Will September 26, the day council meets to discuss cuts proposed by staff as part of the Core Services Review, be the day of reckoning for the mayor? We take the temperature of council’s mushy middle and a few on the right, too.
Will any of them turn on Ford? Here are the ones to watch – and call.
Michelle Berardinetti
Phone: 416-392-0213 | Email: councillor_berardinetti@toronto.ca
The rookie Scarborough Southwest councillor has been turning heads ever since she arrived on the scene, but for the wrong reasons. Just what is the small-town girl with Liberal party blood in her veins doing cavorting with Rob Ford’s wild bunch? She’s come out against library cuts, but beyond windrows and snow clearing from sidewalks isn’t too bothered by the overall direction of cuts now being recommended post-Core Services Review. She sits on both the mayor’s executive and budget committees. She says she’s “reviewing in-depth” the proposed cuts “to come up with innovative solutions” to avoid slashing childcare subsidies and the elimination of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund and Toronto Environmental Office. Her husband, Lorenzo, the Lib MPP, has less to fear from Ford Nation these days, but Berardinetti still has a few favours to repay the mayor, including getting rid of those bike lanes in her ward a few months back. May have a few surprises to spring September 26, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Josh Colle
Phone: 416-392-4027 | Email: councillor_colle@toronto.ca
The weight of great expectations sits awkwardly on the shoulders of the Eglinton-Lawrence rep, who is keeping a low profile, much to the frustration of those on the left who expected him to make a clean break with Ford. They’ll have to wait a while longer. Colle seems to have hitched his wagon to Ford insider Frances Nunziata, an old political mentor, for the time being. He may be emboldened now that the threat of Ford Nation knocking off his Liberal MPP dad, Mike, in the provincial election seems to have subsided recent polls show Colle the elder ahead in Eglinton-Lawrence. But it’s unlikely we’ll see a rebuff of Ford over the Core Services Review. For Colle, too much is still riding politically on the Lawrence Heights redevelopment in his ward, which the mayor opposes.
Frank Di Giorgio
Phone: 416-392-4066 | Email: councillor_digiorgio@toronto.ca
The former Lastman follower represents have-not York South-Weston, one of the poorest in the country, where the proposed cuts would have a greater impact than elsewhere. Di Giorgio started out toeing the Ford line post-election, but he tells NOW he’d favour a “small” property tax increase to offset inflation instead of the cuts now on the table. He’s advocating “consolidating some service areas” and not replacing employees who retire, for a more modest saving of $300 million, a figure less than half the $774 million being sought by the Fordists.
Jaye Robinson
Phone: 416-395-6408 | Email: councillor_robinson@toronto.ca
The Don Valley West councillor had a hand in bringing Nuit Blanche to T.O. when she was a senior bureaucrat in the city’s economic development department, so she won’t be happy with cuts to the arts. Her name comes up when colleagues on the left talk about those in the Ford camp losing sleep over some of council’s decisions. Cutting funds to BIAs may also give Robinson pause about supporting Ford, but it would be a shocker if she bailed in any substantive way. The added political complication for Robinson: she represents the wealthiest ward in the city, one where Ford happened to do very well in the last election. They may be offended by Ford’s style, but politically her voters support the mayor’s austerity agenda. Noticeably, bus services weren’t cut in her ward when the TTC went through that cutting-of-night-routes exercise.
James Pasternak
Phone: 416-392-1371 | Email: councillor_pasternak@toronto.ca
He represents the York Centre ward whose former right-wing councillor had a reputation for getting along with left and right. The Bathurst-Finch community in his ward is a priority neighbourhood. Capping of the Welcome Policy this summer, a subsidy for those who can’t afford rec services, left many seniors, newcomers and youth in Pasternak’s ward without. If he makes a break with Ford, it will be over the city’s plan to establish what’s being termed “new governance models” for community centres.
Mary-Margaret McMahon
Phone: 416-392-1376 | Email: councillor_mcmahon@toronto.ca
The Beaches-East York rep who slew Sandra Bussin, thanks to the help of a few Tories, has had time to reassess her allegiance to the mayor after he left her hanging over the Leslie car-house plan in her ward. She’s spoken more forcefully against the Ford agenda lately but doesn’t want to risk alienating constituents whose dislike of the Miller regime was visceral. Faces some tricky choices.
Karen Stintz
Phone: 416-392-4090 | Email: councillor_stintz@toronto.ca
The Eglinton-Lawrence pol and the mayor’s TTC chair has much to think about – including her own political future. She’s tried to remain above the fray while handling one of the biggest files in the city, but Stintz seems to be increasingly at odds with the Ford administration and is reportedly on the way out as TTC head. She’s differed with the mayor on his Sheppard subway expansion plan and on backroom efforts to replace current TTC manager Gary Webster. The rollbacks being recommended for the TTC are breathtaking. The big question for Stintz: can she stand by and watch that decimation? My bet is she has little choice. She may try to parlay her support for Ford on cuts into some other political plum.
Josh Matlow
Phone: 416-392-7906 | Email: councillor_matlow@toronto.ca
The St. Paul’s rep has officially come out against the Core Service Review cuts, but Matlow’s quarrel is more with process. He’s left the door open to layoffs and is pushing for road tolls to cover some of the budget shortfall and funding for the TTC. For Matlow, it’s never about left and right when it comes to the issues, or so he likes to say. But that’s the problem. Given the polarizing effect of Ford Nation, it’s hard to see the state of affairs at City Hall as anything but a stark choice between left and right. Maybe young Josh will finally see the light?
Michael Thompson
Phone: 416-397-9274 | Email: councillor_thompson@toronto.ca
The Scarborough Centre rep is the mayor’s economic development chair and would seem an unlikely swing vote, but he’s not prepared to say if he’ll support all the cuts. Make no mistake: Thompson is still singing from the Ford hymn book. But I think I heard him tell me, if I read between the lines of that bureaucratese he’s so good at, that Thompson’s not absolutely opposed to raising taxes to cover the deficit. On that front, his position is not so different from the mayor’s, who’s also talked property tax hike. Seems the councillor has received more than a few emails from concerned constituents. He talked about the need to make cuts, of course. But he called some of those being proposed “extreme” and “dramatic” and said, “Clearly, we have to look at what impacts some will have on the psyche of the city.”
Gloria Lindsay Luby
Phone: 416-392-1369 | Email: councillor_lindsay_luby@toronto.ca
The councillor from Etobicoke Centre, whom the mayor once called “a waste of skin,” enjoyed a much higher profile under Miller as a member of his executive. She made noises early on about cuts to councillors’ office expenses but has fallen in line ever since. If she ever needed a reason to distance herself from Ford, she’s got it now. Staff’s recommending severing the city’s ties to practically every board Lindsay Luby currently enjoys a seat on, from Exhibition Place to the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority to the Toronto Zoo. The arts, another target of the Ford administration, are also near and dear to her heart.
Chin Lee
Phone: 416-392-1375 | Email: councillor_lee@toronto.ca
A tough one to read. The Scarborough-Rouge River rep supported George Smitherman for mayor but still managed to cop a seat on the Police Services Board. Considered among some on the left to be someone who can be worked with, Lee may sense the winds of change blowing in his ward. It went NDP in the last federal election and has experienced a large influx of new Canadians in recent years, the very folks who would be first to feel the impact of cuts to transit and support services. Ford crew has been lobbying him.
Gary Crawford
Phone: 416-392-4052 | Email: councillor_crawford@toronto.ca
The Scarborough Southwest councillor is on the Social Planning Council’s list of swing councillors because of his support for the arts and heritage issues. Crawford is credited with helping the neon bike art project win a reprieve from council, but he noticeably sided with management against locked out stage workers in a labour dispute at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts earlier this summer. Ran for the PCs once. He didn’t respond to a request from NOW for comment on how he plans to vote on the cuts.
Ana Bailão
Phone: 416-392-7012 | Email: councillor_bailao@toronto.ca
The Davenport rep is mentioned here just to make the point that, though more firmly in the progressive fold lately, she doesn’t always vote with council’s left. Bailão’s on a whack of BIA boards that will get the axe if Ford has his way.
Raymond Cho
Phone: 416-392-4076 | Email: councillor_cho@toronto.ca
The Scarborough-Rouge River vet has been on the outs with Ford ever since he got bounced from Toronto Community Housing’s board. The Toronto Zoo is an issue close to his heart – he’s on the board of management. And that’s up for sale.
