With Ford, city’s reputation for tolerance is strained

Christopher Hume, Opinion, The Toronto Star:

In Rob Ford’s Toronto there is no need for public heath nurses. There are no poor people, no gays, no immigrants, no cyclists, no need for housing and nothing the market can’t fix.

That this is nonsense goes without saying. While Ford’s hordes cheer him on in the most unseemly manner, cutting off their collective nose to spite their collective face, they have little to offer aside from insults and jeers. Not believing themselves a part of Toronto, they are content to watch as it is dismantled by the mayor.

Though it has quickly become predictable, the glee with which Ford’s hordes greet his every bêtise still disturbs.

At first, it seemed Ford, widely dismissed as a buffoon during his decade on city council, would be simply a civic embarrassment. Now he has become a liability.

His refusal last week to accept two provincially sponsored public health nurses demonstrated a shocking contempt for the people who live in this city. Ford sent his favorite “Gino boy,” Giorgio Mammoliti, to do his dirty work in explaining the inexplicable. Beyond doing a brilliant job making a fool of himself, Mammoliti accomplished little.

But many of Ford’s normally docile council concubines responded with disbelief.

Opting out of Gay Pride may play well to Ford’s hordes, but in the wider world it makes him, them and the rest of us look like yokels.

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