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David Miller Endorses Joe Pantalone

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20101006pantssmall.jpg As expected, at a press conference a few minutes ago David Miller endorsed Joe Pantalone’s bid for mayor. Miller let the cat out of the bag a few minutes early, but in what appeared to be a well-orchestrated leak we more or less knew this was coming last night. A beaming Pantalone stood by Miller’s side as the outgoing mayor praised the candidate as a man who “knows this city, understands this city, and has a track record of nearly thirty years in elected office of working with people of every political persuasion.” Alluding to the sometimes grim tone of this election cycle, Miller concluded, “there’s only one candidate who speaks of the city with hope.”

Comments

  • http://undefined Andrew

    Thanks, David Miller, for reminding us why you were such an ineffective mayor.

  • http://flickr.com/aged_accozzaglia accozzaglia

    Your memory is selectively forgetful.
    And unless you’ve lived in a city with a truly rotten, corrupt mayor, it’s a bit difficult to regard your sentiment all that seriously.
    Not that I think Miller’s endorsement will help Pantalone at all. If anything, it might have an inverse effect even as his own theoretical candidacy might beat Flounder.

  • http://undefined Moonmoth

    This was the first hopeful news item I’ve read in this entire mayoral campaign. Miller is absolutely right – Torontonians don’t want to vote out of fear, we want to vote out of hope and looking towards the future.
    Pantalone for Mayor!

  • http://undefined Ben

    Miller was effective in most ways. He’s definitely been better than any of the non-Joe candidates will be.

  • http://undefined Moonmoth

    The polls are bullshit. Please. They phoned landlines only in the middle of a weekday. Talk about a skewed sample.

  • http://undefined Andrew

    Not clear on what I’m selectively forgetting? And I said ineffective, not bad or corrupt. Miller’s time in office was a time of beautiful vision hobbled by bad execution, and this is a perfect example.
    Why he’s endorsing no-chance Joe “Ralph Nader” Pantalone, given the urgency of stopping the Ford campaign, is beyond me.

  • http://undefined Andrew

    I must have just imagined the brutal St. Clair and Bloor Street cost/schedule overruns, the streetcar replacement debacle, his failure to communicate during the garbage strike (which is why he’s not running for a third term), the lame one-cent-now and “Save Transit City” campaigns (the latter of which continued to antagonize the province even after he got concessions), and so on.

  • http://undefined Bailey

    I don’t really think his endorsement will help much, mainly because I’m sure most people kind of assumed he was supported Pantalone in the first place.

  • http://flickr.com/aged_accozzaglia accozzaglia

    Well, if you’re comparing Miller’s “ineffectiveness” to get things done under a constitutionally restricting order of governance versus international cities where mayors have a lot more latitude, then sure, he was “ineffective” as a mayor. I challenge you to name three current mayors of major Canadian cities who have greater latitude to dictate municipal action on an order comparable to Miller or even to what he wanted. I’ll even challenge you to name just one.
    Miller’s problem was another chapter in the “what mayors in Canada constitutionally cannot do” book: he wanted to govern Toronto with a mayoral authority comparable to American or European cities, but simply could not. For instance, his “one cent” campaign was a direct challenge to the province (and lesser extent to a federal regime) — which does “own” the political discourse as it were — on reneging the proposal for helping fund municipal self-governance and its fiscal health. This was acutely so in the years following Harris forcing the municipal level to pay for provincial services. It is impossible to pay for municipal services when money made in the city goes first to the province, not the city, and then mostly stays there.
    The City of Toronto Act of 2006 on paper made it look as if Toronto suddenly had revenue-raising and allocation authority comparable to, say, American cities, but in practice, this was far from the case. If anything, Miller’s campaign drew attention to the Confederation-old problem of Canadian mayors being little more than servants to their provincial overseer. Even David Crombie in 1974 knew this when dealing with a middle-level bureaucrat (on the matter of amending provincial law in two minor places to allow Toronto greater authority over permits for leaf-letting the Yonge Street Mall and greater enforcement for alcoholic infractions on that stretch thereto). Despite his status as mayor of the nation’s largest city (then tied with Montréal), this provincial bureaucrat spoke down to Crombie like a nine-year-old child.
    Before these last few decades, Toronto needed the province for it to move forward, but as Toronto grows into something totally new for Canada — a top-tier city — it is increasingly evident that the province needs Toronto and the GTA for the money stream, nothing more. We are reduced to being a provincial teat, and it’s clear that we are unhappy with that. Our way of venting that frustration — for example, by supporting Flounder — is hardly productive or conducive to changing that paradigm.
    tl;dr version: In short, the mayoralty of a major city can get demeaning from above, which of course is the same thing that holds all of us back from improving our city on a reasonable time scale. Miller at least tried to rock the provincial boat by drawing attention to this constitutional flaw — which is more than what prior mayors of the last generation have attempted.

  • http://undefined InscrutableTed

    And let’s not forget that Miller, despite his ambitions, achieved less for cyclists than Mel Lastman did.

  • http://undefined Matthew

    Couldn’t Miller have implemented congestion based toll roads on the Gardiner and DVP? I think this is an inevitability, and the sooner it happens the better. But it just seems like Miller was too obsessed with The Waterfront do use the Gardiner Expressway to its full potential.

  • http://flickr.com/aged_accozzaglia accozzaglia

    Didn’t an onslaught from the 905 and from trucking companies pitch a fit at the tactical approach of congestion zone charging on municipal expressways?* Without a strategic congestion plan, which we don’t yet have, it’s no matter: drivers would have simply turned to non-expressway arterials in the short term, causing even more headaches for Torontonian residents. A strategic congestion zone plan would have allowed for flow of traffic to even out, à la the post-Embarcadero Expressway in San Francisco.
    * speaking of which, to have a municipality own and operate an expressway is fairly uncommon these days. I sort of wonder why the city couldn’t lease or sell the expressway rights-of-way to the province. We do at least have leverage in that deal: the provincial economy depends on thru-city traffic on the Gardiner and DVP.

  • http://flickr.com/aged_accozzaglia accozzaglia

    True, alas.

  • http://undefined Moonmoth

    Matthew – We you even old enough to vote at the 2003 municipal elections?? If you were then you would certainly recall Miller’s comment that road tolls MIGHT be an option to consider. And for that comment, he was absolutely VILLIFIED by John Tory’s campaign. It wasn’t a plan or a funding policy just a comment. Tory’s campaign even made an anti-Miller website all about the road toll issue. So Miller didn’t do anything about implementing road tolls during his mayoralty.
    Miller saw public transit as a much more effective way to improve conditions for a vast number of people in this city and that’s what he rightly concentrated on. Which you can kiss goodbye if the people of Toronto vote that bloated buffoon into office. What an embarassment for Toronto if that happens.

  • http://undefined Andrew

    I’m mostly referring to things that were completely under Miller’s control. As far as actual projects are concerned, St. Clair and Bloor Street were disasters because multiple city-owned agencies were all stepping on each other’s toes, and nobody was in charge. This strikes me as exactly the kind of problem that a mayor should be solving. Not to mention, the St. Clair failure drained enthusiasm for what was supposed to be Miller’s legacy, the vitally needed Transit City.
    Basically, Miller consistently sabotages himself with a lack of attention to detail, or to political consequences. His endorsement of Pantalone is sadly right in character.
    If you want me to point to a city which is well-run in spite of the mayor’s lack of formal power, I could point to Vancouver.

  • http://undefined mark.

    Exactly. If Pantalone got an endorsement from someone out of left field then it might have given him a critical push. I don’t think Pantalone is going to find new supporters from this endorsement, though it might bring back some of those who like Pantalone but are considering voting for Smitherman to stop Ford.
    I find it irritating that people still argue against ‘strategic voting,’ often by romanticizing representative democracy. They seem to suggest that there’s a direct line of relation between the voter and representative, as though the representative can somehow ‘truly’ personify each voter’s desires. Anyone with a lick of sense knows that “your” representative also represents thousands of others and you don’t all share similar concerns or desires. In sense, every single vote is a ‘strategic’ vote.

  • http://flickr.com/aged_accozzaglia accozzaglia

    Ah yes, Vancouver, which for the last six years has de facto run by Premier Campbell in preparation for the Olympics. And Mayor Robertson is certainly anything but spotless so far with his mayoral reputation.

  • http://piorkowski.ca/ qviri

    You know, in the perfect dream world, “the left” would coalesce around Pants, while “the right” splits between Smitherman, Rossi, and Ford.
    Anyway, that just about rounds out the field for this election, unless Rossi decides to pull a wide one and endorse someone else.

  • http://undefined mboadway

    I wonder who will bring more votes along. Miller for Pantelone or Joe Mihevc for Smitherman.
    When I heard Joe Mihevc jumping on the Smitherman bandwagon, I thought to myself yesterday was the highwater of Pant’s campaign. When guys like Mihevc are pulling for Smitherman, he is the anointed Ant-Ford candidate.

  • http://www.michaeljeremybrown.ca/ Michael Brown

    Maybe Miller is bitter? Looking back 10 years or 20 years from now what sandwich looks better: a Lastman-Miller-Ford or a Lastman-Miller-Smitherman? Who Does DM want to bookend his 7 year run as Mayor of Toronto?