Conservative Values

February 13, 2013

If nothing else comes from our current transit funding debate, if we’re still snarled on our roads and public transit modes, screaming Subways! Subways! Subways! at each other 25 years hence, differentiateat least we will have during this time of discussion differentiated between the reasonable conservatives and that of their all taxes are evil, Ted Nugent, we can’t even figure out how to plow our streets properly paleo-conservative brethren.

For it seems that only the most retrograde, mouth-breathing, Atlas Shrugged hugging, Toronto Sun columnist-commentator type believes that if there is a congestion problem, and they’re not all convinced there is, then there are plenty of ways to pay for alleviating it other than digging deeper into the hardworking taxpayers’ pockets. Hit up the private sector, for example. It can always be counted on to serve the public good. Or how about cutting spending on programs only the shiftless lay-abouts use? Or uncovering the mountains of scandal tinged money spent on pet social engineering projects or to prop up a teetering government.

The X billion dollars spent on X scandal could build X kilometers of subways!

Those right leaning thinkers of a more sound mind and constitution have accepted the fact the region’s congestion is slowly strangling our economic well-being and quality of life. digintoyourpocketThey also accept the fact that much of the money is going to have to come from the public purse. There is no silver bullet, no magic potion that will painlessly deliver transportation infrastructure for free.

This is what’s known as an un-blinkered, non-ideological assessment of the facts.

There is one quirk, however, in this otherwise reasonable conservative mindset, on display by the National Post’s Matt Gurney in his conversation with his NP colleague Chris Selley and NOW magazine’s Jonathan Goldsbie.

“But I think everyone except the mayor has probably realized the city needs to pay for most of this [transit expansion] itself…It’s all well and good to talk about the federal government’s obligation. We’ll have plenty of time to jaw-jaw about that while sitting in traffic or waiting for a subway car that isn’t packed to the gills. But for now, we have to recognize that money isn’t coming from Ottawa.”

This is a variation on a theme Mr. Gurney and other like-minded conservatives have been uttering for a while. Don’t expect money from the senior levels of government. They have a deficit to contend with. They’re broke. ‘emptypockets1Tapped out’, as Mr. Gurney wrote a couple years back.

The business of governing must wait until both Ottawa and Queen’s Park get their respective fiscal houses in order. Nothing is more important than deficit reduction. Sacrifices must be made. If we just cut here, slash there, trim that area between the two, and wrestle the mighty beast into submission, then we can talk about building stuff. Until then, you’re on your own, cities and everybody else in need of something.

It’s all about cutting costs with these guys. Any expenditure, at least any expenditure on the social side of things, is deemed a cost, never an investment that will contribute noticeable returns down the road in the form of increased revenue or reduced costs. It’s all about the short term, baby.

With that kind of prevailing attitude, how did conservatives claim the mantle of sound financial stewardship? They seem to lack a certain understanding of even the most basic of economic theories. Or rather, they’ve transformed more complicated economic ideas into easily regurgitated chants.

In the face of an economic meltdown, fiscal conservatives of all political stripes rushed to embrace austerity. notoausterity1Dubious on paper, it has proven to be wrong-headed in practice as Europe is mired in fiscal gloom, having imposed severe austerity measures on its most profligate member countries. Great Britain is now flirting with a triple-dip recession after their dance with austerity. With no noticeable improvement, the logical response, of course, is to stay the course. This shit’s gotta work sometime, right?

Cut costs. Cut taxes. Damn the revenue. Better living through scarcity.

Besides, there is more than one way to skin a cat, a skinny, deprived, malnourished runt of the litter.

Casinos!

You want revenue that won’t cost a thing?

Casinos!

Because there’s nothing a modern day fiscal conservative loves more than free money. Cash on the table simply to host a casino (actual amount to be negotiated after the fact but, rest assured, a sliver of what’s needed to fund transit expansion). dogandponyshowPlus, think of all the job creation, both building a casino and working in it once done. Good, well paying, union jobs which, normally conservatives aren’t all that comfortable embracing. But you know, when it comes to a casino and all that no cost money filling a city’s coffers, all bets are off.

Now, try running that line of reasoning by fiscal conservatives when it comes to building infrastructure. Think of all the jobs it will create to build and run that subway, dig up and replace aging water and sewage lines. Good, well paying, union jobs.

Blink, blink. Blink, blink.

Does not compute.

The difference being as Tom Broen at The Infrastructure Society pointed out most recently, infrastructure costs are up front, nowsville, while the benefits of such spending are lost in the ethereal dreams of tomorrow. A casino, on the other hand, is money in your pocket today baby, ka-ching, ka-ching! The costs and downsides? None that I can see and if there are any? Somebody else’s problem.spendingthekidsmoney

While fiscal conservatives go apoplectic at the thought of leaving some sort of financial deficit for their children and grandchildren to deal with, they seem to have little problem bequeathing them crumbling highways and antiquated public transit. Infrastructure deficit? You’re just sticking words together to see if they make sense, aren’t you.

There’s a word for that kind of thinking but it’s not conservative. It certainly isn’t enlightened or enterprising either.

Regressive. Selfish and self-serving. Backward and obstructionist. Those sound closer to the truth.

– RSPly submitted by Cityslikr

3 Comments | City Building, Metrolinx, Municipal Politics, Newspapers, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, Press coverage, Provincial Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by cityslikr

Taxes! What Are They Good For?

October 11, 2012

You know who likes paying taxes? Take it away, former mayor Mel Lastman. N-o-o-o-o-body! Except maybe Jesus who bade us to render onto Caesar what was Caesar’s and Oliver Wendell Holmes with his belief that taxes made for civilization.

Both partisan based rhetorical flourishes, if you ask me. Who takes a look at their pay stub, sees all the tax deductions and thinks, at least I’m contributing to a better society? It’s only about a grudging acceptance. Death and taxes and all that.

You know who thinks they’re over-taxed? Everybody. There’s never been just the right amount of taxation. That balanced point where you’re sure you’re getting absolute value for money. No extras. No gravy. There’s always a sense of couldn’t this be done less expensively, more efficiently.  It’s all about a grudging acceptance. Death and taxes and all that.

Only the obdurately ideological, those suckled on the teat of anti-government sentiment that has been ours for over 30 years now would senselessly argue against the notion of taxation. Oh, hello, Councillor Doug Ford.

“We’re against all taxes,” he said in March. “All taxes are evil as far as I’m concerned.”

You’re welcome, sir, for all the roads you drive on regularly, and for the protection our police constantly offer your brother to keep him safe.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong jumped aboard the mindless train this week at the Executive Committee meeting during a discussion on transit funding strategies. Referring to the list of various revenue generating ideas in the City’s CFO report, the councillor said, “That’s like asking which poison would you like to drink? Would you like the hemlock? Would you like the rat poison? We should be asking them, would you like to take that poison?”

This from the mouth of our chair of the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee, folks! You know, all that stuff we need to build in order for the city to function properly? How do we undertake such massive endeavours? Taxes, that’s how.

Councillor Ford and his fellow libertarian thinkers seem to believe that all good things flow from the beneficence of the private sector. You want new subways? Just ask nicely in the form of a P3 or AFP model and you’ll get your shiny new subways. It won’t cost the taxpayers one red cent.

The councillor is either being supremely disingenuous or displaying a mind blowing ignorance of how these things actually work.

Transit is funded and operates only in two ways as far as I know. Through direct government subsidies (paid for by taxes) or the fare box. If there’s another system at work that’s slipped my notice, I’m all ears.

By its very profit making nature, the private sector doesn’t build public transit without the expectation of making, well, a profit. Somebody has to ultimately pay them. That someone? The taxpayers.

So we either do it upfront with government laying out the cash as we go (in all likelihood with the help of Councillor Ford’s much vaunted P3s and AFPs to help reduce costs) or we pay later through fares to use the service. Even at that point, it’s no certainty that a private company can recoup enough profit to maintain fares and service levels at a point that makes public transit an attractive option to riders or beneficial to the transportation needs of a region. How do you strike the proper balance between the profit motive and public good? Usually from the public purse.

Yeah, we’re back to taxes again.

And this talk of needing to sit down with other levels of government in order to work through their expected contributions? Or going cap in hand, as our mayor used to deride his predecessor. Where do you think they’re coming up with the money? Errrr, taxes.

Besides, given our pressing transit needs, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for either Ottawa or Queen’s Park to come riding to our rescue. The federal government just defeated a bill on a national transit strategy, something every other developed country has. So I’d put them down as a ‘Don’t Give a Fuck About Transit’.

As for the province, they like to give the appearance of giving a fuck about transit in the GTHA, with their big plans and detailed maps but so far I’d say it hasn’t exactly been a priority in practice. We’re expecting a funding plan from Metrolinx next June, five years after the Big Move was unveiled. Five years! Their involvement with Transit City in Toronto has been as much about playing politics as it has been with building anything. They’ve hardly earned a reputation as honest brokers on the transit file.

But who can blame them? We’re all operating in a sweet smelling haze of dishonesty when it comes to providing public services. We want them but we don’t want to pay for them. We hate taxes but we desire what they pay for. Nothing comes for free except everything we take for granted, it seems. Roads, police, subways that stop right out front of our single family detached house with a big front lawn and an even bigger one in the back.

No wonder we hate governments and the taxes they demand from us. They continue refusing to deliver the pots of gold at the end of the rainbows the leprechauns riding on unicorns convinced us were coming our way for no money down, no interest payments ever.

– finger pointingly submitted by Cityslikr

5 Comments | City Building, Metrolinx, Municipal Politics, Newspapers, Press coverage, Provincial Politics, The Toronto Sun, TTC | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by cityslikr

Those Friday Afternoon Transit Blues

September 21, 2012

On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d rate This Week In Transit News at about a 4. The grade’s only that high because I’m trying to put my best foot forward. Smile on the outside when I’m really crying on the inside as I sift through and evaluate all the pertinent information.

It started with our federal government voting down a national transit strategy put forward in the House of Commons by the NDP. National Transit Strategy? Strategy? National? Sounds a little interventionist. The outcome was hardly a surprise.

That element was saved for a day or so later when Queen’s Park announced through their agency, Metrolinx, that the design, construction, building and operation of the Eglinton LRT was going to be outsourced as part of a public-private partnership. Take that, TTC! Who’s yer momma? Huh? Who’s yer momma, TTC? Say it. Say it! Metrolinx, baby! Metrolinx.

Now, I’ve been battling hard for the past couple days to suppress my gut reaction to the news. I don’t want to disappoint my friend Matt Elliott and be one of those on the left giving over to immediate, unthinking nayism. Maybe a viable case can be made for the move. Perhaps it is the first step toward a fully integrated regional transit system and, hopefully, that would be a good thing. Metrolinx’s track record to date in dealing with local concerns gives me pause however.

But for now, I’ll attempt to see the upside. The general consensus seems to be success or failure of the Eglinton LRT P3 will come down to the details of the agreement, how the ‘i’s are dotted and ‘t’s crossed. If the private sector can actually deliver the necessary transit at a lower cost, and if that’s the only element we’re looking for, I’ll hop aboard and go along for the ride.

I’d probably have more confidence in the whole thing if the McGuinty Liberals had any robust credibility on transit. I have long since concluded that Mayor Rob Ford has been nothing but manna from heaven for them, providing cover for a rather lacklustre, wishy-washy approach since they came to power in 2003. Announce big, deliver significantly less. What is now $8.4 billion for 4 LRT lines was once supposed to be 7 lines with an additional $4 billion in funding. Delay has followed delay and we’re now talking decades hence not years.

And remember that initial election promise of restoring provincial funding for half the TTC’s annual operating budget? Nine years on. Tick tock, tick tock.

As if to add insult to injury, Transportation Minister Bob Chiarelli seems to be suggesting that once the Eglinton LRT is up and going and the TTC no longer runs buses along the street, the money it saves should be handed over to the private company running the LRT. Yeah, really. Of course, our mayor is otherwise occupied and hasn’t weighed in on the matter to defend the city’s interests, leaving that – along with almost all matters dealing with transit — up to the TTC Chair, Karen Stintz.

Defenders of the province will, with much justification certainly, point to our electing of Rob Ford as mayor and the subsequent subway-versus-LRT battle as a prime example of the city not being a serious player in this transit debate. They wouldn’t be wrong. Toronto took a big step backward on many fronts when Rob Ford became mayor.

But I’d argue, at least on the transit file, the city righted itself. The TTC chair took control, sidelined the mayor and his most ardent supporters and got everything back on track. (Yeah. I just wrote that). All of it done without any assistance from the province who, when it mattered most, indulged Mayor Ford’s subways, subways, subways fantasy and further exploited the situation by delaying the start of the Sheppard LRT construction yet again, making it vulnerable to any changes in power at either City Hall or Queen’s Park.

It’s all part of a familiar pattern for the McGuinty Liberals of appearing to be just slightly less worse than the other guy. Think they’re bad on public transit? Look at Toronto and Mayor Ford. We may be outsourcing control of the Eglinton LRT but remember Mike Harris buried the subway there.

I am trying to keep an open mind but the province inspires little confidence. Rather than see the move to a P3 as a cost containment measure, it just smacks of outsourcing responsibility and governance. I’m willing, though, to be convinced otherwise.

– forced smiledly submitted by Cityslikr

4 Comments | Budget, City Building, City Council, Metrolinx, Municipal Politics, Newspapers, Press coverage, Province of Toronto, Provincial Politics, Toronto Star | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by cityslikr

If Mayors Ruled The World

June 17, 2012

While a contingent of Toronto city council watchers fret and wring their hands over the state of our local democracy, I find it tough to get too tied up in knots about what’s been happening here. You want messed up democracy? How about that stable majority government in Ottawa and the sledgehammer passing of C-38? Now, those people should be worried their state of democracy there. [Errrr… Aren’t we ‘those people’? – ed.]

In fact, I’d say in comparing Parliament Hill to our City Hall, we’re doing just fine, thank you very much. Checks and balances are in place. Blind party loyalty is non-existent to any detrimental extent. Councillor Doug Ford might be on his way out!

Even here in Toronto, municipal politics are where it’s at, where the rubber hits the road, according to New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. “We’re [municipalities] the level of government closest to the majority of the world’s people,” Mayor Bloomberg has said. “While nations talk, but too often drag their heels — cities act.”

So, What If Mayor’s Ruled The World?, asks political scientist Benjamin Barber in the above interview with Richard Florida and in a talk presented to The Long Now Foundation last week in San Francisco. The world might just be a better place, Barber thinks. More equitable. Further along the road toward sustainability. More democratic.

Barber sees cities as places ‘… governed by voluntary cooperation and shared consensus’. Cities are ‘…defined above all else as places of collaboration and pragmatism.’ “Mayors are the most pragmatic and effective of all political leaders because they have to get things done,”
Barber writes. [La-di-da. And then there’s Toronto. – ed.]

Of course, it’s easy to be cynical these days in these parts. Getting things done translates into little more than attempting to roll back almost anything that happened from 2003-2010. Repeal this tax. Kill that transit plan. Not so much a situation of getting things done as it is seeing things undone. At all levels of government right now, that is the new conservative way.

Barber, quoting urban planner Bruce Katz, says, “If you love cities, you’re going to love the 21st-century.” Hold on to your horses, says our mayor and his team who haven’t yet come to terms with the last 30 years of the previous century. They like living in a permanent state of counter-urbanization as they would call it at Human’s Scribbles. Cars rule. Public transit is for the poor. Children ride bikes. Public space amounts to little more than shopping malls and your backyard when you invite friends over for a BBQ.

But think about this.

As much as we can blame Mayor Ford’s reversal of fortune on his own obstinate bumbling or the coalescing of the opposition into an organized group slowing shaping into a body capable of piecing together an agenda for the city, it also could be that he’s fighting an uphill battle against the march of history. Actual 21st-century urbanization is coming. Some of it’s already here. This isn’t a right-left issue. We’re talking the future versus the past. Our mayor came into office already yesterday’s man.

We really do need to stop comparing Mayor Ford to his predecessor, David Miller. Instead, let’s prop him up next to Miller’s true successor and urban heir, Mississauga’s 91 year-old mayor since 1978, Hazel McCallion. While Toronto’s mayor has made it a point to erase the city of any and all traces of Miller, McCallion has embraced much of Miller’s agenda, including the idea of LRTs and extra municipal taxing powers like the VRT. Mayor McCallion has been front and centre demanding a dedicated regional wide sales tax to building public transit. “…if you don’t want tax increases,” says McCallion, “you’re not going to get service, it’s as simple as that.”

Times, they are a-changing. Cities must change their ways of going about things in order to adapt and flourish in this, The Urban Age. Even the former Queen of Sprawl recognizes that fact.

And because of the nature of cities, the almost immediate relationship between by-law enacted and by-law in effect, change can happen like that. [Imagine a snapping of fingers. – ed.] Some find this unsettling, even some elected to serve the best interests of the city. That’s the other beauty of city life. We can ward off or mitigate their worst reactionary instincts. It’s happening right now.

That’s why Councillor Doug Ford calls it ‘dysfunctional’ and is thinking of jumping ship. Actual democracy tends to be messy. Autocrats don’t like to get their hands dirty.

“Democracy began in cities,” says Benjamin Barber, “and works best in cities.”

Despite appearances to the contrary, I think Toronto’s in pretty good hands right now since those who are adhering to that notion have assumed control of the place.

– merrily submitted by Urban Sophisticat

3 Comments | City Building, City Council, Municipal Politics, Newspapers, Press coverage, Provincial Politics, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Sun | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by urbansophisticat

Voluntary Civic Participation

May 23, 2012

As I sat staring blankly at my Twitter feed yesterday, a Don Peat tweet retweet appeared on screen. It was from last week during the Executive Committee meeting debate on the motion to rescind the 5¢ plastic bag fee. “Budget Chief Mike Del Grande says city only made $18,000 from people wanting to voluntarily pay more tax.”

Having not attended the meeting, I can’t say what exactly the budget chief was getting at. People don’t like paying extra taxes? Voluntary taxes aren’t nearly as effective at revenue generation as mandatory taxes?

I shrug. A firm grasp of the obvious.

But it did get me to thinking about this idea of a voluntary contribution payment the city has going. I first heard about it at the public deputations during last year’s budget cycle from the budget chief in fact. On a couple of occasions he asked deputants who’d come to plead their case for not cutting this service or ending that program, given the opportunity, would they pay extra into the city’s coffers in order to fund the service/program of their choice. It was sentiment that got picked up by the likes of Councillor Frances Nunziata who’d bark out the same question at a deputant she found particularly annoying.

A motion to pursue this was passed by city council last September and by a surprisingly large 39-6 vote (item 3d) including all councillors I would consider to be of my political persuasion.

So let me just say this. It is vilely inane.

What it suggests to me is that if you think some service or program the city offers is worthy, open your wallet. Everybody else? We’ll just sit back and live off others’ largesse, counting our extra money while doing so.

It undermines the concept of community, for lack of a better term I can’t come up with at the moment. We’re not in this together. Everyone for themselves.

Why not follow this to its logical conclusion? The city sets up a tax bill and we simply check off stuff we want to pay for? As a very irregular car driver, I don’t want much of my money going to road maintenance. Instead, I’m willing to pay for more cycling infrastructure. And since I don’t depend on public transit, no cash from me goes to the TTC budget. My contribution will come via the fare box.

Now, that’s respect for taxpayers.

No more meddling by meddlesome politicians in trying to strike a proper balance. Money talks and bullshit city building walks. I’m mean, why oh why should I pay to maintain a fire department if I’ve never had a fire? On the flipside of that, if I really want to get my money’s worth, maybe I should torch my garage. I need to rebuild it anyway.

You see where this kind of free-for-all thinking can lead toward a very spiky city scape.

I, for one, think we get pretty good value for the money we give to our city government. Compared to my monthly private sector outlay to Rogers for the services they provide me? Yeah, I’m a pretty satisfied with what the city delivers.

Hell, compared to the return on investment I get from the senior levels of government, City Hall is a beacon of serving up a bang for my tax buck. From my personal experience, an overwhelming majority of taxes go to the feds and province in the form of income and sales taxes. The return I see is inversely proportional.

I know the historic reasons for such an arrangement and there’s certainly a lot to be said for Ottawa and Queen’s Park ensuring a level playing field for service delivery across the spectrum of their respective responsibilities – less so with each successive downloading of that responsibility – but this arrangement is long overdue for a revisit. The hierarchy has been turned upside down with the importance of cities to the entire country’s well-being grown to the degree it has. It seems the height of inefficiency sending the biggest amount of money the furthest away from where it’s needed, waiting for it to trickle down.

That’s the discussion we really should be having not haggling over how we divvy up an unsustainable slice of the taxation pie. There is only one taxpayer, it has been said. Yeah well, 80% of them live in municipalities that are increasingly coming up short of money needed to function properly. The only voluntary contributions that can change that fact need to come from our senior levels of government.

– donatedly submitted by Cityslikr

5 Comments | Budget, City Building, City Council, Municipal Politics, Newspapers, Press coverage, The Toronto Sun | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by cityslikr

« Previous Entries
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 148 other followers