Author Archives: acaphlegmic

Fun With Numbers

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With all the talk of Toronto’s looming economic apocalypse, I decided to submerse myself in a little policy wonking. I hunkered down with both the Toronto Board of Trade’s early February report, The Growing Chasm: An Analysis and Forecast of the City of Toronto’s Finances and a CUPE commissioned paper from economist Hugh Mackenzie entitled, Reality Check: Toronto’s Budget Crunch in Perspective. Two opposing points of view; two tales of two cities.

Now, I am no economic whiz. Numbers, pie charts, graphs and stats tend to make me break out into a cold sweat. Like most of us, I can be baffle-gabbed and hoodwinked when set upon by numerical waves. So in no way should this be taken as a valid economic assessment of these reports. Rather, what blinks before you is a general overview of my impression of them.

Firstly and not surprisingly, the conclusions drawn in both papers reflect the opinions and standpoints held by those who contracted, as it were, the reports. As to be expected, I guess. Still it feels a little, how shall I say, unscientific. But that just may be the nature of the beast when it comes to the field of economics as a whole.

In the Board of Trade’s The Growing Chasm, there is no mistaking whatsoever how we must not tackle the city’s dire financial situation and burgeoning structural operating budget deficit. Of their report’s 34 pages, two (#s 21 & 22) are delivered in dark highlighted boxes. Within those boxes is an impassioned plea against commercial property tax increases. According to this study done by Canada’s largest chamber of commerce, businesses in the 416 area code already bear an unfair tax burden and cannot be expected to carry anymore of the load. If future city councils were to try this than businesses would have no choice but to pick up their stakes and move to more tax friendly locations in the GTA.

To the Board of Trade the actual culprit for City Hall’s runaway spending and growing structural deficit are the wages and benefits that are doled out to municipal employees. Of course in his report done at the behest of the Toronto Civic Employees Union Local 416 of CUPE, Hugh Mackenzie strongly disagrees with that notion. His numbers suggest that employee wages and benefits are perfectly reasonable and that, in fact, Toronto’s recent increase in operating expenditures is 4% lower than the increases in municipal expenditures throughout the rest of Ontario.

Again, I can’t decipher the numbers thrown around in these reports well enough to be able to ascertain who’s massaging what figures or who’s cherry picking what data but I am confident enough to say that the Board of Trade’s report contains a methodological blemish that makes me, at least, suspicious about the veracity of their report. Early on in the Growing Chasm it is suggested that the city’s structural operating budget deficit has been around “since at least the start of the decade”. Sounds a little vague. Surely something this important, this ominous structural operating budget deficit, can be traced back a little more accurately than simply “Since at least the start of the decade”?

No matter. The report then bases all its assertions on the numbers gleaned from the 2002-2008 period. The end number, 2008, is reasonable as it is the last year for which the statistics are available. But why start at 2002? Why not begin right at amalgamation with the birth of the megacity before the structural operating budget deficit reared its ugly head in order to give us a full and complete view of the city’s finances from day one? 2002 seems an arbitrary snapshot as if the Board of Trade needed just that time frame to prove their point. It’s analogous to someone trying to establish the fact that the ancient Romans were poor builders of edifices by pointing out the shoddy condition of the structures from, say, 1945 to the present day.

Or maybe I’m just missing something. Clearly everyone in the mainstream press and the front running candidates for mayor have hopped on (the Toronto) board of Trade. There is a Growing Chasm. City Hall has taken part in an unsustainable spending spree! Cuts must be made! Assets sold! Taxes frozen!! Anything less and we will be going to hell in a hand basket while businesses flee the downtown core to the more amenable environs of 905.

No question. No doubt. And no paying attention to that man over there, Hugh Mackenzie, telling you otherwise.

— studiously submitted by Acaphlegmic

A Crisis Not Of Our Making

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Earlier this year city of Toronto officials announced that if more child-care money wasn’t forthcoming from senior levels of government the city would have to close some 5 000 subsidized spaces over the next two years. As the budget process kicks into high gear this month, we will be hearing a lot of such talk: monetary shortfalls and program/service cuts. That will be followed by the inevitable calls for restraint and the getting of the fiscal house in order, especially with it being an election year.

I think it a good opportunity, however, to point out the way in which this exemplifies the off-kilter political dynamic at work and how municipalities as the street level, day-to-day providers of such things like day-care work at a disadvantage while facing the brunt of the public’s displeasure with decisions that are not, ultimately, made at a local level.

Upon coming to power four years ago, the federal Conservatives led by Stephen Harper rolled back the five billion dollar national child-care plan that the previous Liberal government had proposed, and replaced it with a more modest, shall we say, approach. Part of this new day-care tack on the Conservative government’s part was a one time grant to the provinces, totaling just over $250 million for Ontario. In turn, the Ontario government split that amount into four $63.5 million annual payments to municipalities; payments that run out on April 1st. Already the provincial government has had to pay out an additional $18 million to avoid disruptions during the current school term.

The second key decision in the equation was last fall’s announcement by Queen’s Park that it was going to fund full time kindergarden for the province’s 4 and 5 year-olds. In and of itself, this plan would seem to be unrelated to the day-care cash crunch. However, the removal of older children from day-care, in fact, makes day-care services more expensive because older children, in needing less hands-on attention, are less costly units. In their absence, it will require more money to provide and run day-care centres, therefore making day-care more expensive.

So, what you have is a day-care crisis in the making precipitated by decisions made by the two levels of senior government who do not provide the services. This is your asymmetrical, inverted democracy at work. Individual Canadians, 80% of whom live in urban municipalities, hand over the majority of their taxes to senior levels of government in the form of income and sales taxes. These levels of government then divvy up their expenditures based on whim and political necessity which, oftentimes, are diametrically opposed to the needs of individual Canadians.

This structure represents the height of inefficient governance and lies at the root of much of our municipalities’ money woes. Too much of our taxes go to where it is least needed and is doled out in an ad hoc, politically motivated manner. Yet, it is a situation that largely goes unremarked upon during the course of election campaigns. Rather than pointing fingers at each other, screaming waste, fat, inefficiency, municipal candidates should be aiming their fire at those who are truly responsible up on Parliament Hill in Ottawa and in the country’s provincial legislatures.

Thank you for reading.

— submitted by Acaphlegmic

More Media Massaging

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If we’re rounding up emerging media narratives for Elections 2K10®©™ it would be remiss of us to ignore other, non-Toronto Sun ones that are beginning to percolate. (And frankly, that one is so predictable as to be non-newsworthy. Corporate elitist anti-progressive screed wrapped in an outraged grassroots populist package. My colleague, Cityslikr’s obsession with Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy teeters perilously close to an I-hate-her-so-much-that-I-just-might-be-in-love-with-her line that we may be witnesses to a tempestuous journalistic romance in the making.)

How about the Toronto Star’s coverage of candidate Giambrone’s announcement soirée? Hip hip and squeals greet Adam Giambrone from Katie Daubs and Paul Moloney. The title itself underlines the idea of ‘young’. Hip hop music is the kids’ music. Infants squeal. Second sentence in hit that mark with “teenage supporters” squealing. (I’m assuming one of either Daubs or Moloney verified that claim by tracking down the squealers to confirm their age.. their teen age.)

Third sentence, be sure to state Giambrone’s age, 32 which, holy mackerel, that’s young. He wants to be mayor? Fourth sentence use `boyish’ to describe the candidate. His reaction to the overwhelmingly positive response his initial appearance elicited from the crowd? A ‘bashful’ smile. Beautifully used as it not only denotes a certain youthfulness once more but also a hint of girlishness. Nicely done.

Then after a brief stop to report on something Giambrone actually said, it’s back to squealing teenagers, hip hop music and Twittering which is a social networking tool that only the youngsters really understand. Young. Youth. Teenagers. Hip hop. Tweeter. Inexperienced. Inconsequential. Not worthy of serious consideration. Etc., etc. etc.

Now, I was in attendance and recorded the proceedings as I do most dialogue driven interactions (both public and private) in order to sift through them afterwards to discover hidden, subliminal meanings and messages. (Don’t look at me that way! I am an academic. I research!) Replaying Giambrone’s speech, I can hear no squeals from either teenagers or anyone else. There is plenty of cheering, hooping and hollering, yelling. But these are sounds one might expect to hear at a campaign rally especially one where the candidate is announcing that he/she is running for office.

Perhaps the teenage squealers Daubs and Moloney incessantly talked about were not in my vicinity. Perhaps they had been cordoned off, away from the cash bar where I had taken up residence. Or maybe (to borrow some stylistic panache from Sue-Ann Levy) Daubs and Moloney were “editorializing” on the news rather than “reporting” it. That is purely conjecture on my part but at least I’m admitting to it unlike either Ms. Daubs or Mr. Moloney of the Toronto Star.

As for the tales of protestors that both start and end the article? On my way out of the venue, I counted in the neighbourhood of 20-25 of them. That’s not only a number heavily dwarfed by the amount of supporters inside but the protestors were even less numerous than people who were standing in line, waiting to be allowed into the already full house. So, in fact, the protestors were significantly less prominent than the article would have readers believe.

While the Toronto Sun wears its antagonism toward Adam Giambrone on its sleeve, the Star attempts to be much more subtle in its disdain of the man. Either way, both newspapers are advocating rather than reporting. That’s an important factor when readers go about trying to gather information.

Thank you for reading.

— submitted by Acaphlegmic