Cynics Unlimited

Like many, I was ready to back Jane Pitfield before I was even completely familiarized with her politics. This otherwise irrational stance is fuelled largely by the inaction and waffling of present mayor David Miller. From rise in gun crime to the fights over noise bylaws, Miller has failed to take any definitive stance or provide a roadmap for how he plans to tackle the city’s major problems. While the mayor squabbled with police over funding for more officers, the city gladly footed the bill for billboards warning us that dog poop left on our lawns might bother the fish in Lake Ontario.

Pitfield’s agenda seems to be inline with the center-right political wave put the federal conservatives in power. She favors banning panhandling, advocates lowering business taxes to stem the exodus of commerce to the 905 region, supports the island airport and has suggested curbing the bargaining power of the city’s omnipotent unions.

However two recent incidents suggest that Ms Pitfield -well aware that being fiscally conservative wins few friends among Toronto’s political elite- needs to polish her delivery and response to potential scandals.

The first incident involved alleged plagiarism. Pitfield recently got caught up in a mini-scandal involving entries in her “blog”, which of course implied that the thoughts were coming directly from her (a la Monte Soleberg or the considerably less fortunate Garth Turner). However, Spacing Magazine charged that material from had been copied verbatim onto Pitfield’s blog page without proper citation:

This past weekend under the headline, “Pitfield takes Spacing’s word — literally,” Spacing magazine accused Pitfield of lifting several sentences in her Oct. 7 campaign blog from a column that appeared the day before on SpacingVotes, a daily blog about public space issues that’s been running during the 2006 municipal election.
There were also passages from a Globe and Mail article that appeared July 10, according to the magazine.

Toronto’s CityNews detailed Pitfield’s underwhelming response:

“It’s never appropriate to plagiarize and … I’m saying that was a mistake that someone on my campaign made and it won’t happen again,” she vows.
But she was less able to explain why a volunteer is actually writing the blog that bears her name. “I will from this point on,” she assures.

While it is entirely likely that this little “gaffe” will fade from voter memory before Election Day, it does signal that Pitfield may not be running a very tight campaign (which calls into question her ability to manage an entire city). To state the obvious:

• First of all it is highly improper to use a ghost blogger when trying to “connect” with voters. While not itself plagiarism, it is at least dishonest in a Milli Vanilli fashion.
• Secondly, if one’s going to use a ghost-blogger, at least check what’s being written. Even the stage acts for Milli Vanilli would have been able to tell if, say, their recorded music was being lifted from C+C Music Factory.

The second eyebrow-raising incident involves more recent statements Pitfield made about extending the subway line –

Meanwhile, mayoral candidate Jane Pitfield said Toronto should build two kilometres of subway line and open a new station every year for the next 25 years.
But Pitfield was vague on explaining how she’ll pay for the new subway service, which she estimated would have a yearly price tag of $250 million.
Questioned afterward, she said she’d investigate having private funding cover part of the cost - perhaps selling naming rights to subway stations to corporations.
While Pitfield urged more spending on transit as part of a multi-pronged transportation strategy, she acknowledged she rarely uses public transit herself.
“I will admit I don’t ride the TTC as often as I would like to,” she said. That means once or twice a month normally - but less now that she’s running for mayor.
“I am all over the city these days, and the TTC doesn’t even go where I need to be,” she told reporters.
“If I relied on the TTC, I would get nowhere on time.”

Torontonians seem to be growing immune to the empty subway promises bandied about every election, but this is less troublesome than Jane’s admission that the TTC’s coverage of the city is inadequate. If she believes this to be the case then why would she spend $250 million per year on 2km of subway that will largely benefit York Region when the current array of rotting busses and streetcars are inadequate to service center city? Anyone who actually has to use the 32 Eglinton West bus or Queen Street streetcar during rush hour knows the TTC should certainly put a few more vehicles on the road and have them arrive in much shorter intervals. Surely center city should receive priority over regional expansion?
These might seem like minor quibbles and indeed they are not enough to deter me from backing Pitfield against Miller and his narrow-interest hordes. However, Jane -as a relatively conservative candidate- must learn to choose her words more carefully in a city dominated by unions and left-leaning special interest groups. It may not be long before these interests target Pitfield politically and ill-advised quotations come back to haunt her.

If you are interested in Toronto politics, be sure to watch the mayoral candidate debate on CityTV this Sunday (October 22) at 8pm.