Slash and Burn - Welcome to Toronto

July 11, 2011

It looks like Monday will be the day that I post. Unless something vitally important piques my interest (or if I have an opinion that's busting to come out), I'll use this day to share my thoughts. Once summer ends and we all get back to our regular lives, I'll post more frequently.

This week, I want to talk about the core service review that the city contracted out to KPMG. Some of the recommendations in the report are, in a word, ridiculous.

Some of my 'favourites' all surround environmental programs and include:

• Backing off Toronto’s “very aggressive” target of directing 70 per cent of household waste away from landfill through recycling; this is insane. As more and more people look for ways to "go green", why would we divert recycling programs? If anything, we should be doing more to encourage people to reduce their use, reuse what they can and recycle as many things as we can.
• Eliminate community “environment days” hosted by councillors in each of their wards; again, why? I'd rather pay more in taxes to have a greener planet and I think a lot of people would agree.
• End collection of toxic goods at environment days and cancel the “Toxic Taxi” that does household pickup for residents with large quantities of hazardous waste; as KPMG notes in the report, this is likely to lead to more toxic goods in landfills. Not good.

Another one of the most ridiculous ideas I saw in the report is to drastically increase the price of permits for events. This is perhaps the craziest idea I saw (ok, maybe not - but it's up there). Increasing the cost of permits for events is going to lead to two things: first, a drop in the number of events in the city; and because of that, second, a drop in the number of tourists and therefore revenue to events that remain.

Are there good ideas in the report? Of course. There are two ideas that I think have some great merit and should be implemented:

• Scrap the four free tags each household gets per year for overflow garbage bags; By all means. This forces people to throw less away or pay the consequences. Money earned from those who do purchase these tags can - and should - be diverted back into waste reduction programs.
• Outsource facility security services and grass cutting; I have no problem with the privitization of certain things. Security and grass cutting are two things that I don't think many people would find a problem with contracting out - as long as it is cheaper than having the city do it.

Before I moved to the city, I didn't have a problem with Rob Ford. By no means did I think he was perfect, but his message of fiscal restraint resonated with me, as I'm a fiscally conservative person in my outlook. But I'm not a slash-and-burn type; I don't like to see services reduced that lead to decline in the quality of life for a city and its residents. A lot of the recommendations contained in this report, I think, would reduce the quality of life for all Torontonians.

I, for one, hope that many of these recommendations are not implemented for the sake of the city.

For a full copy of the KPMG report, you can visit here. Bullet points in italics are sourced directly from the Toronto Star.