Watchdog

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It goes without saying that since Mayor David Miller was re-elected, there has been a firestorm of criticism that has been directed at the way in which the city has been governed.

Currently these attacks have been focusing on the way in which the mayor and city councillors spend the money that has been allocated to them for the operation of their constituency offices and staff.

By all means there is a need for common-sense rules and guidelines to be in place in order to ensure that public money is not used illegally or for personal gain by our elected public servants.

However, what I am now seeing within the demands being made of city councillors to be "more financially responsible" goes well beyond the simple securing of municipal fiscal reforms.

It was back in 1986 that I had my first encounter with the political ideals that appear to be driving most of today's criticisms of our councillor's spending habits.

Originating within the administration of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and called by many names such as neo-conservatism, a new political movement was launched with the primary aim of uniting conservatives of all stripes into one unified vision.

The key policy that united this new political movement was one of tax cuts at all levels of government in the belief it would help build a healthy economy.

Along with tax reforms came many political and social reforms, which we in Ontario experienced directly during the Mike Harris government's Common Sense Revolution.

One of those political reforms was the idea of doing away with elected municipal governments altogether, and replacing the functions of mayor and council with an appointed board of directors.

This new board, as I heard it described, would be made up of appointed business and community leaders who would be directed by provincial laws and policies regarding municipal governance.

The value of this approach, it was argued, was to manage local government policy from a business perspective and to keep "special interest groups" away from political power and influence.

In 1999, Harris, while speaking at the Fraser Institute in Vancouver, B.C., clearly used the term board of directors to describe his party's vision of the future role of Toronto city council.

Indeed many of the policies of the day, such as the Fewer Politicians Act and the reduction of Toronto council to its current size, were political stepping stones to that final outcome.

It's obvious that while voters in Ontario have chosen more moderate politics through their elected governments, there is an active minority who wish to see the Common Sense Revolution completed in full.

What better way to chip away at the power of our city councillors and mayor than by placing them into a political straitjacket where every penny they spend out of their own budget is placed under a microscope of critical attacks.

One has to ask why such a small portion of the municipal budget needs so much public attention and commentary.