Category Archives: Toronto City Summit Alliance

Vision Quest I

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This one’s mine.

My colleagues here at All Fired Up in the Big Smoke are too compromised. Too caught up in the race. Too waist deep into the mindset of strategic voting and settling for A.B.F.

I am an old hippie. It’s not a label I shun. In fact, I embrace it.

As an old hippie, I retain a mighty mistrust of institutions, especially those ones that influence us greatly but seem impervious to our presence. Those we can only ignore as our last line of defense against them. The media is one such entity. For our purposes here, the media is the Man.

From the very beginning of this municipal campaign, we were presented a 6 candidate menu. Six candidates and six candidates only. Three sitting councillors. One former deputy premier of Ontario. Two neophytes, picked from the ether of political backrooms and media social circles. A couple of the councillors switched up and another dropped out, leaving us with a choice of five. All neatly wrapped and parceled out for our viewing/listening pleasure/displeasure.

When the people called out, hey, there’s an empty chair at the table, half-hearted measures were taken on occasion to fill it. With a 2nd Rocco, possessor of similar skills to the other five and a comparably uninspiring set of ideas. He proved ineffectual (no less so than Sarah Thomson but she remains) and soon fizzled out.

So there are 5.

Anything more would just be messy, we are told. Unruly. Counter-productive. These are your five choices. These are the ones you will see on your TV and read about in the newspapers. Choose.

I have another idea.

HiMY SYeD, the Peoples’ Mayor. He was featured here back in June, just after he’d popped in for cup of coffee on stage at the Better Ballots debate. “We’ve Had Enough Cowboys in City Hall, Now It’s Time for an Indian!” A hell of a punch line and we could leave it at that except for the fact that Mr. SYeD has proven to be much more than a gag candidate.

Following him since then or, at least trying to, as the man seems to be everywhere at once, it’s clear that he is a candidate worthy of careful consideration. A ferocious Tweeter, his constant updates reveal an individual at home with workings of the municipal government. It is in this writer’s humble opinion that HiMY SYeD is more knowledgeable about how City Hall operates than any of the other candidates save for, perhaps, Joe Pantalone. While council was still in session, he’d be there at meetings, deputations, community councils, all while campaigning. At the debates, he’d give real times answers to the questions that were posed as if he had been invited to participate.

He never has been which remains something of a nagging mystery. Invites have been extended and then retracted with no explanation attached. No one wants him involved it’s clear, from the candidates to debate organizers, begging the question why.

My take on it is simple. For all the talk of change we’re hearing during this election, it’s all nothing more than cosmetic change. No, that’s not quite right. Some of the proposed changes are quite radical in fact. But none meant to make the lives of Torontonians any better. The changes being offered up by Mssrs. Ford, Smitherman, Rossi and Ms. Thomson all amount to nothing other than telling the people of this city to expect less. That’s what comes from tax and spending cuts and hiring freezes.

Change for HiMY SYeD’s is a whole lot different than that. To try and understand his approach to change, one needs to look at the politics of Jaime Lerner. A 3 term mayor of Curitiba, Brazil’s 7th largest city, he is credited with helping turn around what was a typical South American urban environment, dirty, crime-ridden and intensely segregated along a gaping economic divide. By using the immediate, easy accessible tools at his disposal, Lerner transformed Curitiba into a prime example of greener, more sustainable, equitable and more livable city.

Despite what 80% of our front running candidates are bellowing at us, compared to the problems and difficulties cities in the developing world face, ours are mild and we have far more resources to deal with them. Hence, Mr. SYeD’s calm and considered approach to change. Or what he calls, transformation. “Change is no longer enough,” according to Mr. SYeD.

Vision 2020 offers a glimpse into Mr. SYeD’s thinking about change/transformation. Calling it “an integrated 10 year strategy of hope in Toronto” (some of which voters might recognize as recent additions to a few of the leading  mayoral candidates’ platforms and announcements), it consists of 3 simple ideas. Mobility. Sustainability. Identity.

From those come specific ideas. A move to complete streets which is not a War on Cars but rather an acknowledgement that in a healthy city, private vehicles can no longer have primacy on the roads. Designate neighbourhoods that develop and implement sustained and green technology for the city to use. SaTuRN. Sustainable Architectural Technological Urban Research Neighbourhood District. Bring about an elected comptroller for the city to deal with our finances. According to Mr. SYeD, Toronto doesn’t have a spending problem. It has a borrowing problem. In terms of increasing citizen involvement with the city, Vision 2020 proposes neighbourhood councils to be elected annually and with a real say in what happens in their neighbourhoods.

HiMY SYeD wants to bring about what he calls, “Transformational Regime”. What’s that, you ask? I’ll let him explain it.

A Transformational Regime built upon the foundations of three faculties:

1) Strategic Alliance — A stable, highly committed group of political, economic, and social interests that share a common strategic purpose. We have it already: The Toronto City Summit Alliance.

2) Local Practices of Urbanism — The planning processes, technical solutions, designs, and business models that shape the way Toronto is built, serviced and used so as to achieve our defined strategic purpose.

3) Strategic Institutions — A dedicated institutional apparatus responsive to the alliance, for developing, testing, and diffusing our new practices of urbanism.

These three faculties form a practice “regime” with the stability and power to transform urban form, regional markets, and local culture to establish a New Urbanism in Toronto.

The key is putting more power into the hands of the people rather than the top down, institutional change the leading candidates are vowing to inflict on us. Thus, HiMY SYeD, the Peoples’ Mayor. A pie in the sky dreamer? No. I’d call it dreaming little to bring about big changes.

More to the point, HiMY SYeD has proven himself to be a viable candidate who deserves to be heard. Those of us in the city looking for real change deserve to hear him, to see him up on stage with those who’ve been designated as our only choices. Denying him access only heightens suspicion that real change is being denied us.

So start to holler and demand that space be made for you to hear HiMY SYeD. Go to ArtsVote and vote for him to be the 6th candidate at their debate on September 29th. He deserves it. We deserve it.

Last word to Mr. SYeD:

Vision 2020 – Another Toronto is Possible. A Twenty Year Urban Strategy embracing Mobility, Sustainability, Identity — Where Everyone feels and says, “We Belong”.

“We Belong, Here.”

— assertively submitted by Acaphlegmic

A Ray Of Sun-Shine

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It’s easy if you follow politics for enough hours of the day to find your ugly, surly side. Gone are our Capraesque notions of the nobility in public service, if ever they existed outside of, well, Frank Capra movies. We have grown to expect the worst in anyone who offers themselves up for political office. What are they really angling for? What’s the matter with them anyway, can’t they find a real job? How many times have you heard this sign off on a discussion of politics? A plague on all their houses!

Certainly a municipal mayoral campaign like the one we’re experiencing currently in Toronto does little to buoy a person’s outlook. Government, bureaucracy, they are the enemy. Anyone speaking in favour of the public good cannot be trusted and is suspected of wanting to only pad their own nest. Ill-temper and mean-spiritedness rule the tone of discourse.

So what a long, cool glass of water it was attending a fundraiser last night for Ward 19 councillor hopeful, Karen Sun. Check your cynicism at the door, please. This here be a can-do zone.

(Even writing that I can feel every atrophied editorial muscle in my body screaming – OK, squeaking – don’t write that, don’t write that! Unless you’re being facetious. Are you being facetious? If you’re being facetious, that’s OK then. As long as everyone knows you’re being facetious. Will they know you’re being facetious?

What is wrong with me?!)

I had myself a very pleasant and upbeat experience at a political fundraiser is what I’m trying to say without getting all embarrassed and fearful of losing whatever edge cred I might have. The room was full of positive talk and energetic people who weren’t ashamed about expressing a desire to contribute to the building of this city rather than ripping it apart. Yes, there were some dark discussions about the odious possibility of a Mayor Rob Ford and the clusterfuck that was the G20, yet it was mostly background noise. A soft, discordant noise that vaguely grated but never imposed.

As for the candidate herself, Karen Sun, well, she is, or should be, considered a serious contender in Ward 19. She brings a decade of experience working and volunteering with and around the city on numerous environmental issues which is clearly her métier. But her resumé is also full to bursting with work on matters like immigration, human rights and sitting on advisory committees like Toronto’s Emergency Medical and Fire Services. Civic groups like the Maytree Foundation, Toronto City Summit Alliance and Diverse City have tapped Ms. Sun for her leadership capabilities.

However, she will be up against it in the council race in the form of Michael Layton, son of you know who, and who’s already picked up the endorsement of outgoing councillor and mayoral candidate, Joe Pantalone. Mr. Pantalone did himself no favours around this office with that move which smacked of old school horse trading. My machine for your machine? Michael Layton will have to bring his A-game to the table if he wants to convince us that he would better represent Ward 19 at City Hall than Karen Sun would.

For progressive minded voters out there, this may be the key to a successful election outcome in the fall. Let the mayoralty chips fall where they may, hoping for the best of a worst lot and concentrate your energies on electing council candidates like Karen Sun. Yes, that would be handing over the bully pulpit that is the mayor’s office to some disagreeable views and opinions, lending them credence and traction. But the mayor still only carries one vote and if they can’t muster 22 likeminded councillors to their way of thinking then it will all be nothing but bluster.

So maybe candidates like Karen Sun are the way forward and the hope for breaking through the darkness that has descended on civic life in this city.

— shinily and happily submitted by Cityslikr

Time To Get Serious. Seriously.

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If anyone wants to see just how out of touch Toronto’s 5 front running candidates for mayor are on one of the more pressing matters the city faces, they should take a glance through Toronto City Summit Alliance’s recently issued Time To Get Serious: Reliable Funding For GTHA Transit/Transportation Infrastructure report. Seriously. It’s not nearly as dense as the title suggests. Even just a quick read through the 7 page executive summary would do the trick. Wouldn’t hurt the 5 candidates in question to familiarize themselves with the document either.

The first thing that jumps out from the pages is what the report refers to as our glaring lack of a National Federal-Provincial Transit Strategy. We are the only OECD country that doesn’t have one. The only country. Let me repeat that because it bears repeated repeating. Canada is the only member country in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development that has no overarching national strategy for public transit.

That means the Slovak Republic has one and we don’t. Turkey has one and we don’t. The most free market oriented country around, the United States has one and Canada doesn’t.

Without a National Federal-Provincial Transit Strategy, there is little hope of securing stable, long term funding for big ticket transit initiatives. What that leaves us with is the present ad hoc, most politically expedient mish mash of projects that get money (or don’t) depending on whim, the weather or some other inconsequential intangible. That’s not a strategy and leads inexorably to the traffic and transit chaos we now have making our lives miserable.

Now wait, wait, I hear you saying. A National Federal-Provincial Transit Strategy? So what’s that got to do with our mayoral race? Mayor means municipal, right?

Yes it does. What a National Federal-Provincial Transit Strategy means in terms of the ongoing mayoral race is that candidates running for the office must stop talking about the city going “hat in hand” or “begging” the province for the proper transit funding. “Getting our fiscal house in order” has nothing to do with the province (or Ottawa ultimately) doing its part — no, duty — when it comes to transit. Conflating those two ideas is disingenuous and entirely beside the point.

Demanding that the provincial and federal levels of government participate fully and equally in the development of a city and region wide transit plan and financing is neither begging nor going hat in hand. As the TCSA report shows again and again, this city and greater region cannot address issues of congestion, traffic induced pollution and transit coordination without the province and feds sitting down at the table not on their wallets. Pretending otherwise is simply pandering and short-sighted.

So what’s a would-be mayor to do about recalcitrant senior levels of government?

First, speak truth to power. Stop enabling our Prime Ministers, Premiers, M.P.s, M.P.P.s to walk away from the issue of transit. They are the laggards on this not us, and have been for decades now. We have not dropped the ball, so shouldn’t be apologizing and acting all Oliver Twist-y, asking for please sir, more. It is not begging to demand every level of government own up to its responsibilities. Mr. Rossi? There was a deal in place with Transit City. All the ducks were in order, the i’s dotted and t’s crossed. Guess who reneged and pulled a cool 4 bil from the table? The province. Guess why. Their fiscal house wasn’t in order.

Secondly, stop coming up with magical, unrealistic ways that you’re going to build all those subways we apparently want. Selling Toronto Hydro? A fraction of what is needed. And if it were so easy to get the private sector on board to build and/or operate our transit, don’t you think they’d already be at it? We’ll just sell the air rights over new subway statio—zzzzzzzzz.

Try this one on instead, Rob Ford:

As mentioned in Section 2.4, the reliable, long-term revenue streams from such funding sources will make it possible to issue bonds for the up-front investment capital needed…using the revenue streams to make interest payments and repay the borrowed capital over the lifetime of the new rapid transit facilities. Such debt financing not only expedites the construction schedule but also enables the private sector [bolding ours] to participate – along with the public sector – in raising capital. This, in turn, makes it possible to spread the financing risk between the public and private sectors [again, us] and harness more fully the productive capability of the latter public/private partnerships (PPP) [and again] and alternative funding and procurement (AFP) arrangements.

There is no single, silver bullet solution to restoring our transit system back to a working state. According to the TCSA report, “… it seems clear that more than one of the potential [funding] sources will be required – no single source would be sufficient.” In other words, it’s going to be complicated. Not only that, but the TCSA suggested funding sources consist of either tolls, taxes and/or levies. Ouch! That’s going to be hard to gibe with your slashing, burning, union busting and general all-round anti-tax platforms now, isn’t it. Finding efficiencies will not build this city a better transit system.

Near the conclusion of its report the TCSA states that, The local governments in the GTHA have not always been up to the task of engaging residents in a constructive and open dialogue. Take heed, all those vying to be the next mayor of Toronto. If you can’t engage the voters “in a constructive and open dialogue” about transit on the campaign trail, it will inevitably lead to future disappointment and disillusionment once you assume office. Be honest and forthright about your goals and intentions. Start by reading this document and coming to terms with the reality of our transit situation. There are no easy solutions. Stop pretending there are.

— badgeringly submitted by Cityslikr