On day 1 Ford gets his way, shuns downtown foes

Mayor Rob Ford couldn't help gloating at the end of his first full day presiding over Toronto City Council.

"We got everything we wanted," he said.

The new mayor and his allies managed to win unanimous support for their choice of council Speaker, narrowly defeat a drawn-out challenge to the 2011 budget process and shut their downtown foes out of key committees.

However, the normally perfunctory meeting morphed into a five-and-a-half hour affair, suggesting Mr. Ford won't always get everything he wants from the new council.

The council committees overseeing the budget, labour relations, the Toronto police and the Toronto Transit Commission have all been stacked with councillors from the former inner suburbs, most of whom lean to the right and are allied with the new mayor.

Some of the shunned councillors argued the downtown could wind up being ignored without at least a token presence on such important committees.

"There are practical issues around how to simply make the city function that require input from people in different corners of the city because different corners of the city are built differently," said Ward 20 Trinity-Spadina Councillor Adam Vaughan, who will no longer sit on the Toronto Police Services Board.

All three of the former council representatives on the police board have been or will be replaced by Michael Thompson and Chin Lee of Scarborough and Frances Nunziata of York.

Ms. Nunziata was also elected Speaker. John Parker was elected her deputy.

Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday – the chairman of the striking committee, which doled out committee slots that council later confirmed with one exception on Wednesday – said Mr. Ford couldn't be expected to empower his enemies.

"[Mr. Ford] has got an agenda that they don't support," Mr. Holyday said of the 12 councillors whose wards are entirely within the boundaries of the old city of Toronto. "How could he put them in key positions?"

The ideological divide on Toronto City Council was more apparent than usual Wednesday, with some progressive councillors donning pink as a light-hearted rebuke to Don Cherry, the hockey personality who lambasted "pinkos" and "left-wing kooks" at council's investiture ceremony Tuesday.

"I wanted to restore dignity to pink and to the council chambers," said Councillor Janet Davis, clad in a fuchsia blazer nearly as loud as the jacket Mr. Cherry wore as the mayor's special guest.

The other pink ladies spotted at City Hall included rookies Kristyn Wong-Tam and Ana Bailao, who draped soft pink scarves around their necks; Paula Fletcher, who wore a pink blouse underneath her black leather jacket; and Maria Augimeri, who demonstrated her commitment to the motif by flashing a pink bra strap from beneath her light-rose dress and neon pink blazer.

Ms. Augimeri was the lone left-leaning councillor to secure a spot on the nine-member TTC board, which formally elected councillors Karen Stintz and Peter Milczyn as chair and vice-chair, respectively, on Wednesday.

The commission will have its hands full trying to implement Mr. Ford's promise to kill a provincially and federally funded $8.15-billion light-rail network and replace it with subways.

The other members of the commission are: Vince Crisanti, Frank Di Giorgio, Norm Kelly, Denzil Minnan-Wong, John Parker and Cesar Palacio, whose Davenport ward straddles the former municipalities of Toronto and York.

Former TTC vice-chair Joe Mihevc made a last-ditch bid to convince council to add him as a 10th member of the commission, but the item was deferred. Former budget chief Shelley Carroll managed to score a spot on the audit committee when Councillor Ron Moeser decided to give up his seat.

Like the TTC, the budget committee is comprised entirely of suburbanites: Michelle Berardinetti, Frank Di Giorgio, Doug Ford, Chin Lee, Peter Milczyn and Mr. Parker. Mike Del Grande is expected to be confirmed as budget chair Thursday.

The timing of the 2011 budget process became a contentious issue when council tackled its overall meeting schedule for next year. Mr. Ford is pushing for a compressed budget process that will be wrapped up by the end of February, two months earlier than usual.

Eleven freshmen councillors wrote to the mayor asking for more time; he responded that his plan to hold consultations in North York, Etobicoke, Scarborough and the former city of Toronto guaranteed openness.

"There's more than enough time. We're going to have more consultation this time and we're going to go right in their backyards," the Mayor said.

Mr. Ford's opponents and centrist councillors lost their bid to extend the budget until the end of March by a single vote.