The ArtsVote mayoral debate revealed a Doug Ford of much more subdued behaviour Monday afternoon at the TIFF Light Box. It was a surprise to see Mr. Ford there much less hear his sobre support for this motherhood issue. In fact, no one is against the arts per se. The only issue is how much public money will be spent and where. In any case, the rather boisterous host of the debate, Damian Abraham, was more reminiscent of Ford Nation than anyone else in attendance. From reading BlogTO we know he is the lead vocalist of a group whose name can’t be printed in stuffy publications like The South Bayview Bulldog. Its vulgar shock schtick is to be found in BlogTO however. Proof again you can say anything in polite company as long you claim its the name of a musical group. The candidates included more than the TCF (Tory, Chow, Ford) bunch. Pleasant outliers Ari Goldkind and teen-wonder Morgan Baskin, a woman mature beyond her years, were also there. One of our favorite Leaside people, Rudy Limeback was present and said the following. “It was the most civil debate so far this year. Even Dougie was on his best behaviour. Tory tried hard, didn’t register. Olivia lost a lot of points when in her summation she whipped out a napkin with Tory’s transit plan sketched out on it, showing the mistakes. Ari made many points that scored well with the audience. Morgan, in my opinion, had the best performance.” You can see that embarrassing ploy by Ms. Chow at 1.28 on the tape — Ed. ArtsVote is a volunteer coalition of non-partisan artists, arts workers. The YouTube video below catches the flavour of the event.
