Shark fin ban

Recently the City of Toronto voted to ban the sale, possession or consumption of shark fins. It sounds like the right thing to do but not surprisingly Mayor Rob Ford voted against the ban. Ford’s vote against the ban was one of only four such votes against the motion. The other three votes were from Ford loyalists Doug Holyday, Giorgio Mammoliti, and David Shiner. Lots of other Ford loyalists voted for the ban. Does this mean Ford has lost control of City Council? I’d say he never had it to begin with. Ford attempts to run City Council like a Parliament, up to and including whipping votes. Thankfully a number of Ford’s allies sometimes ignore the whip. But Toronto City Council is not meant to work that way, it is meant to work with the collaboration of everyone and it is unfortunate that Rob Ford doesn’t run council this traditional way.

Here is the above post in French

Récemment, la Ville de Toronto ont voté pour interdire la vente, la possession ou la consommation d'ailerons de requins. Il sonne comme la bonne chose à faire, mais il n'est pas surprenant que le maire Rob Ford ont voté contre l'interdiction. Le vote de Ford contre l'interdiction a été seulement un des quatre ces votes contre la motion. Les trois autres votes ont été des loyalistes Ford : Doug Holyday, Giorgio Mammoliti, et David Shiner. Beaucoup autre loyalistes Ford ont voté pour l'interdiction. Est-ce que cela signifie que Ford a perdu le contrôle du conseil municipal? Je dis que Rob Ford n'a jamais eu le contrôle du conseil. Ford tente d'exécuter le Conseil municipal comme un Parlement, jusqu'à et y compris les votes à fouetter. Heureusement, un nombre d'alliés de Ford ignorent parfois le fouet. Mais le conseil municipal de Toronto n'est pas destiné à travailler de cette façon, il est destiné à travailler avec la collaboration de tous et il est regrettable que Rob Ford ne court pas le conseil de cette façon traditionnelle.

Coming Throne Speech

I can’t deal with whether the federal government will fall on the coming Throne Speech. That seems too far away right now. I want to focus on the provincial campaign. There will be a lot of Throne Speech optics later. If we’re lucky, someone will find away to keep this government in power for now – Liberals in Ontario cannot have two elections so close together. I want this Conservative government out of office just as much as the next Liberal, but a 2007 election is not the way to do it. Bringing down the government only creates an election that the Conservatives could easily win with a minority or majority. Not for decades upon decades has the Governor General asked an opposition party to form government without an election victory for said opposition party. That just doesn’t happen anymore. If we could bring down the government in hopes of Dion simply being appointed Prime Minister on the spot, I’d go for it. But Governors General just don’t appoint new Prime Ministers on the spot following the loss of confidence of a government anymore. So it just is not a doable option. That is why we need to keep this Conservative government in power in the year 2007 and explore our options next year. That’s all the dealing I’m going to do on this topic for now.

But as a closely related aside I want to mention that Harper has been bold enough to say he won’t hold a vote on extending the combat mission in Afghanistan unless he thinks the government can win that vote. The implication is he may hold it eventually, as the current deadline of February 2009 comes close. But he will not hold such an early vote because he thinks he can’t win it. I seem to read signals from the government that the government was hoping certain Liberals would again break ranks and support the extension past 2009 in the same way that certain Liberals voted for the extension to 2009. I expect the government to be disappointed if they are hoping for this. Dion has more or less united the Liberals on this issue. In the spring there was a Liberal motion to end the mission in 2009. Individual Liberals did not break ranks and I wouldn’t expect them to in a future vote. We are now quite united on this issue. When it comes down to it, there cannot be an extension of the Afghanistan mission within the context of this current parliament. Harper would still need a majority government to push through such an extension of the mission. And even then, it would go against the type of “all-party consensus” that Harper has been promising.