Doug Ford's initiative to make City Council in Toronto more efficient has generated all sort of prophecies of impending doom.
From whom? City councillors, of course. Twenty or more of these will have to go out and get real jobs.
Ford's experience with this council tells him that it has become a debating society that never gets things done because discussing issues endlessly is more important.
He's got that right. Nothing important in the rise of civilization has ever been credited to councils and committees. All evolutionary ideas originated in individual minds unimpeded by endless debate.
It wasn't a committee that discovered insulin. It was Doctors Banting and Best. The ballet Swan Lake originated in one mind--Tchaikovski's. As far as we know, no committees helped Leonardo da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa.
The steam engine was developed in a succession of solitary minds, including Watt, Trevethick, Stevenson, Newcomen, etc., each working on their own, without a committee in sight.
Our guess that Ford knows when to stop talking and start doing was accurate. And very refreshing to see in a modern politician.
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