The city of Toronto is just recovering from a typically nasty, and atypically long, election campaign. We are still languishing in that dazed-and-confused election hangover state.
And while I have no intention of raking over the coals and revisiting all the issues and personality clashes that have been done to death over the last year or so - suffice to say, in my own humble opinion, we did not get the mayor we deserve, but we avoided the mayor that no city deserves - a recent article in the indispensable Globe and Mail has highlighted one specific issue that I find particularly interesting.
Apparently, 37 out of 38 incumbent counsellors were re-elected, with just 7 new councillors providing some modicum of new blood in council debates (one of which presumably being ex-Mayor Rob Ford, who inexplicably waltzed to a landslide victory in Ward 2 without even trying).
Business as usual or what? Granted, the debate will now be taking place under a less divisive and distracting leadership, or at least one would hope so. But it still begs the question as to what extent voters have actually considered the candidates, what it is that that they represent, and their positions on the various issues.
The dispiriting indications are, however, that an awful lot of people just vote with a knee-jerk reaction, checking the name of perhaps the only candidate they have actually heard of. How else to explain the re-election of demonstrably failed politicians such as Rob Ford, Georgio Mammoliti, et al? As to how to explain such a knee-jerk reaction in spite of the negative press such candidates have garnered throughout their incumbency, I am at a complete loss.
All in all, a poor and somewhat depressing reflection on the value of local democracy.
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