{"id":1516,"date":"2007-02-07T13:23:12","date_gmt":"2007-02-07T17:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=1516"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:04:55","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:04:55","slug":"meet-our-kindergarten-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/02\/07\/meet-our-kindergarten-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet our Kindergarten Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Our new City Council has only had a few meetings since their November election, so I momentarily forgot how immature and dysfunctional some of our finest city councillors are. Yesterday, council was to have their group photo taken. The mayor and his executive committee were to take up the front row. But some of the most strident opponents of Mayor Miller (Case Ootes, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Rob Ford, and Mike Del Grande) showed up early and sat in the front row and refused to move when asked by the mayor and the photographer to vacate their spots. Makes you feel really confident in the people directing policy for this city, eh?
\nHere are some excerpts from the Toronto Star story<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The members of Toronto’s new city council drew a picture of themselves yesterday, but it wasn’t a pretty one.<\/span><\/p>\n

The split between Mayor David Miller and councillors who have formed the unofficial opposition at city hall got so ugly that council’s official photo session was scrapped, as the politicians squabbled over who got to sit in the front row.<\/p>\n

Councillors couldn’t even agree afterward what happened, much less who was to blame.<\/p>\n

But most said that Councillors Mike Del Grande (Ward 39, Scarborough-Agincourt), Case Ootes (Ward 29, Toronto-Danforth), Rob Ford (Ward 2, Etobicoke North) and Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34, Don Valley East) had objected to giving up their front row seats, when asked by the photographer to move. (Minnan-Wong denied he had been asked to move.)<\/p>\n

When they wouldn’t budge, Miller called off the session.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Yesterday opposition councillors said they had to challenge Miller’s grab for “absolute control” of city hall.<\/p>\n

“I don’t like to be pushed around, okay?” said Del Grande.<\/p>\n

“I felt I was being pushed around, and I pushed back. I said, No. That’s the bottom line.”<\/p>\n

Miller said that’s not the issue at all.<\/p>\n

“My kids had their hockey photo two weeks ago,” he said. “They lined up where they were told. It was that simple.”<\/p>\n

“Two or three members of council have deliberately chosen to misbehave,” he said. “Aside from calling their parents, there’s not much you can do.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Ootes said he dug in his heels on principle.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I think we wanted to make a statement that, you know, the mayor’s trying to control every last detail of members of council,” he said.<\/p>\n

“If he had come to me and asked me to move I probably would’ve, but he assigned a member of staff.”<\/p>\n

Asked if it isn’t a black eye for council, Ootes replied: “Well, who’s the head of council? Who sets the tone? It’s the mayor, and he needs to change his attitude and have some respect for those who disagree with his positions … It’s about time people stood up and said, `We’re not going to take this anymore.'”<\/p>\n

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