Goobellygoop From City Councilors......

THE MAYOR

CITY COUNCILORS

"In the next budget cycle, I would settle for a clear declaration that we recognize the predicament we're in and acknowledge that we need to move in a new direction." Here is a declaration for you....you spend more money than you collect.

Miller's critics need to step up

Forget symbolic gestures, does the right have a plan?

By JOHN LORINC

Looking forward or looking backwards?

It's not a stretch to suggest the 2010 mayoral campaign will unofficially begin this Tuesday morning, when Mayor David Miller's executive committee sits down to mull over an agenda that includes a doomed post-strike proposal to ask Queen's Park to designate various city operations, such as child care, as essential services.

The motion, moved by Coun. Michael Walker, will leave committee in a hearse, of course, but the gambit itself crisply marks the start of what will be a high stakes session that tees up the November 2010 municipal election.

His proposal, tabled in early August, raises the thorny question of what the right, still lacking a standard-bearer, plans to do in terms of presenting an electable alternative to Miller.

Will council's conservatives seek to continue stoking the embers of the garbage strike, or will they seek to scope out a crisply articulated program that offers a new mandate that appeals to middle-of-the-road voters?

As far as I can see, there's no consensus. Some, like Walker and John Parker, seem determined to keep the memory of the strike alive and bubbling in the minds of voters. "The strike presented a defining moment," laments Parker. "It could have been a turning point."

Other Miller critics seem more inclined to move on, water under the bridge and all that.

"It's done," shrugs Michael Thompson. "We need to focus on the business at hand." By which he means the city's chronic budget pressure.

He's also talking these days about pushing a mammoth and enormously costly new downtown subway project, dubbed the Downtown Relief Line, another hint that his plans to challenge Miller may be coalescing.

Parker and others on the right intend to make a stronger case in the coming months for contracting out city services, like garbage collection, as a means of finding costs savings while mitigating the risk of future civic workers' strikes.

If the mayor's critics stay focused, it's possible the next election could evolve into a referendum on the outsourcing of municipal services.

BEWARE THE RHETORIC

But beware of pre-election rhetoric, of which there will be no shortage as the mayor's critics step up their efforts to defeat him a year from now.

A contracted-out service isn't necessarily a strike-free service, as unionized Viva bus drivers in York Region demonstrated last fall when they walked off the job, leaving thousands of commuters scrambling.

And the financial promise of outsourcing isn't money in the bank, either. The city's new contract with the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 416 expires at the end of 2011, and there are two tough budget-making cycles to endure between now and then.

It's also important to remember that Miller rode to victory in 2003 partly on the momentum of an ugly scandal involving kickbacks and irregularities arising from the outsourcing of large computer contracts. (The city's now defunct deal with OMG, a Montreal waste management firm, was also plagued by complications.)

As for the more immediate matter of city spending, the conservative caucus in coming months need to become far more specific in its critique of the mayor's record and spending priorities (e.g., transit, environment, needy communities).

WHAT SHOULD BE CUT?

Voters have been hearing for years that the city's expenditures are at unacceptably high levels. But if the anti-Miller faction wants to be taken seriously, it has to speak honestly with Torontonians, and that means openly confronting tough questions: What should be cut? How much would be saved? What services would be affected and how? Which assets should be sold? And do we need higher user fees?

Symbolic gestures, such as freezing councillor salaries or eliminating grants to community groups, will do almost nothing to address the spending issue as it has been framed for much of this term of council.

When asked to ante up his own budget reduction priorities, Parker replies, "In the next budget cycle, I would settle for a clear declaration that we recognize the predicament we're in and acknowledge that we need to move in a new direction."

Which would be what, exactly?

JOHN.LORINC@SUNMEDIA.CA