Doug Ford thinks city hall plays favourites with the downtown core (it has more wading pools than the suburbs, after all)

Apparently, there’s a “suburbs/downtown rift” affecting Toronto—or at least Doug Ford says there is. What’s more, Dougie claims that the rift is being fuelled by the (highly debatable) fact that downtown wards are gobbling up tax dollars while the suburbs are left to languish (the Star breaks down the numbers here). Ford offered comments to that effect yesterday, citing the unequal distribution of wading pools (yes, wading pools) across the city as evidence of “overspending in the downtown area.” Sure, the suburban-downtown divide is old news by now—case in point: the results of the 2010 mayoral election—but we’re pretty sure Ford’s comments are really more about his desire to curb spending, and his willingness to use silly arguments to do so, than the city’s ideological divide. Read the entire story [Globe and Mail] »