Rob Ford's subway plan loses council support due to his bullying

CANADA - Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is up against the ropes and has only himself to blame for Toronto city councilors openly revolting against his greedy subway plan.

Toronto Transit Commission chair Karen Stintz and a majority of council members have signed a petition demanding a special meeting on Wednesday to reverse Ford’s subway plan.

Councilors are doing this for four reasons.

#1. Ford’s vision for the future proposes costly subways where they aren’t needed (rich parts of suburbia where most people drive anyway). Plus canceling an already approved network of fully funded light rail lines in a region that desperately needs it.

#2. Rob Ford's bullying and rowdy behaviour has councilors upset. After a year of enduring Rob Ford's abrasive governing style councilors are finally rebelling against his threats, taunts and refusals to compromise.

#3. Because Rob Ford's subway plan proposes giving billions of $$$ to his brother Doug Ford, who would be in charge of the new subway expansion... can we say NEPOTISM?

#4. Because Toronto City Council is a democracy, not the Kingdom of Rob Ford.

You see normally mayors would build coalitions and make deals to win the support of councilors so that their efforts go through... basically forcing councilors to break their promises just so they can keep different promises.

The problem is that Rob Ford doesn't keep his own promises when he makes deals with councilors. He makes a deal, gets the vote through, and then breaks off the deal before he has kept his end of the bargain. He then forms a new deal with different councilors and repeats the process.

After a year of doing this again and again Rob Ford has run out of councilors who trust him on his word. They want him to uphold promises he made and has already broken. And its apparently too late for him to go back and try and make good on his broken promises.

So its really no surprise all the city councilors he has pissed off has realized hey, lets give the axe to Rob Ford's big nepotism scheme that would see billions of dollars being funneled through his brother. Sure, we do want more subway lines, but we want them in poor neighbourhoods where they are most needed.

Now lets contrast this former mayors David Miller and Mel Lastman.

They almost NEVER lost a vote. They almost always found a way to get council support and get things done because they kept their promises and their compromises. They did lose the rare vote, but it was exceptionally rare.

Rob Ford, only a year in office, has lost control of the budget, has a city council with a majority revolt and is now facing a reversal of his transit agenda.

Between his bullying and promise breaking it is really no surprise. Even the moderates and hard line right-wingers (the backbone of Rob Ford's support) in council are turning against him.

In unrelated news Rob Ford recently lost 20 lbs during his "Cut the Waist" challenge. If he was really serious about cutting waste he would start keeping his promises and treating councilors with RESPECT.