WARMINGTON: There are many rats down at city hall and not all of them are elected

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You see one rat, there’s always more you don’t see.

But seeing many rats run around freely and unafraid in Nathan Phillips Square next to a stairwell full of garbage and ungodly, foul aromas, and within steps of where many homeless people are sleeping, is not the best image Toronto wants to portray as visitors snap pictures with the famous Toronto sign.

These are the unelected rats down there, which may be more likeable than the elected ones – many of whose campaigns seem to be prepared to dig down into the gutter by using race and economic status to help them win office.

In addition to the rodent population at city hall, there is a painful collection of many troubled people struggling with addictions, poverty, and housing. Right next to the Toronto sign, which is promoting Monday’s election date, was a man doubled over Wednesday night in what is called the fentanyl fold. This was just a stone’s throw from the mayor’s office window.

Toronto the Good? No. It’s now Toronto the Not So Good.

What’s happening with drug use and poverty is unacceptable. Yet, it’s accepted. So much repugnancy now. Politics is always ugly. But it’s often disturbing when things get to the finish line of the nasty season. Nasty is where things are at now as voters get ready to go to the polls on Monday, Oct. 26.

In Toronto, it appears to be a dead heat if you believe opinion polls, which now show Councillor Brad Bradford moving ahead of Mayor Olivia Chow.

Is Chow campaign desperate?

Perhaps that might explain a video posted by one of her supporters using race and class as part of an argument to vote for Chow and against Bradford. Is it a sign of a desperate Chow campaign which a month ago was said in polls to be running away with this easily?

Some supporting her are pulling out all the stops while lowering the bar.

“I live in a part of Toronto, where white parents leave their children with Filipino women to look after during the day,” said Karishma Porwal, who is popular on Instagram under the nickname Climate Girl. “Even weekends when I walk past the playground, there’s white toddlers being looked after by very kind Filipino women.”

She showed the kind of high-end homes people live in and how “everyone is driving fancy sports cars, and SUVs and they have elect Brad Bradford signs for Mayor signs on their front lawn” which is “truly so fascinating to watch people directly vote against the interest of the caregivers that are raising their children.”

Karishma, who in other videos appears with a Progress Toronto banner, added “these lovely Filipino” caregivers are “taking these white toddlers to the TPL (Toronto Public Library) where they play” and is a “great place to hang out if you’re a kid” while “Brad Bradford actively voted against” funding libraries.

She encouraged people to “make sure you vote” and “the only common-sense alternative” is “Olivia Chow (who) has kept TTC fares low. She’s kept libraries open on Sundays. She got the Scarborough busway operating ahead of schedule and making the city better for everyday Torontonians and not the super wealthy. “

On the question of why use race, status and stereotyping like this to try to push voters in a direction, the Toronto Sun has asked Chow, Bradford and Porwal for comment. While none so far have done so, Porwal on her Instagram did write a statement explaining her perspective.

Bitter, ugly election race

“I wasn’t sure whether I should post this video, but walking around my neighbourhood every day is becoming increasingly more difficult and these signs are starting to feel more and more oppositional,” she wrote, adding that while there is “nothing wrong with hiring a caregiver, I believe our economy and system should revere, and uplift caregivers far more than we do right now” and “we’re dangerously close to living in a city that is hostile to these essential workers.”

What this does show is how hot and bitter this Toronto election has become! Anything goes when people are lusting for power. But as Newstalk 1010 host and fellow Toronto Sun columnist Jerry Agar correctly asks, would Bradford be allowed to use the same race approach against Chow and her supporters? A then-85-year-old Don Cherry was certainly cancelled for using “you people” and never did identify a race of people.

There is so much hypocrisy in politics. While Toronto bylaw issued tickets to volunteers setting up a tent to keep the food they were handing out to the homeless at Allan Gardens on Thanksgiving Sunday,  out of the rain. And they will bust a guy for playing O Canada on his boombox, these tax-collecting ticket books were not out for those who take over a whole bus shelter outside of city hall and make it into their own warm condo at Bay and Queen.

Meanwhile, the rats don’t seem to be fleeing this ship. Healthier-looking than many of the people these vermin share the square with, these rats seem fat, comfortable and content — kind of like the political ones.

One thing that is clear is that no matter which one of them wins the mayor’s chair, the first thing they need to do is make sure no one sleeps on city hall property and the only rats allowed down there are the ones Toronto voters elect.

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