Are The Silent Majority Regaining Their Voices?

Anti-Millers get nasty

Yard signs resort to name calling in early start to 2010 election campaign

By DON PEAT, SUN MEDIA

Residents unhappy with Mayor David Miller's reign are taking it to the streets with a not-so-subtle sign campaign.

The bright yellow signs with black letters that shout "David Miller is an idiot!" have been springing up around the city this week.

Although the people behind the signs are on the mailing list and attended some organizing events of the Toronto Party, they claim they're acting as individuals trying to spur a "silent majority" against the mayor.

"I think (the signs) speak for themselves," said a woman who has the sign in her Heath St. W. front garden.

The woman, who refused to give her name, said she's a life-long Torontonian but disagrees with Miller's tenure.

"He's made our city dirty," she said. "He makes me ashamed of my city."

The couple posted the sign in their neighbourhood, northeast of Avenue Rd. and St. Clair Ave., on Thursday. They say about two dozen people cheered their protest or shouted "Hooray!" as they passed by.

Many even asked where they can get a sign of their own.

A spokesman for Miller's office did not return a request for comment yesterday.

Later in the day, a man who refused to give his name said he was part of the group of individuals behind the sign campaign.

"We're not organizers of the Toronto Party, it's just a group of us who are on their mailing list and attended some of their organizing events," he said.

According to its website, the Toronto Party was created in 2006 as a non-partisan, civic electoral organization dedicated to contesting all 44 council seats and the mayoralty in the 2010 election. It makes no secret of its opposition to Miller.

Despite much outrage over this summer's civic workers' strike, the man said the 200 signs were ordered well before CUPE 416 and 79 went on strike for 39 days.

"This has been long simmering," he said. "This is a number of issues ... the garbage strike ... is really just symbolic and a convenient excuse to bring the signs out finally."

While the man said no one in the group wants to run for mayor, they do want the movement for an alternative candidate to get underway.

"There's lots of people out there who are upset but not a lot of people who are politically active and we've got to get those people," he said.

DON.PEAT@SUNMEDIA.CA