Toronto City Council Chickens Out

I am mightily pissed off at the Toronto city council. To set up the background, over the last year, decals of yellow "support the troops" ribbons had been attached to the ambulances and fire engines of the city. They were of a pretty good size and highly visible. I found this disturbing, because while the sentiment of "support the troops" is itself reasonable, it has been twisted by the right-wing into "support the troops, don't question the mission." The way I support the troops is by wanting to bring them back, so they stop dying. We are involved in a war of aggression in Afghanistan, and we have no place being there. Yet these stickers suggest that the city of Toronto, and by proxy all of its citizens, support the occupation of Afghanistan, but that could not be further from the truth. Further more, these decals have no place on civic vehicles, which must be construed as representing all the members of the community. For them to display such opening jingoistic, war-mongering, messages is to discount the views of members of the populace that don't support this war. For those that would like to see things in the opposite manner, who would say that the lack of decals means that the city would be endorsing the slaughter of Canadian soldiers is in no way true. Beyond the fact that Canadians against the war are calling for the immediate and safe withdrawal of troops, the lack of decals simply expressing the neutrality of the civic structures and services, which is as it should be.

The city had decided that after a year the decals were to come off, especially because some members of council had become concerned about exactly what I explained above. The councillors had gotten to the point of voting to have them removed, with most of the council on side and only the ridiculous reactionary Frances Nunziata putting up a real objection. Yet, two days ago, after the deaths of three more Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, the council (on the initiative of Mayor David Miller) voted to leave the decals on the vehicles. Shame on them for caving.

Supposedly, there has been a great wave of protest from around the country, but this wave has been whipped up by the right-wing press (Toronto Sun, I am looking at you) as well as conservatives in the 905 belt surrounding Toronto, who are not citizens or tax-payers in Toronto. As a result of this faux-fire-storm, Mayor Miller proposed a motion that the decals would remain on the vehicles., and it was unanimously passed by all of those present (six councillors were not present, three of whom deliberately abstained and three of whom were away on other business but said they would have voted for the motion). This is a city council that is supposed to be dominated by progressive politicians. These politicians have no business calling themselves progressive if they are willing to have decals that support a belligerent, aggressive and imperialistic war attached to city vehicles. If they don't have the guts to stand up to a wave of complaints from people who have no stake in Toronto, then they are not standing up for their citizens, who elected them for their leftist positions, expecting leftist government, and yet all we have here is placation of the ravenous, foaming-at-the-mouth reactionary crowd. For shame.

If these politicians will not even stick by the philosophy on which they were elected, and if they chose to put the views of non-residents ahead of the views of their electorate, they have no business representing us. Any "progressive" councillor who voted for this measure has a lot of explaining to do, if they want to get the votes of their electors back. Every one of them, from David Miller on down, needs to explain why we should believe anything they say when they are running for office.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 582