Rob Ford and the Day Toronto Fought Back

His monstrous presence still threatens Toronto. But he is less of a threat than he was yesterday. The good guys are finally winning. The Fordzilla is finally being neutered. 

Toronto city council has voted to both remove Mayor Rob Ford's authority during emergency situations and, under a separate motion, has stripped his power to hire and fire the deputy mayor and appoint members of his executive committee.

They are the first of three motions aimed at leaving Ford as mayor in name only. He will continue his last 11 months as mayor with severely limited powers.

After years of being bullied by that ghastly thug the city council is finally fighting back.

And so are the people of Toronto...



And all I can say is it's about time.

Because he is a shameless liar and a ghastly bully. He is a racist in the world's most diverse city. He is an anti-gay bigot in a city full of gay refugees, fleeing the persecution and loneliness of small towns and rural areas.

He is a crass and vulgar misogynist with criminal connections whose behaviour should disgust all decent people. And make them feel sorry for his family.



He is a brutish Con and the worst mayor Toronto has ever seen.

And those who cynically enabled him can never be forgiven.

And of all his enablers, the most culpable are the strategists, the ones who fashioned his image as the defender of the little guy, the suburban strivers, against the downtown elites, with their degrees and their symphonies — the ones who turned a bundle of inchoate resentments into Ford Nation.

Sound familiar? It is the same condescending populism, the same aggressively dumb, harshly divisive message that has become the playbook for the right generally in this country, in all its contempt for learning, its disdain for facts, its disrespect of convention and debasing of standards. They can try to run away from him now, but they made this monster, and they will own him for years to come.

But right now I think it's time to celebrate the beginning of the end of that nightmare with a special performance of the Rob Ford Opera !!!!



Isn't that great? And you know what I like best about it ? It was written and arranged by Topher Mokrzewski, resident conductor of the CALGARY opera.

Because I can't help but notice that even in the progressive blogosphere, some bloggers in other parts of the country seem to be getting too much pleasure from what they call the "humiliation" of Toronto.

I won't name them so as not to embarrass them. But it's so petty and so wrong. And sadly so Canadian.

So let me, as a Montrealer living in Toronto, set the record straight:

The people of Toronto are NOT humiliated, because most of them, like me, didn't vote for Ford...



They are embarrassed and ANGRY. Not beaten or humiliated.

And what they have been is oppressed by a brutish Con bully, like the country itself has been brutalized by that other Con thug Stephen Harper.

But they are starting to fight back, like Canadians are starting to fight the Con regime.

And I'm proud to join them. Even though I'm just visiting.

Because Toronto IS a progressive bastion.



It is an amazing megalopolis of six million people from all over the world. Who don't lord themselves over anyone. They're too busy getting on with their lives. Or just surviving in the belly of that urban monster.

Which despite its many problems is much much more than Rob Ford.

And belongs to ALL of us...



At least that's what I think. Simon the Montrealer.

Who will NEVER until his dying day ever support the Leafs. Because that would be asking too much eh?  

But still thinks this great Canadian city is worth saving.

And that it's all part of the same struggle.

First we'll remove one Con Tyrant...



And then we'll remove the other...



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