All this spring I’ve heard this shrill bird song, “Me Me Me Me Me Me Me.”
Very loud, very persistent, everywhere I go in the city.
I’ve wondered about the source. A robin-like bird?
No. Rob Ford, the mayor.
Daily he sings the song: “Me Me Me Me Me.” It’s all about him. Look at me, hear my voice. Most recently it’s about him having nothing to do — nothing-whatsoever-not-even-a-nod — with the celebrations leading up to the Pride parade and celebration in late June.
This is a big event in Toronto.
It brings a large contingent of tourists to the city who inject tens of millions of dollars into the city’s restaurants, hotels and shops, but also because it’s an annual signal that Toronto has been a welcoming city to gays, lesbians and transgendered people for the past three decades.
Rob Ford’s actions don’t seem to support including gays and lesbians in city life — his actions certainly lead an independent viewer to that conclusion. But that’s beside the point. Rob Ford happens to be mayor, and that requires him to take a wider perspective on his actions.
In mid-May, when he appears fleetingly at a flag-raising event for Pride and says a few words before disappearing, his actions seem so odd that it is unclear exactly what his intentions were. Does it mean Rob Ford now supports including gays and lesbians in city life? Or not?
We need some clarity from the man, some certainty. There’s an obligation on the mayor to acknowledge those who might hold different opinions and to find some common ground. If you think the position you hold is all about yourself, if your song is always “Me Me Me Me,” you’ll never recognize the larger obligation of the body politic.
The role of Toronto’s mayor was best outlined by mayor Nathan Phillips, maybe because he was the city’s first Jewish mayor when the Jewish community was still somewhat outside the mainstream of the city’s political life.
Phillips was called the Mayor of All the People, and for good reason. When the Hungarian refugees fled from the Soviet invasion in 1956 and came to Toronto, Mayor Phillips made a point of attending their gatherings and telling them they were welcome.
“Welcome to Toronto,” he would say. “We want this to be a city you’ll be happy to live in.” Nathan Phillips’s song was “Us Us Us, We’re Together on This, Us Us Us, We We We We.”
City council sang the same song in 1979 and 1980, to welcome the boat people, the refugees from Vietnam. In fact, the city’s reputation has been one of welcoming people who are different, and it has served us well.
One suspects that, with different leadership, city council would be strongly opposing Bill C-31, the legislation introduced by the Harper government to deny immigrant workers health care coverage and even to imprison refugees from some countries for up to six months without review just because they are people seeking refuge here from unspeakable calamities.
That won’t happen with the mayor who sings “Me Me Me Me Me.”
This bird has been heard singing the same song to various tunes, not just about the Pride celebrations. We heard it about planning a transit system — “agree with Me Me Me Me Me because I’m right and you are wrong.”
We hear it weekly as the mayor weighs himself in — “Me Me Me Me, I’m being weighed” — when he could be talking about the importance of healthy eating and making a real campaign about food in the way that Michelle Obama has done.
We heard it when a reporter had the temerity of visiting parkland near the mayor’s house.
I want a mayor who believes that inclusion is the best strategy. I’m embarrassed by a mayor who excludes and demeans and who thinks he’s the only important landmark in town.
I’m tired of the “Me Me Me Me” song from the mayor’s office.
Post City Magazines’ columnist John Sewell is a former mayor of Toronto and the author of a number of urban planning books, including The Shape of Suburbs.