“For our new mayor, it’s not all roses and “watch-people-jump” when you speak. You are where the buck stops and media criticism begins. The bag of goodies is indispensable for greasing the political slews, but is it enough of a power aphrodisiac to reach the only important number in the mayor’s new math, 23!”

Read the rest of his column here.

“Mr. Ford ran a blunt campaign that fed an appetite for change. He responded to, as he put it in his victory speech last night, a popular sense that “enough is enough”. But now he is the one in a position of leadership. Mr. Ford’s ability, and frankly, willingness, to implement a strategy that reduces taxes, and constrains growth in spending, without jeopardizing social peace, will be put to the test. It requires an attention to detail and a desire to build the coalitions for change, traits and qualities he did not exhibit as councillor.”

Read the rest of the editorial here.

“As mayor, Ford now has an obligation to work with this new council and to govern for the good of the entire city.

But make no mistake. Both newly-elected and incumbent councillors also have an obligation to work with Ford in the interests of doing what taxpayers want, especially given the size of Ford’s victory.

So let’s have no more foolish, arrogant talk as some on council’s left-wing started, that they would choose their own mayor and freeze Ford out.

Torontonians won’t stand for it and the voters are never wrong.”

Read the rest of the article here.

“In the wake of this election, it’s time to put a knife through the heart of the political fiction that only the NDP engages in party politics at the municipal level.  The Liberals’ entire Big Red Machine, backed by the Toronto Star, worked desperately to defeat Ford.

This time, it included not just provincial and federal Liberals — the former spearheaded, ill-advisedly, considering the results, by Premier Dalton McGuinty — but opportunistic NDPers, Red Tories and ex-Toronto mayors.”

Read the rest of the article here.

“Whether Mr. Ford can deliver that in the city of Toronto is, to say the least, an open question. In a system where there are no political parties and the mayor’s is only one vote among 45, a mayor can get things done only if he can persuade others to join his cause. Mr. Ford has shown none of those political skills. In all his years on council, he never made a real ally, not even among like-minded right-leaning councillors.”

Read the rest of his thoughts here.

“He needs to extend a hand beyond the right-wing councillors who backed his campaign to the more progressive ones who opposed him. It would make sense for Ford to put at least one progressive councillor on the executive committee, lest they all line up in implacable opposition to him.

He needs to begin a dialogue with Premier Dalton McGuinty and the provincial Liberals. Ford campaigned on a platform to trash the province’s transit expansion plans and start all over again. Since almost all the money for transit is coming from the province, McGuinty will have something to say about that.”

Read the rest of the editorial here.

“By giving Ford the nod, Toronto citizens have said enough to wasteful spending on pet projects while basic needs like road repairs, parks maintenance and our dirty streets are consistently neglected.

They’ve said enough to self-serving politicians who don’t have the balls to take on the unions that are bankrupting our city, or a transit authority that delivers mediocre service, at best.”

Read the rest of her column here.

“Issues like contracting out garbage services and ending sole-source contracting and the sale of city assets promise titanic struggles among the left-leaning councillors.

And any mayor who attempts to cut front-line services (cuts in staff lead to cuts in service) will face a revolt from the left and right. So, expect Ford to sweat out lots of savings, just not the large amounts he promised.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Calgary’s new mayor learned during a media scrum Monday night about the election of Rob Ford as Toronto’s new mayor. While many Hogtown scribes showed Cowtown envy, Nenshi himself was all congratulations and praise for his fellow big-city mayor:

I look forward to working with him. I’ll always have a soft spot for Toronto. It is, after all, the city of my birth

And I know that Mr. Ford and I — I should say Mayor-elect Ford and I — have a number of things in common, especially as it relates to moving the city out of the role of regulator to having less red tape.

I really hope we can learn from one another. And I really look forward to working with him with the federal government in helping push an urban agenda at the senior levels of government.”

Read the rest of the article here.