City council defies Ford

This past Tuesday evening (9 Jan.) marked several crucial developments for city of Toronto and its residents.

With several spending cuts that had been the subject of intense debate and controversy in the weeks leading up to the vote, the city's budget passed — but not before several amendments to the budget were also approved by city council.

In what has been called his "coming-out party," a surprise motion was put forward by rookie councillor Josh Colle, and passed by a vote of 23-21 in favour. The motion consisted of increases to the budgets of several departments that totalled $15 million, including $5 million to prevent service cuts, $2.4 million towards child-care services, 2.3 million for recreation centre programming and activities predominantly in low-income neighbourhoods, and $2 million for homeless shelters.

In a separate motion, city council voted 22-21 in favour of reversing the $4 million reduction in the library budget. The reinstated library funding, along with all the funding added by Colle's motion, will be made available using the city's $154 million surplus from last year's municipal budget.

Many of the budget amendments directly address concerns that were brought up during the weeks prior to the final budget vote. Councillors listened attentively to the interests of their constituents, and privately planned with each other a coherent response to Ford's fiscal agenda.

The decision to make Colle, a swing-voter, the spokesperson for this intervention, suggests that Ford's influence on city council is waning, and that he must now become more attuned what Toronto residents want.

"Today represented an important success for community organizing in this city, but much work has yet to be done," said Johanna Lewis, a UofT student who was part of a protest outside of city hall during the council meeting.

Hundreds gathered voice their discontent about the budget that had been finalized prior to the interceding amendments. While many of the service cuts to some of the city's most vulnerable members were prevented as a result of city council's intervention, many other cuts remained intact, and will result in the loss of key services and thousands of city jobs.

"Police blocked access to the public building, and pepper-sprayed and beat up protestors," Lewis noted.

Four people were arrested and detained. Following the arrests a second protest took place outside the police divisions as a show of solidarity and to demand their release.