Rob Silver, always up for a good debate, sticks to his guns on David Miller's shortcomings.
There are bones to pick with a few of his arguments. To criticize Miller for allowing the city's budget to go up from $7-billion to $9-billion, for instance, overlooks that pretty well every government has been following a similar curve the past few years. (Dalton McGuinty's provincial Liberals, with whom Rob is well acquainted, have increased program spending at a much higher rate - over 40% - since coming to office.) And for Miller, forcing a work stoppage in winter rather than summer - as Rob seems to think he should have - would only have been preferable if you think that Torontonians would rather live without snow removal than garbage collection.
Still, I actually don't disagree with the basic premise that Miller is too late trying to rein in costs. The "really tough bind" the mayor is not "entirely of his own making," as Rob puts it; truth is, Toronto's been on this course since long before Miller even came to office, courtesy of amalgamation and the downloading of services. But yes - the current standoff does carry a whiff of trying to make up for lost time.
What bothers me isn't the criticism of Miller's governance to this point, which is totally legitimate. (On that, his critics have been pretty consistent, although Karen Stintz acknowledged when I interviewed her recently that at times they haven't focused enough on "the structural problems of the city and how we fix those.") What's more problematic is the fiction that if Stintz or John Tory or Denzil Minnan-Wong were mayor, we wouldn't have to go through the unpleasantness of the current stand-off.
The reality is that if any of those people were mayor, and they were half as bold as their supporters tend to claim they are, we'd have more of these types of stand-offs. Perhaps that wouldn't be a bad thing; perhaps it's the only way to get Toronto's finances in order. But if you want to roll back benefits that the unions were accustomed to even before Miller came in, you're going to have a fight on your hands each and every time; they're not going to roll over just because you do a good job of communicating your objectives.
As I've addressed at greater length previously, there's a decent chance that Miller will be defeated next year by someone who pledges to take no prisoners in cutting costs - the municipal equivalent of Mike Harris. And fair enough, if that's what voters decide is needed. But nobody should be under any illusion that it would be a walk in the (garbage-strewn) park. If you don't have the stomach for what's going on right now, then the last thing you want is someone who's more of a hard-liner replacing Miller.
So sure - criticize the way Miller has run the city. Point out that even if he gets the concessions he wants, the finances will still be a mess come the next budget. Lambaste him for failing to have a coherent vision for the city, and take him to task for botching the city's application for federal infrastructure cash. Just give it a rest with the all the expressions of horror at what a labour dispute looks like.
