Men declare mayoral run a success, now set sights on the province

From the very beginning, George Babula and his Parkdale Party said they didn’t believe they needed to spend millions of dollars or make signs in order take make a bid for mayor.

When Babula and his high school football buddies decided to enter the race for the city’s top office, they said good ideas would sell themselves.Something this party was saying obviously resonated because when the votes cast in the Oct. 25 municipal election were counted, the man who may have started out as a fringe candidate pulled in 3,273 votes, fifth over all.

“Our whole goal was to rise above fringe and we did it,” Babula said. “I’ve been on Cloud 9 all week.”

They didn’t go door-to-door nor print a single poster or sign, but with what Babula calls unconventional thinking and a platform that looked at how to refinance the city and extract savings, the team of Parkdale natives did catch the eye of a number of voters.

“Just because we have taken on the Parkdale name, we represent every neighbourhood just the same,” Babula said. “We are a neighbourhood party, we are community minded.”

The Parkdale Party is comprised of seven men who have known each other since the 1970s when they attended Parkdale Collegiate Institute. Babula now lives in Swansea, just west of Parkdale, while the other men are scattered throughout the Greater Toronto Area. They regularly get together at their favourite pizza parlour in Parkdale and those gatherings often lead to talks about politics, which led to the planning and eventual run for the mayor’s office.

During the course of the election, the men maintained they had fun and learned a great deal about campaigning and elections. They reconnected with old friends and said they felt so much support the men have decided to hold at least two Parkdale Party parties, they will call them “fun-raisers”, every year.

Next on his political agenda, Babula said he plans to enter next year’s provincial election.

“There is no reason that the Parkdale Party can’t be a provincial party,” Babula said. “We are considering making it a legitimate party and then throwing our hat into the ring provincially.”

- Erin Hatfield

But she didn’t do well at all.She was Barbara Hall, the former Toronto mayor who gamely tried to become the first mayor of the amalgamated Toronto 13 years ago. Mel Lastman, the populist, and popular North York mayor won by speaking directly to the suburban municipalities with a simple, and some might say simplistic, message of fiscal restraint.

Thirteen years later, Rob Ford – another populist politician from outside the downtown core won over suburban voters with a similarly simple message. And another downtown political veteran, former deputy premier George Smitherman, was trounced.

The parallels between Lastman’s and Ford’s victories don’t end there – both were and are gaffe-prone politicians who come from the right wing of the political spectrum, with a certain kind of off-beat media-friendly charisma that tends to paper over the worst of their sins.

In these early days, the Ford mayoralty is clearly looking at adding a few more of those parallels. Ford’s first ‘act’ as mayor-elect was to bring in old-time Lastman ally Case Ootes, to help manage the transition from the old left-of-centre Miller regime.

It was a canny move. Ootes served for six years as Lastman’s deputy mayor. For the last term, some might argue Ootes effectively was the mayor, as Lastman’s poor health and diminishing attention span made him often unable to carry out the job.

Over the next couple of months, Ootes will help Ford with the delicate balancing act that it takes to set up a power base. Based on his own past record, Ford will need all the help he can get.

Because despite the other parallels, the fact is that Rob Ford does not possess the qualities that Lastman drew on instinctively: namely, the ability to befriend, cajole, and where necessary discipline the herd of councillors and city staff that he will need to form a coalition.

Indeed, one might argue that Ford has built the persona that got him elected with the kinds of behaviour that make it impossible for him to govern. He has spent 10 years on council showing contempt for all but a handful of politically like-minded councillors. This plays well with an electorate angry at the behaviour and decisions of Toronto Council; less well, with Toronto Council. As it stands, Ford has utterly isolated himself, and coming in, all he has is a powerful electoral mandate with which to push through his agenda.

That mandate will carry him for a few meetings – but after that, he’s going to have to do what both Miller and Lastman have done, and build a shifting coalition of support on council – something in excess of 23 votes, each of which is either cajoled along for the ride with carrot and stick, or hopefully, firmly supportive of the mayor’s direction.

Getting that latter support is going to be the biggest trick of all, given Ford’s hard-line views about government spending. Because Lastman had one other trick, that made him a very effective mayor in a city comprised of people with very diverse opinions.

Lastman himself didn’t hold too closely to any of those opinions. For him, it was all about the deal.

- David Nickle

Ford takes Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke while Smitherman tops downtown

Mayor-elect Rob Ford’s landslide victory on Monday, Oct. 25, night came almost entirely from the so-called inner suburbs — with the most dramatic levels of support coming from wards in Etobicoke and Scarborough.

George Smitherman, meanwhile, was ahead in 14 wards that roughly comprise the former City of Toronto — the downtown core where bike lanes, streetcars and left-of-centre politics have found their homes.That divide, between suburban and downtown voters was revealed starkly Thursday, when the city produced its poll-by-poll results for the mayor’s race and city council races.

The only wards where Ford came out ahead that included neighbourhoods in the former City of Toronto were Ward 17 (Davenport), where voters also re-elected right-of-centre councillor Cesar Palacio, and in Ward 31 (Beaches-East York), where New Democrat councillor Janet Davis was re-elected.

Ford led dramatically in Etobicoke, his old stomping ground. In Ward 2, the ward he represented for the past 10 years, Ford received 14,325 votes to Smitherman’s 2,038 and Pantalone’s 864.

But the big story for Ford was in the 10 wards in Scarborough, where Smitherman garnered less than half of the vote Ford did.

Smitherman campaign manager Bruce Davis said he expected that Ford would take the suburbs. But he was surprised at the spread in Scarborough.

“I had a model we were using, but it wasn’t quite this stark,” said Davis.

“The Scarborough numbers are quite powerful… bigger than I thought, but the divide I don’t think surprises at all.”

Davis said that through the campaign it was clear that Ford’s message was resonating powerfully with suburban voters — particularly his promise to repeal the vehicle registration and land transfer tax.

“Plus there was the fact that he returned phone calls — that’s very authentic, very very powerful with people. And the vehicle registration tax is a real sore point — it’s $60 a year.”

Davis said Smitherman’s consistent downtown support might have something to do with the divide between suburbs and the city.

“The folks downtown responded to the potential, the imminent threat of a Ford victory, and that’s what drove our numbers up even higher (downtown),” said Davis. “The fact that Ford resonated — there was a recoil effect, which is what drove George’s numbers up downtown.”

Despite that, Davis said it was clear that the Smitherman strategy of encouraging strategic voting didn’t work.

“I don’t think that strategic voting ever took hold. In Ward 19, 27 per cent of voters supported Joe Pantalone. We could have used those votes. The strategic voting didn’t take hold.”

Doug Ford, Rob Ford’s brother and campaign manager, also wasn’t surprised by the split.

But he said there was no plan to exacerbate the divisions between downtown and the suburbs over the next term.

“We focused pretty heavy on the suburbs, and we also focused downtown,” said Ford, who was elected to replace his brother in Ward 2.

“We don’t plan on ignoring the downtown — the downtown’s key to the whole city. When tourists come in they may stay in the suburbs they’ll eat downtown. We want to make a beautiful downtown and a beautiful waterfront.”

He also wasn’t surprised by the heavy turnout in Scarborough for Ford.

“You know what it was? These people in Scarborough have been ignored. I love the people in Scarborough. When Rob first announced he was running, seven out of 10 calls were coming in from Scarborough. We’re going to focus in on Scarborough like never before. They’ve been ignored for two administrations.”

Joe Pantalone, Toronto’s deputy mayor, didn’t prevail in a single ward across the city.

- David Nickle

Ootes didn’t run in the Oct. 25 election and will be leaving the position of Ward 29 councillor Dec. 1, when the new council is sworn in.He will be chairing a committee of six – including Ford’s brother Doug, councillor-elect in Ward 2 – to come up with a plan that will let the new mayor hit the ground running at swearing-in.

“I’ve been honored to have been asked by the mayor-elect Rob Ford to head the transition team,” said Ootes. “I have a great privilege to help them through the transition process and assist through the committee any way I can.”

Ootes brings unique experience to the job.

For six years, he served as deputy mayor under former Mayor Mel Lastman, and in the later years of Lastman’s two-term mandate, performed many of the functions of the mayor himself.

He has also been a key voice in the right-of-centre opposition to Mayor Miller’s government.
In the Wednesday, Oct. 27, afternoon news conference, Ootes refused to get into any specifics about the kind of advice the team will be giving Ford.

“There’s a whole process involved in the transfer of the office from one mayor to the next,” he said.

“There’s office space, the committee setup, planning for the council meeting, planning for appointments. It’s important for the incoming mayor to have a sounding board in a transition committee made up of people he trusts.”

The committee will be made up of four individuals in addition to Ootes and the elder Ford: Amir Remtula, a former executive assistant to Ootes when he was deputy mayor to Lastman; former parks commissioner Claire Tucker-Reid; former councillor Gordon Chong; Mark Towhey, Ford’s policy advisor on the campaign; and Nick Kouvalis, Ford’s campaign manager and designated chief of staff.

Ootes said he would be drawing his own salary until the end of November.

After that, he said there was no discussion about further payment – although he said he anticipated that the job would take until late December.

- David Nickle

Council members told to respect the will of the people

In the end, it wasn’t even close.

Despite polls going into the final days of the election that showed city councillor Rob Ford losing momentum that had put him in a dramatic lead for most of the marathon race – Toronto voters decided otherwise.George Smitherman, the former deputy premier who seemed within a hair’s-breadth of winning late last week, received just 35.6 per cent of the vote; Joe Pantalone, who might have been a spoiler, received 11.73 per cent.

That means Ford – who promised to kill both the vehicle registration and land transfer tax, preserve services, replace Transit City with subways and get rid of the city’s streetcar network – has a mandate that early-career David Miller would envy.

Or, to put it another way, according to Don Valley West Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong: “It’s a complete rejection of the direction that David Miller was taking the city. They (voters) want a new direction.”

Minnan-Wong is a survivor of a significant electoral purge of Toronto Council’s 44 members. By the end of Monday night, five incumbents – Suzanne Hall, Bill Saundercook, Cliff Jenkins, Sandra Bussin and Adrian Heaps – had gone down to defeat. Add to that the nine new faces that emerged in vacant wards across the city, and nearly a third of council is new.

In just over a month, Ford and that new council will take office.

His powerful mandate will aid him, but with just one vote on council, Ford will be relying on that new mix of councillors like never before.

It won’t be that difficult with some of the smaller matters, according to one city hall insider.

“You’ve got four years – and in the first year or two, you only do the easy things,” said the insider.

That, according to Ford’s platform, will likely include the removal of the $60 vehicle registration tax that was approved by Miller’s council a year into the last term. The more difficult business of removing the land transfer tax, which raises more than $200 million a year for the city, will have to wait until 2012.

Ford also wants to get council to agree to reduce its numbers by half, cut office budgets, and take a scalpel to city spending.

With just one vote on council, Ford will have to use all the influence he can muster among the mix of veterans and greenhorns to secure the crucial 23 votes he needs to pass a policy.

On Tuesday, Doug Ford – who managed his brother’s campaign and will be joining him on council in his old Ward 2 (Etobicoke North) seat – said the more controversial aspects of the platform, such as the removal of downtown streetcars, wouldn’t be happening any time soon.

“It’s a misnomer to think a big crane is going to come and toss streetcars into the lake now that Rob is elected,” he said. “It’s just not going to happen. But people want subways built.”

And he said there wouldn’t be a problem getting the 23 votes for most matters. “He won’t have any problem at all. We reached out to a lot of councillors before the election and if we can come out on a common ground, the city is going to be better off.”

Finding that common ground will be a trick, though.

Scarborough-Agincourt MPP Bas Balkissoon, a Smitherman supporter and former city councillor who worked alongside Ford, said the brash Etobian will have a difficult time gathering support, given the way he’s worked on council before.

“Well, Rob ran a campaign with a couple of short messages and I guess the public has accepted those messages – but I have to say I worked with him for quite awhile, and I’m not sure he’s up to the task,” said Balkissoon. “There’s more to city hall than those simple statements. I think that’ll be a challenge for him. And I have my doubts that Ford can do that, because over the years he’s not made a lot of friends and allies. I have my doubts he can change that overnight.”

Even councillors who have backed him won’t buy into everything in Ford’s agenda. Etobicoke-Lakeshore Councillor Peter Milczyn won re-election by just 109 votes – and in the close-fought race made a last-minute, public endorsement of his old council colleague’s campaign.

He said he told Ford personally that he couldn’t buy into his plan to get rid of streetcars on downtown streets, and there were other issues they might not agree on as well. But he said the fears raised about Ford’s hard-right, small-government agenda may not all be warranted.

He pointed out that Transit City is a Metrolinx project – not a city project – so the subway agenda may simply not fly.

“To all the people that are terrified of what Rob’s going to do at city hall – I think he’s going to do some good things,” he said. “At the end of the day, the majority of council is going to do some good things. I don’t think some crazy things are going to happen.”

Milczyn pointed out that the shift in the political spectrum remains about the same as it was before the election, with a few new players added and old players gone.

“That’s going to be problematic,” he said.

“I really do hope that the Joe Mihevcs and the Shelley Carrolls do not come out of the gate saying we’re going to form our own shadow government. They’ll be a revolution if they do that. Almost half the city said they wanted Rob Ford. A lot of the people that voted for George Smitherman want similar change – didn’t necessarily want Rob Ford to deliver it but they wanted change. If some people think there’s going to be business as usual and they want to frustrate the will of the people. If somebody can rally a few hundred people to rally in front of city hall, it’s going to be Mayor Ford.”

In the meantime, environmental, arts and other groups that had easier access to city hall under Miller are trying to determine just what their relationship with the city will be.

Jamie Kirkpatrick of the Public Transit Coalition is hoping Ford will back away from the pledge to remove streetcars, and said Ford seemed to back away from his opposition to Transit City. Franz Hartmann, executive director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance, was harshly critical of Ford for his refusal to participate in an environmental report card exercise.

For not participating, he got an F.

Both groups are hoping that a more progressive council will listen to their message where Ford may not.

For his own part, Ford is philosophical. During a break at a football game he was coaching in Etobicoke, he acknowledged that the landscape hasn’t changed much on council.

He said he’s still assembling his transition team – he has a month to staff his office and determine who, if anyone, will sit on his executive committee. But one thing he was certain of.

“I want to definitely get subways built,” he said. “We’re going to do our Sheppard line like I said (a subway, not light rail). I’ve got to sit down with Mr. (Dalton) McGuinty and see if he’ll give us the money.”

- with files from Mike Adler

Former deputy premier said election became less important after birth of son

When George Smitherman left provincial politics to pursue his ambitions to be amalgamated Toronto’s third mayor last year, it seemed like a good bet he’d win it.

On Monday night, political reality caught up with the former deputy premier and – in front of hundreds of supporters, bedecked in black suit and his trademark purple tie – Smitherman conceded what Toronto voters had decided for him.“The people of Toronto have spoken and tonight my friends, they have sent a very clear message. I’ve just spoken to mayor-elect Rob Ford and offered my most sincere congratulations,” he said.

Smitherman lost the mayor’s race by a wide margin – with 289,832 votes to Ford’s 383,501 votes. Joe Pantalone was third with 95,482 votes.

The spread of nearly 100,000 votes came after a week of encouraging polls for Smitherman, showing him neck-and-neck with Ford. Smitherman had been trailing for most of the summer, but his fortunes improved when mayoralty candidate Sarah Thomson dropped out of the race to back Smitherman in an ‘anybody-but-Ford’ strategy.

Smitherman took responsibility for the loss, telling supporters: “It will be written that I lost an election that was mine to win, and I accept that,” he said. “But since Feb. 5, when I first set eyes on my new son, this election became the second most important thing to me.”

Smitherman was joined by his adopted 22-month-old son, Michael, and his partner, Christopher Peloso, onstage at the end of the emotional concession speech.

Later, he said he would be devoting time to raising Michael in the coming months.

Campaign manager Bruce Davis said the sweep of Ford’s victory came as a surprise at the end but it had been clear since the summer the battle wasn’t going to be easy.

“A week ago we thought it was a lot closer – the wind was at our back,” he said.

“We had a sense back in July that we were maybe 20 points behind. But in the end, there’s a sense out there of an anti-incumbency mode. And for some reason we became the incumbent. And Rob Ford, who’s been on council for 10 years, became the outsider.”

Smitherman ran on a platform that combined fiscally conservative promises such as a tax freeze and an agreement to look at contracting out, with an ambitious transit plan that would see more subways and tweaks to the first phase of Transit City.

In the end, Davis said Ford’s message resonated better.

“In July we thought we were 20 points behind so we tried some things,” Davis said. “Obviously they didn’t work. It’s distressing. But part of the story that hasn’t been told is that George has emerged from this a much, much stronger man. It’s been a cool year. He’s just phenomenal.”

- David Nickle

Voters across the city overwhelmingly sent a message to municipal politicians that the issues that touch them directly are extremely important.

This election was an endorsement by the people of Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York – and all regions outside the downtown – that people aren’t happy.

And while much has been written about the need for Rob Ford to become a political consensus builder, Ford must remember the voting public who brought him to power.

There is any number of topics we are waiting to hear Mr. Ford address.

But a good place to start would be by speaking to the people who got him elected – and outline with specifics just how he plans to get Toronto thinking and acting as one cohesive city, yet providing regions of the city with the ability to govern their own local affairs.

Ford took good steps on election night maintaining he would work together with friend and foe during his time in office. He must continue to focus on listening – something he apparently did very well when measuring the voter needs during the campaign.

One big challenge he will have to overcome is a downtown Toronto distrust for Ford’s depth of knowledge on economic development for the region.

Ford would be wise to visibly go to school on economic development and accept the rational view that regional economic development is an essential part of moving this community ahead.

But just as importantly – and perhaps a better bridge builder as he attempts to bring council together as a cohesive governing unit – is to quickly visit his promise to make community councils more effective.

Community councils were retained after city amalgamation to provide former cities and boroughs a voice in their neighbourhood affairs.  But that voice isn’t strong and there’s some dissension in outlying communities who have lost the ability to make decisions that reflect the “local’ view, culture and interests.

As part of his platform’s 12-point ‘taxpayer protection plan’ community councils across the city would make the final decisions on grassroots local matters including parking, leaf collection, sidewalk shoveling and minor residential planning variances.

Presently community councils meet infrequently and make decisions in an advisory role.

To return these powers to local community councils – and quickly – is a show of respect for the inside-Toronto communities these council members represent. It would be good news for councillors representing these areas and create an early tie between council and Ford’s agenda – proving council members of diverse views on countless issues can all work together.

We congratulate all councilors-elect, and urge them to push for early change to the powers of community councils and further investigation of the most suitable relationship of governance for all the residents of the City of Toronto.

Ten-year council veteran sails to easy win

Torontonians handed cost-cutting city councillor Rob Ford a strong mandate Monday to “stop the gravy train once and for all” as the third mayor of the amalgamated City of Toronto.

Ford won by a strong margin. With 1,864 of 1,870 polls reporting, Ford had 47 per cent of the vote.
George Smitherman, who had been running close in the polls as election day neared, had 35.6 per cent of the vote.

In his victory speech in Etobicoke’s Toronto Congress Centre, Ford said seven months of campaigning for the job included some of the best days of his life, and some of the worst.

“We were disciplined, we were creative, we were tireless. Tonight we celebrate victory,” he told the crowd.

“This victory is a clear call from the taxpayers: ‘Enough is enough and I want respect.’ And that is exactly what we’re going to give them.”

He repeated his message of respect for taxpayers.

“We are united for change,” he said to the cheering crowd, some of whom blew on wooden train whistles in celebration.

“You trusted me and I will live up to your expectations — guaranteed,” Ford said, before promising to start working for the taxpayers, “full out, starting tomorrow.”

He was flanked by wife Renata and mother Diane, when he glanced skyward and blew a kiss towards the crowd for his father, the late Doug Ford. “This one was for you,” he said.

Just after 8 p.m. when the projection came through, and supporters were barely in the hall, Ricardo Kenne raised his arms jubilantly. He had been collecting donations for a group called Stop the Gravy Train, which Kenne started four months ago to support Rob Ford, his brother Doug Ford who was running in Rob’s vacant riding and Rob Davis, who ran for council in another ward.

All three, Kenne said, are politicians that really care about taxpayers.

Kenne was convinced Ford was the man to lead change in the city.

“He’s a straight talker, he can’t be bought out by Bay Street. He can’t be bought out by the unions. He’s the people’s champion. That’s what makes him different.”

Others in the hall had a similar message as the results came in.

“This election was over months ago,” said John Humenick of Etobicoke.

“The party’s just starting here; it’s over downtown at city hall.”

But the race had seemed a nail-biter. George Smitherman entered the race early with a dramatic lead in the polls. It was a lead that would evaporate over the early months of 2010, as Ford’s straightforward message of ending waste at city hall caught the popular imagination.

Speaking to his supporters downtown, Smitherman took responsibility for the loss
He arrived at the Guvernment Nightclub just after 9 p.m. to talk to a crowd of several hundred supporters who had been watching the results roll in with disbelief.

Wearing a sombre black suit and one of his trademark purple ties, Smitherman joked “don’t make me furious” when applause drowned out his speech.

“Putting our differences aside as a Torontonian who loves my city, I hope for your success Rob,” he said.

When some supporters booed, Smitherman sushed them.

“No, no  — Toronto is too important. There are no boos tonight, we love our city.”

Smitherman took personal responsibility for his defeat.

“While the burdens of leadership might demand it, it is my duty to own up to the mistakes I made and I do offer my heartfelt apology to those who believed in me,” he said.

“It will be written that I lost an election that was mine to win — and I accept that. But since Feb. 5 when I first set eyes on my new son, this election became the second most important thing to me.”

Later, Smitherman told reporters that the next thing he planned to do was raise his son.

Ford also congratulated his opponents — including Joe Pantalone, Rocco Rossi, Sarah Thomson, the latter two who dropped out along the way — for waging hard-fought campaigns.

He thanked Pantalone for serving the city for 30 years as a councillor and said Smitherman had worked hard as an MPP for 10 years.

At his party at Revival on College Street, Pantalone was all smiles despite the results.

“Life is a journey, not a destination. That means you have got to get the best of what you can, for good reasons, of your present circumstances,” he said.

“I am grateful that I got to serve the people of Toronto for 30 years as a city councillor, the last seven as deputy mayor and I am grateful that this city took me in as a poor immigrant kid that didn’t speak any English, made me deputy mayor and I am grateful for the fact that I have two kids that were born in the city and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to run for the highest office in the City of Toronto.”

Pantalone said he will be at city hall Tuesday morning.

“I plan to go to work tomorrow because I am a city councilor and deputy mayor until Nov. 30 and I believe in giving value to the tax payer. As of Dec. 1 I will no longer be a member of city council and I don’t know what I will be doing at that point. But I’m not worried. I know I have an amazing set of skills, I get along with people, I’m 58 and I’m optimistic I will find some role to continue city building in a way other than being an elected member of Toronto City Council.”

Ford’s popularity soared in public opinion polls — and it was only when mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson dropped out and urged Torontonians to vote Smitherman to stop Ford, that Smitherman began to narrow the gap.

In the week before the election, Smitherman and Ford were neck and neck, as Smitherman’s camp tried to convince left-of-centre supporters of Pantalone to switch their votes to him.

Ford promised to “stop the gravy train” and cut spending dramatically at city hall. He wants to scrap streetcars and Transit City, and maintain service levels at their current rate.

At 41, already a veteran of 10 years in his Etobicoke North council seat, Ford is the youngest child of Doug Ford, who started a label and tag business in Rexdale and was a Conservative MPP during the Mike Harris years.

Ford often credited his late father for teaching him the value of customer service and for setting the example which drove him to work so hard for his constituents as well as residents of other wards,  provided they needed his help.

In an interview with editors of this newspaper, Ford suggested the quality of everyday service matters more to taxpayers than the city’s “large scheme” projects.

“What really affects people is their day-to-day operations of just putting out their garbage, getting their garbage picked up, having a pothole fixed, getting the grass cut in a park.”

He boasted he had returned every phone call to him immediately and in 10 years as a councillor had made 10,000 visits to people’s homes, many of them in wards across the amalgamated city.

Convinced his father worked harder than most of his council colleagues while responsible for a riding the size of two city wards, Ford announced early he would cut the number of city councilors in half, from 44 to 22, as well as reduce their office budgets.

He said this would produce a “gold-medal team” for the next council in 2014.

When people doubted he could get councillors to support this, Ford said he tried passing a motion to reduce council and it had received 14 votes, “without even talking to anyone” beforehand.

Ford said he would not use an elected executive committee to direct council, calling the practice undemocratic. He declared himself open to the idea of a board of control, a second elected layer of councillors handling city-wide matters — presumably in addition to the 22 regular ones.

He favours a “broken window” approach to graffiti and other crime. It’s the strategy former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani adopted to tackle problems before they becoming bigger issues in the community. Ford promised to implement that in the lower-income neighbourhoods of his own Rexdale ward, where, he said, he has helped hundreds of youth he met through his coaching of high school football gain self-esteem and stay out of trouble.

Unlike his rival, Smitherman, Ford did not promise a property tax freeze, but he did propose an ambitious cost-cutting plan he said would result in a $1.7-billion surplus in his four-year term as mayor. To reach this point, he said he would cut municipal staff three per cent a year through attrition, sell $1 billion in city assets and find an additional $230 million through other “efficiencies.”

Still, he said he would guarantee the quality of services would not decline and that no city services would be cut.

Ford also often pledged to abolish the city’s car registration tax and its land transfer tax, though he latter he admitted could not be changed until 2012.

- David Nickle and Mike Adler

Staff photo/NICK PERRY

The gravy train made its last stop in Etobicoke Monday night, after Torontonians handed cost-cutting city councillor Rob Ford a strong mandate to be the third mayor of the amalgamated City of Toronto.

Ford won by a strong margin. With 1,793 of 1,870 polls reporting, Ford had 47.4 per cent of the vote.

George Smitherman, who had been running close in the polls as election day neared, had 35.3 per cent of the vote.Just after 8 p.m. when the projection came through, and supporters barely in the hall, Ricardo Kenne raised his arms jubilantly that he had been connecting donations for a group called stop the gravy train supporting Rob and Doug Ford and Rob Davis

“All three are politicians that really care about taxpayers. He’s a straight talker, he can’t be bought out by Bay Street. He can’t be bought out by the unions. He’s the people’s champion. That’s what makes him different.”

In his victory speech in Etobicoke, Ford said Toronto voters showed “overwhelmingly that they want respect for their money.”

He repeated his message of respect for taxpayers. “We are united for change,” he said to the cheering crowd.

“I will live up to your expectations,” Ford said.

The race was a nail-biter. George Smitherman entered the race early with a dramatic lead in the polls. It was a lead that would evapourate over the early months of 2010, as Rob Ford’s straightforward message of ending waste at city hall caught the popular imagination.

Speaking to his supporters downtown, Smitherman took responsibility for the loss

He arrived a the Government Nightclub just after 9 p.m. to talk to a crowd of several hundred supporters who had been watching the results roll in with disbelief.

Wearing a somber black suit and one of his trademark purple ties, Smitheerman joked “don’t make me furious” when applause drowned out his speech.

“Putting our differences aside as a Torontonian who loves my city, I hope for your success Rob,” he said.

When some supporters booed, Smitherman sushed them.

“No, no  – Toronto is too important. There are no boos tonight, we love our city.”

Smitherman took personal responsibility for his defeat.

“While the burdens of leadership might demand it, it is my duty to own up to the mistakes I made and I do offer my heartfelt apology to those who believed in me,” he said.

“it will be written that I lost an election that was mine to win — and I accept that. But since Feb. 5 when I first set eyes on my new son, this election became the second most important thing to me.”

Later, Smitherman told reporters that the next thing he planned to do was raise his son.

Ford’s popularity soared in public opinion polls – and it was only when mayoralty candidate Sarah Thomson dropped out and urged Torontonians to vote Smitherman to stop Ford, that Smitherman began to narrow the gap.

In the week before the election, Smitherman and Ford were neck and neck, as Smitherman’s camp tried to convince left-of-centre supporters of Joe Pantalone to switch their votes to him.

Ford promised to “stop the gravy train” and cut spending dramatically at city hall. He wants to scrap streetcars and Transit City, and maintain service levels at their current rate.

At 41, already a veteran of 10 years in his Etobicoke North council seat, Ford is the youngest child of Doug Ford, who started a label and tag business in Rexdale and was a Conservative MPP during the Mike Harris years.

Ford often credited his late father for teaching him the value of customer service and for setting the example which drove him to work so hard for his constituents as well as residents of other wards,  providing they needed his help.

In an interview with editors of this newpaper, Ford suggested the quality of everyday service matters more to taxpayers than the city’s “large scheme” projects.

“What really affects people is their day to day operations of just putting out their garbage, getting their garbage picked up, having a pothole fixed, getting the grass cut in a park.”

He boasted he had returned every phone call to him immediately and in 10 years as a councillor had made 10,000 visits to people’s homes, many of them in wards across the amalgamated city.

Convinced his father worked harder than most of his council colleagues while responsible for a riding the size of two city wards, Ford announced early he would cut the number of city councilors in half, from 44 to 22, as well as reduce their office budgets.

He said this would produce a “gold-medal team” for the next council in 2014.

When people doubted he could get councillors to support this, Ford said he tried passing a motion to reduce council and it had received 14 votes, “without even talking to anyone” beforehand.

Ford said he would not use an elected executive committee to direct council, calling the practice undemocratic. He declared himself open to the idea of a board of control, a second elected layer of councilors handling city-wide matters – presumably in addition to the 22 regular ones.

He favours a “broken window” approach to graffiti and other crime, saying it has been effective in both New York City and in lower-income neighbourhoods of his own Rexdale ward, where, he said, he has helped hundreds of youth he met through his coaching of high school football gain self-esteem and stay out of trouble.

Unlike his rival, Smitherman, Ford did not promise a property tax freeze, but he did propose an ambitious cost-cutting plan he said would result in a $1.7-billion surplus in his four-year term as mayor. To do reach this point, he said he would cut municipal staff three per cent a year through attrition, sell $1 billion in city assets and find an additional $230 million through other “efficiencies.”

Still, he said he would guarantee the quality of services would not decline and that no city services would be cut.

Ford also often pledged to abolish the city’s car registration tax and its land transfer tax, though he later had to admit the latter change could not be done until 2012.

~ David Nickle and Mike Adler