McGuinty to Miller: I'm just not that into you
Adam Radwanski
Toronto — Friday, Jul. 24, 2009 04:25PM EDT
If he has achieved nothing else in his second term as Toronto's mayor, David Miller has learned how to take a punch. Rival city councillors; union leaders; senior federal ministers; the art directors at Macleans magazine: All have lined up to hit him with their best shots, and many have landed.
Dalton McGuinty, no street fighter, does not throw punches. But the sense one gets from talking to those around him is that next winter, when Mr. Miller makes his usual plea for provincial assistance to make up the city's budgetary shortfall, the Ontario Premier might do something far more damaging to Mr. Miller. He might turn his back on him.
There was a time when Mr. McGuinty could not have seriously considered doing any such thing. In 2003, when both men won their respective positions, the Premier needed the Mayor as much as the other way around.
If you'd laid bets on who would enjoy a longer and more prosperous political career, the smart money would have been on Mr. Miller. A fresh face who had prevailed in an unusually exciting mayoral campaign, he was such a welcome change from the befuddled leadership of Mel Lastman that his honeymoon lasted several years.
Mr. McGuinty had no similar luxury. His landslide victory owed largely to Ernie Eves's dispirited Conservatives defeating themselves, rather than McGuinty-mania. When he introduced an unpopular new health-care “premium” in his first budget, breaking his campaign vow not to raise taxes, any honeymoon was over.
The Globe and Mail
Toronto Major David Miller and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, shownin 2007, are no longer as close as they once were.
To avoid being a one-term wonder, Mr. McGuinty needed to maintain his party's dominance in Toronto and its surrounding area. He also had to hold the Toronto-based media – including the Toronto Star, which obsessed over fairer treatment of the city – at bay. That was no mean feat for an Ottawa native with a distinctly small-town vibe, viewed by Toronto's chattering classes as an interloper. So he hopped aboard the Miller Express.
Mr. McGuinty, himself a few weeks into his job, was among the first to phone Mr. Miller with congratulations on election night. The two men made a habit of photo-ops, and dined together with their respective spouses.
As much as Mr. Miller might have enjoyed the Premier's company, he might have also had his eye on Mr. McGuinty's chequebook. His government made an early gesture of goodwill by sharing a portion of the provincial gas tax with municipalities. In the ensuing years, they've shown much enthusiasm for joint initiatives with the city, particularly on transit. They committed to reclaim some of the costs for social services that Mike Harris's Conservatives foisted upon municipalities in the 1990s. And time and again, they bailed out the city at budget time by allocating one-off, nine-figure sums to allow it to balance its books.
Now, after six years of letting the money flow, it appears Mr. McGuinty may finally turn off the tap. There is every reason to believe Mr. Miller will return, cap in hand, in 2010; even if he wins major concessions from city workers in the current labour dispute, Toronto will likely be hundreds of millions of dollars in the hole.
But the early message from Queen's Park is that he'll be turned away. The official reason is that it's cash-poor, an estimated $14.1-billion in the red.
The unofficial reason is respect.
Unlike many other provincial Liberals, including Deputy Premier George Smitherman, Mr. McGuinty gives no appearance of actively disliking Mr. Miller; he is still more than happy to do photo-ops. But the sense one gets from those close to him – and from some of his recent decisions, including punting Mr. Miller and other municipal politicians from the board of the regional transit authority Metrolinx in favour of private-sector representatives – is that he no longer feels the need to defer to him.
Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Deputy premier George Smitherman helps clean up garbage on July 14 as part of a new volunteer effort during the Toronto strike.
Speak to some of the people vying to replace him in next year's municipal election, and you realize that Mr. Miller could yet win a third term. But he does not project the commanding presence he once did. His polling numbers have tanked, and he is no longer the darling of the city's media and elite. There is a sense that his 5 1/2 years in office have been a disappointment.
The province is still not rife with McGuinty groupies, but the Premier's support remains reasonably strong and he has more than two years left in his mandate. He has become a more confident politician, the cautious management of his first term giving way to activism in his second. And he has lived in Toronto long enough to believe he understands it.
There is also a feeling among some McGuinty advisors that Mr. Miller has abused their patience. Liberals contend that while Mr. McGuinty has made controversial decisions – the health tax in his first term, the harmonization of sales taxes in his second – Mr. Miller has coasted. They say that rather than using up his own political capital – and taking full advantage of new taxation powers given to him by the province in 2006 – to get the city's finances in order, the Mayor has taken the easy way out by leaning on the province.
Mr. Miller could reasonably contend that his unpopular introduction of a land-transfer tax was no walk in the garbage-strewn park. He could argue it's easier for a premier to take risks with a majority government than for a mayor presiding over an unwieldy city council, and that the city remains chronically under-funded. But Mr. McGuinty – who cannot go five minutes without mentioning the personal responsibility he learned growing up in a large Irish Catholic family – seems to believe Mr. Miller made his bed, and now must sleep in it.
For all his newfound boldness, Mr. McGuinty remains a conflict-averse leader, and he may yet find it more trouble than it's worth to send Mr. Miller away empty-handed. But the power dynamic has dramatically changed.
The challenge for Mr. Miller in the next few months is restoring some balance to that relationship; to make Mr. McGuinty need him again. If he doesn't, there will be nothing to stop Mr. McGuinty from delivering a potential knockout blow to Mr. Miller's mayoralty, all without lifting a hand.
