City Council — August 2013
August 26, 2013
30 posts
Pasternak wants to know if the clerk thinks the U.S. Senate is a more important political body than Toronto City Council. Tough one.
I will not consider an appointment to council representing ward 3. Don't even ask me. I got too much stuff to do.
My preferred Ward 3 appointment candidate? Well, that's obvious. https://imgur.com/oWUiscl
Mayor Ford has questions to staff. He asks the clerk if there's ever been an appointment at the provincial or federal level.
Doug Ford's handwritten post-it note takes 60% of the vote in Ward 3 by-election. Promises to stick to Ford agenda.
Mayor is speaking. He has a motion asking that council support a byelection. He also has a video from his community consultation meeting!
Ford says he "fully supports" a byelection. Wants to represent the people of Ward 3. Cites council policy and that straw poll he did.
Davis asks Ford if he'll campaign in Ward 3. Ford says "it's hard for me to say right now" whether he'll be campaigning.
Ford says he doesn't see why there's a problem if he gets involved in the byelection to support someone "like-minded" to him.
"Let's call a spade a spade," says Ford. "The left wants to keep me off the campaign trail." "You can't stop me from campaigning," he adds.
Councillor Crisanti suggests that the cost of the byelection is irrelevant because an elected candidate could save the city millions.
Shiner is my hero and calls the questions on this. Councillors will decide now whether to cut off debate and just vote on this.
Motion to end debate fails 15-17. Consarnit. Here's the vote: http://t.co/N6wBc3drfo
Firs vote is on whether to have a byelection. It fails 14-19. The price of democracy. http://t.co/cYHQvUhIkj
.@gordperks votes with Ford, in favour of a byelection. That adds 50 percentage points to his Ford Nation score.
On CP24, Doug Ford says council will appoint a "left-leaning, tax-and-spend councillor." They almost certainly will not.
Doug Ford also suggests that there will be back room deals and lobbying and special interest groups. And ghosts and goblins, I guess.
Doug Ford says his brother was elected with the largest majority in Canada history. A lot of things about that sentence aren't true.
For what's it worth, council policy already sets precedent that sometimes democracy get delayed by timing of the vacancy.
i.e. we've established that, given a short enough timeline between vacancy and next general election, appointment is the thing to do.
So we're quibbling with what "short enough timeline" means. But I'm not sure the sanctity of democracy and such should really factor in.
That said, hey, standing against a byelection because that's what Ford wanted is not really a defensible position.
Ford says he "knows he did the right thing." Mayor also says there will be "back room deals" arising from appointment process.
Ford: "We have to start listening to what taxpayers' want in this city, and this council does not do that." Pretty good line.
For the record, per council scorecard. For byelection: 11 conservatives, 3 lefties. Against: 10 lefties, 5 centrists, 4 conservatives.
On CP24, Norm Kelly wisely points out that the relevant byelection vote was the 19-14 result, not the 22-11 vote that followed.
(Had councillors not voted in favour of appointment after voting against having a byelection, the universe would have imploded.)