As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “patience and fortitude conquer all things”.
This could not be clearer than in the current round of contract negotiations between the Toronto Police Services Board and the Toronto Police Association.
The Bargaining Committees met for four days this past week. In this time, we went back and forth on a number of non-monetary items from our proposals.
Anyone who has watched these negotiations in previous years knows that they are a long, slow dance involving much back and forth.
It is a dance that requires patience.
But, as per Emerson, this particular bargaining dance also requires fortitude.
The fortitude to enable the parties to reach an agreement which respects and adapts to the 2011 reality for all public services: deliver better services with a high level of accountability and transparency, and to do so in a fiscally responsible manner.
