TBH I wish Soknacki had stood a snowballs chance in the hell of city hall such that Olivia Chow could remain in the HoC.
But that ain’t happening, so here’s hoping Tory will Pull a Tory & Olivia will become the Mayor!
Olivia Chow: She’s not a Ford.
She’s also the widow of Jack Layton.
So, who will pay for her brave new world? She promises to cancel programs, and keep the budgeted funding for her own pet projects. She is already talking about new, regressive taxes. When everyone with any sense has decamped for Oakville, you may find that the remaining barista’s wages are insufficient to fund the glorious workers paradise she imagines. What then?
If you are going to join the conversation, maybe you could actually add something to it.
Instead of “She promised to cancel programs and keep budgeted funding for her own pet projects.” Try, “She promised to cancel programs X and Y which I think are important and is keeping programs Z and W which are less important.”
Instead of “regressive taxes” say which tax she is proposing and why you don’t think it is a good idea.
“Who will pay for it?” = “Which rich people will give us permission?” and I really don’t care about getting permission from our plutocrats. There are people ready to do work and work that needs to be done. If it is impossible to put those two things together in the existing system then we need a revolution.
Do we need yet another audit showing Torontonians are actually paying less tax than one would expect of a city our size?
Governments collect taxes to pay for commonly-used services. That’s how it works. It’s not socialism for it to work that way – the ancient Romans did it, and they were no socialists.
You don’t judge a government by how much tax it collects – it will never be so far out of whack as to affect the housing prices upon which property taxes depend. You judge it by how much bang you’re getting with your taxed bucks. There are lots of cities with higher taxes than Toronto’s whose citizens can still afford their fancy coffees or however you judge your standard of living.
Your remark about “worker’s paradise” just shows you don’t know the difference between socialists and social democrats. Nor between federal and municipal politics, apparently.
Huh. Upon checking the Wiki for who Jack Layton was, I found this rather impressive article about his funeral.
You know how when someone dies everyone suddenly thinks they were the best guy ever? People actually liked Jack Layton a lot before he died. Despite the fact that his party was never the winning party in a federal election, he consistently pulled in the highest approval ratings as a leader. In 2011 he had a 50% approval rating while the actual Prime Minister (who went on to win a majority government) had 33%.
In the months after he died he was pretty much the patron saint of Canada.
Yep, he was cool.
Even the criticism of him was to me unintended praise. Yes, he could talk with big “C” Conservatives, Reformers even, about the issues & politics of the day, respectfully, all the while not budging an inch on his opposition to the policy they put forth. That’s what he was supposed to do dammit.
Hell of a fundraiser too & his warmth & personable nature was not in any way an act.
He would have been a great Prime Minister & Canada would have been put back on track.
And he didn’t even have much hair to speak of or a huge legacy behind him, he was just a really good public servant.
sigh
Really hoping that Doug Ford and John Tory split the “right” vote and Chow rides to victory on an electrified gravy free train of justice.
She hasn’t run a terribly impressive campaign, but John Tory has a proven track record of losing every election he gets near, and Doug Ford has those creepy, creepy shark eyes.
I think if Olivia had had Soknacki’s campaign team instead of Warren Kinsella, there’s a good chance she’d be polling out front now instead of third.
I just don’t see Tory losing this one, frankly. The main reason he lost to McGuinty back in the day (imo) was his stand on faith-based schools. That completely screwed him. I don’t see an issue like that coming up before this election happens. And there’s no David Miller running this time around. Unless Doug Ford suddenly proves to be WAY more charismatic than he has ever been in the past (he’s just like Rob, minus the “everyman” likability factor), I can’t see him pulling enough votes away from Tory for Chow to get back into it. I don’t really have a horse in this race, seeing as I live in Oakville, but I still find it pretty interesting to follow from afar.
Edited to add: Tory’s loss in 2003 to Miller wasn’t a huge surprise. But Olivia Chow doesn’t have nearly the charisma that David Miller had. And sadly, that sways a hell of a lot of voters.
You are actually 100% right, but there aren’t enough scare quotes in the world to make the word “everyman” go down easy in reference to Rob Ford. Reality weeps.
That was less scare quotes and more “he likes to call himself an everyman but there is no man that is like him” 
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