RIP Jack Layton

RIP to Jack Layton
Layton lost his battle with cancer. He was a great politician and was much more than just an elder statesman. I did not agree with all of his policies but every last one of his policies was well meaning. I liked his longstanding policies on gay rights, ribbons for the Montreal Massacre anniversary, and infrastructure funding for cities. He was renowned for being able to work well with Mel Lastman despite their ideological differences, which is in stark contrast to the current situation at Toronto City Hall in which the left-wingers are completely shut out of all policy making. That current situation is not good for a municipal government and it is great that Layton and Lastman could work well together.
Layton is known for having run for Mayor of Toronto in 1991. He only got 32.88% compared to 58% for June Rowlands. He ran a good campaign for mayor but likely suffered in the election due to the unpopularity of the year-old NDP provincial government.
Two times Layton made the decision to prop-up a minority government: in 2005 with Paul Martin’s minority government, and in 2009 with Stephen Harper’s minority government. I believe Layton made the right decision in both those cases to prop-up the government – neither the spring of 2005 nor the fall of 2009 were the right time in my view for a federal election. Both times Layton extracted significant concessions from the government: in 2005 for infrastructure spending and in 2009 for the unemployed who were out of work because of the recession. I loved his eternal optimism and his willingness to work with leaders of other parties, even Stephen Harper, who is not known for his negotiating skills.
I certainly didn’t agree with all his left-wing causes in municipal and federal politics, but some of his policies were good and we will all miss him. My thoughts are with his family and colleagues.

CNE and Trinity--Spadina

I recently took a day-long trip to the CNE. There was a sign that listed all of this years Ex sponsors. I saw the symbol for Ontario there but I did not see a symbol for the government of Canada. Either I missed it or somehow the federal government is not sponsoring the CNE despite the fact that CNE stands for Canadian National Exhibition. The CNE grounds are in the Trinity—Spadina riding. I want to save time so I’ll call the riding TS. TS is home to some of the most exiting and famous attractions in Toronto. These include the CNE grounds, the CN Tower, the SkyDome (Rogers Centre) and the Air Canada Centre. All these things with the exception of the CNE grounds are in very short walking distance from the Union Subway station. To get the CNE grounds from the Union Subway station, you take a streetcar. The famous Eaton Centre is also in the federal TS riding, but not yet in the provincial version of TS. Federally TS is held by New Democrat Olivia Chow. Formerly it was held by Tony Ianno. Ianno is again the Liberal candidate for TS. His motto is “Send a strong voice back to Ottawa”. Ianno has run in every federal election since and including 1988. In 1988 Ianno came within 400 votes of winning, losing to New Democrat Dan Heap. In 1993 Heap retired and Ianno scored the largest electoral victory of his political career. In 1997 Ianno won in a tight race against Olivia Chow. In 2000, Ianno won by a 9 point margin over author Michael Valpy. In 2004, Ianno scored a 800 vote victory over Olivia Chow, surprising many. In this election Ianno made a very big deal about Chow’s refusal to resign her council seat (which she had recently been elected in) when running for federal office. In 2006, Chow responded to this by resigning her council seat and stating that win or lose the election she was going to move to Ottawa to be with her husband Jack Layton. As it happened the national Liberal loss allowed Chow to win the seat although still by a fairly narrow margin. It is for this reason that the Liberals have a shot to win this seat back. But as the 1988 election proved, this can only be done if the Liberals win government. So that is one of many reasons why the Liberals must get their act together and win government. One encouraging sign for the Liberals in TS is that municipally half the riding is no longer represented by a New Democrat. The western half of the riding is represented by 20+ year incumbent Joe Pantalone. Pantalone’s sister was an elementary school principal but last year precipitated a very embarrassing, bizarre, and illegal incident at her school that is too embarrassing even to discuss. This however did not affect Joe Pantalone because after this embarrassing incident Pantalone was easily re-elected. The encouraging part for the Liberals is in the eastern end of TS. Here independent/small-l liberal candidate Adam Vaughan won against semi-official NDP candidate Helen Kennedy by a large margin. So I wish Tony Ianno luck.

The provincial level is the level at which TS is the toughest for the Liberals. Not since the 1987-1990 period have the Liberals held the predecessor to TS (Fort York). In this 1987-1990 period the Liberals also held all the other ridings that make up the modern TS (Dovercourt, Parkdale, St. Andrew-St. Patrick). Since 1990 life has been tough here for the Liberals. Since 1990 the only component riding of TS the Liberals have ever been able to win is Parkdale (which only made up 5% of TS). The PCs were third in Fort York in 1987, 1990, 1995, and third in TS in 1999 and 2003. Even in 1987, life was not the best for the Liberals in Fort York considering that even then Liberal Bob Wong only won Fort York by about 100 votes over Joe Pantalone of the NDP. In 2003, some thought the Liberals could win the riding with then-Davenport trustee Nellie Pedro. But the Liberals did not come close. This time round again the Liberals hope that they can win the riding with Kate Holloway. Holloway was until recently an active member of the Green Party of Canada. She also ran for the Green Party in the 2004 Federal Election in Scarborough—Rouge River. When Stephane Dion was elected leader of the Liberal Party, his environmental credentials caused Holloway to join the Liberals. The Liberals are hoping that an as an environmental candidate Holloway can pose a credible challenge to TS NDP incumbent Rosario Marchese. I certainly hope Holloway can win but I fear TS may be to strong an NDP riding at the provincial level for that to happen. A Holloway win would certainly bode well for Tony Ianno, however. I wish Kate luck.