If he has achieved nothing else in his second term as Toronto's mayor, David Miller has learned how to take a punch. Rival city councillors; union leaders; senior federal ministers; the art directors at Macleans magazine: All have lined up to hit him with their best shots, and many have landed.
Dalton McGuinty, no street fighter, does not throw punches. But the sense one gets from talking to those around him is that next winter, when Mr. Miller makes his usual plea for provincial assistance to make up the city's budgetary shortfall, the Ontario Premier might do something far more damaging to Mr. Miller. He might turn his back on him.
There was a time when Mr. McGuinty could not have seriously considered doing any such thing. In 2003, when both men won their respective positions, the Premier needed the Mayor as much as the other way around.
If you'd laid bets on who would enjoy a longer and more prosperous political career, the smart money would have been on Mr. Miller. A fresh face who had prevailed in an unusually exciting mayoral campaign, he was such a welcome change from the befuddled leadership of Mel Lastman that his honeymoon lasted several years.
Mr. McGuinty had no similar luxury. His landslide victory owed largely to Ernie Eves's dispirited Conservatives defeating themselves, rather than McGuinty-mania. When he introduced an unpopular new health-care “premium” in his first budget, breaking his campaign vow not to raise taxes, any honeymoon was over.
Toronto Mayor David Miller and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, shown in 2007, are no longer as close as they once were.
To avoid being a one-term wonder, Mr. McGuinty needed to maintain his party's dominance in Toronto and its surrounding area. He also had to hold the Toronto-based media – including the Toronto Star, which obsessed over fairer treatment of the city – at bay. That was no mean feat for an Ottawa native with a distinctly small-town vibe, viewed by Toronto's chattering classes as an interloper. So he hopped aboard the Miller Express.
Mr. McGuinty, himself a few weeks into his job, was among the first to phone Mr. Miller with congratulations on election night. The two men made a habit of photo-ops, and dined together with their respective spouses.
As much as Mr. Miller might have enjoyed the Premier's company, he might have also had his eye on Mr. McGuinty's chequebook. His government made an early gesture of goodwill by sharing a portion of the provincial gas tax with municipalities. In the ensuing years, they've shown much enthusiasm for joint initiatives with the city, particularly on transit. They committed to reclaim some of the costs for social services that Mike Harris's Conservatives foisted upon municipalities in the 1990s. And time and again, they bailed out the city at budget time by allocating one-off, nine-figure sums to allow it to balance its books.
Now, after six years of letting the money flow, it appears Mr. McGuinty may finally turn off the tap. There is every reason to believe Mr. Miller will return, cap in hand, in 2010; even if he wins major concessions from city workers in the current labour dispute, Toronto will likely be hundreds of millions of dollars in the hole.
But the early message from Queen's Park is that he'll be turned away. The official reason is that it's cash-poor, an estimated $18.5-billion in the red.
The unofficial reason is respect.
