All Fried Up In The Big Smoke

Less political. More fictional.

Let’s Go Over This One More Time.

Posted on April 8, 2015 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

It’s inconceivable to me that this discussion still has to happen, that a reporter for a local news station feels compelled to shoot a segment on such an obvious topic. Toronto needs a property tax hike to pay for crumbling infrastructure. Yet, there it is.

As the video shows, a wall of bricks showers down from a community housing building, concrete chunks off a major thoroughfare, subway closures occur frequently due to fires and floods, water mains rupture, roads sinkhole. Splice the visuals together with appropriate smash cuts and you’re left with the impression of a crumbling city, apocalypse now. Toronto. Shit.

Everybody’s got an opinion about why this situation has come to be. A bloated, fat cat bureaucracy, gorging itself on big fat bonuses while the most vulnerable residents live in slum-like conditions. Out-of-control spending on public works projects, over-budget, heavily delayed. Nathan Phillips Square revitalization. The Yonge-University-Spadina subway extension. Pick your favourite bugaboo. Pink umbrellas and boulders from northern Ontario.

None of these complaints are wrong, necessarily — except for the pink umbrellas and rocks down at Sugar Beach which only reveals a myopic inattention to the bigger picture. Public spending should be heavily scrutinized. Misspending and misappropriation only heightens an already suspicious belief out there in the public sector. It’s a negative feedback loop, feeding into an always ready to pounce anti-government sentiment.

Yet, do the math and in the scheme of things, added all together, none of these projects or particular bones to pick will make even a dent on the infrastructure needs this city faces. Sure, every little bit counts but every little bit is just that, a little bit, and they don’t count for much, maybe millions when we’re taking billions. We face a far deeper crisis than the easy nickel and dime solutions offered up by the apostles of outrage. We’ve grown content living on the cheap, and living off the hard decisions and sense of community obligation by previous generations.

Amidst all the tales of infrastructure decline and dissolution in Avery Haines’ news segment came the stark fact that we’re paying, in real inflationary adjusted dollars, less in property taxes now than we did back in 2000. That’s right. Less. In 2000, 3 years after amalgamation, 3 years in which there was a property tax rate freeze. We’re still paying less than that.

Toronto residents pay less in property taxes than many of the GTA’s other municipalities, in some cases significantly less. This is not particularly news to anyone disinclined to think any property tax is too much property tax. During this year’s budget debate Councillor Gord Perks wrote in the Toronto Star that owing to inflation, this city has effectively cut property taxes by 12.4% since amalgamation. Inflation keeps inflating. City council keeps on not keeping up to it. Even all of those ‘through the roof’ over-the-rate-of-inflation property tax rate increases by the profligate David Miller couldn’t help the city’s coffers keep pace.

And Boom! goes the Gardiner. Boom! the brick façade of a TCHC building. Gush! goes the water spout from the busted water main.

And our new-ish mayor, John Tory, shrugs. He was elected by the voters of Toronto to keep property taxes below the rate of inflation. Why? Because he told them anything more than that would be unnecessary. Plenty of money in the efficiency banana stand, I guess.

“The property taxpayers of Toronto should not be asked to bear those expenses and investments on their own,” Tory said yesterday. “The property tax was never meant to do that.” The mayor’s not wrong. In referring to downloaded social costs like housing and major infrastructure investment in things like public transit, municipalities with their limited revenue gathering base largely on property taxes aren’t supposed to be expected to pay for those big ticket items. Here in Toronto, up until 1995, the provincial government even paid for half of the TTC’s annual operating costs. In 2015, the city is putting nearly $480 million up for that cost. That’s almost one-quarter of a billion dollars that should, in a properly function system, be coming from Queen’s Park. Multiply that by 20 years and, yeah, no wonder our transit system is barely limping into the future, let alone all the other infrastructure needs the city has.

So we can get all pissed off about city council’s quick decision to step up with $90 million to cover shortfalls with the Spadina subway extension, as Ari Goldkind does today in the Star, but it misses the larger debate. The city shouldn’t be paying for any part of a major transit build. It shouldn’t be contributing anything to the Union-Pearson airport link. Why are we putting up money to renovate a regional transportation route like the Gardiner Expressway?

The province has walked away from its traditional obligations, leaving cities to pick up the slack. That’s what we should really be angry about. That’s the fight we need to be engaged in.

But then we allow the province (along with the federal government to a lesser extent) off the hook, we provide them with their one bit of buckshot of ammunition when we campaign and govern on under-taxation. We’ve given you these revenue tools to deal with the added responsibilities, the province tells Toronto. Why not use them instead of always coming to us for money?

Disingenuous, accompanied with a Cheshire cat grin? You betcha. Download both the obligations and the taxing powers so loathed by the public. Thank you very much.

Like it or not, that’s where we’re at. By standing idly by, talking about moral and business cases for more investment by the senior levels of government, while deliberately chocking off your own sources of revenue even those not part of the property tax base, is simply being an accomplice to the crumbling of the city. You know there are ways to help, at least, bolster the state of disrepair. They won’t be immediately popular (made even less so by irresponsible campaign pledges that helped get you elected). The alternative, however, is untenable. Unless, of course, you’re comfortable overseeing a city that will continue to decline.

— repeatedly submitted by Cityslikr

Big Money. Little Love.

Posted on March 30, 2015 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

Many of us, including yours truly, we’re rightly criticised for arrogantly dismissing the bloc of supporters that brought Rob Ford to power 4+ years ago. Reactionary, low-information voters who simply didn’t understand what’s good for them, if I can sum up the sentiment pithily. Inchoate ragers, even more pithily.

Sure, Ford Nation also consisted of the fanboy social media types and members of some traditional media organizations on the far right of the political spectrum that supported Rob Ford right down to the bitter, crack and booze fueled end. What flummoxed many of us, however, was the continued allegiance to the Ford brand of a solid segment of the more marginalized communities of the city. Lower income, first and second generation residents, people of colour. Those most adversely affected by the policies Rob Ford pursued during his decade and a half at City Hall. Many held on tightly to a conviction that Rob Ford was always looking out for the little guy, them.

Even when his health forced him from seeking re-election, his brother Doug, a one-term councillor and not nearly the retail politician Rob was, rode the populist wave of dissatisfaction to a 2^nd place finish last October, tying up more than a third of the popular vote, a mere 6 points behind the eventual winner, John Tory. Holy hell. That was a close one. Imagine if Rob had been able to remain in the race, goes the thinking. He might’ve won.

Standing between that result and what we actually wound up with was John Tory money John Tory, no, money. As the deadline came last week for candidates to file their 2014 campaign financials with the city, we learned “…that John Tory ran the most expensive mayoral race in Toronto’s history, with a list of contributors that reads like a who’s who of the city’s movers and shakers,” according to Oliver Moore of the Globe and Mail. The affluent and influential dug deep into their pockets to quiet the clamour of Ford Nation.

I think it’s safe to assume that this story is far from settled.

Never mind for the moment the ironies running rife through this tale. Both John Tory and the Ford brothers are full on rich, white privileged men. It was pretty much a race between old money versus new, the establishment versus the nouveau riche, a question of competing country clubs. (Toronto’s very own version of Caddyshack!)

Or ignore the fact many of these same ‘movers and shakers’ (including then private citizen John Tory) initially supported the Rob Ford experiment at City Hall. Only after he became an international embarrassment on the public stage did this dynamic change. And then, only grudgingly, and when it became politically expedient and/or advantageous to do so.

This scenario of big money buying the election is hardly one to placate any sense of frustrated alienation with City Hall that remains strongly lingering out there. Money’s money, right, regardless of whether it comes from union fat cats or titans of industry. While it is entirely understandable why Mayor Tory declined the invitation to a fundraiser being held to pay off Doug Ford’s mayoralty practice, it only will help feed into that outsider sense of those who voted for Doug Ford. Personal is personal but this is politics, and this snub certainly isn’t going to help engender any feeling of goodwill toward the mayor from those who have very little of it to start with.

And it’s a sizeable chunk of the population. Three out of five voters didn’t cast a ballot for John Tory last October. His approval ratings have settled into a range only slightly above that. Revel as we might in the calm that has descended upon our local politics, do not mistake it for any sort of widespread contentment. The fact that the well-connected and monied helped reclaim the mayor’s office for one of their own should hardly be cheered and taken as a sign that all is well in Toronto. The restoration of civic order and propriety is not the same as facing the challenges that contributed to the unrest and anger sitting at the base of Ford Nation.

We ignored and diminished it the first time a warning flare was fired. Into the reaction space created by our unwillingness or, simply, inability to respond to the legitimate demands made by those disaffected and disenfranchised by the direction the city was headed, stepped the usual suspects. Connected civic players who view Toronto as much of a personal asset as they do a place to live and work. Don’t worry, folks. They’ve got this covered.

We’re in good hands now, warmed by an overweening sense of noblesse oblige, if we want to take a sunny view of it. I remain unconvinced, however, hearing the quiet not as any sense of calmness but as the future of Toronto being plotted out of earshot. Like it or not, the unruliness of the last 4 years was, among many other things, a sign of heightened civic engagement. When all is said and done, I’d take that over the silence of backroom influence any day of the week.

— dancingly submitted by Cityslikr

Same Ol’ Song, Same Ol’ Dance

Posted on March 12, 2015 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

“It is the easy way out to say, let’s just have 3.0%, 4.0% more put on to property taxes…”

So began Mayor John Tory’s pitch to city council this week, presenting his maiden budget for their ultimate approval.

That this was in direct opposition to, well, reality, nobody much noticed. No, Mr. Mayor, in fact the easy way out is to campaign on an anti-tax platform, to assure voters that there were magical ways to fund city’s services and programs with a little left over for special pet projects. TIF. New money pouring in from senior levels of government. Efficiencies.

In other words, just what the previous administration told us minus the crack smoking and drunken stupors.

In my experience, it is far, far easier to pretend there’s no tough decisions to be made than to accept the unpleasant reality staring you directly in the face and deal with it. At least, initially. The bills do eventually come due, however, and very, very rarely do crossed fingers and a wish on a star provide much of a soft landing.

Oh but the sky is not falling, we were assured time and time again by the mayor, his budget chief, and ancient regime dinosaur, Councillor David Shiner, who told us every year that he’s been around (and that’s a lot of years), it’s been the same ol’ song. Predicted shortfalls and terrifying opening pressures amounting to millions and millions of dollars, only to be dutifully wrestled into submission, the operating budget balanced, as it always must be. The sun rises. The sun sets.

Never mind the ever growing state of good repairs elephant in the room, a To Do List backlog of infrastructure needs now somewhere in the neighbourhood of $7 billion. Social housing upkeep that, in some cases, if not done in the next few years will force the closure of units, sending some of our most vulnerable residents looking elsewhere for shelter. Transit. And transit. And transit.

But somehow, there’s no connection between that beast and the fact that since amalgamation, our property tax rate increases have not kept up with inflation meaning, in real dollars, there’s less money going to even core services and programs, let alone the items a municipality should not be paying for like, the aforementioned social housing or major transit infrastructure builds. Yes, cities are expected to do more with less but what do we think is going to happen when our response to that is to try and make do with even less? That’s what insisting on property tax rate increases below the rate of inflation does.

When Councillor Gord Perks introduced a motion on Tuesday to increase the property tax rate an additional 1.59%, bumping the total hike to over 5% in order to pay off the $86 million hole in the operating budget created by yet more provincial downloading, a hole the mayor is papering over by borrowing from the city’s investment portfolio, Councillor Josh Matlow rose to speak in opposition. While he understood the intentions of Councillor Perks’ motion, he couldn’t support it because that would let the province off the hook for its obligations. Once we established that precedent, what else would Queen’s Park expect us to start paying for?

A fair point, to be sure, but it leaves the lingering question: WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO IN THE MEANTIME? Oh, that’s right. Cross our fingers and wish upon a star.

It also ignores the fact that a 5+% property tax increase is not unheard of except here in amalgamated Toronto. Ask our GTA neighbours about their recent property tax hikes and see if you get any soothing words of comfort. Toronto has been shortchanging itself since 1998. So its demands for the other levels of government to live up to their responsibilities in funding cities, correct as they might be, ring a little hollow.

Rather than face up to that unpleasant truth, Mayor Tory chose instead to take the easy way out, referring to any such proposed tax increase as ‘through the roof’ and, therefore, out of the question. Neither was the mayor in any mood to discuss other forms of revenue at the city’s disposal. Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam’s motion to bring back the vehicle registration tax and dedicate it to fast-tracking accessibility redesigns for the remaining last half of the city’s 69 subway stations in order to comply with provincial legislation (more of those damned state of good repairs) was soundly defeated. Increasing revenue, in a John Tory administration, was simply not prudent.

Unless, of course, you use any of the city’s services, programs or facilities (not including roads). This budget continued to lean on increasing user fees. From garbage bins to sports fields, above the rate of inflation increases were in effect (except for roads). There’s not necessarily anything wrong with that but it does lead to the question: Why there and not property taxes?

The simplest explanation is that Mayor Tory is playing to the same constituency Rob Ford sings for, both administrations deluding them (and themselves) that the city’s fiscal problems are not of their doing, and that somebody else will swoop in, all deus ex machina like, and pay the piper. We just need a little discipline and patience, cross our fingers and send our wishes skyward (which totally isn’t falling) and it’ll all work out fine.

Easy peasy.

Making it official in the process.

Toronto didn’t elect John Tory, the civic leader. We elected John Tory, the talk radio show host. So let’s stop expecting any sort of leadership from him and settle in for another 4 years of sound bites and simple solutions that will solve few of this city’s problems.

— heard-it-beforely submitted by Cityslikr