Toronto Mayor Rob Ford directs questions during a committee meeting on the city's waterfront plans on Sept. 6, 2011, at City Hall.Moe Doiron/The Globe and Mail
City hall junkies circled the date months ago: Sept. 26, the day council would finally debate Mayor Rob Ford's epic core services review.
Union officials began planning protests and robo-calls. City councillors began preparing speeches. Reporters began drafting hyperbolic battle metaphors.
All that now seems like overkill.
Last week, Mr. Ford and his executive committee backed away from the most controversial recommendations that came out of the city's review, an attempt to find expendable excess in the municipal budget.
And so over the next few days, city councillors will not be voting on the most contentious aspects of that report – items such as shuttering libraries and terminating daycare spots that were seen by many to distort the city's core values. Instead, they will vote on whether to sell or lease zoos and farms, liquidate three theatres that few people realized the city owned in the first place and close some small museums with poor attendance.
"The reality is that we're still looking at making some tough decisions to deal with our budget shortfall," said Councillor Michael Thompson, a member of the mayor's executive committee.
But just because the stakes are lower than expected doesn't mean either side is toning down their rhetoric.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees expects about 10,000 people on Monday at 5:30 p.m. for a demonstration outside City Hall.
"There will be an element of celebration at the rally due to the cuts no longer being considered," said a union rally organizer who was not authorized to speak on the record. "But many of the recommendations have simply been deferred or referred or punted down the line, so it's a victory, but a tenuous victory."
And the union's largest municipal branch, Local 79, has targeted a series of robo-calls at city councillors asking them to prevent cuts.
"We're targeting specific councillors who are seen as potential swing votes or councillors who have demographics in their wards who are going to be particularly concerned with the cuts," said the organizer.
The robo-call asks city residents to press "1" if they want to contact their local city councillor about stopping cutbacks at city hall. They are then patched through to their councillors' office.
"Most of them seem a little confused," said Mr. Thompson, whose office has received several calls, along with at least three other councillors. "It's not clear to me that any of the calls that actually come through are aware why they are calling."
The method steals from Mr. Ford's campaign, which leaned heavily on advanced phoning and polling techniques honed in the United States.
"My reaction is it's democracy, it's fine," said Mr. Thompson, before suggesting the callers would have to be more constructive to influence his vote. "It would be more helpful if we were to hear from them ideas that would help us negate any major impact. But no one has come to me saying that."
Council debate on the core service review begins at 9:30 Monday and is scheduled to last two days.