Mammoliti calls for Martial Law in Toronto

For those of you who don't follow Toronto politics, Giorgio Mammoliti is pretty much the worst of all possible councillors. A former NDPer-turned right-wing whacko, he hasn't seen an office expense he didn't enjoy (including a limo ride to nowhere).

In Mammoliti's latest exposition of his general vileness, he has proposed calling in the military to round up alleged gang members whilst dispensing with any kind of due process. Seriously, here's a sample:

"This idea of asking the federal government to help out came up awhile back. It’s not the first time I’ve been saying it. You know, it comes out of desperation, I think, in a community that has been promised by all three levels of government that the shooting will stop and governments are doing whatever they can to help. It’s been years and it’s not subsiding at all. It’s getting worse. It’s not getting better. It’s gang members that are doing it. They’re holding communities hostage. [People] are afraid to come out of their homes and they want something done immediately. This community, they would like to see these gang members taken off the streets and held indefinitely, if possible. The only people that have that authority are the federal government and the army quite frankly."

Meanwhile, the chief of police, Bill Blair has quite sensibly told Mammoliti to shut the hell up. The gang problem in Toronto is bad enough, but if New York City could survive without the army in the 1980s, then we can manage here.

Who does David Shiner work for?

If you're a Toronto taxpayer then the answer is "not you"* since he's too busy running for provincial office to be a city councillor. Now it would be bad enough if he were drawing a salary from the city and maintaining his seat on council (incumbency goes a long way in Toronto). But no, now he's using his spot on city council to campaign for the PC party on the council floor! An account from Spacing.ca:

"In the midst of questioning Mayor David Miller on the cost containment measures, Shiner took the time to remind everyone what John Tory would offer cities before asking if the mayor would show more support for provincial party platforms that provide financial relief for Toronto."

So it's not enough for Shiner to run for another office while drawing a taxpayer salary, he's going to go stump for his party boss while under the guise of a representative of the people of this city! This man deserves to lose. I used to live in Willowdale and I wish I could vote in more election there just to have the opportunity to vote against this self-serving asshole.
*Unless John Tory pays taxes in Toronto, then it's "probably not you"

Amateur Hour at Queen and Bay

First Toronto was going to close all community centres on Monday, now they'll stay open. This follows on the heels of re-opening the tax debate and then not re-opening the tax debate. This brouhaha has been rather frustrating to watch. I was excited about Miller in 2003 and I was will to give him another shot in 2006 but I'm quickly running out of patience. One of the problems that has hamstrung Toronto for the past ten years has been funding, yet if these closures were part of a way to put funding on the provincial election agenda, it seems that city council cannot even figure out how to do that.

We look disorganized, we look like we really ought not to be trusted with any more money. I'd probably choose Miller over any number of the right-wing hacks on city council that might run against him, but I feel like he's squandering his mandate.

Toronto's Subway Woes

First it seemed like Giambrone was going to close it down, but now it appears that there will be consultations and the like before anything substantive is done. In other words we are at least six months away from closing a subway line. There is some discussion as to whether this was some kind of bluff, Giambrone said not on CBC radio last night. Of course if it was a bluff, it would not profit the TTC to say so. My gut instinct on this though is that there will be a way found to save the subway line. The sort of blow to Toronto's collective psyche from losing a whole subway line as well as the optics of a Kyoto-embracing city closing public transportation will keep the line open.

In the meantime this is going to be something that plays to the coming provincial election. John Tory promises that he will rebalance provincial-municipal roles and responsibilities (and their financial burdens) so that Toronto might have a prayer of affording to run a city. Like fixing healthcare on the federal scene this sounds like the type of thing were a great deal of meeting and accord-writing can happen without anything substantive getting done. I'm not sure how the, uh, Harris rump still in Tory's Tories will take to this plan to renege on their legacy.

Meanwhile Jason Cherniak is putting the blame on the city itself. I'm not sure I get where Cherniak is going though with his post, I'm not aware of Toronto spending all kinds of money on "tearing down highways" or any such thing. It's as though he forgot about the downloading mess that we were stuck with ten years ago. Or perhaps we need to read into Cherniak's line about "a bunch of politicians far too easily reelected year after year [that] are unable to get their bloody acts together" a slightly veiled criticism of the NDP members of Toronto City Council.