There have been many head scratching moments when it comes to Toronto mayor Rob Ford’s singular approach to governing Canada’s largest, most diverse urban centre.

The cost-cutting Ford’s proclivity for spending more to take apart recent innovative projects than they cost to install is one. In less than a year, he has: cancelled the construction of a new pedestrian bridge in a heavily populated waterfront neighbourhood, to be replaced by a different one, a move that has cost taxpayers at least $22 million (not including the cost of a new bridge); he’s shelved a new, citywide transit network, to be replaced with only one subway for the same cost — bye-bye, $50 million; Ford’s allies on council have decided to rip out (at a cost of $200,000) newly installed bike lanes on a major downtown artery that had cost $59,000 to install a year ago; and, in a pursuit of drivers’ rights bordering on the fanatical, Ford’s unpredictable public works committee now wants a private-sector group (at a cost of up to $375,000) to study removing three all-way “scramble” pedestrian crossings in the downtown core to save drivers a few minutes of waiting at major pedestrian intersections. In what has become a pattern, the committee sprang the scramble study announcement on other councillors at the last minute, giving the opposition no time to respond.

Other moves are just plain bizarre. Ford has suggested that gym walls in public schools be sold to advertisers. (The kids won’t be able to complain, right?) He’s made a farce of “listening” to contrary positions by running a city council meeting all night, then pushing through his agenda unchanged. He also immediately agreed to an 11% pay hike for police officers (their opening position) in the context of severe fiscal restraint. Now, to pay for it, he wants to lay off 400 officers.

But perhaps the most perplexing move came last month, when Ford’s doppel-ganger — his brother and first-term councillor, Doug Ford — announced that consultants had been hired in secret to study ripping apart a massive, decade-old plan to revamp Toronto’s waterfront. That unutterably complex undertaking, involving all three levels of government, endless public consultation and requiring a massive environmental cleanup before anything could be built, is now coming to fruition. Doug Ford thinks a big chunk of the project should be replaced with the hoariest of ideas — a gigantic ferris wheel, a monorail and a mall. The cost of the consultants who put their names on this plan is unknown, even though Toronto taxpayers paid the bill, without any idea they were doing so.

All of that pales however, beside the most offensive aspect of this exercise: the new plan, which would certainly be a gigantic policy shift for the city, Ontario and Ottawa, was presented by Doug Ford alone — the mayor was nowhere in sight.

It’s not surprising when leaders in jurisdictions without mature democratic institutions place family members in positions of authority they have not earned and then use procedural trickery to subvert the public consultation process.

That this is happening in Toronto is more than just an insult to city council and the voters who elected representatives from a broad political spectrum.

It’s a disgrace. IE