Mayor David Miller must be fired - for our safety.

It is really clear at this point that His Worship David Miller, Mayor of the City of Toronto, is completely out of ideas. He has no ideas at all about how to fix Toronto's problems and Toronto has many problems:

• The city has potholes and poor road conditions almost everywhere.


• The city is overrun with indigents and needs affordable housing badly.


• Traffic is a total mess. You can't get anywhere - except at 3 am - in a reasonable amount of time.


• Zoning is a joke. Don't ask what the plan is: there is no plan.


• The city's water infrastructure is in bad need of an overhaul.


• The city's waterfront is in bad need of an overhaul.


• There is a problem with violent crime in the city.

That last point, and the mayor's response to it, is what leads me to the conclusion that Mayor Miller has no idea what he is doing and never will. The city has had an increase in gun-related crime. The response of His Blondness (as he is sometimes referred to in the press) was to ban guns from two gun clubs located in the city and to ban the sale of guns within the city limits. Ignoring the possible litigation that might arise from this decision, there is a problem with this strategy: criminals do not get their guns from gun shops, they get their guns illegally on the black market. Because the guns are illegal and unlicensed, they can't be used at shooting ranges (the folks that run these ranges check the paperwork - really). So the only people who are going to be affected by this are law abiding gun owners who go through the all of the required background checks, paperwork and waiting periods to get the guns (i.e gun collectors and olympic competitors). The criminals won't be affected in the slightest.

The line of argument in favour of the ban goes something like this: 'We are reducing the supply of guns available to criminals, therefore there will be less crime'. My reply: No, no you are not reducing the supply of guns at all; you are simply making it a bit less convenient to get them.

First of all there is no border patrol around Toronto so guns can be delivered to the city easily. This is what is happening now in the vast majority of cases because criminals do not buy their guns at gun shops in the city anyway. A small number of guns are stolen from collectors in the city but this number is far outweighed by the imports. The majority of illegal firearms in the city come from the largest free market in guns on planet earth: The United States of America. In many states, but not all, citizens who pass a background check can get a carry permit that allows them to have the gun on their person when out going about their general business. Also, there are gun shows where citizens can buy guns - no waiting - as long as they show ID. If the ID is a decent quality fake then the crook walks away with the gun and no-one's the wiser. The hardest part is getting the gun across the border, which is easy in certain locations because there are many places where the border is lightly patrolled on the Canadian side, if at all, and the Americans aren't interested in enforcing Canadian gun laws on American soil.

So, if the black market price for a gun is $200 then Miller's plan will raise that price to about $210 - maybe. In the mean time his plan gives his followers and the rest of the citizens who are along for the ride the idea that something is being done about gun-related crime when in fact nothing is being done. There will not be one less crime, one less murder, one less B&E because of this plan: not even one. This false sense of security is dangerous.

The second reason that this plan is dangerous is that while David Miller is chest thumping about his gun plan nothing is being done about the other problem areas I mentioned. The city's water infrastructure is crumbling and needs to be expanded and replaced quickly. If the water system breaks down in a significant way then the size of the resulting problem will make crime seem pretty small in comparison. Homeless people need a home so they don't freeze in the winter and aren't subject to beatings and muggings. So it goes with the rest of the problems.

Mayor Miller must resign or the people must fire him at the next election. Doing anything less is dangerous for the people of Toronto.

Everyone Should Read This

Quick post - please read this article written by Neil MacDonald of the CBC on torture and the Bush administration.

Why McGuinty?

Why? It's a simple question. Why would the people of Ontario vote for this person and party after being savaged for four years with broken promises and inept government? Also, only 23% of eligible voters voted for this party and they won a majority. What does this say about the health of democracy in Ontario? Only 54.6 percent of voters voted and of those only 42.19% voted for the Liberals.

The Liberals were inept: Caledonia and the rule of law abandoned, Sarnia P3 $180 million over budget, coal plants not closed (because anyone with half a brain could see that they could not be closed - before the promise was even made), 407 tolls not rolled back, hydro rates not capped, etc, etc. These folks don't care if a promise can be kept: they don't even do the research to try and figure it out. All they do is poll an idea and, if the electorate seems positive on the idea, they promise it. I don't want to hear from people in Ontario that they don't like to be BSed if they voted Liberal.

I may disagree with some NDP policies but I think they actually believe what they are saying and will try to do what they say they will do. I thought the PCs had a good platform but nobody read it because the media whipped up the faith-based schools issue in to a hysterical frenzy. Even the ever-cool Howard Hampton blew up and chewed them out for being such twits. The Liberals flipped the electorate the bird as far as accountability goes and I don't think they care what they say or how it correlates to what they do.

McGuinty won't answer questions and do the journalists beat him up for it? No. His lack of an answer gets a one or two sentence write-up and then the journalists go back to writing about faith-based schools, Darwin, the Scopes Monkey Trial, anything else that doesn't matter and then ask when is Tory going to do the right thing and give this up? Tory gives up and then they beat up on him for not sticking to his principles a la McGuinty. The reporters still don't beat up on McGuinty for ignoring them (and the readers/viewers that the journalists supposedly serve) but instead go on about how the PCs lost the election and whether will Tory survive.

To be honest Tory did not stand up to the beating well in terms of explaining the faith-based policy but, given the media mindset, no-one could. Better support from the parents of the 53,000 kids who would have benefited from this plan would have helped. I read a small number of articles (maybe four) from supporters but these were tiny compared to the "Tory says creationism can be taught in school - panic now!" articles.

I read a couple of blogs from conservative voters who weren't going to vote PC because of the faith-based issue or because they thought John Tory was a "Red Tory" (i.e not Iron Mike Harris). Firstly faith-based is a non-issue that would have no effect whatsoever on anybody except for the 53,000 students and their parents. If you changed your vote for this reason then you are too easily fooled in my opinion. If you didn't vote PC because of the "Red Tory" issue then you forgot to read the platform and forgot that in elections you campaign from the middle and govern from, in the PC case, the right. John Tory is a business leader who could make this province work. He is not a Red Tory of the Liberal variety.

It's going to be four more sad years in Ontario.