Crazy Town Revisited

 

Although sometimes painful it is my view that there is value in checking back once in a while, to see if what one has written makes any sense.  Case in point is a book review I penned a little more than ten years ago.

The subject was Robyn Doolittle’s excellent and entertaining book Crazy Town (Penguin Canada).   At the time Doolittle was with the Toronto Star.  

If you’ve forgotten Rob Ford elected was as mayor of Toronto in 2010 with the slogan “Stop the Gravy Train.” We learned out that there really wasn’t a gravy train and watched as Ford rode a runaway train of his own on a path of self destruction.  Brother Doug was elected to Council that same year,

I read Crazy Town in the spring of 2014 and wondered about the author’s prediction that Rob Ford could win the October election given his various stumbles.

But “Ford’s unyielding opposition to tax hikes and new city spending (had) attracted a dedicated following, especially among the city’s growing population of working-class immigrants,” notes an entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia.  

After Doolittle’s book was released, Ford had troubles that might have landed other mere mortals in prison.  But, as Doolittle noted, his approval ratings always went up after bad publicity.  

Doolittle supported her arguments by citing Bricker and Ibbitson’s bookThe Big Shift. (The Big Shift: The Seismic Change in Canadian Politics, Business, And Culture and What It Means for Our Future by Darrell I Bricker, John Ibbitson Harper Collins Publishers, 2013). The authors argue that a lengthy period of conservative rule was on the way as new Canadians move into metro areas.  These people are more religious and socially conservative and averse to debt. The authors call them “strivers.”  These strivers want to own a home in a safe neighbourhood.   

Another cohort described in the Big Shift are “creatives." Creatives (who the privileged Fords would likely call "elites") are more concerned with “community supports, the environment and international engagement.” Ford and politicians of his ilk will be more and more successful with this change in demographics.  

At the time I didn’t agree with the authors of the Big Shift but now…well, I’m not sure.  Three of the highlights from Crazy Town noted in my review:

On telling the truth:  Clearly, Rob Ford was challenged in this area.  He comes by it naturally, however, as his father Doug basically “airbrushed” his partner out of history as it related to developing the Deco label business.

On chutzpah:  In the 2000 municipal election, the Fords approached Councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby, suggesting that she run in another ward, not the one she had represented for 15 years.  They’d even help her.  Lindsay Luby declined.

On the Public Mood: Doolittle argues that Ford has a “natural gift for reading the public mood.”  George Smitherman was an experienced politician ran second to Ford in 2010. During the campaign his team organized a focus group. Smitherman’s handlers knew their man was done when they got this comment from an attendee:
  
“If I have to choose between someone who wastes our money and someone who beats their wife, I’ll choose the person who beats their wife.”

On May16th 2013 pictures from the famous crack video went public more or less validating the work of Doolittle and others at the Star. Rob Ford’s poor health prevented him from running for mayor.  Instead, he ran in his own ward and was elected to City Council with 58% of the vote. Rob Ford died March 22nd 2016. Doolittle is an investigative reporter with the Globe and Mail now.

In retrospect one of the more interesting parts of Crazy Town is where Doolittle writes about how the media is better able to track down these stories.  That is a result of a 2009 Supreme Court of Canada decision which created “a new defence for libel” that helped and guided the Star in their investigative reporting.

The decision meant that journalists were permitted to tackle contentious issues where hard evidence was not available if reporters could prove that they:

• ·         acted professionally
• ·         did their best to verify info
• ·         attempted to get both sides of the story.

Ten years later this doesn’t ring true. There are fewer journalists working today.  And their jobs are more challenging.

CBC Host Mark Kelly summed it up in a recent episode of the Fifth Estate. “Let’s look at the headwinds we now have - political shouts against us getting louder, financial constraints, and we’re dealing with AI which makes it harder to tell the difference between truth and fiction.”

CBC Fifth Estate Producer Neil Doherty sounds an alarm.  “We are living in dangerous times when an Algorithm can decide so much about people and their beliefs and then feed them info to foster bias.”

So, did I get it right ten years ago?  The Big Shift seems somewhat validated. The gravy train metaphor has been replaced. Today, we have swamp drainers and three-word sloganeers.  And Doug Ford has been Premier of Ontario for nearly six years and seems headed for another four.

Foodbanks

 

On a Tuesday in September this year I found myself driving across Norfolk County past fields of squash, pumpkins and zucchini to a local foodbank where, as a volunteer driver, I had taken a neighbour.  After lining up for one and a half hours, my neighbour emerged with a much-needed bag of food.  

Many in our community have no other option but to access foodbanks and community food programs. 

  

**One in six households in Haldimand and Norfolk Counties are food insecure. - they do not have enough money to buy food.

**The monthly cost to follow a healthy eating pattern for a family of four in Haldimand and Norfolk Counties was $1,122.43 calculated at May of 2023 using a tool called the Ontario Nutritious Food Basket

**Following a healthy eating pattern for that family of four with a full-time minimum wage earner takes up 27% of their income. 

Canada’s first foodbank was established in Edmonton’s Prince of Wales Armouries in 1981.  Its creation was intended to be an interim measure to address unmet community needs. Today there are 700 Foodbanks in Canada. In Haldimand and Norfolk there are thirteen foodbanks and food programs.

According to the The Ontario Living Wage Network, “Despite the annual October 1st increase to the provincial minimum wage to $17.20, there is still no place in Ontario where you could work full-time and cover all your expenses.”  

The Network calculates what is they call a “living wage.”  Each November they update the figure. Community-specific data is used to determine the expenses for a family with two working adults and two children. In Haldimand Norfolk that figure is $20.90 per hour.  

“Household food insecurity is a problem rooted in inadequate incomes. Research has shown that policy changes that support stable incomes that meet the cost of living can make a difference,” according to the local Health Unit. 

We drove home from the foodbank on that sunny September Tuesday through the countryside known as Ontario’s Garden. I pulled the car over in front of my neighbour’s home.  Across the street was a food market.  It wasn’t busy.

Everyone in our community should have access to safe, affordable and nutritious food that is right for them and their family.  

If you are able, consider supporting a local foodbank this holiday season.  The Mission Foodbank sserves Clear Creek, Houghton, Langton, Port Rowan, St. Williams and Walsingham.  It is located at 67 Queen Street in St. Williams ON N0E 1P0 · 

You can drop donations off there on the mornings of the first and third Tuesdays of the month 
or make a cash donation to PO Box 265 Port Rowan N0E1M0 or by calling Joan Skuce 
at 519-586-3003. 

Boring

Long ago and not so far away a community was faced with a challenge. 

A developer sought approvals to locate a McDonald's restaurant in Burlington’s Parkwood Plaza, a small strip mall adjacent to a new subdivision in the sleepy suburban town.

It was a long-drawn-out battle but over time the developer was winning. The neighbours objected and got organized.  The municipality, having taken conflicting positions on the applications, was incapable of resolving the matter; the whole issue dragged on for seven years.  

Years later a writer, let’s call him Bob, found that the story had been forgotten as stories often are.  Memories were fading. No one had written it down.

So, he wrote it down.  It took a while.  One hundred and fifty-three (153) newspaper clippings to read and, interviews with those who were there and who remembered.  In the end Bob pounded out 12,000 words.  Great stuff.  Well, maybe not.

Bob, the greenhorn writer, read a draft of his story to a writers’ group that he was part of it.  Boring, they said.  But they said it politely. Bob had to admit that some people might find the story a little dull.  On the other hand, many people told Bob that boring is in the eye of the beholder.   He carried on.

Yes, Law and Order it was not but within the story were Ontario Divisional Court appearances, illegal lotteries, ombudsman interventions, mandamus orders* and jurisprudential gymnastics that would keep anyone reading this story wide awake well past the six o’clock evening news.

Can it be boring when the story has conflict? 

A local residents’ group was organized to fight a big corporation.  Think Erin Brockovich up against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

Local politicians argued with each other over planning matters, funding and had differing views of whether they had received advice from a lawyer.  Then come decision time, according to one Council member, their “blood turned to water.” 

Important people from out of town, like Toronto. made it into the story. Like the Premier.  The neighbourhood group gained a meeting with Bill Davis.  Brampton Bill was fresh from killing the Spadina Expressway.  Surely, blocking the hamburger chain was an equally just cause. Then east Burlington could remain a cheeseburger free paradise. Later on, Adrienne Clarkson, then with the CBC’s Fifth Estate, came to town to interview key players.

The story had the public engaged on both sides of this issue.  A local educator speaking for the “silent majority” took out a newspaper ad calling for all BIG MAC Lovers to speak up. Eighty-five Lovers responded and signed a petition declaring that they “suffer from Mac Attacks” and demanded the restaurant proceed as planned.  Until the Golden Arches added distinctive elegance to the east end there would be no cure for such acute attacks.  That is what we were told.

There were heroes and there were villains. There was the Ward Councillor fighting the good fight for his constituents. He was accused by the owner of the plaza of having “a trick he has of maneuvering everybody.” Then there was a McDonald's spokesperson who lamented the fact that that his company’s reputation had not been enhanced by the publicity but could take solace in the final OMB statement that the hamburger chain is a “good corporate citizen, placed in the role of villain since their marketing success makes them the target of every criticism and objection, real or imagined.”

In fact, in the middle of it all the local rag referred to the matter’s “long and sordid history” lamenting the fact it had become THE THING in Burlington, forcing other, more important matters aside.”And speaking of history it was being made throughout the drama. McDonald's new slogan back then boasted they were “changing the eating habits of Canadians.”   How had they done this?  By introducing a breakfast menu of course.  Bob suspected that few Canadians were able to remember what breakfast was like before this epicurean breakthrough.

Lessons were learned. 

Regarding municipal planning one had to ask if city bylaws mean anything or as one of the community group’s leaders said: “The community is really in jeopardy when by-laws can be overturned like pancakes.”

What exactly is a family restaurant? A resident who had initially supported the restaurant had assumed he was supporting a quiet family eatery in his neighbourhood, not a high-volume fast-food restaurant, had second thoughts. “It never occurred to me that McDonald’s is considered a restaurant. If I said to my wife, I was taking her to a restaurant and I took her to McDonald’s she would be disappointed.”  

And perhaps the biggest lesson learned: The development industry is a powerful force in municipal politics. Someone once said that local politics is, in fact, mainly about real estate.

r.w. timberline

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*A mandamus order is a writ that commands an individual, organization (such as a with legislative responsibilities to perform a certain action within their legislated powers, in adherence with the statute.