Besides saving a $1.22 billion streetcar deal from collapse, Toronto City Council's special session last Friday is worth remembering for another reason: it showed that if a problem is deemed important enough, a strike by city workers needn't stop councillors from meeting to fix it.
Residents in the grip of a week-long walkout would probably consider any serious effort to help end this strike worthy of a council meeting. But Mayor David Miller and his supporters on council apparently disagree, for they are refusing to back a special council session to roll back an indefensible 2.42 per cent pay hike pocketed by city councillors earlier this year. They supported a raise for themselves even as they froze the pay of non-union staff and played hardball in negotiations with the unionized workers. It is no surprise that this hypocrisy is fuelling labour discontent in the strike by 30,000 city workers.
A group of councillors, led by Doug Holyday, is pushing for a special meeting to reverse that mistake. But last Tuesday Miller said there was no need to gather councillors, and a bureaucrat backed him up by suggesting that a special meeting could not be staffed due to the strike.
Ironically, two days later Miller called a special meeting to approve the streetcar deal.
The precedent has been set. Councillors could – and should – meet again this week to roll back their pay raise and demonstrate to striking workers that everyone is sharing in the belt-tightening. The Star
- National Post editorial board: Toronto's lessons in losing
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After providing 40 years of practical examples of how not to win a Stanley Cup, Toronto is expanding into a new branch of training: how not to run a city.
Mayor David Miller is a pleasant NDP supporter who has devoted his five-plus years in office to well-meaning projects that appeal to his left-wing constituency, declaring war on plastic bags, take-out coffee cups and “unhealthy” food at hot dog stands, while battling downtown traffic in favour of bike lanes. Stating that city employees should be able to afford to live in the city they serve, he has championed generous contracts all-round. His greatest efforts have been aimed at expanding and improving transit, for which he regularly begs money from the provincial and federal governments.
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