The press gathered in Nathan Phillips Square for the first media availability on John Tory’s first triumphant day after the election. The podium-and-speaker setup next to the reflecting pool framed City Hall in the background, a stage indicating impressive preparation. But fate threatened to intervene: Dark clouds rolled overhead and, as the Mayor Elect began to speak, sirens briefly drowned out his voice. He went on, discussing transition plans. Then, just as Tory broached the subject of the challenges of unifying the city, it began to rain.

It was all a handy, perhaps too-obvious metaphor for what lies ahead as Tory assumes office as Toronto’s 65th mayor. There were three core messages in his campaign: first, to offer moderation, civility and competence, in sharp contrast to Mayor Rob Ford’s conduct; second, his SmartTrack transit plan; and third, stressed in his victory speech, to unify a city deeply divided, under the banner of One Toronto.

That last may be the toughest, its challenges illustrated in vote-distribution maps that show how Tory was elected. It looks like an upside-down capital “T”—Tory and his progressive competitor Olivia Chow swept the south end of the city and the affluent strip that runs the length of the centre from the lake through North York. It mirrors, remarkably, the subway map, and also the now well-known Three Cities Within Toronto map that shows areas of the city where average incomes have been increasing for the past 15 years.

Doug Ford placed first in the northeast and northwest, his support growing as you move out to the corners. He won a solid majority in the top corner of Scarborough, and more than two-thirds in the wards clustered in the outside corner of Etobicoke.

We’ve grown used to this story, for it has dominated the Rob Ford years: People in areas where cars might be considered a necessity — sometimes an unaffordable one for residents — supporting the car-centric Ford agenda; those farthest from subway lines rejecting affordable transit in the form of LRT. People in some of the poorest areas of the city — the ones most dramatically becoming poorer — voting for the Ford promise of tax cuts. Those in the most isolated, poorly served neighbourhoods voting for the smaller-government (even anti-government) Ford brothers. These are the neighbourhoods with the highest percentage of new immigrants and racialized residents.

This “divided city” narrative has been used as a club by the Ford brothers, who ramped up cars-versus-bikes, regular-folks-versus-downtown-elites rhetoric, who boiled down complex transit planning to a caricature in which those who already “have subways” conspire to deprive the less fortunate of attaining them.

Many have observed that the disadvantages facing the outer corners of the city are difficult problems to solve —embedded in issues such as transit construction and how traffic planning makes certain travel choices possible or attractive; the repair backlog in social housing and the unaffordability of housing in general; in planning choices that make a neighbourhood an an unwalkable and sparsely populated ocean of parking lots; in the accessibility of community centres and other services, and the frequency of bus service. And we have observed that the Fords have voted almost universally against any attempt to improve those things.

Instead they sold snake oil packaged in a bottle of spite: personal phone calls returned instead of a better repair budget, an embrace of alienation instead of an attempt to resolve it, a promise to stick it to those who are better off instead of a promise to make things better for those suffering.

It’s a serum you might buy if you did not believe in the efficacy of the cures proffered by experts — if your lived experience has taught you that government services don’t work well for people like you, that cars are the only way to get around and traffic is the key problem, that the city keeps getting better for other people even as you seem to continue paying more in taxes.

Here’s an observation about the snake-oil metaphor: Those who buy it may be suffering from real symptoms that need treating. And if the attempt to convince them they have bought a false cure by discrediting the huckster who sold them the medicine fails to convince them, perhaps actually treating their symptoms might win them over.

One theory that progressives and downtowners in Toronto have about disadvantaged people is that they are too uninformed to understand that the Ford brothers propose nothing to solve those systemic problems. My own theory is that they do not believe the systemic problems can be solved, or that they can trust the progressives or academics or Bay Streeters to solve them.

So this is the challenge facing John Tory as he seeks to unify the city. To win over those who voted against him — those who voted to continue the divisiveness of that has characterized the Ford years — he needs to show meaningful progress on addressing problems they do not believe he can address. Coincidentally, the suspicion that he won’t try to meaningfully address those problems is also held by the other group of people who voted against him, those who supported Chow.

To his credit, as it began to rain on him in Nathan Phillips Square and an aide held an umbrella over his head, Tory acknowledged these challenges directly, raising the issue of the electoral map and speaking of the “isolation” felt by many. He reached out to his right and left, offering to give roles in his administration to his main electoral opponents. Brandishing three binders of briefing materials, he spoke of the imposing size of the task that lies ahead. He remained for several questions that his advisors kept calling out would be the last he’d take. He emphasized his desire to work with councillors from across the city.

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It was one press conference, but Tory showed his strategy for addressing the real divisions that have made our politics an unproductive screaming match for years. He acknowledged the obstacles directly rather than sweep them aside or try to exploit them, and he attempted to make peace with those who opposed him. Rather than run from the press, he stayed to take more questions. Rather than let the rain scare him away, he brought an umbrella.

The differences from his predecessor — whom he promised to work with — were obvious. It was a hopeful beginning. He’ll need to build on it, because if he really aims to deliver on his promise of One Toronto, the clouds only get darker from here.

Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca . Follow: @thekeenanwire

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