Woohoo! Thanks all, got the hang of it. Very tedious so far getting it done, but hopefully I find a rythm to it. edit - Good gravy this was a lot of work. Once the summer comes I'll try to shut my yap and just take photos........then again, I'll have to learn how to post photos then, but it's got to be easier than multiple quotes.
Not sure why you call it a garbage strike - there were 24,000 workers on strike, and only a small fraction were dealing with garbage. There was no garbage collection for about 6 weeks - it's hard to imagine this impacted most residents much - personally I simply stacked the newsprint in the basement, and put the rest in the blue bin. I had a second green bin that got pressed into action, and had an extra garbage bag of stuff in the basement by the end, that I'd never got around to taking to one of the nearby facilities. Now, it if had gone on much longer, I'd have had to have started taking a lot of stuff to the collection facility ... but it was hardly a big deal.
Everyone called it the garbage strike, yes there were other depts on strike as well, but garbage is what people see (and smell). Also, right out of the gate, the garbage workers made a name for themselves:
"Garbage has turned into a flashpoint only one steamy day into the city workers' strike, with furious trash-lugging residents being blocked from promised access to transfer stations and then, after dropping the garbage and trying to leave, being handed $380 tickets."
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2009/06/22/keep_your_trash_citizens_told.html
Basically, from day one. The garbage workers became 'the face' of the strike for the union - and that union royally pissed off the suburbs.
Your missing something here ... Miller fought the city workers, and that's what caused him the issues. If he'd have simply rolled over before the strike, without forcing the concessions on sick days, this would have been a non-issue.
Nope, even the Star's editorial board piled on Miller for how he handled it (boy I bet they regetted this editorial considering what came 16 months later):
"Last September, city council's labour relations committee approved the option of phasing out this benefit. That's now being done by closing off the sick bank to new employees while keeping older workers' rights intact.
But this game-changing option wasn't tabled until more than three weeks into the strike. Until then, Mayor David Miller and the city's negotiators had doggedly stuck to a demand that the sick bank be eliminated outright, with employees partly compensated for lost days."
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2009/08/31/bitter_fruits_of_garbage_strike.html
Miller basically tried to play bluff poker with the unions, and he blew it, causing the strike, only to cave in later and the huge backlash against him was the result. Yes, a lot of the reasons for the suburbs being mad were the actions of the garbage strikers, but they also realized that because of how Miller handled it, it shouldn't have come to a strike in the first place - or he should have stuck to his guns on the sick days. By then people were tolerating and used to the strike and knew winter was coming (smell goes away) making it even more tolerable.
Miller was the author of his own demise - he announced his departure less than a month after the strike was resolved, that wasn't a coincidence. If you trust wiki, it states almost 80% wanted Miller replaced because of how he handled the strike in a poll shortly after the strike. Miller may have already been contemplating departure, but the strike sealed the deal IMO. Then, Ford shows up, says he'll privatize garbage, balance the budget and put subways into the 'burbs' and bingo, here we are. Like i said, if they could have trained a monkey to say balance the budget, unions bad and subways! subways! subways!, it'd be mayor. The suburbs had woken up, and all they knew was, Miller was bad, Ford good........
He appears truthful? He's been caught in so many lies. During his campaign he talked of having to leave university a couple of courses short of graduating. When the truth came out, he dropped out in first year. That's truthful? That's falsifying a resume, and it's an automatic firing offence almost anywhere. And the lies have kept coming. Not political bending of the truth - but simple, mindless, unnecessary lies.
From what I described and outlined above, no one cared at the time what his indiscretions were, they just wanted the anti-Miller - A 4+ year old DUI while on vacation didn't matter - he was on vacation, number one. Number two, he wasn't Miller. *** I'm defintitively NOT saying DUI is good or even acceptable, I'm just saying, everyone was anti Miller at the time, and Ford had portrayed himself as leader of the anti-Miller club. As for his indiscretions since the election, some are overblown and some he should definitely wear ( we've already covered a lot of these) and hopefully voters consider all of this next year, but 'technically' there is no reason he should be removed from office. - If our laws were better, yes, there'd be a lot more politicians in jail and Ford might be out of office. On the other hand, have you ever seen a mayor with
this much scrutiny? Yes, being mayor, makes you a public spotlight, but seriously, the man can't fart some days without it being news. And this is where he's recovering voters, he's become the persecuted victim (again) in a lot of peoples minds. With all the litigation sitting at 0 for 3, He's regaining his support because of his perceived persecution.
In a perfect world, we have a centre candidate show up, not Vaughn, Chow or Ford. The Pendulum has been swinging too violently in the last few elections, we need someone down the middle that can negotiate. I don't envy whoever that may be. At least half the people will always be mad at them.
As for the budget, yes it's unfortunate Del Grande quit, but he wanted out irregardless of the Ford vote (Ford's vote certainly didnt help). Ford was playing politics with his vote. He still had one more verdict to come down, if I recall, regarding him getting booted out of office. So he voted for the no tax increase so he could run on it if he lost the last case and an election happened.
As for Miller's budgetary differences. Here's another article I just found that outlines a lot of the points I was trying to make.
"The entire budget process has been opened up for the better. Torontonians learned back on November 29 that their annual tax bill would rise by 1.95 per cent (later revised to two per cent), but the real story that day wasn’t the size of the increase. It was the timing of the announcement. During Miller’s tenure, the annual tax increase, along with every other detail of the municipal budget, was kept under wraps until February. It’s a crucial difference in management style. Miller waited so he would know exactly how much money he had left over from the previous year. Ford doesn’t want to know, because he believes not knowing will force the city to spend more cautiously."
http://www.torontolife.com/daily/in...lip-side-of-ford-philip-preville/#more-191771
Ford isn't counting on the surplus every year. He's treating it like gravy at the end of the year (which I much prefer). City council doled out a bunch to groups and organizations last fall.
