Toronto’s mayoral roadshow parked at Weston Collegiate Institute at Jane and Lawrence on Thursday night, where the candidates faced an audience especially rankled by the federal maneuvers to install a fixed rail link from Union Station to Pearson International Airport. The saga of Blue 22, an express train slated to barrel through this area without even a stop or two for neighbourhood residents, is symptomatic of a community accustomed to feeling left out of any boom times in Toronto -- just because its layout has instilled a certain sort of modesty. Now, they’re fighting back against the plan, which threatens to tear areas like Mount Dennis and the Junction apart before they’ve even had a chance to clamber back from quasi-oblivion. The high school appears to have an awful lot of dignity, though; the debate takes place in a permanent auditorium suited for actual theatrics, not one of those halls designed to convert into a cafeteria at lunchtime. The moderator, Katie McGovern, hosts the proceedings with a homespun charm straight out of Hairspray . "These young men down here are paid to be tough," she gestures at the A-V club members running the soundboard, admonishing the high-voltage trio. "If things get really out of hand, I’ve got a cane. I’m not afraid to use it."
David Miller occupies the chair on the left, with Stephen LeDrew compactly folding himself into the middle, a buffer between the mayor and Jane Pitfield. And, no matter how redundant the rhetoric gets, LeDrew is guaranteed to keep things entertaining. With no table to conceal the action below the belt, he’s like the world’s tallest marionette, his emphatic eyebrows serving as the strings. Miller’s default position finds one leg crossed over the other, while Pitfield’s knees are usually locked, finishing school style, although her toes start diverting in girlish directions as the evening ambles on. LeDrew, however, sits with legs spread apart with clasped hands set in front of his groin -- most of the time. The recurring point of attck is that Miller represents downtown elitism, where tearing down the Gardiner Expressway is more important than giving Weston a decent recreational facility, as high-profile power squabbles over transit, the waterfront and police have eclipsed the real concerns of real people. Cue the hidden agenda accusations -- among which, in this case, the most newsworthy, at least for the Toronto Sun, was Pitfield accusing Miller of forcing out "top cop" Julian Fantino with two years left on his contract, and having to pay him a hearty severance as a result. Miller’s position on the board of GO Transit was also derided, as Pitfield accused him of being complicit in planning decisions destined to destroy this area forever.
This crosstalk made LeDrew euphoric, of course -- the blood visibly rushed through the mayor’s skull as he listened to Pitfield, but the man in the middle leaned back and directed a cartoonish cavalcade of grimaces at Miller. "They seem to think we’re running the City of El Dorado", bellows LeDrew. "They’re looking for gold, and they find it -- but then it turns out to be fool’s gold." Contrary to the determination of the panel of community activists onstage, the audience didn’t express much hope for Weston itself -- seems that a Toronto neighbourhood without an accessible main drag doesn’t seem to stand much chance of being viewed as a legit Toronto neighbourhood at all. Maybe the "NDP dogma" mocked by LeDrew could be doing more for this area than not, which Miller reinforced by discussing his plans to priotize 13 at-risk communities, and Pitfield expressed her empathy for the passion to keep the area’s legacy intact, especially when giving new monikers to streets duplicated in the city. "If we’re ever going to change any names," she purred, "it won’t be the names in Weston." (A questioner who identified himself as a resident of Church St. may or may not have felt placated by this promise.) These three white folks were grilled by a white woman about whether they had ever undergone cross-cultural training. (They all answer no -- with explanations about why they don't need it.) Yet another read a proclamation that multiculturalism has destroyed Canadian society. "Madam, if that statement were true," vaunts LeDrew, "then all we’d be eating is iceberg lettuce topped with Kraft French dressing."
