All Fried Up In The Big Smoke

Less political. More fictional.

Well NOW

Posted on June 5, 2014 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

This morning, a week before the provincial election, Editor/Publisher Michael Hollett of NOW magazine – the downtown leftist elitists’ weekly of choice – issued a broadside against the looming menace facing Ontario voters. Downtown NDP elitists.

I’m sorry. What?

In a gung-ho, rooting’ tootin’, down and dirty, rough and tumble burst of Toronto Sun-like prose, Hollett screamed and hollered at the nerve of the “Gang of 34” who had the temerity during this election campaign to question the direction the NDP was taking. “Preachy and patronizing.” “Party poobahs.” “Brita-filtered progressive purity.” “Curmudgeonly critics.” All having a champagne soaked hissy fit [that one’s mine] and stamping their Fluevog clad feet [mine too] about the “Steeltown Scrapper who “doesn’t want moral victories” but “a win that is moral.”

“Don’t be hustled into believing a little scruff and a little tough from a Steeltown tornado can’t take it all,” Hollett concludes, summoning his best H.L. Mencken stylings.

Yeah, yeah. We get it, Michael. You and Andrea love and are part of the rabble hoi polloi we downtown elitists have lost touch with. We don’t understand the value of a buck. “Pocketbook issues”? The only issue I have with my pocket is does it fit my fob watch.

You know what, Michael? Fuck you.

Given 3 opportunities to vote for the Dalton McGuinty-Kathleen Wynne Liberals, I never have. In 2003 and again in 2007, I voted NDP. Last time out, I was already feeling something of a disconnect with the party and eventually ended up voting Green. I’m leaning that way again.

Truth be told, I held out some hope that when Kathleen Wynne became premier and slipped out from under the yoke of the rightist McGuinty crowd, the party would come back to a comfortable spot on the left-centre side of the spectrum. That may still hold true. I could also be woefully misguided. It doesn’t matter to me now because when John Lorinc and Spacing detailed this Liberal government’s full-on politicization of the transit file, my brief flirtation with the Liberals ended.

Since the Common Sense Revolution yanked Ontario to the far right beginning in 1995, there have been wide open spaces on the left. The Liberals’ incremental nudges back to the centre didn’t really close the gap significantly. It was too attached to the prevailing neoliberal economic principles to do much else.

During much of that time, the NDP was exiled into the wilderness, the bad taste of the Rae government lingering for many Ontarians. Inexplicably, it seems in hindsight, given the destruction wrought on the province subsequently. Still, for more than a decade, politics in this province was little more than being slightly less conservative than the Progressive Conservatives.

Then came the economic meltdown of 2008 brought about by the unrestrained pursuit of wealth in an unchecked free market. Combined with the hollowing of Ontario’s manufacturing base as a result of another neoliberal concept, free trade, it seemed the time was ripe for a political comeback of left wing politics. The worst downturn since the Great Depression. Let’s get all Keynesian, baby. A new New Deal anybody?

I’m not hearing too much FDR from the NDP these days. This afternoon on Ontario Today, Andrea Horwath tossed out props to Tommy Douglas. I’m just not getting that vibe from her.

Yes, yes, yes. I know those olde tyme lefties were meticulous with their budgets. That good ol’ prairie populism was equal parts generosity, fairness and bottom line-y. And yes, we have witnessed a shockingly deplorable profligacy of public money by the ruling Liberals. Of course, it’s time for a change.

But the NDP have tapped into a vein of black magic on this with their re-purposing of the populist rhetoric of Rob Ford. Their ‘respect’. Their ‘common sense’. It feeds into the sense of the problems we face in this province are all somebody else’s fault. Rather than use the opportunity to revive the idea of a common good and smash the concept of taxes being evil, the NDP, like Rob Ford and every other right wing populist out there, have taken to assuring everyone that putting the pieces back together will be a cinch. Put an end to scandals and private-public partnerships. Raise taxes on a few people (not you). Reduce bloat in the ranks of government and the cost of energy consumption.

Bing, bang, boom. All is right. And you didn’t feel a thing, did you.

It’s complete fiction. There’s no easy way out of this mess we’re in currently. Our economy remains anemic. Our infrastructure is wobbly. The price of an education is sky high. The state of social housing in this province is shameful.

This has happened because too many of us, not just the well-to-do and corporations, have operated under the premise that investment in the public realm comes cheap and/or somebody else does it for us. By taking on the mantle of looking out for the little guy and respecting tax dollars, Andrea Horwath and the NDP continue to fuel that illusion. At least Tim Hudak is being honest when he tells us there are tough choices to be made. His are monstrous, for sure, but he’s not lying about that. The NDP have simply swept tough choices under the rug.

I don’t know about Michael Hollett but that doesn’t strike me as any sort of moral victory.

— snobbily submitted by Cityslikr

Committed To Talking About Transit

Posted on March 17, 2014 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

What can we do in the face of an overwhelming lack of leadership?

I was thinking that, listening to Premier Kathleen Wynne explain to Matt Galloway on Metro Morning today why she’d announced pulling some possible revenue tools last week to help fund transit building. You could actually hear the political calculus at work. Or maybe it was the sound of transit planning coming to a grinding halt.

No one doubts the premier is in something of a bind here. You could make the argument she’s looking down the wrong end of history’s barrel, with twenty years of anti-tax and small government sensibilities having taken solid root in the political soil, dating back to the rise of the Reform Party in the early 90s. The Chretien/Martin deficit cutting and downloading frenzy. Mike Harris. Mel Lastman. Stephen Harper. Rob Ford.

Taxation not even seen as a necessary evil but simply evil.

Of course, her own party’s recklessness with public funds doesn’t help her cause any. We all know the names by heart. Ehealth. Ornge. Gas plants. It’s a bit tough at this point for Premier Wynne to step up and ask for more money from Ontario’s residents. Trust us. We’ll spend it all very, very wisely.

And the politicking doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The opposition parties at Queen’s Park have constructed their own anti-reality bubbles in terms of revenue sources to dedicate to transit. Everybody’s got some magic beans they’re shilling, ways to get the transit needed at a cost that will come from almost nobody’s pockets. Don’t worry, folks. This won’t hurt a bit.

My guess is, as we head into the provincial budget process, the government has just handed concessions over to the NDP by vowing not to increase the gas tax, the HST or income tax on middle-class families in order to fund the Big Move. Your move now, Andrew Horwath. What does your party suggest? Using exact figures, if you don’t mind.

Who’s going to step forward first and sign their name to a tax increase or new user fee?

Because everybody knows this can’t continue. Public transit in the GTHA has to be built. That fact, at least, cuts across political lines. Only the supremely delusional Tim Hudak-led Tories are insisting it can be done without raising more revenue.

Yet, here we are, gridlocked and deadlocked.

The Liberal government has been provided with plenty of cover to take the important next step in this debate. From the non-politically realigned Metrolinx and the premier’s very own appointed Transit Investment Strategy Advisory Panel, to organization as disparate as the Toronto Region Board of Trade, CivicAction Alliance, the Pembina Institute, right down to grassroots groups like Code Red TO, all have talked up revenue tools. The pump has been primed, the ground broken.

Yet, here we are, gridlocked and deadlocked. Still.

The ugly truth about this, unfortunately, is that the well being of the party takes precedence over the strength of the idea. We’ve all been told that if party X runs with this and takes a beating in the election because of it, well, we’re right back to square one or so. The fate of transit in the GTHA hinges on the party that best touts the least amount of pain necessary to voters in order to build it.

No one’s gutsy or astute enough (both integral components of actual leadership) to step forward and challenge the conventional wisdom that voters summarily oppose taxation and are unwilling to pay more for improved service. Instead it’s just more nibbling around the edges, reframing the debate in the exact same dimensions we’ve heard for the past 20 years. Empty, empty pledges of new stuff free of charge. Promises to deliver the undeliverable.

All of which serves only to make us more cynical, more apathetic and less likely to take anything any of our politicians say seriously. Who wants to go to bat for somebody ducking from the first inside pitch they face? Why waste your time and effort?

At this point, there can be little doubt that the 3 parties representing us at Queen’s Park have failed miserably at displaying anything close to resembling leadership on the transit file. Each have wilfully disregarded the hard work and dedication put in by groups and individuals, fighting to ensure that we have a robust debate and positive outcome in dealing with an issue that threatens nothing short of our well-being and way of life in this region. We’ve been abandoned by our elected leaders.

If our provincial politicians are unwilling to provide the appropriate leadership for us, we really should start talking about why we continue to finance them and subject ourselves to their inaction and indecisiveness.

— dim viewly submitted by Cityslikr

No, You First

Posted on March 14, 2014 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

(A heads up: this one’s going to be particularly swear-y. Those with delicate sensibilities may want to take a pass.)

I’m trying to re-jig that old axiom.

We get the politicians the strategists, consultants and pollsters they pay give us.

Yesterday, Premier Kathleen Wynne bravely stood down in the face of opposition intransigence toward new taxes to fund regional transit in the GTA, waving the white flag of political opportunism. After two reports came back, one from the provincial transit body, Metolinx, and another from the premier’s own appointed Transit Investment Strategy Advisory Panel, recommending ways to pay for the ambitious (on paper) Big Move, Premier Wynne brushed aside two of the more substantive suggestions, the gas tax and HST.

“We are taking those potential revenue tools off the table,” she told the press. But “make no mistake”, she’s going to get this shit built. She’s just not going to tell anybody how yet.

Well, Premier Wynne, join the party. Behind every other fucking politician who cavalierly promises to tackle the pressing issue of transit in the region but deftly avoids the conversation about how exactly to pay for it. This is the line for the magic beans, right?

This is political brinksmanship at its most loathsome. Mutual assured do-nothingness. Both opposition parties at Queen’s Park have dug into their trenches and refused to so much as engage, really only popping their heads up to take the odd pot shot at the government.

The Tories have moved beyond the realm of reprehensible, promising the most expensive option of transit, the subway, with the least likely way to pay for it, finding efficiencies. They might as well just admit that they couldn’t give a flying fuck about public transit. The only reason they really addressed the issue was in order to look busy writing up white papers.

And the NDP? My political home? They’ve carved out some fucking bullshit form of populism that is trying to convince us that this can all be done through corporate taxes and a higher income tax on some miles wide interpretation of the middle class. It’s the flip side of the Conservative’s we can do all this and you won’t feel it a bit mantra.

This seems to be the avenue the government has left open to themselves. They haven’t ruled out more in corporate taxes or from high income earners. Don’t worry, people. Other people will pay for all this.

Now look, I have absolutely no problem with a renewed interest in harkening back to the olden days of using a truly progressive form of taxation via income to start addressing our social needs. It’s decades overdue. But why would I believe our politicians are prepared to have that discussion when merely saying the word ‘tax’ makes them blanch and wet themselves?

When one of these parties actually steps forward and stops referring to the middle-class as everybody who makes less than $500k/year, maybe I’ll start to think they’re serious. It’s been a long time since many of us, corporations, individuals, families, have being what we should be paying. It’s why we’re in the transit-infrastructure mess we find ourselves. We all believe somebody else should be paying for it.

But this is a game of who’s going to blink first. Nobody’s willing to take the lead on this for fear of everybody else screeching and pointing their fingers at them. Look! Tax-and-spenders!! Burn them!!!

The situation is so abysmally preposterous that also yesterday, the big name left wing, NDP flavoured candidate for mayor, Olivia Chow, would only commit to property tax increases at the rate of inflation. That’s great, Olivia. That’ll maintain services at the current level. What about all the other stuff you’re going to pledge to do?

When Chow didn’t enthusiastically jump on board the DRL express, the subway build everyone has acknowledged is a priority to relieve pressure from the current lines, citing cost concerns, she was immediately jumped all over by some of the other candidates, led by the John Tory team. Hey, tax-and-spender! Why aren’t you promising to tax-and-spend some?

Now, follow me on this.

On its staff, the John Tory campaign has one Nick Kouvalis. You may remember Mr. Kouvalis from other mayoral campaigns like 2010’s Rob Ford. If you recall, there’s was much talk then of stopping a gravy train and the city government having a spending problem not a revenue problem.

Even this iteration, Kouvalis 2.0, Tory has pledged to keep taxes low. Yet building an expensive subway is priority #1. How? Not to worry. Somebody else will pay for it. You won’t feel a thing.

“The only way you’re going to break this vicious cycle of waiting for public opinion that won’t come,” the Toronto Region Board of Trade’s Carol Wilding told Matt Galloway today on Metro Morning, “is to insert leadership.”

Setting aside for the time being the TRBoT’s own contribution to anti-tax fever back in 2010, Ms. Wilding isn’t off the mark. We’ve stopped demanding leadership from our politicians, letting them off the hook, content only to hear them tell us what we want to hear. Yes, things aren’t perfect. Yes, there are ways we can start fixing them. No, you don’t have to do a thing about, though. Carry on. Somebody else will sort it out.

The phrase for that is probably left as is, only slightly modified.

We get the politicians we deserve.

— spitting nailsly submitted by Cityslikr