03.25.2022 07:01 AM

John Tory: four more years

As one of his guys, I’d known for a short while this was coming, but I’m still happy to see it this morning.

He’s done a very good job. During the pandemic, it’s been hard to think of one politician who hasn’t gotten things dramatically wrong – getting public health measures wrong, wrongly predicting the end of the virus, wrongly judging the pandemic’s future course. John is one of the few exceptions.

He’s gotten vaccination clinics up and running in record time. He’s gotten a record number of people vaccinated. He’s kept people safe during a decidedly unsafe time.

I don’t know who will oppose him. But, I’ve told him that, during the coming campaign, I will again be helping out, just as I did the first time he ran for the job, almost twenty years ago.

13 Comments

  1. Warren,

    Your candidate is in a league of his own and quite frankly, I discovered tonight that Jean Charest is still in that league. Got to tell you that the speech was at the very least, a barn-burner and it came without notes.

    So…I’m neutral in this race no more. If a nobody in this party can be brought on board, just imagine what Charest can do in a general election. May the fates put winds in his sails and God Almighty bless him with a solid leadership win.

  2. RKJ says:

    The City of Toronto is fortunate to have an adult as mayor.

  3. Sean says:

    Over the past two years, there has been exactly one politician who we (Canada) could depend on to tell it straight and who was consistently on top of all the mayhem and the spin off problems such as the vaccine protests etc… He made it look easy. Torontonians would have to be insane to not re-elect John Tory.

  4. Pipes says:

    I’ve met him a few times. Regardless of how many politicians claim “they care”, I believe John does care. I think he is a great Mayor. The only thing that bugs me about him is, when he speaks, he doesnt seem to know when to stop or pause for effect and those important moments between words is lost.
    Other than that, he is a rare breed of politician and Toronto is fortunate to have him.

  5. Sean says:

    one quick question about John Tory… where can I get a copy of that fabulous painting in his office of DT Toronto in the 19th Century?! Anyone have an idea?

  6. Pipes says:

    Meanwhile in Warsaw, Biden gave the speech the world needed to hear, including his riff.

  7. Pipes,

    It was a strong and good speech. But my reaction is, if not now, then when?

    I’m for now and mobilization across all NATO countries and I include myself in that. Not that I personally would make a shred of a difference. It’s the war against a demon seed and that has to be met head on by all of NATO, as Biden would say, PERIOD!

    • Nuclear weapons or no, I refuse to Chamberlain.

      • Sean says:

        People keep whipping out the Chamberlain analogy but it doesn’t fit at all.

        1939 Europe is obviously a completely different scenario if Germany, France, England, U.S. and Russia all had nukes. Also no NATO, no UN, no War Crimes Tribunal, no financial weaponry as we see today.

        • Sean,

          I beg to differ. Just look at Hitler’s blackmail against Czechoslovakia. Putin expects to get away with anything and everything using the nuclear intermediate weapon blackmail card. Our job in NATO and the West is not to fall for that. If we get there, we get there. Evil must be vanquished, period and if it takes nukes, chemical or biological in order to do that, then so be it.

          Putin knows perfectly well that American nuclear subs are practically undetectable and they have enough warheads to wipe Russia off the face of the Earth, so if he plays the tactical nukes card in Ukraine, he and his country will quickly life or die to regret it.

          • To be even more clear, I don’t favour first use of nuclear, chemical or biological agents as all of the above do not respect nation-state boundaries. However, absolutely nothing must be taken off the table as a possible reactive response.

            NATO must not do what Obama did: draw a definitive red-line in the sand and when Assad crossed it with chemical weapons, Obama did diddly. That’s precisely what the demon seed is counting on.

  8. Ron Benn says:

    Pipes and Ronald O’Dowd: Why are you morphing a column about how effective John Tory has been as mayor of Toronto into a dialogue on Russian aggression? There are enough columns on that topic in this forum already.

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