On Friday Doug Ford threw a bomb into Toronto's City Hall. He announced that he was reducing the size of the city council from 44 members to 25 -- during a municipal election. And he has the legal authority to do it. Royson James writes:
He doesn’t need to consult with the city to determine how the country’s largest city will manage the changes.
This is what we mean when we say the city is the creature of the province. Or, the premier can abolish the mayor and dissolve the City of Toronto with the stroke of a pen. No questions asked. No matter what the residents think or say. Just proclaim it!
Ford and his brother Rob tried to do exactly that when they were on the council. But they were voted down. Now Ford has achieved by fiat what he couldn't achieve by vote.
The premier says that the council is dysfunctional. But its problems go back to the last PC premier -- Mike Harris:
Premier Mike Harris was the villain then. And he touched off the most tumultuous, sustained protest for local democracy that our local municipal government has seen in anyone’s memory. Kathleen Wynne, before she was a politician, was one of the principals in planning the protests.
Back then we had six mayors, six fire chiefs, six city councils and more than 100 city councillors in Metro Toronto. Harris argued that cutting the six to one would save wads of cash and create unimaginable efficiencies.
There's that magic word -- efficiencies. That's what Ford said he would find. But he never said how he would find them. Consider what happened when Harris found his "efficiencies:"
The last 20 years has been the most challenging period for Toronto — precisely because of the way the Harris government implemented the amalgamation. Toronto has barely recovered. What it needs now is stability and support — not another chaotic period buttressed by uncertainty.
City council can’t end transit gridlock, fix the $1 billion public housing backlog, and build infrastructure because the large number of councillors are stumbling over themselves, arguing and unable to decide. Bunkum.
The housing backlog was created when the Harris government downloaded the cost of social housing on Toronto, one of the most outrageous political decisions. Ford, barely elected premier, has not relieved the burden. In fact, he has announced further cuts on this file.
Transit? Harris again reduced provincial funding, truncated the Sheppard subway, filled in the Eglinton West subway and set the TTC off on a downward spiral.
The Fords aggravated the situation. Doug’s late brother, Rob, created the delays by insisting, as mayor, that “subways, subways, subways” replace the approved and paid for LRT plan, proposed by Rob’s predecessor David Miller. That kicked off several rounds of debate and studies and redebate and delays.
Doug Ford’s transit pronouncements are adding to the delays and confusion — independent of the size of city council.
For example, Ford has announced he will amend Toronto’s current transit plans — a move that will lengthen, not shorten the approval process. It’s a red herring to suggest that the size of city council has anything to do with the number of times council must vote on the Scarborough subway extension. A new, 25-member council will have to vote on the Scarborough subway extension another three or four times — just like a 100-member council would. It’s the approval process, stupid.
The reason the Scarborough subway decision is taking long is because provincial governments keep changing the rules — for political reasons, and because they can.
When Conservatives are in power these days, they throw bombs and break things.
Welcome to Chaos.
Image: Press Reader
18 comments:
The older I get, Owen, the less I feel like a participant in life and the more I feel like a bemused bystander. Events are happening that make little sense to me, and I find myself increasingly glad that I won't be around for the very worst of them. Present-day antics are more than enough to last me for the rest of my days.
Ever since Ford made his bombshell announcement, Lorne, my wife and I have been mystified. The Fords had a track record. We should have known what we were getting. My wife and I knew. Obviously, we must live on another planet.
When I read of Ford's plan I thought back to Ottawa city council in the early 70s. Like most rookie reporters I was given the municipal councils to cover - Ottawa, Kanata, sometimes Gloucester.
I went on line and had no difficulty finding a web site that listed the entire composition of every Ottawa city council from the 60s to today. The population of Ottawa in the early 70s was about 600,000 (now over 1.3 million). Yet even in the 70s, Ottawa had a city council of 24 elected members - a mayor, a Board of Control (executive council elected city wide) and the rest ward aldermen. The council was colourful but it worked relatively efficiently.
Toronto today stands at 2.8 million, closing in on five times as populous as Ottawa was in the early 70s, and yet Ford wants the city run by an Ottawa-size council. Even the current 47-member council seems inadequate. Councillors are supposed to serve the residents, their interface with the municipality. 25 for 2.8 million people, how are you to get access to a councillor when you have a problem with the city?
Ford's idea, seen in this perspective, is a colossal brain fart.
What Lorne said ..... as I have said elsewhere I am getting tired of this crap!
By the way, this move to what seems to be an imperial mayoralty got me wondering who'll be Ontario's Oliver Cromwell?
Here's what I find most disturbing about all this right wing destructive crap going on.
The rest of us are taking it lying down. Sure lots of us are hollering and waving our arms about but no one is actually rising to their feet and saying no more.
Liberal democracies have not done a very good job of preparing themselves to fight for liberal democracy. It appears to me that liberal democracy will be vanquished without even once fighting back, by which I mean *fighting* back, not merely making noises.
He's following the Harris template, Mound. Harris amalgamated several municipalities to form the City of Toronto. He amalgamated hospitals and school boards. Fewer people people boiled down to fewer services. Before our little hospital became part of the bigger whole, it had 55 beds. It now has 15.
It's all a con.
That's exactly what is is, Rural -- crap.
Good question, Mound. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
This looks to me like suburban revolt. Big cities have more in common with each other than with their suburbs. Big cities try to organize themselves in a variety of ways that often frustrate suburbanites, bike lanes and light rail being good examples. Suburbanites that work in the city or choose to attend a hockey game want to drive in easily and to have ample cheap parking. They want no obstacles such as tracks in the road and, NO, they do not want to take the train or bus. All big cities suffer calls to take the damn tracks out or tear up the bike lanes. Etc. Toronto is not unique in this.
Doug Ford is leading the suburban revolt on Toronto and will happily destroy the city. He doesn't see that damaging the city will have negative impacts. Remember Quebec's language laws that caused big companies to desert the Belle Province?
I agree, Deacon. It could be that liberal democracy will die not with a bang but a whimper. If it's to survive, people are going to have to take to the streets. And the opposing forces are increasingly well armed.
I think you're one to something, Toby. Ford captured what is called the 905 -- the telephone exchange which surrounds Toronto. He pledged to lower these residents gas prices and make commuting by car less expensive. His power is rooted in the suburbs -- and in rural Ontario.
"His power is rooted in the suburbs -- and in rural Ontario". It's rooted with the "Rednecks"! MJW
Let me add, Owen< that the automobile is anathema to a well functioning city. On the other hand, suburbanites live for their cars. There's not much room for negotiation.
Increase the workload and they won't have the time to concern themselves with things that should be left to whatever combinations of their betters we'll have to appoint. Tell the slugs it will save them money when we have no way of knowing and no real concern as to whether it will when it probably won't, and they're sure to buy it. Everybody knows of at least one city councillor somewhere that he'd like to hate. Just imagine what additional layers of non-accountability we can devise. We can even call it "reform".
Quite true,zoombats. And I am amazed that there are so many of them.
That battle is all about fossil fuels, Toby. It's not about one car per family. It's about two and three car families.
It's very Orwellian, John. Ignorance is truly Strength.
Post a Comment