The mayor, pon­der­ing gravy.

Find­ing the city hall “gravy” he cam­paigned against elu­sive, Rob Ford is propos­ing cur­fews in order to bal­ance Toronto’s books. “Go to bed!” said a spokesfat­per­son for the Mayor of Canada’s biggest town.

In his suc­cess­ful may­oral cam­paign, Rob Ford sug­gested that lav­ish perks for coun­cilors and exces­sive spend­ing on need­less ser­vices were bank­rupt­ing Toronto.  Now in office and pre­sented with mount­ing deficits, Ford is con­fronting the fact that it is in real­ity the pro­vi­sion of essen­tial ser­vices and the main­te­nance of infra­struc­ture that con­sti­tutes  the over­whelm­ing major­ity of the town’s spend­ing.  It is in that spend­ing that Ford hopes to find savings.

“If we cease light­ing and greatly cur­tail polic­ing Toronto after dark then it will be a good start,” said the spokesfat­per­son. “There is really no need for pub­lic tran­sit once every­one has returned to the sub­urbs after work.”

Toronto long had a rep­u­ta­tion for the dull­ness of its nightlife. There is a move to return to those “Toronto-the-good” old days. “Rob has made his feel­ings about down­town and the fancy-pants cul­turati clear,” said the spokesfat­per­son. “Why should we run the town into the red keep­ing the party going there when most of us are at home watch­ing Amer­i­can tele­vi­sion? We’re all about … oh … excuse me, shouldn’t have had so much gravy, we’re all about commonsense.”

–with files by Heber Dol­phy and Paul Moth

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