Tag Archives: Waterfront Toronto

If We’re Not Going To Take Ourselves Seriously

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Friends and family often question my obsession with municipal politics. While recognizing its importance in the operation of our city, they express serious reservations about the cast of characters involved.

“Municipal politicians are clowns,” I’ve heard said. “Buffoons. Bush League. The B-Team.”

In part, I think such a dismissive view just comes with the territory. Municipal politicians oversee mundane but vital matters. Sewage, snow plowing, parking, pot hole filling. It all lacks a little nobility. Like sending off soldiers to die in faraway lands.

There’s also a degree of over-abundance, let’s call it. A problem of perception. Here in Toronto, for every 1 MPP or MP, there are 2 city councillors. So there are double the chances of experiencing clownish behaviour and buffoonery.

That said, it’s very difficult to ignore the fact that Toronto, especially since amalgamation, has flirted, courted and indulged in some very heavy petting with political folly. If Mayor Ford actually serves out one term (pending campaign financing audit), 10 of our first 17 years as a mighty megacity could, and very likely will be, deemed as an abject failure to take ourselves seriously. We’re all adults. How could we not foresee the consequences of our actions and realize that no good would come from the mayoralties of Mel Lastman and Rob Ford?

So yes. There are times, too — too many times it feels like — when following the municipal politics scene can only be viewed as a mug’s game. Rubber-neckin’ at a car wreck. Assistant coaching your kid’s t-ball team and your kid is the worst player on the team.

Why bother? Just step aside and let the big boys use the field.

Such a Bad News Bears moment played out last week when federal Finance Minister and Ford family friend Jim Flaherty came to town to last week to take part in the groundbreaking or another piece in the Waterfront Toronto development, Underpass Park. “This is transformative,” Flaherty pronounced. “It’s important not just for Toronto, but for Canada.”

Not just for Toronto. But for Canada.

Or as the mayor’s brother, Councillor Doug, has said, ‘a boondoggle.’ In fact, he wrote off all of Waterfront Toronto as “… the biggest boondoggle the feds, the province and the city has ever done.”

The Fords seem unable to toss up anything besides lifeless hanging curve balls about belt high for other politicians with even a modicum of ability with the stick to go yard with. It’s not even fun to watch. Switching sports analogies, remember the teachers-students rugby match in Monty Python’s ‘The Meaning of Life’? Just like that.

Even with his fresh majority win in last month’s election and a minor Conservative breakthrough in Toronto itself, it’s hard to imagine the Finance Minister taking his late friend’s sons out to the woodshed on this. But maybe there was a bull session over son beers and nachos at the family compound. “A boondoggle?!” Flaherty exclaims. “A boondoggle!? I’ll give you a boondoggle. How about a cool $35 billion for engineless fighter jets? I know my boondoggles, boys. Waterfront Toronto ain’t one of them.”

The Finance Minster along with the local MPP and city councillor then head off to witness the start of this transformative piece of waterfront real estate. The mayor and his brother are AWOL. Like the mayor has been for every Waterfront Toronto meeting he has supposed to attend as a sitting member of the board. As a councillor, he wasn’t a big fan either of the city’s involvement with the waterfront, voting against approval for private investment near the Sherbourne Common late last year. (h/t to Ford For Toronto for all the links. We swim in the beneficence of your knowledge pool.)

It takes some doing for someone to make this Conservative government seem like city builders or deep urban thinkers. Yet somehow we’ve elected that very person and his equally blinkered and terminally short-sighted brother as our dynamic duo mayors. What does that say about us, as citizens, taxpayers, residents of Toronto? That we don’t care about how this city grows and develops as long as it doesn’t cost us too much? Or are we just cognizant of the fact that it hardly matters who we elect municipally? Ultimate power doesn’t lie with us or our locally elected officials. So why not just go for the entertainment value and send in the clowns. There’s only so much damage they can inflict before the adults step in and sort the mess out.

Such a condescending view, with correspondingly low expectations for municipal politicians, invariably leads to candidates seeking only to limbo under the low bar and nothing more. High fliers and over-achievers need not apply. As Homer Simpson once said, ‘trying is the first step to failing.’ Municipal politics is only for those who dare not to dream big or are merely content to take marching orders from their betters.It may be fun to watch for a little while but like any Punch and Judy show, the spectacle grows dismal and dreary. Humour is replaced by cruelty, and you’re left wondering why the hell you continue to watch.

— clownishly submitted by Urban Sophisticat

Our Rose-Coloured Glasses

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Having taken the last few days off and away from the local scene, I’ve returned with a new thing in mind. Instead of reacting to every seemingly insane utterance and idea that emerges from the mayor, his kin or administration’s various mouthpieces with immediate shock, dismay and/or heart-stopping rage, I’m going to look for the silver lining. My assumption is not going to reactively be: what the fuck is he/they thinking/doing!? No. I’ll take a deep breath, set down the rock in my hand and careful weight the pros and cons of the matter at hand. Serenity Now.

For instance, yesterday’s news about a recommendation to shut down 21 of the 23 citizen advisory committees. My old self would’ve immediately sprang up in outrage and pointed out that this was just another example of Mayor Ford reneging on a campaign promise of more openness and transparency, showing absolute no respect for the taxpayer whatsoever. How could eliminating citizen access to city staff be in any way, shape or form transparent or open?

That would be the old me. The new me however spots a subtle sign of genius in it. A boldly counter-intuitive move not to simply increase citizen/taxpayer/customer/stakeholder input but to foist responsibility entirely onto their laps. You want to talk cycling strategy? Go ahead. Talk amongst yourselves. City Hall’s no longer in the listening business.

The previous administration was accused of only pretending to listen to its citizens. It would go through the motions of openness and transparency before proceeding with whatever it was intending on doing in the first place. Mayor Ford and his team are proposing to do away with that middle step altogether. They’re going to drop the pretense. Save everyone the time and aggravation.

So citizens can get together, draw up plans and strategies, all without the bother of talking to City Hall first. Instead, and I’m a little fuzzy on how this next step will work, they assemble some sort of package, let’s call it a business plan as that’s more in line with the current administrations thinking on things, and… call the mayor? “Hey, Your Honour. A few of us taxpayers met up, hashed out some details and we’ve got this thing we’d like to talk over with you. You said we could call anytime, day or night.”

Or maybe, and here’s where the genius in the mayor’s scheme may lie, citizens/taxpayers/customers/stakeholders wouldn’t have to talk to anyone at City Hall at all in the future. If you look at the plan of eliminating citizen advisory committees from a different angle, it’s all about complete freedom. Not only is the Ford administration offering to do away with government consultation, perhaps it’s thinking of eliminating government entirely. Just do it. Don’t talk about it. Don’t advise. Just. Do. It. Democracy unfettered by oppressive government intervention.

This isn’t neo-conservatism, folks. Hell, it’s even moved beyond Ayn Randian Libertarianism. We’re talking Anarchy, with a capital A.

This line of thinking would certainly be in synch with brother Doug’s musings on waterfront development. “You don’t subsidize the most valuable property in Canada to the tune of $10-million an acre,” Councillor Ford said. “You let the private sector buy it and let them develop it. We can control it. We can say we want a round building here and a square one here. We can control it but we don’t spend 1.5 billion dollars in tax dollars when everyone’s feeling pressure. It’s just common sense.”

Common sense, indeed. We all remember how great the waterfront was pre-Waterfront Toronto 2001, before the government went and got its nose in how the private sector was so ably and magnificently doing business down there. Let’s relive the 1980s glory days.

Replace ‘private sector’ with ‘private citizen/taxpayer/customer/stakeholder’ and you get the same general gist of how things would work without the unnecessary bureaucracy of advisory committees. Have citizens/taxpayers/customers/stakeholders come up with ideas about bike paths, say, or a youth program or public art installation on their own and all the city says is ‘make it round’ or ‘make it ‘square’. Done and done, and we’re off to the races.

In trying to see the world through the mayor’s eyes, I’m starting to realize that the only thing standing between an active and inactive citizenry is government itself. Its intrusive presence is nothing but an impediment to our participation in how things are done around here. The less we depend on government, the more freedom we will experience. Let’s not stop at eliminating just citizen advisory committees. Dream bigger. Imagine the freedom we’d have if we got rid of City Hall itself.

— look at me I’m Sandra Deely submitted by Cityslikr