Mayor John Tory delivers knockout punch in council spar with Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti
The mayor delivered a verbal smackdown at the end of a day-long debate over tolls and taxes where the gloves were off

thestar.com
By Jennifer Pagliaro
Dec. 14, 2016

A lot happened in the council chamber Tuesday night. Not least of which was that council both endorsed road tolls and requested the province share the sales tax or let Toronto have its own municipal sales tax.

But at the end of a day-long debate, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti stood to challenge Mayor John Tory directly on the council floor.

In the lead-up to the debate, Mammoliti had been engaged in a prolonged, one-man campaign against Tory’s proposal to toll the Gardiner and DVP, including at one point propping up boxing gloves in front of him at a meeting of Tory’s executive committee - what was apparently meant as a show of force.

At council on Tuesday, the two members, whose desks are side-by-side, finally entered the ring, engaging in a verbal sparring match in which Tory delivered a mayoral smack down featuring a surprise tag-in by a found Toronto Star article. It was the most worked up Tory has been on the council floor as the mid-term mark approaches.

This is a full transcript of the exchange:

Mammoliti: Mr. Mayor, you have upset a lot of people in the city of Toronto, many of them I think I’m very clearly representing. In 2003, you called the then mayor Miller a “highway robber” after he suggested tolls come into the city (Editor’s note: Miller was not yet mayor, but a councillor. He ran against Tory in the 2003 election and won). 2014, in the race, last race, you indicated and made it very clear that tolls were not going to be a part of your mandate and now they are. And I’m suggesting to you this: Either you delay it for the two years and bring it forward as a mandated item in the next election or why is it that you just don't step down and go forward with another election that deals with this as a mandate, as opposed to upsetting all of the thousands of people that do not like this strategy.

Toronto councillor Giorgio Mammoliti speaks during Tuesday's debate on road tolls. To his left, Toronto Mayor John Tory reads.

Tory: Well, Madam Speaker, first of all, the notion that I would step down is preposterous. You know, I did receive a mandate from the people to fix traffic and to build transit. I indicated in this last election that tolls were not my preferred option. That’s the exact language I used if you want to pick up a quote. So, I've said here today that I had a choice in front of me when I studied all the options available and I made that choice and I’m prepared to stand by that choice and I will submit myself to the people in (Mammoliti tries to interject) - No, let me finish. I’ll submit myself to the people at the appropriate time in 2018.

But I think there’s a far bigger issue that you should be focused on here, which may make all of the discussion of fake news in the United States look like a picnic. There’s a quotation in the Toronto Star from June 8, 2010, attributable to you, that I think you'll want to correct - you’ll probably want to sue them, so incredible is this misquotation. ‘“We’ve got to stop asking people to cover the woes and the costs of Toronto with property taxes,” said Mammoliti.’ And you talked about how he could build out some of the things he wanted to build out by using road tolls. And he says, and I quote, “None of them would mind-” (Loud jeering from councillors) No, no, wait, please. “None of them would mind paying $2 if it is going to something meaningful.” That’s what you said or this has been the grossest misquotation in the history of Toronto politics and I’m prepared to join you in going up there right now and saying, “I never said that, I'm going to sue you” because it’s time for some honesty here. We’re doing something meaningful, building transit and fixing traffic and you want to stand in the way of it. I don't.

(Loud jeering from councillors)

Mammoliti: Mr. Mayor, I’m very happy that you’ve made yourself feel better with respect to an attack on myself (Laughing from councillors, someone says: “We all feel better.”). I’m not the mayor of the city of Toronto. I didn’t run in a mayoral race on tolls and in fact I didn't say the quote that you had mentioned.

Tory:(Pointing towards possibly the Toronto Star building or a reporter sitting in her Toronto Star seat in the press gallery) Well, there you go, I told you: Sue them! Sue them!

Mammoliti: I feel very good about myself. At the end of the day, Mr. Mayor, people are upset at you because you are raising taxes, you’re cash-grabbing, you’re doing the things that you said you would not do in this particular city-

Tory: I’m sure there’s a question somewhere in there, Madam Speaker-

Mammoliti: And I would say to you this, Mr. Mayor. I’d say to you this. What are you going to say to the families that can’t afford those $4 a day, or maybe more? What are you going to say to those single mothers that just can’t get into their car and do what you’re suggesting or those seniors that you came up and visited in my particular ward and said that you wouldn’t do this? What are you going to say to those seniors who can’t afford the taxes and the property taxes and all those fees that you are suggesting in ‘Tory Taxes’ in the city? What do you say to that group of people instead of attacking another councillor on site for calling you out on your responsibility?

Speaker Frances Nunziata: Councillor Mammoliti, allow the mayor to finish, but just to let members of council know that you have five minutes when you ask a question to the mayor. It’s five minutes.

Mammoliti: You can’t take up three minutes in answering a question as well.

Tory: Madam Speaker - First of all, I came up to your ward at your invitation and we didn't address the issue of tolls at that time, but what I would say-

Mammoliti: Of course we didn’t, because they didn’t exist, they didn’t exist-

Tory: No, I came up there, actually, why I came up there was because you were asking-

Mammoliti: Right-

Tory: Madam Speaker-

Nunziata: Councillor Mammoliti, please allow the mayor, rather than scream, why don’t you listen and have the mayor respond.

Tory: The reason I came to his ward, was it came at his request to support the millions of dollars in expenditure he was asking that be made in order to make the transit line we are trying to build there more habitable and acceptable.

Mammoliti: I asked for the transit line?

Tory: Millions of dollars.

Mammoliti: I voted against the transit line! I didn’t ask for the transit line. Neither did my seniors.

Tory: Here is what I will say to those people, all the people of Toronto, Madam Speaker, through you, which is that if we want to maintain employment, if we want to maintain the ability of people to connect to employment, including the people in your ward, if we want seniors to be able to get around this city and not be confined to their own area then we must fix traffic by building transit and if we want to be honest with people about how we’re going to build that transit, we must spell out for them some means of paying for it and I have picked one means that I’ve put forward here. You have this mythical notion we can go to Queen’s Park and say, ‘Here, take the TTC back’ until the day they alter the Finch bus route when they’re running it and you're suddenly on a four-alarm fire saying, ‘How can they do that to us?’ I'm not doing that. I want to fix our transit in our city and say to people it’s not free.”

When it was over, Tory sat down and Mammoliti appeared to pull something, possible money, from his pocket saying, “Here, take this. Take that. That’s what you’re doing to the city of Toronto.”

The speaker quickly lambasted Mammoliti for “embarrassing members of council.” When Mammoliti responded by telling Nunziata to “cool it,” she snapped back:

“Councillor Mammoliti, I suggest you cool it and if you can’t handle it then just leave the council chambers, because I’m fed up with your behaviour. You’re disgusting.”

Mammoliti later, apparently unprompted, got up and apologized for his behaviour and admitted he was accurately quoted by the Star, but that his comments were with respect to “new” highways.

Council backed road tolls 32 to 9 and a request to share the sales tax in a 30-12 vote along with various other new ways to pay for things the city needs.

Mammoliti voted against all of them.

His own motion, that alternatives to new taxes or tolls - including cutting $100 million in funding for the poverty reduction strategy - failed.