by arthur Weinreb,
October 5, 2004
Hope that anyone had that Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino’s contract would be renewed after it ends next March is effectively dead. Last week Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said that he would defer to Mayor David Miller’s wishes when the province makes appointments to fill two of its three seats on the Toronto Police Services Board (TPSB). The Board will then become top-heavy with Miller’s left-leaning buddies who will be itching to replace Fantino with some girly-man chief who will be soft on crime. Miller has made it quite clear that he believes criminals should be coddled, not jailed and both his appointees and the ones ceded to him by McGuinty are and will be like-minded individuals.
In an editorial, the Toronto Sun argued that when McGuinty referred to the TPSB as "his [Miller’s] board", it showed that the premier had little or no understanding of the board or of the province’s role that they are to play in policing Canada’s largest city. While the Sun is no doubt correct that McGuinty may not understand his province’s responsibility in making appointments, there is another reason.
Dalton McGuinty is soft on crime. When he campaigned last year, McGuinty’s slogan was "choose change". after eight years of the Harris/Eves regime, voters could not be criticized for dumping them and voting McGuinty’s Liberals into power. But it seems that the major change that Ontarians have received is that we went from a government that did what it said it would do to a government that is filled with lies and deception. McGuinty’s election slogan should have been, "any similarity between what we say and what we do is strictly coincidental".
as the province’s chief Promise Breaker, Dalton McGuinty has billed himself as the "education premier". He has also made it a priority to save public health care even if that means residents have to pay for their own physiotherapy, eye examinations and chiropractic services. McGuinty’s obsession against publicly funded health care services being provided by the private sector is such that his government is buying back privately owned MRI’s; the effect of which on the health of Ontarians will be zero.
With his concentration on health and education, there is very little time to spend on the issue of crime. Except for promising more police, McGuinty’s campaign was relatively silent when it came to law and order issues. as much of the criticism of McGuinty comes not from his policies per se but from his lies, it is easy to ignore the fact that Dalton is just another soft on crime lefty. He is perfectly content to let David Miller employ his group hug strategy to reduce crime in Toronto. He may not be as ignorant as the Toronto Sun thinks that he is.
David Miller’s successful campaign for the mayor’s seat was different. Crime was one of the major issues that differentiated him from his chief rival, John Tory. Miller made it clear, unlike McGuinty, that he was promising very little other than to end construction of the proposed bridge to the Island airport. Miller has always been truthful about his "group hug" theory of lowering crime. The voters knew what they were getting when they elected him. If crime now seems to be a bigger issue now that the bridge is defunct, well, the voters will just have to live with the results of their votes.
What is really ironic is that for the second time in five months, Toronto police, under Fantino’s leadership, have made a major gang bust. It is hard to believe that the next chief will be equally up to the task of getting heavy duty criminals off of the street. Future roundups of criminals will likely be looked upon as losing candidates for city run basketball.
We get the kind of government that we vote for. We have a mayor who feels prevention of crime is more important that getting criminals off of the street and a premier who thinks that he has nothing to do with the appointments that his own government makes to the Police Services Board.
Julian Fantino should go. He seems so out of place in today’s political climate.