I’d like to tell you that I’ve run out of ways to describe how incredibly stupid the No. 1 story in my home province is these days, but if I’m being honest with you, it’s going to get much stupider and I’ll find new ways to describe all that insanity, too.
So, below, find not an all-encompassing recap of the stupidity, but a primer on the stupidity thus far, with more bound to come.
READ MORE: Public gallery shouts down Doug Ford, interrupts question period at Ontario legislature
The meta-stupidity
The first thing that’s important to understand is that the entire debate, fundamentally, is about whether Toronto will have 47 or 25 city councillors. That’s a delta of 22 human beings, in case anyone is wondering. That’s it. Both sides will insist that it’s about other things, more basic principles. But in order to understand what’s actually being debated here, you need to start with understanding this: Toronto currently has 44 council wards, it intended to grow that to 47 wards (to adapt to changing demographics), and the province now intends to reduce the number to 25, to align wards with the same boundaries used for federal and provincial electoral districts.
Personally, I’m generally fine with this — I think both the negatives and positives of it are being oversold by the respective proponents/detractors, but it’s become basically impossible to have a conversation about the specific proposal itself because of all the other layers of stupidity that are now baked into the debate. And let’s talk about those layers.
WATCH ABOVE: Rally at Queen’s Park as Premier Ford set to invoke notwithstanding clause to retable bill to cut Toronto council
The initial-stupidity
The blame for the initial stupidity rests squarely with Premier Doug Ford. As noted above, the notion of shrinking council is fine, or, at the very least, defensible. But Ford insisted on proceeding in time for next month’s election — despite the fact that the campaign was already underway. That’s pretty stupid, especially because the province has broad powers over city business (indeed, if it didn’t, this wouldn’t be an issue at all). Ford could easily have announced his intention to do this for the next election; he even could have announced his intention to move the date of that next election forward, to 2020, say — a two-year period to get everything in order and then go for it. But he didn’t do that, he did it in the midst of the existing campaign. That’s not just stupid because it’s unbecoming and churlish (it’s both). It’s stupid because it sets a precedent that can be easily used against conservatives, with total justification, later. Democratic norms matter because they protect everyone, and breaking one to spite your opponents often backfires. (If you don’t believe me, ask the Democrats in Washington if they are still happy they began eliminating the filibuster for judicial appointments. I’m guessing they’re not.)
Ford has the power, and a case to make, and he seems to have at least a big chunk of the public on side. Rushing served no real purpose. What the hell are we doing here?
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The backlash-stupidity
Toronto Council, and opponents of the Ford plan, quickly compounded the stupidity with even more stupidity of their own. Rather than quickly presenting a united front, even councillors who are nominally on the same side of this issue began tearing into each other over whether John Tory, the mayor, was sufficiently angry (I know Tory; he’s not a particularly angry fellow). The mayor’s left-wing council colleagues began suggesting he’d been in on it all from the start, or that he had withheld key information from colleagues. This led the generally even-keeled mayor to completely blow his top on the floor of council, even accusing a councillor of having misplaced his reproductive organs.
The attacks on the mayor, who’s running against left-leaning challenger Jennifer Keesmaat, were obviously intended to wound him to Keesmaat’s advantage, but Keesmaat went full bonkers when she began tweeting that Toronto should meet this challenge by … seceding from Ontario.
She’s been careful to gently walk that one back a bit since, but the entire display was the best thing that could have happened to Ford. I went from thinking dropping to 25 councillors was OK if done in a measured way to wondering if there was any way we could reduce it to like five councillors, tops, in no more than an hour.
WATCH BELOW: Jennifer Keesmaat questions John Tory’s role in council cuts
The brief if refreshing pause-from-stupidity
The entire issue went away for a while as various court challenges were prepared, made and then considered. (Or, honestly, maybe I just stopped paying attention for a while. I can’t rule that out.) I don’t have anything really to say about this, except to note that there was a time once when we weren’t talking about this all the time, and it was glorious.
Glorious by the standard of 2018, in any case. The legal arguments were made in good faith, and public campaigns organized. Opeds were written. Talk-radio segments were aired. It was all totally normal. Citizens got to express their views and things were more or less fine. But then, on Monday, a judge overturned Ford’s bill, and you basically knew that things were going to go directly to …
Stupidity Factor Eight*! Engage! (*TNG Scale)
Having lost in the courts, Doug Ford quickly convened his cabinet and then announced, just hours after the decision was made, that he was going to go nuclear — the notwithstanding clause. I don’t have sufficient reserves of emotional strength to recap the exact meaning of that here, so I’m going to assume if you’re 900 words into this piece, you’re interested in it enough to know what I’m talking about. Anyway, suffice it to say that the use of the notwithstanding clause took a situation already heavy on stupidity and amped it up a bit. Highlights included arguments flying around suggesting that the constitution was unconstitutional, Ford thinking the fact that 2.3 million Ontarians voted for him (out of 14 million) is a good argument for him doing almost whatever he wants, and the particularly bizarre sight of a group of protestors being handcuffed and led out of the legislature on Wednesday while the opposition clapped. Quickly followed by the NDP itself getting thrown out.
I’m all for peaceful protest and non-violent civil disobedience. Truly. I get the importance of these things in a democratic society. But did no one in the NDP or Liberal caucuses stop and consider, even for a moment, that their applause and shouting looked an awful lot like public criticism of the legislature’s security force — the people assigned to protect them?
Miscellaneous Stupidity
This is a very broad strokes description of all the ways this entire affair has been absolutely bonkers. I’m leaving a ton of material out of this column because to include it all would probably constitute some form of crime against humanity (which I’d just use the notwithstanding clause to dodge — and for all the legal brains lining up to tell me I can’t, please, just don’t).
There isn’t any side to root for here. There are fair arguments on both sides, but also abject stupidity on both sides, and it’s getting worse. So now we’ll be subjected to a week or so of thought pieces on constitutional norms, how Ford just killed democracy and how our Charter rights have been utterly destroyed by invoking a provision of the Charter. Along the way, Ford will be accused of acting out purely out of personal spite, and anyone who tries to defend him will be quickly undercut by Ford personally rattling off a bunch of left-leaning Toronto councillors he doesn’t like … while also insisting none of this is personal. (And those accusing Ford of personal bias, of course, will refuse to confess to any bias against him.)
Meanwhil, this will still be about the same thing it always was about: whether Toronto will have 47 councillors or 25. But the arguments on both sides will be so loud and over the top and angry that people will tune out.
And then, come the next debacle, we’ll wonder why no one’s paying any attention anymore.
Matt Gurney is host of The Exchange with Matt Gurney on Global News Radio 640 Toronto and a columnist for Global News.
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