Tag Archives: Privatization

It Just Feels Right

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Lets’ go back to the beginning.

No, not that far back, wherever you found yourself thinking ‘the beginning’ was. Just to this past January, the fourth of, I believe. When the official municipal campaign 2010 kicked off and we all were looking forward with trepidation at having to elect a new mayor. There was anger out there in the hinterlands but who could’ve guessed exactly how much?

Me? I wasn’t a fire breathing silly socialist. If you remember correctly, I was sitting comfortably in the centre, perhaps a little rightish of there. Don’t believe me? Check this out. (Those were much shorter posts back then too, weren’t they. When did we become so full of ourselves?) An admitted John Tory supporter back in `03 who might not have ruled out voting for him again this year if he chose to run despite having misgivings about his stumble through the provincial political arena throughout much of the past decade.

However, I did not develop a hate on for the man that beat him in 2003 and whom I voted for in 2006, Mayor David Miller. The city did not seem like the cesspool we were being told it was. Problems needed to be fixed, certainly; none more so than our aging public transit system, the once venerable TTC. Even that didn’t seem all that out of reach, what with Transit City up and ready to go. I considered myself a Miller convert and was sorry to see him go.

Leaving us with…?

A mad, maddening rush to the right. In some circumstances the surprisingly far right. Much chatter about privatization, outsourcing public services, cuts, cuts, cuts.

Why?

Simple solutions offered up for complicated situations despite what H.L. Mencken (no bleeding heart liberal himself) once said: For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. In other words, if it were as easy as all that, it would’ve been done already. Unfortunately, few of us are immune to the lure of the snake oil salesman.

In place of concrete ideas, those looking for our votes pitched divisions. Left versus Right. Car versus bikes. Suburban versus urban. Everything that was wrong with Toronto could be traced back to those at City Hall, ignoring any outside factors that weighed heavily on us. Negligent and sometimes hostile senior levels of government. An economy that for the past two years nearly tanked and since has barely sputtered along. Continued pains of enforced amalgamation that did not magically disappear by executive fiat.

None beat the drum of discord louder than Etobiocoke millionaire councillor and laughably self-proclaimed ‘Man of the People’, Rob Ford. His noisy entry into the race and subsequent overtaking of perceived front runner, George Smitherman, had everyone scurrying worriedly to the right. Rocco Rossi was already there. He had to dig in deeper. Smitherman, figuring that bombastic Ford had no real constituency in downtown circles, threw caution to the wind and abandoned the centre to scrape away whatever soft right supporters he could. Ford’s extreme right views allowed both Rossi and Smitherman to adopt stances that would make someone like John Tory uncomfortable. Defying all electoral logic, the three amigos are desperately trying to divvy up the right wing pie, leaving their left flank wide open and virtually undefended.

Again, why?

Because they think they can. Reading Jeff Jedras’ post on the long arms registry tug-of-war in his BCer in Toronto, it seems there are no negative consequences in pandering to a conservative base. To not do so, in fact, is to risk an electoral fiasco. This conventional wisdom (i.e. mainstream media) has it that flipping the bird to the left has only an upside.

Leaving us here in the mushy centre with only one real alternative, Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone.

Oh Joe. You should be delighted with how this is all playing out, alone among the leading contenders, to tend to the left of centre garden without fear of having to give up so much as a speck of land to any interlopers. There are those of us out here who don’t think the city’s in such dire shape that it needs a good short, sharp shock of neoconservative home brew. (Isn’t that exactly what amalgamation was?) For every one of those who believe this election’s solely about “money, money, money”, there’s an equal contingent thinking that’s a rather myopic view of how to build a city. Embrace us, Joe. Take up the fight.

Not that he hasn’t tried. It’s just that Pantalone isn’t a strong campaigner. He’s nice. He’s quiet. He’s approachable. His strong suit seems to be behind the scenes where it is said he can be as tough as nails. A 30 year track record of working with mayors, running the wide political spectrum from Art Eggleton to Mel Lastman and David Miller, and time spent on the former Metro Council, reveal a non-divisivenes in Pantalone. He’s a uniter not a divider, as he’s stated, which may be another reason he’s the odd man right now.

Who knows. As election day closes in on us, everyone may snap to attention and realize that fighting tooth-and-nail for one side of the political spectrum may not be the best strategy. It certainly hasn’t been in the past. Otherwise, unless Pantalone can successfully scoop up a good portion of the centre/centre left citywide – or someone else breaks out big time — we will elect a mayor with a dangerously low percentage of the popular vote. And if you think Toronto’s polarized and divided now…

— trepidatiously submitted by Urban Sophisticat

Tough On The TPS Budget? Crime Lover.

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Politics these days seem to operate counter to our ingrained, chivalric notion of how to behave during an emergency: women and children first. Maybe it was always thus, nothing more than a lofty ideal, entirely untested under real world situations. As a relatively able-bodied male, I’m all for jettisoning such quaintness when the tornadoes’ are coming and the ships are sinking. Every man for himself! (The gender specificity of the noun was entirely deliberate.)

With our political house on fire — at least that’s what’s being yelled in the municipal campaign theatre of operations by our front running mayoral candidates – it’s all about trampling the slow footed and weak on our way to the exits. Everybody’s vowing to get tough with the easy to get tough with targets. Faceless city bureaucrats who make our existence miserable each and every day. Outside workers bringing hell down upon this city with each strike they subject us to. Snoozing, break taking, booze-sodden TTC workers and their can’t-do attitude. Oh, we’re so going to declare you an essential service! Economics of it be damned!!

In typical bully fashion, however, nary a peep has been heard about what to do about the out-of-control spending the city’s lavished upon the Toronto Police Service. Shhhhh! Don’t mention the Police Service. They might hear us.

According to some numbers being bandied about over the weekend, during King David’s profligate reign at City Hall, the TPS’s budget has grown nearly a quarter billion dollars, from just over $700 million in 2004 to just under a billion dollars in 2010. That’s over a 35% increase in 6 years. In fact, just this past year when budget chief Shelley Carroll was asking all departments for 5% cuts in their budget, the TPS received nearly a 4% increase. That’s the kind of bird flipping candidate George Smitherman vowed to crush if elected mayor yet, so far, it’s been all quiet from him in terms of going to war with the Police Service.

Ditto tough guy Rob Ford. Nothing on the matter from Rockin’ Rocco Rossi’s camp. Sarah Thomson’s been similarly mum on the matter.

Why ever would that be, we wonder?

Now, I’m not here to say that the Police Service is being coddled and mollified, shown far more respect than all other city services. For all I know, they deserve every single penny the city hands over to them. It’s just the glaring double standard that our leading candidates for mayor are employing that has caught our attention.

Hey, hey, hey, you’ll yell at me, and point out the dropping crime statistics over the last decade or so. Shouldn’t we be rewarding a job well done? If we cut police spending, crime will climb. Probably.

Probably although I am no social scientist, so don’t know the ins-and-outs of that line of argument. But if we equate success with increased expenditure, why don’t we start throwing money at other problem areas? Increased spending on social housing could mean decreased homelessness. More money on infrastructure might translate into better roads and fewer water main breaks.

Imagine if we unleashed countless billions on the TTC! We could have a transit system that would be the envy of the—No, wait. We do spend billions on the TTC and everyone’s displeasure with it is near unanimous.

So a money-equaling-effectiveness argument is a tenuous one, as many of the mayoral candidates have stated themselves. We can’t just throw money at our problems, we are told. And yet no one is complaining about all the money being thrown at the TPS. Why the deference?

Much of the discussion about this that I encountered over the last few days began with variations of the familiar disclaimer, I’m as pro-police as anybody, It’s not that I’m anti-police, as if a pledge of fidelity is needed before anyone can offer up a critique of our men and women in blue. Where’s the similar sentiment – I’m as pro-TTC as anybody – when criticizing our transit system? It’s not that I’m anti-garbage collection, it’s just that I think we should open bidding up to the private sector.

You’re either with us or you’re against us is the established parameter when offering up any sort of police-related opinion. We saw that with the G20 fallout earlier this summer. Members of City Council fell over themselves to prove to our besieged police service that they were in no way siding with the criminal element on the issue. The doubters, the panderers to terrorists, simply ducked for cover. In this environment, it doesn’t pay politically to be seen as anything other than the law & order type. It is an easy exploitable sign of weakness.

So our cadre of tough talking front running mayoral candidates tip-toe past the TPS budget numbers without raising so much as a collective eyebrow. Should they? I’m as pro-police as the next guy but it just seems to me that if they’re all going to run around like Chicken Littles telling us that the fiscal sky is falling, there should be some discussion about one of the biggest ticket items in the city’s budget. Otherwise, it reveals either a glaring lack of attention to detail or a knee-jerk cravenness in the face of a powerful interest group. Neither quality is one we really should be looking for in our next mayor.

— law and orderly submitted by Urban Sophisticat

Our Cancerous Campaign

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I write today in soothing tones like those of the 1970s FM DJs, all smoky and silk, in hopes of ratcheting the shrill tone of the mayoral campaign down a notch or two. It has been all vitriol, spouting nothing but contempt and vilification. Yes, some of it is unfriendly fire between candidates as one might expect especially from an uninspiring brood of candidates who lack anything close to resembling a forward thinking vision for the city.

But much of the ugly, mean-spirited rhetoric has been directed at the very body the mayoral hopefuls are vying to lead: the municipal government itself and all those who Tend to the Garden of Its Upkeep (the title of a never released ELP album from the late `70s). The bureaucracy, in other words. The allegedly ‘corrupt’ council. City workers who have the temerity to inconvenience us and go out on strike. Oh sure, Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone, the standard bearer of incumbency, does chime in with the occasional dissenting peep, peep, peep of ‘This isn’t Cleveland. This isn’t Detroit’ but it’s usually lost in the indignant jeering of his rivals calling for a jihad against those making our lives miserable. Entrenched and self-serving civil servants and career politicians.

Vote for me because I hate the institution of democratic governance as much as you do!

Never mind the bent, twisted logic of that sentiment and please ignore the results of electing the practitioners of such political thinking (the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, the diminution of Ontario under the Harris-Eves-McGuinty rule, Stephen Harper’s full frontal assault on the state currently underway), when we’re angry we have a tendency to favour politicians who mirror our distrust and dislike of politicians. And nothing eggs on our ire toward politicians more than hearing about the kind of salaries they enjoy and the perks they wallow in. They make how much?! That’s unbelievable, outrageous, harrumph, harrumph, harrumph…

It’s a funny dichotomy. We extol those in the private sector raking in much larger sums of money per annum and enjoying far more luxurious perks. They are the titans of industry, we say. Creators of jobs (although not so much lately) and floaters of boats everywhere (again, not so much lately). Making a success of yourself in business is the height of accomplishment. Toiling away in the bowels of government, well, clearly you’ve settled and should consider your life wasted.

It is an odd case of self-hatred. Shouldn’t we encourage our best and brightest to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the business of government? Wouldn’t that make for a better society? Instead, we shower praise and riches on those who package our middle class aspirations overseas and make monstrous returns for their investors. When business is paramount, government is seen as nothing more than an irrelevant impediment.

So here we are, cheering on millionaires and the well-to-do, telling us that they’ll improve our lives by dismantling the very apparatus that paves our roads, brings us water, maintains peace and order (on most days). Not only that, but they’ll happily do it for cut rate prices! Rocco Rossi pledged to slash the mayor’s salary by 10%. Rob Ford, George Smitherman, Joe Pantalone and Sarah Thomson have promised to freeze their pay if elected in October. Hell, Ford could probably seal the deal and become this city’s next mayor if he promised to do the job for free.

All this in the face of a recent report suggesting that, in fact, the position of mayor in Toronto was under-valued, remuneratively speaking. No matter. A politician should not be concerned with niggling things like pay, pension or their financial future. At least, according to Rocco Rossi.

“Politics is a high calling, but it should be a time of service, it’s not a career, and the moment you start looking at it as a career, that’s when people start worrying about the salary, the pension and the benefits, as opposed to serving the people,” Rossi said.

So, only the selfless and those that can afford a life in politics need apply. Or, to steal a phrase from business parlance, you get what you pay for.

— sedately submitted by Urban Sophisticat