Chris Selley: Toronto’s small-town City Council strikes again

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After 15-or-so years observing and covering Toronto municipal politics — only a few of those years, thankfully, being full-time — I thought I had come to terms with the untethered heights and depths of maddening, petty irrelevancy to which city council can rise and plummet. I thought I had cringed as hard as I could cringe, raged as hard as I could rage, about and against the legions of parochial zeroes, elected and otherwise, who want to hold this hard-striving city hostage to their various whims and preferences.

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And then Taylor Swift booked six shows at Rogers Centre, and official Toronto melted into a puddle, and now I don’t even know anymore. It seems to be worse than ever.

In years past I watched councillors explore nether-regions of the periphery I didn’t even know existed — hey, let’s ban shark fin soup! — even as every major facet of the city’s infrastructure crumbled and smouldered beneath their feet. I saw a councillor fly an inflatable shark around the council chamber, in support of the shark-fin ban. I saw a councillor plunk a low-flow toilet down on a desk and declare it a “miracle.” Those last two items involved the same councillor, and I’m not going to name him or her here because that’s just what he or she would want.

I saw Coun. Paula Fletcher, an actual communist, “attend” a council meeting while driving her car, insisting that her assistant was operating the voting app on her phone — as opposed to, say, driving — and getting very snotty about it when she was called out. I saw Don Cherry badmouth the entire urban way of life at Rob Ford’s official installation as mayor. I saw Rob Ford barrel into and over Coun. Pam McConnell in an effort to join a physical altercation between his brother Doug, then a city councillor and now premier of Ontario, and some ill-wishers. I don’t even remember what it was about; it doesn’t really matter.

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Well before my time in journalism, I saw then mayor Mel Lastman make a cannibalism joke as he headed off to Africa to lobby for a Toronto Olympic bid. Well after my time covering City Hall day to day, I saw John Tory resign as mayor for indiscretions with a staffer, and then indulge patently insane suggestions that he could maybe somehow un-resign.

I’ve lived here roughly 40 of my 48 years. I’m no newbie. As a Toronto voter, I guess I thought I had been insulted as much as I could be insulted.

But then Coun. Jennifer McKelvie came up with a motion to put before council this week, and it passed with only a single vote against, and I don’t know. Somehow, I think it might have broken me. I think I need to be done with this city. Fabulous as it is, in so many ways, the people who run it are on a mission from some higher power, possibly Satan, to hold it back. So I’m on my own mission to get out, at least for a while.

The motion, and I’m not making this up, calls for the city’s general manager of economic development ‘to provide a briefing note to councillors on local Swiftonomics’

McKelvie’s motion, and my fingers are cramping just trying to type this, proposed that a route between City Hall and Rogers Centre (SkyDome, originally, and to its friends) be named “Taylor Swift Way” for November of this year, in honour of Swift’s six scheduled shows at the stadium that month. Again, only one councillor voted against it.

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This is mortifying on its face, perhaps the quintessential example of the small-town thinking that dominated Toronto politics when I was a kid … and which I assumed, foolishly, had at least somewhat been weeded out.

Taylor Swift has determined that she can sell roughly one-quarter of a million concert tickets in Toronto, for perhaps $40 million, and that’s super. But it’s also not surprising in any way. It shouldn’t even need city hall’s notice. Toronto and Chicago are roughly neck-and-neck for the title of fourth-biggest urban area in North America, after Mexico City, Los Angeles and New York. Of course Taylor Swift is going to play a bunch of shows here. No one was surprised when she rocked up to Soldier Field in Chicago last year.

The motion, and I’m honestly not making this up, calls for the city’s general manager of economic development “to provide a briefing note to councillors on local ‘Swiftonomics’ following the event, including the revenue generated to the municipal, provincial, and federal governments and include any lessons learned for events of this size.”

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Mortifying, as I say. But I can sort that out for them right now. The revenue generated will come from hotels, restaurants and other associated activities for the Swifties. Governments will make money off the taxes. The “lessons learned” are to let these events take place, but not to subsidize them. (The idea of subsidizing concert tours hasn’t yet taken hold, but I’m convinced it soon will.)

When someone sells 240,000 tickets to six shows, the best thing for governments to do is get the bloody hell out of the way.

It gets more and more frustrating, even after nearly 50 years, to live in a city that won’t even consider it — that won’t take itself half as seriously as people like Taylor Swift and her tour managers do.

National Post
cselley@postmedia.com

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