Preville on Politics

August 2007 Archive

The things I’ll miss while on vacation

Posted on August 10, 2007 by

I’m off on vacation, so this blog will go dormant until after Labour Day, at which time I’ll be sinking my teeth into the provincial election campaign. Two things before I go. One: if the heat gets so bad that the province is forced to implement rolling blackouts, then John Tory will be Premier on October 11. Two: I’m glad I will miss out on City Manager Shirley Hoy’s much-anticipated press conference today, in which she will explain how she will cut $100 million from the city’s budget. The budget shortfall is so big that it has become a political issue, not an administrative one. The sooner she gets out of the way and lets the slings and arrows fly between the rival factions at city hall, the better.

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Dalton McGuinty sounds like…

Posted on August 8, 2007 by

… a premier from a have-not province. Acts like one too. Maybe he is.

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Kicking some Ashton

Posted on August 8, 2007 by

image for Kicking some Ashton

Updated: Old news: Mayor Miller asked Brian Ashton for his resignation and got it. Not so old news: even though Councillor Gord Perks apologized for calling Ashton a weasel, many in the commentariat are essentially calling him that. Today's news: Ashton is busy defending himself. Tomorrow’s news, today: in the three weeks since the vote, Ashton’s decision to cast his lot against the Mayor has done far more good than harm, and in the long term it will do still more good and even less harm. In about a year’s time we’ll all be thanking him.

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A perfect political storm

Posted on August 7, 2007 by

image for A perfect political storm

I wonder if Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty is spending his summer wishing he hadn’t implemented fixed election dates. Ontario’s economy is in a tailspin at just the wrong time for him. And at the right time for both PC leader John Tory. It’s also good timing for NDP leader Howard Hampton. Note that Buzz Hargrove is digging his heels in for the first time in years.

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The Bermuda Triangle in West Queen West

Posted on August 3, 2007 by

Lots of developments in the WQW Triangle file the last two weeks. The most recent development is that the city is being given a grand opportunity to really, really stick it to the Ontario Municipal Board, which, astonishingly, it might just decline.

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Good news for sports radio junkies

Posted on August 3, 2007 by

image for Good news for sports radio junkies

It’s been a slow week, but this is news to shake up the Toronto sports-media scene: AM640 is going to turn their Leafs Lunch show with Bill Watters into Leafs Drive Home, an effort to steal some numbers from Bob McCown’s Prime Time Sports on The Fan 590, which rules the roost in this town. If, like me, you’ve ever found youself listening to McCown’s in the afternoon show in frustration—listening, and waiting, and wondering when the hell he’ll ever stop with the pregnant pauses and the pointless chitchat and calling Nick Kypreos a Greek (har har) and finally get around to actually saying something interesting, which is the job he’s paid so handsomely to do—then you’ll welcome this news. Maybe McCown will shape up.

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The great tax debate heats up

Posted on August 1, 2007 by

Ever since he lost that vote on the vehicle-registration and land-transfer taxes, mayor David Miller has been saying all the right things. Today comes news that Premier Dalton McGuinty and Miller have already mapped out a path to their preferred happy ending. Not so fast: today Ontario Progressive Conservative party leader John Tory meets with a select group of city councillors regarding the city’s fiscal situation. Council’s right-wingers still think they can defeat the new taxes when the issue comes up for a vote again in October. Tory will no doubt announce his party’s intention to upload costs. He will also probably do a favour for his Conservative councillor friends and expound on the city’s need to be more frugal. Hopefully Tory will do us all a favour and compel council’s opposition to pull together a coherent alternative, which they have yet to do.

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Author Bio Pic

Philip Preville

Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.


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