Downing & I Am Reading From The Same Play Book

Possibly the voters north of St. Clair Avenue who voted for Miller last election will recognize that he doesn't serve them......

Leash the councillors Politicians flee when faced with hot issues

By John Downing

The new year always starts on Labour Day for me because of those old rhythms of school. I never welcome the holiday because it buries summer, but there also is an edge of anticipation.

If only I could say that about the municipal election.

They've been marking time at City Hall, trying to avoid all controversies before Nov. 13.

Actually, that's what they do most of the time. I don't see the point of increasing their terms to four years from three when it will just be more of the same.

Show them a hot-button issue, particularly one that might upset the powerful civic unions and the activists and cronies who have replaced lobbyists, and they will head for the hills.

Just look at all the ancient problems still with us, even damn it, the Island airport. It bored me and most suburbanites three years ago when David Miller turned it into original sin.

It makes so much sense to be able to fly to Ottawa without the hassle of the Pearson obstacle course. So suburbanites voted for John Tory more than for Miller. Only the downtown lefties -- and all those mouthy condo owners who moved to the waterfront, knowing there had been an airport there since 1939 -- made Miller mayor, rushing from photo op to stunt to waving his begging bowl.

Since the influential backroom boys have so far taken a pass in backing Jane Pitfield because she's not a cinch to beat Miller (I remember Paul Godfrey when he had fire in his belly and didn't play it so safe), the odds are the city will get stuck again with Miller and a NDP-dominated council.

And so we will have the status quo, which is awful.

They'll talk some more about tearing down the Gardiner. There's no doubt that if this clutch-and-grab of councillors were in control a few decages ago, the Gardiner, one of the most useful super-roads in the country, wouldn't have been built. The Don Valley would have been occupied by coyotes and joggers.

If these guys had been running things, there would be no subway system, the first lines of which were financed from the fare box, not from tiresome begging. Can you imagine this crew digging up dense Yonge St. when they can't even figure out a line in the near-fields of York U?

If it had been up to this mayor and council, they would still be operating out of old City Hall -- because the public orginally opposed a new City Hall. That would have been enough to make this crowd sit on their hands and we would never have got a world-famous structure built, believe it or not, under estimate.

Nope, this mayor and lefty-lib council majority can't even deal with the homeless or sewage sludge. Over everything, like the sword of Damocles, hangs the huge problem, that they can't make the city work without raising taxes and begging for help, as if the other governments weren't also funded by us.

Yes, some say, but hasn't there been progress in making finances more sustainable? I'm not suggesting the unions are going to start being sensible, or that council will actually live within its means. But a provincial-municipal panel is studying how to get welfare and social housing costs off the backs of the municipal taxpayer. It will report in 18 months (the Libs not being any quicker at problems than Miller Lite).

With prospects like this at Labour Day, it takes some of the fun out of the new year and the supposed "new" council that will run scared from any issue, including whether dogs have to be on a leash in every park. I say it would be safer to let the dogs run free and put short leashes on councillors.

http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Downing_John/2006/09/04/pf-1800305.html