On the morning after, and the mornings after that, there will be no honeymoon between them.John Tory and Doug Ford know each other all too well for that. For there is no love lost here.Like a warring couple, their destinies have been — and will remain — hopelessly intertwined. Leaving us, all of us, caught in the middle.Monday’s mayoral contest was never really between Tory and Jennifer Keesmaat, who finished a distant second. His real nemesis has been, and will be, Ford — that shape-shifting mirage who long aspired to replace him as mayor, but has now one-upped him as premier.That Tory so handily won re-election is mostly thanks to Ford abruptly opting out of their looming confrontation last January, when he seized upon the easier path that opened up in provincial politics. Until then, the mayoral campaign was shaping up as a revenge rematch between the two old antagonists.But it didn’t turn out that way. By gaining control of the rudderless Progressive Conservatives, and profiting from the Liberal dynasty’s descent, Ford found a way to win the entire province — and avoid losing the mayoral race for a second time.Read more:John Tory wins second term as Toronto mayorOpinion | Christopher Hume: Toronto votes for bland, boring and timidDespite Ford’s last-minute council cut, Toronto election officials pull off vote with few miscuesNow, Tory gets to keep city hall. And Ford gets to run Queen’s Park.But as we’ve seen — courtesy of Ford’s political war with city council over seat size, and his constitutional war with the judiciary over the bench’s dimensions — municipalities are mere creatures of the province. Which means Ford, who got trounced by Tory in 2014 and probably would have been beaten again in 2018 — has now trumped him.In any future showdowns the premier gets the final word and the last laugh. Sad to say, that would come not merely at Tory’s expense, but at our ...
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