I felt like a philandering lover who had foolishly invited two girlfriends to the same party back in 2002, a year away from a municipal election.
It was the NOW holiday party at the Courthouse on Adelaide, and one-time Toronto mayor Barbara Hall was shaking hands and working the room, wielding past-incumbent star power. But I found myself drawn to the blond in the corner, an upstart councillor from High Park with big ambitions and tiny poll numbers: David Miller.
NOW was assumed to be backing Hall even this far from voting day. She had been a decent downtown mayor for the old city of Toronto and seemed to have the best chance of erasing the humiliating and debilitating legacy of Bad Boy, original mega-city mayor Mel Lastman.
I was polite to Hall, who created a mini-stir, but I was driven to give the less-sought-after Miller some wine-infused advice, basically blurting that since he was so far off the radar, his best hope was to keep trumpeting ideas he believed in.
And coincidentally, that’s what he did. David Miller, who leaves office December 1, did such a good job at the helm of this city that he made us forget the horrible years and the fools that preceded him. That, ultimately, may have been his problem: we were left to judge Miller against an exacting standard – himself.
More than a broom, Miller and his council needed a shovel to remove all the crap that had piled up in Toronto’s new super-sized civic government. We’re arguing nuance and details these days, but before Miller the city was a mess of slashed services, decaying neighbourhoods, grime, greased palms and bursting boatloads of gravy.
Cronyism ruled, and citizens were so distanced from decision-making that they barely bothered registering a complaint. Opposition seemed pointless given the civic forces mustered behind closed doors and in slick steak houses rather than council chambers and municipal forums.
City-defining decisions were made in secret on private planes jetting off to playoff hockey games, in country clubs and at big-buck off-Broadway shows. And spending routinely ballooned without explanation, often to the upside of councillors’ supplier friends.
The inquiry into bloated MFP computer spending by the city was still in play when Miller took City Hall. Millions of unexplained dollars were at stake, not the pittance of councillors’ expense accounts.
But unfortunately, the election we just finished was a race without long-term memory, one that only looked at the last seven years and not the decades of deceit that preceded them. For this we can thank media fixations and the shortcomings of Joe Pantalone and progressive members of the departing council.
The truth is, we live in a revitalized city. Just don’t try telling that to the Toronto Star. Count the ways: there’s a lobbyist registry and strict controls on civic spending we’re a world-class green city the arts rule Transit City is poised to kick-start the connection between the suburbs and the downtown priority neighbourhoods have been given a boost and there’s citywide tree planting.
Before Miller, hidden-agenda-wielding politicians tried to distract us with promises of megaprojects. On Miller’s watch, the city itself became the megaproject. Have you been to the waterfront lately?
And nobody is wondering if any Miller buddies got rich from the contracts for this work. No one ever accused this mayor of lining his pockets or those of his friends while he wore the chain of office. No hidden children have showed up looking for their dad. There were no hysterical calls for the army or cringing about cannibalism. And unlike the incoming mayor, Miller was never dragged from his car and busted, never thrown out of the ACC for drunkenness, never had his tearful wife call the police for help.
I was in Miller’s office the day after he announced he wouldn’t be running for re-election. The less-than-successful handling of the city workers strike was a recent memory, but it was quickly clear Miller wasn’t running away from office, but toward his family.
As he explained his decision to step down, he recalled being brought up by his beloved single mother, Joan Miller. She had only relatively recently passed away, and the wound was still raw. He wanted to be the father for his children that he’d never had.
As he wiped away real tears, I couldn’t imagine how the city would fare without him in the power chair. But I felt privileged to have been served by someone with the character to give it all up to be the man he knew he had to be.
Maybe someday we will again have a mayor with a heart and a vision as big as those of David Miller.
michaelh@nowtoronto.com
