Tag Archives: Mike Harris

That’s No Way To Start A Friendship

Posted on by
10

Look.

I’m with Oakville mayor Rob Burton. We here in Toronto need to be paying more in taxes. I’ve been saying that for a while now. agreeDon’t know if I’ve been saying it longer than Mr. Burton has. I don’t really know that much about Mr. Burton, truth be told. Don’t know how long he’s been mayor of Oakville. Not even absolutely sure where Oakville is. That the place beside Port Credit?

But I do know that we’re in complete agreement over taxes. Torontonians have to start shelling out more, especially if we want to build transit for this century not for two centuries back. On that Mr. Rob  Burton, mayor of Oakville, and I concur.

I would, however, like to take exception to his assertion made yesterday on CBC’s Metro Morning and in the Toronto Star about Oakville subsidizing Toronto to the tune of $17 million a year since 1998. “When you remind Toronto that you’ve been subsidizing them,” he tells Tess Kalinowski, “they are: A) blissfully unaware that they’ve been enjoying a lower tax rate on the backs of the 905, and B) they’re singularly ungrateful. holdthephoneThis does not encourage us to want to help them.”

Now, I think I know what Mr. Burton is trying to do here. Shame us Torontonians into isolating Mayor Ford on his anti-tax/toll ice floe and set him adrift out onto the lonely, frigid sea of frugality. Having successfully whitewashed anyone calling for increased taxes as downtown elite, tax-and-spend cyclists, criticism like this from a mayor in the 905 is much tougher to counter. Our mayor loves the 905. His favourite restaurant is somewhere out there. He is very likely the ungrateful type who is blissfully unaware the 905 region pays higher property taxes than Toronto does.

But jesus fucking christ, Rob Burton. There’s a much less divisive way to go about this than beating the drum of suburban versus urban division. The very one Mayor Ford used to get elected in 2010, and we’re all bearing witness to how well that’s turned out for everyone.

Categorizing GTA pooling (or the ‘Toronto Tax’) to pay for the region’s social costs as ‘subsidizing Toronto’ is disingenuous, and I’m being generous calling it that. thefineprintIt’s a far more complicated issue that came about back in the 90s with the provincial Tory government’s Local Services Realignment. Essentially, downloading social services costs onto the municipalities.

Even the Harris Conservatives – never really this city’s best of friends — realized this was going to disproportionally hit Toronto since (I’m using 2004 numbers here) the city was home to 80% of the GTAs social assistance clients and 74% of its social housing stock. So this Toronto Tax wasn’t a subsidy so much as an equalization payment. Providing cash in lieu of services not rendered. Cash that was provincially mandated to go directly to specified social services and programs and not just pocketed for Toronto to spend on whatever whim struck it’s fancy.

Geez, pops. Thanks for the allowance. Can I borrow the car tonight? I got a hot date.

Besides, as we move forward to deal with funding region wide transit, it should be noted that the Toronto Tax has been slowly phased out by the province, beginning in 2007 and ending completely this year. whycantwebefriendsSo it shouldn’t really be a factor in the discussion now. Using it to foment resentment seems a little counter-productive in fact.

We already have a major obstacle in the way of making progress on the transit debate in the form of Mayor Ford. We don’t need to set up more by fanning the fires of geographic division based on a misleading interpretation of a financial arrangement that is no longer in play. By the sounds of it, Mayor Burton is on the same side as a growing number of people in Toronto who want a better transit system throughout the region and are more than willing to pay for it. It just does not help the cause to put up false fences between us.

— fence-mendingly submitted by Cityslikr

Those Friday Afternoon Transit Blues

Posted on by
5

On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d rate This Week In Transit News at about a 4. The grade’s only that high because I’m trying to put my best foot forward. Smile on the outside when I’m really crying on the inside as I sift through and evaluate all the pertinent information.

It started with our federal government voting down a national transit strategy put forward in the House of Commons by the NDP. National Transit Strategy? Strategy? National? Sounds a little interventionist. The outcome was hardly a surprise.

That element was saved for a day or so later when Queen’s Park announced through their agency, Metrolinx, that the design, construction, building and operation of the Eglinton LRT was going to be outsourced as part of a public-private partnership. Take that, TTC! Who’s yer momma? Huh? Who’s yer momma, TTC? Say it. Say it! Metrolinx, baby! Metrolinx.

Now, I’ve been battling hard for the past couple days to suppress my gut reaction to the news. I don’t want to disappoint my friend Matt Elliott and be one of those on the left giving over to immediate, unthinking nayism. Maybe a viable case can be made for the move. Perhaps it is the first step toward a fully integrated regional transit system and, hopefully, that would be a good thing. Metrolinx’s track record to date in dealing with local concerns gives me pause however.

But for now, I’ll attempt to see the upside. The general consensus seems to be success or failure of the Eglinton LRT P3 will come down to the details of the agreement, how the ‘i’s are dotted and ‘t’s crossed. If the private sector can actually deliver the necessary transit at a lower cost, and if that’s the only element we’re looking for, I’ll hop aboard and go along for the ride.

I’d probably have more confidence in the whole thing if the McGuinty Liberals had any robust credibility on transit. I have long since concluded that Mayor Rob Ford has been nothing but manna from heaven for them, providing cover for a rather lacklustre, wishy-washy approach since they came to power in 2003. Announce big, deliver significantly less. What is now $8.4 billion for 4 LRT lines was once supposed to be 7 lines with an additional $4 billion in funding. Delay has followed delay and we’re now talking decades hence not years.

And remember that initial election promise of restoring provincial funding for half the TTC’s annual operating budget? Nine years on. Tick tock, tick tock.

As if to add insult to injury, Transportation Minister Bob Chiarelli seems to be suggesting that once the Eglinton LRT is up and going and the TTC no longer runs buses along the street, the money it saves should be handed over to the private company running the LRT. Yeah, really. Of course, our mayor is otherwise occupied and hasn’t weighed in on the matter to defend the city’s interests, leaving that – along with almost all matters dealing with transit — up to the TTC Chair, Karen Stintz.

Defenders of the province will, with much justification certainly, point to our electing of Rob Ford as mayor and the subsequent subway-versus-LRT battle as a prime example of the city not being a serious player in this transit debate. They wouldn’t be wrong. Toronto took a big step backward on many fronts when Rob Ford became mayor.

But I’d argue, at least on the transit file, the city righted itself. The TTC chair took control, sidelined the mayor and his most ardent supporters and got everything back on track. (Yeah. I just wrote that). All of it done without any assistance from the province who, when it mattered most, indulged Mayor Ford’s subways, subways, subways fantasy and further exploited the situation by delaying the start of the Sheppard LRT construction yet again, making it vulnerable to any changes in power at either City Hall or Queen’s Park.

It’s all part of a familiar pattern for the McGuinty Liberals of appearing to be just slightly less worse than the other guy. Think they’re bad on public transit? Look at Toronto and Mayor Ford. We may be outsourcing control of the Eglinton LRT but remember Mike Harris buried the subway there.

I am trying to keep an open mind but the province inspires little confidence. Rather than see the move to a P3 as a cost containment measure, it just smacks of outsourcing responsibility and governance. I’m willing, though, to be convinced otherwise.

— forced smiledly submitted by Cityslikr

No City For Young Children

Posted on by
5

I have seen the urban-suburban divide, and it’s name is Doug Holyday. Councillor Doug Holyday. Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday.

If not the political father to the Ford Brothers, he is their political godfather. A lean, mean libertarian and last mayor of pre-amalgamation Etobicoke, Councillor Holyday’s the antiest of anti-government types. There is no aspect of governing (except maybe policing) the man doesn’t believe can be done better and cheaper by the private sector. Government as a source for out-sourcing.

Despite the political and territorial affinity between the Deputy Mayor and the Fords, Councillor Holyday must bear a little ill-will toward their late father, Doug Sr. As a backbench MPP for the Mike Harris government, Ford-pere helped smash the 6 former municipalities of Metro Toronto into one unwieldy beast. This leashed the Deputy Mayor’s beloved ol’ Etobicoke home to the licentious, rapacious, elitist grab all downtown.

Arcadia was under threat. Progress’s shadow drew nearer, bringing darkness ever closer to the perpetual 1950s sunshine of Toronto’s gateway to Mississauga.

Since 1997 Doug Holyday’s picket fenced mind set has been besieged by the onset of the 21st-century. Urbanism. Multiculturalism. Diversity of views and lifestyles that include… wait for it, wait for it… children growing up in downtown highrises with no place to play other than the traffic.

Yesterday’s well-documented dust up between the deputy mayor and Councillor Adam Vaughan (if you want to see it for yourself here’s the link, scroll through to 149:46) over the requirement for 10% of condo units to be 3 bedroom in a King Street West development proposal revealed the deep hostility directed at the downtown core from the suburban leadership elected to represent the entire city. “I personally wouldn’t want to raise my kids on King Street or Yonge Street,” the deputy mayor said. “Some people might, and if they do, that’s fine. … I’m saying I personally wouldn’t want to be on the 47th floor of a condominium building at the corner of King and John with three kids.”

“I can just see it now,” ‘Where’s little Jenny? Well, she’s downstairs playing in the traffic on her way to the park’”.

When the city’s acting chief planner Gregg Lintern suggested that encouraging families to live in every part of the city including right downtown “…makes for a healthier city” the deputy mayor wasn’t buying it.  “It makes for a healthier city to have children out on King Street where there is bumper-to-bumper traffic, people galore all night and day? I just think of raising my own family there. That’s not the place I’d choose.”

Apparently, if you choose a lifestyle contrary to one Doug Holyday deems acceptable, well hey, god bless you, you’re on your own. Briefly stepping back from his Grandpa Simpson mode, the deputy mayor wrapped himself in his comfy libertarian cloak and railed that government shouldn’t be telling the private sector what they can and cannot be building. In putting forward a motion to delete the 10% 3 bedroom requirement for the development proposal, he suggested that it should be left up to the free market to sort out.

“I’m not going to dictate to a developer,” the Deputy Mayor said, “that they must provide 10% of their units in the three bedroom form when there may or may not be a market for it.”

If there’s such a clamour for family condo units downtown, developers will respond. That’s just Economics 101. No matter that bigger units/development mean fewer units/development and less money overall. Developers aren’t concerned about money in the long run. They just want to respond to market demand.

Turns out the Deputy Mayor isn’t as laissez-faire on the matter of planning when it gets closer to home. During the ensuing debate, Councillor Vaughan pointed out that a few years back, when a developer proposed building rowhouses — OMG not townhouses! — in Etobicoke’s single family enclave, Mr. Holyday wasn’t so invisibly handy as he was toward downtown development. So it’s free reign for the private sector when it comes to situations the Deputy Mayor doesn’t approve of but let’s get all state controlled if it imposes on his lifestyle.

I don’t  believe that a majority of those in the suburbs reflect Deputy Mayor Holyday’s cloistered views. People live outside the core for many reasons. Space, affordability, just a preference for that way of life. They don’t judge those who make their homes downtown as dimly as our deputy mayor does.

I agree with writer Shawn Micallef when he referred to Mr. Holyday’s opinions as ‘creaks from the grave of thought.’ They’re shocking because it’s difficult to believe anyone still thinks like that. It’s a dying breed kicking and screaming against modernity.

Unfortunately, Mr. Holyday isn’t just anyone. In theory, he’s the 2nd in command of the largest city in the country. A rapidly evolving metropolis of some 2.5 million residents that has long since outgrown the strictures of sleepy, small town governance. More worrisome is that the mayor, his actual right hand man, Councillor Ford, and a small cadre of similar anti-urban minds now have their hands on the levers of power.

All of them are unfit for the positions they are currently in. They don’t understand the needs of the city they’ve been elected to represent. The only thing they seem determined to accomplish is to roll back any and all evidence of the 21st-century.

The Deputy Mayor’s comments reflected that and underline the need to resist every antediluvian idea he and his cohorts try to inflict on the city.

— corely submitted by Cityslikr