Why I'm supporting Brad Bradford

I’m supporting Brad Bradford as Toronto’s mayor.

Not a surprise. Most of you who follow me already know that. I’ve been clear about my support for Brad here and on my socials and in the commentary I do.

I don’t write about him for Postmedia, because that would be an obvious conflict. But, elsewhere, I think you know where I stand.

What you don’t know, perhaps, is why.

A few years ago, I made my main address a little farmhouse in Prince Edward County. The main reason for that move was the state of Toronto (way cheaper insurance helped make the case, too). The city had become a dirty, dysfunctional and often dangerous place. My kids had all moved away, as well, because they couldn’t afford to live there. I couldn’t argue with their decision.

I kept a place in the Beach, however, where I’ve been for 30 years. I did that mainly because of business, and because my Mom was still there. When she was dying, one of the very few people who checked in regularly was Brad Bradford, the local councillor (Doug Ford was one, too). Whenever she had a concern - about break-ins, noise, dirty streets, whatever - Brad got them fixed. She voted for him, just as I had.

John and Olivia? I knew both of them pretty well. I’d supported both of them at different times, in fact. As people, I liked them; as politicians, I think - I know - they failed. There is no denying that things had gotten really, really bad on their watch. It was just a fact.

And now, under Olivia’s administration, things have gotten even worse.

Now, people vote for candidates based on their lists of positives and negatives. On the negatives, alone, Olivia Chow deserves to be retired. The list - my list, perhaps yours - is long.

Here’s some of things I feel about Olivia Chow, and the city she purports to lead, in no particular order.  I’ve tried to keep a long list short.

I feel like Toronto is simply on the wrong track. As someone who knows the city pretty well, I feel variously frustrated/discouraged/angry/anxious about the state of the place. It feels stuck. It doesn’t feel like Toronto is living up to its full potential - it’s certainly not the “world-class city” Chow and Tory often claimed it is. That can’t be denied.

Toronto is falling behind, full stop.  A big part of the reason for that is that Olivia, as nice as she appears to be, obviously isn’t up to the challenge of running one of the biggest cities in the world. She can’t get things done that need to be done. She doesn’t seem to care, either, about the things that most of us care about - cost of living, congestion and traffic problems, crime, cost of housing, the economy of the city. She doesn’t seem to be preoccupied with the things that affect me and mine, you know?

Toronto doesn’t need to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. The city can and should be so much more.

Olivia’s personality is fine, I guess. (I guess.) It’s just, as mayor, she has not been effective, at all. She has been focussed on her agenda, for sure - raising taxes over and over, ignoring the plight of minorities like Jews, cynically pretending that ICE is a problem in Toronto, hanging out with people who lobby for Iran’s Islamist regime - but her agenda isn’t my agenda. Her priorities aren't my priorities. That goes for many of the many people I know in Toronto.

Change, or more of the same: Olivia simply represents more of the same. (And, at personal level, I can attest to the fact that she is not a particularly honest person. But I’ll save that story for another day.)

On the stuff that Brad has been talking about most - crime, congestion, cost of everything - he is just dramatically better than Olivia. He feels like a fresh start, to me. He’s got the right kind of experience, he’s focussed on the things me and mine care about, he has the same values.

This election is about change. Choose change, I say.