Toronto Silly Hall

For the war, but against the troops

BY Chris Bilton May 04, 2009 15:05

The start of municipal election season in Toronto is still at least six months away, but don’t think that mayoral aspirations aren’t gestating in the minds of a few city councillors even as we speak. This is kind of hard to imagine considering that for every scathing editorial, public backlash or inter-council criticism about the course he’s charted, David Miller retains his firm, executive committee-backed grip on the clamshell’s steering wheel. Everything seems like it’s under control — which might not necessarily be a good sign.

It seems like just yesterday that EYE WEEKLY was endorsing Miller’s Torontopia-friendly platform and reporting with delight as the post-Lastman parade danced down a road of right-wing bones. But there have been more than a few bulldozed-through decisions in recent memory — the garbage-bin debacle, street-vendor silliness, street furniture — that have done nothing but provoke a collective sigh of WTF? It’s time (or at least it will be very soon) to decide if we’re really content with the pedestrian-friendly, go-green, beer-drinking-at-the-Spacing-anniversary-party mayor, or whether we should begin to consider the alternatives.

Back at the beginning of 2008, we reported on the “Rising Right” at city hall and the mounting anti-Miller pressure from a loosely collected “unofficial opposition” led by Karen Stintz and Denzil Minnan-Wong. Along with Case Ootes and David Shiner, the crew presented a far less embarrassingly erratic conservative voice for the city than media hogs like Rob Ford would have us believe existed. And with the recent emergence of the Responsible Government Group (or RGG, led by Karen Stintz and Case Ootes) it appears that the opposition is getting themselves organized, and they may actually have some good ideas.

Just last week, Stintz and Ootes were fighting to have an in-council debate on keeping public-school pools open — something that the city’s been dragging its heels on for years despite Toronto school-board and provincial-government interest. And then there’s regular naysayer Minnan-Wong calling for infrastructure spending of bubble-sized proportions. So just who are these progressive-seeming conservatives, and why do I find myself agreeing with them?

The recurring complaint about Miller’s mayoralty is that all policy flows from his office with little regard for criticism or objection. So even if we agree with the idea of waste diversion and increased recycling, we can’t in good conscience sit idly by and watch as thousands of ill-fitting garbage bins are foisted upon Toronto residents. When I spoke with Stintz last week, she was lamenting council’s vote to freeze wages of non-union employees, and her core objection was that councillors didn’t get the opportunity to vote for freezing their own wages. The decision to maintain councillors’ cost of living increases was made by Miller’s executive committee alone.

Few are willing to admit it, but in light of such decisions, this strong mayor model is starting to feel like the passive-aggressive bully-style leadership of Stephen Harper or even, gasp, George W. Bush.

Fiercely independent veteran councillor Michael Walker is sternly opposed to the far-reaching powers bestowed on the mayor because there is no room for checks and balances. “The [executive committee] can simply bury anything through process, and they always have a majority of the vote,” he says. “Plus there is always the threat that they can somehow hurt you politically. That’s a tyranny.”

Despite my appreciation of Walker’s philosophical position, I’m not so sure that the mayor’s newfound powers are necessarily the root of the evil here. The ambitious needs of a city this size require the mayor to be able to exert power, especially against the municipal inconsideration of bodies like the OMB, the federal and provincial governments and, as we are already seeing, Metrolinx.

Oddly enough, this is another one of things on which Stintz and I agree. Though she’s outspoken about her own voice not being heard in council, she understands the need for a strong mayor. She thinks that what we also need is a stronger council, and one that is better equipped to represent the city’s residents. “The challenge I find myself in is that it’s never clear to the public who’s making these decisions,” she says. “Is it the mayor, or is it council? And depending on the decision, the mayor seems to weave in and out.”

The RGG, according to the group’s press release, is an effort to provide an alternative to Team Executive Council. And though it’s not a formal alliance, it certainly looks like the early stages of campaign machinery.

Understandably, the alignment on both sides is the most troubling thing for Walker. For him, anything resembling party-politics pretty much defeats the purpose of having a community-based council. “If this is going to resemble provincial or federal governments then we are just wasting taxpayers’ money by having a municipal government,” he says.

Unfortunately (and in some ways fortunately), despite the RGG’s go-team efforts, their opposition has proven less than effective. Last week’s council meetings saw roughly six hours of debate over wage freezes with little impact on the mayor’s motion. As the Golden One himself tweeted post-adjournment, “Lengthy debate at Council about management … Adopted exec recs without amendment.”

If the Responsible Government Group is a precursor to a consensus candidate for the next election, no one is talking explicitly about it. If it’s a stab at party politics, no one is ready to admit it. And if this is the best opposition we’re going to see at City Hall, no one — and certainly no one in power — is going to worry about it.