Toronto has 44 city councillors. To win a vote, Mayor Rob Ford needs the support of 22 of them.On most important issues, 16 left-leaning councillors are likely to vote against him. Twenty right-leaning councillors are likely to vote with him. That leaves — in most cases — eight councillors’ votes up for grabs.
The good news for Ford: He frequently needs to persuade only two of the eight to get to his magic number of 22. The bad news for Ford: the persuading has become harder. The eight swing voters are now voting against him much more frequently than they did during his early-term honeymoon.
How do we know? The Star compiled the results of the 20 votes we thought were most significant. (Yes, “most significant” is subjective.) Then we calculated the percentage of those votes in which the eight swing voters sided with Ford. (Yes, “swing voter” is subjective.)
At the first substantive meeting of Ford’s term, in December 2010, council voted on repealing the car registration tax and on making the TTC an essential service. The swing voters joined Ford in 81 per cent of their votes on these two issues, which were central to his campaign.
By July 2011, council had also voted on closing a library, outsourcing waste collection, removing the Jarvis St. bike lanes, and seven other significant matters. As of then, the swing voters had sided with Ford 66 per cent of the time.
As of today — after votes on service cuts and preventing the privatization of the Toronto Parking Authority — the swing voters have sided with Ford only 54 per cent of the time.
The eight are: Ana Bailão, Josh Colle, Gloria Lindsay Luby, Chin Lee, Josh Matlow, Mary-Margaret McMahon, Ron Moeser and Jaye Robinson.
Matlow smilingly but sincerely called the Star’s analysis “ridiculous.” Because he votes solely on the issues at hand, he said, and not at all based on his views about Ford, the 2011 figures have no value in predicting how he will vote in 2012.
“Next year, who knows?” he said. “I don’t know if this reflects anything other than it just so happened that there were more motions earlier on that we felt that we could support and fewer later in the year . . . If the mayor proposes motions I believe are in the interests of Toronto, I’ll support them.”
Bailão said she was “willing to work with the mayor on an issue-by-issue basis.” “Sometimes I’m going to be voting with the mayor, sometimes I’m not,” she said.
The decline in swing voters’ support for Ford’s policies has roughly mirrored Ford’s decline in the public opinion polls. But as Matlow suggested, it may simply reflect the contentiousness of the issues council was forced to grapple with late in the year.
Further, Ford was never likely to retain the level of support he enjoyed at his first meeting, when he was asking council to endorse the pledges on which he had won his commanding victory. And Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday pointed out that Ford has been far more successful at council than some critics had expected.
“It wasn’t going to be easy, from the outset. There was a group that predicted the mayor couldn’t even control any votes at council. That’s proven not to be the case,” Holyday said.
And those pesky swing voters?
“I guess they’ll do what they want to do,” he said. “I don’t know — I don’t have any control over them, and neither does the mayor.”
Robinson and Lindsay Luby began the term as reliable Ford allies, then became less predictable late in 2011. However, the marked drop in Ford’s centrist support is only slightly amplified by including them in the “swing voter” group.
When only the six others are included, the drop is 75 per cent to 49 per cent (26 percentage points) rather than 81 to 54 (27 points).
Original Article
Source: Star
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