Tory Austerity, TTC Inanity, Black Lives Matter, Bike Licensing & more -- The Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal V

Since our last Toronto civic politics journal the city has seen the reaffirmation of the outrageously wasteful Scarborough one-stop subway plan, the consolidation of Mayor Tory's austerity agenda and a truly, deeply awful decision by the TTC board to start requiring photo IDs for children as young as ten!

These were looked at in depth in two pieces on The Left Chapter:

Full austerity jacket -- The gloves come off in Tory's Toronto

The new TTC youth fare rules are a revolting attack on children

Black Lives Matter

A completely peaceful and relatively brief protest by Black Lives Matter Toronto at the Pride parade led to a tidal wave of often racist backlash against the group and what were perfectly reasonable and appropriate actions to secure a set of laudable goals, including calling for an end to police floats in future.

Janaya Khan of BLMTO responded to the backlash: BLACK LIVES MATTER TORONTO CO-FOUNDER RESPONDS TO PRIDE ACTION CRITICISM

A public anti-racism meeting with Premier Wynee and Mayor Tory in the wake of the protest saw frustration with both officials and:

But it was Tory, Toronto's blue blood mayor, who got roasted. His expressions ranged from discomfort, disinterest, and at times, irritation. One woman accused Tory of "piggybacking" on Wynne's event, before calling him "a coward," for refusing to meet with BLM in April. With his best deflection, he took the mic and said he was invited by Wynne and the provincial government. She also reminded him, to everyone's satisfaction, that he once said that white privilege doesn't exist. Near the end of the night, writer Desmond Cole questioned Tory's whereabouts when Black Lives Matter sat in front of police headquarters for two weeks in the cold. It was one of the only moments of the night that Tory got up and admitted fault. 

"I should have been there," he said.

A truly offensive motion that would have seen council affirm its support for police participation in the Pride parade put forth by Councillor Di Ciano was, happily, withdrawn by him prior to being debated. 

Two pieces on The Left Chapter also looked at the protest and its aftermath:

Black Lives Matter is right -- The police are the oppressor

You cannot 'discriminate' against the police. They are agents of discrimination.

Metrolinx Takes on the City

Metrolinx has decided to take legal action over a plan by the city to allow the building of townhouses by a railway yard in Etobicoke -- a decision that was taken against the advice of the city's own planners!

We looked already at some of the back story around this, including Ward 5 Councillor Justin Di Ciano's uncomfortably close relationship with the developers who stand to benefit from council's decision.

The entire episode displays yet again that Tory's (who voted in favour of allowing the development) claims that he would be running an "evidence based" administration were total nonsense.

Suburban Councillors to Resurrect Stupid Bike Licensing Idea

Two suburban Etobcioke Councillors, Ward 3's Stephen Holyday and -- you guessed it! -- Ward 5's Justin Di Ciano, are trying to resurrect the truly idiotic idea of bike licensing as a "revenue tool" for the city.

Remember that this is in a city that dispensed with the Vehicle Registration Fee directed at cars.

Toronto is easily one of the most car friendly cities in North America already, so why not bring in a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense that would be certain to get people to leave their bikes in the garage and get into their cars to go to the corner store instead?

This will also be very helpful in efforts to curb climate change which, as we all know, is caused by all those folks doing the socially and environmentally responsible thing by riding bikes. Right?

The proposal is unlikely to go anywhere, but it is sad that any Councillor would even consider it -- though not at all a shock that it would be these two leading lights who did.

Other News

Integrity Commissioner finds Coun. Mark Grimes had 'improper' relationship with developers

Toronto council approves 3 supervised injection sites

A reminder as well that on July 25 there will be a City Council and two TDSB by-elections.

See you in two weeks!

See also: Peel Police State, Scarborough Subway, By-elections & People's Choice 2018 - Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal IV

See also: Toronto and Peel's 'finest', TTC Scarborough subway shame & more -- Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal III

Pot Crackdown, Di Ciano, Putting the Brakes on Democracy & more -- Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal II

Pot Crackdown

Sadly, as predicted in this column a couple of weeks ago, a massive and heavy-handed crackdown on marijuana storefront dispensaries occurred in Toronto on May 26th.

But while I suspected it would be directed by by-law enforcement officers, instead it was a police crackdown complete with raids, unnecessary arrests of store workers and, something that has become a bit of a Toronto Police regular operating procedure, a post-crackdown press conference with a bunch of totally phony "evidence" on display!

Good to know that they are stepping up to their usual standards of transparency and honesty.

While the police are claiming they were simply enforcing the law (which everyone knows is about to be changed) it is totally obvious that these raids were conducted after pressure from City Hall given that they occurred such a short time after Mayor Tory's public histrionics about the shops.

They were ludicrously over-the-top given that by-law efforts to stem the explosive growth of the new and unregulated shops were already bearing fruit.

This was a public relations move, not a law enforcement one.

Despite the absurd Miami Vice style nature of the whole police action, Toronto City Council's alleged progressives have had little to say critical of the police.

In fact, notably milquetoast Councillor Joe Cressy displayed almost impressive verbal gymnastics on CBC Radio's Metro Morning today trying to sound all "progressive" on pot and yet to avoid saying anything actually critical of the outrageous raids.

This is rather typical of what passes for the establishment "left" in the city.

Justin Di Ciano's Interesting Take on Ethics

Ward 5 City Councillor Justin Di Ciano has an interesting take on ethics and conflicts-of-interest!

Di Ciano helped to spearhead a vote by Toronto's planning and growth committee that will allow residential development to occur on Judson Ave. in Etobicoke right next to an exceptionally busy rail corridor.  The vote passed 4-2.

The interesting part is that the vote went against the recommendations of Toronto city planners, Metrolinx planners and local community groups. The vote is also greatly to the benefit of developer Dunpar -- a company with which CBC has discovered that Di Ciano has a long history of ties that the CBC called both personal and professional.

How could anyone possibly think that this relationship could have a played a role in...you know...overruling the findings of the actual experts because, of course,  Di Ciano apparently knows best?

Putting the Brakes on Democratic Representation

The current council has already shot down the idea of ranked ballots in Toronto, and now the Mayor has made it clear that, despite the recommendations of the city's own consultants and despite the fact the city has grown substantially in population since the present wards were set and desperately needs to reflect this in its ward boundaries and council size, he wants no more politicians!

While this pseudo-populist rallying cry is not exactly a hard-sell generally, when combined with the city's unwillingness to make ward boundaries everywhere reflect actual population instead of clinging to the boundaries of cities that no longer exist, in practice it means uneven representation and growing under-representation.

The boundaries and council size now tend to favour the centre and right politically, so this should all really come as no surprise,

So the Mayor's Executive Committee has sent the recommendations back presumably in the hope that the experts will return with new ones based not on evidence and facts, but rather based on what the Mayor wants to hear!

Best Point of the Last Two Weeks

While I often disagree with Toronto Star municipal columnist Royson James, he makes a very important point about the terrible consequences of the unwillingness of Toronto politicians to deal with developing serious and fair revenue streams and taxation methods when he writes:

Was it fair to raise more money from TTC fare hikes and ridership growth ($303 million) than from property taxes ($237 million) over the past six years, when TTC riders tend to be poorer and in greater need of support from the entire city?

It was, of course, not fair at all.

The excellent column in which this appeared is available here. 

Bike Lane Backdown

Mayor Tory "is calling the cycling proposal coming to city council "historic,"". In spite of the fact that:

The original staff report also recommended that the city look more closely at putting bike lanes on eight major arterial roads, including Yonge Street and Kingston Road — something cycling advocates have been requesting for years. That recommendation got stripped out of the plan a couple of weeks ago, when it came to the city's Public Works and Infrastructure Committee.

Of course it did.

The Mayor is also heralding the addition of $16 million in annual funding. Exciting. Real dedication to environmentalism and cycling from a city that is going to spend close to $800 million to maintain the eastern part of the Gardiner Expressway for a relatively tiny number of drivers!

Other News

"Toronto ban on hookah lounges challenged in court."  -- I suspect the city is going to have a hard time winning this one.

"Justin Trudeau open to exploring ‘next steps’ in Toronto’s potential Expo 2025 bid" -- Why? Please no.

"‘Waterfront reset’ examines way to extend transit to new neighbourhoods along the lakeshore" -- This is something the city needs to fast track, especially given the explosive growth of high-rise condos along the proposed route.

Ward 2 Update

Since our last installment there have been some developments in the Ward 2 coronation -- sorry, I meant by-election.

Most of the declared candidates have websites up.

The heir-apparent Michael Ford is, unsurprisingly, running on "Keeping Taxes Low" and "Customer Service" in addition to running on the fact that he is, you know, a Ford. Which means he is about 99.99% likely to win this race.

Jeff Canning has a nice enough website and seems to be running on a number of vague generalities about "engagement", "education" and "employment" without saying much of anything.

New Democrat Christopher Strain has a NationBuilder site that has, to date, literally no policies on it at all. Given his rather tenuous connection to Etobicoke, let alone Ward 2, I suppose he is trying to get up to speed.

Pot heads of the world can unite behind Glen Smith. 

Three other candidates do not, as yet, have websites up. All candidates are listed on the City of Toronto website. 

Dumb Ass Political Stunt 

John Tory pretended to get all down and dirty in an attempt to show-up those darn city bureaucrats who were being all bureaucratic and telling the Toronto Star that doing something or another was not their function in the bureaucracy.

LOL!

And now to our rant! It is not "bureaucrats" that are the problem...they are all directed, in the end, by politicians!

All this "can-do" horseshit that Tory waxes poetic about requires proper FUNDING for infrastructure and the reason departments try to "pass the buck" is that for quite some time they have been forced to attempt to make do with fewer bucks.

Frankly, if Tory wants to spend his time landscaping that is probably a better use of it than what he generally does as Mayor, but this is the kind of rubbish you see from a right-winger who actually is implementing an austerity agenda and throwing money at the police, but who wants to pretend that the city's myriad of issues could all be dealt with with "a little hard work".

Then pay, and pay well, for the workers.

See you in two weeks!

Please post any thoughts or ideas in the comments here or on the Facebook group. 

See also: Reefer Madness, Transit Lanes, Ward 2 & more -- Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal I