You Can Either Be a Good Example, or a Horrible Warning

Over the last few weeks, I think that the topic most frequently raised with me is the situation that Toronto City Council now finds itself in, thanks to the behaviour of its mayor, Rob Ford.  I was appalled last week when I watched the news coverage of Monday's council meeting, as councillors took what action they could to limit the mayor's influence and control over council meetings and agendas.  The sight of the mayor (and his brother), walking around council chambers, yelling at other members of council and the public gallery, was shocking and disgraceful.  The result, of course, is that Ford now is mayor in name only, while control of meetings and agendas now rests with the deputy mayor.  I'm sure that it must be a relief to both councillors and city hall staff that they can now refocus on city business, rather than responding to media questions about the mayor's faux pas of the day.

The question that seems to come most often is "why can't they just remove him from being mayor?"  The answer to that is, of course, because council did not elect him, so they can't remove him from office.  Lack of control in one's personal life, and the subsequent refusal to take time to regain that control, no matter what the issue, is not grounds under provincial legislation to remove a mayor (or any other elected official) from office.  And that's how it should be.  Just as in Saskatchewan, removal requires more than just not being popular with your colleagues, and has to come from outside of council, either through being convicted of a criminal offence, or through a judge determining that conflict of interest occurs - which, interestingly enough, happened to Mr. Ford not that long ago, although a subsequent appeal determined that the size of his offence was out of proportion to the penalty of removing him from office.

From all accounts, Rob Ford was an extremely popular councillor for ten years, largely because he was very responsive to  his constituents.  He also wasn't afraid to stand alone in votes against the rest of council.  When he was elected mayor three years ago, it was largely through a single promise - to cut the waste at City Hall.  Unfortunately, like many campaigns based on a single slogan, things turned out to be more complex than he thought, and his success in that direction since being elected has been mixed at best.  He also seemed to have difficulty realizing that the job of mayor is different that being councillor - you have to be someone who can bring a team together, by articulating a vision that the majority of councillors can support.  And while he was able to bring enough councillors on side for some issues, that support was not solid enough to withstand the scandals of the last six months.

In May, shortly after the stories broke about the crack cocaine video, we were at FCM in Vancouver.  Several members of Toronto city council were there (not the mayor, who has never attended one of those meetings, apparently not interested in exchanging information with his counterparts across Canada), and when I spoke with them, they were universally just relieved to be away from the circus that Toronto City Hall had become.

I find it sad to watch Rob Ford.  His excuses - "I've been under a lot of stress"; "Everybody does it" - are those of an adolescent, not a man in his forties.  He seems to feel that a position of continual denial, followed by apologies when the truth comes out, is sufficient.  Sadly, he doesn't seem to realize that his job is to lead city council, not stand apart from them.  And when people refuse to follow you, you can no longer be considered the leader.  I think that he would have a great deal more credibility, and public sympathy, if he just admitted that he needs to take some time off to deal with whatever personal problems have led him to this point.

He also needs to realize that being mayor is not a nine-to-five job - it's what you are, twenty-four hours a day.  Even in a small city like Prince Albert, the expectation is that you are available to the people you represent, no matter where you are or what you're doing.  I can expect to be asked questions whenever I'm buying groceries or at the mall, and phone calls come every day of the week.  I don't complain, because that comes with the job.

People expect their elected officials to behave with integrity - that means that they expect you to tell the truth, and that your actions should match your words.  When this is lost - and it doesn't take much - it's going to be a lot harder to regain that trust.  Hopefully Rob Ford spends the next months, not in waging war against everyone on council, as he threatened at the council meeting, but in dealing with his personal issues, and working to rebuild his trust with the people of Toronto.

I'm not worried about something similar happening in Prince Albert - we seem to have a better understanding of appropriate behaviour, and of how to handle our differences while remaining civil.  It's just another reason why I'm happy with our decision to move from Toronto to Prince Albert, more than thirty years ago.

"When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself a public property." - Thomas Jefferson