Under Mayor Ford, press releases just a little bit different

The Rob Ford Revolution has come to…the little-read propaganda paragraph at the end of Toronto’s press releases.

At the end of the city’s bland media announcements – messages with such titles as “Gardiner Expressway closed overnight this coming weekend for bridge maintenance work” – is an appropriately-equally-bland paragraph that extols Toronto’s virtues and lists its government’s key priorities.

During the tenure of Mayor David Miller and until January 4 of this year, the paragraph read as follows:

Toronto is Canada's largest city and sixth largest government, and home to a diverse population of about 2.6 million people. It is the economic engine of Canada and one of the greenest and most creative cities in North America. Toronto has won numerous awards for quality, innovation and efficiency in delivering public services. Toronto's government is dedicated to prosperity, opportunity and liveability for all its residents. For information about non-emergency City services and programs, Toronto residents, businesses and visitors can dial 311, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Beginning with the second press release of January 4, the Millerian references to the environment, creativity and liveability were gone. So was the implicitly-bureaucrat-praising sentence about how well the city delivers its public services. In their stead: distinctly Ford-y stuff. To wit:

Toronto is Canada's largest city and sixth largest government, and home to a diverse population of about 2.6 million people. Toronto's government is dedicated to delivering customer service excellence, creating a transparent and accountable government, reducing the size and cost of government and building a transportation city. For information on non-emergency City services and programs, Toronto residents, businesses and visitors can dial 311, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

"The Mayor's Office wanted it to be more aligned with the current Mayor's priorities," Jackie DeSouza, the city's director of strategic communications, said in an email, "so we worked with them to revise it."

The Miller-era paragraph was 90 words long. Its Ford-era replacement: 71 words. An apt metaphor?

 

Comments

[Bruce MacNeil]

Ford cut and pasted his from a draft of Palin's speech he found in the trash.

[---]

So - buy reading this I take it that all Toronto is about is Government? – Not the neighbourhoods, cultural or community based events, what we as a community do – just about government… It seems to me to be a little selfish....

[angela mular]

mayor miller is the worst mayor in canada...we support you Rob Ford 110% . Let's make this city a friendly city , a businesss friendly city...a city that welcomes people at not a city that is the high speed capital of canada...Sorry we need tourists...we do not need more overpaid policemen...

[Roy]

In what world is across-the-board "reducing" of the size of government an admirable goal?

[P Ginis]

Ha ha. Next he'll be using text-speak or symbols. Very telling that he removed all references to "environment, creativity and liveability were gone". Fordiots don't care about them, anyway. As long as their taxes are reduced. Oh drear.

[Doug Cossar]

Well, I suppose it is better than having the "New Government of Canada" plastered over every announcement.

[Tyler]

"greenest cities" ?!?! HA! not even close when you truck your garbage hundreds of km's away on the 401 highway

[FordoverMiller]

Makes sense: Miller needs more words since he overspends; Ford needs less words since he is so frugal with spending. Come on be honest STAR - no one actually believes the miller-paragraph anyways. Your just bitter Ford won. The only person that loved Miller is Adam Giambrone, and well, he is and was a douchebag.

[Matt]

Look, I don't like Ford. I'm about as far from him politically as you can get but honestly this just comes off as jerky. Like being a nit picker for nit picking's sake. A good journalistic outlet would at least try to maintain impartiality and balance not just take pot shots for no reason.

[Ron McAllister]

"It is the economic engine of Canada and one of the greenest and most creative cities in North America. Toronto has won numerous awards for quality, innovation and efficiency in delivering public services. Toronto's government is dedicated to prosperity, opportunity and liveability for all its residents."
Give me Miller's Toronto. The City Ford is describing is as exciting as dried toast!

[Disinterested Observer]

Still too long.

[John Takarabe]

I understand that brevity is the soul of wit, but sometimes what is written must make sense.

What does the mayor mean by 'building a transportation city'?

Though doing away with the few sentences that are meant to market the city to outsiders is probably more Ford-ian given his disdain for attracting more people to Toronto.

[Penguin]

Good changes. And fewer words will mean less cost when the releases are issued on newswires.

[KitKat]

It's still propaganda. The claim about building a transportation city is laughable. "Customer-service excellence" is also vague. Does that include, for example, audible and comprehensible PA annoucements on the TTC?

[B]

To me, this shows how little Rob Ford actually cares about the REAL city of Toronto. They took out all references to the best of the city -- creative, green, and livable-- and made it all about his government. This is the problem with Rob Ford: he doesn't care about the people who make Toronto the interesting city it is.

Or as Kanye West might put it: Rob Ford doesn't care about creative people.

[B]

Clearly, he really has NO IDEA what makes Toronto a great city because he couldn't come up with anything except talking about his own government's slash and burn policies. But right, I forgot, that's why Rob Ford ran for mayor -- because he hates this city and wants to turn it into the suburbs.

[Mark Daye]

Yawn. My only question is; What is a "transportation city"? That could mean just about anything. I can't wait to say I told you so to all the fools that voted for this clown.

[addera@hotmail.com]

I thought I was a citizen of Toronto - not a customer. puke.

[A. Miller]

I like Ford's statement better. If he'd put a transit line under Eglinton Ave, I'd be a real fan.

[JR]

What I find most objectionable in Ford's revised edition is this phrase about "delivering customer service excellence', some hack phrase he probably stole from his printing company's "mission statement" At least there wasn't the old "exceeding expectations" malarkyJ

Besides being cliched beyond belief, towns and cities are not made up of "customers" but "citizens" Making us sound that we're nothing more than consumers is an insult.

[DGM]

"Toronto's government is dedicated to delivering customer service excellence..." What is this, Wal-Mart?!

[Jen]

Stop the grammar train.

[W. K. Lis]

"Building a transportation city" not a transit city. That means more cars, more traffic congestion, and less transit.

What will happen when crude oil prices exceed $149 a barrel in a year? In October, at election time, the price was $83 a barrel, today it is over $90 and going up. What happens when the working people can't afford to use their cars and rapid transit is only at one small section in Scarborough. No problem for multi-millionaires like the Ford brothers, they will still drive around in their SUV's.

We need Transit City in its entirety.

[Delma]

regarding TTC - why do they find enough money within 24 hrs to cancel a 10CENT per fare hike YET hey do not even provide basic severance pay and benefits for long term single mother employees?
Guess they have their OWN way of doing things.