The Fords' Toronto

July 26, 2011

So much for Monday's being the day that I write, eh? Anyways... I wanted to write about the latest stories involving Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his brother, Councillor Doug Ford. I get the sense that Toronto is becoming rather polarized with Mayor Ford at the helm and his brother seemingly in the wings helping out with the agenda.

I'm going to try to strike a middle-of-the-road approach with this post. Yes, I'll be critical of the two, but I'll also give credit where it's due. It is my hope that the comment section of this blog doesn't turn into the comment section of the Toronto Sun...

First, let's start with Doug Ford and his comments regarding Toronto libraries. As the city looks to cut costs, one of the plethora of options is to privatize and/or shut down libraries across the city.  When Canadian author Margaret Atwood took to her Twitter account to promote a campaign to save the libraries, so many people responded that the website linking to the petition crashed.

Doug Ford's response to all this? Well, to criticize Atwood and essentially telling her to seek a mandate before speaking out again. Ford also is on the record as saying there are more libraries in his ward than Tim Horton's, which was later shown not to be the case.

As I said in my last post, I have no problem with the privatization of certain things - as long as they are services that make sense to be privatized. Libraries certainly do not make sense. They belong in the hands of the public. They don't just serve as a place where books are "kept," they are centres for learning, they are meeting places and more. Privatization opens up yearly fees for borrowing books and for less options, in my opinion.

So, while I have no problem with the privatization of garbage collection, street cleaning and maintenance workers, vital public services - like libraries - must remain in the hands of the public.

In Mayor Rob Ford news, a rather bizarre story came out today where he is accused of giving a woman a "one-finger salute." While the story hasn't been proven, the mayor took to Twitter (seems to be a trend, lately) to call it a "misunderstanding." I'm not sure how it can be a misunderstanding - either he did it or he didn't, but I will not make judgement until the story comes out in its entirety.

The bigger issue in all of this is, as I mentioned earlier, the polarization of Toronto politics. While it seems to be a trend (a left-right divide in the federal parliament now as well), it's becoming pretty clear that, in Toronto, it isn't healthy.

Ford and the new administration have implemented policy I support. From a selfish perspective, I was able to register my car here after moving to the city, with the repeal of the $60 car tax. And I do support, discussed already, privatization of certain services that will have no impact on the current levels provided (or perhaps even improve upon them). But when there's talk of selling off and closing libraries, it's time to put a foot down.

I eagerly look forward to the responses from Ford Nation, telling me how wrong I am...

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.