Throughout the pressure cooker of a long strike, Mayor David Miller has been steady, poised and disciplined. Thursday, for the first time, his anger boiled over.
Red in the face, sweat beading on his upper lip, the mayor lit into the right-leaning councillors who are threatening to vote against what they consider his sellout deal with city unions. Their behaviour, he said, was “appalling,” “cavalier,” “disgraceful,” “irresponsible” – oh yes, and “beneath contempt.” City hall veterans say they can’t remember seeing him so mad.
Welcome to the re-elect Miller campaign. It’s going to be a lively one. With his bid for a third term just 16 months away, Mr. Miller is fighting for his political life. The strike is the biggest story of his current term – an all-out struggle between powerful city unions and a leftish mayor – and he has come out of it poorly.
Residents who backed him on the crucial sick-pay issue now denounce him for letting them down in his deal with the unions.
The mayor’s opponents say they are being flooded with e-mails and phone messages – more than 1,000 to one group of councillors – asking them to vote down the deal at city council Friday.
It will almost certainly pass anyway. No one wants to take the blame for putting the strikers back on the picket line just as garbage pickup is about to resume. But the mayor’s rivals see a chance to inflict a fatal wound and they are doing their best to portray Mr. Miller as the man who caved in to the unions.
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We have not seen anything yet, he knows his goose is cooked and he will take the city down with him.
David Miller’s union chickens have come home to roost. His non-performance in this strike is very revealing. Once a union man always a union man. The chances of him taking a principled stand were zero to nil. Cheers.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: That’s why you don’t elect socialists who are naturally beholden to unions for their re-election. Not a smart thing to do.
Chances are that Miller will probably get back in. No one has defeated him yet. How long has he been Mayor now?
The citizens of Toronto will have a chance fairly soon to change their Stockholm Syndrome victimhood. If they return Miller and his crew, then Toronto deserves the ridicule and derision of the ROC.
The amusing part is reading the comments section from outraged Torontonians claiming they deserve better. Ha! Toronto deserves exactly what they have and if they don’t like it, GOOD! Maybe they won’t vote in another union hack as mayor next time… but I wouldn’t count on it…
I did not vote for him last time, but I got him any way.
You should start a movement, hynd… figure out which mayoral candidate appeals to you the most (or repulses you the least) and then convince your family and friends to vote for that person. You might just change the world… or at least the centre of the universe…
On a slightly different track, are there any mayors of Canadian cities that are not card carrying lefty politicians? I know that Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver have councils and mayors with the same minedset as Miller. Can someone shed light on this matter? Cheers.
Sam Katz, in socialist Winnipeg is a business friendly mayor. Garbage collection is privatized with two contractors in two zones to prevent a monopoly.
Re the many leftie Canadian mayors: It’s because socialists are naturally drawn to run for school boards, city councils, etc. They want to “change the world”!
We conservatives need to get more involved. It starts at the community level. We could then prevent a lot of this crap from happening.