politics
Marg Princess Warriors Storm City Hall
Marg look-alikes gathered at City Hall yesterday to teach Rob Ford a few things about manners, and eat a cookie or two.
Marg Princess Warriors on guard at City Hall.
Brandishing a homemade tin foil sword, Lexy Cameron stood in front of City Hall wearing a homemade red bustier and skirt. When asked what her superpower was, she bellowed “Persuasion!”
Cameron was one of a number of women dressed as Marg Delahunty, Princess Warrior—the character sometimes portrayed by comedian Mary Walsh on CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The costumed women assembled at noon on Monday to protest Mayor Rob Ford’s “bad manners” (i.e. his decision to call 911 on a CBC crew that tried to interview him at his home last Monday, led by Walsh, who was in character as Delahunty).
Grabbing a chocolate vegan cookie from a fellow Marg who introduced herself as Java Mama, Cameron expressed her disappointment with the Ford administration. “I wish he would go about [cuts to city services] with some compassion and common sense and really cut the gravy, if that’s what he intended to do.”
Organizer Gayle Hurmuses expressed surprise at the interest in her initiative (246 people said they’d attend on Facebook, though in reality approximately 15 Margs showed up). She took no pains to hide her feelings about Ford. “Mayor Ford is what my father would have described as an insufferable prat,” said Hurmuses, dressed in a Marg apron of her own creation. “He has made us an embarrassment internationally. Keith Olbermann just declared him the worst person in the world last week. And it’s not the kind of attention that I’ve grown accustomed to Toronto being known for.”
"Leonard Cohen" and organizer Gayle Hurmuses show off their Marg-inspired cookies.
Java Mama called Ford’s decision to call 911 “an abuse of power” and defended Marg’s actions. “I don’t think that she did anything out of the ordinary,” she said, clutching a bat covered in STOP FORD pins. “He drew attention to it by his reaction.”
“I’m concerned with public apathy,” she continued. “That people will feel helpless and that they’ll step back and watch their city change drastically and there won’t be any way to reclaim it.”
After milling about outside City Hall, the Margs and their entourage moved to the City Hall lobby to pose for photos with Farley Mowat and Leonard Cohen look-alikes (in reference to Ford’s supposed ignorance of major Canadian cultural figures).
Java Mama and her beagle.
The guy dressed as Cohen, in particular, waxed poetic about his reason for attending. He cited Delahunty and Ford’s run-in as symbolic of the character of Ford. “It showed he lacks a sense of humour, he lacks a sense of proportion, he’s out of touch with the culture in a broader way,” he said. “Those qualities might be merely sad in a private citizen but in somebody who is ostensibly leading a vibrant, cultured, variegated city like this they’re not only embarrassing, they’re harmful.”
What remains to be seen is whether the hoopla surrounding the Marg/Ford run-in obscures or draws attention to the Ford administration’s desire to implement major cuts to City services. Attention to this type of behaviour (Ford has been guilty of worse reactions) could, for the mayor, be a welcome distraction.
Photos by Bronwyn Kienapple/Torontoist.