City Hall columnist
Today was supposed to be the beginning of a new era in Toronto's fiscal future – one based on hard facts and tough reality.
Without an extra $350 million in taxes – proposals deferred for three months by city council last July – Mayor David Miller yesterday summoned the media to announce the fallout:
A hiring freeze affecting 376 jobs, 3,000 workers working fewer hours, closed community centres on Mondays, 16 libraries closed on Sundays, loss of premium snow removal service (except in massive snowstorms) pioneered by the old North York, and so on.
Surely, Torontonians would get the message: "There is no way to provide a good quality of life without paying for it."
More importantly, councillors would be forced to unite behind the mayor, provide stable, confident leadership in the face of public angst over higher taxes and shepherd the city through the crisis.
Not quite. No sooner had Miller delivered the bad news – with warnings of even worse measures to come, if council doesn't rally in October and approve the taxing measures – than city councillors turned on each other in a vicious public and personal attack not seen at city hall in decades, if ever. Before journalists could digest the cuts, city councillors went nose-to-nose, shouting, accusing, fighting about who is most responsible for the city's fiscal mess. With television cameras and tape recorders running in the hands of bemused reporters, the bad feelings over last July's vote boiled over.
No comments:
Post a Comment