All Fried Up In The Big Smoke

Less political. More fictional.

Hey Rain Man!

Posted on September 25, 2013 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

“Once the government gets involved, 9 times out of 10 it’s a disaster.”

This from Mayor Ford at yesterday’s Executive Committee meeting during a debate over recommended increases in development charges. Development charges are fees the city receives for development that increases demand on necessary infrastructure like roads, public transit, sewage and water delivery. Fees this city charges are significantly less than many in the surrounding regions and as anybody who tries to get from point A to point B or who’s had their basement flooded knows, our infrastructure needs have not really kept up to all the new growth.

Councillor Paul Ainslie put forward a motion asking for a staff report on “… mechanisms for development charge discounts along main avenues in our Strong Neighbourhoods, and adjacent neighbourhoods.” A Scarborough councillor, Ainslie pointed out that with development charges the same throughout the city, developers tended to go where they would get the biggest and quickest return on their investment which is almost always downtown. As with most things planning related, the city is constrained by provincial law in its ability to manipulate development charges in order to spur growth in areas needing growth. The councillor was just looking for possible ways to work within such restrictions.

But the mayor was having none of it.

“I’m a huge believer in the market determines the cost.”

“We shouldn’t be dictating what these people pay, let the market dictate.”

“This will turn into a complete mess.”

Have conservatives always been this dumb? Are those of us of a certain vintage deluded when we talk about the halcyon days of the red Tory – Joe Clarke, Hugh Segal, Bill Davis, David Crombie – when conservatism was entirely reasonable?

Development charges, by their very nature, are the government getting involved. It takes money from the private sector in order to help offset the costs of growth which, in turn, makes the development more attractive, therefore increases the value of the development. Higher value, higher tax base. A win-win for all involved.

In voting in favour of the staff’s report to phase in development charge increases over the next couple years, Mayor Ford voted in favour of government involvement. But somehow, in an effort to figure out ways to encourage growth in areas of the city in need of it, that was just too much meddling for the mayor’s taste. It would surely precipitate a complete disaster.

The irony (and I believe I’m using the word correctly) is that this anti-government outburst from the mayor came a day after he declared victory in securing federal funding and sealing the deal for a Scarborough subway. An infrastructure project exclusively funded by the government which, in the mayor’s very own words, would stimulate growth and development in Scarborough.

But when Councillor Ainslie and another Scarborough councillor, Gary Crawford, request a report to propose ways to help stimulate growth and development along Kingston Road in their neck of the Scarborough woods? No way. People shouldn’t be dictating. Let the market decide!

It’s like this iteration of conservatism has taken all the easy, self-serving, short term aspects from the ideology while jettisoning its more complicated features. They’re like the third clone in Michael Keaton’s Multiplicity, the ones who eat toothpaste. Pale shadows of their forbearers who can’t or conveniently don’t remember the fuller version of their political philosophy.

There’s no pattern or logic. It’s just partisan addled sloganeering outbursts at words or ideas that don’t sit well with them. Like single-celled organisms reacting to the light. Single-minded entities reacting to things they don’t understand. No thought. Just visceral, opportunistic grandstanding.

Modern conservatism is nothing more than an empty brand masking its one true operating principle: blind, anti-government reactionism. Openly adopting such a stance, however, doesn’t play well with the voting public. So you try and smooth out the rough electoral edges by maintaining a soothing name that reeks of tradition.

A tradition that I now call into question if Mayor Ford and his ilk represent its legacy.

— sins-of-the-fatherly submitted by Cityslikr

Back To School

Posted on September 24, 2013 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

It’s difficult to stay positive or upbeat toward our political process after witnessing the latest twist and turn in our perpetually twisting and turning transit file here in Toronto. Once more politics trumped good planning. Too many of our elected representatives put personal electoral advantage (or fear of electoral retribution) above the best interests of this city, and called it the democratic process.

Subways love a leadership vacuum, it seems.

Although dispiriting, the outcome as it stands right now is hardly surprising. Any sort of rational discussion was short-circuited from the get-go with the entirely unwarranted vilification of LRTs and the framing of subways as somehow world class. Technology porn. No one in any high profile position of power stepped up to battle what was purely spin.

Not two premiers. Not x number of Transportation Ministers. No opposition leaders or sitting MPPs. Most certainly not the city’s TTC chair and the very friendly commissioners city council bestowed upon her after the battle to wrest control from the mayor.

To stand up against any of the proposed subway plans for Scarborough that emerged over the course of the last 3 years wasn’t perceived as defending a better plan or good governance. It was smeared as simply anti-mayor or anti-suburb. Facts and data figured little into the debate, easily brushed aside by emotion and resentment.

So it goes.

This is not new. I shouldn’t be surprised. Yet still I am.

Is there any way we can stop such madness from continually infecting political discourse and, ultimately, governance?

While sifting through the dying embers of my political positivity, searching for some good news, I came across a two-week old article by John Lorinc and Josh Fullan, How to make civics class matter to kids. Kids?, I think. Why not make civics class matter to everyone?

Among other things, Josh Fullan is the creator of Maximum City, “a program for high school students that partners experts with teachers in the development and delivery of curriculum in urban design, youth engagement, and civic sustainability.” The idea is to get them interested in local politics (and I’m using that word as broadly as possible) early in order to hook them into a lifetime of engagement and awareness of the issues that will affect their daily lives.

Which would’ve come in handy if more of us had been exposed to the proper functioning of our local government and what it takes for a city to operate properly, equitably and healthily. Instead, once again, we were susceptible to the wall of misinformation that tore through the heart of the transit debate. No, LRTs are not simply glorified streetcars. No, speed should not be the key requirement of what type of transit you build. No, your neck of the woods doesn’t deserve one type of transit simply, well, because.

More importantly, an increased civics awareness enables people to get out in front of an issue rather than always fighting a rearguard battle. Knowledge allows people to define ideas and approaches. It’s proactive not reactive.

And let’s face it, this city has been reacting to an all out attack on its institutions since 2010. Defenders have been sluggish, always back on their heels, only counter-punching. Too few of us have the necessary vocabulary to battle what is nothing more than gut appeals and the most basic grunts of parochialism.

That’s something we only have ourselves to blame for. We can rail about the stupidity and willful ignorance of some but it’s on us to figure out how to start making a better case for proper city building. To do that, we have to know exactly how to go about achieving that.

Using this ‘city as a classroom’, as the article by John Lorinc and Josh Fullan suggests, may be something we don’t just establish for students. It’s time to head back to school for everybody who finds themselves increasingly despondent about the current turn of events in Toronto. Clearly, we’re all a little rusty when it comes to civics.

— keenly submitted by Cityslikr

Now Comes The Fun Part

Posted on September 23, 2013 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

Scarborough subway.

Two words I never hope to write again. Ever.

Today the federal government announced they’re putting their skin into the game to the tune of $660 million for the city council approved subway extension of the Bloor-Danforth line all the way up to Sheppard Avenue East. At first blush, it would seem that seals the deal. Scarborough gets its subway built for all the wrong reasons.

Damn. Scarborough. Subway again. Damn. Again.

On Metro Morning today Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, a Johnny-come-lately supporter of a Scarborough subway (OK. After this post I hope to never write that phrase again.), called today’s news a ‘game changer’. He may just be right but like the subway he’s touting, for the wrong reasons. Or at least unexpected ones.

The provincial government, who seems to have been entirely side-stepped on this move from Ottawa, might look at this and see no further political gain from any insistence on ‘their’ subway line being built. They helped bring the feds to the table. A Scarborough subway will now get built. One way or the other, they will be providing the lion’s share of the funding, so they can rightly call it a victory.

Given the fractious relationship that’s developed between Queen’s Park and City Hall especially over this issue, however, I think anyone believing things will get quietly wrapped up in such a peaceful fashion are as deluded as those who see this project as a solution to the woes Scarborough transit users face. It’s not just the mayor I’m referring to on this point. The TTC chair’s rather belligerent approach with the province can’t have made any friends.

So we really shouldn’t expect the Liberal government to simply shrug its shoulders, sign a cheque and assure us no harm, no foul, should we? This is where the play really gets rough. We now go into the corners, elbows up.

Here’s our contribution to the subway, the province tells the city. $1.4 billion plus the nearly half billion more going into the Kennedy station redesign and rebuild. Let’s call it $1.8 billion, shall we?

That’s already $400 million the city now has to make up.

Don’t forget the sunk costs already gone into the Scarborough LRT plans. And if we go with the council subway plans the feds are backing, the current SRT’s lifespan will have to be extended now to the better part of 10 years and then torn down completely. We might be looking at over a quarter billion dollars in additional money by some estimates that the province can rightly say are on the city.

And this is before we get to calculating our direct portion of the subway project we need to pony up through an additional increase in property taxes. We know where our mayor stands on the matter, and going into an election year? How many incumbents will be willing to go to the electorate campaigning for either/or additional property taxes/service cuts to offset the costs of building the Scarborough subway?

That’s why I’d hesitate making any predictions about how today’s news is going to affect the outcome of upcoming elections. To date, the debate’s all been about fuzzy hypotheticals and wishful thinking coloured in crayon on pretend maps. Things just got real and it’ll be interesting to see how politically expedient an embrace of subways will be when the discussion turns to actual costs everybody’s going to be paying – not just in terms of money in the form of property taxes but in cuts to other services we might suddenly be looking out to fund this one particular project for one portion of the city.

Everybody loves getting stuff. It’s the paying for it discussion that gets thorny. And we just walked into the Scarborough subway bramble.

Scarborough subway.

It’s probably not going to be the last time I commit those two words to the page.

— so-so-so-tiredly submitted by Cityslikr