EDITORIAL: Mayor Tory’s deputy mayors the ‘eyes and ears’ of Toronto
It’s premature to start criticizing Mayor John Tory’s appointments – he’s only been on the job for four days, and having four deputy mayors is surely better than one. Right?
It’s premature to start criticizing Mayor John Tory’s appointments – he’s only been on the job for four days, and having four deputy mayors is surely better than one. Right?
At first blush, the selection of his second-in-command, North York’s Denzil Minnan-Wong, and the other three deputy mayors – Scarborough’s Glenn De Baeremaeker (east), Etobicoke’s Vincent Crisanti (west) and downtown councillor Pam McConnell (south) – seems balanced, however, a large swath of the city appears to be left without the ear of Toronto’s freshly-minted mayor.
It looks like the status quo is how Mayor Tory is approaching the start of the 2104 to 2018 Toronto City Council.
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Looking for experience was the key to the appointments, he said. This is not a bad thing; it’s shrewd taking into consideration most councillors are the same ones who held those seats before the election. The mayor is different, but most of council has remained the same – how will Mayor Tory handle this when last term was often difficult?
Despite words to the contrary, the left on council seems to be out of the mayor’s inner circle. Granted, De Baeremaeker is by no means on the right and McConnell is a dyed-in-the-wool NDPer, but they have been tasked with bringing issues from large parts of the city to the mayor.
How can De Baeremaeker and McConnell bring the many issues of Scarborough and the downtown, respectively, to the fore? Scarborough is a huge area and the downtown core is a complicated part of the city.
Tory’s executive committee seems a bit better, with more progressive-voting voices.
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We ask that Mayor Tory regulary revisit his choices as council progresses - see who is doing a great job, not just a passable job. Perhaps there is room for more names in his inner circle?
His door should always be open to councillors who are not directly meeting with him on a regular basis. They deserve an ear (or two) – and through them their constituents – in order to be able to provide our freshly-minted mayor a true understanding of the diverse city he is now responsible for ‘uniting’.
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