Public Idiot No. 1A
I give you His Worship, Mayor David Miller of Toronto.
In a rare moment of agreement with Royson James of the Toronto Star (a.k.a. The Red Star of Toronto) I can see that the Mayor fiddled (pedalled, actually) while Toronto burned...burned by ATU Loc. 113 as well as by the heat of the day. He was pedalling around on a photo-op to kick off Bike Week in Toronto. So imagine if you will, a bunch of smiling and waving politicians on their bikes...along with all the event's participants...getting a police escort (on their bikes, of course) through the heart of downtown...while tens of thousands of highly pissed-off commuters watched in sweaty disbelief.
And people wonder how the French Revolution got started...
The Mayor's biggest crime is that he knew for weeks that this issue was brewing and he did nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Made a couple of pro-forma statements to the newsies about how the Union should get back to work. *yawn*
Dave: spend a little less time on your hair and a little more time actually running the city. Stop pandering to all the NIMBY granola crunchie waterfront condo and co-op owners who think the Island Airport is the spawn of Satan. John Tory has done a better job addressing the concerns of Torontonians in recent crises than you have.
Oh, and by the way...its not just Toronto residents who got burned in that little transit fiasco...lots of us might work here but we don't live here. In case you think that doesn't matter, think again, Goldilocks.
4 comments:
Ew, ouch. That's sounds almost as brilliant as re-electing the idiot who sat in Houston, TX while the city of New Orleans flooded after Katrina. Good times, good times. Maybe David Miller and Ray Nagin should do lunch sometime? Maybe while both cities go up in flames?
Oooo.... I love that he's off promoting bike use the day the transit system goes kaput. A-hole.
While I do not follow enough of Miller's day to day to properly comment, I am all too familiar with the works of the TTC from the inside since my father worked for them for over 27 years. Suffice it to say that they are one of the strongest unions in existence today and that not always leads to good things (lump the Police association in here as well). And I am sure you have very valid points on the ineffectiveness of the city council to stop this from happening in the first place.
I would counter however that we are all helpless when some person or groups of people decide to circumvent the rules that the rest of us have to play by and do things illegally. Sure, the Labour Board could have said from the start, thou shall not do this or else. Menas jack schitt when the next day that order is defied (as the first one was early in the day) and they strike anyways.
I refuse to take the TTC unless absolutely necessary; I would rather work a second job to pay for gas. I have a lot of friends and family that rely on it though. It is far past time that it was made an essential service to put an end to this holding hostage of a city. No other large city allows this shit to go on. And proper threats of people being fired stopped the illegal one that shut down New York City. They are an essential service and they still striked illegally. So I cannot and will not blame the mayor for the callousness of a few that affected the many.
I think a lot of us have been blinded by Miller's coiffed looks, charisma and imposing stature.
Especially compared to his predecessor, he looks and acts like a savior but more and more, I think it's just a case of good PR, especially when the city's been crying about red ink on a near daily basis since his arrival.
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