When the call came in that the University of Glasgow had voted to divest its £128 million endowment from fossil fuel companies, I happened to be in a room filled with climate activists in Oxford. They immediately broke into cheers. There were lots of hugs and a few tears. This was big – the first university in Europe to make such a move.

The next day there were more celebrations in climate circles: Lego announced it would not be renewing a relationship with Shell Oil, a longtime co-branding deal that saw toddlers filling up their plastic vehicles at toy Shell petrol stations. “Shell is polluting our kids’ imaginations,” a Greenpeace video that went viral declared, attracting more than 6 million views. 

Are fossil fuel companies – long toxic to our natural environment – becoming toxic in the public relations environment as well? It seems so, galvanized by the “carbon tracker” research showing that these firms have several times more carbon in their reserves than our atmosphere can safely absorb.

Internationally, there are hundreds of active fossil fuel divestment campaigns on university and college campuses, as well as ones targeting local city governments, non-profit foundations and religious organizations. And the victories keep getting bigger.

In May, for instance, California’s Stanford University announced it would divest its $18.7 billion endowment from coal. And on the eve of September’s UN climate summit in New York, a portion of the Rockefeller family – a name synonymous with oil – announced that it would be divesting its foundation’s holdings from fossil fuels and expanding its investments in renewable energy.

Some are skeptical. They point out that none of this will hurt oil or coal companies. Different investors will snap up their stocks, and most of us will keep buying their products. Our economies, after all, remain hooked on fossil fuels, and affordable renewable options are too often out of reach. So are these battles over fossil fuel investments and sponsorships just a charade? A way to clean our consciences but not the atmosphere?

The criticism overlooks the deeper power and potential of these campaigns. At their core, all are taking aim at the moral legitimacy of fossil fuel companies and the profits that flow from them. This movement is saying that it is unethical to be associated with an industry whose business model is based on knowingly destabilizing the planet’s life support systems.

Every time a new institution or brand decides to cut its ties, every time the divestment argument is publicly made, it reinforces the idea that fossil fuel profits are illegitimate – that “these are now rogue industries,” in the words of author Bill McKibben. And it is this illegitimacy that has the potential to break the stalemate in meaningful climate action. Because if those profits are illegitimate, and this industry is rogue, it brings us a step closer to the principle that has been sorely missing from the collective climate response so far: the polluter pays.

Take the Rockefellers. When Valerie Rockefeller Wayne explained her decision to divest, she said that it was precisely because her family’s wealth was made through oil that they were “under greater moral obligation” to use that wealth to stop climate change.

That, in a nutshell, is the rationale behind polluter pays. It holds that when commercial activity creates hefty public health and environmental damage, the polluters must shoulder a significant share of the costs of repair. But it can’t stop with individuals and foundations, nor can the principle be enforced voluntarily.

As I explore in my book, This Changes Everything, Fossil-fuel-based companies have been pledging for more than a decade to use their profits to transition us away from dirty energy. BP has rebranded itself as “Beyond Petroleum” – only to back off renewables and double down on the dirtiest fossil fuels. Richard Branson pledged to spend $3 billion of Virgin’s profits finding a miracle green fuel and fighting global warming – only to systematically lower expectations while sharply increasing his fleet of airplanes. Clearly, polluters aren’t going to pay for this transition unless they are forced to do so by law.

Up until the early 1980s, that was still a guiding principle of environmental law-making in North America. And the principle hasn’t totally disappeared – it’s the reason why Exxon and BP were forced to pick up large portions of the bills after the Valdez and Deepwater Horizon disasters.

But since the era of market fundamentalism took hold in the 1990s, direct regulations and penalties on polluters have been superseded by the drive to create complex market mechanisms and voluntary initiatives designed to minimize the impact of environmental action on corporations. When it comes to climate change, the result of these so-called win-win solutions has been a double loss: greenhouse emissions are up and support for many forms of climate action is down, in large part because policies are perceived – quite rightly – as passing costs on to already overburdened consumers while letting big corporate polluters off the hook.

It is this culture of lopsided sacrifice that has to stop – and the Rockefellers, oddly, are showing the way. Large parts of the Standard Oil trust, the empire John D. Rockefeller co-founded in 1870, evolved into Exxon Mobil. In 2008 and 2012, Exxon earned about $45 billion in profits, which remains the highest yearly profit ever reported in the U.S. by a single company. Other Standard Oil spinoffs include Chevron and Amoco, which would later merge with BP.

The astronomical profits these companies and their cohorts continue to earn from digging up and burning fossil fuels cannot continue to hemorrhage into private coffers. They must, instead, be harnessed to help roll out the clean technologies and infrastructure that will allow us to move beyond these dangerous energy sources, as well as to help us adapt to the heavy weather we have already locked in. A minimal carbon tax whose price tag can be passed on to consumers is no substitute for a real polluter-pays framework – not after decades of inaction has made the problem immeasurably worse (inaction secured, in part, by a climate denial movement funded by some of these same corporations).

And that’s where these seemingly symbolic victories come in, from Glasgow to Lego. The profits of the fossil fuel sector, made by knowingly treating our atmosphere like a sewage dump, should not just be seen as toxic – something from which publicly minded institutions will naturally distance themselves. If we accept that those profits are morally illegitimate, they should also be seen as odious – something to which the public itself can make a claim in order to clean up the mess these companies have left, and continue to leave, behind.

When that happens, the pervasive sense of hopelessness in the face of a crisis as vast and costly as climate change will finally begin to lift.

This column was originally published in The Guardian.

Naomi Klein’s most recent book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, was published in the U.S., UK and Canada in September. thischangeseverything.org

news@nowtoronto.com | @nowtoronto

The murder of a young Canadian reservist and the Parliamentary shootout that followed was shocking because of its seemingly out-of-the-blue nature. 

But rather than viewing the tragic events last week as a wake-up call to seriously examine Canada’s negative role on the world stage and its war in Iraq, we got references to the “loss of innocence” and pronouncements that “things will never be the same.” 

The events have understandably had a congealing effect on Parliamentarians who shared a trauma together. 

But the shooting is already being used as an excuse for greater militarization and as justification for the war against ISIS, not to mention for “strengthening” our laws in the area of “surveillance, detention and arrest.” 

Coincidentally, last Wednesday was also supposed to be the Harper government’s opportunity to unleash a new round of legislative measures designed to give CSIS and the RCMP even more freedom to monitor people overseas and take part in extraordinary rendition programs. After last week’s events, what opposition leader who wants to appear prime-ministerial would feel comfortable saying no to such an agenda? 

We don’t know much about the shooter, but media have been quick to point out he was a recent convert to Islam.

When Prime Minster Stephen Harper addressed the nation, his discourse was unchanged from his bellicose rumblings spoken before the Parliamentary vote to bomb Iraq and Syria: “Canada will never be intimidated… redouble our efforts… savagery… no safe haven….”

While Canadian soldiers have been told to stay indoors and not show themselves in public in uniform, Muslims or those perceived as ones may have second thoughts about being out in public, too. 

I have to wonder if this direct experience of fear and trauma will force us to examine our own addiction to violence as the solution to conflict. 

Matthew Behrens coordinates the Homes Not Bombs non-violent direct action network. A longer version of this column appeared at rabble.ca.

news@nowtoronto.com

Don't miss: Horror on the Hill

What began, a week ago, as a shocking revelation that Canada’s favourite radio broadcaster is an alleged abuser with a taste for violent sex has resulted in some very serious soul-searching among feminists.

Actually, October was a supremely poor month for feminism. Among other things, there was #gamergate, where death threats against feminist gamers were so intense they forced some women to temporarily leave home out of fear. And mid month, author Stacey May Fowles enlightened Globe and Mail readers on the perils of being a part of the Canadian literary world after fellow writer Emma Healey revealed she was in an abusive relationship in a piece published on theHairpin.com. There was the viral "catcall video."

And then Ghomeshi’s unravelling, with its tales of extreme narcissism and the nightmare- (and trigger-) inducing Big Ears Teddy, provoked discussions about BDSM, consent, power and class. They’re all important conversations.

But the part that’s really left me reeling came with Lucy DeCoutere’s interview with Anna Maria Tremonti on The Current. 

In it, the 44-year-old actor describes what it was like having Jian Ghomeshi choke and slap her across the face during a date they had more than 10 years ago. And then she describes her reaction:

“I didn’t leave right away because I didn’t know how to react,” she says. “I felt like if I left it would be impolite.” And later: “I didn’t tell him to stop. I was so surprised. I was really gobsmacked. As I’m telling this story I’m kind of shaking my head.” That same week in Toronto, she met up with him at an “art thing.” They also went to a barbecue together.

I have never been hit by anyone, but I’ve been sexually assaulted twice. Once, a fellow human acted in my defense (by slapping a groper on the TTC across the face since my 13-year-old self was too shocked to do anything), and once in isolation. After hearing DeCoutere’s bewildered tone at her own behaviour, I confessed to friends and colleagues that what she says, about the confusion and the fear and the guilt and the shock and the silence really resonates. Many, including my own mom, shared similar experiences.

I know what I thought when it happened to me, and it was something like, “I shouldn’t have been in this situation to begin with, so I learned something. I’m strong, I’m safe now and I can deal with it.”

We should never, ever blame ourselves, but it seems that many women have a tendency to look inward for any possible responsibility. But when we are silent, we don’t help others stay safe. And we also don’t direct those feelings of shame and guilt – the feelings the perpetrator should be feeling – right back at them. 

Many are asking why rumours never led to a proper investigation at the CBC. Again, that’s an important question. But this isn’t isolated to the CBC or to journalism or to CanLit or to the video game community. 

The “codes” — the rumours, the stories, the warnings we use to make other women in our circles aware of danger — they’re not sufficient. Because not everyone’s in the club. 

For all of the splintering and waves of feminism, from the man haters actor Emma Watson tried to convince us aren’t really feminists to the organizers of Slutwalks to those who feel utterly alienated by Slutwalk to the, well, man haters — it turns out we actually have a lot in common. And that is silently carrying the burden of sexual assault.

It’s important that we try to speak a language everyone understands and support one another while we work to make the important systemic changes that will prevent more of these crimes from happening. We’re already seeing an outpouring of shared stories, with projects like the #beenrapedneverreported hashtag from Antonia Zerbisias at the Toronto Star. 

Let’s also be mindful that how we share these stories can mean a lot of things: it can mean publishing a less-than-perfect blog post (remember Carla Ciccone?), it can be a tweet, a comment on a story or simply told to a friend or mentor.

All social movements tend to be messy, so I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere by being so damn polite or careful or perfect. I say, let’s make a whole bunch of noise. At least it’s a start.

kater@nowtoronto.com | @katernow

See also: Did Ghomeshi have the right to share those videos? and Jian Ghomeshi scandal a teachable moment

What do Robert Packwood, Paul Bernardo and Jian Ghomeshi have in common? They were all undone by their need to document their abusive – sometimes criminal – behaviour.

United States Senator Packwood’s political career unraveled in 1992 after 10 women made claims he had sexually harassed them on the job. He was able to keep the accusations at bay until investigators wanted to see his diary, which he withheld for as long as he could – for good reason. Not only had he recorded encounters with the women making the claim, he’d recorded the abuse of other women who hadn’t come forward.

Paul Bernardo might never have been convicted had police not found the infamous videos he’d taken of his crimes.

Now along comes Jian Ghomeshi, who thought if he just showed his CBC bosses video of bedroom activities, they’d see what an innocent, sex-positive guy he was.

I don’t know what those videos show. I don’t know what they contained that made those CBC execs realize that maybe Ghomeshi wasn’t the radio host for them. I only know that, whether it’s Packwood, Bernardo or Ghomeshi, the narcissistic urge to record and chronicle personal sexual behaviour has been known to take (alleged) abusers down. 

And I am willing to bet that, whether they consented to the sex or not, that the women in Ghomeshi’s trophy vids were not consulted before he decided he’d use them – the videos and the women – to make his case to the CBC brass. To protect his ass, he had no problem exposing theirs.

That is itself a form of abuse.

susanc@nowtoronto.com | @susangcole

Don't miss: Jian Ghomeshi scandal a teachable moment

In a way, Canada’s literary community could use a Jian Ghomeshi. 

I know that sounds weird. What I mean is that there are certainly some people in CanLit whose behaviour toward women is not unlike what Ghomeshi has been accused of (and I see no reason to doubt the women who have been brave enough to come forward with their stories, anonymously and otherwise). 

CanLit has a Ghomeshi – several in fact. But they are protected, hidden, permitted to continue their abusive behaviour because our literary world is not exempt from the silence and complicity that pervade every sphere of our culture.

I had not thought about this enough until two female colleagues of mine – poet and novelist Emma Healey, writing for the literary blog the Hairpin, and novelist Stacey May Fowles, writing for the Globe and Mail – shed light on how prevalent varying degrees of sexual, physical and psychological abuse are in the relatively insular world of CanLit.

Much of what I want to talk about is not on the scale of what Ghomeshi is accused of. But there’s a continuum of abuse – from harassment to physical assault – which is why harassing a woman is not just annoying for her, but threatening. I wish that didn’t require an explanation.

In the Hairpin, Healey detailed her sexual relationship as an undergrad with her professor. When she finally told her story to other female colleagues, nearly all had similarly been, if not assaulted, then coerced in some way by powerful men of literary reputation.

Shortly after Healey’s piece, Fowles wrote in the Globe, “These conversations are not new. It’s just that we’re finally having them out in the open. While some of these predators have been operating for years without public acknowledgment or punishment, there has long been a shared back channel amongst women in Canadian literature – coded warnings relayed privately, chatter about who can be trusted and who is safe to be around.”

Since Healey and Fowles started this important dialogue, a couple of my female colleagues have shared some troubling stories with me about male colleagues who I would not consider my friends, but whom I’ve known for years.

These women gave me permission to reference their stories without using any identifying information. 

One of them told me that she was repeatedly sexually harassed by a male colleague. He asked her out on dates after she had already declined and tricked her by inviting her to what seemed like staff events where she’d find herself alone with him. He routinely commented on her appearance and when finally feeling rebuffed, sent her emails criticizing her job performance. Eventually she quit. 

Another female colleague befriended a well-established male writer. He offered to meet to discuss her work, which turned out to be an invitation to go home with him. She declined, and he then spent the next several weeks texting her with pleas and insults. He ridiculed her in front of his colleagues at literary events and spread rumours about her. 

She told me, “This all happened at the beginning of my writing career and put a huge wrench in my efforts. I lost all confidence [and] felt ashamed.” She left the city she was living in to start over. 

These kinds of situations – in which the law isn’t broken, but women are either coerced into sexual activity or punished for not “putting out” – are common. 

Acknowledging this and having the conversation that Healey and Fowles started, is obviously necessary.

In the artistic community, these issues clouded by the fact that, unlike in a university or office environment, there are no official codes of conduct. I am not sure if our literary festivals and reading series ought to implement these, as Comic-Con does. But in an artistic community, where the professional and social so easily merge, this conversation is necessary.

It involves telling and hearing abuse stories. Learning that men I’ve read on the same stage with and chatted with at readings have acted in abusive ways toward women is difficult to hear, but as Healey wrote, “Without exception, every single one of these men is still working – writing, publishing, editing, teaching – today.”

How can a woman in this community feel safe when her abuser is often a celebrated figure?

Fowles advised in her Globe piece: “…when a woman tells you a man you know is an abuser, trust her. It doesn’t matter if he’s ‘always been nice’ to you – don’t give him the benefit of your doubt. Don’t protect his ‘literary genius.’ Don’t publish or review his work, don’t sign him up for your reading series or festival, don’t buy his books, and don’t continue to support his ability to victimize the voiceless. Don’t value politeness, or avoiding conflict, or your career over the safety of the traumatized.”

A lot of people in CanLit are glad this subject has been brought to light, but a lot are upset with Fowles because she makes unprovable allegations and repeats anonymous stories. It feels like gossip to some. 

Many of these incidents happen in private, and in the end come down to “he said, she said.” But why do we always begin with the assumption that the victims are lying? 

That these conversations require, for the sake of the safety of the victims, a certain amount anonymity, privacy and non-identifying information demonstrates a fault in the culture, not with the people speaking out.

In an email exchange with Fowles, I related these recent stories I’ve been told, about these men I have been cordial with all these years.

I said, “I am Facebook friends with these men. I chat with them if I see them at a reading or other lit event.”

She asked me, “Why would you even want to be associated with them?”

I don’t have a good answer because there isn’t one. Dissociating myself from them could be awkward, even confrontational. Maybe it could hurt my career. In short, I’m a coward. A lot of us are. Which is why ending my complicity and doing what I can to keep this conversation going is the least I can do.

Jacob Scheier is a Governor General's Award winning poet.

news@nowtoronto.com | @nowtoronto

I'll begin by saying that I didn't “know” about Jian Ghomeshi until the evening of October 26 when news broke he had been fired by the CBC. 

Like hundreds of thousands of other Canadians, I read his Facebook letter in response and was consumed with a sense of injustice. To be outed, vilified and fired for one's sexual preferences was deeply reprehensible, and the CBC was stodgy and conservative and controlling.

Absent from this reading, was the thoughtful, intelligent feminist who looks at media coverage and analysis with a critical eye, seeking out multiple reputable sources before forming an opinion. After all, I knew Jian's voice. It was sympathetic and measured and diplomatic and kind. It was thoughtful, conversational and easy. 

I had spent innumerable mornings with that voice – years, actually – driving in the truck or working at the job site, moving with it through my day. I blindly readied my pitchfork against his accusers, unwilling or unable to read the blatant and familiar subtext of denial and victim-blaming that Jian's letter was steeped in.

The following morning I saw The Star article that detailed some of the accusations against him. And I, along with thousands of other Canadians, realized that I had been duped – willfully, I would argue – into accepting an old and tired story that has defined the framework of our conversation around sexual assault for generations.

And this, I believe, is where things stopped being the same. 

For the first time in my memory, two women stood up in front of us and spoke in their own voices with their own names and likenesses, and recounted their experiences for the world. Two women stood up proudly and said, “This horrible thing was done to me and I did not deserve it. I like sex and smoke pot and drink wine and I did not deserve this.”

And their fellow citizens have begun, since the moments following their declarations, to embrace them to say, “We believe you and we will support you.” This feels monumental. 

Because it’s not only traditional feminist voices speaking their support that what this man has done – this man we know and love and who for many represented the voice of Canada – is so deeply wrong. The number of men who are declaring calmly and clearly, too, that wanting and liking sex, rough or otherwise, is not synonymous with consent to sexual violation, overwhelms me. 

The idea that, in my lifetime, I may see the beginnings of a society with the capacity to embrace and protect victims of sexual violence is wondrous and exciting. And this conversation that we are having is that beginning. 

We are learning, out loud and together, that people we know and love can do monstrous things. We are also learning that the virgin/whore dichotomy is a damaging tool that has been used to keep victims ashamed and silent in a patriarchal society that has no room for their voices.

This is what we call a teachable moment. And it feels exciting that so many fellow Canadians seem wholeheartedly willing to embrace it.

news@nowtoronto.com  | @nowtoronto

Ford Nation is not what it once was. While many suburban wards saw a majority of voters cast ballots for Doug Ford, there was a significant drop in support among previous strongholds in Etobicoke, North York and midtown Toronto.

It’s hard to pin down whether the Ford fade out in these wards was due to the scandals and shenanigans of Rob’s tenure as mayor or the last-minute change-up with Brother Doug. Either way, the percentage of Torontonians who voted for Ford dropped from 2010 and 2014 in all but six of the 44 wards: Ward 8 (York West), Ward 7 (York West), Ward 12 (York South-Weston), Ward 42 (Scarborough-Rouge River), Ward 9 (York Centre) and Ward 1 (Etobicoke North).

What about the epicentre of Ford Country? Though Ward 2 had the second highest amount of Doug Ford supporters in Toronto, they showed more support for Rob back in 2010. In 2014, Doug received 67.91 per cent of the ward’s mayoral votes, but Rob snagged nearly 12 points more with 79.6 per cent of the vote four years ago.

But it wasn’t these smaller decreases that hurt Doug’s run for mayor. Some wards where a majority of voters cast ballots for Rob saw significantly more residents snub Doug at the polls. Four years ago, the Ford name captured about 68.05 per cent of mayoral votes in Ward 4 (Etobicoke Centre), but it took 45.29 per cent in 2014. Ward 3 (Etobicoke Centre) also saw a significant decline, with 65.18 per cent voting for a Ford in the last election, an amount that dropped to 41.36 per cent in this election.

Some of the tallies in mid-town saw even bigger declines. Ward 25 (Don Valley West) and Ward 16 (Eglinton-Lawrence) both saw the percentage of Ford voters drop by about 30 points in 2014.

Both these wards are home to well-heeled Torontonians. In 2010, the average household income was $175,528 in Ward 16 and $202,111 in Ward 25.

It’s a stark contrast to Ward 1 (Etobicoke North), which had the highest percentage of Ford voters in 2014, and Ward 8 (York West), which saw a 12.94 per cent boost in the percentage of Ford votes between elections. The 2010 average household income was $52,280 in Ward 8 and $66,001 in Ward 1 (the city-wide average is $87,038). It looks like Ford support in some of the city’s more disadvantaged wards is one of the few things that didn’t change between 2010 and 2014.

See the map above for more details. Election results from 2014 based on the City of Toronto’s unofficial results.

It was an awkward moment, one of very few in a mayoral campaign that, for the most part, was smooth sailing. 

It happened while Daily Bread Food Bank executive director Gail Nyberg was onstage at the John Tory campaign victory party Monday, October 27, telling the gathered why she, an anti-poverty champion, was among the first to support Tory for mayor. (There had been a few questions about that, and Daily Bread was forced to issue a statement distancing itself from Nyberg.) And then... her mic got cut off. Cue the music. 

The man himself had entered the Liberty Grand and was making his way to the stage for his acceptance speech. There would be no time for niceties from Nyberg, as important as those may have been for the narrative being floated by Tory operatives for the assembled media throughout the night – namely, that a broad cross-section of Torontonians voted for Tory. The sign providing the backdrop onstage proclaimed it: One Toronto and #TOgether. But it’s quite possible our city is more divided than it was after Rob Ford’s improbable win in 2010.

In his speech, Tory said that with his victory, the city has never been more together. That line was probably written before the landslide victory expected for that didn’t happen. Indeed, for a few eerie minutes after polls closed, it looked like chief rival Doug Ford would be within striking distance. In the end, Tory won comfortably enough to argue he has a mandate – for now. But look beyond the 60,000-vote margin to areas of the city won by Tory and those carried by Ford and a different picture emerges. 

Tory’s swath of support cuts right up the middle of the city, with pockets in Scarborough Bluffs and the Kingsway in Etobicoke, pretty much the same lines you’d find on a Toronto Real Estate Board map if you were looking to move into one of the city’s more desirable neighbourhoods.

Ford’s support, on the other hand, came mostly from the have-not inner and outer burbs in Scarborough and Etobicoke identified in David Hulchanski’s seminal The Three Cities Within Toronto report. 

At the Liberty Grand in the hours before voting closed on Monday, John Duffy – the Liberal strategist credited with Tory’s key platform plank, the SmartTrack transit plan – talked about the surface rail proposal in social justice terms, part of a grander scheme to knit the city’s disparate areas together.  

It was a recurring theme of a campaign designed to appeal to Main Street as well as Bay Street. The video presentation rolled out on the big screen before Tory’s speech contained enough shots of him with regular-looking folks. 

But it was hard to get past the faces of the lobbyists and familiar kingmakers in the room, the dream team behind Tory, and the who’s who of campaign donors who’ve contributed a cool $2.5 million and counting to his campaign.

It was hard to forget, too, that when it looked like Rob Ford was a lock to win in 2010, Mike Harris’s boys at Cassels Brock, the law firm famous for ordaining mayors, urged Tory to run at the 11th hour to head off Ford at the pass. With Liberal George Smitherman in the race then, there wasn’t enough money to go around.

This time, though, both the PC and Liberal machines got behind Tory, which may complicate matters when push comes to shove on the big issues at City Hall. 

Those familiar with Tory’s reputation for being led around by his nose by his backroom buddies can already see some disconcerting signs in the team assembled to guide Tory’s transition to power.

There’s Harris-era warhorse Case Ootes, who headed Ford’s own transition team in 2010 and was later dispatched to oversee the sell-off of social housing after that manufactured TCH scandal in the early years of Ford’s administration.

Then there’s Rod Phillips, a Mel Lastman crony and former OLG president and CEO who tried to sell Toronto on a downtown casino. 

At a press conference Tuesday, Tory repeated his campaign pledge to build bridges with members of council. But his choice for chief of staff, Chris Eby, the Sussex lobbyist who served as director of communications on Tory’s campaign, doesn’t inspire confidence if the way Tory avoided detractors during the campaign by ditching debates is any indication. Tory’s campaign manager Tom Allison, Premier Kathleen Wynne’s former deputy chief of staff, would have been a better choice in that regard.

Who will fill Tory’s executive and roster of committee chairs will be a more delicate balancing act. Tory will have to reach across the suburban divide, but don’t be surprised to see some of the same faces from the Ford era in positions of prominence. 

As for lefties who might occupy positions of influence, that probably won’t happen until midterm. In the short term, it looks like Tory will be relying on his handlers to navigate City Hall, although he did suggest during his speech that there may be a role for mayoral rival Olivia Chow.

Tory reminded us during the campaign that he’s 60 years of age now and that he ran for mayor for no reason other than that he wants to be of public service. Maybe Tory has matured. Maybe he’s no longer a pushover. 

And maybe Wynne, to whom he owes part of his victory, will keep him in line. Maybe. 

Election 2014 by the (mostly sorry) numbers

60 Approximate percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot, compared to 51 per cent who voted in 2010.

The moment Doug Ford stepped outside, it began to rain.

Leaving the Woodbine Banquet Hall at 10:30 on election night, he and his family piled into the RV that bore his face on the side. The Fordmobile was grinning, but Councillor Ford was not.

Included in his entourage was senior campaign staffer Graeme McEachern, who days earlier had boasted on Twitter that Ford would take the mayoral election with no fewer than 400,000 votes. In the end, he received 330,610 to John Tory’s 394,775. Olivia Chow finished third with 226,879.

Packed inside the garish vehicle, the inner core of Ford Nation drove away – less sailing off into the sunset than making a left onto a wet, dark Highway 27.

Not everyone went with. Oldest brother Randy stuck around the dwindling party, briefly joining the dance floor for Thriller. Speaking to NOW’s videographer, he wouldn’t preclude his own run for office in the future.

“Nothing’s ruled out, buddy. Nothing’s ruled out.”

The Fords are both defeated and enduring. Their grasp on the city has slipped, but they have by no means let go.

Video by Zach Ruiter.

Five hours earlier, I’m bounding along Etobicoke’s St. Phillips Road in a BMW driven by Cynthia Amsden, a film publicist who’s taken a job running communications for the Andray Domise campaign. Domise, a financial planner with roots in Rexdale, is running to be councillor for Ward 2 (Etobicoke North), the seat held by one Ford or another since 2000.

Amsden, a proud downtowner, explains that she hooked up with the campaign in September – when Rob Ford replaced his nephew on the ballot following his cancer diagnosis, and Domise’s campaign manager joked on Twitter, “Does anyone have @jimmykimmel’s number?” She tweeted back offering a contact.

For a publicist, she says, taking on Ford is “the motherlode.” The posh British voice of her GPS system interrupts her story as it barks out directions to the Dixon towers.

The high-rise neighbourhood east of Kipling, made infamous by the Project Traveller raids (that netted, among other things, a copy of the first Rob Ford crack video), is where Domise will spend the last few hours of his campaign. The area has thousands of residents living in close proximity, making it an efficiently dense place to pull the vote. We cross paths with would-be trustee Dahir Galbete and supporters of rival council candidate Munira Abukar.

Domise is accompanied on the canvass by two volunteers plus a man shooting a documentary and a camera crew from Humber.

Starting at the top of 370 Dixon, he works his way through, door by door, floor by floor. It’s like pretty much every other modernist apartment building in Toronto, with hallways whose quiet is sometimes pierced by the sounds of children and dogs.

I stand aside as Domise speaks to residents, and seldom catch more than an arm through a door frame. To be closer would feel like intruding on a sacred moment of democracy.

Many residents say they’ve already voted, which could be true or just a polite way to shoo Domise off. Some are too young to vote, others aren’t citizens, and still more are simply unable or unwilling to make it across the street to the polling station.

“We’ve been at this for six months,” Domise reflects between floors. “That’s not gonna reverse 14 years of enforced apathy.”

***

At the Ford party, the biggest cheers come early, when CP24 declares Rob the victor in Ward 2. He takes 58.8 per cent of the vote, nearly six times that of runner-up Luke LaRocque. Domise winds up third with 8.2 per cent. Abukar fourth with 6.1.

The event is otherwise bleak, held in a hall a fraction the size of that which hosted the Fords’ 2010 bash. The room could be expanded by opening dividers, but there is no need. The last remnants of Ford Nation fit comfortably, a far cry from the crowd of four years ago that forced the victorious candidates to literally shove their way to the stage.

Back then, Rob barrelled in to Eye Of The Tiger. This time, Tom Petty’s I Won’t Back Down. But the music doesn’t start until he’s already at the lectern and keeps playing through the first part of his speech.

His address is seven minutes of empty Fordisms peppered with references to the next election.

“We, today, have got to start working for November of 2018,” he says. “What that exact date will be, I’m not sure.” (Ontario’s municipal elections are fixed by law on the fourth Monday of October, so if nothing changes, it’ll be October 22.)

Some of his supporters shout “Come again!” not as a substitute for “Pardon?” but as an impassioned plea to a departing messiah.

When Doug later takes the stage to the same piece of music, he is greeted by chants of “Recount! Recount!”

“Together,” he tells his adoring fans, “we have changed the political landscape in Toronto. It is the city made up of vibrant communities from every corner of this globe, all of whom share the same belief that government should be for the people.”

He’s effectively describing democracy as though it’s a radical concept. And to those who drown out the end of his speech with further demands for a recount, government for the people may indeed sound like something of a novelty: the Fords’ substantial talent is helping the powerless feel empowered, as though someone is responding to them for the first time in their lives.

Several people reply to his speech with proclamations of “In Ford we trust.”

If you’re looking to bring Ford Nationals toward reality-based politics, the only hope is to elect someone who can improve their circumstances in ways the Fords only promise.

***

Shortly before the polls close, I find Abukar at Dabagoye restaurant on Martin Grove.
She’s wrapping up dinner before heading to her party in a hall above a furniture distributor next door.

The 22-year-old is a director of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, one of the two tenant representatives elected to the board in 2011.

To her, the Fords are frauds who prop themselves up on the backs of the people they claim to be serving.

“It’s me taking all the myths that they sold to the city and saying, ‘Well, look at them: I'm unravelling every lie you’ve told, every myth you’ve told about the work you’ve done for the people.’”

“If you’re saying you’re calling TCHC residents and fixing their homes,” she says, “well, buddy, my home is still broken. And I live right close to you. I’m the closest TCHC neighbourhood to you. When it comes to you saying you’re there for the community, it’s me being at Dixon and saying, ‘Well, I’m here where Project Traveller happened, and I’m not the councillor – so where are you, right?’”

Abukar’s frustration bursts out in intense, rapid-fire explanations of the Fords’ alternately indifferent and paternalistic relationship with marginalized communities. (Domise has diagnosed the same issue.)

In particular, as a young woman of colour who lives in community housing, wears a headscarf and whose signs and volunteers have been subject to racist and Islamophobic attacks, she resents the Fords casting themselves as “the little guys.”

“You’re not the little guy if you’re driving around in an RV that has your face on it.”
Her campaign, she explains, is about declaring, “Hi, over here – I’m the little guy. And I’m telling you you don’t speak for me. I speak for myself.”

Just as with the city as a whole, Ward 2 has to wean itself off of a civic paradigm in which the Fords automatically take up the central role.

“I think the more we speak about them,” Abukar says, “the more power you give them, right? And for me, it’s like, let’s move away from the fact that they destroyed the community. Let’s move away from the fact that they’re even here [to the matter of] how do we build a community without them?”

jonathang@nowtoronto.com | @goldsbie