The Saturday Debate: Should John Tory be seeking a third term?

I’m frankly stunned there’s controversy about John Tory’s resolution to run for a 3rd time period as Mayor of Toronto. So what if he mentioned he would solely serve for 2 phrases again in 2014? Folks change their minds on a regular basis, particularly when circumstances demand it.

Far an excessive amount of of Tory’s consideration has been monopolized by the once-in-a-century COVID-19 disaster, leaving him unable to deal with all the points and challenges on his agenda. He has each proper to complete what he began. Moreover, the final word resolution rests not with the mayor however the voters.

When Tory took workplace, town was a spectacle of division and disarray and its mayoralty was the butt of too many jokes. Tory’s regular hand and quiet competence have been precisely the antidote Toronto wanted after Rob Ford’s shambolic administration.

He has introduced dignity and decency again to the workplace, serving because the understated uniter town wants — no small feat in at the moment’s hyperpolarized and rancorous local weather. In doing so he has helped restore Toronto’s status as a well-managed metropolis, or in Peter Ustinov’s apt phrase, “New York run by the Swiss.”

If Tory is re-elected to a 3rd time period, his 12 years in workplace would make him Toronto’s longest-serving mayor. A 3rd time period wouldn’t even put Tory in the identical league as Hazel McCallion, who served as Mississauga’s mayor for 36 years, or Gord Krantz, who’s been the mayor of Milton for greater than 40. Down within the U.S., Boston’s Thomas Menino served his metropolis for 21 years; Joe Riley spent greater than 40 years as mayor of Charleston, S.C. Greater than 10 U.S. mayors served for greater than half a century.

Regardless of the trauma of the pandemic, town has prospered below Tory’s watch — one thing even his staunchest detractors can’t deny. Along with its world-class banking and actual property industries and its budding media and leisure advanced, Toronto has emerged as a world know-how hub, the third largest in North America after California’s Bay Space and New York, and rising at a quicker tempo.

Excessive tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft have all been increasing their footprints within the metropolis, drawn to its deep base of engineering and administration expertise. And, homegrown corporations like self-driving automobile startup Waabi; Cohere in pure language processing; and Deep Genomics, which makes use of machine studying to find new medicine — all three linked to analysis on the College of Toronto, the place I educate — are serving to to place Toronto within the first rank of progressive cities.

Toronto stays protected and civil, bucking the traits of rising crime and dysfunction and the exodus of households, which have plagued U.S. cities. At a time when borders internationally are closing, Toronto stays a thriving multicultural mosaic with some 250 ethnicities represented and 180 languages spoken.

A 3rd time period would give the mayor the chance to concentrate on the core challenges Toronto faces. At first is the deepening housing disaster: Toronto persistently ranks as one of the unaffordable cities on the planet. The mayor wants time to additional reform Toronto’s constructing and zoning codes to construct extra family-friendly condos and flats at larger densities, in addition to inexpensive housing for these in want.

Whereas town continues to draw prime expertise from throughout the globe, it must do a greater job of bettering the wages and dealing situations of its least-advantaged residents by upgrading service jobs and constructing stronger on-ramps to town’s burgeoning information economic system.

Visitors and transportation stay further big-ticket gadgets for the mayor to concentrate on — particularly luring riders again to public transit post-pandemic and taking stronger measures to make our streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

As protected a metropolis as Toronto is, there’s important work left to do to deal with the mounting gun violence and enhance and reform policing and public security in all town’s neighbourhoods. The mayor should lead the Toronto’s efforts to mitigate the specter of local weather change and obtain Web Zero by decreasing automobile dependency and creating extra and higher initiatives to retrofit properties, places of work, and companies.

To pay for this agenda, he’ll probably need to bolster town’s revenues by growing its property taxes, a tough promote, however one thing that he has amassed the political capital to do.

If granted a 3rd time period by the voters, John Tory can full his agenda to make Toronto a extra progressive, inclusive, and resilient metropolis, leaving a long-lasting legacy for himself and town he so clearly loves.

John Tory turned Toronto’s mayor on the proper time. However that point has handed.

When Tory was elected to the gig in 2014, metropolis corridor was a realm of pure chaos. Tory’s predecessor Rob Ford had turned the place into an exhausting spectacle.

It began with a weird speech on the ground of council from Don Cherry. There have been unusual sideshows, like weekly weigh-ins for a weight-loss competitors between Rob and his brother Doug — full with an enormous novelty scale — and metropolis corridor visits from luminaries like professional wrestler Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake and magician David Blaine. There have been public fights, deep divisions on council and a necessity for so-much fact-checking that the period launched the celebrity profession of former Star reporter and present CNN persona Daniel Dale.

There have been scandals upon scandals, together with, in fact, the one all people remembers: the crack scandal. Folks wrote books about it. There was a film. It wasn’t excellent.

And so, after 4 years of this, alongside got here John Tory, who constructed a status by means of varied unsuccessful political runs as being, bluntly, boring. And I imply that in the very best manner. He’s as predictable because the tides. The type of politician who isn’t on the entrance web page of newspapers, like this one, on daily basis.

Toronto craved that in 2014. Voters have been so uninterested in the Ford circus that Tory scored some factors for releasing a “Code of Conduct.” It included issues like, “I’ll respect and defend our legal guidelines, not break them,” “I’ll present up for work every day” and “I cannot compile an enemies listing.” These are usually not issues candidates typically need to publicly pledge to do — they’re primary assumptions of decency — however these have been the instances Toronto lived in.

However eight years and two phrases later, our instances have modified.

Tory succeeded in repairing a whole lot of the harm completed by Ford. His need for compromise and consensus amongst members of council proved profitable in turning down the temperature at metropolis corridor.

However as of late, town is feeling the boundaries of that type of strategy. Tory has tried to string an inconceivable needle, pleasing conservatives by holding Toronto’s residential property tax will increase to a price beneath inflation — they continue to be among the many very lowest within the GTA — whereas interesting to progressives by attempting to attain a variety of city-building targets.

It hasn’t labored. The town’s funds have been already fragile earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic, with the mayor endorsing questionable finances methods, like having town mortgage cash to itself, or balanced finances plans primarily based on the dangerous premise that financial savings might be discovered later. Tory’s controversial resolution to successfully rebuild everything of the elevated Gardiner Expressway has confirmed to be a fiscal albatross. The invoice is now greater than $2 billion.

And now, after COVID, the cabinets are naked. A latest report back to Tory and council acknowledged Toronto will probably be counting on bailouts from the provincial and federal governments for “years to return.”

In the meantime, Tory’s two swings at legacy-defining tasks have each missed. His SmartTrack transit plan was supposed to provide Toronto 22 rail stations by 2021. It has been reduce down a lot that its newest iteration requires simply 5 new GO stations by 2026. His subsequent pledge to deliver a spectacular public park to a brand new deck throughout the downtown rail hall was stymied by the revelation that town didn’t, the truth is, personal the required rights to construct it. Whoops.

I do maintain out some optimism for a 3rd time period of Tory, freshly freed — I hope — from the heavy duty of responding to a pandemic.

One in all his greatest qualities is his willingness to alter his thoughts. On recordsdata like bike infrastructure and social housing, Toronto has made extra progress than I’d have anticipated from Tory. With a brand new mandate, maybe he’ll be extra keen to speculate, even when it means elevating property taxes on Toronto’s rich householders. Perhaps he’ll really feel emboldened to push more durable and suppose greater.

However nonetheless, Toronto would have been higher if Tory had caught along with his unique plan to name it quits after two phrases. He’s completed what he was elected to do after the Rob Ford fiasco. The town has new challenges now. Remodeling from the compromising uniter Toronto wanted in 2014 to the uncompromising visionary Toronto wants in 2022 is an unlikely change. Higher to let somebody new have a shot on the job.

Matt Elliott is a contract contributing columnist for the Star, writes for CBC Toronto and is the creator of the Metropolis Corridor Watcher e-newsletter.

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