Ontario Municipal Elections

Being new to Ontario I cannot say I have followed municipal politics too closely and since I haven't lived in the province for six months I don't believe I was eligible to vote either and I didn't. I was glad to see Hazel McCallion in Mississauga re-elected. An 85 year old still going strong as mayor is no doubt impressive. I was also pleased to see former Liberal MP Gary Carr become Halton regional chair and even Carolyn Parrish win (despite my distaste for some of her comments, I at least liked her strong independence streak). I was though disappointed that David Miller won again in a landslide here in Toronto. Despite his NDP affiliations, my concern was his lack of fiscal accountability. The debt of Toronto has grown under his watch and yet he has done nothing to deal with it. Instead he is relying on the province and feds to bail him out. I believe all governments should live within their means and sometimes that means making difficult choices much as the Liberals did in the mid 90s and much as the BC Liberals did in my former province 4-5 years ago. Unfortunately there was no viable alternative. Jane Pittfield who was supposedly the Conservative candidate called for building another underground subway line, which would likely put Toronto in further debt, while former Liberal party president Stephen Ledrew who seemed like the best choice really had no chance at winning. Hopefully city council and the mayor will start to show some fiscal responsibility by making the hard choices now and then once things are turned around making all the big promises. What those on the left sometimes forget is that while making cutbacks is never easy, you are better to make them now than later. Once the budget is balanced and a surplus is achieved one can spend on all the important priorities. One just has to look at the federal Liberals who by balancing the budget were able to turn Canada's finances around and were able to fund many things as well as give major tax breaks that one could only dream about doing in 1993. It would be nice if Toronto had a municipal government with the same foresight.