Mayors Behaving Badly

The number of mayors in the last two weeks that have crashed and burned astounds. What is it about political power that, Circe-like, leads such men to Bad Ends? (No women mayors seem so afflicted).

Here is a brief re-cap:

City:       Montreal.
Mayor: Gerard Tremblay
Issue:   Graft and corruption
Result:   Dismissal, public enquiry, criminal charges possibly pending
Cost to taxpayers: $Millions

City:   Laval
Mayor: Gilles Vaillancourt
Issue:  Bribery,
Result: Dismissal, criminal charges possibly pending.
Cost to taxpayers: $Thousands

City: London*
Mayor: Joe Fontana
Issue: Taxpayer dollars used to fund son's wedding
Result: Mayor hanging on, but barely.
Cost to taxpayers: $15,000.

City: Toronto
Mayor: Rob Ford
Issue: Improper legal procedure with respect to conflict of interest.
Result: Dismissal pending
Cost to taxpayers: $Zero

Yes, a sorry tale. The first three can rightly be accused of squandering a ton of taxpayer dollars. As for the forth, we are more in the arena of bull-headed stupidity than graft and corruption. All Mayor Ford had to do was recuse himself when Council was determining if the Mayor should pay back funds solicited on official letterhead for an economically-disadvantaged football team.** The amount was some $3150.00, none of which came from the City budget. Indeed, Council, by a significant majority, decided in favour of the Mayor and there the matter would have rested. Indeed, should have rested -- the optics alone would have been severe enough.

Enter The Left.

Furrier Paul Magdar, with lawyer Clayton Ruby in tow, launched a conflict of interest lawsuit against Ford, calling for his dismissal. The suit was successful, delighting the left wing of Council. On the other hand, the action did prompt this comment from, of all newspapers, Quebec's La Presse, in which columnist Yves Boisvert writes on November 27: "Great minds in the Toronto media, too happy to get rid of this right-wing firebrand, seem to have easily forgotten a principle of universal justice: The punishment needs to fit the crime. In the Toronto mayor's case, we are applying a professional death penalty for a minor breach."

Says it all, really, and now Toronto faces a very real possibility of the Left taking control, and bringing back the fiscal madness that had bedevilled Toronto during the previous administration. Mayor Ford had tried, and was succeeding, in correcting this fiscal imbalance. Now, however, a death spiral looms as the Left looks to Greece as its fiscal model.

Poor Toronto.

*For my UK readers, I refer to London, Ontario, not London, England. Boris Johnson seems to be doing just fine.

** Don Bosco, a Catholic secondary school. Goodness, if some funds were needed, you would think the Vatican could sell a painting or two.