Mayor John Tory and Councillor Michael Thompson are headed for a breakup.

Passive aggressive as they are, both men play nice in public and dismiss their enmity as just political differences. But their relationship is on the rocks.

By the end of the year, don’t be surprised if city council’s only black member is tossed from the mayor’s executive committee as a soured relationship deteriorates.

The latest rift developed over, well, the same bugbear, Toronto police.

That’s how the animus started. One of Tory’s first moves as mayor was to remove Thompson from the police services board. The councillor from Scarborough was seen as a valuable asset on a board that must often navigate testy relationships between police and the city’s black community. Tory sacked him for several reasons — all politically self-serving.

Thompson had proven adept at getting under the skin of the police brass at police headquarters. He asked tough questions, demanded answers, pushed the police to rein in spending, and insisted on reforms of controversial polices like carding.

You’d think those are all admirable characteristics. And they are — unless you are a mayor whose priority was to seek labour peace with the police, fund the force like they always have been, hire a new chief backed by the police brass, keep the toxic practice of carding, install a pro-police chair of the board, and establish a nest-feathering relationship between chief, police union, police board and mayor’s office.

Tory has accomplished all his police priorities — except carding, which blew up in his face. Thompson would have made success nearly impossible.

Thompson and then police board chair Alok Mukherjee pushed for the hiring of KPMG to look at police spending and suggest reforms. This they did after then chief Bill Blair refused to share results of his own internal review. To keep Thompson on the police board was to ensure that the KPMG study was kept ever in front of the police department.

Instead, the KPMG report languished on the shelf until a Star report embarrassed new board chair Andy Pringle into dusting it off.

Thompson wasn’t about to easily sign off on a fat new contract for the police. Police union head Mike McCormack might have wanted him gone for that reason alone.

McCormack also appeared to have Tory’s ear on Bill Blair’s successor. The police union wanted an old guard type chief and that seemed to make Mark Saunders their man. A strong argument could be made that if Thompson had been on the board, Peter Sloly, not Saunders would be chief today. And the discussion regarding the police budget would be very different.

The Tory-led board, with his buddy Pringle as the titular head, is so in bed with the police that Tory, Pringle and Saunders combined efforts to promote fear-mongering among city councillors considering cuts to the police budget, now north of $1 billion.

Thompson tried to get city council to cut the police budget by $24 million during budget debate Wednesday. Tory scuttled the attempt with an unusual bit of backroom politicking.

As Thompson’s bid gained strength — “even some members of the budget committee supported my efforts at one time,” Thompson says — Tory ramped up the scaremongering rhetoric.

That would be like severing an arm, Tory said of Thompson’s motion. The day before council met, he quickly announced the members of a task force to look at the savings KPMG had called for. This mollified council, but not Thompson:

“So, they’ve set up a blue-ribbon panel; let’s see what they come up with. I’m going to wait and see. I’m not going to say I’m hopeful, or I expect nothing. I’m going to just say, ‘OK, surprise me.’ Optimistic? I’m not. I’m Switzerland.”

Thompson has seen the dance many times before, close up, from inside the belly of the beast. The lion-tamers come to police headquarters, turn over a few flower pots, and leave the landscape untouched.

He says the Tory’s office gave him the impression they would support his efforts to reduce the police budget, but they got cold feet and, instead, lobbied in favour of higher spending. Rob Ford had done the same thing.

Councillors who support the spending reform were scared into compliance, Thompson says. They were told if they cut the police budget and a shooting happened in their ward, police would blame that councillor.

“The police never change unless they are forced to change,” Thompson said Friday. “If forcing them to change requires me to cut off an arm, I’m going to cut off the arm. The only way to respond is with a blunt instrument. The only way to affect them is with the money. Nothing else gets their attention. That’s my experience. I’m not wrong. I’ve seen it from the inside ... from talking to former chiefs of police, former police officers now politicians.”

Thompson says the strain in the relationship with Tory is not a personal one. Policing is just one issue. As head of economic development, Thompson is the mayor’s point person travelling the world selling Toronto.

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That may change when the mayor shuffles the deck at midterm in December.

“To be honest with you, I can sit with the mayor and have conversation and have no animosity,” Thompson says. “We may disagree on policing. I believe him when he says he wants change. The difference is I’ve had years of dealing with these guys; he hasn’t. It’s historical.”

Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.ca

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