Tea Party sentiment growing in Canada?

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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/How-did-a-Tea-Party-candidate-like-Rob-Ford-win-in-socialist-leaning-Canada-106307218.html
The tea party movement got an early victory this final week of campaigning. It was a “shock” victory for a no-nonsense kind of guy. The only thing is that it happened in socialist-leaning Canada, Toronto to be exact. Rob Ford is now mayor elect of that city.

He had a fraught relationship with the press, thought no reports of his ever threatening one of them. He even conducted an interview while coaching a footbal team. As reported on Now Public in sneering style.

“As the CBC audio tape reveals, Rob Ford was on his cell phone running football practice while being interviewed by Carol Off. A true pro, Carol Off soldiered on, asking Rob Ford about similarities between his campaign and the current Tea Party and GOP campaigns underway in the USA mid-term elections. He dismissed such comparisons outright, preaching the mantra of reducing government spending as Toronto grapples with a whole host of issues from public transit, to taxes, crumbling infrastructure.”

Needless to say the media were not happy with the result. One paper had to admit they failed in their bid to make sure Ford lost. The National Post describes the hand-writing.

“In the unhappy recesses of Star headquarters, perplexed editors were forced to accept that the unthinkable had happened: Rob Ford had been elected mayor. The voters of Toronto, who exist in the Star's imagination as a cheerful, "progressive," multicultural group of bicycle-loving, environmentally aware supporters of mushy Canadian liberalism, had cast their votes overwhelming for a man whom Star columnists had smeared as a neanderthal.”

While Ford may claim not to be a tea party type candidate his ideas as reported by The Star certainly would be music to their ears.

“Targeted tax cuts. Getting tough with the city’s unions, including a hard look at contracting out services, starting with garbage collection.The construction of new subway line and stops.The hiring of more police officers. A tough review of Toronto’s $9.2 billion operating budget and significant cuts in spending.A reduction in the ranks of city workers by the thousands through attrition over the four-year term. The end of council’s aggressive expansion of bike lanes on arterial streets. An escalation in Toronto’s program to sell off unused assets, mostly real estate. Reform the city’s procurement practices to save money.”

The National Coalition blog has figured out why Ford won against the percieved wisdom.

“Rob Ford, warts and all, won because he stayed on message. The gravy train at City Hall had to stop. When some councillors threatened that they would not work with Ford if he won - that just put more voters in his camp. It will be interesting to see what they say now because some of the incumbents lost - which is great because they were mostly from the big spending, ‘entitled’ group.”

It might be called something different, but the voters in Toronto are chanelling the same angst as their Southern neighbors.

i hope the canadians have the good sense to repel this yankee social darwinism virus.

And suppose there are Canadians who have had intrusive government up to their nostrils? Are they wrong for being annoyed by it?

ruveyn

as far as i'm concerned, yes. i LOVE my big intrusive government! the same as right-wingers [supposedly] love their insurance companies. they both are forms of insurance, btw, either by tax $$$ or by premium $$$, but the gov't generally offers a better deal through giant economy-of-scale. and i've had it up to here with well-off mean people begrudging me my governmental protection from red-state bullies as well as life's other big bullies [misbehaving green eyeshades-types, for example]. we are not all captains of our own ship, we all don't even have our own ships to captain, so it is plain that all you "ownership society" types basically are just laughing up your sleeves at us lumpenproles and saying, "you're on your own, hahahaha." at least come right out and say you hate us all for being trailertrash beneath you in the pecking order. i can respect that kind of honesty.
btw i believe most canadians are smart enough to know which side their bread is buttered-on.

I heard an interesting and valid point made by Bill Maher last night. I know, I know, he's a crazy liberal heathen, but his point made sense. If the Tea Partiers are so opposed to big government, then why don't they burn their medicare cards? Why don't they tear up their social security checks? When the lefties were rallying against Vietnam, they burned their draft cards. Why don't Tea Partiers have the same sort of conviction?

The common argument is probably that they put money into these programs, so why shouldn't they take advantage of the benefits, but liberals and all other Americans paid for the war too. They risked jail time because of their strong opposition to the war. I don't see any Tea Partiers having the guts to to simply refuse to pay taxes. The only true outlet we see from the anger of the Tea Party is actual or verbal promotion of violence. They're not willing to sacrifice anything for their beliefs. Instead, they they make threats of "second amendment solutions."

Since they have been taxed for the service, they may as well recoup some of their losses by taking the service.

The analogy with the draft card is faulty.

Burn you medicare card and you are out both the money you were forced to pay for it AND the service.

Burn you draft card and don't serve. One does not lose money that way.

ruveyn

The first sentence I discussed in my second paragraph, which you omitted.

I do think the analogy is appropriate because it's not as simple as burning a draft card and not serving. The act of not serving puts you personally at risk of incarceration, or you become a fugitive and run. Either way, there is a personal sacrifice that was made on the left that remains unmatched by the right. The Tea Party has no courage behind their convictions and by their unwillingness to be out of some cash, has again illustrated that they are driven solely by greed.

megaphone this

In other words, you think the Tea Party folk should BOTH be taxed AND not make use of the services they were forced to pay for. It ain't going to happen.

ruveyn

Judging a separate countries political system through the prism of local politics somewhere else is pretty unreliable.

As an American I'm continuously seeing our political and economic system being judged, usually always unfavorably, by citizens of other countries.

With that said I can only say;

Way to go Toronto!

I knew the media would use the Toronto situation to tell us that the conquest by the radical right is inevitable, that we all want more Teabagging and Common Sense Revolutions and the Great Canadian Slump was a great big party! They're so predictable.

First of all, since when has Canada been socialist? Second, running on a fiscally conservative platform isn't the same as being a full-blown Tea Partier. Part of being a Tea Partier is a cultural experience: a firm belief in their interpretation of the "wisdom of the Founders," a "strict" interpretation of the Constitution, a belief in American exceptionalism, liking to listen to songs like, "I'm proud to be an American!", etc. Another key component of it is the social conservatism: wariness of Muslims, opposition to gay rights, etc.

I sorta love it how John Browning describes how "unhappy THE MEDIA" were before quoting a media source that was estatic over Ford's victory trashing an ideologically opposed paper. So the Tornoto Star (centre-left) was unhappy while The National Post (rightwing) was. Big deal.

As opposed to similarities between the mayor-elect of Toronto and the Tea Partisans, if HE'S disassociating himself with them, that really undermines your whole sentiment.

While you go on pontificating about muncipial elections whose dynamics you know next to nothing about, why don't you look at Calgary - what, for many years, was the bastion of muncipial conservatism - electing a centrist candidate instead of a Conservative Party supported solid rightwinger.

Well, from what i read, he was also catering to the suburbs, this should all change when the world runs out of oil, since suburbs won't be as attractive and everyone will regroup inside the big cities. <.< (According to some documentary the National Geographic did... <.<)

Oh, and while Canada has a marginally stronger social welfare state then America, that doesn't make it "socialist". Canada's a rather run of the mill reform-liberal centrist country.