Years from now, David Miller will be remembered for his broadest brush strokes. Transit funding, waterfront revitalization and the land transfer tax among them. These may well be the most important accomplishments for Toronto under Miller but what made Toronto a better place to live during his tenure were the finer brush strokes.
Many – I’d even go so far as to say most – decisions a mayor makes are to some degree or another reactionary. For example, no matter who was mayor, Toronto was going to need a solution for its garbage. Miller’s choice was in deciding what the new plan would be. While Toronto’s new mayor is eager to look into incineration, Miller was more comfortable with purchasing a landfill. Either way, a decision had to be made because doing nothing wasn’t an option. Those are the broad strokes.
The fine strokes of a mayoralty are about how a mayor chooses to spend their time and which initiatives, causes and people she or he elevates by choice.
Miller had a soft spot for the Toronto Public Library. He made it to as many events as he possibly could and when he spoke everyone present could feel his passion and sincerity. One of the former mayor’s favourite lines about Toronto’s libraries was, to paraphrase, “our libraries are where people from around the world become Torontonian.” Miller’s mother was a teacher-librarian and he immigrated to Canada in his youth so the values of the library system is imprinted on Miller’s DNA.
Spacing also benefited greatly from Miller’s attention. From the start of his first term when he donned Spacing’s subway buttons, Miller was a big booster of the movement to celebrate and advocate for Toronto’s public spaces. While his schedule didn’t allow for him to attend every launch party, Miller attended many, which inspired other politicians and the mainstream media, among many others, to mingle with Spacing readers and writers, and take careful note of what is in the magazine.
Though municipal government doesn’t have the power to enact all of the environmental legislation Miller would have liked, he threw his weight behind the NGOs doing the work he prized most. Not Far From The Tree’s mandate of social and environmental justice fit Miller’s personal ethos as well as any organization could. So in one of his final acts as mayor, Miller gave permission to NFFTT to pick fruit on city-owned trees, which will allow NFFTT to prevent the waste of fruit on our city’s trees and instead send it to local meal programs.
Even though Miller disappointed parts of his base of support at times with initiatives like the P3 for street furniture or the painfully slow rate of bike plan implementation, it was through the finer strokes that he remained connected to the people and communities that supported him, and built relationships with people across all political lines (think of his support for Toronto FC).
While we know what many of Rob Ford’s broad strokes will feature, what we don’t know yet is which initiatives, causes and people we will find in the short strokes of his mayoralty. The arts may be a beneficiary. Or maybe not. It’s still too early to tell.
Photo by Rannie Turingan
2 comments
The trouble is that Miller didn’t really accomplish all that much that was visible during his term. He cancelled the island airport bridge (pointless, since they are going to build a tunnel there), built the St. Clair streetcar right of way (which was highly controversial and took forever to build) and proposed Transit City, but didn’t get any real construction underway during his term and in any case, the plan has been radically altered by Rob Ford. There were some smaller accomplishments, but which are really under the radar of most voters: the large drop in crime rates partly as a result of increased social spending in the inner suburbs under Miller, and the progression of waterfront redevelopment for example. However Miller won’t really take credit for his one major accomplishment: putting the issue of transit expansion in voter’s minds, and hopefully getting the most important part of Transit City, the Eglinton line built. Construction will probably start some time under Rob Ford’s mayoralty and the line will probably open under the mayoralty of Rob Ford’s successor.
It’s too bad that the original picture of David Miller at a Toronto FC game was replaced with this candid from a Spacing Party. Although it may not have been consistent with the theme of the article (talking about short strokes and then showing the Mayor at play) it did demonstrate that our previous Mayor put some effort into being a part of the city.
One could not say as much for our current Mayor, who makes hay out of paying a hundred visits a day to a hundred worthy events; and while that might be admirable, it really puts Ford in the position of a spectator to the city rather than a member of it’s people. Of course, this is a trend throughout this Mayoralty.
One imagines he’d have a harder time crapping on downtowners and suburbanites alike if he felt some kinship to either group. We can see from his actions of late that he feels no such connection to Toronto or anyone within it.
Anyway…put the TFC pic back up.