Toronto's garbage strike was very different depending on where you lived. In Etobicoke, voters still had garbage collection thanks to private contractors. In low-density bucolic suburbs like Scarborough and North York, where people have garages and wide lawns, the stench was minimal.
But in high-density downtown, where I live, the strike was up-close and personal. Sometimes the smell from the temporary dump sites could make one gag and roll up the car windows; several evenings the scent of burning garbage wafted through the neighborhoods, as some more independent citizens took incineration into their own backyards.
But worst were (and still are) the spiders and flies. It's a record year for both downtown, especially fruit flies, thanks to plentiful rot to eat.
Now, as I slash through the spider webs around my back porch and wave the fruit flies away from my green bin, I'm left to wonder what this strike was all about.
At the beginning I went way out on a limb and predicted on this blog that it would be short, damn short. By the third day I felt that limb snap under me, and I spent a few moments hanging in mid-air like the wily coyote before I metaphorically fell down an impossibly deep canyon.
What went wrong? Why did Mayor David Miller stab his union buddies in the back for five weeks before completely caving into them? What possible political capital could this earn?
What ever his reasoning, it was the biggest miscalculation in a career that has had very few errors. His popularity plummeted when he promised to punish people who dumped garbage outside transfer station fences when the union wouldn't let them easily cross the picket lines.
Perhaps my error was assuming that Miller was very smart, and I admit I've always pictured him as a spider spinning web after web with city hall at the centre.
The flies were the right wing councillors like Rob Ford, who can't help but say what's on his mind and damn the political correctness. He gets caught and held up to ridicule time and again, even getting censured for not spending his $50,000 office expense budget.
But now I wonder if Miller has been more lucky than smart.
He made ridiculous promises during the strike that he couldn't keep, and he grossly exaggerated when he stated that the sick bank had been "eliminated." Hey, if a city employee who has been working there for one year can continue to bank 18 sick days per year for the next thirty years then it has not been eliminated for our generation.
Now perhaps he hopes that by saying the sick bank has been "eliminated" often enough that voters will only hear that sound bite and not look too closely at the actual deal, but if so he's mistaken this time. Every paper, including the Miller-friendly Toronto Star, brought up the fact over and over again that the sick bank isn't really "eliminated."
Miller is still a political juggernaut in Toronto, and the unions will back him in the next election because he's still their mayor, although their ardor may have waned.
He can be sure they won't vote for a right wing candidate, but where Miller may have miscalculated again is that disgruntled union members can chose to unofficially boycott an election. Maybe some garbage collectors will spend the voting time given to them on election day having a beer at the local pub instead. Meanwhile, voters who remember the humiliation of the strike could vote for change.
I make no predictions this time, but now I think of Miller more as a hapless fly than a spider, and if the right person spins a web at the right time, Miller could find himself snared and devoured. I now have hope that change could come to Toronto.
Mike Downtown
Hello there,
I thought you might be interested in this.
Posted by: Jerome Bastien | August 18, 2009 at 09:30 AM
i meant this:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/08/obama-joker-artist.html
Posted by: Jerome Bastien | August 18, 2009 at 09:30 AM