Ford is enabling Mayor John Tory’s anti-democratic ambitions

By handing Tory unprecedented and unprincipled power, Ford has transformed the mayor into an unstoppable strongman and revealed himself as unwise and weak.

Thestar.com
Nov. 28, 2022
Martin Regg Cohn
OPINION

Democracy is coming undone in Ontario.

Yet this isn’t just another Doug Ford power grab. The premier has done many thoughtless things in power, but this time he’s not acting alone.

Tempting as it is to demonize him, Ford is merely doing the devil’s work -- and the devil is in the sordid details dictated to him from city hall. Today, he’s not as much a dictator as an enabler for Mayor John Tory’s anti-democratic ambitions.

By handing him unprecedented and unprincipled power, Ford has transformed Tory from a merely strong mayor into a suddenly unstoppable strongman. By doing Tory’s bidding and abiding by his outlandish demands, Ford has shown himself to be not just astonishingly unwise but surprisingly weak.

In the normal course of democracy, a mayor, premier, prime minister, president or potentate must earn the votes of a majority of legislators to legislate. Representative democracy is not a one-man band, a one-woman act or a one-person show.

Except in Toronto, Ontario.

Here, the tag team of Tory and Ford has joined hands to overreach -- and undercount.

On designated issues that fit Ford’s development agenda, Tory can henceforth claim victory with only one-third of council’s votes: eight to 17.

That means if Tory loses the vote, he still wins the vote: Heads I win, tails you lose.

That wouldn’t count in a casino, but it’s how council will tabulate votes in Toronto. It is a no-lose proposition for these two politicians in power, but an incalculable loss for democracy.

It is an inversion of majority rule. And a perversion of the political process.

Where did Tory and Ford come up with this one-third threshold to carry the day? Certainly not at Queen’s Park, where Ford could never presume to win a legislative vote with a minority of legislators.

Why even bother with the arbitrary requirement of eight votes for Tory to prevail? Might as well streamline the process by adopting one-strongman, one-mayor rule as a show of streamlined strength -- and disband council entirely.

Who fathomed that after winning three democratic elections the mayor would be dissatisfied with his massive mandate and thirst for still more power? Who imagined that Tory could persuade Ford -- the erstwhile political rival he humiliated in the 2014 mayoral election -- to do as he demanded?

To be sure, a savvier premier might have sat back, puffed on his pipe, reflected on democratic principles, pondered public sentiment, and pushed back. Bill Davis would never have acquiesced to such chutzpah nor acceded to such hubris when Tory worked as a young political aide for the late Progressive Conservative premier decades ago.

Yet all these years later, older and unwiser, Tory has a tin ear.

“I think that people do trust me,” he says with unintended irony, vowing never to abuse his regal authority.

But if Tory so thoughtlessly thinks himself trustworthy, does he seriously believe that all who have become before him, and all who will come after him, merit similar confidence? Would he have supported his predecessor as mayor, the late Rob Ford, wielding such power as has been handed over by his brother the premier?

It’s worth noting that Tory’s other predecessors have publicly denounced this outlandish template for minority rule, tailored for Toronto and Ottawa but intended for other big cities in years to come. Ottawa’s newly-elected mayor has publicly foresworn these illegitimate powers, with good reason.

Municipal politics has always been the weak link of our democracy. Voter turnout is low and political transgressions are high.

Incumbent turnover is rare and temptations are recurring. It is hard to count on councillors who are captive of aggressive developers or cowed by NIMBY obstructionists.

But there are no shortcuts to democracy, just blind alleys that lure us into the darkness of dictatorship. Representative democracy can be cumbersome, but it cannot be reconfigured to suit a single politician pushing his single issue with righteous impatience and wrong-headed impetuousness.

A strange symbiosis has taken hold of Tory and Ford, each drawing strength from the other, causing them both to lose their bearings. Yet it is not too late for them to come together to repair the damage by repealing these perilous measures.

The premier has won two elections, thanks to the power of voters. That’s our democracy.

He has overruled Charter rights thanks to the “notwithstanding clause.” That’s our constitution, (however controversial).

No premier, however, has ever dared to rewrite the rules of democracy. That’s not our history.

Today, the mayor has created an existential democracy crisis our city, thanks to his partner in the premier’s office. That must not be our future.

Tory has authored and owned this from the first. He must now disown and denounce it, so that Ford might finally renounce it when he finds no takers.