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.