Toronto councillors play nice for class photo session

Councillors took a break from arguing over Mayor John Tory’s SmartTrack plan on Dec. 11 to gather in the lounge behind Toronto Council chambers for a group photograph.

The so-called "class photo" is a tradition at the beginning of a term of council: 44 councillors and a mayor put on their Council-Meeting best and pose for a big photograph, that when finished will hang outside the mayor’s office at Toronto City Hall.

In the past, the class photo has often been fraught. During former Mayor David Miller’s time, councillors who opposed his left-of-centre politics refused to attend the photo session or appear in the picture.

During more harmonious times, there have been other hitches, sometimes involving jockeying for position in the big picture: often involving one or more councillors who can’t make it for reasons of health or over-sleep.

Those have always been involved with a one-on-one photo shoot and a light touch of Photoshop, to cut in the picture of a councillor who couldn’t make the session.

This time, the absentees were too numerous for the first photo session at 8:30 a.m.

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• Dec 31, 1969
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Enough councillors were tied up in the snowstorm that the session was postponed until 12:15 p.m.

And then it was in and out: no fights over positions relative to the new mayor, no frowning faces, and only one councillor — Ward 44 Scarborough East Councillor Ron Moeser — absent.

Tory said the easy time taking pictures hopefully indicates easier time ahead making policy.

"I’ve heard the stories of arm wrestling and mud wrestling," he said. "I just shook my head at that — I wasn’t sure if they were making it up. But I felt that this was consistent with the tone that we’re trying to set."