The South Bayview Bulldog

It is entirely reasonable for people to just hate the idea. Why permit a change of name for a place that honours a civic treasure. The Toronto Maple Leafs, just to sell cars. But the public plaza located outside of the Air Canada Centre in downtown Toronto will be renamed after the automobile company anyway, it seems. Unless, somehow, it begins to seem unreasonable to the boys in Detroit. 

It is certainly among the most unique and nastiest campaign tricks ever seen in Toronto politics. Doug Ford has unveiled an attack on rival John Tory as a man who is unfit to be mayor because he was born with a silver spoon his mouth. Yes, Tory is running for mayor without having served on council, but that will not be the bone that plugs the stomach of Ford Nation. No.  Rather it is the view of Tory as a spoiled rich kid who has never had to work for anything in his life. Someone who has been parachuted into job after job in a way that none of them could ever experience. It is a picture that has been colour-adjusted and enlarged to excite envy and resentment. It’s a terribly twisted picture too but there can be no denying Mr. Tory’s privileged background nor the opportunities he has had in life. Today Mr. Ford planted that class warfare seed and then gave voters a thin excuse to believe that Tory doesn’t know how the City works. John Tory seems to be playing it cool but his reaction to this afternoon’s onslaught has been well sprinkled with the word bully. 

Those who want to get immersed in what happened at the rowdy mayoral debate last night can sample the opinion of writers below.  It was apparently a brutal affair in which Ford Nation attendees screamed at Olivia Chow to  go back to China (Christie Blatchford) and in which Rob Ford and John Tory hurled a stunning series of insults at each other (Marcus Gee). Ford may have been most effective — although typically unpleasant — as he numbered off the council votes in which he and his brother had engineered lop-sided votes to accomplish their agenda. This in response to Tory’s claim that they could not achieve consensus. Olivia Chow ground away at her somewhat narrow and possibly accurate concern that Tory’s showpiece Smart Track plan will require tunnelling in the Weston area. Some say Tory was not ready for the ferocity of the debate. This is not a serious criticism if he can make voters believe that he will be an effective protector of their pocketbooks. That is the Ford cache to debunk. Tory’s dilemma is to make it clear he will be tough without frightening people. Google leads on debate     

Constant reader Helen Godfrey, protector and guardian of South Bayview trees, has reminded us that this is National Tree Day. Every day is a good one to celebrate our trees. Here’s a website that tells more.