Tag Archives: Amalgamation

Vast Wasteland Between The Ears

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Councillor Adam Vaughan goofed up.

In a heated exchange with his council colleague, Doug Ford, during yesterday’s 2012 budget committee meeting, Vaughan referred to Councillor Ford’s Ward 2 as ‘an industrial park’. A little while later, Vaughan clarified that what he’d meant to say was Ward 2 was full of industrial parks and not as populated as many downtown wards. He apologized to those he offended.

But there it was on the morning news, highlighting Toronto’s brittle downtown-suburban divide. Smart alecky, champagne sipping elitist mocking the misunderstood, put upon hardworking, ordinary Joes of Etobicoke. The very broomstick Rob Ford rode into the mayor’s office on.

Now, those of us represented by the likes of Councillor Vaughan and his ilk are patiently awaiting our apology from Councillor Ford.

See, what started the Vaughan-Ford spat was the groundless diatribe Ford launched into about the seeming unfairness of wading pool allocation throughout Toronto. Some downtown wards had more than their share, according to Councillor Ford, proving his belief that suburban tax money had been flowing downtown over the course of the Miller years, building cushy wading pools, community centres, libraries etc., etc., while the suburbs got nothing in return. Zilch. Nada. Zip.

You can shout that from the rooftops as often and loud as you want, councillor, but it doesn’t make it true. As usual, the mayor’s brother was just concocting shit as he spoke, providing no evidence of this allegation and impugning downtowners’ reputations as he went. The rookie councillor may actually believe it himself and misses no opportunity to try and convince others that we more urban types want our socialist programs and nice to haves but don’t want to foot the bill from them. Suburbanites as our sugar daddies. Makes a great story and plays perfectly into the right wing love of their own victimhood.

Some have tried to actually back up this claim with facts and data including Scarborough councillor, Norm Kelly back in 2007. We’ve written about this before (here and here, for example) and yesterday John McGrath dug up the pre-election Toronto Star story about it complete with an easy to read graph. Turns out, things aren’t really that simple. It’s almost a wash, one might say. With residents in different parts of the amalgamated city receiving different amounts of city funding depending on the category. Yes, the former municipalities of Toronto and East York receive more for their libraries than Etobicoke/York, North York and Scarborough while those living in Etobicoke and North York get more money per capita on parks and recreation than elsewhere in the city.

The only conclusion one might come to reading through those stats is that Scarborough seems to be consistently on the short end of the stick of things and residents have plenty of reason to be unhappy or angry. Too bad the mayor they helped elect is doing little to right those wrongs. Any Scarborough councillor supporting Mayor Ford’s agenda should be held accountable for that fact.

What the wading pool battle represents isn’t anything to do with post-amalgamation unfairness or inequality. It’s about urban geography and competing pre-existing political philosophies toward governance. Our ongoing cramming of a round peg into a square whole that is the megacity of Toronto.

As visiting councillors pointed out to Councillor Ford during the brouhaha was that none of the wading pools in the inner core of the old city of Toronto and East York were built during the Miller years. They are a legacy of pre-amalgamation. Owing to various factors, some of which included density, income disparity and a basic consensus to use the tax base to build community infrastructure like wading pools and libraries.

It’s hardly surprising that when Councillor Vaughan lashed out at Ford, he invoked an industrial park. As John McGrath also pointed out yesterday — I really should be paying him for providing me with so much research. A Stiegl, it is. Maybe 2. — during his summer set-to with novelist Margaret Atwood, Councillor Ford noted he had a library in an industrial part of his ward that no one used. He expressed little compunction in shutting it down if it came to it. ‘In a heartbeat’, in fact.

That epitomizes the approach to governing that many in the outer suburbs bring to the table. Low taxes, the very basic of services and anything beyond that, the nice to haves, paid for by user fees. An emphasis on the individual over community, in part perhaps determined by a preponderance of single family homes and reliance on personal vehicles as the choice of transit.

It’s a political view I categorically disagree with but not one I just summarily dismiss. We’re locked in an ideological battle to be sure. I just wish Councillor Ford and his ilk would be honest and upfront about that. Come right out and say it instead of manufacturing scenarios based on conjecture, innuendo and flat out falsehoods, poisoning the possibility of having any meaningful discussion.

So, I’m here, waiting. You know how to contact me, Councillor Ford. It’s your turn to apologize.

— demandingly submitted by Cityslikr

Never A Dull Moment

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Heads up all you Toronto city council watchers. If you want to witness exactly how the Mayor Ford administration dysfunctionally functions, there’s no better place to start than spending a few hours with the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee. There’s intrigue and machinations aplenty. Dastardly double-dealing. Oozing personal antipathy.

And in the end? Invariably a little more of the city has been chopped up or sold off for an ever so slight relief of our budgetary woes. All this and no cover charge to boot.

Yesterday’s gathering could’ve been so very different. There was actually serious consensus brewing, and between two committee members who couldn’t really be much further apart on the political spectrum without needing spyglasses to recognize on another. Councillor David Shiner, committee vice chair and bona fide, shark hating right winger. Last spring, if you recall, he used the committee to bring to a screeching halt the proposed Fort York bridge, citing cost overruns and it being unnecessarily ‘fancy’. This came at the expense and to the surprise of the councillor for the ward the bridge was to built in, Mike Layton, left leaning and most definitely not a member of Team Ford.

Despite this history and such stark ideological differences, these two councillors seemed to have patched things up and worked out a compromise that would see a bridge built not dissimilar to the previous one but at less cost and, more importantly, slightly smaller that opened up more land nearby to be developed. That’s an important point to keep track off as it’ll come back as part of the fitting coda of this story. That just seems to be how the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee rolls.

Now, it’s hard to see what exactly Councillor Shiner representing the administration gave up here to reach an accord on the bridge. There was no disputing the fact that one was needed for the area. The only real nod to the previous design was to ape its appearance. Everything else met Councillor Shiner’s demands: cheaper, shorter and more to city owned property to sell. Even the timeline which would not get the bridge built in time for the War of 1812 bicentennial celebrations at Fort York was just fine and dandy with him. Hard to use the word ‘compromise’ with such an agreement. Sure you can have a bridge but only to my specifications.

It’s not like the councillor went out of his way elsewhere during the meeting to extend a hand to his colleague. Shiner led the charge to defeat an item Layton put forth to exclude bikes from a bylaw restricting chaining or locking items to city property for any length of time. It was the kind of thing that might be OK downtown, Councillor Shiner suggested, but wouldn’t work in his suburban ward. A chaotic scene of bikes locked to fences and bus shelters outside the Finch subway station. And we wonder why bylaw harmonization still hasn’t happened in this post-amalgamation era.

On top of which, Councillor Shiner insisted on pushing through an item that will really only serve to harass the homeless living on our streets; a situation less endemic in his ward than it would be in Councillor Layton’s ward. Is the situation so hunky dory up in Willowdale, no problems there to solve, that councillors like David Shiner have ample time to muck about in other wards, emptily pontificating on things they have only a passing knowledge or interest in? If I understood the councillor correctly, people have no right to sleep on sidewalks if he doesn’t have the right to park his car on them. (The sidewalks, that is. Not the homeless. I think.) Yeah. It was that idiotic of a discussion.

Still, Councillors Shiner and Layton overcame their differences and put forward a motion that would see a Fort York bridge built.

And then, enter the sandman, PWI Committee Chair Denzil Minnan-Wong.

Seemingly not content with what would appear to everyone else to be a victory for his side, the councillor slithered in a two part motion that would, one, direct section 37 development fees to the building of the bridge and two, specifically targeted a property, 53 Strachan to be exact, to be used as ‘leverage’ to get the ball rolling on development in the area.

Whoa, whoa, whoa went up the cry. Where did this come from, asks Councillor Layton. Even Councillor Shiner seemed surprised by the surprise move, immediately jumping in to broker some kind of deal between his chair and Councillor Layton.

Once more, at yet another Public Works and Infrastructure Committee meeting, a non-Ford compliant councillor gets blindsided by a proposal to push and/or kill a project in their ward. No prior consultation. No attempt to involve the local representative. Nothing more than a deliberate poke in the eye. Take that, consensus.

In the ensuing brouhaha, it’s revealed that among other things at 53 Strachan there’s a youth shelter and a community garden. Councillor Minnan-Wong didn’t appear to know that but might have had he spoken first to Councillor Layton. Why he didn’t, only Councillor Minnan-Wong would know but from the back-and-forth between the two, it seems the committee chair felt Layton had gone public after an earlier meeting between them about getting the Fort Bridge motion onto the committee agenda…

Or some such petty, spiteful bullshit like that. Committee member Councillor Gord Perks suggested it was just simply another example of proving who was the boss of the committee. Marking his territory.

Not that it ultimately mattered, as the chair’s item was soundly defeated by the committee. But it managed to cast a pall on what could be considered a minor step forward out from the partisan pissing match that now passes for debate and discussion at City Hall these days. It’s almost as if the more ardent members of Team Ford are allergic to anything that smacks of compromise or cooperation. Concession and negotiation are dirty words. They have the upper hand now so giving in on anything, admitting to any sort of negotiated settlement, is a sign of weakness.

Even in the building of a bridge, they are incapable of anything other than crass politics.

— submitted by Cityslikr

Ford Nation Notion

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The good news, after reading Trish Hennessy’s post over at Framed In Canada, Mythology: Ford Nation, one year later, is that the great urban-suburban, car-bike, conservative-progressive divide that we all presumed existed may be overblown, misunderstood and little more than a scary figment of our collective imagination. Hoo-rah! The bad news? Well, there may be a division much more pernicious and tough to bridge.

Looking on the bright side first, let’s just set aside all that talk about de-amalgamation, shall we? It’s unhelpful, pretty much unrealistic and quite possibly detrimental to our future well being as a city and region. Rather than a Ford Nation, we all are a Leafs Nation, united in quiet pride at almost getting it right and fumbling with what was once a great franchise. Here’s to being in constant rebuilding mode.

“As regionally divisive as the election of Rob Ford might appear,” Ms. Hennessy writes, “most of the Ford voters we listened to identified as being Torontonian first. Most have either lived in different parts of the city or have to cross the city for work and they feel some responsibility for Toronto as a whole.

Rather than wanting to see their city fall into decline, these Ford voters expressed a hope and vision for the city that is positive, united, safe, clean, green, diverse, welcoming, vibrant and easier to get around in. Some even dream of having more bike lanes, as long as they’re safe for both cyclists and drivers.

They want a city that works together, for a common purpose.

They still believe in the value of public services, and many want better public services – especially when it comes to public transit, which is becoming a symbol of a city in need of a fix.”

That those wanting all of that for the city saw in candidate Rob Ford someone who’d deliver such things is, for those of us who didn’t, the crux of the mystery. Green? Diverse? Welcoming? Where did they see that in Ford’s campaign? Wasn’t he the one who said Toronto couldn’t afford any more people? And Mr. War On The Car green?

It’s almost as if we were talking about two completely different candidates for mayor. Those of us seeing Rob Ford as a destructive force for this city and those who, to again quote Trish Hennessy, “…believed he was willing to fight the establishment on behalf of the people…He [Ford] made them feel hopeful that positive change was coming; that he was going to punch a hole into the bubble of the elites.” How was such a gaping cavernous dichotomy of opinion possible?

Bringing us to the bad news I took away from the post. I read and reread it a few times and nowhere did I see the Ford voting participants in the Environics focus group talk about taxes outside of “…a simmering sense that they have been paying more taxes and user fees while getting less or worse public service in return.” Ford’s Gravy Train “…was considered a symbol for city finances in need of restraint, for people at the top of the city hall food chain abusing power – the ones they read about in the newspaper [italics ours]…” All those fat cats, Rob Ford railed against. “In terms of job cuts, their expectation is that Ford would go after the people ‘at the top’ of the scale.”

What I didn’t find in Ms. Hennessy’s post was any talk of if there was no gravy or not anywhere near the amount candidate Ford claimed he could find — like say 10%, in each and every city department — would they be willing to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, the ‘simmering sense’ they felt about paying more taxes and user fees ‘while getting less or worse public service in return’ was unfounded? “While participants support the notion of some service and job cuts to balance the budget, they raised several points that indicate most won’t support across-the-board massive cuts.” So would these Ford supporters pay more to avoid ‘across-the-board massive cuts’? If so, how much more? A 30% property tax increase the mayor and his strict adherents are now throwing around?

I don’t know if such a question was asked of this small Ford voting cohort by Environics. How much are the services that they believed the public relies on worth to them? The same? More?

That, I think, is the fundamental divide we’re facing right now. Between those believing we’re paying more or just the right amount for the services we want and demand from the city and those who aren’t as convinced that’s the case. We in the latter camp never, the 53% of Torontonians not casting their ballot for Rob Ford last year, never “… believed Rob Ford when he said he could cut government waste without affecting city services.” Nearly a year later we see the proof of that conviction in the pudding. The KPMG core services review backed that up. The mayor’s slash-and-burn proposals provides further evidence that the city, despite some of the instances of wasteful spending and other seeming excesses that are regularly trotted out as examples of profligacy, is delivering services at very reasonable rates. Perfect? No one ever claimed that. Value for money? Overall, it’s looking more and more like it.

In her post, Ms. Hennessy uses turns of phrases like ‘whether the facts add up or not’ or ‘when in reality’. About cancelling the Vehicle Registration Tax, she suggests “Few [of the focus group participants] associate the cost of that tax cut with the city’s budget woes today.” It suggests a disturbing gap between belief and reality. Even now, a year into Rob Ford’s mayoralty, some of those who voted for him are holding on to the notion that we can have all the amenities our city offers without paying the price necessary to maintain them. They seem to think there’s an easy fix that doesn’t involve having to pay more.

To my mind, that’s the gap needing to be filled. Rob Ford promised gain without pain, a shift of blame from our unrealistic expectations onto manufactured bogeymen who either weren’t real or weren’t sticking it to the honest, hardworking taxpayers to the degree he claimed. Ford voters were duped which is a hard pill to swallow and not a constructive point of departure in reaching out in going forward from here.

The question is, how do we bridge such a chasm of perspective?

— wonderingly submitted by Cityslikr