Probably not.
Last week, 640 am talk show host John Oakley opined in the National Post that there would not be a transit strike this week. According to Oakley, the union would threaten a strike until Sunday at which point a deal would be reached and Mayor David Miller would breeze in from China and play the role of the superhero.
Last Thursday morning, TTC union boss Bob Kinnear held a press conference. As expected, he announced that negotiations were not going well but that his union would continue to bargain until 4 pm on Sunday. If no tentative deal was reached by them, his members would walk off the job at 4 am Monday, thus paralyzing the city at least to the extent that the already gridlocked metropolis can be further paralyzed. Kinnear also added that he was giving more than the promised 48 hours notice of a work stoppage because David Miller was in China.
As the media waited with baited breath outside the Richmond Hill hotel where negotiations were taking place (the city and the union chose to negotiate outside of Toronto; presumably so they could drive to the hotel without any of those pesky streetcars getting in their way) the 4pm Sunday deadline passed. An hour and 45 minutes later Bob Kinnear emerged to announce, by then to no one’s surprise, that a tentative deal had been reached.
The union head made an interesting comment in the course of his announcement. Kinnear said that the negotiations began to change late Saturday which was around the time that Mayor Miller was returning from China where he was blasting that country’s leaders for their human rights abuses (just kidding about that last part). The next day, a tentative agreement was reached.
So did this play out as John Oakley predicted? Was this all a setup to give the union pretty well what it expected if not wanted to get, in return for making Miller as described by Oakley, the superhero?
If it did, it is consistent with the way Miller and his socialist cronies operate. Like other power obsessed leaders, David Miller rules by fear. It is not the same type of fear employed by Robert Mugabe or Joseph Stalin; after all this is Canada and not Zimbabwe or the former Soviet Union (as regards the former Soviet Union, at least not yet). But fear is employed nonetheless.
To most people a transit strike would be an inconvenience, nothing more. People are generally more resilient than they are given credit for and the longer the strike, the less hassle it becomes. But there are those to whom a work stoppage presents real problems. For example there are the people who need constant medical attention and those who simply have no other means of getting around. To these people, many of them elderly, the possibility of a transit strike poses real problems. The thought of a strike puts them in fear. And there are others whom the compliant mainstream media convinces them to be fearful of a transit work stoppage. This no doubt stems from middle class North American guilt and for a short while, the media are able to pretend that we have it at least as bad as those who live in war torn or tsunami ravaged countries. By playing on these “fears”, David Miller is able, as John Oakley said, to breeze into town as the superhero.
If in fact this fear was created to make David Miller look good, it wouldn’t be the first time he and his toadies have used fear. They always float a much greater property tax increase than the one that is inevitably imposed. Then they beam with pride when the real increase turns out to be “only” 4 per cent. They have no compassion for those who legitimately worry that they will lose their homes if the higher rate is imposed. They act like the arsonist who helps put the fire out and expects to receive a medal for it.
The only acceptable outcome of these negotiations was one in which David Miller came out looking good. And he will now be seen, at least by the Millerites, as being the superhero of the day. The reality is that Miller was in trouble; the city is financially strapped due in large part to ridiculous union contracts made in the past. Miller had to find a way to give the TTC what it wanted while duping the public into not complaining about it by blowing in from China at the last minute and saving the day from a transit strike that was pumped up to be an atrocity.
Was this all staged? We’ll never really know but it is certainly a possibility.
