Blair wins police budget battle
Thanks to budget battles with the Toronto Police Services Board, he was at the brink.
But now, not only does it appear he will remain chief, he could be around for longer than any of his overseers and is stronger than ever.
“They played a game of chicken and Chief Blair won,” Councillor Adam Vaughan told the Toronto Sun’s Don Peat. “The reality is when push came to shove, (Councillor Michael) Thompson and the mayor backed down.”
The fight stems from the 10% budget cut Mayor Rob Ford has asked of all city department heads. In Blair’s case, because of his unwillingness to do so and his subsequent campaign to express the kind of risk such a move could do to staffing levels and community safety, he was provided special dispensation to achieve his over two years.
With his he can’t do it “in good conscience” stance, it appeared he was backed into a corner, as some on the board openly talked of finding a new chief.
Now, suddenly, there’s no more talk of the potential elimination of 1,000 uniformed officers and no talk of the unfair notion that the is mayor putting the city at risk.
Instead sources are telling me, the chief has had a change of “conscience” and has found some cuts after all.
So, the game of chicken is over.
Who won?
It’s a victory for the chief for sure, but this can also be counted as a win for Mayor Ford, too, in that with the deployment of gutsy and brave Thompson as board vice-chairman, he got a stubborn chief who loathed the idea, to budge some.
“They have been pushing back in every way,” said Thompson, who told me of the intimidation attempts several in uniform tried on him.
That Blair and some bully types around him have been rude and disrespectful to an elected official they answer to is a disgrace.
Nobody said they had class and we saw a lack of it in the handling of the G20.
But they are strong and have an overinflated views of their power and their privileged positions.
No matter what, Wednesday was a big day for Blair, who helped announce the major arrest of a suspect in four alleged murders.
It’s good timing because not long after he went into an “in-camera” meeting with the TPSB that Thompson described him as being in an aggressive and “dismissive” mood.
But the chief had wind in his sails.
“This suspect was arrested March 10 and has been in custody for eight months and they hold this news conference on the very day the chief was before the board to work out this budget mess?” mused one insider.
Coincidence or smart timing?
It doesn’t matter because that news, combined with the fact that police have been good in managing the complicated Occupy Toronto protest, means it’s better times for the cops.
Some are lauding Blair for putting up the good fight with fiscally-tough Ford administration. Still he compromised some, with more than $43-million on pledged cuts for 2012 or 4.6% and another 5.4% promised for 2013.
When passed Thursday, Blair will have solidified himself as the most powerful public official in a town where he will call the shots for a long time.
Thanks to his estimated $1.3-million owing on a contract lasting until April 2015, it could mean he will be in power for five months longer than the current mandate of the mayor and council.
You have to hand it to the chief for his political survival skills. He has been able to successfully spin that it was the Ford administration putting the city in potential peril and he was prepared to lose his job on a principal to stop them.
Brilliant. And it worked.
It was big time backroom politics and the approach certainly stopped all comers from the Ford camp.
“It’s the politics working the way it should,” said an insider. “They scared him into playing ball and knowing their fears, he smartly called their bluff and the result is both sides come out OK.”
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