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Mayor David Miller says he and other big city mayors will have to rely on the power of persuasion to advance urban issues such as public transit and a handgun ban to the new Conservative minority government.

But Miller, speaking on election night as numbers were still rolling in, said that cities can take comfort in the fact that the majority of Canadians supported parties that explicitly did support issues important to large cities.

"I hope the Prime Minister - perhaps he thinks things through and thinks, 'I didn't win any seats in Vancouver, in Montreal, in Toronto - there's a reason, and perhaps it's time I adopted a 21st century vision of Toronto," Miller said.

The second Conservative minority government will make for an interesting problem for Miller, who has been pushing several issues in the face of a government that is often diametrically opposed: a campaign to have one cent of the GST transferred to municipal governments, and a complete ban on the ownership of handguns.

Miller insisted he'll continue pressing those matters to the new Parliament.

"One cent now: the Green Party, the Liberal Party and the NDP all promised something in the range of that," he said. "We've been successful in persuading a majority of people in this Parliament that it's right. Yes it's true that this Prime Minister hasn't supported that - on the other hand, give him his due. He did make the gas tax permanent. That was permanent funding for transit for the first time."

And as to the handgun ban?

"I'm not going to let up," he said. "Our laws allow collectors to own literally an infinite number of guns. And what's a collector? A collector is somebody who collects stamps - not guns. This is not the only thing you need to do to end gun crime but it's an essential step and I'm going to keep up my advocacy on that matter."

And Miller pointed out that advocacy has had an effect. The Conservative government gave notice in their election platform that they would withdraw Bill C-10 - a piece of legislation that would have allowed cabinet ministers to withdraw funding from film, television and other arts projects that they deemed inappropriate or immoral.