No matter how large the field grows, the 2010 mayoral race will ultimately devolve to a single ur-narrative: can an outsider do a better job than the insiders who must spend the next year answering for David Miller’s shortcomings?
It’s impossible to imagine how Joe Pantalone, Shelley Carroll or Adam Giambrone could persuasively distance themselves from l’ancien regime, and there’s little reason to think they’d try such a stunt, given their allegiances to the mayor.
So it will fall to the outsiders – George Smitherman and now Liberal Party president Rocco Rossi – to prove they’re not barbarians at the gates. We’ll hear endless accounts of Miller’s failings. But if either hope to prevail next November, they’ll have to tell Torontonians what they’re for, not just what they’re against.
By most accounts, Smitherman’s speech last week did little to answer the question. Rossi got his first shot at scoping out his own vision when he announced his candidacy at City Hall this morning.
The detailed platforms, wedge issues and ballot questions will emerge later, of course. In the interim, we get to watch how these two Liberal veterans try on the mayoral personas they’ll be broadcasting to voters.
Smitherman, I predict, will emerge as this election’s Angry Man, a role John Nunziata performed to the hilt in 2003. He’ll revert to Furious George mode because (a) it’s worked well for him in the past, and (b) because it will be his best line of defense in the face of relentless questions about his role in the eHealth Ontario scandal. (If he wins, I’m also guessing Mayor Smitherman would borrow generously from Hazel McCallion’s handbook for keeping councillors scared and obedient.)
Faced with Smitherman’s aggressive ticks, Rossi could end up playing the role of the election’s Optimistic Man, a part Miller played in 2003. He’s possessed of a sunny disposition and wears an ear-to-ear grin with no dimmer switch. He’s got a great network of contacts but almost no name recognition, so he enters the race as something of a blank slate. And unlike Smitherman, he’s got no electoral track record to defend defensively, only a peripatetic career through stints in consulting, fundraising and political organizing.
I’ve often wondered what a right-of-centre version of Miller would look like, and Rossi in some ways fits the bill. There are some interesting parallels. Both came from very modest homes, succeeded on their wits in elite educational institutions, impressed influential mentors, and proved themselves as skilled debaters.
What’s not yet clear is whether his candidacy is the genuine article or merely a profile-raising dress rehearsal for a run at a federal Toronto riding.
Motive aside, the dynamic between Smitherman and Rossi will prove to be the election’s most riveting source of dramatic tension. They’ll simultaneously unload at one another while dumping on Miller. But the deciding factor will be the city’s mood circa October 2010. Are we feeling broke and anxious, or are we looking ahead to recovery, keening to seize the day?
Do we look in the mirror in the morning and see Mr. Angry or Mr. Optimistic?
photo by Miles Storey
19 comments
Update: at the press conference this morning in front of City Hall, Rossi made two clear promises: selling off Toronto Hydro and using the proceeds to reduce the city’s debt load (interest payments now account for the second largest line item on the budget, after the police); and cutting the mayor’s salary by 10% while freezing the office budget and urging other councillors to follow his lead.
He decline to say whether he planned to outsource garbage collection. And he didn’t arrive with a retinue of supporters. There was only one handler in evidence, a former June Rowland’s aide named Hugh Mansfield. And Rossi said another co-chair will be Craig Gagliano, of the St. Joseph’s Media empire. But Rossi, who spoke without notes, didn’t distribute a press release and made no mention of other basic campaign infrastructure (website, endorsements, etc.)
I would say Rossi’s campaign will draw more parallels with Stephen LeDrew’s than Miller’s. I think its purely a profile-raising attempt by Rossi.
I would also caution against the temptation to predict personality meta-narratives prior to the election races official start. For what its worth, I think Rossi will be a very fringe candidate with no real base.
What steve says, especially about the clown LeDrew.
Your ‘prediction’ of ‘Angry Man’ and ‘Optimistic Man’ is a lot like Bell’s ‘Mr. Angry’ and ‘Mr. Happy.’
I’m not a big fan of these dualin’ categories; perhaps others find the reductiveness helpful.
I’m trying to be optimistic, myself, about Rocco but I can’t help but wonder about the two announcements today. One being the salary cut which is rather insignificant, as anyone with a calculator will tell you. The second about selling Toronto Hydro – it’s pretty hard to come across an example where selling a public asset was actually a good deal (eg 407 International). Perhaps selling TH is a good idea, but he’s got some explaining to do!
All Rossi is missing is a show on CP24.
He can explain to everyone how selling Hydro for a onetime paydown of debt (and a not very big one at that) will benefit the city (and its residents) in the long term.
It has come to my attention that the “wag” Doug Bell refers to in the article I linked above is, in fact, Mr. Lorinc himself!
My apologies if anyone was led to believe there was an evil collusion involved!
Still not a fan of these dualin’ dualisms, though.
And here’s something that argues selling Toronto Hydro makes sense. The author is inviting criticism/discussion in the comments:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/silver-powers/why-selling-toronto-hydro-is-a-good-idea/article1399857/
I agree with the comment made at the top of the article that the Miller association is probably a liability for his supporters on Council. (On the basis of Lorinc’s past articles, I bet he never imagined he’d be writing something like that.)
Smitherman’s record in office does not make me want to support him. Rossi has record in office, and worse, has NO RECORD OF EVEN RUNNING for office, so he seems more of diversionary tactic. As for his suggestion of selling Toronto Hydro, I agree with those above who’ve suggested its a very short-sighted move (and in any case, he has yet to really explain why this would be a good thing).
Rather than the relatively modest one-time proceeds from the sale of Toronto Hydro, perhaps Rossi would make better headway against the City’s dire fiscal situation by commercializing the time-travel technology he’s apparently sitting on. I can’t wait to see what he brings back from his next fantastical, mind-bending sci-fi round trip to the wild and crazy mid-1990s… surely liquidating public assets is just the beginning!
It’s not a good sign that the campaigns have not even begun and already the first “ideas” out of the gate are populist nonsense like reducing council salaries.
Let me get this straight. When city council chose not to roll-back their salaries when other city workers had to, there was an uproar. Now that someone (ie: Rossi) is suggesting they roll-back these salaries (if even as a symbolic gesture), there is still an uproar by some.
Talk about zero-sum.
Paul, in most cases, I’d consider rolling back Council salaries as populist nonsense. But with respect to the current Toronto City Council, it acted to freeze salaries for their non-union employees ALL THE WHILE giving themselves an increase. The core issue is whether Council acts with integrity — and giving yourself a raise while denying one to your employees does not qualify as acting with integrity. If Council had acted with integrity on this issue, the type of comment made by Rossi would be a non-starter. That said, I’m still not seeing anything yet to cause me to support Rossi.
Could the commenters above please describe what they understand to the likely proceeds from Hydro, and how they are deemed modest?
If – and I say if – the 1bn figure is correct in terms of what is obtainable outside of the redemption of the loan note, then the annual return from Hydro must exceed the cost of borrowing $1bn annually.
One argument against such mathematics is the likelihood of capital growth in addition to the dividend. Capital growth is really only worth talking about it if you intend to realise it at some point, but more importantly – by selling Toronto Hydro Telecom to Cogeco, the City has already disposed of the asset most likely to grow in the short/medium term (and before the creation of the pan-urban wifi hotspot promised by Mayor Miller).
With the sale of the City Lighting poles to TH, the City has been shown to use it as a vehicle for panic budgetary sleight of hand. It’s probably best that it come out of the Councillors’ box of toys.
The rather restrained option from Minnan-Wong (!!) of a part-privatisation, leaving 51% in public ownership, might be the best compromise. It would force the directors to act in the interest of the shareholders generally and not what the Budget Chief reckoned the interest of the City was in the coming 12 months – getting out of the Budget Committee’s clutches would actually mean TH could plan for the long term without worrying about what the next cycle will bring 12 months hence. As a provider of capital infrastructure, being able to plan for the medium term is crucial to the long term health of the City.
As a former Energy Minister, it will be interesting to see how Smitherman responds to this.
Now if we can only get Rossi interested in substantially divesting the Parking Authority of most of their offstreet assets, the City’s financial interest in maximising parkers might change to one where it taxes parking spaces.
Interestingly, John Tory is seemingly coming out now with some positive initial feedback about the Toronto Hydro sell-off.
At the very least, it’s good to have these guys start the conversation and debate the issues and do it in a CIVIL and RESPECTFUL way (something which has been sorely lacking at the Fed/Prov levels as of late)
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From the Post:
Mr. Tory, the former Progressive Conservative leader who is also mulling a run for mayor, voiced support for the possibility of selling Toronto Hydro, saying the city needs to engage in “rational debate†over how to pay down the debt.
“This is one that should be discussed, and good for [Mr. Rossi] for putting it on the table,†Mr. Tory said.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/12/15/a-debate-over-the-future-of-toronto-hydro-courtesy-of-rocco-rossi.aspx
Mark: as you say, the $1bn figure is a serious “if”. Another use to which we might put the time machine would be checking past pie-in-the-sky estimates of the value of public assets against their eventual sale prices. The phrase “pennies on the dollar” comes to mind, but perhaps that’s just my cynicism showing.
I agree (and second your “!!”s) that something short of a full sale may be a promising compromise. Apart from the annual return, does not the City’s continued control of TH represent some non-monetary value for which we ought to account?
To the extent that the sale of TH or any other public asset is considered on the merits — and clearly you, for one, are doing so — it is all to the good. Hopefully Rossi and the others will be willing to engage on that level instead of clinging to sure-thing fantasy figures for the sake of the campaign. That’s the approach that’s put me (and, not to put words in his mouth, but I suspect Steve as well) off of this kind of thing in the past.
A sale done right might dull the impact of short-term thinking on TH. A sale motivated by short-term thinking, on the other hand, could be just another one-time cash infusion allowing a Mayor and Council to put off a long-term solution.
Selling Toronto Hydro is different than selling city buildings, because it’s a going concern. What’s more, at the front end of the next economic cycle, I don’t think the issue would be finding a buyer, but rather realizing full value. Seems to me that if you want to sell a company, you do some serious work on making sure it’s as lean as possible, and then pick a moment when you can maximize the gain, which is not at a time when asset prices in general as depressed. We’re in a buyer’s market, and the city is the seller in this scenario, so caution would be the name of the game.
Secondly, what Rossi hasn’t done (yet) is offer up a detailed accounting of the transaction and its proceeds. Meaning: costs to bring TH to saleable condition; costs related to the transaction itself; impact on the city’s operating budget in terms of foregone dividend revenues, utility bills going forward, etc.; and the use of proceeds. He’s told me he doesn’t want to put the entire amount into debt repayment, so we need to see how much he wants for paying down debt, and what is the impact on lowering the city’s annual debt servicing charge; also, impact on city’s capital-from-operating contribution to the TTC. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, he hasn’t told Torontonians what he plans to do with the balance, and how the sale of the utility will affect currently approved transit expansion plans.
I do not believe that the sky falls if TH is sold; other municipalities have done this, without devastating consequences. But we need to have our eyes open…
Speaking of selling assets: McGuinty ponders Crown asset sell off [The Star]
Personally I think any sell off should be via Initial Public Offering with a prospectus delivered to every house in Toronto. I would not like a private partial sale as was done in Mississauga where a single private tail (and not even a very long one) can wag the public dog behind the scenes. With an IPO the price can be fixed by the City and the advising bank says the IPO won’t fly at that good price then you simply retain the asset.
With respect to value and business cycle – the problem is that because politicians have the say the sale is rarely in sync with the upswing – especially in some municipalities that remunerate their pols for sitting on the boards of said assets.
As for the current timing, the bid for NB Power by Hydro Quebec shows that there is money out there for the right asset. With Transit City expanding electrically powered transit and the city condo curve still nudging upward, power demand is going to continue upward especially given the relative lack of industrial demand as a proportion of total compared to other Ont. municipalities.
Being center-left, I support Rossi more than Smitherman. Still, think John Tory would be the best (party affiliations aside, he is far more liberal than conservative – especially in today’s political climate).