Tory wins, Mammoliti out, little changes -- Toronto's election brings neo-liberal continuity

After the drama of Doug Ford's undemocratic downsizing of Toronto City Council mid-election, the new, smaller results represent neo-liberal continuity. Very little of any fundamental significance has changed.

John Tory won a landslide victory over his main opponent, Jennifer Keesmaat, which is unsurprising given that there was almost nothing that separated them. Disappointingly, neo-fascist candidate Faith Goldy garnered more votes than leftist candidate Saron Gebresellassi, though neither broke 3.5% of the vote.

Meanwhile, council races were a mixed bag.

Michael Ford's result in Ward 1 has to have been uncomfortably close for his uncle given all the political resources he invested in it. A loss would have been politically catastrophic for him though it did not happen. Ford beat another reactionary Vincent Crisanti by almost eight percent of the vote.

In a silver lining Giorgio Mammoliti, who ran a disgraceful, dog-whistle campaign and who has been a disruptive far right presence on council for all too long, went down to a richly deserved defeat. He lost to Anthony Perruzza by nearly 12 points. This was, at least, a minor setback for Ford style bombastic stupidity at City Hall.

Many of council's "progressive" establishment "heavyweights" have been returned for what that is worth.  Family heritage crew Mike Layton and Joe Cressy are still there, as are centrists like Kristyn Wong-Tam. Gord Perks won easily in Ward 4 which is a positive given that he is likely the sole Councillor that can honestly be described as a leftist. Labour Council endorsed (surprise, surprise) Paula Fletcher defeated fellow progressive Mary Fragedakis whose personal connections were perhaps not quite as close.

In a fascinating example of the paucity of politics now, Josh Matlow -- a liberal notable largely for his fierce and correct resistance to Tory's inane Scarborough subway plans -- handily defeated the supposed New Democrat Joe Mihevc in Ward 12 by over 10 points. Mihevc might be remembered by The Left Chapter readers for his relentless nonsense about alleged TTC fare evasion and his musings on making sure kids get on the Presto train. He also, in what was a truly cynical and telling move, asked for John Tory's endorsement and received it. It likely, and deservedly, did more harm than good.

Deeply ironically Labour Council endorsed Jennifer Keesmaat ganged up with John Tory to back Brad Bradford over Labour Council endorsed former NDP MP Matthew Kellway in Ward 19. Bradford won. Sadly, I doubt this will cause the Labour Council to reflect on its pattern of often terrible, short-sighted decisions.

Overall, despite the hyperbole and the Ford machinations, the results indicate continuity. They do not appear to show any shift significantly to the right or ideologically otherwise at all. In fact, only 12 of 25 candidates endorsed by Doug Ford's de facto official organ the Toronto Sun won. The composition and balance of power between what passes as a left, the centrists and the right remains largely the same.

The lack of an organized socialist civic movement, though, is as glaring as its consequences are telling.

The council also continues to lack anything remotely like the diversity of the city it supposedly represents.

With this council we can anticipate little serious or significant resistance to the Ford provincial agenda municipally. When understood within the broader politics of disillusion in Ontario, it is clear that any fightback will have to be organized outside of and in spite of existing mainstream electoral channels.

See also: Ontario’s 2018 Election: Pessimism Today, Strategic Organizing Tomorrow

Toronto mayoral contest off to dispiriting start

By Nathaniel Laxer

The final day for mayoral nominations has passed, and, for all intents and purposes, we can say that the election has begun. So who are the candidates?

Well for starters, there is the incumbent: failed mayoral candidate, turned failed candidate for Premier, turned Mayor of Toronto, John Tory, whose fairly uninteresting rise to power in the 2014 election has resulted in a fairly uninteresting and stagnant tenure. This has been characterized by failures -- such as the joke of a transit plan that was SmartTrack -- and really not much else.

With Tory being pretty mediocre, who are the other choices? There is former Toronto chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat, who’s big “bold” ”policy” pledge so far to solve Toronto’s ill’s is to tweet that Toronto should somehow separate into its own province. What area would this province encompass? Is it just Toronto or the entire GTA? How would this be possible constitutionally? And how will this actually accomplish anything and genuinely help Torontonians with the issues of transit, housing prices and poverty?

Who knows? If Jennifer Keesmaat does we have yet to see it with her leading point for the idea being “why shouldn’t a city of 2.8 million have self governance?”. Using this same logic, there would be 20 new American states, ranging from New York to Orlando.

Needless to say, a "province of Toronto" would not actually solve systemic issues in this city. Who is to even say this new province would have progressive politics, given that this is the same city that elected Rob Ford only 8 years ago and has John Tory as Mayor with plenty of right wing councillors.

Who else is there? The only other candidate getting any real media attention at the moment is reactionary, islamophobic Rebel News contributor, turned “Euro-Canadian Catholic Nationalist” (weird way to spell fascist) Faith Goldy. Her main campaign plank is (surprise, surprise) to bring back TAVIS and carding. She also wants to end bike lanes and supports the usual racist anti-immigrant malarkey typical of her type. She has gone full steam ahead trying to capitalize on the tragic Danforth shooting to promote her brand of dangerous nonsense. She even tweeted in defense of the man recently arrested for his racist harassment and assault of a Muslim family at the Jack Layton ferry terminal.

This kind of disgusting candidate should not get any support, but unfortunately she just might in a climate of increasingly open racism in Canada and the west generally.

There are a couple of interesting and progressive candidates in the race such as community activists Sarah Climenhaga and Saron Gebresellassi (who has some solidly left platform planks). Unfortunately, as is to be expected, neither has received any major coverage from the media or pundits, and they are unlikely to going forward.

This may end up also being true for issues like poverty, income inequality and so many other important discussions we need to be having. This mayoral race is shaping up to be something of a dispiriting one, with a boring right wing "centrist", a faux progressive and a reactionary white nationalist getting all the attention and derailing serious debate.