THE WINNER...

and THE LOSERS!

City Hall's clearly defined battle lines


By SUE-ANN LEVY, City Hall Columnist

They came in droves Wednesday evening.
There were the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) tenants like Susan Gapka and Pat McEndry whose only job seems to be hanging around City Hall and making deputations.

I noted leftist consultants like Sean Meagher, president of Public Interest Strategy and Communications and Katrina Miller, who has just joined Meagher’s firm after shilling for the Toronto Environmental Alliance.

I spotted CUPE 416 president Mark Ferguson and his counterpart, CUPE 79 head Ann Dembinski as well as John Campey, executive director of Social Planning Toronto.

When I left the chambers to file this column, I saw former Federation of Metro Tenants Association (FMTA) executive director and now paralegal, Dan McIntyre out of the corner of my eye.

The Council Chamber was packed with the gravy train-enabling, public teat-sucking, union-loving crowd fighting for life as they knew it Before (Rob) Ford.

This is war, ladies and gentlemen.

Today, new Mayor Rob Ford has the audacity to remove the entire board of directors of the TCHC for sitting on their thumbs as millions of dollars were gambled on the stock market, spent on obscene visits to spas, Muskoka resorts and pricey restaurants and thrown into sole-source contracts with suppliers in China.

My goodness, shame on the new regime for wanting that money to go directly towards improving the quality of life for tenants living in bed bug-filled, decrepit, flooded units.

The people in the crowd have themselves convinced that some day soon Canada’s largest housing authority will be privatized, once CEO Keiko Nakamura is shown the door.

Not that the TCHC will be privatized.

And before the trees are in full bloom, the new regime will take the necessary steps towards contracting out half of the city’s garbage pickup.
Horror of horrors.

This is war.

Mark my words.

Last night’s show from various leftist hangers-on and despicable leftist hypocrites on council — like Adam Vaughan, Pam McConnell, Paula Fletcher, Joe Mihevc, Gord Perks and newbies Kristyn Wong-Tam, Sarah Doucette and Mary Fragedakis — had nothing to do with the fate of the tenants living in TCHC buildings.

It was about battling the kinds of changes at City Hall that will lessen their power, influence and shall we say, the good times they’ve enjoyed for the past seven years.

Yep, the party’s over and they know it.

For if they really cared about tenants, they wouldn’t have spent nearly two days blowing hot air and wringing their hands about whether due process had been followed and whether the audit report should have been debated first before council decided to remove the board.

For goodness sake, if they were so concerned, I don’t recall one of them — not Vaughan, McConnell, Fletcher, Mihevc, Perks or the three newbies — attending last Thursday’s TCHC board meeting.

They could have heard it all directly from Auditor-General Jeff Griffiths.

Did any of them actually read Griffths’ report? It’s been available for 10 days now.

Wong-Tam — who put forward a so-called “compromise” motion to keep the four people still on the board along with a new managing director — claimed she was “concerned,” about the future of TCHC and its tenants.

What a bunch of crap.

Mihevc, rushing to support her “elegant” motion as he called it, chimed in with his own thoughts about Ford engaging in an “abuse of process” for having the nerve to be decisive and wanting to clean house.

Perks insisted that public confidence won’t be restored if Ford and Co. “throw out the rules in a crisis.”

Well, I’ve got news for all of them.

They don’t care one bit about tenants and they don’t care about transparency.

They’re out of touch with public sentiment, too. A just released Ipsos Reid poll has put Ford’s approval rating at 72%.

Some 71% of Torontonians surveyed said the new mayor has the right priorities in mind.

It could have been a slam dunk.

But the leftists care only about hanging on to the gravy train.

The battle lines have been drawn, folks.

Fasten your seatbelts. We’re in for a bumpy ride.