Save Our City and Stand Up For Toronto also hosted community meetings across the City. One meeting was held in the Civic Centres of each of the former municipalities: Etobicoke, North York, York, East York, Scarborough and Toronto. Hundreds of people came to each meeting, resulting in over 1500 people joining in the community budget debate.
A "Beat Back the Budget Blues" Rally held in conjunction with CVOS (Community Voice of Support) brought hundreds of people to City Hall in April to show Council what their programs were all about. A morning of music, speeches and program demonstrations concluded with a march into the joint Policy and Finance and Budget Advisory Committee.
Progress was made inside the chambers that day especially in the area of Public Health where the children and senior's dental program was saved.
A couple of weeks later, after a week of Council debates on Budget issues, the community won a great success when the Grants Budget was given a flatline + cost of inflation. At one point during the budget process, the Grants cut was proposed to be 13.8%. While a flatline isn't normally considered to be a win ~ coming back from a deficit position was an excellent achievement.
For more information on the City Budget in 2001 see:
http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/budget2001/index.htm