TTC Austerity, Fantasy Parks, Heat Alerts & more -- Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal VI

Tory Doubles Down on Austerity Dumb

Predictably it turns out that the TTC -- an overburdened system that has been chronically underfunded and underdeveloped for at least a generation and that gets far less of its revenue from government than almost any other North American mass transit system -- is having a hard time in finding 2.6% of cuts to its budget without impacting service.

Hence:

In the letter obtained by the Sun, [TTC CEO] Byford says that the agency trimmed $82 million from its projected budget pressures for 2017 but still came up $149 million short.
“We’ve done everything short of impacting service,” Byford writes.

Tory, however, buys into right wing ideological myths that government is full of waste and has resorted to making cookie-cutter comparisons to other departments like the police (who have actually been chronically over-funded for a generation making the comparison inane) as well as absurd analogies like:

“I think there is more money to be found. We owe it to the taxpayers to say we have look under every cushion, under every rock to find every penny we can save and that I don’t think they have done that work yet.”...
...“Every family out there, every small business, they have to go through the same exercise, every big business does, and so I’m just saying to them (the TTC), please continue your work,” Tory added.

As if it is a certainty these savings really exist outside of Tory's imagination and as if the TTC can be likened to a household budget which as we have shown before is simply untrue and silly. 

Tory's austerity vision for the city is coming into clear focus. What is also coming into focus with blanket cuts and notions of supposed "gravy trains" that cannot be found is that Tory's attachment to reality and evidence based policy making is no greater than that of his predecessor Rob Ford.

Tory and Cressy Announce Giant Park with No Funding or Timeline

Exciting news!

Despite the aforementioned mass cuts looming over the TTC and all other city departments, Mayor Tory and Councillor Joe Cressy held a press conference to announce the city will build a gigantic new visionary elevated park that will cover the downtown rail corridor between Bathurst St and the Skydome.

Great idea. The trouble is that they made the announcement with no timeline or funding in place. 

Seriously.

By-elections

As anticipated Michael Ford cruised to an effortless and massive victory in the Ward 2 council by-election, a result that will have no impact on the balance of forces on council.

In the Ward 5 school trustee by-election, however, the result is a lot more alarming. The race to replace dedicated leftist Howard Kaplan, who sadly died earlier this year, was narrowly won by relative unknown Alexandra Lulka who is an apparent fiscal reactionary who was endorsed by Joe Oliver and who held an "intimate fundraiser" with John Baird! 

This does not bode well for the orientation of the school board.

Heat Alerts

Did you know this?:

The dangerous inadequacy, inhumanity and thoughtlessness of this policy, which means that cooling centres are not opened until after three days of extreme heat, is being made all the more clear during this exceptionally hot summer that is seeing an unusual number of heat alerts.

Thanks to the actions of anti-poverty activists like Cathy Crowe some City Councillors are now looking at changing the policy so that cooling centres would open more quickly. One can only hope pressure on them will be kept up so that they take swift action on this.

James Forcillo

In a rare moment of at least a modicum of justice, Constable James Forcillo was sentenced to six years in jail for his "attempted murder" conviction in the killing of Toronto teen Sammy Yatim on an empty Toronto streetcar in 2013.

On a less positive note, and rather predictably, he was released on bail after spending just a single night in custody pending an appeal.

Must Read Column

Joe Fiorito in the Toronto Star: Shelter system bracing for a ‘tidal wave':

There are more than 4,000 people — men, women, boys, girls, children and families — relying on shelters every night. The shelter system is a house on fire. You can’t see the flames.
I smell smoke.

Other News

Shocking accusations of overt discrimination and racism by a Toronto bar: Toronto has had Enough of Monica’s Bar and their Racist Staff. #ShutEmDown

Finally some concrete good news for Toronto cyclists: Bloor St. taking bike lane installation in stride — so far

Disgraceful tree cutting incident also highlights the outrageously pro-developer bias of the OMB: Mayor Tory ‘horrified’ over removal of trees on Bayview

See you in two weeks!

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

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

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

Scarborough Subway Fiasco

In the wake of the news that the one-stop extension of the Scarborough subway would cost almost a BILLION dollars more than originally anticipated and would come in at at least a staggering $3.2 billion (for one single stop) Mayor Tory and other supporters of this increasingly unjustifiable fiasco are doubling-down on the dumb to try to justify it.

Even former Mayor David Miller came out of retirement to opine (in this case correctly) on CBC Radio about how as the "plan" grows more-and-more absurd the rhetoric of those supporting it grows more-and-more hyperbolic and inane.

Mayor Tory went to the extent of writing a rather lame op-ed in The Toronto Star wherein the only serious justification of continuing with this plan -- as opposed to the several LRT lines that could be built instead and that would service far more people in neighbourhoods increasingly marginalized not just socio-economically but by issues exactly like inadequate transit infrastructure --  is that not doing so would hurt the reputations and images of those who have supported it!

Given how much Toronto civic politics has been centred around personality and short-term, dead-end politically opportunistic "thinking" it would seem we are on track for the plan, which was approved again by the Mayor's Executive Committee, to continue full speed ahead towards yet another transit disaster for the people of Toronto and Scarborough after Toronto City Council begins a new session on July 12.

Ward 2 By-Election

In a by-election that has singularly failed to get any attention, Michael Ford is clearly cruising to what is likely to be an easy victory July 25 that will be based entirely on family name.

While two other candidates decried this on City-TV News there is little reason to think Toronto's long-standing and sad history of power-broker backed (and not by any means just on the right) and ultimately voter approved nepotism will not continue on given the lack of serious contenders with the kind of clout or name recognition that would be needed to defeat a Ford in their stronghold.

New Democrat Christopher Strain did manage to get some press when he cleverly issued a challenge to Ford for a one-on-one debate (which Ford, of course, declined on the not entirely unjustified grounds that any debate should involve all candidates). While his website remains strikingly policy light Strain is, at least, strongly opposed to the Scarborough subway.

A list of all the by-election candidates can be found on the City of Toronto website.

School Trustee By-Elections

As predicted here previously, progressive Chris Moise won the Ward 14 TDSB by-election on June 20th.

Two other school board by-elections are continuing and will be held July 25.

In TDSB Ward 5 (York Centre) there are several candidates running on actual platforms in the race to fill the spot left vacant by the sad death of leftist Howard Kaplan -- though none of them seem to remotely have his approach and philosophy, which was fueled by a serious and genuine commitment to social justice.

Erica Shiner is running on a to date vague -- though progressive in tone -- "platform" and has a solid chance to join Moise on council at least in part, again, due to family name. She also benefits by contrast with her opponents.

Nina Zaslavsky has some backing and worked previously for two City Councillors. Her platform, such as it is, consists of three planks one of which is the truly terrible idea to have police officers stationed in every school -- a policy if adopted that is far more likely to lead to the abuse and surveillance of students than it is to help "protect" them.

Jordan Glass came in second to Kaplan in the last TDSB election in Ward 5. While Glass has framed his campaign around fighting for students with special needs and is a supporter of LGBT inclusion, he also talks in very right-wing tones about "fiscal accountability" and cities the odious Fraser Institute in his totally wrong-headed call to allow parents to be able to choose the schools they want to send their kids to. This is a deeply reactionary idea that would do nothing but ensure the entrenchment and reinforcement of marginalized communities remaining marginalized within our public education system and is little more than a right-wing fantasy that in reality would be a nightmare.

There is also a contest for TDSB Ward 1 going on, but on that front I can offer very little information. None of the candidates have websites or even Facebook pages with one exception, a candidate who appears to be affiliated with perennial candidate Kevin Clarke. I can also find no reporting on the race to fill Michael Ford's vacated spot. Given that this means an entirely random candidate whose views are not widely known may get elected by default, this is somewhat disturbing.

All candidates in these by-elections can be found on the City of Toronto website. 

Peel Police State

We have already touched on the dangerous situation unfolding in Peel where the police and their chief are OPENLY defying their civilian and elected overseers as if we live in a police state.

Now the chief and senior police officers are publicly calling on the progressive Chair of Peel's Police Services Board to resign, which is a disgraceful attempt to interfere in the democratic process. So far the Mayors of Brampton and Mississauga are resisting this. This needs to be closely watched, as were the police to succeed, when it really should be the chief herself resigning, it would set a terrible precedent and signal that the Peel police can basically set their own rules and agenda.

New Leftist Municipal Initiative

A potentially very exciting new leftist political initiative has been started by activists in Toronto. Called People's Choice 2018 they have launched after a first meeting with the following statement on Facebook:

The People's Choice 2018 Campaign is fighting to elect candidates from Toronto's working class wards to City Council and drive forward the People's Platform. This consists of an $18/hr minimum wage, fare-free transit, and a rent freeze for all Toronto tenants.
We are socialists
We are environmentalists
We are anti-racists
We are feminists
We are union members
We are community activists
Join the fight for a better city for all of us!
[email: peopleschoice2018@gmail.com]

This is a terrific start and the fact that they have put municipal minimum wages and free transit front and centre is very encouraging. I ran on both of these planks municipally in 2014 and have written articles about the need and possibility of both the municipal minimum wage and fare free transit. They are crucial in the fight for social justice and inclusion.

We need a front like this to help offset the institutional support from organizations like the Labour Council for the say and do-nothing progressive politicians we have now and to build a serious alternative to the right.

Join their Facebook group to stay up-to-date and for information on future meetings and rest assured I will be reporting here on developments and news as this unfolds.

See you in two weeks!

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

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

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

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

Left Chapter City Journal I

A new feature on the blog, I will be doing a left round-up of civic news and events in Toronto. It will be out every two weeks until the 2018 election comes, at which point it becomes weekly.

As, always, thoughts, feedback, suggestions and ideas will be more than welcome.

Reefer Madness!

They are everywhere!

It seems everyone with access to pot and money for first and last month's rent is opening up a neighbourhood "medical" marijuana shop in Toronto. Two have sprung up within a five minute walk of my house in the west end neighbourhood of Long Branch.

According to reports this is not an exception but is increasingly the rule citywide. With the pending legalization of pot approaching and with medical marijuana already completely legal, there is a rush to get in on the storefront pot selling action by budding entrepreneurs.

This has led, inevitably, to a hue-and-cry from parts of the media and from Toronto's municipal politicians that, needless to say, has strong elements of "what about the children" alarmist rhetoric to it.

Mayor Tory has called for a crackdown via city regulation on the "alarming" growth of such shops, especially emphasizing the alleged need to keep them away from schools and community centres and so on.

Of course, this is the usual silly logic that is akin to thinking that if only LCBO outlets were in isolated industrial parks kids would never find out about or drink alcohol underage! Kids too young to really get what the shops are are not suddenly going to be asking mom and dad if they too can toke up at recess and in the case of older kids and teens, as with cigarettes and booze, the factors that lead to use or abuse are far more complex than such misguided worries would lead one to believe.

Given the explosive growth in them, the market itself will likely take its course and simply weed a fair number of them out over time on its own.

But all businesses in Toronto are regulated and do have to exist within a municipal licensing and regulatory framework and these should not be any exception.

Due to the nature of the business, I think we can expect a fairly heavy-handed response in the near future.

Dedicated transit lanes.

There have been some positive and, at least to me, unexpected developments on the transit front in Etobicoke Ward 6 lately.

The 501 streetcar route has been split so that the line operates from the Humber Loop west to the Long Branch loop separately from the rest to the east. This has led to a large decrease in delays on the western part of the route (most of which were initiated in Parkdale or downtown) as well as to far fewer short turns at Kipling.

Also, the TTC has introduced an Express Bus that, for no extra fare, goes pretty much directly from Lake Shore and Kipling to the Kipling subway station. This is long overdue as likely 90% of passengers boarding at Lake Shore are going to the subway.

Possibly the most potentially interesting idea, however -- and one that somewhat surprisingly seems to have the support of the local Councillor Mark Grimes -- is the idea of introducing dedicated transit lanes for the bottleneck in the Park Lawn and Lake Shore area.

“Park Lawn-Lake Shore is at a tipping point right now. It’s a major kerfuffle,” he said, adding extra congestion comes from drivers avoiding the Gardiner and taking Lake Shore as they head into town or out of it during rush hours. “We have to give priority to people that are taking public transit.”
The area has a confluence of different public transportation routes, including the 501 streetcar, the 66 Prince Edward bus and the recently added 145 Downtown/Humber Bay Express bus. But Grimes said sharing all the lanes with vehicles makes the situation “unacceptable” for those taking public transit.
“I was there this morning (Tuesday) with TTC CEO Andy Byford, talking to other riders,” he said. “I tell you, I couldn’t count very many cars with more than one passenger. It’s just unfair.”

The pro-transit (and mildly anti-car) rhetoric is refreshing (especially given the source) but this would also be a truly dramatic improvement for transit users and one that should be considered, and would hopefully be a precedent for, many other areas of the city as well.

In fact, in a city the size of Toronto, all of the streetcar lines should be on some type of dedicated lane (at least during business days). More on this in a future blog!

Ward 2 By-Election

A few candidates have come forward to contest Michael Ford's coronation in  Ward 2 Etobicoke North.

Humorously one of those was originally misidentified by The Toronto Star as Russ Ford, who ran against Mark Grimes in Ward 6 and lost in 2014.

It was actually Christopher Strain, an NDPer who was the "strategist" for Russ Ford's milquetoast say-nothing but sound progressive run. I saw that one up close when I also ran (on a leftist platform) for that council position in 2014. In  the end, despite framing his entire campaign around being the only candidate who could win against Grimes, Ford did not even come close, though with enough of a vote that it was not a disaster like some other much celebrated (at the time) liberal style campaigns.

One can anticipate a similar platitude driven campaign from Strain I would expect. Like Russ Ford, Strain also does not live in the ward he is running in. Unlike Ford, Strain does not even live anywhere close and has no intrinsic connection to the community or to Etobicoke at all.

He made this rather clear in comments to the Sun:

Strain has worked with candidate Russ Ford — no relation to the late incumbent — and ran unsuccessfully for councillor in Ward 6 (Etobicoke-Lakeshore) in 2014.
“That’s my background in Etobicoke,” he said. “That’s why I think I’m qualified to run in Etobicoke.”

That, of course, is no "background" at all and Ward 6 is actually very different in fundamental respects from Ward 2 -- as anyone who knew anything at all about Etobicoke or had spent more than a few weeks there would know. Strain clearly does not.

He does go on to say that voters need a choice, which is always true and worthwhile.

So far they have Strain, Michael Ford, perennial candidate Kevin Clarke and Glen Smith.

Nominations close June 10th. Stay tuned.

TDSB By-elections

TDSB Wards 5 (York Centre) and 14 (Toronto Centre-Rosedale) are also having by-elections.

Ward 14's nominations are now closed and 12 candidates have come forward. One of these, Chris Moise, is a solid progressive who is closely aligned with City Council's NDP left.

This should benefit him given the area and, while he has run before, he seems poised to win this time.

We will take a closer look at this race down the road.

All candidates in both by-elections can be found on the City of Toronto website.

Uber 

In the long and drawn out battle between Uber and the taxi industry I think it is safe to say Uber won.

While the taxi industry is not (at all) without fault and has contributed greatly to the dim view so many take of it, cab driver Lincoln Samuel wrote fairly movingly of how Uber is destroying livelihoods, though to no avail.

It seems we can now look forward to the worst of both worlds -- depressed earnings for all the actual drivers and the institutionalization of things like "surge pricing", which is really just a fancy way to say gouging.

One thing is clear, what passes for the left in Toronto got outmaneuvered in its constant attempt to cut deals with the city's fundamentally right-wing and free market Mayor.

Two articles are worth reading on this. Jonathan Goldsbie outlines how a deal the left thought it had fell apart. Also, David Nickle has an interesting take on the left's basic powerlessness right now. 

See you in two weeks! 

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