With Rob Ford’s legal victory, he humiliated Toronto’s left

What will they do, the massed forces of the Toronto Spring, the great swirling media-leftist agglomeration that had convinced itself that they had the city’s right-wing mayor, Rob Ford, on the ropes? They’ve been counting votes, announcing candidacies, speculating and musing about recapturing city hall from the evil clutches of a mayor who actually wanted to curb the growth of city spending and reverse decades of slide and deterioration.

“The Divisional Court’s judgment is almost certainly the end of the legal saga,”

The story was so big in the minds of the Toronto media that they had spun the possibility of overthrowing Rob Ford into a national event. Was it a symbol of a national reawakening of the left? Unfortunately, all the plans and fantasies—the late Jack Layton’s wife, Olivia Chow, was being trotted out as the left’s likely standard bearer — had been pinned on the outcome of a court case.

In a staggering blow on Friday to the great entrenched left-wing power base in Canada’s largest city — a base that has never accepted loss of control over their sprawling government enterprise — an Ontario Divisional Court threw their hopes out of court. The unanimous three-judge appeal decision concluded that the very foundation of the case was based on a series of manoeuvres by Mr. Ford’s enemies on city council — manoeuvres that were essentially illegal.

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This content has been updated on August 23, 2014 at 12:19.