It was almost enough to make you feel sorry for mayoral hopeful Rob Ford — and no one was even asking for drugs: The occasion was yet another candidates’ meeting, but this one was at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the subject was architecture and urban planning.

Needless to say, the poor man was seriously out of his depth. So was George Mammoliti for that matter, but at least he had something to say about the issues, even if it was ridiculous.

The others — George Smitherman, Sarah Thomson, Joe Pantalone and Rocco Rossi — all presented passable arguments Wednesday, though some were better informed than others. Rossi showed he had done his homework when he mentioned New York planning maven Amanda Burden, who gave a talk here several months ago.

Smitherman also demonstrated he has been paying attention in mentioning the need to stop the proposed sport facility the city wants to put in the Lower Don Lands, contrary to years of planning.

Pantalone defended the city’s record, pointing out that the planning process may be long and lugubrious, but that “100 cranes” are hard at work “churning out” new buildings in Toronto.

Thomson made it clear she really, really, wanted Toronto to be more beautiful. She thought that might be accomplished by introducing more ethnic architecture to the city, though she didn’t explain what exactly that would mean.

Mammoliti suggested getting rid of all city planners and lawyers, and letting the private sector fill the gap. No surprise, the second part — about lawyers — drew a stronger response than the first.

But as for sad-sack Ford, the evening was a disaster, a display of ignorance so deep it threatened to swallow the debate like some giant intellectual sinkhole; In the end, the audience could only laugh, albeit nervously. Given his showing in recent polls, one can only conclude that suburban anger has reached the point where it has turned people’s brains to mush. The fact that Ford wears his lack of knowledge as a badge of honour further underlines the sheer nihilism of his campaign.

There was also much discussion about Toronto’s chief planner, and the fact that in the current civic organization, he or she reports to an assistant city manager. The serious contenders all acknowledged the critical importance of planning and pledged to make changes.

“Planning is probably the foremost task that city hall has to do,” Rossi declared. The chief planner, he continued, should “report directly to the mayor.”

“Do we seek greatness or do we seek mediocrity?” he asked. “Every opportunity is an opportunity for great design.”

Smitherman pledged “to elevate planning and transition it from reactive to proactive.” He also wants “to eliminate some of the horse-trading” that goes on at city hall. And, he rightly pointed out, the Ontario Municipal Board does little more than “create face-cover for councillors.”

“We need to have a major debate about how we do planning in Toronto,” Pantalone said. “An elephant looks different depending on where you grab it.”

That was the best line of the night, even though no one was sure quite what it meant, or how it related to planning.

Even Mammoliti recognized that getting a topnotch chief planner will be difficult once Gary Wright retires in January. “Good people won’t want to work with this system,” he admitted. No doubt about that, either.

But, of course, we’ve heard it all before. As has been observed many times, the fact remains that Toronto doesn’t control its own destiny. That privilege belongs to the province, which wasn’t on the agenda Wednesday night.

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Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca