John Tory is no longer Mayor of Toronto. That astounding news landed on Friday evening, February 10, to the complete surprise of Toronto’s political scene. You can read the details in the Star, who broke the story, and other online sources.
The great irony here is that Tory was felled by that most garden variety political pecadillo, an affair with a staffer half his age. Meanwhile, up the road at Queen’s Park, Premier Doug Ford barrels through blatant conflicts of interest and corruption charges untouched, so far.
My topic is not to comment on either of these, but to look at Tory’s departure in the context of Toronto’s transit service and the TTC’s future.
Although Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie will take over the office pro tem, we will not have a real Mayor until, at least, an election likely in May (based on legal requirements of the City of Toronto Act). This means a caretaker government at a time when a clear vision (whatever it might be) is needed for the City’s future. No individual Councillor has the Mayor’s influence to advance programs and lobby other governments for support. Each Councillor has their own shopping list, their own political links and favours, that do not necessarily align with Council as a whole, or at least those who have been the power brokers in Tory’s immediate circle.
Any project hoping for the Mayor’s support – the Eglinton East LRT extension, Waterfront transit, green buses, Osgoode Plaza, and many more – have lost the heft the Mayor’s office might have brought.
One “legacy” of the Tory years, SmartTrack, should face a quick death if only to release the substantial capital from the “City Building Fund” it represents. However, that is not easily done because there are commitments by the City to fund new GO Transit stations under the SmartTrack banner, and some of these are already nodes for major new developments. Which of them should survive deserves a thorough review. As for Metrolinx, they no longer have to maintain the fiction that there is a distinct service brand.
On the bright side, Tory’s deal-with-the-devil – Metrolinx propped up his pipedream in exchange for uncritical support – should be dead and buried.
SmartTrack was a distraction that warped planning and funding allocations for far too long. The website extolling its benefits in travel time savings for a 22-station line is still active long after that campaign scheme turned to dust.
Over at the TTC, the crisis lies in a lack of advocacy for significantly better transit. This touches many issues including a high-handed CEO rumoured to be a Tory favourite, and a lacklustre Board where much institutional memory was lost with the post-election turnover. Their job has been to keep the lights on, and to preside over budget cuts that could hogtie transit’s ability to regain lost ridership. Red paint on a few lanes in the city, assuming they could even get Council’s approval, will not attract more riders if the service is undependable and crowded, even if slightly faster. Buses have to show up to carry riders.
I often use the metaphor of a store window in talking about transit’s attractiveness. The grandest marketing campaign – “BIG SALE” signs plastered over the building – cannot make up for a lackluster collection of mouldy products and empty shelves. Too much of our transit planning and political capital goes to the razzle-dazzle.
This brings me to the question of who will replace John Tory as Mayor. I can easily name people who might have been good candidates three years out running to replace a finally-retired Tory, but everyone’s political plans rested on those three years to develop a city-wide presence and articulate a plan for what a new Mayor would bring. That luxury is gone, and quite bluntly “more of the same” is not an inspiring thought.
The interregnum will strengthen the Province vis-a-vis Toronto because Council is unlikely to speak with one voice, nor is there anyone to go hammer-and-tongs to Queen’s Park demanding a better deal for the City. Some other big city Mayor will have to take up the banner of increased federal funding and revenue tools.
The relationship between Toronto and other governments should be an important part of any Mayoral platform. Sadly, I expect that some candidates would be more than happy to fall even deeper into the “embrace” of the thugs at Queen’s Park and its agencies like Metrolinx. Toronto needs its own clear voice.
A new Mayor will have to deal with the long-standing suburb-downtown split in answering the question: what should our city be? There is no single answer to that, and anyone who tries a one-size-fits-all response will just make the problem worse. Transit is only one of many portfolios, and its political support varies across the city and beyond into the Toronto region. Even the basic question of “what should transit do” has no simple answer, especially as its role in serving downtown commuters shrank with the shift to work-from-home.
Toronto has grave financial challenges, but the larger problem will be to keep the City together rather than splitting into rival groups with unyielding demands for “their” City vision.
Steve Munro 
Steve writes:
I’ve yet to see reference….*ironic reference* to the ‘Strong Mayors Act’ by any news report or analysis I’ve read in the media so far.
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Great insights and warnings, Steve! I have two myself: leave transit planning to professionals, not changing politicians or other amateurs. A well financed, independent Toronto is called a Charter City, so let’s look for a mayor who’ll pursue that goal.
Ulla
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Well it was an interesting evening last night, very intriguing as to who will succeed Tory.
I have definitely not been a fan of Tory’s, have told him as much, to his face.
He has made living in this city, as a disabled person living in extreme poverty, an absolute nightmare.
He has cut many services for ppl like me, especially dropins, housing workers, & outreach workers.
His beloved ‘affordable housing strategy’ has caused me to become homeless, twice.
He is simply not fit for a Major city, he relies on keeping taxes artificially low, at the expense of people’s lives.
He has systemically had a major role in destroying the TTC in recent years, first of all in getting rid of Gary Webster & then Andy Byford (I have seen first hand his complete disdain for Andy).
He takes a commanding role in choosing who gets on various boards & committees, his staff are well known for handing out ‘cheat sheets’ to councillors, he’s a bully & uses his power in various ways. (For instance, he had a direct role.in keeping his buddy, DMW on the TTC, & for getting Burnside & Holyday, on the current board.) He also is good buddies with Leary. (I tried to like Rick, I really did, I don’t hate him, but I am so frustrated with the way he is running TTC & how so many incredible people, have left, under his leadership.)
In conclusion, I can’t stand John Tory, for many many reasons, but most of all, how he betrayed his Wife of 45 years, Barb.
I’m cheering this morning, good riddance to a power hungry, menace to Toronto’s success.
(If I can find one good thing out of this situation… At least it won’t be DMW, becoming temporary mayor.)
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I wonder if there is any hope that the Gardiner East rebuild which Tory championed, and an exorbitant cost in the transportation budget, will be abandoned.
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Two words: no loss.
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It’s terrific to see Tory gone. The corrupt, racist, misogynistic and arrogant simpleton will not be missed. It’s particularly delightful that he tripped over his own dick.
That said, I think it’s smelling a bit fishy. I want to get this out there, in writing, in case it comes to pass.
I would argue that nobody wakes up at 66 years old and decides that, for the first time in his life he’s gonna go get some strange from that sweet little honey in his office. I suspect Tory has had incidents in the past. And you just can’t keep things like that quiet. Somebody knew. So why is this coming out now and precipitating this crisis?
It could be as simple as a blackmail attempt that Tory has decided not to give in to (or to stop giving in to). But what if there’s something more complex at play?
Doug Ford cut Toronto city council back so that there are fewer votes needed to pass any motion. Once he got that in place, he gave Tory dictatorial powers (which Tory was craving). Now, with just a handful of supporters in council, the mayor can do anything. Now, Johnny is right-wing and pro-developer, but he sometimes pushes back on Doug the Thug. So, Doug and his gang use the info of his office humping to push him out. Nobody is expecting it or ready to run a campaign on short notice – except Ford’s chosen flunky for mayor. This gives Ford complete control over Toronto. Let’s him sell everything off to his developer buddies. Let’s him hand the subway over to Metrolinx, let’s him destroy the city with the convenient fiction that the mayor and the council made these decisions.
Far fetched? Maybe. But remember when _someone_ cooked up a non-scandal about Patrick Brown and sold it to a bloodthirsty media? To recap, the “scandal” was that a single Patrick Brown approached a woman over the age of 19 in a bar and, after chatting, took her back to his place for some bouncy-bouncy. There was some talking and drinking and then she said she didn’t want to do bouncy-bouncy and Brown … said OK and drove her home. And that got him booted and allowed Doug, who was completely prepared, to swoop in and snag the leadership.
TL;DR: Do not like Tory, glad to have him gone, not sure this isn’t going to get a lot worse.
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Do not waste time and MONEY on another election. Nothing much has changed in last few months. Get on with it. Declare the second highest candidate as mayor. Period. End of discussion.
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Honestly, it might be good for the city that John Tory resigned. He wasn’t a bad mayor overall, but he doesn’t have much strategic vision.
John Tory’s election back in 2014 was a welcome change from Rob Ford’s antics. He certainly restored the decorum at that time, and returned the Council to normal operation.
Tory’s terms weren’t lost for transit. He supported a number of small but helpful improvements, such as the expanded 9xx Express framework and the King Street transit mall. Perhaps most importantly, he chose not to mess with the two big projects already under way (ECLRT and Finch West LRT), and thanks to that both of them are near completion now.
However, he consistently failed to achieve any progress on any of the other big projects where he was involved. SmartTrack? Granted, some elements weren’t viable from the onset. But adding several new stations on the existing rail lines? Certainly viable, and one would think that some of those stations could be built in less than 8 years.
Waterfront East LRT? Not the most expensive of Toronto’s projects, and perhaps John Tory could collect/obtain funding at least for an incremental construction. But, crickets. Eg East LRT? Some funding collected (SSE property surtax), not enough to start, the collected funding is probably sitting in some low interest saving account and losing the purchasing power. SSE? Looks like it is only moving forward because Doug Ford took control, otherwise the City would keep studying the route and updating the cost estimates and not doing anything else.
I don’t feel Waterfront East LRT or Eg East LRT will be worse off due to John Tory’s departure. They both were stuck already, and in the worst case they will remain stuck. But maybe they get a chance instead.
I hope to see some decent candidates running for the job in May. We need a centrist with experience and good management skills, who can push forward with strategic projects while not losing the grip of the basic necessities.
Steve: A few clarifications: The 9xx framework was largely a rebranding of existing “E” branches of routes, not net new service. Even where the express operation was new to a route, it usually came at the expense of reduced local service. Moreover, the travel time savings are small especially when the added wait time thanks to unreliability is factored in. As for King Street, a very reluctant Tory had to by persuaded by Jenn Keesmaat that the sky would not fall. As scofflaws proliferated and the actual degree of “transit priority” declined on King, nothing was done to reverse this and the benefits are starting to disappear. It is only the covid downturn in transit and traffic in the core that has masked the full effect. I would not give Tory as much credit as you do on these files.
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Well, Toronto’s transit was broken ever after Rob Ford killed the whole transit city plan and it definitely regressed Toronto’s transit for at least for 20+ years. While Rob Ford was the one who’s been destructing everything. Tory wasn’t destructing but he didn’t seem to bother fixing things destructed under Rob Ford.
It is time for a big changes in the city, hoping someone who’s not conservative but innovative can lead the city. Toronto is well behind the other world class cities in terms of infrastructure and technology.
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I’m glad for Mr. Tory departing despite a fairly strong work ethic and facility with many many issues affecting many communities in an almost beyond any one person’s capacity given size of City/issues (and yes, how to get a divorce from the province and their abuses?)
Fundamentally he was ‘carservative’ – and that’s almost de rigeur for anyone who wants to get elected, given the tilts in the ‘system’ towards the lower density areas where user pay for the cars/consumption is not a vote-getter.
Cars are subsidized: big amounts! (Though they’re very useful sometimes and can cost a lot to own/operate). And so we really need a Vehicle Registration Tax with dedicated end points vs. general revenue.
And yes, it’s such a surprise that it’s well worth contemplating what else lurks in unaddressed issues and/or what sort of political agenda may be in play ie. what ‘carservative’ representative may be put forward whilst again, too many ‘good’ people will split a vote and let a clunker get in to ruin the C(h)itty more?
And what about a Mayor who would decry all of the Ford transit projects and lead Council to ask the federal level for a different deal, including not being a quiet enabler with billions, and having projects respect facts and process, and heck, even democracy? Wanting transit investment vs. Big Spending should be a priority, but hasn’t been in part because ‘carservative’ transit won’t tolerate too much political will being applied to personal vehicles despite inherent and severe inefficiencies of space and thus ‘congestion’, and there are at least two linear corridors in East-of-Yonge Toronto that have been ignored for faster and faster-done transit that would likely cost far far less.
So – maybe press the current Councillors today and tomorrow to do a Vehicle Registration Tax with this year’s budget, vs. too much energy in to who’s running etc.
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No contest; however, some positive effect remains in place. Namely, the very existence of the King transit mall takes that route out of the calculations for the car traffic capacity.
Initially, not just Tory had to be persuaded, but also the Roads department who could (and probably did) counter that prohibiting the through driving on King will overload the parallel streets.
Now with the King transit mall already set, the Roads department is not going to say “we must let the scofflaws flout the rules and drive through, lest they use the parallel streets and overload them”. Such a line of reasoning would be just dumb.
Therefore, it should take a relatively minor effort to strengthen the enforcement.
As for Jenn Keesmaat – is there any chance she will run this time?
Steve: As reported by CBC, Keesmaat has already said that she is not running. It would be a real shame to have both her and Gil Penalosa on the ticket splitting the vote (not to mention pools of donors and campaign workers).
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That is literally not how it works, however. By law, since it is not an election year, a mayoral by-election must either be called or take place within 60 days (I forget which exactly is the case).
Toronto *must* elect a new mayor.
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You must be kidding me. You want to declare Gil Penalosa the mayor when he got just 17% of the votes and lost by a HUGE MARGIN. End of discussion? Well in that case we might as well abolish democracy. We have rule of law here in Canada and the law requires a fresh election which is what we must have. If for some reason an election cannot be held, then the Deputy Mayor Jennifer must carry out the mayor’s duties until an election can be held. Under no circumstances should someone who got only 17% of the vote and lost by a HUGE MARGIN be declared the mayor.
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Well, unless the premier decides to change the law a few months before a municipal election again.
While I don’t suggest to acclaim Mr. Penalosa, constitutionally we have seen that it is well within the premier’s powers to install him, or anyone else, as mayor. If his pitch is that Jennifer McKelvie serving out Tory’s term will save money on an unnecessary and disruptive new election in a time of fiscal crisis, it will probably fly with Ford Nation electorate as well as any other number of things Ford has already done.
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John Tory WAS a lawyer and Queen’s Counsel (likely now King’s Counsel). He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Trinity College at the University of Toronto in 1975. He received his Bachelor of Laws degree in 1978 from Osgoode Hall Law School of York University. He was called to the bar in Ontario in 1980.
Unlike Doug Ford, who dropped out of Humber College after 2 months, because he “was bored silly in the lectures.”
So John Tory actually knows what he’s doing, picking the time when he will hand in his formal resignation letter to the city clerk. No sooner nor later.
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Aaaand that’s exactly the line being used to justify Tory unresigning. You can bet it’ll be used to have a Tory lackey be acting mayor without an election if Tory does resign.
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Let’s not overstate the case. John Tory is the poster boy for an incompetent rich white man who has failed upward throughout their life.
He wanted to be in radio, so his daddy’s friend, Ted Rogers, gave him jobs in radio. Then he did law school and went to work in daddy’s firm. Then he got some political flunky roles with the PCs, I’ll bet those were using daddy’s connections. Then he got some executive jobs at Rogers, owned by daddy’s friend, Ted Rogers. Notably, he left when Ted Rogers decided not to step down as CEO of Rogers Communications, a role some have said John was being groomed for. Draw your own conclusions on that. Next, Tory spent several years in various failed attempts pursuing the office of mayor and of premier. Then it was back to broadcasting, though not on a Rogers-owned station.
Anyone who listened to Tory’s call in show can tell you he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. On any topic that you’d expect an educated person with political ambitions to be well-versed in, he’d often flounder if the topic went off his prepared talking points.
A great city needs a great leader who has intelligence, vision, and ambition. Tory has none of these. He’s lived his life entirely within a bubble of privilege.
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I think your statement,
is actually much, much deeper than you realize. I’ve just realized myself that maybe John Tory and Doug Ford have a backroom deal where the mayor would never criticize the provincial government too harshly about anything in exchange for rushing construction of subways in Toronto.
Basically Doug Ford has decided that he can do whatever corrupt, bizarre, conservative-agenda thing he wants in Toronto as long as no one else scrutinizes and criticizes his actions too much. The ones with the greatest power of criticism aren’t the press, but other levels of government because of their greater powers to investigate skeletons and stand on soapboxes.
Justin Trudeau never criticizes the Ontario government because he is the one who invented this political playbook. He has a tacit agreement that Doug Ford and Trudeau will not criticize each other at all as long as Trudeau keeps signing bigger and bigger checks over to Ontario to fund Doug Ford’s priorities, thereby helping to keep both of them in power. I suspect John Tory was also in on this deal where he would never criticize Doug Ford or Metrolinx too much as long as Doug Ford was dumping billions of dollars into Toronto transit as quickly as possible, albeit following Doug Ford’s priorities of a subway to Doug Ford’s riding and the Ontario Line. In fact, I think this agreement was literally announced in the press in the form of John Tory handing all responsibility for new subway construction to the provincial government in exchange for Toronto being solely responsible for maintaining the existing subway.
So then the question becomes whether a new mayor will keep the same deal with Doug Ford? Will a new mayor agree with the conservative belief that what Toronto needs is as much money dumped into new transit as quickly as possible, regardless of whether that transit is actually what Toronto needs and is sort of corrupt and excessively expensive? If a new mayor starts criticizing Doug Ford too much, Doug Ford will likewise come down hard and blame them for delaying new subway construction or not building enough housing, thereby pitting each other’s popularity against each other, and damaging each other politically as well.
There’s also another question about where Doug Ford is finding the money to sign all these cheques to buy the mayor’s silence. Six years ago, the government had so little money that it had to sell Ontario Hydro to pay for the Eglinton Crosstown. Four years ago, Doug Ford was begging real estate developers to build new train stations for Metrolinx in exchange building rights. Now, he’s somehow found the money to not only cut taxes, but to build almost every transit and highway project on every conservative’s wishlist simultaneously. The federal government is funding its part by just piling on the debt without a concern in the world, but the provincial government’s deficit is actually in better shape than in the past.
I know Doug Ford F’d over Ontario’s doctors, nurses, environment, and electricity system. Was that enough to free up money to pay for all these transit infrastructure projects? Or did Doug Ford simply find some accounting trick to kick the can down the road, and the government will actually be drowning in debt payments ten years down the road when the bills actually come due? I don’t know where the auditor general is in all this, but in the end it doesn’t matter because she has no power. What matters is whether the new mayor will sign onto a new deal where they will trade off their responsibilities of advocating for Torontonians in exchange for fast subway construction and the power behind a political endorsement by Doug Ford.
Steve: The magic of P3 projects is that the builders finance much of the work until the line opens, or at least until the project hits major milestones. For some reason, although this is a hard future spending commitment, it does not show up as “debt”. Another factor here is that some of the long-term contract will be recovered from the municipal governments in operating charges that will come due when the line opens.
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