Or, “The Real Reason We Left T.O.”.
When it comes up in conversation, Maria and I never shy again from a good Rob Ford joke. We tell people that he’s the real reason why we left Toronto, and some of the time, it feels very much like the truth.
Although they said it couldn’t be done, although they said he’d need the support of council—which he’d never get—and the support of the people of Toronto—which he’d never have enough of—he’s doing it. Rob Ford is nearly single-handedly dismantling the City of Toronto.
He’s blown through the city’s surpluses created by Mayor Miller, he’s repealed taxes and fees which are going to have to be replaced with funding cuts, he’s declared war on the city’s social services and programming, and he’s flipping the bird not just to cyclists and pedestrians, but to motorists too. What’s more, Doug Ford, the mayor’s equally erudite brother, claims to have never heard of Margaret Atwood, one of this country’s most celebrated authors, after she spoke out against Ford’s earlier comments about closing Toronto libraries. That is, Doug Ford thinks that since there are more libraries than Tim Horton’s stores in his Etobicoke neighbourhood, some of those libraries have got to go.
What the Fords are doing to Toronto is not surprising, I don’t think, to anyone. If anything what’s surprising is how easily they’re getting it all done. With the Fords in charge, politics in Toronto feels more like schoolyard wheeling-and-dealing than it does governance of the country’s most populated city.
But, if anything, Rob Ford’s alleged middle finger salute and his brothers comments about Margaret Atwood aren’t atypical but are becoming the norm. That’s because politics in Toronto, and elsewhere, are seeing the rise of a new kind of anti-intellectualism. A second coming of the Dark Ages.






