Royson James writes about Toronto's leftist Councilors who have gone off the rails to protect their socialist comrades at the Toronto Community Housing Corporation

Blinded by their zeal to stop Ford, too many left-wing councillors chose to attack Griffiths rather than accept his findings and demand greater accountability. They support public housing, not any suggestion of privatization. They support big government, not Ford’s push to cut the size of government. They support more spending at city hall for city-building, not a contraction of the budget.  

They lost the last election. 

Ford won, promising the opposite of what these councillors practised for seven years under David Miller.

These councillors have a duty to provide effective opposition to Ford. And they do. They also have a duty to protect taxpayers, ahead of members of the TCHC board, ahead of city staff who may have failed to provide proper oversight in the spending of tax dollars. 

But instead of focusing on the indiscretions of public service workers, the councillors seemed intent on protecting them, even in the face of the auditor’s findings. And instead of condemning staff behaviour, they wanted to focus on media leaks in the public interest. 

The dissenting councillors intimated that Griffiths and/or staff may have leaked portions of two auditors’ reports to the media. They all but said Griffiths had come under the “undue influence” of the mayor. They cast aspersions on his integrity, even as they professed not to.

Then Councillor Adam Vaughan, unable to hide his contempt for the auditor general, gave him a lecture on integrity and public accountability and warned of an “audit process that is going off the rails.”

Staring at Griffiths, an independent auditor with more integrity than a dozen councillors put together, Vaughan instructed him to “tighten the regulations and rules” in his department. Then he upbraided Griffiths, ending with:

“And if there’s a leak in his department, it’s on his watch,” Vaughan spat, jabbing his finger at Griffiths, a few seats away. 

Deputy mayor and audit committee chair Doug Holyday jumped to Griffiths’ defence.

“This is a classic case of ‘shoot the messenger.’ You don’t like the message so you shoot the messenger.”

James' whole column is in The Toronto Star.

Rob Ford's popularity and why city council's big "slush fund" spenders don't like him

Royson James, one of the few columnists at al-Starzeera who hasn't been driven over the edge of sanity by Rob Ford, wrote an astute article on Saturday that points out some of the attraction Ford has for Toronto's voters.

Ford doesn’t have to define himself during this campaign. Over 10 years as a city councillor his message hasn’t deviated: Keep spending in check. He owns the brand.

Starting with his own office budget, Ford famously spent $2 of the allotted $53,000 tax dollars one year, even as many spent near the limit and most spent about $40,000. That created many enemies among the big spenders. Some argued he was using his own money to run his office and tried to force him to use tax dollars.

The result? Now Ford must file the spending amounts with the clerk, even if he uses his own money. But all this has done is reaffirm that Ford spends much less than his counterparts, no matter whose money it is. And the legend grows.

Critics argue that the potential savings from office budgets is so small, the impact on the $9.2 billion budget is negligible. Critics underestimate the value of symbols. If councillors routinely waste thousands of dollars on the purchase of espresso machines, bunny suits, expensive Christmas cards, unwarranted cab rides to Woodbridge late at night — all under the guise of serving constituents — what else are they wasting, constituents wonder.

It sure got me wondering. 

Particularly after seeing Joe Mihevc's overwrought press release in which he abandoned his old ally Joe Pantalone to advocate strategic voting for George "Captain eHealth" Smitherman.

So I took a look at some city councillors' expenses.

Ward 21 Councillor Joe Mihevc has spent $13,800 of tax dollars since 2008 on his website. 

Ward 30 Councillor Paula Fletcher spent over $18,000 on "advertising and promotion" since 2008.

Although that sounds almost paltry compared to Ward 32 Councillor Sandra Bussin's  $27,000 in the "advertising and promotion" budget line. And that doesn't even include her notorious "Bussin Blue Jays" which came out of the approximately $15,000 she charged to "other expenses" since 2008.

 (And "other expenses" isn't all other expenses..oh, no, not by a long shot. It's just stuff that doesn't fit into one of the many other budget lines expensed by city councilors.)

Advertising and promotion of what!!??!!

When Ford spends next to nothing of his $53,000 office budget, and is critical of big spenders on council, among whom Mihevc is one of the biggest, James is right, it 's got to create some resentment.

But that resentment might be on the voters' side and work for Ford. Particularly when one sees where some of the "slush fund" gets spent.






Council expenses can be viewed here.

And Joe, that's some great website we paid for.  I probably could have got you a better deal. Or you could have just gone to blogger.com and set one up for free and saved us that money. Still, who cares if you may have overpaid? It's not like that money came out of your pocket.

George Smitherman releases financial plan - reads like "Ford lite"

Sensing he has lost his once firm grip on the mayoral race, distant second-place rival George Smitherman released his financial plan today.

It is an eerie echo of Rob Ford's with a less aggressive cost-saving plan through employee attrition and a few figures that don't add up quite right. Not that I'll hold that against him, after all, who's do?

But what inspires less than full confidence in his commitment to it is how his policies have shifted to be more like Rob Ford's as Ford's popularity increased.

Some of his odder and more dubious items of projected revenue include $10 million for "'Catch the little things' incentives; and $132 Million for - "Smarter procurement"

His plan relies on quite a bit of financial influx from his old boss, McGuinty. I actually believe Smitherman would be able to talk him into it. McGuinty would have an interest in buying Toronto to keep it out of the hands of Tim Hudak's Tories. I'm also confident McGuinty would find some new taxes to pay for it, so what we save in municipal costs will end up being added as provincial ones.

this fine artistic rendition was stolen from Blazing Cat Fur

Of course, I could be just a bit over-cynical. After all, who wouldn't trust a former McGuinty cabinet minister?

Here's Smitherman's financial plan.

UPDATE: Socialist extremists at rabble.ca hope for Smitherman win.

Coming to grips with the realization that their preferred candidate, Joe Pantalone, has no hope of winning, the radical socialists and extremists who frequent rabble.ca express hope for a Smitherman win in which he emerges in debt to union interests so they can retain control of city hall.

UPDATE 2: Royson James at The Toronto Star refers to Smitherman's untenable proposal to freeze taxes while increasing spending and claim to lower the debt all at the same time as "Smither-math"

Good moniker, Royson! I'll borrow that in future. I would have just called it "another McGuinty Liberal worthless promise", but your name for it is much better.