A Relic

Robin Sears writes that John Tory is a relic of a bygone era:

Toronto’s expected-to-retire mayor is, by contemporary political standards, a relic. Mostly that’s a good thing. Promising to resign when you are not compelled to is a relic of the standards of another era. So is thinking that you can carry on affairs with those who report to you.

Even as a very young political operative, John Tory was always reflective of his background and the values it inculcated. Arguing on political panels or over lunch, Tory would always refuse to meet vitriolic partisan insults in kind. Learning that an opponent had just received a new baby or lost a cherished friend, John would always reach out.

He was never naive, though, about the hard culture and sometimes bad, even corrupt, behaviour of many in politics. Walking one day past the enormous hole in the ground that was to become the CBC headquarters, we were puzzling about the rise in municipal corruption in the Toronto suburbs. I said I found it very hard to align with our mostly corruption-free federal and provincial political cultures.

He offered a mildly sardonic smile and said, “So long as one person, in the right committee, at the right time, by raising their right hand, can turn that mud-filled hole into a multimillion dollar real estate asset — there will always be corruption in municipal politics.” It is an acute bon mot that I remember more than four decades later.

Despite his faults, Tory reflected the best qualities of earlier political leaders:

It was the Bill Davis, Lester Pearson and Tommy Douglas approach to politics. Fight hard for what you believe, never mistake your opponents for enemies, and attempt to bring grace and respect into the ring every time.

But times have changed. Tory was tripped up by his own mistakes. And whoever replaces him will not echo a bygone era.

Image: CTV News