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Gurney

Over the weekend I was reading an article about Ontario’s terrible financial situation, with our credit outlook having recently been downgraded. The article, though, took the angle that this bad economic news was actually good news for the McGuinty Liberals, since they could use it as a hammer against those (including some in their own party) who would get weak-kneed at the thought of service cuts. Meanwhile, over in BizarroLand (aka Ford Nation) the city has a crippling, devastating fiscal crisis, and the Mayor insists every last person he bumps into tells him, verbatim, “Stay the course” as he looks for ways to cut spending. Oh, and hey, let’s also chop the land transfer tax. I’ve got nothing against lower taxes and small government (i.e.: less service). In fact, it’s music to my ears. But it remains inexplicable to me that the Mayor thinks he can continue to warn about all the horrible things that will happen to Toronto unless he gets our fiscal house in order, and hey, here’s a big tax cut. It’s incredibly bizarre. Ontario needs ratings agencies to drum up its doom and gloom; Mayor Ford does it himself. And then he undercuts his own message.

Goldsbie Rob Ford, as an individual and as a politician, has never excelled at drawing connections, even between things that are directly and unambiguously connected, such as revenues and taxes. This is neither new nor surprising (though certainly remains depressing); after several years of studying the fellow, he ceases to be a fascinating character. What I still find interesting and disappointing, however, are those people who have afforded him a benefit of the doubt that he never earned (and, no, lying his way to an election victory doesn’t count). In a discussion on Josh Matlow’s radio show last week (of which I was also a part), proud lefty Councillor Paula Fletcher stated that she regretted voting to eliminate the vehicle tax, “because I believed the Mayor when he said we don’t have to cut anything, this is a tax that we can do without.” I wanted to ask her what, in the seven years she had served on Council with Ford, had led her to believe he had any idea he knew what he was talking about in this regard. And I would like to ask you two: Is a 2.5% property tax increase anything other than an arbitrary figure pulled out of Ford’s you-know?