Rob Ford’s approval rating plunges as he marks 1st election anniversary

Rob Ford’s honeymoon period at city hall appears to be over as the Toronto mayor marks the first anniversary since his landslide election win.

A survey of Canada’s 15 biggest city mayors by Forum Research Inc. pegged Ford’s support at 37 per cent, down from 42 per cent in September, 57 per cent in June and 60 per cent in February. The latest survey was released Monday.

Ford hasn’t changed his agenda since he was elected Oct. 25, 2010. During his victory speech he said, “we’re gonna put an end to the gravy train” and “cut the waste at city hall.”

He promised to phase out the vehicle registration tax, abolish the land transfer tax, nix the Transit City light rail plan, cut politicians’ expense accounts, get tough with unions representing city workers and review the city’s budget, as well as hire 100 additional police officers.

The mayor is well on his way to delivering those promises. So what’s changed?

Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff says part of the reason for the drop in Ford’s approval rating is because the mayor has been spending his political capital, and now that the honeymoon is over he’s starting to own a lot more issues.

The spectacle of forcing Torontonians to speak in the middle of the night at marathon city hall meetings in July and September, skipping Pride events altogether in the summer and the tussle for control of the Port Lands redevelopment, among other things, haven’t helped Ford, he says.

“It’s just a lot of little things adding up that’s taken their toll,” Bozinoff says.

The prospect of some broken election promises apparently isn’t sitting well with Torontonians either.

Before he was elected, Ford vowed to trim the fat at city hall without service cuts and said there would be “no need for layoffs.”

His call for all departments to shave 10 per cent from their 2012 budgets resulted in the TTC reducing service levels on several major routes — a move many considered a service cut. The commission has since notified 251 employees their positions would be scrapped.

And over the past few months he has conceded that handing out pink slips may have to be an option, even though during the election campaign he vowed to reduce the city’s workforce through attrition.

“I’m going to do everything in my power not to have layoffs, but also during the campaign, nobody knew that we were $780 million in the hole,” he said in August.

Ford isn’t concerned

For his part, Ford has said that he isn’t worried about his ratings. “There’s only one poll that matters to me and that’s the one on election day,” he said Sept. 14.

He told CityNews on Tuesday he wouldn’t do a thing differently and rated himself  higher than a B but was too humble to give himself an A.

“I’ve done everything I said I was going to do, and I’m going to continue to do that,” Ford said. “We still have a lot of gravy down here.”

One of the more contentions issues that arose during Ford’s first year on the job was his handling of the 2012 budget review. To plug what he says is a $774-million deficit in next year’s $9.4 billion budget, the city hired an outside consultant to review core services, ordered each department to cut its budget by 10 per cent and offered thousands of city employees buyouts to reduce its workforce.

In dribs and drabs, it’s become more apparent there isn’t much fat to trim from city services. Based on the KPMG consultant’s reports, city manager Joe Pennachetti recommended cuts totalling about $100 million, which considered closing library branches, subsidized daycare spots and nursing homes, as well as selling the Toronto Zoo and outsourcing the Christmas Bureau, which co-ordinates gifts for poor children.

So far, councillors have agreed to about $28 million in spending cuts. The rest of Pennachetti’s recommendations have been sent back to various committees for further study by city staff. Last month, councillors approved the city buyout plan, which will save Toronto $58.9 million and permanently reduce the workforce by 700.

Bozinoff says, “It’s all going to be about the budget and the cutbacks, and how they’ll be perceived by the public.”

To improve his approval rating, Bozinoff suggested Ford could make a better case on why the spending cuts are necessary.

Bozinoff said he thought the city gave a good rationale when it announced the winning bid last week for the outsourced garbage collection in the city’s west end because it explained how much the city would save and that an outside accountant verified the savings. But without that explanation, other proposals could be viewed as draconian and unfair.  

Furthermore, Ford needs to disclose how much revenue the city generates. In the absence of this information, Bozinoff says it just looks like he’s cutting for the sake of cutting.

“The more it looks like service cuts, the more impact on his approval rating,” he says.

Coun. Shelley Carroll, who was the budget chief for four years under former mayor David Miller, said Ford should just balance the budget and “stop the fear mongering.”

“The reduction we have before us now is fairly extreme,” she says. “To say we haven’t gone far enough is unfair.”

It’s not just Ford’s handling of the budget that has alarmed Torontonians. His proposal in September to wrest control of the Port Lands redevelopment away from Waterfront Toronto and build a mall, ferris wheel and monorail there, irked residents.

Ultimately, councillors voted 45-0 to keep Waterfront Toronto as the developer of the city’s industrialized waterfront after hearing much public outcry from grassroots groups, online petitioners and residents.

Carroll says Ford, who was an Etobicoke councillor for 10 years, hasn’t changed his leadership style since he assumed the mayor’s office. The one exception was the Port Lands vote, she says.

He’s only willing to “talk about the gravy train and getting rid of it,” she says.

“That’s been the toughest part,” says Carroll, who says she has witnessed colleagues being bullied and shouting matches at meetings.

With three years left to go, Carroll says that the mayor and councillors still have lots of time “to find a working style in which this can be a more productive council.”