Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
Update 1: This evening's mayoral debates at Hart House began with a loud tirade by Parkdale's perpetually-running mayoral candidate, Kevin Clarke (above), which resulted in two 15-minute recesses. University of Toronto policy mandates that an event be cancelled before an attendee be forcibly removed, a rule put in place by SAC, the student government [thanks Jen!]. As of 7:27PM, the lights have just been turned on again in the Great Hall as we wait for the debate to begin, at least an hour late. The recesses have forced the discussion moderators to shorten the candidate's speeches significantly, since the whole thing has to end by 8:30.
See the blow-by-blow account after the jump.
Update 2, 7:50 PM: Pitfield and LeDrew have stepped up to their respective podiums. Miller has now stepped up to uproarious applause. LeDrew began by asking, "Are we in better shape than in 2003?" LeDrew stated his support for subway construction. Pitfield believes that the three main issues of this election are "crime, transportation and garbage". The twice-a-month TTC user stated her support for subway construction as well. Miller touted his staff's accomplishments, including hosting the International AIDS Conference.
Update 3: 8:02 PM: The first question focused on crime, especially in regards to black youth. LeDrew supports structural change. Pitfield supports counseling and a "new quality of life plan" that focuses on young mothers and "faith communities". Miller re-stated his "13 neighbourhoods" plan, again to great applause.
The mayoral hopefuls' affordable housing plans were relatively scattered, overly vague and rather unrealistic. Pitfield confusingly plans to build 5,000 affordable housing a year, with 75% sold at market value. She then lamented that a panhandler man in Nathan Phillips Square gets cheques from the city. Miller's accomplishments sounded unconvincing until he urged the room to support SCPI ("skippy").
Update 4: 8:12 PM LeDrew re-stated his position on expanding the Sheppard line and his opposition to the St. Clair ROW. Pitfield, the driver, mentioned her support for articulated buses and decried the Bombardier deal. Miller mentioned Toronto's flawed funding structure and how it makes it impossible to build new subways, but stated his commitment to dedicated surface routes *applause*, university student passes *applause*, and creating jobs in Ontario instead of China *applause*.
When asked about the high cost of tuition, LeDrew was interrupted several times by hecklers, to whom he asked "Are you on the payroll, too?" The question, however, is obviously a provincial one.
Conclusion: The University of Toronto crowd obviously supports Miller, followed by Pitfield and finally LeDrew. A mixture of applauses, whoops and cheers confirmed that Miller is the students' choice, but honestly, nothing genuinely new was said this evening. Millers' opponents are selling themselves short by being so obviously contrarian, especially Pitfield: her flip-flopping is clearly a result of her trying to be the antithesis of David Miller; her record as a councillor does not back many of her current campaign promises. Maybe Kevin Clarke is on to something.
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I considered going but then realized that nothing the least bit enlightening could come from another debate between these three. I already know I'm going to grudgingly vote for Miller, and I've had my fill of pitying Pitfield as she digs deeper and deeper holes for herself.
LeDrew never fails to amuse, however, and his eyebrows are spectacular – although photos really don't do justice to the three-dimensionality of them... they, honest to God, lift off his face. When the debate's over, Kevin, try to get within a metre of two of him to see for yourself; these are eyebrows not to be missed.
I kind of refuse to hold my nose and vote for the lesser evil. I'm looking into the unknowns and semi-knowns.
Clarke looks good. At least he shouts in front of the place I buy Vietnamese subs.
Thanks for sicking with the debate throughout the debacle to hear the debate! I am so glad that many in the UofT community cared enough to come back after the break.
But just a note, the policy to adjourne a meeting rather then have an attendee removed was not put in place by SAC at all. It is 100% a university created policy. Here is the link to the Policy on the Disruption of Meetings
Happy blogging,
Jen Hassum
SAC Chairperson
Can't blame Clarke. I hate these "frontrunner" debates especially when LeDrew has no prior experience as an elected official, is linked to the Chretien years (is the ink even dry on the Bellamy report yet?) and is a tax defaulter. He is basically 2006's version of the Nunziata campaign, except at least Nunziata had been elected to public office before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_LeDrew
Clarke draws hearts all over my street [we're neighbours, at least until recently, i think he was evicted] in chalk, along with his campaign slogans. He is quiet and sober unless he's not; whereupon he dispenses wisdom and gibberish at full volume. Not everything he says makes sense, but some of it is bang on. In other places and in other times, we would accept that our sages and seers weren't always 'nice'; if we are to accept that Kevin Clarke plays the role of jester then we should darn right feel uncomforted by him. Yes, he's loud and crude and unpredictable, and it's a shame that all the work the U of T students did to make that debate happen nearly was for nothing. But we do have crazy homeless people living amongst us, and if we only see them in United Way ads and on street corners, and not in our daily lives in ways that affect us, then we aren't able to really account for or to them.
Nearly a shame that the work was nearly for nothing, which means it wasn't a shame as it wasn't for nothing.
No, that's not quite true. Had they been unable to get the debate back on track, all their efforts would have been for naught. That would be more shameful than the near disaster that occured, but their success does not mean that there wasn't any shame. I just think that the disappointment and frustration the students/organizers felt is worth the headlines Clark[e] has made with this shenanigan. He was rude and probably scared the pants off of some people there, and inconvienced people. He also draws attention to the exclusivity of mainstream political practices by his mere existence as a candidate.
If by "exclusivity of mainstream political practices" you mean our insistence on allowing all sorts of people to run but not giving serious consideration to placing our lives and well-being into the hands of a man who is unable to remain housed, is incoherent and takes a kind gesture from Jane Pitfield as an invitation to sexually humiliate her in front of a crowd, then I guess I see your point, Andrew. My take on this is here: http://eyeweekly.com/election2006/?p=74
I already read yr take. Sure, it's easy to see why you wouldn't invite Kevin Clarke to a mayoral debate. But why not other candidates? What distinguishes some of the other fringe candidates from Clarke? At what point do you declare someone unfit to be admitted to a debate? If they are so obviously unfit for entrance to a debate, then why bother letting them run as mayor? What's the point? You write
"not giving serious consideration to placing our lives and well-being into the hands of a man who is unable to remain housed, is incoherent and takes a kind gesture from Jane Pitfield as an invitation to sexually humiliate her in front of a crowd"
If he's so problematic, then why is he allowed to run in the first place? And if no media is going to cover his campaign [actually, I think you did probably the best job of covering his campaign, so kudos] or other fringe candidates, isn't that a de facto admission that only some candidates are considered decent enough, by some arbitrary set of rules? Isn't it unjust to allow for even the most problematic people to apply to run for elected office if the system of media coverage and debate hosting is set up to impossibly weigh against them?
Basically, my problem is that people with wealth are the only people able to get into office. The economies of scale differ, obviously; but you either possess wealth yourself or you sell your decisions to a political party who will in turn loan you that wealth. I just like pointing out this aspect of capitalist liberal democracies. Snide comments about seeing my point maybe miss it entirely, then: its worth repeating that we don't and have never lived in a democracy. It's an aristocracy with a really good marketing company on retainer.
On review, that's a lot more defensive than it needed to be. I pay a lot more attention to politics than most so I'm more informed, but I still have very little success trying to get information about candidates other than Miller, Pitfield and LeDrew. Sorry if I offended.
No offense taken on my end, and I merely mean to disagree, not piss you off. I suppose snark is a relfex of mine sometimes.
I think I did see your point. I just disagree with it. I don't think running a campaign that draws attention from the media (which is not, by any means, the most important element of getting elected, though it does help) requires wealth. Fundraising, yes. Personal wealth, no. That's an important distinction. It also requires accumulating support through connecting with people and organizations who will work on your behalf. Those are basic skills of politics (often people who display them are good at other things too, things that make them wealthy), and for good reason. A big part of the job of a councillor is to navigate a bureaucracy and build support for ideas by persuading other elected officials, the media and the general public that you have the right plan and you can see it through. So I'm clear: you need those skills both on the campaign trail and after you're elected.
Election campaigns are only partly about ideas, in the same way that any hiring decision is only partly about ideas. Executive-level jobs (in profits, non-profits or governments) require also a demonstrated capacity to excell in bureaucratic structures and inspire and manage a team to accomplish huge tasks, often using creative budget solutions.
None of the so-called fringe candidates have been able to convince me that they are remotely capable of fullfilling the very minimum job requirements of the office of mayor. Rod Muir is a one-issue guy and, lovable as he is, I haven't seen him build the kind of necessary partnerships in all the years he's been hanging around city hall. He's got some ideas and he knows what he's talking about, but as long as I've known him he's run an organization of one.
Glenn Coles has an MBA and claims to have worked with multi-multi billion dollar organizations, but his website looks like it was designed by a high school kid in 1996 (and this from a software consultant) and nothing has happened during the campaign to make me believe he's built an organization.
Being conversant with the issues and having good ideas only get you to the starting gate (or not even). To be considered serious as a candidate, you need to demonstrate either through your resume or your organizational skills (as displayed throughout the campaign) or, ideally, both, that you are capable of doing the job.
Why not just cover them all and let the people decide? Why not just have all 38 candidates at every debate and let the cream rise? A 38-candidate debate that lasted four hours would give each candidate just over six minutes to talk. Which means no one would get to hear anything more than a perfunctory introduction from any of them.
If I tried to cover 38 candidates in the few hundred words per week I have to write an election column ... you get the idea, and I'd never, ever, be able to sleep or see my children either. And no one would read it. Part of my job as a writer and editor is to act as a screen to try to find the important information people will be interested in so that they won't have to weed through the 200-300 emails I get every day to find out what they need to know. That's my job, and you may not like the way I do it, but I don't think I'd do it better if I just decided that every crackpot with a nomination form is worthy of equal time.
That said, I do think an important part of the process is keeping the nominations open to as many people as would like to run. Everyone's entitled to try. And I don't think some unfairness in the system means most people don't have a realistic shot, I think most people will never have the skills to earn a real shot. But they're welcome to try. And hey, Kevin got more ink from me than he would have if he'd been invited to the debate. He got my attention and I tried to represent him accurately. If that helps build a groundswell of support, I'll fear for the sanity of my fellow citizens but, hey, that's democracy.
Anyway, I'm rambling.
I already went too long, but one more thing anyway: you ask, "If they are so obviously unfit for entrance to a debate, then why bother letting them run as mayor?"
The people who decide who is allowed to run for mayor are not the same people who host debates.
The city encourages as many people from as broad a spectrum as possible to run. They do not organize debates or otherwise participate in the campaign.
Verious groups of private people (the board of trade, Dave Meslin, the Student Council of U of T) decide to host events so that their friends/members/whatever can hear from the candidates. Each of the groups hosting debates decides who they want to invite.
Mez wanted everyone. The Hart House folks only wanted the three people they thought had a reasonable shot of winning. I can understand both decisions.
But being left out of a debate hosted by a student group (all 15 of the ones Miller is involved in are run by a different organization and all have different formats and whatnot) is not remotely the same thing as being excluded from the political system, any more than not making the shortlist for a particular job excludes you from the workforce.
Well, I'll just state I disagree with you about the issue of wealth. And my grumbling about privately hosted debates also applies federally; why the Bloc [although they are sometimes refreshing compared to the libs ndp and tories] but not the Green Party? But I'll desist. Points taken. Thanks.
Kevin wrote that nothing new was said at this debate. In fact, it was the first time that David Miller had talked about a U-Pass being part of his platform. This actually has significant consequences. Either he'll have to get the TTC to subsidize the discount or pull a rabbit out of his hat with provincial/federal money.
Along with 1,000 units per year of affordable housing, this is probably going to be one of the toughest promises to make good on.
Rogers 10 has put video clips of 27 candidates online.
http://www.rogerstelevision.com/option.asp?lid=46&g=9798&c=461&i=0
Glenn Coles is not a serious candidate, but after viewing all the clips I'm voting for him on the hope that if he can finish 4th, some attention will be paid to his points - that the city is badly in need of organization.
I note from his website that he lives in Richmond Hill.
Rogers 10 has put video clips of 27 candidates online.
http://www.rogerstelevision.com/option.asp?lid=46&g=9798&c=461&i=0
Glenn Coles is not a serious candidate, but after viewing all the clips I'm voting for him on the hope that if he can finish 4th, some attention will be paid to his points - that the city is badly in need of organization.
I note from his website that he lives in Richmond Hill.