All Fried Up In The Big Smoke

Less political. More fictional.

Stilled Life With Rot

Posted on April 22, 2015 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

As we have said more than a few times here in these bytes since last fall’s municipal election, the make-up of city council barely budged from the previous term. I’d use the word ‘glacial’ except in these days it has taken on an entirely different meaning from its traditional usage, the polar opposite in fact. No, wait. Polar? Does that still mean what I think it means?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

In 2014, Toronto city council got whiter, more male, lurched even further into paleoconservative territory. What change there was cannot be considered a change for the better. How can you further entrench an already firmly entrenched status quo?

Judging from the proceedings of yesterday’s Municipal Licensing and Standards Committee whatever reforms (and I’ll use that word loosely) were made last term at City Hall seemed to be under immediate attack of un-reform. Dereform? Change! Change! Chase that change from these chambers! Out, out, damned change.

I have no strong opinions about the taxi industry in this city. Taxis play a very, very tiny role in how I get around, a mobility device of last resort. My main interaction with them centres around being cut off while I’m riding in a bike lane. I’ve no idea if they’re too expensive or deliver terrible service. When I think of cabs, I don’t, really. I seldom think of cabs.

The rules by which the city regulates them strike me as byzantine at best, misshapen by special interests at worst. Back in 2013, Metro’s Jennifer Cross Smith laid out the state of the industry (h/t Glyn Bowerman). A state the Municipal Standards and Licensing Committee pushed to reform last year. A state the Municipal Standards and Licensing Committee is now attempting to revert back to after yesterday’s vote.

Why?

I don’t care. Although I should because at first glance it appears the powerful players in the industry, fighting back last year’s reforms, won the day, to “revive a two-tier model for taxis,” according to Jennifer Pagliaro of the Toronto Star. Big players represented by this thing called the Toronto Taxi Alliance challenged last year’s reforms in court, were rebuffed, so have taken another run at it through city council, successfully for now it seems. Money well spent, you might argue, donating to the likes of Councillor Jim Karygiannis’ city council campaign last year who raised about a tenth of his total donations from the taxi industry, and has proven to be a dogged champion for the industry in fighting the taxi reforms and the Uber infestation.

More eye-rollingly, the Municipal Licensing and Standards chair, Councillor Cesar Palacio, also a beneficiary of the taxi industry’s largesse, is now overseeing the attempted dismantling of the reforms that happened while he was also chair of the exact same committee last term. In effect, his committee is seeking to repeal the reforms of his committee. If that’s not a potent symbol of impotency of city council, I don’t know what is.

Never mind that the committee also revived the food truck issue and came up with a 20 metre compromise. (Yeah, don’t even bother.) The fact that this is even a thing, remains a thing, a regular thing, a constant fucking reminder of our city council’s ongoing and perpetual war against change shows why on the big ticket items, housing, transit, police reform, this city stands in petrified stillness, unable to face the future because it can’t let go of the past. But…But…We used to know how to run a city.

In my lighter moments, I like to think when voters in 2010 rallied around Rob Ford, they were clamoring for change. Remember, there was also nearly a one-third turnover of city councillors then too. When it became glaringly obvious that Ford didn’t represent change as much as wanton destruction and outright contempt for public service, we retreated to what we perceived as a safe harbour. Dignity. Respectfulness. Diligence and duty.

Above all, we voted to get this city moving again. Moving to a standstill, as it turns out. Running on the spot, avoiding anything that resembles anything close to substantive change.

In its current make-up, City Hall is where change goes to die. In its defiant embrace of the status quo, progress is impossible. The well-connected and well-served by the way things are, they way things are done, they way things have always been done, will continue to be heard. The rest of us? Well, we’re just going to have to figure out a way to work around the deadwood that continues to prop up the pretense of local, forward-thinking governance.

— fed-uply submitted by Cityslikr

There’s Really Nothing Up His Sleeve

Posted on January 21, 2015 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

Yesterday’s 2015 budget launch left me feeling a little discombobulated. That sense you get after watching a magician try and pull the wool over your eyes for a couple hours. Flim-flammed, bamboozled even.

It was different than the budgetary voodoo Rob Ford attempted while he was mayor. Trust me, folks. This won’t hurt a bit. Those aren’t service cuts. We call them ‘adjustments’.

No. Mayor John Tory’s first kick at the can was all about, what did he repeatedly call it? “The largest investment in service improvements in recent history.”

And credit where credit’s due.

Both public transit and Shelter, Support and Housing (or, at least, shelter and support) received nice bumps in spending, the TTC especially so. It will see service restored to 2010 levels. “Stabilizing of transit,” City Manager Joe Pennachetti called it. A step forward in order to be running on the spot.

In total, it’s about a $1.8 billion increase in spending from last year’s operating budget, leaving some to call it ‘left-leaning’.

But here’s the thing. It’s not immediately obvious where the money is coming from to pay for that spending. In order to balance the operating side of the budget (which, I’ll remind everyone again, it is provincially mandated for municipalities to balance their operating budgets), the city has to come up with the revenue to the penny. $11.4 billion spent. $11.4 billion must be found in revenue.

This staff recommended budget proposes a below-the-rate-of-inflation property tax increase. So it doesn’t cover the inflation-adjusted cost of the delivering of services and programs. That means, in effect, a reduction in the money available for those services and programs. (Here, let Councillor Gord Perks explain it for you. Or Neville Park. Or Alex Mazer.)

Not to mention Mayor Tory’s directive to departments to find 2% efficiencies and city staff’s demand that department’s also ‘absorb the inflation’. This, despite the fact, that the city manager, as he was heading for the exit last spring before mayor-elect John Tory convinced him to stay for one more budget cycle a few months later, told us there was no more gravy to be found, no more fat to be trimmed. Apparently, retirement wasn’t the only thing Mr. Pennachetti reconsidered.

It’s a little of the ol’ robbing Peter to pay Paul. You want improved transit and more shelter space? Well somebody’s got to pay for it, and don’t expect it to be property owners. The pie got bigger but the slices became a little more uneven.

While the budget was a little tax-shy, let’s call it, it certainly embraced user fees. There’s an increase of $14 million in unidentified ones in the document right now. Plus, a good chunk of the TTC improvements this year will be covered by the proposed fare increase, one campaign pledge Mayor Tory seemed comfortable breaking.

On the other hand, drivers are getting the Gardiner Expressway repaired 8 years earlier than scheduled to the tune of nearly half a billion dollars in the capital budget with nary a word about having to chip in a little more to cover the costs. The roughly $60 million the Vehicle Registration Tax once brought into city coffers multiplied by those 8 years would’ve more than covered those costs. Apparently some users are more preferred than others, even in John Tory’s Toronto.

A couple glaring holes still stand between the city and a truly balanced budget. There’s the $86 million one, created when the province decided to end the practice of pooling payments to Toronto to help pay for many mandated social services. Not to worry, the city’s Chief Financial Officer, Robert Rossini, excitedly told us yesterday, a big announcement was coming, talks had been very productive with the province about settling that amount. Everything’s under control.

Turns out, the big announcement seems to be a $200 million line of credit extended to the city from Queen’s Park, including market rate interest charges. Or what some of us might consider a deferred tax increase or user fee. Line up that can so we can kick it down the road a bit.

The other shoe dangling there, waiting to drop is the police budget. While the staff recommending a flatlining of it — I know, I know. That kind of thing always happens. And by always, I mean almost never – the city and the Toronto Police Services are currently negotiating a new collective agreement which almost always results in pay increases for the police. Budget Chair Gary Crawford assures us that money has been set aside for that contingency. How much? He won’t say. (Why would he as it might tip the city’s hand in terms of the ongoing negotiations.)

But as Ben Spurr pointed out in NOW, over the past 10 years, the police budget has gone up some $241 million. So it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect at least a $20-$30 million bump this year. But again, don’t worry. Everything’s under control. Even after the $86 million, there’s still over $100 million on that line of credit from the province.

Look. It’s not a terrible, terrible budget. Even Councillor Gord Perks says so. There is a big investment in vital needs of the city. But Mayor Tory is still trying to pretend these things can happen magically, without having to say the word ‘taxes’ above a whisper. He’s putting a glossy patina on the Rob Ford maxim of governance. Sure you can have things. And we can get somebody else to pay for them.

It’s fundamentally dishonest and only serves to put off the inevitable, leaving the mess for somebody else to clean up.

— unmesmerizedly submitted by Cityslikr

Hudakery: Not A New Cocktail

Posted on June 3, 2014 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

Leading up to tonight’s provincial election debate, Progressive Conservative and Opposition leader Tim Hudak laid bare his (and presumably his party’s) approach to governing and government in an interview with Metro newspapers. And it ain’t pretty, folks. In fact, I’d call it completely and utterly devoid of substance, intelligence and imagination.

Oh yeah. Let’s not overlook a fundamental lack of understanding of how exactly our democratic society operates.

“Look, why do we pay taxes in the first place?” Hudak told interviewer Jessica Smith Cross. “We pay taxes because we’re generous Ontarians and we want to make sure it helps the most vulnerable populations. People who may be sick, people with disabilities, seniors.”

Taxation as a charitable donation.

Look, my heart bleeds for the unfortunates in our society. The sick. The disabled. The elderly. What taxpayer wouldn’t give up a little bit of their hard-earned money to help out the needy?

Everything and everyone else, apparently, goes about their business, fueled by the absence of government and magic beans.

“Leadership is about setting priorities,” says Hudak. “And I think we’re going to be looking for a politician who’s going to be straight-up and say, we can’t fund every project with this amount of money.”

You want transit improvements or full day kindergarten? Tell that to your ill, wheelchair bound grandmother. Government is a zero sum game. There’s no room to help the disadvantaged and build a healthier, more equitable society. How do we continue to cut taxes and deliver more services? The answer is, you can’t. Tim Hudak knows that. He’s an honest broker and a trained economist. Facts and figures are his forte.

And about that 1,000,000 Jobs Plan, Tim?

“I stand behind our numbers and I think that it’s been justified by other economists [or not] who say that’s the ballpark of what this will create.”

Ahhh, ballpark numbers. The stuff master’s degrees in economics are made of, evidently. When his claim of creating 120,000 new jobs with further corporate tax cuts was called into question by the Conference Board of Canada – the Conference Board of Canada, people – Hudak blithely responds, “Whether it’s 80, 112, 120 or 150 thousand, [the CBB says 15-20 thousand, but whatevs] I think we agree it’s going to create jobs.”

When you’re also pledging to cut 100,000 public sector jobs, the actual number of jobs you’re promising to create does matter. Twenty thousand minus one hundred thousand equals minus eighty thousand jobs. Kinda puts you in a hole as you build toward that million jobs mark you’ve set for yourself.

Tim Hudak’s hidebound attachment to questionable economic theories seems to be matched by his dubious grasp of democracy.

Like many of his federal conservative brethren, Hudak has an abhorrence of the idea of a governing coalition in a minority government scenario. “I think that’s cheating voters…” Hudak said. “My position is clear — no coalitions. We will follow whatever the voters tell us they want.”

And if the voters tell you they want a minority government again on June 12^th, Mr. Hudak? Regardless of plenty of parliamentary precedent being in place for coalitions, in fact, there’s one operating right now over there in Westminster, I do believe, it’s still cheating in your mind? “I say no to coalitions, let the voters decide.”

You might think that, given his inability to come to terms with traditional aspects of democracy, Hudak might be open to opportunities for it to evolve with the changing times. Like ranked ballots and proportional representation. You might think. You’d be wrong, of course.

“I think that voters should decide who they want to be elected, whoever gets the most votes wins.”

But Tim, voters would still decide who they wanted to elect under a different form of ballots, it’d just be…

*sigh*

Never mind.

Look, I’m not stumping here for either of the other two parties currently occupying space at Queen’s Park. The ruling Liberals don’t appear to have learned anything during their transition from Dalton McGuinty to Kathleen Wynne, and seem determined to continue putting politics before policy. And the NDP, I’m at a loss to explain anything they’re doing at the moment.

But Tim Hudak and the Progressive Conservatives have a fundamental disconnect to what I believe is the role of government in our lives. They see it as alien and an imposition. A beast to be tamed and shrivelled down to irrelevance. A lonely outpost for the destitute in a world governed by laissez faire free markets. Collaboration and co-operation take a back seat to competition.

Tim Hudak refuses to make the distinction between bad governance and government. It’s one and the same for him. He’s not someone we should put anywhere near the levers of power.

— submitted by Cityslikr