fresh feeling of breaking out a brand new post tag. Election 2011.

Yesterday was Budget Day. For a politics geek—like myself—this was a sort of Christmas, in the purely secular sense. Because a budget, in a minority parliament, means a chance for the opposition parties to defeat the government. On big issues like budgets, there has to be a certain level of consensus, see, and yesterday there was not. Ergo, unless last minute concessions are made, we’re headed for a election in May.

The budget itself wasn’t all that bad, actually. Driving home from work I was able to listen to most of the speech from the throne and it sounded pretty good to me. There were concessions in there for the NDP, whose support the Conservatives needed if they wanted to pass the budget, and there was nothing overly ridiculous or offense. But in the end, it wasn’t enough for Jack Layton  and as he has so often done over the past four years he held the balance of power, and this time decided to drop the writ.

Weeks prior, Michael Ignatieff and his Liberals spoke out against the upcoming budget. Ignatieff highlighted some pretty serious concerns facing Stephen Harper’s Conservatives like several RCMP investigations, two historic breaches of parliamentary trust, and some pretty hefty spending on things like fighter jets. The Liberals wouldn’t support the budget of a government that, they said, the people of Canada couldn’t trust. Fair enough; as official opposition it’s their job to oppose the government when they think it’s the right thing to do. A lot of liberals (small “l”) would say that this was a long time coming, and they might be right.

So with the Liberals already lined up against the Conservatives, along with the Bloc (surprise), it was up to Mr. Layton to decide the fate of the government. Weighing the amount of concessions in the federal budget against what the New Democrats had asked for, Jack decided that the needs of middle class Canadians hadn’t been met and that he couldn’t support the budget as it stood.

It’s true that every budget is a kind of political calculation but this is certainly more true in a minority government. The Conservatives hold a balance of power, not the balance of power, and need the support of at least some other members of parliament to operate. In the past, they’ve had that support, and it’s come through making concessions especially during budget time. In the past they’ve catered to Liberal, NDP, and Bloc interests in the hopes of appeasing them and getting their budgets put through. In part, all parties worked together to make things work for Canadians. During the recession this was important. But even in the early days of Stephen Harper’s government his budgets were filled with New Democrat concessions and this was ordinary.

But this budget was different, in my opinion, this was an election budget and I have a sneaky suspicion that it was perhaps never meant to pass.

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So the Toronto Mayoral Election has dissolved into a contest between a wife-beating racist drunk and a high school drop-out who bled the Ontario taxpayers for a billion dollars. That is, I guess, to put it as bleakly as possible.

With no one of any real interest in the mayoral race it’s become, as with many contests in Canadian politics, a matter of a vote against instead of a vote for. Since only the criminally insane want Rob Ford for mayor—and those criminally insane, strangely enough, make up a significant portion of the city—everyone else is left voting, strategically, against a Rob Ford win. That means that everyone else has to vote for the person in second, George Smitherman, in an attempt to catapult him into first place and prevent a Rob Ford victory. But it means that voters, if they really want a say, can’t vote for their favourite candidate. A vote for Sarah Thompson or Rocco Rossi, if they were still in the race, would be a wasted vote. Both candidates stepped down because they knew that, because they knew they’d split the vote and it would mean a Rob Ford win.

In our first-passed-the-post system it’s winner takes all, even if that winner only takes a slim percentage of the overall vote. As the polls sit now, Rob Ford could win the seat for mayor of Toronto with only 25% as long as he had more of a percentage than anyone else. Indeed, much of the election talk these days has migrated from “who do you want to win?” to a question of “who do you not want to win?” as voters are driven not to elect who they think would serve our city best, but who they think can slip passed Rob Ford to capture the most votes overall, and win.

This kind of a situation highlights the weaknesses in our aging political system and it’s clear that frustration is building.

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So it seems that Furious George Smitherman is beginning to gain in the polls against Rowdy Rob Ford. The Toronto Mayoral election is turning, as they say, into a real horse race.

I mused here about the dangers of Rob Ford’s Toronto, and of the necessity for the other candidates—who were splitting the non-conservative vote between themselves—to band together behind one winning candidate to successfully challenge Ford. Well, we’re beginning to see this kind of challenge take shape. Yesterday, Sarah Thomson, the last-place candidate in the polls, decided to step aside and pool her support (and her supporters) behind the Smitherman camp. While it remains to be seen if any of the other candidates will do likewise for now there is, perhaps, a more pressing question to ask.

Do we really want Smitherman for mayor?

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Last week I had the absolute pleasure of spotting none other than Rob Ford, driving up Islington in a giant campaign-coloured RV. “He’s probably mowing down cyclists as he goes,” Maria said when I told her about it later. It was a brief and surreal event that’s haunted me since, much like the time I shook the hand of Stephen Harper and looked into those deep blue eyes of his. I knew not then what he was capable of. We do know a thing or two about Rob Ford though.

For a city coloured amongst the more liberal locations in the country I was surprised, upon moving to Toronto, to discover that the front-runner in the race for mayor is a right-wing lunatic. (To put it lightly, Rob Ford is nuts.)

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My wife, Maria, and I got together with some friends over the weekend to enjoy a meal, some games, and to chat. The chats were enlightening—except for my contributions, of course—and, like conversations all across this country, the topic of the long-form census came up. Now I know everyone who’s been writing about the census keeps bringing up the fact that it’s so dog-gone strange to be talking about such an obscure topic in the heat of the summer but, really, it is worth saying. Here we are, in the middle of the summer, talking about our national survey. Who would’ve thought. But the fact that the topic is still so talked about—that it isn’t going away—is particularly interesting to me.

My friends and I are from a particular segment of society. We’re young. We are, as one of my friends pointed out, “highly-educated” compared to most standards. Some of us were raised in a conservative tradition, others more liberal, and all of us are involved in the life of our local communities in some way. All of us agreed that scraping the long-form census was a very bad idea but beyond that, as the conversation evolved, it became clear that we also harboured a deep-seeded worry as well.

The worry that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives might one day win a majority.

This is the worry, and I know we’re not alone.

“What would he do with a majority?” a friend asked, “look what he’s doing under a minority government when his power is restricted.”

Indeed, it’s something to be concerned about.

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