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But that doesn’t matter and it shouldn’t matter. Because what Tory achieved this week is one of the single greatest financial contributions to Toronto’s history ever, and every Torontonian should be proud of this progress. Yet I hear only crickets chirping.

I can only imagine how different things would have been if certain other candidates had brought home this treasure chest. There would have been parades, parties and likely a golden statue erected in South Etobicoke. Or worse, in Nathan Phillips Square. But because Tory did it, and the other candidates did not, there is silence at best and scorn at worst, from both the politicians and their respective media lapdogs.

And yes, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s blatant exercise in vote-buying is almost breathtaking it its clumsy audacity. That point has not escaped me.

So why is it that partisan politics must strip people of the humanity that makes them part of the community? If these people — mayoral candidates, city councillors and media talking heads — truly cared about this city, they should be happy when something good happens to it regardless who started it. Instead they act like the envious wedding guest whose gift was not as beautiful as that brought by another. This is cultural self-sabotage and it does not become us.

We, of course, cannot hold a candle to how it is done in the U.S., where an entire country is routinely filibustered and shut down in the name of petty, partisan hatred; where the slaying of innocent civilians is interpreted along party lines, and where progress is rejected when achieved by “the other guy.”