It’s election time in the city, and in every ward there are exciting candidates, new and old, poised to bring some much-needed energy and excitement to our tired city.
Unfortunately, there are no such candidates running for the top job.
Toronto is faced with many pressing issues: our garbage situation is near critical mass, transit is on life-support, and the waterfront is crying for an identity. City planning is haphazard and reactive, lacking the “big picture” perspective needed to craft a green, efficient, tourist-friendly city.
Much of Toronto’s decline can be traced to a mayor who lacks the energy and willpower to involve the community in the planning process. We’re hard-pressed to find a sense of vision in any of the top three candidates.
Everyone speaks of incumbent David Miller’s potential, but lately he’s always looking tired or irritable. Maybe the burden of leading such a dysfunctional council is proving too much for him. Miller keeps playing the “world-class city” card, but it’s clear that Toronto has a way to go before we can assume that title. A city that’s truly world-class doesn’t have to keep reminding everyone-including itself-of the fact.
Miller may well win re-election and do a fine job in his second term. But it’s frustrating that in a year when a strong challenger had the opportunity to capture the imagination of a city, we had to settle for Jane Pitfield’s vague promises and whiny complaints about the current leadership. Pitfield does have some solid ideas and makes some valid criticisms of Miller’s time in office, but she too easily falls back on stock phrases and loosely defendable claims about violence, trash, and overspending.
Stephen “Who?” LeDrew’s belated candidacy started strangely and never changed. He doesn’t stand a chance due to the lack of buzz around his chaotic campaign-and really, after Jon Stewart’s famous upbraiding of CNN’s Tucker Carlson, it’s been hard to take a grown man in a bow tie seriously.
Election campaigns never bring out the best or brightest in anyone, with most debates sadly descending into insult-trading contests and attempts by the candidates to out-promise each other. There should be more events like last Monday’s “The Political Party,” where Pitfield and Miller answered specific questions from local journalists for an hour apiece, if issues are to be actually discussed.
This campaign needed a principled rallying voice, someone with a vision and a plan that could unite-or at least wake up-the city. Instead we got broom-waving, finger-pointing, and blame-shifting.
With these three stooges to choose from, you might as well vote for Shaun Bruce, the 22-year-old running for mayor as part of a class project at Guelph-Humber. Sure, he may not know how things work politically in the back rooms of city hall. But our current mayor and council do, and that hasn’t helped them actually get much of anything done over the last three years. Isn’t it great that this time we get to enjoy whoever wins for a full four?
