For Toronto, see my comment to eyelid. It's complicated.
So, Ford used to be a councillor for the municipality of Etobicoke. Back then, municipal government didn't have the level of responsibility that they do under the amalgamated Megacity, so it was much easier to be a councillor. (In the 90s, a far-right provincial government merged the five surrounding municipalities + Toronto together and offloaded a whole bunch of shit that it had previously done as a gesture of spite. You can read about it here.)
Etobicoke is really white and really rich in comparison to other parts of Toronto. It's much more conservative and backwards, so a schtubby racist, homophobic, good ol' boy who likes hockey and beer plays quite well there. And because he had less responsibility as a councillor, his work entailed things like making sure that potholes got fixed and responding to minor complaints. He had a reputation for penny-pinching (again, great for rich white people) and returning every phone call personally. Yes, he frequently did offensive and embarrassing things, but his constituents fucking loved him.
Also his family has a lot of money and power, which they were able to throw at various elections. He likes to pretend that he's an ordinary working class guy, but he is not.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-11-19 10:42 pm (UTC)So, Ford used to be a councillor for the municipality of Etobicoke. Back then, municipal government didn't have the level of responsibility that they do under the amalgamated Megacity, so it was much easier to be a councillor. (In the 90s, a far-right provincial government merged the five surrounding municipalities + Toronto together and offloaded a whole bunch of shit that it had previously done as a gesture of spite. You can read about it here.)
Etobicoke is really white and really rich in comparison to other parts of Toronto. It's much more conservative and backwards, so a schtubby racist, homophobic, good ol' boy who likes hockey and beer plays quite well there. And because he had less responsibility as a councillor, his work entailed things like making sure that potholes got fixed and responding to minor complaints. He had a reputation for penny-pinching (again, great for rich white people) and returning every phone call personally. Yes, he frequently did offensive and embarrassing things, but his constituents fucking loved him.
Also his family has a lot of money and power, which they were able to throw at various elections. He likes to pretend that he's an ordinary working class guy, but he is not.