It would be remiss of me not to mention that it is indeed election day in Toronto. We now have a new mayor, Rob Ford. His platform consisted of eliminating vehicle registration and land transfer taxes, taxes which bring in approximately $218-238 million a year. That's a lot of money. Not sure how he plans to recoup that amount. He has promised to reduce the councillors' office budgets from $53,000 to $30,000 and label them what they are, tax free expense accounts. But that only totals $800,000. Seems he had better come up with some other alternatives. He is also going to clean up the city transit system by improving customer service. That should be easy. Just have the TTC employees say thank you to customers purchasing a token. There's your customer service. Hell I'd settle for eye contact. His plan is to take TTC General Manager, Gary Walsh on a tour of the subway system and point out the dirt, litter and graffiti. He really doesn't need to do this. The two of them will have to step over it just to step onto the subway. He says he is going to stop the gravy train and backroom deals. We’ll see said the Zen Master.
Ford won by almost 100,000 votes so it was quite a decisive victory. Here's hoping he can keep his promises. Rather than paint him as a redneck let me just say he is a colourful man. I have been reading some comments regarding his win. One writer said they just threw up in their mouth. Another wrote, "The guy's a dope. Now I know how George Bush got elected. All the stupid people voted." I need to go on the record as stating I was ineligible to vote in this civic election. So technically I was not among the stupid people buddy is addressing in this statement; high five.
Typically, elections are won on the basis of anger and an expression of disapproval of the previous administration. This election was no different. When Mel Lastman was mayor of Toronto he was labelled "Side-show Mel." Let the name calling begin.
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