Doug Holyday’s hypocrisy in Etobicoke byelection: Cohn
Byelections are a byproduct of political infidelity.
Politicians take a solemn vow at election time to remain faithful ’till the next election do us part. If they prematurely abandon us for a better offer, they have betrayed their democratic covenant.
Seven impatient and impetuous MPPs (six Liberals and one Tory) have quit the legislature since the 2011 election, when they sought a full, four-year term of office. Now, the province must hold five costly summer byelections at great expense (on top of two costly campaigns last summer).
There’s only one greater sin than quitting mid-term, and that’s bailing out to seek higher elective office — upgrading from city hall to Queen’s Park, or moving on to Ottawa: If a municipal quitter wins a Queen’s Park byelection, it can trigger an additional vote back at city hall to replace him. Cascading byelections add up to double jeopardy for taxpayers.
Happily, I’m not alone in my disdain for opportunistic climbers.
Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday has waged a long and lonely battle on city council against fellow councillors who abuse voters’ trust. He hounded Olivia Chow for shamelessly flirting with federal byelections from her perch at city hall.
He was right then. And he’s wrong now.
Holyday has just declared his candidacy in the Etobicoke-Lakeshore byelection, breaking the contract he made with voters to serve out his term. Worse, he is hanging on to his day job as deputy mayor (albeit taking a leave of absence), so he can crawl back if he doesn’t make the climb to Queen’s Park.
I never expected such hypocrisy from Holyday.
Urban and urbane, courtly and avuncular, his folksy brand of right-wing populism would help the Progressive Conservatives prepare for government by ending their dreadful shutout from Toronto. In principle, he’d make a fine addition to the mostly rural rump of a Tory caucus at Queen’s Park — but not if he leaves his integrity behind.
We need more probity from people like him, not less.
Asked to explain his double standard — criticizing Chow for jumping ship, then doing the same thing himself — Holyday lapsed into an awfully defensive defence:
“The timing’s not of my choosing, it’s nothing that I’d planned,” he bleated, contrasting his spontaneous opportunism with Chow’s more calculated grasping.
“The circumstances are entirely different.”
Right. Let’s go back to 2004, when Holyday drafted a motion excoriating any councillor who runs for higher office — in any circumstance, at any time. It didn’t pass, but I would have voted for it.
And since Holyday wrote it, he ought to abide by his own unequivocal cri de coeur about two-timing politicians:
His motion then proposed that anyone who sought higher office without serving half their term should face “automatic dismissal.” It didn’t pass.
Holyday notes he is now beyond the halfway point, but he still has 16 months left in his term. Either way, he must be judged by his own fulsome motion: Any abridgement of a “full term” calls for “moral censure” and leads to “considerable cost” or “perversion” of democracy.
His words, not mine. Laws should apply to everyone in all circumstances. Holyday’s motion didn’t contemplate any special exemptions for deputy mayors who have a change of heart nine years later.
He believed it then. Does he still?
If so, he should cancel his byelection plans and return to work as deputy mayor.
If not, he should at least resign as deputy mayor today. And publicly apologize to voters for going back on his word(s) by double-crossing them.
Holyday should not only renounce his 2004 motion, but announce that he no longer begrudges politicians like Chow — and himself — who trigger byelections by playing political hopscotch.
The deputy mayor (he still has the title) had it right the first time: Peripatetic politicians who want to preach from a loftier pulpit should wait their turn — by serving out their term — before climbing the greasy flagpole to higher power.
