I voted out of fear in the recent Ontario
provincial election. I’m not proud of this decision, but it was clear that
Hudak was willing to destroy the public sector to win some kind of ideological
bet he made with Mike Harris. Since Toronto barely survived the last
Conservative government, I voted Liberal. The fact that Andrea Horwath ran a terrible and pandering campaign made
this decision a little easier, even though Jonah Schein is clearly a good dude
who deserved better.
I will not make the same mistake on October
27. It’s clear that no matter how many times I vote, Olivia Chow will not be
our next mayor. But I’m still going to vote for her. Doug Ford is a bully. We should have stood up to him four years ago, but for a variety of complicated
reasons, we were unable or unwilling.
I’m not afraid of big brother. Nor should
you. Fear of Doug Ford is not a good enough reason to vote for John Tory. Doug will
be lucky if he gets more than 25% of the vote.* I doubt he has the machinery required
to mobilize supporters and get them to the polls.
John Stuart Mill believed that humans try
to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Voting for Tory is about minimizing
pain. Our shattered city will gain no pleasure from four years of Tory.
It’s a shame that an absence of pain is the
best Toronto can do.
--
*Fair warning: I pulled this number out of a
magical hat in the back of my closet. But I’m going to stick with it regardless
