Yes, Toronto City Hall Is a Joke, But It's Not All Rob Ford's Fault

Toronto, a city that’s built its brand on the principles of peace, order, and good government, has been the recent subject of some very bad press. The still-evolving scandal involving Mayor Rob Ford and a video that allegedly shows him smoking crack cocaine has transformed his tenure from mild embarrassment to epic drama. In recent weeks, hundreds of protestors have taken to gathering in front of city hall to demand Ford’s resignation.

This display of dysfunctional city politics is illustrative of the strange new reality that faces Toronto. Once known to the rest of the world as a safe, quiet, prosaic city with a strong middle-class, in recent years, Toronto has catapulted into global city status. Its enormous growth, and its ability to attract an extraordinary pool of international talent over the past four decades, has been a great success story. But it has also revealed the failures of a municipal government that is struggling to cope with the consequences.