I’ve lived and worked in Toronto for many years, the last time being in the early 1970s when I was a shipper/receiver at the Cole’s book store on the corner of Yonge and Dundas. Can’t get much more Toronto than that.
It was a great city then. The streets were alive with tourists, buskers, hippies, merchants, artists, shoppers (this was before the Eaton Centre).
The big draw was Sam the Record Man just up the road and the old Eaton’s and Simpson’s stores down on Queen Street. The biggest hassle I faced was having to chase the Hari Krishnas away from the front entrance of the store.
We’d go in for a beer at the Gasworks or the Brass Rail after work and I’d enjoy the walk home up to Wellesley. No worries about getting mugged, shot or accosted by a cracked out street person or gang banger.
The CN Tower was inching its way up the skyline and Toronto was on its way to becoming a true world-class city with a reputation for cleanliness, safety and sophisticated cosmopolitan elan.
Since then, it’s been highjacked by the socialist twits on Toronto city council, currently led by Mayor David Miller, along with the various fringe arts groups, social workers, union thugs and poverty activists who cling to them like flies on a dead carcass.
Miller is typical of his ilk: a social engineer who thinks human behaviour can be changed with a little hug, a sympathetic ear and lots and lots of money.
Taxpayers’ money.
They take care of their own: witness their sell-out to the unions with their I’m Alright Jack attitudes - overpaid and underworked. Remember that ridiculous major campaign issue last time when Miller fought like hell to stop a bridge to Toronto Island? That’s where Miller’s cosseted and pampered socialist comrades live in splendid, taxpayer financed isolation from the hoi polloi.
Real important issue that. Shows you where his priorities lie.
Don’t be fooled by the big gang crackdown last week. The only reason the gangs are so out of control in Toronto (and most Canadian cities for that matter) is decades of looney left “justice”. It won’t change a thing in the long run.
Toronto is now dangerous, dirty and unfriendly. Last time I was there, about a year ago, I was horrified by that once-great city’s decline into putrescence. From world class to no class.
Like me, you have to have been gone for some years and then come back to realize how badly the city has deteriorated. Millions of tax dollars are dumped out on the streets every year to support what in large measure are a bunch of lazy ne’er-do-wells, criminals, drug addicts, squeegy kids and panhandlers who urinate, defecate, vomit, dump garbage and harass innocent citizens, all supported by their city-subsidized enablers.
Sure there are some human wrecks there as well - the mentally ill - but they belong in an institutional environment where they can be treated, and not allowed to live on the streets.
Toronto city council of course, will have none of this tough-love and strict crime enforcement approach used to clean up New York City. Toronto’s council, unfortunately, is rife with poltroons, fools, jackanapeses, nitwits, coxcombs, dunderheads, sluggards, boneheads, numskulls, dolts, nincompoops, airheads, ignoramuses, ninnies, dunces, birdbrains, halfwits, simpletons and loonies — all living high off the public purse, as is the wont of socialists. And all with the tacit approval of the McGuinty Liberals currently infesting Queen’s Park.
These caviar socialists subscribe to a fuzzy socialist utopia where all march to the beat of the same politically correct, conformist drum. In real life, they’d have trouble running a self-serve gas station, let alone a city.
The tiny minority on that council who believe in hard work, fiscal responsibility and cleaning up the mess that Toronto has become, are unlikely to see their numbers increase when the next election rolls around in November. That’s because the people who voted for Miller and his cronies are primarily NDP supporters occupying a place at the public trough that they are desperate to protect. They must share in my aformentioned gentle description of their city council. You’ve destroyed what was a great city.
Oh, forgot one: morons.
“Toronto is now dangerous, dirty and unfriendly.” One of the reasons people are leave the city and venturing north.
Posted by: keswickonline.com | May 24, 2006 at 08:45 PM
John-
Your emotional rant about the decline of the city of Toronto shows a very basic lack of understanding of the issues the city faces in any depth whatsoever. As one who was "inside the beast" for several years as a consultant to the late, great Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Chief Administrator's Ofice and the Metro Chair's Office, I can tell you that no one, regardless of left, right or centre could make that city work as it is now. As a former mayor and York Regional Councillor I know the limits placed on municipalities and mayors - which you apparently are not familiar with. When the Harris government imposed amalgamation in one fell swoop ( although a committed Tory I have always said I did not always agree with the way Queen's Park did things ), and maintained the "weak mayor" system of municipal government, they set the stage for guaranteed failure.
So, let's lay the blame where it belongs, not on the hapless bunch who try to manage the city today. It's wonderful that you recall the halcyon days of downtown Yonge St - as do I as a former resident of Crombie Park/st Lawrence Market, but let's do a bit of thoughtful analysis, shall we?
Posted by: Jeff Holec | June 04, 2006 at 01:50 PM
You're absolutely right on the mark, amply proven by Mr. Holec, who admits to having been at the trough and even to working in TO city administration - wanna buy a computer. The real problem is, that although 99.9% of the citizenery is in agreement with you, your words will have no effect whatsoever. No longer is the pen mightier than the sword, in fact you're lucky the Liberals are not still in power or we'd probably have a pen registry.... just in case.
Posted by: John Alden | June 08, 2006 at 02:58 PM
"Thoughtful analysis" and other politically correct navel gazing is just more of what we need as the city goes to hell in a handbasket. What's this nonsense of not being able to do anything because we have a "weak mayor" system? (yes, I am familiar with various types of municipal government). If they weren't dumping money into gay theatre and counting the number of bums on the street, they might just be able to hire some more cops. And a "weak mayor" system doesn't prevent a get-tough approach to bylaw enforcement. As for the U.S. system of "strong" mayors, God help us all if Mayor David Miller and his NDP stooges had that much power. Toronto would soon resemble Calcutta. Anyway, Jeff, you sure don't sound like a Tory. (By the way you were quite an effective mayor for being "weak")
Posted by: John Slykhuis | June 08, 2006 at 05:01 PM
The comments made in answer to Slykhuis' Blog are too humourous for words.
I ask former Georgina Mayor Jeff Holec is he feels safe walking the streets of Toronto late at night? What, three more shootings this past weekend -- shootings virtually every weekend. Then you have Toronto Council -- remember that councillor who was drumk at a Leaf game and then later denied it was him? Yeah, they are a respectable bunch, aren't they? As for mayor's powers being limited -- I don't buy it for one. As someone who has covered municipal and regional council for more than 30 years, I have yet to see any kind of decline in the power weilded by a mayor on council. No, Slykhuis has hit the nail on the head with his Blog -- it's just that the socialist thinkers in today's society would rather stick their head in the sand and hug-a-thug today, then actually 'fix' the problem.
Posted by: rod urquhart | June 19, 2006 at 04:43 PM