Five journalists simultaneously shouted questions at him about somebody else’s drug scandal, and Doug Holyday ducked — physically, as if avoiding an incoming grenade only he could see. And then, with Mayor Rob Ford nowhere to be found, he straightened up and answered all of them.A week before the 2010 election, on the day Holyday gave Ford a belated public blessing, he said the council candidacy of Ford’s polished older brother, Doug, should make queasy voters “feel better” about casting their lot with the incendiary Rob.
Doug Ford proved more adept at starting fires than putting them out. Holyday himself, it turned out, would be the administration’s reassurer-in-chief.
Holyday, the deputy mayor, is now running as a Progressive Conservative in the provincial byelection in Etobicoke-Lakeshore. Rob Ford will campaign for him. If Holyday wins, Ford will be deprived of his point man on labour relations, his only consistently effective spokesperson, and the counsel of one of the few politicians he listens to.
“A steadying influence over the mayor,” says Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong. “A steady-as-she-goes senior statesman,” says Doug Ford.
Holyday’s influence can be overstated. Ford’s term has been anything but steady. He has regularly ignored Holyday’s advice and regularly declined to seek his advice at all. But Holyday was indeed central to two of Ford’s most significant policy accomplishments.
Holyday’s success in outsourcing garbage collection in Etobicoke, where he was a one-term mayor before amalgamation, helped Ford convince council to use private collectors in another section of the city. As the Ford-appointed chair of the labour relations committee, Holyday was more involved than Ford in the negotiations that resulted in landmark collective agreements with the municipal unions.
Holyday has now spent nearly three years as an insider. A byelection victory would at least temporarily return him to the role in which he has spent most of his 31-year political career: conservative agitator in opposition.
Holyday, a high-school dropout who made himself into a highly successful insurance broker, was a vocal critic of left-leaning David Miller. Before that, he was a vocal critic of right-leaning Mel Lastman.
Holyday believed Lastman was insufficiently principled. Where others applauded Lastman’s attempts to work across party lines, Holyday saw craven betrayals of the cause of fiscal prudence.
“I think Mel’s main agenda was to make whatever deals he had to make to stay at the top of the pack and win as many votes as he could. He took it to the point of ridiculousness. Put Howard Moscoe in charge of the TTC, Jack Layton in charge of (an advisory committee on) homelessness, Olivia Chow in charge of (advocating for) children,” Holyday said in January over his regular soup-and-tuna-sandwich lunch. “All of these things started as nothing, but today have ended up costing millions. And not to say that those programs are bad — but who pays for them?”
Holyday built his formidable political brand on his preoccupation with dollars and cents. His unrelenting focus on the budget has also prompted accusations of hard-right radicalism. Vintage Holyday: In 1998, council voted 51-1 to apologize to Jane Doe, the rape victim police had failed to warn about a serial offender, without allowing officials to study the possible financial implications of the precedent. Holyday, as per usual, was the one.
“The liability to the taxpayer could be enormous. We don’t know,” he said then. He said in January: “If I think I’m right, why would I change myself just because everybody else has a different opinion?”
Even his opponents admire his commitment to the job. Long the councillor with the best attendance record, he is so unwilling to miss votes that he hardly ever leaves the room during even the dreariest of meetings. A “great listener,” according to Councillor Jaye Robinson, he exudes a courteous charm when he is not steaming about some boneheaded proposal — and now that he is 70 or 71 (he won’t say), even his formidable flashes of fury no longer do much damage to his relationships with colleagues.
“Get out of my garden,” Councillor Adam Vaughan, a frequent target, semi-affectionately mock-scolds in the voice of anyone’s prickly neighbour.
Holyday has enjoyed the same diversions for more than 30 years: golf at a tony country club, thrice-weekly hockey. He and his wife live in the modest house they bought in 1973. Perhaps his chief asset as the second-in-command to the most unpredictable mayor in modern Toronto history: he is impressively boring.
“He bought one house and he’s lived in that one house. He’s not what you’d call a speculator, that guy. His son lives across the road. I don’t know what all that means — stability, I guess,” says former Progressive Conservative MPP and now Holyday aide Morley Kells, who has known him for more than 50 years. “He’s the kind of guy who never surprised you. Whatever you saw, that’s what you were going to get. And you got it in spades.” Reported by Toronto Star 9 hours ago.