Hey. All you hard-ass, union haters out there. Where’s the outrage? Where’s the indignation? Yoo-hoo! Why so silent?

The city just rolled over and gave the Toronto Police Services an 11.5% wage increase over the next 4 years. My math is a little fuzzy but that doesn’t exactly work out to the 5% cut the mayor has demanded from all city departments, does it? “The police will give us concessions elsewhere,” Councillor Doug Ford said. Specifics to come, of course, but the TPS isn’t really known for its concessionary tactics.

“Of the thousands and thousands of doors I’ve knocked on,” the brother-councillor went on to tell the Globe, “there was not one complaint of how the police were paid.”

So instead of demanding across the board budget cuts we’re now selectively determining who deserves increases and who doesn’t, based on Councillor Ford’s informal door-to-door polling? The mayor and his team have been rigid in their insistence that any budgetary increase must be balanced with a corresponding cut. If the police services don’t provide such an offset to compensate for these new wage hikes, it’s got to come from somewhere else according to the mayor’s math. Does Doug then go out canvassing neighbourhoods asking folks who they think are overpaid by the city?

Ford scoffed at suggestions by Councillor Adam Vaughan (Councillor Ford regularly scoffs at anything Councillor Vaughan says) that the mayor had caved on the deal. “I find it ironic that the only people [on council] complaining about this deal are the ones responsible for a previous police contract that included a far larger increase than this one,” Mr. Ford said.

If memory serves, the expiring contract was a 3 year deal with a 10% wage increase. ‘A far larger increase’, Councillor Ford? That’s about a .4% difference. You guys are supposed to be the belt tighteners, aren’t you? An increase is an increase.

More to the point, anybody remember the outside workers’ strike in the summer of 2009? The one where Mayor Miller handed the keys to the city vault to the greedy unions and greased the rails for his exit? Yeah, I though you might. The wage settlement went like this: 1.75% in 2009, 2% in 2010 and 2.25% in 2011. That would be 6% over 3 years, nearly half of what Mayor Ford just conceded to the TPS.

So I ask again. Where’s all the chatter and clucking (aside from Councillor Vaughan) about the mayor caving into greedy union demands and breaking the bank? Where’s Budget Chief Mike “There. Is. No. More. Money.” Del Grande yelling and harrumphing about a lack of fiscal discipline? It seems in a Mayor Rob Ford’s Toronto, widows and orphans can get stuffed but the police? How much would you like, guys?

Do these imposters really deserve the dignified name of ‘fiscal conservatives’? Really, it’s more like fiscal ideologues. They are perfectly willing to spend money hand over fist with no regard for the bottom line when it suits their fancy. Just like their federal brethren that the mayor worked so hard to get elected to a majority government on Monday. Last year’s G20. Prisons. Engineless F-35s. Money is no object if it means conservative values are being upheld. Anything else is deemed special interest gravy.

— curiously submitted by Cityslikr