Looking ahead

I'm not much into predicting the future. That's a mug's game with none of us having any clue as to what the future has in store for us individually.

Predicting the future of a city or a province or a country is a little different because it will be here, regardless of fate's fickle finger, which points primarily at individuals, rather than entities. With that caveat in mind, a bit of a look ahead.

Lot of talk in Toronto about amalgamation and de-amalgamation. The Toronto school board is apparently talking about splitting into smaller units but the board has never been able to pull together or to reach consensus on important issues. Prediction - they won't be able to decide on how to structure themselves, any more than they will be able to resolve their budget woes or to agree on where they want to go as a board. I think the board will self destruct piece by piece and if a supervisor is in charge later in the year it will not be a surprise.

City council is even more dysfunctional than the school board. Of the 44 councillors in the snake pit each week, there are only a small handful who have anything useful or constructive to say. David Miller - has anyone ever fallen further in less time than the blond bomber from Parkdale? I see no leadership coming from him that will unite sufficient numbers of council behind him to allow the city to move forward. I think by the end of 2008 the city will be in full speculative mode over who the next mayor will/should be and the city will limp along until the next election. Small things will get done but a vision for the city will not exist in any form that generates enthusiasm and support in its citizens.

With both city council and the school board floundering, the provincial government will have some tough decisions to make. Where the city is concerned, McGuinty believes he has fixed the problem. He hasn't. If McGuinty wanted to create a strong city council with power to do things, he need to ensure the legislation provided those powers. It doesn't. It took the timid road which in many ways is worse than no change. If the end result that was wanted was a strong mayor, then the legislation needed to give the mayor's office real clout and real power.

It decidedly did not do that.

Liberals are always much too worried about giving everyone a voice and not giving any one position any real power, with the result that babbling and chaos drown out leaderhsip suggestions. Miller has more power than he had before but he lacks the tools that would have given him power to enforce his decisions. He can successfully argue that he is regularly prevented from imposing his will on council so we now have created a perfect scapegoat and increased the ability of the jackasses on council like George Mamalito and Michael Thompson and Rob Ford and Frances Nunziato to continue to be destructive impediments to good government.

Provincially, McGuinty seems to be moving with more authority and decisiveness than we have seen previously. That can only be a positive but unless he steps in and figures out what to do about the board of education and city council, he is going to have festering sores that will hurt him badly in 2011. He also needs to come to grips with power, with poverty, and with relationships with the feds. It's too early to predict how he'll do but he needs to start moving because none of these are quick fixes but they are must fixes.

John Tory will not survive as leader of the Opposition. A decent man in a party which has had venal politicians running it for more than a decade now, they will bring Tory down in February. If you're a Liberal that's a good thing. There's nothing to fear from the right wingers who lust after the job. Tim Hudak is probably the successor, which is good for all progressives who think the Liberals will do a better job of tackling the province's challenges.

Federally, we will probably limp into an election this year but it will solve nothing. The country does not trust Harpoon and with good reason. It is not ready to give Dion the keys to 24 Sussex and with good reason. It will boot Layton in the ass and for good reason. And the Bloc will stagger along, also for good reason.

The result - another minority government, probably with the Alliance back in office. None of the current leaders are appealing but the Alliance will be stuck with Harpoon because it's hard to turf out a leader who has been elected to govern, whether with a majority or not. Look to the Liberals to be the winners as they probably sort out their leadership woes first.

Layton leads the NDP, which has a history of keeping leaders way past their best before date - Hampton in Ontario is a perfect example. This means the NDP will have nothing new on offer and the Bloc is irrelevant outside of Quebec so the winner in the race to a new leader is the Liberal party, which ought to be heading in that direction by year end.

An aside - the last blog generated some considerable angst by Jonathon, who missed the point in every way.

What the BBC is doing is irrelevant to criticism of the CBC. Jonathon put forward the suggestion that "THE BBC HAS ALREADY ADMITTED ITS BIAS. THEY FAVOR HOMOSEXAULS, PALESTINIANS, MINORITIES AND ARE ANTI AMERICAN." (Capital letters are Jonathon's, not mine.)

So?

His comment about Liberals importing millions of people into Toronto is absurd beyond description. Toronto has 2 million people. Import "millions" more raises the question of where are they? But let that trifle go.

"The Liberals are a manufacturing party who wouldn't exist if not for their importing policies" - Jonathon, what are you shooting up?

Thanks to readers who refuted Jonathon's confused and illogical views. The media collectively and individually is not perfect but they deserve to be criticized on rational grounds, the absence of which was notable in Jonathon's posts.