(People Get What People Want)
Alright, Toronto - you called down the thunder. Well now, you've got it.
By now, it's no secret that Rob Ford (nicknamed 'Fix Or Repair Daily') is
the mayor of Toronto - and mayor elect, at that. If you've been anywhere
near facebook, twitter or heated email chains in the last few days, you've
heard much about it. And yes - he seems sorta like one of those junior high
whiny, fat kids that doesn't get invited to the party and then pouts to his
mom about it. He even looks identical to Chris Farley's dad in the movie
Tommy Boy (played by Brian Dennehy) - and he really doesn't like
cyclists.
But before I launch into any sort of anti-Ford tyrade (and honestly, I don't
live right in Toronto but I'm there enough that this affects me, too), I think
it's important to study the facts of democracy - the vote. According to
Toronto Media Co-Op, there are some stunning bullet points about this
story that cannot be glazed over:
'While Rob Ford won the Mayoral election with 47.12 percent of the vote, only
15 percent of the city's population voted for him. Some of those who did not vote
choose not to, but others were not eligible to vote or chose not to have sufficient
I.D.
“Toronto is ... home to a diverse population of about 2.6 million people” read a
press release sent out on election day. However, only 813,984 people voted in
the election, that's 32.46 percent of the population. Of those 383,501 people
voted for Ford.'
Wow. Somewhat stunning? I think so. Let's dissect.
This story that is sucking up all of the headlines and media and personal
anger of the GTA (and ostensibly Canada-wide) is based on what? A city
where not even half of its population shows up to vote or had the proper
ID to vote? And then whines about the decision afterwards?
Oh, man - just you wait.
Toronto is the 4th largest city in NORTH AMERICA. It's a major
universal player in the arts, tourism, sports & rec, culture, ethnicity - it's
basically a massive mosaic of many things. Democracy and free-thinking
run rampant in Toronto (save for the suburban sprawl of the outskirts) -
and to think that all of this posturing is postmortem is a little depressing
in such a massively diverse and beautiful city.
People have retorted with 'City-dwellers didn't want Ford - suburbians
wanted Ford.' That's actually untrue. Ford actually gained a large
percentage of his vote from downtown inhabitants (specifically in the
blue-collar and immigrant demographics according to CBC) - so that
wasn't an excuse either. Come on, Toronto - give me somethin', here.
Another common retort has been 'only half of the city VOTED!' -
weeeellllll....actuuuuallllyyyy....
Even more shocking than the co-op stats is the fact that this year's
election of 47% showed a dramatic improvement over the last mayoral
vote under Miller (which drew in only 32% of the population's vote) -
so it's not that, either - and it's obviously not that people didn't care.
In fact, it could be said that they cared much more than previous
voting years.
In a nutshell, I'm not saying that I'm any sort of Ford-supporter. I could
really care less about most political powder-kegs but it was more the
cultural reactionary knee-jerks that intrigued me. But where was all of
this Anti-Ford propaganda BEFORE the election? Who were the OTHER
candidates? If Ford is so BAD, who else was good enough to take his
place? This sort of 'I-won't-do-anything-but-when-something-bad-finally-
happens-man-I-will-get-pissed-and-the-world-will-hear-about-it' attitude
is horribly stereotypically Canadian.
Like him or hate him - this is a clear democratic choice that cannot be
ignored or whined away.
