Christopher Hume Zeros In On Who To Blame

Hume is not too impressed with the City of Toronto and points out our shortcomings and while I rile about Miller and his left wingnuts on council the ones to blame are you and I. We do get out and vote and take pride in that fact but how much have we done to make sure that we get our family, friends, neighbors, etc. out to vote. Statistics indicate most of us have done zilch.

Viewing mayoral race with eyes wide shut
Oct. 9, 2006. 01:00 AM
CHRISTOPHER HUME

As Toronto sleepwalks to another election, it's clear that here in Somnambulant City we have miles to go before we wake.

You'd never know that by listening to our so-called political elite; of course, it's in their best interests that we keep our eyes closed. As usual, we're only too happy to oblige. They tell the usual bedtime lies and we doze off on cue.

Every night our dream is the same: Yes sir, we mumble between snores, this is Toronto, the Greatest City in the World. Then the nightmares return — the crumbling infrastructure, the decline in public transit, increased traffic congestion, the decrease in civility, the worsening environmental situation, dysfunctional governance, lack of leadership, homelessness, the garbage crisis, provincial and federal indifference, growing corporate control over the public agenda....

Thirty, 35 years ago, Toronto was widely hailed as that rarest of birds, a North American city that actually works. Observers, especially those from the U.S., marvelled that the downtown core hadn't become a war zone, that streets were safe and even more remarkable, clean.

Nobody comes here now to study the miracle that is Toronto. The TTC, once the pride of Toronto, has been hobbled by decades of under-funding and political interference. Once we built transit that provided a genuine alternative to the car, now, at enormous expense, we build subways that go nowhere.

So it's no surprise that there are more cars on the road than ever and air quality grows worse every year (48 smog days in 2005). And when asked about the province's lack of response to environmental degradation, Premier Dalton McGuinty declares hands off our auto industry. Whose side is he on, anyway? Certainly not ours.

But perhaps we are starting to wake up. Last week, Mayor David Miller was interviewed on CBC Radio's Metro Morning by Andy Barrie, who asked if he had any regrets about his first term, if there were perhaps any promises he had made but couldn't keep. Miller laughed and joked that he had pledged the Leafs would win the Stanley Cup. Ha ha ha.

Barrie stopped him dead in his tracks and insisted Miller answer the question seriously. It was a telling moment. Miller's response was inappropriate, wrong and deeply disrespectful.

What about the island airport, against which he railed last election? Unless Prime Minister Stephen Harper finally does the right thing and rids us of the Toronto Port Authority, which seems increasingly unlikely, Miller and the rest of us have been given the finger.

And what about garbage crisis? Miller would have us believe it's solved because the city has acquired a new landfill site. Too bad, landfill is outdated, environmentally disastrous and disgusting. Incineration, waste-to-energy as it's now called, is infinitely preferably. Even when the long-awaited report on the Gardiner Expressway was released recently, Miller shrugged and told us it isn't a priority. That's like saying the future doesn't matter.

But what's the alternative? Jane Pitfield, who exists in a state of cloudy confusion? Stephen LeDrew, a victim of his own power of self-delusion?

Clearly, the candidates see the election as a popularity contest. Leadership is the last thing on their minds; that might mean having to make a tough decision, angering voters, doing something, being unpopular. That's why they'd rather let us sleepwalk through the campaign. And we'd rather not wake up. Pleasant dreams Toronto.