Article content continued

“There’s a different ethos in the air.”

Nelson Wiseman, professor of politics at the University of Toronto, has a similar perspective, broken into two parts. The first is that the intensity being observed at City Hall is a matter of scale. “It depends on whose ox is being gored. If you’re talking about changing the traffic flow on one block somewhere in Etobicoke, fewer people are going to be involved than if you talk about shutting down libraries, which is a cross-Toronto issue.”

The other part is that people are coming out against the current administration because they’re just learning what electing Ford actually translates into in terms of cuts: “He didn’t say when he was running that electing him might mean laying off police or shutting down libraries.”

Denzil Minnan-Wong, councillor for Ward 34 and chair of the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee, agreed that there has been an awakening in Torontonians, but contends it happened during two seminal events from David Miller’s time in office. “The first was about five years ago, with land transfer tax and motor vehicle registration. The second was the municipal [garbage] strike,” Minnan-Wong said.

Fair enough, but no speaker at the core services review meeting used their allotted three minutes to discuss those issues.

Two observers, Robert Sherrin and Astrid Janson, took in the theatrics, a new experience for both of them triggered by the threat of the core service review recommendations. “We’re just concerned that the city will deteriorate in many important ways, whether it be socially, culturally,” Sherrin said. “People will also feel very defeated if these things are railroaded,” Janson added.