My problems with Chong’s Reform Act and my own preferences for reform

Having finally gotten around to reading Michael Chong’smuch-ballyhooed Reform Act, which is being pushed by the media pundit class with a fervor that would make most partisans blush, I feel that, while well-intentioned, what the act proposes is flawed and suffers from a narrowness of view that has trouble looking south of the Queensway.

The act deals primarily with four things: the ability of the caucus to fire the leader, the nomination process (ending the ability of the leader to veto a candidacy by refusing to sign their nomination papers), the removal of MPs from caucus, and the election of the caucus chair. I support the last one, so I’ll instead focus on the first three.

Nomination of candidates

With regards to nominations, the act would create the position of “nomination officer” who would be elected by the riding association to oversee the nomination of a candidate. The riding association would set the time and date for the nomination contest, and the nomination officer would report the name of the party’s nominee to Elections Canada, thus eliminating the ability of the party leader to effectively veto a nominated candidate by refusing to endorse them to Elections Canada.

This sounds good from a distance, as for all parties the nomination process is a serious mess, open to abuse by party officials who can seek to influence the outcome by setting timelines that favour certain candidates or refusing to “greenlight” the candidacy of others. I’m not wholly opposed to removing the formal veto, although I don’t recall the last time it was used and, in the today rare instance of a single-issue takeover of a contest, it may be nice to have. Nevertheless, we can probably lose it.

However, the Chong solution is trading one set of problems for another. Unsurprisingly for a caucus-driven proposal, it would serve to entrench the position of incumbent MPs at the expense of a more open nomination. All parties have a range of riding associations across the country, from the non-existent and dormant, to the open and inclusive, to the ones ran as closed-shops, tightly controlled by an incumbent MP or a past MP or other prospective future nomination candidate.

By and large, his proposal would merely shift the tinkering and jury-rigging of the nomination process from the hands of the leader and his or her appointees to the MP or one prospective candidate that controls the riding association. That may be an improvement for the MP, who can better ensure their nomination is safe, not just from the party leader but from other challengers, but it’s not an improvement for an open and transparent nomination process nor for the party members and citizens of the riding at large.

Firing the leader

The part of Chong’s bill that has gotten the most attention is giving caucus the formal ability to fire the leader that was duly elected by the party’s members (and, in the case of the Liberals, its supporters). It would allow for 15 per cent of caucus members to trigger a vote of confidence in the leader by the caucus, with a majority vote firing the leader and triggering a leadership race, with the interim leader to be selected by the caucus.

I have serious problems with this proposal and, like its solution to nomination contests, its bias is that it ignores the party membership and focuses solely on the prerogative of the caucus. The leader is not elected by the caucus; the leader is elected by and derives its mandate from the party membership (and supporters). This includes the caucus members, but also party members across the country. Caucus members have an influential voice in any leadership contest, but they have one vote, just like any other member. Such a reform would make more sense in the context of the leader being directly elected by caucus itself, but that reform is not on the table and is a bad idea for a whole other column’s worth of reasons.

As proposed, this reform is an anti-democratic usurping of the rights and prerogatives of the party membership that is far more representative of the nation than any parliamentary caucus. If the proposal was to make it easier for the party membership (which, again, includes caucus members) to trigger a leadership review, I’d be open to debating that. But allowing tens of caucus members to override the wishes of tens of thousands of party members is a non-starter for me.

Also easy to overlook here is that this bill would give the right to select the interim leader to the caucus. Today, in the case of the Liberal Party, for example, while the advice of caucus is sought and is undoubtedly highly influential, it is the national board of the party – elected by and answerable to the party membership – that selects the interim leader. This was the case when Bob Rae took over for Michael Ignatieff. While it’s unlikely the caucus choice would not be accepted unless the circumstances were extraordinary, I don’t support this change.

Removal of MPs from caucus

Today, by convention, removing an MP from caucus is essentially the prerogative of the party leader. Chong’s bill would instead rest that power with the caucus. The only way an MP could be removed from caucus would be by a majority vote of the caucus, a process that can be triggered by the request of 15 per cent of the caucus.

I’m not as wholly opposed to this reform as I am to the two above, but I’m not sold yet either. In my view, removal from caucus should only happen in extreme circumstances, when a member has acted or voted contrary to a fundamentally-held principle of the party, on an issue the caucus itself has agreed by majority vote is a matter of confidence. Such occasions should be rare, but they do exist: it’s easier to get elected under a party banner, but it also means sharing a few certain core principles of what that party and its candidates and members stand for. These should be known going in and, if you can’t agree, maybe you’re running for the wrong party. I want MPs free to speak and vote as they wish on 99 per cent of issues but, if you’re going to represent a party, you do need to share its values, and not just view it as a convenient banner to get elected under.

So in essence I guess I’m likely fine with this one, although I do still feel a certain weariness for reasons I’m unable to articulate.

My own thoughts on reform

Allow me to offer a few possible alternative proposals for reform as a jumping-off point for discussion that may more effectively address some of the wider issues Chong’s Reform Act seeks to address.

On nomination reform, there are two ways we could go.

• Within the party system, it could be mandated that nominations for all ridings open on a pre-determined and publicly known date, with set deadlines flowing backward from that date for membership cutoff, approval as a nomination candidate, submission of nomination papers, and so on. In combination with the removal of the leader veto with the creation of the nomination officer as envisioned by Chong, and a transparent process for approval as a candidate, this would remove the ability of the party leadership (as today) or the MP or possible candidate that controls the riding association (as under Chong’s proposal) to manipulate the process for a favoured candidate. Everyone would have a level playing-field under which to contest the nomination.

•  If we want to think bigger, we could move to an Elections Canada-run primary system for nomination races, where every resident of the riding has the option to register as a supporter of a party and vote in only one nomination race, which could all happen at the same time on a pre-determined and known timeline similar to that outlined above, but ran by Elections Canada to ensure transparency and fairness. My concern with this scenario is the dilution of the privileges of party membership, similar to the concerns I expressed when the Liberals debated the issue in the leadership selection context in 2012.

Both scenarios address the core issue Chong sought to address – leaders keeping caucus members under the whip by threatening to veto their nominations – without having the side-effect, as his proposal does, of making it more difficult for members/citizens to exercise their democratic prerogative to nominate another candidate for the next election.

On the issue of caucus firing the leader, I’m less inclined to propose radical reform because I fundamentally oppose what Chong is proposing to do. As mentioned, the caucus doesn’t elect the leader, the membership (and supporters) do, and caucus should not have the right to overrule the democratically expressed will of the membership by fiat. We members would like to reserve that right for ourselves. If caucus members don’t like that, perhaps they should consider how they’re going to get re-elected without thousands of loyal volunteers to knock on doors, stuff envelopes and make donations. Chong’s bill shows a pretty fundamental disrespect for the party loyalists, volunteers and workers without whom they would not be in Parliament. The party is bigger than just the caucus.

While the ability to fire the leader must remain with the membership, I would be open to considering making it easier to trigger a leadership review vote. Currently, in the case of the Liberals, a leadership endorsement vote is held with every member having the option to vote as part of the process of selecting delegates to the first biennial after an election in which the party did not form government.

As far as I’d be willing to consider going towards what Chong proposes is to allow a majority vote of caucus to trigger a leadership endorsement vote by the membership of the party. If the leader is endorsed, the leader stays on. If the leader is not endorsed, a leadership race is triggered. And, of course, the leader could chose to quit having lost the support of caucus, triggering a leadership race. But the ultimate power should rest with the party membership, not with caucus. If you’re a caucus member that doesn’t like the leader the party membership wants, maybe you’re in the wrong party, or need to accept that in a democracy you don't always get your way.

It’s not all about Parliament Hill

I’ve gone on too long already, so I’ll leave the need to think beyond Ottawa when it comes to political reforms for a future post. Instead, I’ll just close by saying I do support reforms to empower individual MPs, to allow them to speak to constituency concerns and stray from the party line when it’s not on an issue of fundamental principle. When considering how to accomplish such goals though, we can’t merely look at Parliament Hill, at MPs and leaders, in isolation.

Party leaders and MPs are (unless they’re independents) members of a political party. Parties include a leader, they include (hopefully) caucus members, and they include members (and even supporters). They’re all united by common goals, and a common idea and vision, and by policies they come together to debate and discuss and then go forward and support. The party doesn’t exist just on Parliament Hill – it exists right across the country, and any reform worth considering will acknowledge this.

I want to devolve power in our political system. But I don’t see a devolution from the party leader to the caucus as a particularly desirable step forward – instead, I want it devolved to the party membership itself, whether it’s picking our nomination candidates and our leader, or developing our election platform. 

If MPs have a stronger mandate from their party membership and local residents they’ll be able to exercise more independence from the party leadership, while still recognizing there are issues that bind all party members together.

That’s the kind of reform I could get behind. In the mean time, while I understand the desire for change in many quarters, that doesn't mean we should blindly hop in the first piece of reform that comes along. And far from behind an imperfect step forward, this bill seems like an ill-advised step in the wrong direction.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

10 Hate is Better than Love By-Election Moments

As Liberal Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier said in 1918, love is better than hate. And as NDP leader Jack Layton very similarly wrote in his farwell letter nearly a century later, love is better than anger.

But is it always? Here are 10 moments from the recent by-election campaigns that would seem to indicate that, at least in the minds of some, hate and anger may be the better way to go.

Now, there's no innocents here of course. My Liberals have been no stranger to the hard negative attack ad -- they even lost my vote one election over one ad I felt was way over the line. Here's all I ask though: don't claim to be holier than thou when you're in the mud with everyone else.

Anyway, did Laurier (and, a century later, Layton) get it wrong? We leave it to you to decide.

1. Your leader is stupid

The tone for the NDP campaign in Toronto-Centre was set early, at the nomination meeting. Linda McQuaig, who would go on to be the candidate, told attendees that, unlike Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has substance and brains. The NDP would often return to this “Trudeau is a brainless simpleton” theme during the weeks to come.

2. Go home you carpetbagger

Apparently having been such big fans of the way the Conservatives attacked Michael Ignatieff for daring to be internationally successful, Chrystia Freeland was attacked by the NDP for having had a successful career outside of Canada before returning to Toronto, where her daughter was born, to run for public office. NDP/Tory, same old story? While they managed to not completely ape the Conservative talking points – no reports of “she didn’t come back for you” quotes – it was a slap in the face to the thousands in the community who have lived elsewhere.

3. Your house is too nice

When Freeland bought a home in the riding in the community of Summerhill, the NDP pounced. Did they say the $1.275 million pricetag, for which Freeland took out a substantial mortgage and needed a parental co-sign, was a sign housing prices are too high for many families? No, they attacked Freeland as a richy rich who bought a fancy house. Of course, their class warfare ignored that McQuaig lives just down the street. And when McQuaig’s former home – worth many times more than that after extensive renovations – was mentioned later in the campaign, they decried this irrelevant personal attack. Sadly, irony may well be dead.

4. You didn’t single-handedly stop the global decline of the media industry

After a report that, when Freeland was a mid-level manager at Reuters, a number of people in a Toronto division she oversaw were laid-off, the NDP pounced. Never mind the fact that the layoffs weren’t her decision, as the article noted; never mind the fact media organizations around the world are shedding staff as they struggle to adjust to a fracturing audience, the Internet and new business models. No, somehow, they contended, a mid-level manager at a media conglomerate should have been able to single-handedly reverse the global decline of the media industry. If she couldn’t save their jobs, how can she save yours, and so on.

*This may not actually be a hate is better moment; the NDP may actually think this is how the economy works.

5. You’re not entitled to Tom Mulcair’s entitlements

When Emmanuel Dubourg resigned from Quebec’s National Assembly to run for the Liberal nomination in Bourassa, he was entitled to a severance package, which he accepted. Every resigning MNA has the same entitlement. This became a prime attack point for NDP candidate Stephane Moraille, who plastered the riding with very negative signs showing Dubourg and Trudeau, surrounded by what the kids call bling. They would prefer that you ignore the fact that NDP leader Tom Mulcair, when his term ended as an MNA, took the same payment. Just two months later, he was an NDP candidate in Outremont. Do as I say, not as my leader does?

6. I’m gonna poke your eye with a stick; don’t swat it away

Now I’m sure there were Moraille signs around Bourassa, but I’m told those negative Dubourg signs were *everywhere* -- including one on a lamp post right in front of Dubourg’s campaign office. Now, putting up a sign – let alone a negative attack sign – in front of your opponent’s office is kind of a dick move to begin with. But here’s how the NDP tried to manufacture a story: they put up the sign, then staked it out from a car across the street, video camera at the ready. When Dubourg’s campaign manager called Moraille’s office to request they remove the sign as a courtesy, they kept him on hold for nearly an hour, and then took a message. Several more messages weren’t returned. When the Liberals finally removed the sign, the NDP taped it, anonymously uploaded the video to YouTube, and received anonymity when tipping the press to the video. They then went on to trumpet how bad the Liberals were for removing the sign. I’m not sure if the calls ever got returned.

7. Lies under the Prime Minister’s signature

Concerned at polling showing the Conservative stronghold of Brandon-Souris was at risk to a surging Liberal candidate in Rolf Dinsdale, the party took the unprecedented step of having a sitting Prime Minister wade into a byelection campaign. And they certainly didn’t take the high road. In a hate-filled letter delivered to every resident of the riding, Harper lashed out at Trudeau, intentionally distorting his policy on marijuana legalization (which will actually make it harder for children to access the drug and choke off a major revenue source for organized crime) and also flat-out lying – he said Trudeau has promised to revive the long gun registry when, in fact, Trudeau – to some controversy during the leadership campaign – promised to do the very opposite.

8. But were you really bullied?

It was auspicious timing – right around anti-bullying week, and the time the government was introducing anti-cyber bullying legislation. The Conservative candidate in Provencher, Ted Falk, took this opportunity to question whether an area high school student, who is openly gay, was really taunted during his efforts to start a gay-straight alliance at his high school. Apparently the fact the bullying was caught by CBC cameras wasn’t enough to convince Falk, who said he couldn’t rule out it all being fabricated by the student to help his efforts to start the student club. Falk refused to apologize.

9. I only want to debate the other candidate that I think matters

There were 11 candidates on the ballot in Toronto-Centre, but McQuaig wanted to sideline nine of them to debate the only one she seemed to think mattered – Freeland – on income inequality. Might be fun if they were both just two authors pushing books, but as this was an election, not a book tour, Freeland rightly declined – she would only participate in debates where the other candidates were also welcome. You know who would have disliked McQuaig’s solo debate challenge? Layton. When Harper tried to sideline Layton and go mano-a-mano with Michael Ignatieff in 2011, Layton called it anti-democratic.

10. You’re not Canadian enough to have an opinion

When Mulcair made national unity a by-election issue by telling a Montreal audience he would “wipe the floor” with Trudeau over Liberal support of the Clarity Act and refusal to accept a vote of 50 per cent plus one on a hinky question be enough to break up the country, the topic was naturally brought up in the next by-election debate. When Steve Paikin raised the issue during the TVO debate, Freeland questioned the NDP 50+1 is fine with us position. McQuaig, though, didn’t want to hear it. “I'm not going to take lectures on this from somebody who hasn't even been in the country..." she told Freeland. Even Conservative candidate Geoff Pollock, who spent much of the campaign telling people to vote NDP, was appalled. I’ll let Freeland have the last word: "Who is allowed to be part of the debate? It is disqualifying for people... What about someone who just became a Canadian citizen yesterday. Do you say actually you're not allowed to have an opinion on Quebec?...Or allowed to have an opinion in discussion with Linda?"

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

By-elections give Liberals more hope – and a lot more hard work

Hope and Hard Work has become the oft-repeated Liberal mantra under Justin Trudeau. And it can also be used to describe where the Liberals find themselves after Monday’s by-elections: with a little more hope, and a lot more hard work ahead of them.

The hope: with significant gains in vote and margin across the board in four ridings, including two where the Liberals weren’t on the map in 2011, it’s clear the Liberal momentum under Trudeau is for real. The hard work: to the extent they may have been holding their powder, the gloves are going to come off now in a big way as both the NDP and the Conservatives train their guns on the emerging Liberal threat.

While you’ll hear some say this by-election had a status–quo result, with each party holding onto what it came in with, make no mistake: the Liberals had a lot to lose Monday night, particularly in Bourassa and Toronto-Centre.

When any veteran incumbent departs, that party generally loses vote share. And Bob Rae in Toronto-Centre and Denis Coderre in Bourassa were no ordinary incumbents – they both had very high personal popularity. Bourassa borders several NDP ridings. And Toronto-Centre is sandwiched between Craig Scott in Toronto-Danforth and Olivia Chow in Trinity-Spadina. Traditional NDP ridings? No. But if the NDP is going to cement its official opposition status and challenge for government in 2015, these are the sorts of ridings they need to win.

The NDP ran very aggressively in both ridings, and had a high profile Toronto candidate in Linda McQuaig. Instead, the Liberals increased their vote in each riding and, in its first true test under Mulcair, the Orange Crush was more like Orange Crushed. For the Liberals, it was expectations exceeded.

Moving out west, we had two strong Conservative seats in rural Manitoba, where the Conservatives won handily in 2011. The NDP, who have long-dominated the provincial government, finished strong second in each, well ahead of the Liberals, who were actually 4^th in Brandon-Souris. These were ridings to watch how the Conservative base feels about Harper. And again, if the NDP is to move from opposition to government, these prairie seats are ones where they need to at least show momentum.

Instead, the momentum was clearly all Liberal. In Provencher, Conservative Ted Falk won handily with 58 per cent of the vote, down from Vic Toews’ 70 per cent but still dominant. The real story though was Liberal Hayward, who took nearly 30 per cent of the vote, up from just six per cent in 2011 and well ahead of the NDPer, who fell to eight per cent from 20 per cent in 2011.

And Liberal Rolf Dinsdale nearly pulled off the upset of the decade in Brandon Souris, a ridings where the Liberals barely cracked five per cent in 2011, finishing behind the Greens. He took the Liberals to 24 per cent of the vote, less than 400 votes behind Conservative Larry Maguire. It may be difficult to replicate this feat in 2015 – a botched Conservative nomination process stirred local anger – but the Liberal momentum is undeniable.

If results like this were to be replicated across the country, the next election will be very interesting indeed. What they show is that no riding should be taken for granted, and Liberals across the country need to double-down on their efforts in their communities, whatever the results in the past have been.

The road to 2015

The work for Liberals now only gets harder on the road to 2015. The Conservatives and Liberals can no longer consider the Trudeau Liberals a media-created mirage, and the polls (other than Forum’s, perhaps) will no longer be so easy to dismiss.

Expect the Conservatives to bombard the airwaves more than ever before with negative ad nastiness. It’s going to take a lot of hard work to whether the two-front bombardment and keep focused on building a positive movement into 2015.

Voters are also going to take a more serious and contemplative look at the Liberals now, and so are the analysts, media and punditry. To the extent there ever was a free ride, expect it to come to a swift end. Trudeau and the party are going to have to step up their game, put real ideas and priorities on the table, and prove themselves to be a true government in waiting. 

Ahead of the next big report card, the grading is about to get a lot harder.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

Ontario Liberals pick our policies: Transportation, bees and early childhood education

Ahead of the Liberal Party of Canada biennial coming up in February in Montreal, Ontario Liberals gathered in Kingston this weekend to debate over 60 policies and pick the 10 priority resolutions that  our province can send on to be debated by Liberals from across the country at the national conference.

Saturday's LPC(O) policy biennial was the culmination of a process that began months earlier, as riding associations from across the province canvassed their communities and drafted policy resolutions. These resolutions were sent by the ridings to a regional prioritization meeting. Liberals from each region debated and considered these resolutions, and each region sent 10 to this weekend's meeting for consideration.

The first stage of this weekends meeting saw policies debated and then accepted or rejected; the next stage was casting  a preferential ballot cast to rank the policies and arrive at the 10 priority resolutions to move forward.

No resolutions were defeated in this first stage and there wasn't too much debate; only two came close. One was a motion I opposed that sought to encourage youth engagement; I'm in favour of the spirit certainly, but it didn't propose anything concrete beyond open communications (say, use Twitter) so I voted no. The debate was much more heated around a pro-supply management motion which passed, but only by a small margin. I voted no; it's time to consider new approaches that balance the concerns of both farms and food consumers. I was annoyed when rural delegates would say this isn't an urban issue; it's not. It's an everyone issue; everyone eats food.

 There were three policies I felt strongly about:

1. National Transportation Strategy: This was a blended resolution coming out of urban, suburban and rural ridings, as it truly is an issue that impacts every community. We need a national transportation. That could mean transit, or rail, or highways -- the infrastructure needs to move people and goods will vary from community. And the priorities should be set in the community. But we need the federal government at the table as a partner, working with the other level of governments to identify priority projects and, most importantly, provide  a predictable and long-term funding commitment for at least a 10-year period to facilitate planning. The current situation -- Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty saying yes to one project and no to other randomly, out of the blue, seemingly because they went fishing with the Mayor -- is untenable.

2. Death with Dignity: Physician Assisted End to Life: This policy came from the Ontario Young Liberals and Parry Sound - Muskoka. It's a difficult issue. It's a tricky issue. But it's an important issue, and I think it's a debate we need to have. This policy would spark that debate, and state the party's broad support for moving toward physician-assisted end of life, and hopefully spark a national debate.

3. Undoing the Ban and Organ Donations Based on Sexual Orientation: From York-South Weston, this policy would have Health Canada remove the five-year donation ban  for any male who has had sexual contact with another man, and support its replacement with an behaviour-based screening policy for all donors. For me this is an issue of discrimination and human rights. There is absolutely no scientific basis on which to support the existing ban; the science is clear. And all donations are screened anyway. The current policy is discriminatory and borne of historical prejiduce; we need a new policy based in evidence and science.

Unfortunately, my second and third-ranked policies were not prioritized and will not go forward to Montreal; at least not from Ontario. Hopefully one of the other provinces may have chosen to prioritize similar resolutions.

I was pleased to see a National Transportation Strategy was prioritized at No. 1; a strong message from Ontario delegates about how this is an issue that impacts all areas of the province. As it is such a national issue as well, I'm confident it will find success during the policy debate at biennial. The efforts of Jason Cherniak, who is seeking the Liberal nomination in Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill, were crucial in seeing this policy prioritized at the top of the list.

Another important issue I was pleased to see prioritized was one regarding first nations, and I was pleased to see it coming out of an urban riding. Amy Robichaud, who is seeking the Liberal nomination in Scarborough-Southwest, made a number of persuasive arguments that helped get this policy from her riding prioritized. many Aboriginals are moving off-reserve to cities, so this is also an urban issue. We need to get back to the spirit of the Kelowna Accord, and work in partnership with First Nations to move beyond the Indian Act.

The policies prioritized by Ontario, in order, are as follows:

1. Nation Transportation Strategy
2. “Bees and Farming” Resolution: Moratorium on Neonicotoids in Canada
3. A National Strategy for a Universal Early Childhood Education…
4. Honouring Our Commitments: The Kelowna Accord, Restructuring of the Indian Act and Aboriginal Renewal
5. Innovation Strategy for Canada
6. Climate Change Action
7 Canada a Knowledge Based Society
8. A National Manufacturing Strategy for Canada
9.  National Housing Action Plan
10. Pensions: Old Age Security and Canada Pension Plan

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

Reaction to Rob Ford at Argos game more carnival freak show than show of support

There I was, minding my own business just after halftime in a section 129 aisle seat at the Rogers Centre as the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tigercats clashed on Sunday in the CFL’s Eastern Division final, when I ended up with a ringside seat for the circus that has enveloped the City of Toronto. Yes, I came face to face with Rob Ford.

He was right beside me as I recognized the cause of the commotion, his hand thrust out at me. I shook it out of instinct and my deeply-bred Canadian politeness, still somewhat in shock and not thinking clearly. As he moved on, an aide put a gold-embossed business card and an infamous “Ford for Mayor” fridge magnet into my hand and the circus continued down the aisle. He was mobbed as he moved to his seats about 5 rows in front of me, around the 10 yard line. My first thought? You’d think he’d have better seats.

The circus show quickly overshadowed the game, as people crowded down to touch Ford’s cape (actually he wore the infamous Mayor Ford Argos jersey), offer high-fives and pose for photos. Our section was quickly invaded with everyone standing watching Ford, making watching the game near impossible. A Hamilton touchdown shortly after his arrival passed with scant notice from our section. In fact, the Argos would go scoreless after Ford’s arrival, losing their half time lead, as the Ticats punched their ticket to the Grey Cup.

Media also descended on our aisle from the press box to document the madness, and security moved in to try to move people back to their seats and ticketed sections as fans, particularly Hamilton fans, grew increasingly irate at their inability to watch a pretty good football game. Toronto Police removed a few fans who got abusive with a security guard, but otherwise they managed to settle things down. Ford would leave with under two minutes left, and the Argos still making an ultimately fruitless last-chance drive.

To answer the obvious questions: I did not see him consume any beverages or eat anything (make your own joke on the last one) and I didn’t witness any booing or negative comments. Everyone either wanted a picture or a high five, or just wanted to watch the damned football game.

I bet Ford, other than being disappointed with the Argos loss, left the game feeling pretty good about himself, and like he had a lot of support. And that would be a mistake. While there were undoubtedly some Ford Nation diehards present, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the case for most.

For most, it was a carnival, a circus freakshow with Ford as the main attraction. Like many pseudo celebrities, he’s become famous not for his accomplishments, but for his misdeeds. He’s an ongoing train wreck we see nightly on our televisions. It’s our own reality show, and it has gone global. Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, Anderson Cooper 360 – it’s that crack guy they’re mocking on TV, let’s get a photo with him and Facebook it, will be hilarious.

I tweeted the other day that I never knew the Alateen meetings my parents made me attend as a teen would later give me such insight into municipal politics. I wrote about Mayor Ford a few months ago. We didn’t know the crack allegations were true then, but we knew enough. At the very least, we know the man is an alcoholic. He’s an addict, and he needs help. He needs to come to that realization on his own and he clearly hasn’t yet. The apologies offered are far from genuine – they have all the hallmarks of political calculation. And he seems to be surrounded by enablers unwilling to be truthful with him – anyone who would has been chased away.

Mayor Ford needs to hit rock bottom, before he can acknowledge his problems and truly begin to work them. He’s not there yet, and I worry, with all that has happened already, what rock bottom for him will look like. But I hope he gets there soon; for his own sake, and for the city’s.

Until it does, the circus will continue. And to the degree it ever was funny, it’s becoming less so every day. Now, it’s just sad.

What football game? All eyes on Rob Ford.

The media, including this CP reporter, invade the aisle to document the madness.

This fan did not make friends with Rogers Centre security trying to keep the section free of lookey-loos.

Toronto Police escort fans from the game.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers