Maybe my most unpopular post yet

I have taken made a number of unpopular statements in the city since my arrival at the beginning of 2002. This may be the least popular, partly because I do not much like what I have to say. Unfortunately, I think I have to say it, or someone does, because if I and other people do not say this, we may end up with a much worse situation than the one we now face.

Doug Ford has probably won this round.

We can still hope the courts decide the conservatives' reckless move to slash council violates the charter rights guaranteed to every Canadian citizen, but given the place of cities in Canada's constitutional order, it would take a bold court to make that decision.

We have to face that and face it now, and also face what it means: after the next election, many good councilors will have lost their jobs. Doug Ford and his supporters clearly hope we don't face it. They hope, and indeed they expect, we will go into the election refusing to face the reality. They expect we will try to get this bill repealed with a "day of action", and when the government refuses to withdraw legislation they have already passed, and which their supporters mostly like, progressives in Toronto will fall into disarray, with multiple progressive candidates fighting over the same seat. They hope, and we know this because such commentators as Sue-Ann Levy have made it clear, to have a council dominated by conservatives when the election is over.

Let me say this clearly: I deeply regret the loss of good people from City Council. I detest the process by which Doug Ford cut council with no mandate to do so. And at some point, in some form, some kind of reckoning between the cities that increasingly create the wealth of our country, and the provincial governments that live on our taxes, will have to take place. But I have had conversations with people from the young, rainbow and highly technically literate coalition literally building the future, and those conversations have left me believing the time for that is not now, and the size of Toronto City Council is not the issue. Let me be clear: if the courts don't force the provincial government to back down, a "day of action" won't do it either.

If we want a decent city government, then unless the courts enjoin the enforcement of the province's changes to the City of Toronto Act, we have to elect good councilors under the conditions we will face. That will mean good people have to step down. It also means we will have to make every effort to reach out to support good candidates in the new wards where the incumbents are conservative. We have to find issues to appeal to the people in places where progressives haven't done well in the past. We must, in other words, put our efforts into the difficult and unglamourous work of political organizing under the conditions our opponents have set.

As I said at the start, this is probably not a popular position. But I would rather say it now than as part of a postmortem for an election that left us with a conservative-dominated city council.