Who has an entire week to linger around Toronto City Council waiting for a thrice-postponed vote on a billboard tax? Councillor Rob Ford instructed those spectators in the chamber gallery to get a job. “Let’s not hand out money to freeloaders,” he blustered. The retort from Councillor Adam Vaughan: “Don’t talk about lobbyists that way.” Just prior to this landmark decision to make advertising companies cough up something for public space in exchange for their exploitation of it, Vaughan officially congratulated K’naan for his FIFA 2010 World Cup anthem, noting that the rapper was a patron of city programs in the Rexdale — just in case Councillor Ford was wondering what those were good for. But when it came time to speaking out just before the sign vote, Ford sang a predictable tune, curious about how any of this helps the underemployed: “The only thing a lot of you know around here is tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend.” Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong suggested the 4,500 folks who signed a petition via BeautifulCity.ca to steer the money to artists were not even real. And, in the end, an additional $10.4 million a year will flow into city coffers as a result of an outsider campaign. Mayor David Miller heralded their collective efforts in the sometimes scowling faces of municipal lobbyists: “They have been incredible advocates — sometimes annoyingly so.”

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