(CONTENT WARNING: Satire) High profile Toronto Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat suddenly resigned her position yesterday.
According to anonymous and unreliable union sources employed at City Hall, Keesmaat – frustrated by being muzzled by Mayor John Tory during the recent epic debate surrounding the fate of the eastern portion of Gardiner Expressway – decided to throw in the towel, and called it quits at City Hall.
Keesmaat had also publicly gone on Twitter and publicly tweeted her support for her position and tried to shame Tory into changing his position.
“@johntory: tyme2 show some cojones+ #deep6GardEast” – @jen_keesmaat
“@johntory: bikes be4 hiways, bro! Yur hybrid=another DumbTrack” – @jen_keesmaat
It did not help Ms. Keesmaat with the mayor and his supporters on council when in March, at an event hosted by the Urban Land Institute, Keesmaat embarrassed Mayor Tory by publicly correcting Mayor Tory, not once but twice when Tory was called upon to respond to questions about the planner’s budget.
Obviously referring to Toronto’s previous mayor as well, Keesmaat was heard to mutter, “What’s the deal with you old white guys? Why is math so difficult for you guys?”
According to the Globe & Mail, Keesmaat also did not endear herself to certain male councillors repping the Toronto suburbs, when she referred to them, as “insufferable Neanderthal knuckle-dragging troglodytes” for their continued support of the use of the automobile as a means of transport from the suburbs of Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough to downtown Toronto and throughout the GTA.
To his credit James Pasternak, councilor for North York Ward 10, had previously publicly criticized Keesmaat for her highly impolitic comments when, referring to Keesmaat, he stated, “To take to the air waves and trumpet your own personal beliefs when you’re serving a city council and serving a mayor, for many around here, that’s going too far.”
To Keesmaat and her loony leftist supporters on City Council, such as Joe Mihevc and Paula Fletcher, “cars and trucks should neither be seen or heard south of Highway 401”.
If Keesmaat had the power, she would ban cars and trucks from downtown Toronto entirely.
Rumour has it that Keesmaat has been urged to throw her hat in the political ring and challenge Mayor Tory in 2018.
Maggie Atwood, political activist and sometime author recently took to Twitter.
“@jen_keesmaat: We got yur back. #BuryGardiner+Toryin2018” – @MargaretAtwood
As Keesmaat was leaving City Hall, she sounded almost Churchillian as she issued these parting words to her cheering supporters and the press:
“We may have lost this battle against cars, but we have not lost the war against cars.
“As for you gas-guzzling and carbon-emitting suburbanites, we shall fight you on the Lakeshore. We shall fight you in the Beaches. Er, Beach. Whatever.
“We shall fight you in the hills (Forest Hill) and the valleys (Rosedale.)
“We shall never allow this island of old and new wealth and white privilege to be befouled by you and your kind and your mobile instruments of death and destruction.”
It looks like we have not heard the last of the unsinkable and unstoppable Jennifer Keesmaat.
Mitch Wolfe: The Playful Contrarian 