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In response, the Tories have introduced several bills in recent years calling for arbitration reforms and aiming at lowering costs for municipalities by gearing increases to what cities can afford. It’s something the PCs campaigned for years to reform under past leaders. During the 2012 budget bill negotiations, they went so far as to almost bring down the government over sections of its budget bill that didn’t go far enough to reform interest arbitration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=aNSH-7ElejU

But since Patrick Brown took over the party in May 2014, he’s been keen to bring firefighter and police unions back into the fold, and shy of championing the interest arbitration issue. He maintains policing costs can be lowered by better tackling mental health care since so many police calls now involve mental health issue. Brown also said this summer at a National Post editorial board meeting that city leaders didn’t come out to support the Tories, so why should they carry the weight of such a controversial stance?

“So I said don’t come back to us unless you’re willing to say what you say in closed doors at AMO in public,” Brown said last summer. “I was frustrated that sometimes we were doing the work on behalf of others (the cities) who didn’t have the courage to take on police and firefighters in public) themselves.”

He essential repeated those comments in August at AMO’s annual gathering of mayors, this year in Windsor. Both its outgoing and incoming presidents called once again for arbitration reform — and it didn’t go over well with mayors that there’s no party left at Queen’s Park ready to champion this issue.