Flanked by family, friends, his staff and media, an emotional, passionate and feisty Mayor David Miller announced that he will not seek a third term.
Saying that he decided in 2003 he would not run for a third term because of his obligation to his family, Miller noted that he had to tell people he was running so as not to appear a lame duck mayor.
Miller said that he accomplished every major policy objective he had laid out in the 2003 and 2006 elections and running for a third term would be about himself more than anything else. Miller highlighted his accomplishments in transit, accountability, environmentalism and improving Toronto’s business climate.
This announcement brings up short-, medium- and long-term questions:
What will happen at city council with councillors now jockeying for a place in an entirely unknown 2010-14 administration?
Who will the progressive wing of council nominate as their candidate in the 2010 election?
What will be David Miller’s legacy?
Aside from spending more time with his family, Miller did not address what his future will hold.
32 comments
Good for him. I feel better about him now. He has not been a bad one, but I’d welcome changes at the city hall.
I hope this doesn’t mean an end to fantastic projects like Transit City and the DRL.
Mayor David Miller was the most articulate and kind hearted mayor that I have ever met. Living in both my birthplace of Toronto and my current city of Calgary a direct comparison can be drawn in the area of environmental aptitude. David as Chairman of the C-40 has a global perspective. He can balance local concerns with a global understanding of issues. He is respectful of diverse opinions and the cultural dynamics of Canada. He will be missed greatly.
Regards,
Walter Reid of Calgary
September 25,2009
Does this mean Sue Anne Levy is out of a job?
As much as there are many people believing that the garbage strike tarnished Mayor Miller, to the point of being unelectable, I think the truth is yet to emerge.
IMO, it is next year’s budget that would make him completely unelectable. Toronto’s non-residential assessment base continues to shrink (these are revenue positive). The reserves have been bled dry. The province has no money or inclination to continually bail out the city.
The result of all this is that the city will need to increase taxes by 15% to 25%. This after the LTT, VRT, and various other fee increases. The ‘left’ on council will want the increase to be distributed equally on all classes, which will further accellerate the declining commercial assessment base. This in turn will just exacerbate the problem. The ‘right’ on council will simply insist that taxes are to high.
I doubt that next year’s budget will pass council, and the the Province will have to intervene.
This city is not economically sustainable and has reached a crisis point.
I think this is a Mayor that has accomplished a lot despite his often exagerrated detractors. There is one reason I think this will be an interesting turn of events. Those who might have hoped to run for Mayor on a platform largely defined by being ‘anti-Miller’ are now going to actually have to come up with a little more than that. It might just be a little more about ‘this is me and my ideas’ rather than relying on defining themselves against an incumbent they think is unpopular.
Now all the lazy Miller bashers have what they wished for. Hope they like it. Who will they and Royson James blame everything on in the future ?
@Scott
You’re right. That’s the silver lining in all of this. But that’s assuming we’ve got intelligent candidates running for mayor who are interested in legitimate discussion…but I’m not that much of an optimist.
I can’t stand most of the ideas that seem to come from the right wing of Council…and I’m not crazy about Smitherman or Tory as mayoral candidates (as for Stintz, the less said the better). But I think Miller has done an incredible amount of damage to Toronto in a very short time. True, he was Mayor during a very difficult period in Toronto’s history; the province has yet to make good on reversing some of the provincial policy decisions that have hobbled this City. But for someone who tried to implement some fairly aggressibe changes, he and his team were incredibly inept change managers, not to mention divisive and arrogant. I know that many if not most of the commentators on this site are are hard-core Miller supporters (see above comments such as “lazy Miller bashers” — and a complete absence of comments about “lazy Royson James bashers”). I know that many of the people on this site saw him as “progressive”. Personally, I think think many of the so-called progressive initiatives were little more than a smokescreen for the most developer-friendly administration in Toronto’s history. I am not anti-development, but when new development significantly outpaces the ability of public infrastructure to keep pace (and developer’s fees are kept artificially low at the expense of existing ratepayers), something has gone wrong.
Most people (at least the people on this site) knew Lastman was a clown. I think it is fair to say that Miller showed he was made of better stuff — but just barely in my view. Deep into his second term his credibility seems to be in tatters with most people (albeit not with the A Spacing or NOW crowds) and his leadership ability seems inadequate to the task that a city such as Toronto presents.
That said, I’ll mention again that I’m not crazy about the potential mayoral candidates that have popped up so far.
I agree, this is a dark day for Levy and James.
I guess this means we will once again see John Tory emerge and try, once-again to camouflage his true blue neo-con colours….
Miller was a good man and accomplished what was possible with the council he had. Goofup left wingers not very mature in their political acumen and a bunch of right wing complainers with no vision. I wish him well. His last gift to Toronto was to throw races wide open. Every councillor will have to fight for their jobs on their own, without coat-tailing on Miller or setting themselves up as an official opposition. Hope there are a lot of new faces running at every level.
Hope there are a lot of new faces running at every level.
Big up that!
FWIW, can anyone remember a better Mayor than DM?
“I guess this means we will once again see John Tory emerge and try, once-again to camouflage his true blue neo-con colours….”
IS there any evidence of Tory actually being a “neo-con”? (This isn’t baiting — I’m genuinely curious.)
And the first piece of fallout from today’s announcement is…
http://twitter.com/mayorzanta
(Immediate question: is he really behind it?)
“FWIW, can anyone remember a better Mayor than DM?”
I certainly can’t… granted, other than Miller, Mel Lastman is literally the only one who compares because the strange and wonderful creature that is the megacity has only had two mayors.
I don’t think a comparing either of them to Crombie, Sewell, Rowlands, Eggleton or Hall (much less any of the earlier mayors) is even remotely fair. The Toronto today is vastly less governable.
Miller’s legacy will be as the man who brought Toronto out of the post-amalgamation doldrums.
In 2015, when you ride the new shiny streetcars from the beautiful central waterfront into the vibrant and safe Regent Park, you can thank Miller.
I’m going to miss him.
David Miller had his missteps and disappointments. But there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that becuase of him, Toronto is a better place to live and much better positioned for the future today than when he first put on the sash.
I hope he enjoys the well-earned time with his family, but also hope he continues working towards making Toronto great. Invest Toronto does need a new CEO…
They say history is the ultimate equalizer on whether a politician was good or bad. I’m willing to bet that Miller will be remembered as below-average, though not terrible. He has done good things, such as social housing and programs, revitalizing the waterfront, improving transit and city funding, and lowering crime.
But in the end, I think the bad will outweigh the good. Over time the Land Transfer Tax and Vehicle Registration Fee will make nearby municipalities look more attractive, controversial planning policies regarding the Gardiner Expressway, Jarvis St, and to a lesser extent St. Clair, lack of control with spending, and putting unions and special interests ahead of the people of the city (if they don’t like Miller cause of how he handled the garbage strike, they are gonna hate whoever comes into power in 2010…).
I was listening to CFRB 1010, and they had an interview with Adam Vaughan, and if there is anyone to run as a far-left successor to Miller it is him. When it came to discussing council’s right wing, he was not afraid to tell it as it is (that they are career politicians who oppose everything to be the voice of “the other guy”). I’m more center-left, but the next mayor of Toronto cannot be afraid to put opposition and the media in their place if he or she wants to be successful!
I watched Miller win the debate over Jane Pitfield a few years ago – not by any policy or intellectual argument – but just because of pure charisma and impressive public speaking ability. It was unfortunate, because despite being a weak public speaker Pitfield’s approach was moderate. I think she would have made the better mayor.
I admire many of Miller’s goals but in his time Toronto feels even more like a city government that just doesn’t work. Time to go.
When dealing with a vast, union-infested, highly-taxed, cultural-engine, transit-befuddled, nearly-ungovernable city, it helps to have an independently superwealthy, highly intelligent, ideology-free, pragmatic and goal-oriented mayor. I’m thrilled that we’re getting Bloomberg for a third term here in NYC – sorry we can’t clone him and ship him north. Or maybe there is a Bloomberg-in-waiting in Toronto already? Maybe David Thompson would like to set the media business aside and give politics a try? Perhaps Galen Weston would like to sit behind the mayor’s desk instead of the Loblaws checkout aisle? Thorsell doesn’t have much to do once he leaves ROM… Any Mirvishes feel like governing instead of producing?
Having such smart outsiders in charge certainly frees city government from politics-as-usual and leads to fresh faces and new ideas that can’t be quickly twisted by the usual low-level fracas. In all seriousness, I hope such a candidate comes forward.
JS
Absolutely there is evidence of this. It depends how one wants to define neocon, but the premise to the modern PC Party of Ontario is generally quite hostile to the welfare state and the bureaucracy in general.
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/404674
The PC Party and John Tory could essentially been confident to take the Ontario Chamber of Commerce policy papers and plagiarize as their own.
Obviously, if Tory were to successfully mount a campaign and govern the City, I would imagine more right wing pragmatism would emerge.
I have already asked Don Drummond to run.
While not a “major policy objective,” I liked his idea to allow non-citizen residents in Toronto to vote – would like to see that implemented before he leaves.
@Andrew @ 1:58 pm
Yes sir, I can think of some other equally good mayors.
First there was Nathan Philips. Ever heard of him?
His terms of office were during the ’50s and into the early ’60s when so much happened in this city.
Don’t forget David Crombie. He helped save those parts of downtown Toronto that hadn’t yet gone under
the wrecker’s ball. His 45 foot height bylaw was
a reason that much of the downtown core and other
core interesctions didn’t get out of hand. Look at the ages of the buildings in those areas and you’ll notice that there is a construction gap and the city took a breather even though there was a building boom underway. With Crombie came the trade-offs of height for park space or affordable housing elsewhere.
Those two come immediately to mind. I hope you learn something about their contributions to the city.
Is a former executive of one of the most hated companies in Canada electable? Especially after he’s lost both city and provincial elections? The conservatives will have to field someone besides than John Tory.
I’m going to miss him.
David Miller had his missteps and disappointments. But there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that becuase of him, Toronto is a better place to live and much better positioned for the future today than when he first put on the sash.
I think history will vindicate David Miller, and he will be well thought of 10 years hence. Effecting change in this city is like trying to stop a supertanker – you have to start well before it actually takes place.
10 years from now, as we ride Transit City, the Spadina extension, and have a liveable waterfront, we will have David Miller to thank for it. And when we think of him, we will wonder why one of politics most decent, honest and intelligent people was hounded out of office by no-nothing neanderthals like Royson James.
Glad to hear it. And I would say yes, he’s been a bad mayor, at least in his second term. Much as I hated Mel, at least he was too incompetent to screw things up much, and didn’t waste as much imaginary money on idiotic things to distract from his fecklessness on the real issues.
No he hasn’t revitalized the waterfront, unless you mean the new condos going up and the boardwalk at harbourfront and the plans to put a streetcar garage on the sewage plant grounds at Leslie and Lakeshore when he was promising to make it a park in his first term. Other than that boardwalk and maybe that new bike path way out near rouge beach I don’t like any of the changes down there.
One Question: Given the fiscal and governance constraints that were in place in 2003, those who feel that Miller has failed should provide details how they or their preferred candidate would have been a better Mayor. If they can get out of their armchair.
I can understand the right-wing critics of Mayor Miller, though I don’t agree with them. He raised taxes, after all, spent money, and didn’t hate unions. But if you sit on the left, i don’t see how you can dislike him. In a suburban dominated city like Toronto, he’s the most urban, left wing mayor the city would ever elect, and that only in the aftermath of the Lastman disaster.
Stintz, Pitfield, or Minnan-Wong (but not Tory) will win the next election. Smitherman will lose. And we’re going to miss Mayor Miller. A lot.
I never thought my respect for Sue Anne Levy could get any lower… her twitter comments and this morning’s columns are some of her most insensitive remarks she’s every written.
In her typical elegant prose, Levy on her twitter yesterday stated:
“David Miller says his family made him quit municipal politics. Yes, his CUPE family, that is.”
If you’ve seen images of the press conference, you can clearly see Levy standing directly next to Miller’s family and his sobbing son. After campaigning for the Tories and noting in a Globe article the sacrifices politics would have on her relationship with her wife, you’d think Levy would be much more sensitive to the dilemma of serving the public while spending time with family.
This morning, Levy continues to take the high road in her Toronto Sun column, claiming that Miller took the “coward’s way out.” Funny, coming from a columnist who constantly lambasts Miller for his stubbornness and firm use of the Mayor’s executive power. One day Miller is an overpowering dictator and the next he’s a tortoise running away from a fight.
Good riddance, Levy. Enjoy your remaining fourteen months as a columnist for a tabloid rag. Oh, and cheerleading tryouts open for Mayor Tory in November 2010.
David Miller will be the next Metrolinx chair. Book it!
Bruce…
I agree with you concerning Miller’s economic constraints… and I actually support many of his initiatives. However, I also think it’s fair to say that he could have made different decisions that would have left the City in better financial shape. I’ll name just three.
I think he should be commended for his garbage/recycling efforts (though I think he needs to come clean on the GreenBin program)…But I don’t think we needed to spend about $80m so that we can have bins cluttering up our front yards. Many people who support recycling were appalled that the city opted for a costly and wasteful option (not to mention ugly) option to support recycling.
Regarding many of the expensive street makeovers that took place on his watch, maybe, just maybe it would have been appropriate to postpone these until some badly needed road repairs are done (re backlog of over $300m in repairs). Whether you use the roads as a motorist, cyclist, or ride a bus, I think it is fair to say that our roads have never been in worse shape.
Regarding all the condo development that has taken place under this Mayor’s watch, maybe, just maybe, it would have been an idea if the City decided to charge development fees that actually covered the cost of infrastructure needed for these new units. Instead the Toronto has decided to subsidize developers by keeping fees many times lower than those in surrounding municipalities… so that existing ratepayers need to pick up the shortfall. And with all the units that have been built on his watch… that’s some shortfall.
I don’t think the Mayor can be blamed for not doing away with the SickDays bank. (Anybody who knows anything about negotiations knows that “phasing out” is the best that can happen in any round — and personally, I think getting rid of it completely is unfair to the workers.) BUT I think the Mayor CAN be blamed for creating false expectations among the public that getting rid of the SickDays Bank was doable in this round of negotiations. I also think that the Mayor can be blamed for the strike period, given that the union leadership were willing to accommodate a phase-out without going to strike.
By all means, feel free to praise the Mayor. But please don’t pretend he didn’t have other options. Even people who support a progressive agenda felt he had other options.