Sherbourne Common — the sort of federally supported project the Fords want to scuttle. (Waterfront Toronto)
Citizens of Ford Nation, rejoice! Our borders have expanded! We now have a conservative city hall, a conservative federal majority – with seven Tories elected in Toronto itself – and a provincial election around the corner that might give us the trifecta. We’re taking this thing coast-to-coast!
From all of this, the observer might come to one of two conclusions: 1) Hooray! We’re in like Flynn! or 2) We’re doomed.
Team Doom has been having a good time of it lately. Not only has the Ford administration encountered little effective resistance to its agenda so far, the prospect of every level of government lining up behind it makes it seem more of a juggernaut than ever. These are good times to be blue, and blue times to be orange or red. Stephen Harper is making the requisite post-election noises about being moderate. Just remember: It’s all well and good until they bring in Don Cherry to read the throne speech.
But Team In Like Flynn – cheered by the rightfully chuffed Ford brothers – might be overstating its case as well. For one thing, there’s no guarantee that the Fords’ brand of conservatism will mesh with the Conservatives’ in the long run. For another, while the Fords seem poised to bring home the bacon, the fact is that Toronto needs more than just pork.
“It’s always nice to be able to pick up the phone and have a direct line to Ottawa,” Doug Ford, the Etobicoke councillor and mayor’s brother, told reporters after the election. It seemed he had subways on the brain. Their pet project, the Sheppard line, remains a pie-in-the-ground idea without real funding; plans to have the private sector pay for it haven’t dampened their enthusiasm for federal money.
It’s true that the city is well-positioned to extract help for the occasional megaproject. Toronto proper once again has a voice in the federal government, especially a federal government that can’t take its support here for granted. Friends in high places can’t hurt. Jim Flaherty, a GTA MP and the most recent finance minister, is a family friend of the Fords, having served with their father under Mike Harris. It’s likely that the Tories, having gained ground in the GTA, will try to consolidate their gains by naming more cabinet ministers from the area.
(The good news is that influence goes both ways. A vocal urban caucus will broaden the Tories’ tent. There are whispers – just whispers – that not all the Red Tories died out in the Tory Blight of the 1990’s. They’re out there somewhere.)
On the flip side, it’s easy to oversell the benefits of party allegiance, especially at the federal level. It’s not like the Tories have entirely spurned Toronto in the last five years. Notwithstanding their G20 generosity to local fence-building and bystander-kettling industries, federal money for transit and waterfront redevelopment has materialized – and for David Miller, no less. Conversely, with all levels of government looking some ghastly shade of broke, it’s not like the Tories can let unlimited dollars flow to reward their friends.
Of course, friendship means even less in politics than it does on Facebook. As much as they identify themselves as Conservatives, the Fords only have so much in common with their establishment counterparts. If the federal Tories have learned the restraint required to run the country without major calamity (if not a lack of smaller ones), the Fords are showmen and crowd-pleasers who’ve been taking a public delight at playing bulls in the china shop. They’re still at the stage in their administration where the public rewards them for being brash and wacky.
This won’t last forever. Nor is it just angry liberals who might object. Some of the projects the Fords want to scuttle, like the waterfront redevelopment, involve both dollars and political capital from the federal Tories. (Last fall, Jim Flaherty was on-hand for the opening of Sherbourne Common, David Miller’s landmark waterfront park.)
A major budget conflagration is smouldering; the Fords have stoked it by scrapping unpopular taxes. If things get gory in the next couple of years – and that appears to be the plan – the Fords could become a political headache for Tories elsewhere. The larger Conservative family might have an interest in prevailing on their local cousins to take a more considered approach.
But that’s all Conservative psychodrama. The bigger problem here is that what City Hall says it wants isn’t what City Hall needs. Giving the Fords a dial-a-subway phone line is all well and good, but the city needs better than one-off rewards. Toronto needs the same thing that all Canadian cities need: A sustainable source of revenue that can help fix crumbling infrastructure and plug structural deficits, and a shot at retaining more of the tax revenue that Ottawa hoovers up.
What Toronto needs is a federal government that understands that Canadians are an urban people who need a national urban strategy. Showing up at opportune moments with a large burlap sack of cash is good politics, but lousy policy. It leads to planning-by-pork, sending transit lines, megaprojects and untold funds shooting off to precincts where nobody but the local honourable member wants them.
If the Fords can convince Ottawa to give this city – and maybe all cities – the income tools they need to escape this cycle, then we’ll count ourselves lucky. But we’ve yet to see where the Ford Nation fits into this realigned Canada. If it holds together, the Ford Nation could help steer the country. But if it goes sour, it might wind up as just another distinct society. Federalism is a tricky thing.
