It has been my experience that someone who attempts to frame an opposing view in a dishonest, distorted manner has no intention of engaging in an honest, informative debate.

Exhibit A:

Mayor John Tory’s opening statement at yesterday’s city council meeting on Toronto’s long-term fiscal plan of action.

There are people who will say that we don’t have any problem with respect to expenditures, and my answer to that would only be to say that anybody who’s part of any multi-billion dollar organization that says they’ve found every single efficiency that there is to be found is either ill-informed or is trying to mislead.

The thing is, I’ve never heard anybody, inside or outside of the multi-billion dollar organization that is the city of Toronto, say anything remotely like that. How could they with a straight face? A quick glance in any direction will turn up misspent money and cost overruns. Renovations of Union Station, Nathan Phillips Square. The Yonge-University-Spadina subway extension. The **cough, cough** Scarborough subway extension. Bunny suits and retirement parties. Remember those? Oldies but goodies.

It would be foolish to suggest none of that matters. That’s why very few people I know have ever said such a thing. That’s not what this debate is about, no matter how much the mayor would like you to think it is.

What this city manager has been telling Mayor Tory, like the city manager before him said, like the KPMG report back in 2012 concluded, all of them, is that the city is pretty tightly run already, and much more cutting of budgets finding efficiencies will begin to negatively impact the delivery of services and programs. More to this particular aspect of the debate, City Manager Peter Wallace has been emphasizing the point that no amount of further efficiencies or selling off of city assets alone will generate the necessary revenue to a) continue funding the day-to-day operating budget, and b) or be enough to build the new infrastructure we want/require and rebuild the state of good repair of infrastructure we already have. We have to have the revenue tools discussion, boys and girls.

What the mayor heard, however, came straight out of a game of broken telephone. What do you mean there’s no more efficiencies to be found? (That’s not what I said.) What do you mean selling off city owned assets won’t generate revenue? (Again, that’s not what I said. Nowhere in my report did I write that.)

Mayor Tory has acknowledged that we will have to have an “honest” discussion about revenue tools. “I’m glad revenue tools are on the table,” admitted his budget chief, Councillor Gary Crawford. But…But…

The city must maintain a fundamental focus on responsible and effect expense management…We must continue to explore efficiencies and cost reduction in order to create resources for other investment opportunities…Once we get those correct, once we look at those, I think we can have the discussion on revenues.

To suggest that we have found everything is absolutely not responsible.

Again, nobody has ever suggested such a thing. Mayor Tory and his council allies are determined to distort the terms of this debate while at the same time attempting to establish impossible to meet standards in order to put off any sort of serious discussion about revenue tools. No stone will be left unturned! No efficiency unwrung! This city must be a perfectly oiled, flawlessly operating machine. Until such a time – “Once we get those correct,” in the words of the budget chief – there will be no talk of new revenue tools.

At least, no serious discussion. We’ll get the pretense of a serious discussion, the theatre of an informed, honest debate. Mayor Tory will give the impression of earnestly grappling with our fiscal future. It’ll be just an act, though. Talk of good intentions masking no intention whatsoever to move beyond his preconceived, ideologically hidebound notions of how government should work. His own political rigidity reflected in how he’s attempting to paint opposing views in stark, rigid terms.

— predictingly submitted by Cityslikr