Deputy Mayor Wonders Why He Was Blocked on Twitter by the Chief Planner

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Deputy Mayor Wonders Why He Was Blocked on Twitter by the Chief Planner

Helpful as always, we aid Denzil Minnan-Wong in solving this mystery.

By • Photo by Giordano Ciampini

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This morning, Deputy Mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34, Don Valley East) took to Twitter to ask an urgent question, one that would definitely receive the appropriate attention.

Referring to himself in the third person as the Deputy Mayor, Minnan-Wong mused why the “Madame Chief Planner”—the “Madame” is not part of her official title, it is a sign of the councillor’s courtesy—could possibly deign to block him on Twitter?

At Torontoist, we like both being helpful and solving mysteries, so we thought we would reach back into Minnan-Wong’s tweets to make guesses as to why that may be the case.

Here’s Minnan-Wong response to the chief planner’s support of a strong bus network.

Spoiler: Minnan-Wong would vote for the fare increase as part of an expanded bus network in the 2015 budget.

Here’s Minnan-Wong, a lawyer by trade, questioning Keesmaat’s professional planning credentials.

He even offered an analogy in this tweet exchange, and it came with a bonus criticism of the chief medical officer of health. Efficient!

He has also compared a statement on global warming by the chief planner to a surrealist one-liner.

Minnan-Wong also seems to think the chief planner is leading some kind of war on the suburbs, and is against gardens, and possibly man caves.

He is a #hero for the #suburbs, folks.

In a scrum on the subject, the deputy mayor offered his opinion of the chief planner.

In related news, Minnan-Wong would like to spend almost $500 million extra on the most underused portion of the Gardiner so that cars won’t experience an increased delay of two to three minutes.

He also conceded that he’s blocked people on Twitter, but only ghouls.

Of course, mentioning that just brought out the ghosts, like City Hall press gallery journalist Jonathan Goldsbie.

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Former Globe columnist Siri Agrell wonders why a city councillor blocked her, too.


She does not seem like the haunting type.

In the end, Keesmaat unblocked the councillor for Ward 34.


This might be a good time for someone to introduce Keesmaat to the mute button, where you can ignore someone’s tweets without blocking them.

Of course, there are a few lessons here too. The first is that you probably shouldn’t publicly wonder why you’ve been blocked without considering your own behaviour, and that it too will be scrutinized. Also, if you’re a city councillor you have an obligation to be courteous and professional to City staff. This is necessary in part because the role of City staff is to work impartially to provide expert advice, and because they do not have the same platform or privileges to combat attacks on their integrity like politicians do. And while they may not be able to respond to the efforts of politicians who try to undermine their credibility, they are not obligated to listen to them on Twitter.

Of course, all of this could have been prevented with some more professionalism from the councillor who is now the deputy mayor.

The moral of the story: don’t be a weenie.

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