tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979880805139218632024-03-15T03:20:49.489-04:00Autonomy For AllBecause dignity is a human right.Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.comBlogger210125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-2666468808163200492016-03-28T22:03:00.000-04:002016-03-28T22:03:52.136-04:00A Forgotten Rob Ford: The Machine MakerI greatly appreciate the efforts of many of Toronto's better writers and activists to push back against the ghastly effort to recast Rob Ford as some kind of civic champion. In particular, I <a href="http://www.haemorrhage-music.com/ford-eulogy">recommend this</a> by Richard Feren, the author of Ford's most infamous parody account, Rob Frod, <a href="http://tvo.org/article/current-affairs/shared-values/andray-domise-the-rob-ford-legacy-that-many-refuse-to-confront">and this</a> by Andray Domise, the former ward 2 candidate & current civic activist. There are several others, including <a href="https://afuitbs.com/2016/03/24/rob-ford/">@cityslikr</a>, <a href="http://torontoist.com/2016/03/373870/">Torontoist</a>, <a href="http://spacing.ca/toronto/2016/03/22/rob-ford-obit/">Spacing</a> and a few <a href="https://twitter.com/DesmondCole/status/712368398563450884">poignant tweets</a> by Desmond Cole. Plus see some older recaps of his various terrible behaviour by <a href="https://storify.com/karengeier/remember-these-rob-ford-gems">Karen Geier</a> and my own previous contribution on how he was <a href="https://storify.com/robfordmustgo/danfmto-shows-why-rob-ford-is-a-really-bad-boss">demonstrably a horrible boss</a> to work for.<br />
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Lest anyone be distressed about the violation of the polite rule to not "speak ill of the dead" let's be clear: Yes, these are terribly rude things to say about a dead man, but also terribly necessary and right. There are worse things than being rude, and letting a harmful political figure's followers try and rewrite the history of the person upon their death is worse than being rude but correct about who that person was, and most importantly: <b>What harm they did with the great power they held.</b> Ford chose a life in public office, and decided the policies he pursued or did not, he is not a private citizen for whom we could harmlessly pass on pointing out his flaws in life. He did a lot of harm with his power over others, and as we want other people wielding such power to behave better, we must make clear how such people will be remembered. <br />
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One aspect of Ford's career in office that has been missing though were his alarming anti-democratic efforts to construct a political machine in Toronto. This machine naturally fell apart as his substance abuse problems overwhelmed him, but before that happened there was a genuinely distressing period where it appeared he was going to get away with a large array of democratically abusive practices in order to set up a fairly old style city-election machine. The elements I remember:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>First and worst was the awful weekly radio show on CFRB 1010. Two sitting politicians, closely allied, given 3 hours a week of free city wide airtime unmoderated and in full control of the agenda to smear their opponents & critics, campaign for whatever was on their minds & riff off whatever calls they decided to take. This truly was unprecedented in Toronto politics, and hopefully never to be repeated. A huge incumbent advantage and a form of non-stop illegal campaigning outside the election period. When Ford's approval numbers did not crater as expected in May of 2013 as the crack allegations appeared, the effect of his radio show in rallying his base cannot be underestimated. The theory was that Rob would quit the show once the 2014 campaign formally started, but Doug, officially not running would keep it going for most of the year really was quite plausible and again only the crack scandal finally forced CFRB's hand to end the show. Sun News gave the pair a show after that, but luckily that too fell apart.</li>
<li>Ford Fest. Another form of perpetual campaigning, effectively staging campaign rallies outside the election period. Ford even began planning more than the traditional annual event though I think his addiction problems curtailed most of this after one extra edition of it held in Scarborough.</li>
<li>The donor network. In 2010 Ford attracted record sums of money from donors <i>outside</i> the city, which Toronto bizarrely allows. The crack scandal largely dried this up, but had it remained flowing I could easily have seen Ford calling on his donors to donate to various friendly council candidates or challengers to people he wanted removed. Given the small dollars on which most council campaigns run, it would not be particularly hard to swamp an incumbent or given a candidate in an open race a huge edge by calling for donations to their campaign. </li>
<li>Robocalls. Infamously, after Paul Ainslie of Scarborough ward 43 changed his mind and voted against the Scarborough subway, Ford had his whole ward robocalled to slag the councillor to his constituents. This was a form of party discipline to hold over the heads of councillors in areas where he was popular. Naturally this was done outside the election period and was far from the only instance of it (robocalls were also used extensively to promote Ford Fest)</li>
<li>Efforts to defund the accountability officers. The accountability officers have weak powers, but they did at least regularly point out ways Ford was abusing process and rules to his advantage. </li>
<li>Constituent visits/calls as retail campaigning. I've come around to the view that Ford did largely enjoy driving about being feudal lord doling out favours to his vassals in the form of fence allowances and pothole repairs, but the extent to which he did this made it beyond any reasonable measure of a senior politician trying to stay connected to the concerns of John Q. Citizen, and became a form of non-stop retail campaigning. For every "taxpayer" Ford visits and helps, you have to figure 10 or 20 more will hear the story in some form, and in a city, over a span of years, these numbers matter. How many people know someone who got a returned call or a visit from Ford? These in person contacts are how true believers are made, people who are not easily swayed by further negative stories in the media. </li>
</ul>
<div>
Ultimately of course, the Ford family efforts to build a dynasty seem so far to be limited to Ward 2 and currently Michael Ford in the overlapping public school board seat. But not for lack of trying and it's inevitable that someone else will try something similar in future. Ford's willingness to flout rules where he saw advantage was part of the general (largely right wing led) erosion of the norms that keep civil society working reasonably well. Ford was not re-elected so much of the city wrongly concluded this was all fixed, but as a guy like Giorgio Mammoliti can keep his seat despite being known to take personal cheques from people he oversaw on committees, I can't be so sanguine that the next such demagogue will self-destruct before doing even more damage.</div>
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This too is Ford's legacy, and what poison fruit it will still bear for us is not known. </div>
Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-88410020329212852702015-01-04T22:33:00.001-05:002015-01-04T22:33:32.396-05:00Global Warming is Really Just a Risk Mitigation ExerciseThere are four broad outcomes depending on whether we act to mitigate climate change, and whether it is as bad (or worse than) what the models predict in terms of temperature increase by 2100 and the associated likely impacts of a +4-8C world environment:<br />
<ol>
<li>We do nothing. Global warming is not a big deal.</li>
<li>We do nothing. Global warming is as bad or worse than feared.</li>
<li>We act. Global warming is not a big deal.</li>
<li>We act. Global warming is as bad or worse than feareded. </li>
</ol>
Key here is the only "variable" we as humans control is whether we act. We can (and have) studied the hell out of the science to determine the truth of the second part, but the only choice we face is whether we (collectively as a species & planetary civilization) act decisively enough to significantly reduce emissions versus the status quo emissions track.<br />
<br />
What are the consequences of these four paths?<br />
<ol>
<li><u>Outcome: Ideal</u>. No economic loss to an economically forced conversion to a carbon free energy system, no major harms from greenhouse gas emissions.</li>
<li><u>Outcome: Catastrophic</u>. Billions probably die. At the outlier of possibilites, humans actually go extinct. At minimum, huge economic & social impacts, particularly when considering the secondary effects like wars & unrest from water & food shortages. Millions of people die and millions of species go extinct.</li>
<li><u>Outcome: Ok</u>. Some unnecessary economic loss (Stern put it at 1% of global GDP in that 2005 UK study). Plus side: We move to a renewable (cleaner) energy system. No more oil spills, black lung, flammable fracking tapwater, Asian brown cloud, and the host of non-climate related ills from the fossil energy system.</li>
<li><u>Outcome: Ok</u>. Some economic loss (Stern's 1%) compared to #1, but this is illusionary since if #4 is true then global warming is a big problem and outcome #1 was impossible anyway, so this is also "ideal." Depending on how well we acted, the various harms of global warming are mitigated to some degree so hurt less (or perhaps not at all). Same benefits of #3 for moving to a renewable energy system.</li>
</ol>
So you, as emperor of the world for a day get to make 1 decision, act or don't act on global warming. Down one path ("don't act" - #1 and #2) you get one good outcome and one very bad one. Down another path (act) you get two pretty ok outcomes. As a risk mitigation exercise, the prudent choice is clear. It's not so different as the choice you make to buy insurance on your home. If nothing ever bad ever happens to your home, that money is wasted! Yet if it does, you're glad to be covered.<br />
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It's not even as if you have to wait for the year 2100 or something, if we act on global warming, enact carbon taxes and do a "Manhattan project" for clean energy, and then uncover strong evidence the climate problem is far less serious than feared, the carbon taxes can be repealed and the clean energy projects shuttered. The acts we take on climate change are reversible if we really don't like the outcomes. They're human laws & treaties. The consequences of climate change itself are <b>physics</b> and short of some much much riskier geoengineering projects, there's very little we can do to stop it past a certain point.<br />
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Am I understating that 1% cost figure to mitigate it? Sure, maybe. But we currently spend something like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures">2.5% of global GDP on military expenditures</a> and few seem to feel this deadweight spending is some kind of global economic disaster choking off human potential. During WWII and the heights of the Cold War, military spending (particularly in the combatent nations) was well into the double digits. We have proven our societies can withstand relatively long spurts of much higher economic committment to shared goals without great economic loss. <br />
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Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-29904213080629060152014-09-23T06:30:00.000-04:002014-09-23T06:30:00.363-04:00Ranked Balloting (Toronto) Primer: This Needs to HappenIn 2013, City Council <a href="http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2013.GM22.15">voted 25-16 in favour</a> of a motion that (among other things) asked the province to implement legislation authorizing ranked balloting (or "instant runoff voting" - IRV) for municipal elections in Toronto. Since then, the re-elected Liberals <a href="http://ontarioliberalplan.ca/making-government-work/">included a specific promise</a> to implement such legislation for all Ontario municipalities. <br /><br /><b>What Is It?</b><br /><br />Quite simply, instead of just picking one candidate to vote for, you rank them in order of your preference. The winner needs to get 50% + 1 of the vote. Everyone's first choice selections are counted first, if no candidate gets over 50% of the first choices, the bottom candidate is eliminated and their 2nd choice votes are counted, added to the non-eliminated candidates. If no one is over 50% at this point, the next lowest candidate is eliminated and the process continues until someone gets over 50%.<br /><br /><b>Why Is That Better?</b><br /><br />The "first past the post" (FPTP) system allows a candidate to win on a plurality of the vote, which can be quite low (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_municipal_election,_2010#Ward_12:_York_South.E2.80.94Weston">like 27%</a>) depending on the number of candidates and the vote breakdown. This means the winner is theoretically opposed by the majority of the voters. Or maybe there's a bunch of people who wanted someone else more, but are okay with the winner. We don't know because FPTP doesn't capture this information.<br /><br />This is why FPTP lends itself to strategic voting (fear of dreaded "vote splitting"), where people vote for someone they don't particularly support, in order to hopefully defeat someone they despise. "Lesser of two evils" voting. Under IRV, voters can pick who they most like first, and pick the safe pick to defeat someone they hate 2nd or even 3rd. <br /><br /><b>What Needs To Happen For This?</b><br /><br /><u>It's important to know it's not "in the bag" because the provincial Liberals promised it and won a majority.</u> Even assuming they keep their promise and pass a bill to allow IRV, the next City Council would have to do a bunch of things to make it a reality in time for 2018. <br /><br />Despite Council voting pretty strongly for this in 2013, one of those "next things" to actually make this happen was quietly buried this year as a motion to ensure that if the city buys any new vote counting machines, they pick ones compatable with IRV first <a href="http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2014.MM52.11">failed to get two-thirds support</a> needed to be passed directly in council (member motions not vetted by committees need a two-thirds supermajority to pass) was redirected to the Government Management Committee where a bunch of Ford allies (including Doug Ford) <a href="http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2014.GM32.31">delayed it until 2015</a> (ostensibly to ask the City Clerk for cost information, but clearly a pretext).<br /><br />Beyond voting machines, a bunch of money will have to be spent in changing the election system, the ballots, and in voter education and outreach. All of which can be delayed in ways big and small until the clock runs out on 2018.<br /><br />This is just a small taste of the legislative slow-walking that an unfriendly administration can put such a thing through, even if the next Council retains a solid majority in favour of implementing IRV - a Mayor who does not, and makes a point of picking a Government Management committee chair who shares that view can do much to prevent or delay it, at least past the 2018 election where the game can begin again. By then, maybe a new provincial government is elected and if no municipalities are using IRV, perhaps they repeal that law and it dies.<br /><br /><b>Where Do the Mayoral Candidates Stand?</b><br /><br />Only covering the "Big 3" - Olivia Chow is firmly in favour. Doug Ford is firmly against. John Tory is at best non-committal if you're being naively generous, but really he is opposed. Let's look at <a href="http://metronews.ca/news/toronto/1147661/toronto-mayoral-candidates-where-do-they-stand-on-ranked-balloting/">what he told MetroNews</a>:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-em70aMlcQfw/VCDXlmU-qsI/AAAAAAAAATo/VDVSKHjuUEw/s1600/Tory-IRV.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-em70aMlcQfw/VCDXlmU-qsI/AAAAAAAAATo/VDVSKHjuUEw/s1600/Tory-IRV.png" height="94" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />The province is not "examining" electoral reforms, they specifically promised to provide municipalities the option of ranked balloting. There is no "process" that Tory would be "preempting" and even if there were, the idea that a political candidate of a municipality couldn't express an opinion about electoral reform while some process of examining such was under way is patently absurd. If the province was studying changes to municipal taxation powers or amalgamating the whole GTA into a mega-city, I'm pretty sure Tory would express an opinion about that. This answer only makes sense as a way of clouding the issue to make unwillingness to support IRV sound like some kind of openness to it. <br /><br /><b>But Tory's Going To Win!</b><br /><br />It certainly seems like it now, but even so ranked balloting got this far even with vehement opposition of the Fords and their council faction, and while 2013 was not a great year for the Fords, June 2013 predates Rob Ford losing his powers over committee chairs and the executive, so he still had some juice. That said, there's many reasons to suspect Tory would be more effective at using the Mayor's powers more effectively to stop IRV if he makes a point of it.<br /><br />Beyond that, a Mayor Tory who wins the election outright with >50% of the vote will be much harder to fight than one who squeaks by with ~40% of the vote. That alone becomes a strong political argument for proponents of IRV to throw at him and his allies if he tries to fight it. If he wins outright, he won't look quite so hypocritical in opposing it, after all he didn't need the non-majority aspect of FPTP to win. In short, if Chow can't win, it is still worth blunting Tory's margin of victory. Councillors watch that stuff. Councillors in wards which get higher support for the Mayor than themselves tend to be more pliable to the Mayor's wishes, particularly early in the term.<br /><br />It's also worth making sure your preferred council candidate supports it. <br /><br /><b>How Exactly Could Tory Stop It?</b><br /><br />If he wins with a so-called "mandate" (e.g. a very big win) he could early on have council vote on buying new voting machines that don't support IRV, then argue it would be "irresponsible" to adopt IRV for the 2018 election once the province passes their bill. He could signal the Premier to slow-walk the bill (and she might co-operate). He could ensure the Government Management committee is stacked with opponents and bury attempts to bring it up in that committee. He could try and insist a city-wide referendum is needed to adopt this, or bury it in studies until it really is too late to implement for 2018. Would he do these things? I don't know, but given the long track record of inertia and defenders of the FPTP voting system, we should probably assume anyone not openly for it is against it, and even some of the politicans openly for it are secretly against it. <br /><br /><b>But I Prefer Some Other System That's Far Better!</b><br /><br />First past the post has had a monopoly over the Canadian electoral landscape for our entire history basically. Our largest city adopting an actual new voting system would break that monopoly and create a real world local example of an alternate voting system in practice. It might just catch on provincially and federally! It is incremental as it doesn't require a new governing system and the kind of thing people can adopt without the easy fear mongering of "endless minority governments" that say, proportional representation brings. <br /><br />It's also much further along politically than any other idea, it has momementum. It just needs the Wynne government to keep their word, and the existing strong majority on council supporting it to be re-elected and stick to their guns (though a pro-IRV Mayor would make it a virtual lock). <br /><br />The best part for supporters of other systems is that IRV most likely makes your preferred system <b>easier to implement.</b> Nothing is better for defending the status quo than FPTP, where people supporting the status quo can usually rally around a status quo candidate or party (typically conservatives) while proponents of "change" have a harder time uniting around some specific new thing to do. So long as ~40% want FPTP, if the other 60% can't assemble at least 41% in favour of one specific other thing, they'll divide among several and the status quo will win (see "divided left, the").<br />
<br />This is a part of why referenda on major system changes typically fail: The status quo becomes the "safe" option and gets votes from many people who support some change, but not whatever specific change is on the ballot (like in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_electoral_reform_referendum,_2007">2007 Ontario referendum</a> on a new voting system). <br /><br />Under an IRV system, proponents of yet another system would have a better chance of winning support as voters could make candidates supporting their favourite alternate system their first choice. Maybe some such candidates would win, and maybe others would see the idea was popular and adopt it.<br />
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<br />
<b>What Do We Have To Lose?</b><br />
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Let's get on this, this is a generational opportunity to enact the kind of reform that makes many other reforms possible. No, it's not a panacea, it doesn't fix all ills and frankly if we'd had this in 2010, it's probably that Rob Ford would have gotten at least 3% of the 2nd choice votes from Rossi & Pantalone to get over 50% and win anyway. But it would ensure Doug Ford couldn't have won this time around with his ~35% voting ceiling and 65% of the city ready to evict all things Ford. It would also ensure online favourites Goldkind and Baskin get a lot more votes than they will, and possibly would have averted the need for David Soknacki to take his name off the ballot (though he likely would still have suspended his largely self-funded campaign). It would also affect a number of council races in every election. Even if all you want to do is "shake things up" this is the best option on the horizon to do so.<br /><br />For more, see the <a href="http://www.123toronto.ca/main.htm">Toronto Ranked Ballotting</a> Initiative website<br /><br /><br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-28671735103205451042014-09-13T13:41:00.000-04:002014-09-13T13:41:40.890-04:00The Ford Family Political MachineThe recent switch of Doug for Rob in the Mayor's race, and Rob for Michael in the Ward 2 race is in a sense shocking, but not surprising. Speculation about this possibility had existed for some time. I see outraged talk about "feudalism" and family dynasties. Good. It's been apparent that the Fords were always about setting up a bona fide old style "Tammany Hall" political machine in Toronto. Consider:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://autonomyforall.blogspot.ca/2013/10/the-ford-brothers-radio-show-does-not.html">The radio show on CFRB 1010</a>. This was far underestimated by digital/online types in its significance. Ford had a multi-hour open mic to the whole city every week, with no neutral "host" to direct the agenda or put any limits, and his brother to co-host. It was qualitatively different from any previous Mayor's anodyne style of "civic engagement" shows on Cable 10 or CP24, hosted and generally just about run of the mill constituent issues & questions. The Ford show was openly a dialog to "Ford Nation" and no political punches were pulled. </li>
<li><a href="http://www.pressprogress.ca/en/post/follow-money-mapping-donations-harperland-ford-nation">The network of donors</a>, particularly out of the city in the rest of the province. This is the stuff of nightmares for Councillors. It's pretty easy to imagine this network being given signals to drop a few hundred thousand (collectively) on a couple council challengers to incumbents who have upset the Fords, and maybe drop some more on any friendly councillors in trouble. Ford wouldn't need to defeat every unfriendly councillor, just enough to scare the rest, especially the ones in marginal wards who won by close margins.</li>
<li>The enemies list. Yes, <a href="http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2014/02/19/being_on_toronto_mayor_rob_fords_hit_list_is_an_honour_editorial.html">he has a list</a> of councillors he wants defeated. You don't assemble such lists unless you have plans to do something about it.</li>
<li>The robocalls. The radio show wasn't enough, Ford used these as a direct line to constituents. Again, probably undervalued by digital/online types, but for those key most-likely-to-vote older demographics who also aren't as often online, this is a key touchpoint.</li>
<li>The permanent campaign. <a href="http://autonomyforall.blogspot.ca/2013/11/rob-fords-permanant-campaign.html">I've written at length</a> about this before, but basically Rob Ford never really stops campaigning. His obsession with constituent services is the most obvious aspect of this. Numerous people in his city-funded Mayoral staff (like David Price) were focused solely on this. </li>
</ul>
All of these are the more-or-less visible aspects of the machine operation. One may speculate, given what we know about Ford's various underworld friends & connections whether there was a much darker portion to this machine, a group of Nixonesque "plumbers" perhaps (think of the prison beating alleged to have been ordered by Ford). <br /><br />Once you accept the motivation of establishing a permanent political Ford family machine, many of Ford's policy preferences make sense:<br />
<ul>
<li>Despite a much ballyhooed hatred of "gravy" - Ford has never said word one in opposition to the City program of rebating up to 75% of political donations, even to non-Toronto residents or voters. Even in the 2014 budget process where he was <a href="https://storify.com/robfordmustgo/rob-ford-s-various-deeply-foolish-proposals-to-cut">obviously unable to come up with anything like the $50-$60M</a> in savings he promised he could, this juicy plum was left untouched.</li>
<li>His various attempts to eliminate the City's accountability officers like the Omsbud & Integrity commissioner. For a guy who makes such hay on the "gravy train" and being so very honest, it might seem strange that he was so vehement in opposition to mechanisms to hold politicians accountable to voters. But even as relatively toothless as these offices are, they have been a regular thorn in his side, and if they don't outright stop aspects of his political machine, they often issue reports ruling they are violations of various rules (like the robocalls to Ainslie's ward).</li>
<li>Hatred of 311 and other forms of city employed professional customer service help. Ford doesn't want government to just work, he wants constituents to need his help to get what they need from the city. A simple, easy to remember number that can provide nearly any city service in one call or email really reduces your need to call your councillor or the Mayor for help with that leaky fire hydrant or unpatched pothole. Those old enough to remember the "blue pages" part of the phone book may remember a lengthy list of city deparments & agencies one might have to navigate for services, a nightmare of waiting on hold, missed return calls & bureaucratic runaround.</li>
<li>Opposition to s.39 and any spending out of it. There are legitimate concerns with s.39 (funds contributed by developers held at ward-level under the direction of that ward's councillor for improvements to the ward) but obviously Ford would not like anything which allows Councillors to get improvements to their ward, and look good to their constituents without his blessing. The funds do need City Council approval to be spent, but as Ford did not yet have a firm grip on Council as a whole, s.39 was a threat to him and his machine. In particular, downtown and high density wards with the most progressive councillors tend to get the most s.39 money because they have the most development.</li>
</ul>
This is a partial list, not an attempt to be comprehensive, but the lens of "aiding my political machine" often allows otherwise strange Ford policy preferences. <br /><br />The most terrible aspect of this, is that it probably would have worked except for the drug & alcohol problems. Absent that, it really is difficult to imagine he would not be sailing to re-election, and possibly getting a slate of "Ford Nation" councillors elected to solidify his control over council. It was pretty clear for example, that the scheme with Doug not registering for election was to allow him to continue hosting the radio show this year, a plan only foiled by Ford's crack videos causing CFRB to cancel the program (they tried to resume it with Sun News and then via Youtube, both evidently failures). The network of big money donors has apparently largely withered away, big money opting instead for the safer alternative, John Tory. Rather than advancing their control over Council, the Fords were left fighting just to hang on (and losing even at that).<br /><br />No, we should not be surprised that they "dare" swap Doug for Rob, and opt to have Rob hold the "safe" home base of Ward 2 (Michael was far from a sure win). The political machine is down but not out, and they will fight ever to restore it unless defeated completely.<br /><br /><br /><br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-26301467413703196102014-09-06T14:49:00.003-04:002014-09-06T14:49:55.377-04:00Sadly, Tying Property Taxes To Inflation Is ProgressEarlier in the Mayoral campaign, with the unsurprising exception of Ford, the other four (then) "major" candidates (Chow, Stintz, Tory, Soknacki) solidified their positions on property taxes around a general consensus that such taxes should match inflation.<br /><br />A number of people whose views I respect have written some thoughtful pieces on how this is bad public policy:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://metronews.ca/voices/ford-for-toronto/1127522/why-we-should-keep-inflation-out-of-torontos-mayoral-race/">Matt Elliott argues</a> that aggregate measures of inflation like the consumer price index can often be poor guides to what kinds of uncontrollable price increases city operating budgets may face, necessitating a larger-than-CPI tax increase just to maintain existing services. </li>
<li><a href="http://afuitbs.com/2014/03/24/missed-opportunity-2/">Cityslikr took Olivia Chow</a> in particular to task over her pledge to say "around" inflation, given the real need for service improvements, many of which she is campaigning on, that won't plausibly fit within the existing city budget.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.citythatworks.ca/2014/07/loving-toronto-at-rate-of-inflation.html">Marc Coward makes</a> a similar point more generally, pointing to things like the growing unfunded TTC "state of good repair" project backlog, and the unfunded repair backlog at Toronto Community Housing.</li>
</ul>
Throw in a report like this one from <a href="http://munkschool.utoronto.ca/imfg/uploads/288/1581fiscallyhealthyr5final.pdf">U of T's Munk School municipal affairs</a> institute which shows that Toronto's property taxes are low by any standard you wish to use, and have fallen over the past decade, and openly states Toronto "does not have a spending problem" and it's pretty clear all these people are right. Property taxes do need to increase, and by more than inflation if we are to have the kind of city many of us tell pollsters and politicians we want.<br /><br />Yet, I can't but see a political consensus that property taxes should increase every year in nominal terms to keep some kind of pace with inflation is actually progress. The "original sin" of the amalgamated city is our first megamayor, Mel Lastman <a href="http://bowjamesbow.ca/2008/03/16/toronto-whose-f-1.shtml">instituting a 3 year property tax rate freeze.</a> For those who understand how inflation works, the <a href="http://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/">consumer price index for Canada</a> increased over 7% during that same time meaning the city was (assuming its costs matched the CPI) funding programs & services that cost 7% more, while taking in no additional revenue. Something has to give.<br /><br />As the piece linked to in reference to Lastman points out, things did "give" under Miller, where we see the introduction of the vehicle registration tax and the (municipal) land transfer tax. Perhaps Miller should have just pushed for a big "catch up" property tax increase, but in case, more revenue was badly needed. In fact, the LTT has been so successful that it allowed Ford to irresponsibly return to Lastman era policies by freezing property taxes during his first budget, 2011. That means, at that point, in 13 years of being a megacity, Toronto had frozen rates for nearly a third of its life. <br /><br />Anecdotally I frequently encounter people who really don't get inflation (or how property tax rates work, hence pieces like <a href="http://torontoist.com/2014/01/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-property-taxes/">this</a> and <a href="http://spacing.ca/toronto/2008/03/28/property-taxes-are-weird/">this</a>). They see the dollar cost of their property tax bill go up, year after year, and see it as a burdensome increase, imagining spend-thrift politicians throwing wild parties with the "extra" cash, rather than just treading water in the ever rising tide that is inflation. Of course, some people's incomes do not keep pace with inflation either, so it may actually be an increasing burden to them, but in the aggregate, inflationary increases should not be doing so on average.<br /><br />The point is that politicians like Ford and Lastman are playing to a real constituency of people who intuitively think that property taxes should be nominally the same year after year barring some major new program like a new subway or something that would explain an increase (which politicians like Ford & Tory also try to claim they can do without a tax increase). <br /><br />In the face of all this, I can't but see a general political consensus from left to medium-right that property taxes should generally need to increase in nominal terms as some kind of progress. I'm not clear that it represents better awareness in the general public on these topics (I doubt it), and would still look for the city to increase its revenue take from sources that automatically increase with inflation (like income taxes) so that the city's revenues are not so prone to demagoguery, but failing that, I'll take this as a good sign.<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-56359042016720620702014-08-27T08:00:00.000-04:002014-08-27T08:00:00.941-04:00The "SmartTrack" Political Context<i>SmartTrack: Politician designed transit works surprisingly well...for politicians</i> <br />
<br />
To recap: John Tory has centred his Mayoral campaign on a promise to build a heavy surface rail (he calls "surface subway") electrified line 53KM long that mostly uses 2 existing GO-Transit non-electrified lines and builds 12KM of new track along Eglinton west into Mississauga terminating just south of Pearson aiport. He claims to need $8 billion to build it, and expects the City, Province and Federal governments to each pick up one-third ($2.67B each).<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bjaxfhmiJ1o/U_0sCpVaT7I/AAAAAAAAATM/IMdJgGrfThU/s1600/Tory-NewRail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bjaxfhmiJ1o/U_0sCpVaT7I/AAAAAAAAATM/IMdJgGrfThU/s1600/Tory-NewRail.jpg" height="222" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by Tory parody account @JohnToryT0 (zero)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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There are several technical (some, like capacity at Union station, quite serious) concerns about the viability of the specific route & stations he proposes, but more importantly is how such a large sum could be funded, several times more costly than any transit project in contemporary memory (possibly the Yonge or Bloor lines would be equivalant if you do the inflation adjustments). How does Tory expect to raise the cash?<br />
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<b>Federal</b><br />
<br />
This is the most mysterious part of the funding plan, that has received only scant attention. Why does Tory expect to be able to get $2.67B out of Ottawa? This is multiples of what Ottawa has ever provided to Toronto for any project. There was dancing in the streets last year when Flaherty announced $660M for the Scarborough subway, and that wasn't some "favour" he was doing for Ford, it was money already allocated to Toronto out of an existing national infrastructure funding program that every city can draw proportionally from. Toronto is probably due a bit more money from that program (the "Building Canada" fund) but I can't figure it to be more than a few hundred million. If Ottawa is going to come through this will be net new funding. Tory harps on his good relations with Harper, and 2015 is a Federal election in which the Tories are already trailing badly in the polls, so it's possible Ottawa will try to buy some GTA love but that's a lot of money for a city the rest of the country largely dislikes and the couple competitive seats for the Tories in Toronto may be cheaper to buy elsewhere. Pinning all our hopes on this seems far fetched. <br />
<br />
Ottawa has previously committed $333M to the Sheppard LRT project, which would certainly be available if the Sheppard LRT is put "below the line." More on this below. Still, I can't even come close to $2.67B out of known pools of money for Transit from Ottawa. This is a big problem for Tory and his blithe certainty that he can wrest vast sums on the strength of his personal connections should be viewed with skepticism.<br />
<br />
<b>Provincial</b><br />
<br />
The re-elected majority Liberals have committed to a substantial long term GTHA heavy transit funding plan, so in principle there are the requisite billions of dollars in existence of budgeted money for Transit. The issue is that those billions are spoken for in other, already planned projects. Something would almost certainly have to be defunded in order to provide the $2.67B for the province's proposed share of SmartTrack. Given the debt/deficit panic and various warnings of lowering Ontario's credit rating, and the government's election pledge to balance its budget by 2018-2019, it's almost impossible to imagine them agreeing to a new multi-billion dollar transit allocation for Toronto.<br />
<br />
Another key fact is that the province has committed up to $12B to <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/06/26/metrolinx-says-relief-is-on-the-way-in-about-10-years/">electrify the entire GTHA GO train network</a> of 7 lines and provide 15 minute all-day service on them, aiming to do this in 10 years (which they admit is ambitious). <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9_1BaO-1174/U_0h6CW73WI/AAAAAAAAAS0/dmyr5p948P0/s1600/GO-Transit.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9_1BaO-1174/U_0h6CW73WI/AAAAAAAAAS0/dmyr5p948P0/s1600/GO-Transit.png" height="242" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ontario has committed to frequent, all day service on all this, regardless of who is elected Mayor.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The vastly most likely thing to give way in this would be the approved & (currently) funded projects to build LRT lines on <a href="http://www.metrolinx.com/en/projectsandprograms/transitexpansionprojects/finch_west.aspx">Finch avenue west</a> & <a href="http://www.thecrosstown.ca/sites/default/files/sheppard_fact_sheet.pdf">Sheppard avenue east</a>, two Miller-era "Transit City" projects that died under Ford and rose again from the dead when Council overthrew his control over transit in 2012. Between the two projects there is about $2.5B in current provincial dollars (plus the $333M Federal for Sheppard). John Tory has made clear that not eating up precious lanes of road space for cars is his top priority (see his Eglinton Connects <a href="http://www.johntory.ca/john-tory-issues-statement-ahead-of-city-councils-vote-on-the-eglintonconnects-proposal/">rejection statement</a>) and even told <a href="http://spacing.ca/toronto/2014/05/08/lorinc-john-tory-qa-pay-transit/">Spacing back in May</a> that he would push to "delay" these lines in order to make a "Yonge relief line" (which somehow later became "SmartTrack" but let's leave that issue) the priority for funding. He was later quoted saying they "aren't his priorities."<br />
<br />
More recently <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/toronto2014election/2014/08/25/finch_sheppard_lrts_are_election_hot_potatoes_again.html">he told Daniel Dale in the Star</a> that none of this was true and that he "supports" these lines being built and "has no intention" of asking to delay them. Cynically reading between the lines, this leaves open the possibility that <i>if the Province</i> suggests yanking the funding to these lines, Tory would "reluctantly" agree. He clearly is not going to go to any lengths or expend any political capital to see these lines built. At best his position is "cancellation if necessary, but not necessarily cancellation." <br />
<br />
Let's read some tea leaves here: <u>The province very likely does not want to build these lines either</u>. The Transit City master agreement was cut in early 2007 by the previous Premier's government, in the shadow of a fall 2007 provincial election in which the Liberals would be facing down an affable & charismatic conservative party leader by the name of John Tory, a well known "red" Tory moderate, the kind of guy who could bury the nasty reputation of the Harris years and return Ontario to its decades long reign of non-stop PC governments up to Bill Davis. Tory even worked for Bill Davis himself! Tory's 2007 loss is considered one of Canada's epic political blunders over the religious school funding issue, so it's not as if the 2007 era Liberals were wrong to fear him. <br />
<br />
In short, Miller cut an awesome deal for the city in 2007, with a government that was afraid of what it was facing, and eager to shore up the key 416 ridings (often ripe for picking by the NDP). The deal for these LRTs sees Toronto paying <i>nothing</i> to build them, not responsible for any cost overruns, and the Province even picking up the ongoing capital maintenance and sharing in the operating cost of the lines, which would be run as TTC lines. In short: "Free" rapid transit. Plus getting Ontario back in the game of funding some share of TTC operating costs is a big deal. Higher governments aren't fond of paying operating costs for things they don't own/run, there's no glory in it. Capital funding is fun, you get ribbon cuttings and comemorative plaques. Operating funding is a budget item voters don't notice.<br />
<br />
Add to that these are two rapid transit projects solely for Toronto of no practical use to those ultra key 905 ridings, where governments are made or broken in Ontario. SmartTrack on the other hand is actually a regional line (and Tory says it would be run by Metrolinx, which likely means it will be branded as a GO Transit line), going to vote (and donor) rich Markham & Mississauga. The incentives are all for killing these lines.<br />
<br />
Sure, they'd call it a "delay" - but given that there are signed agreements in place (including with Bombardier for the LRT vehicles) there would be real penalties to any delay. Further, any capital project put "below the line" of actual available funding is heavily unlikely to ever come back above. At the very least you are talking about a delay of at least a decade before fiscal and political conditions might allow these lines to be refunded, and by then the EAs won't be valid and frankly the areas may have changed such that these projects no longer make sense anyway.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0Qoi06YMjkE/U_0mjUAemtI/AAAAAAAAATA/MKCKRLCLLxU/s1600/urbantoronto-4920-14991.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0Qoi06YMjkE/U_0mjUAemtI/AAAAAAAAATA/MKCKRLCLLxU/s1600/urbantoronto-4920-14991.png" height="308" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The original Transit City vision </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
You can scan the list of "Big Move" projects but you won't find anything else anywhere near as juicy a target. Tory can deny this is where he expects the Provincial share of money to come from, but it's difficult to imagine it playing out any other way.<br />
<br />
<b>Municipal</b><br />
<br />
Here the game is about the "Tax Increment Financing" (TIF) scheme. Tory is pledging to raise $2.5B of Toronto's $2.67B share from TIF, under a never used 2006 Ontario law that actually currently can't be used because the province has yet to implement some key regulations on it. The recent (must read,<a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/john-torys-smarttrack-why-his-big-bet-on-transit-is-a-real-risk/article20177429/"> go, read it</a> if you haven't) Marcus Gee piece in the Globe and Mail reveals that the primary intended beneficiary of this law was Toronto, but it has never been put into use because the city and province don't agree on how it should work.<br />
<br />
The key dispute has to do with the nature of property taxes. TIF schemes rely on the idea that if we build something good, the property tax draw from some area will increase more than it would have without building that thing, so let's assume that growth as securitization for borrowing the money to build the nice things. It's something like a student loan: Loan me vast sums today so I can pay to educate myself, and pay back the loan from the high income I hope to earn with my fancy degree.<br />
<br />
In Ontario, property taxes have two components: A provincial share to pay for education, and a municipal share to pay for municipal government. The property owner pays one cheque, but it is divided between municipalities and the province. Toronto wants the TIF money to be loaned to the city by the province and the province to recoup the money out of increased property tax revenues on the provincial (education) share of the TIF area. This puts the risk on the province, if the expected property value growth does not occur, the Province would have to deal with the fallout of reduced property tax funding available for schools (a common TIF problem in the US). Naturally the province would prefer the city shoulder this burden.<br />
<br />
Further, Tory's scheme requires <b>more than doubling</b> a limit Ontario put on the law that you can only TIF finance 1% of your normal municipal property tax take for your city. Toronto's property taxes amount to about $3.7B so this is about $37M a year. SmartTrack needs more than double that per year over 30 years to make the $2.5B.<br />
<br />
It's hard to see how the province can agree to the city's position because in practical effect, in order to provide Toronto with $75M+ a year in TIF funds, Ontario would have to borrow this money too. If the province's position wins out, the usual problems with TIF schemes for cities rear their ugly heads: You often end up depriving the future city of needed property tax revenues, particularly if the expected revenue growth does not materialize.<br />
<br />
Again, Tory's answer here all seems to be that by dent of his great relations and awesome leadership skills, he can chivvy the province to agree. I don't know what Plan B is if this fails. Cancel the Scarborough subway? He probably should propose doing that given how SmartTrack more or less makes that line redundant given the existing routing of GO lines in Scarborough, but unlike Finch & Sheppard, Tory has been definitive in committing to build the Scarborough subway extension, so it would be a big promise break to reverse on that. But it would free up $3B in funding.<br />
<br />
Who is Tory appealing to? His messaging isn't as blunt as Ford's "downtown versus suburbs" war, but Tory has made dogwhistles to that, implying that he provides Transit to "all" Toronto not "just" downtown. Naturally the point that the "downtown" relief line is of primary benefit to suburban commuters since people who already live downtown don't need rapid transit to get there is generally lost in the city's unfortunate urban/suburban divide. Further, SmartTrack is calculated to appeal to drivers who want new transit, built in ways that doesn't close roads during construction, and that hopefully other people will ride so "their" roads get that much clearer. <br />
<br />
<b>The Grand Context</b><br />
<br />
SmartTrack is probably not, in isolation, a terrible project as potential transit lines go. The grand context though is to ask "what are the alternatives? What else could we do with that money?" At a (politician derived, unverified) cost of $8B, it is nearly as much as the <a href="https://www.ttc.ca/PDF/About_the_TTC/DRTES/DRTES_Commission_Presentation.pdf">TTC 2012 estimate of the "full" relief subway</a> loop from High Park down to King, and across back up to Pape and all the way to the Eglinton LRT. Given that the province will electrify the existing GO network and plans some kind of TTC fare integration, what are we really getting for our $8B? A few extra stations, no need to change trains at Union to continue on to Markham or Mississauaga if coming from the other side, and those 12KM of new track along Eglinton into Missauga. Oh and maybe it's built a few years sooner, if Tory's ungrounded pledges that it can be built in 7 years hold up.<br />
<br />
The smart transit people I read all seem to say "electrifying GO lines is well enough, <a href="http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/07/23/toronto_transit_experts_surface_subways_only_part_of_the_solution.html">but we need that AND a relief subway</a>" - and they were saying this before SmartTrack was a thing so the assessment is independent of feelings about John Tory. Tory's line would almost certainly preclude any realistic funding path for that relief subway (and no, it is not a replacement for it, it would only "relieve" a small fraction of the burden on the Yonge line, and further Union station will be overcapacity by 2031 without a relief subway along King).<br />
<br />
No, the opportunity cost is far too high and the payback is far too little. We're already getting 90% of this from the Province anyway, and we'd have to give up 2 approved transit lines to some of our most at-need neighbourhoods most cut off from the city's rapid transit system. This is not the best deal for Toronto, even though it might be a good deal for John Tory, Kathleen Wynne, Markham, Mississauga & Stephen Harper.<br />
<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-41143445120679294172014-07-26T22:27:00.000-04:002014-07-26T22:27:46.191-04:00The Forest On Chow's Bus Pledge Problems<i>How did we let our bus fleet get into this bad a shape and why is Chow the only "major" candidate proposing anything to fix it?</i> <br />
<br />
The Toronto Star has today <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/toronto2014election/2014/07/25/chow_pledge_to_bump_ttc_bus_service_depends_on_finding_more_vehicles.html">published a piece finding problems</a> in the feasibility of Olivia Chow's promise to improve bus service if elected Mayor. To be specific, <a href="http://www.oliviachow.ca/getting_people_moving_faster_now_better_bus_service">Chow promises</a> to immediately improve peak hour bus service, the busiest times of day. The Star article casts doubt on whether this is feasible, quoting a TTC official who claims there would be no additional buses available for this. <br /><br /><b>The Election Forest: Making Buses a Priority is a Signal</b><br /><br />A big reason I favour Chow in the Mayoral election is that she appears to be the only (major) candidate who will dedicate much attention to the bottom economic half of the city. This is fairly unsurprising when you consider we have four conservatives running against one progressive (being fair, Soknacki has some ideas helpful to lower earners). Buses are the biggest portion of transit time for many of the city's "left behind" areas and people, who don't tend to be very near any of the existing rapid transit lines. This is a matter of social and economic justice. Buses will never be the most desirable mode of transit, and we can't build LRTs or subways everywhere so of course many transit users are going to need buses for some part of their trip, but we can keep service levels high enough that when you go to get the bus, you know it will come soon, and not be jammed full when it gets there so that you can get on it.<br /><br />Chow's bus promise is not the stuff of campaign consultants. Bus service isn't sexy, we just sort of expect it to work, but under Ford (and Stintz as TTC Chair) bus service <a href="http://stevemunro.ca/?p=9390">has been cut back</a>. The working class people and students most reliant on them now have to wait longer for their bus, and face more frequent buses too full to board. So it is a very good thing that someone is putting this on the agenda, just as a signal that "<i>transit is not all about who will build the most choo-choos, <b>bus service matters</b></i>" Finding problems in the specifics of Chow's bus service plan is fine and all, it's the kind of scrutiny that should be applied to political campaigns, but at least Chow has buses in mind.<br /><br /><b>The Trees: Less There Than the Star Thinks</b><br /><br />The Star's TTC source, Chief Service Officer Rick Leary presents a case where all the buses are already in use at peak times, and even the extra buses currently servicing under-repair streetcar lines are only available because service demand slows in the summer, but they'll be needed in the fall when school starts. He further seems to announce a new initiative (news to me anyways) to take more buses off the road to do more preventative and less post-breakdown maintenance. He does allow there "might" be buses available to improve off-peak service. <br /><br />I'm in no position to make expert assessment of his claims in this regard, but I do note that the Queen's Quay streetcar has been off service for considerably longer than just the summer. Apparently the TTC had buses to serve that line prior to the end of school this year somehow. But, turning to those actual experts, let's check in with Steve Munro, who previously (March 2014) looked at TTC surface <a href="http://stevemunro.ca/?p=9354">short term service improvements:</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The TTC plans to retire over 200 buses in 2014-15 (the lift-equipped Orion V and Nova RTS buses). These could provide a pool of vehicles during the two years it would take for expansion-related new bus orders to arrive.</blockquote>
It would have been nice if the Star has known about this, and asked Leary. As the TTC is busy getting new buses, it is strange he plans to do more preventative maintenance with a fleet of newer buses, but mainly it means there are buses that could be used for Chow's pledge. The TTC does not generally run buses to the literal end of life of the vehicles, they just get more expensive to maintain once they pass a certain point. <br /><br />(Munro also notes that progress in the York subway extension should by 2015 release some buses currently needed for "supplementary service" and that there is a major construction hiatus for the Pan Am games so no streetcar lines should be out of service.)<br /><b><br />Ok, So There are Buses: Where to Store them?</b><br /><br />This is a real problem, the article correctly points out the TTC has no additional storage grounds, and the planned one won't be ready before 2019 at the earliest (currently not even funded to begin, so almost certainly later than that). Per Munro (ibid):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The TTC has already looked at leasing storage space for its fleet while awaiting the construction of Tapscott Garage, although this need was offset by the reduction of bus requirements made possible with less generous crowding standards. (<i>Note: Munro is here referring to the Stintz/Ford era service cuts</i>)</blockquote>
We are, ultimately just talking about parking lots here. Yes, I'm sure it's operationally easier for the TTC to run from dedicated storage/maintenance facilities but in a pinch, any big enough lot should do.<br /><br /><b>Ok, So There Are Places To Store Them. But Drivers?</b><br /><br />Yes, the TTC might have to hire more drivers to implement Chow's improved service levels. What of it? Buses need drivers and our ever growing population will eventually necessitate more buses & drivers anyway. Every candidate's plans to expand transit will entail hiring staff. In the very short term I expect some additional drivers can be found by paying overtime to existing ones who would ordinarily be off shift. How long does it take to hire & train bus drivers? Chow assigns $15M to this whole promise, which presumably includes money to hire and pay new TTC employees to drive the buses.<br /><br /><b>Off Peak Service Matters Too</b><br /><br />All the challenges aside with finding more buses, drivers & storage for peak service, improving off-peak service matters too. Plenty of people (like seniors) ride the bus outside of peak hours and 15 minute service instead of 30 minute service matters when you're out waiting at a stop in the middle of the day or in the evening. <br /><br /><b>The Other Forest: Why is The TTC's Bus Fleet in Such Dire Straights?</b><br /><br />The biggest takeaway I get from the Star's piece is that we've allowed our TTC surface fleet to get to such a terrible place where TTC management is (in effect) telling reporters during an election they simply can't improve peak service before something like 2019. Mayor Chow or no, our population is growing and demand for buses will grow too...or maybe it will simply peak at some level of "just absolutely full" on many routes where additional commuters are forced to find other means to get around (cars) and making our gridlock problems worse. Rather than viewing this as some big scandal in the Chow campaign, the scandal is that we let ourselves run out of breathing space on our bus fleet. Whoever is mayor will have to grapple with this, and at least Chow is already interested in the problem. The worst thing would be to just "muddle through" with degrading service and ever more peak capacity buses leaving people behind. Supporters of other Mayoral candidates should ponder, what will my candidate do about this?<br /><br /><br /><br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-58297478477119767462014-03-05T07:00:00.000-05:002014-03-05T08:22:24.382-05:00Toronto Needs Progressive Property TaxationIn November, the TTC board <a href="http://www.blogto.com/city/2013/11/ttc_to_raise_fares_starting_in_2014/">decided to raise fares</a> for 2014 by approximately $60/year for people who buy metropasses every month. Many have already noted that this amount is the same as the $60 VRT that Mayor Ford and Council repealed early in this term. Quite plausibly, this is a regressive tax transfer from a form of taxation that falls more heavily on wealthier residents (e.g. those with cars) to one that falls more heavily on poorer residents (those reliant on the TTC). As the TTC is already one of the <a href="http://www.ttcriders.ca/ttcriders-take-on-whats-in-store-for-ttc-users-in-2014/">least subsidized</a> and <a href="http://www.blogto.com/city/2011/12/is_the_ttc_the_priciest_transit_system_in_north_america/">most expensive</a> transit systems around, it is reasonable to ask when and how a major subsidy increase for the TTC from Toronto's general revenue could ever be funded? <br />
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Toronto is Canada's 6th largest government (by both population and government expenditure) and has no formal means of levying progressive taxation on its better off residents. The City of Toronto Act gives Toronto a few extra taxation powers that other Ontario municipalities don't have, and yet none of these can be explicitly progressive. In particular, the act <a href="http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/statutes/english/elaws_statutes_06c11_e.htm#s274s1">explicitly prohibits property taxes</a> (Toronto's top source of revenue) from being anything but flat-rate. Why should this be so?<br />
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<b>Progressive Property Taxes</b><br />
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Numerous countries and municipalities which employ property taxes have already implemented mechanisms to explicitly make them progressive in nature, meaning roughly that the most expensive properties are taxes at higher rates than inexpensive properties.<br />
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Examples:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/asia/singapore/2010/02/24/245733/Singapore-shifting.htm">Singapore</a> introduced a multi-rate scheme in 2010 with higher rates on the portion of properties valued above a certain cut-off, an exemption on the first (quite low) portion of property values</li>
<li><a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/enda-kenny-property-tax-704005-Dec2012/">Ireland</a>, still suffering severe after effects of the global economic crisis introduced a national <a href="http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/lpt/liability.html">progressive property tax</a> in the 2013 budget.</li>
<li><a href="http://books.google.ca/books?id=wcU8Gy_NNkwC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=progressive+property+tax&source=bl&ots=Lg3tv3Dbd2&sig=hO6r0yh3mgFRut-Sr9VD_Hh4tCI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tSWMUoqCD8mq2QXcyIDoBg&ved=0CHAQ6AEwCTgU#v=onepage&q=progressive%20property%20tax&f=false">Denmark, Finland & numerous other European nations</a> have progressive property taxes.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.tax-news.com/news/Taiwan_Delays_Progressive_Property_Tax____42518.html">Taiwan</a> came close to implementing one in 2010. <a href="http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2012/01/17/2003523399">This</a> may be why they backed off.</li>
<li>Some argue that property taxes can be broken into <a href="http://inequality.org/progressive-tax-system-detroit-powerhouse/">seperate components</a> for the land value and the building value, <a href="http://www.urbantoolsconsult.org/blog/2012/06/07/In-Search-of-a-Progressive-Property-Tax-a-Connecticut-City.aspx">which helps tax large lots</a> and in particular large lots in high land value areas more steeply, even without scaling rates, this <a href="http://arno.uvt.nl/show.cgi?fid=78610">becomes progressive</a>.</li>
</ul>
<b>How Does It Work?</b><br />
<br />
Misunderstanding of progressive taxation is quite common. In the realm of income tax, it is not difficult to find people who believe that if they get a raise that bumps their total income into a new higher tax bracket, they will end up <i>worse off</i> after taxes because they think their <i>whole</i> income gets taxed at the higher rate. This is not how escalating bracket rates work. Only the portion of your income above the threshold is charged at the higher rate.<br />
<br />
Let's look at Ireland's nationally set, but locally paid <a href="http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/lpt/liability.html">progressive property tax</a> for a simple example.<b> </b> Ireland charges home owners 0.18% on the value of property under 1M Euro, and 0.25% on any value above 1M Euro. Let's imagine two homes, one worth 600,000 and the other 1.2M (twice as much). The first will pay 600,000 x 0.18% = 1080 euros. Simple. The second requires an extra step:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">1,000,000 x 0.18% = 1800</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">+ plus</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 200,000 x 0.25% = 500</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">1800 + 500 = 2300 euros.</span><br />
<br />
If the second house paid 0.25% on the <i>whole</i> value of the house, that would be 3000 euros. Instead, the house worth twice as much pays 2.12 times as much property tax. That .12 is the progressive part. No one need hold off renovating their 950,000 euro house because it will cross the magic value threshold and dramatically increase their tax burden.<br />
<br />
<b>Why Do It?</b><br />
<br />
There is actually <a href="http://masongaffney.org/publications/G17Property_Tax_Progressive_Tax.CV.pdf">a good argument</a> out there that property taxes are inherently mildly progressive (one obvious reason: wealthier people are more likely to own property and pay it), so why not make it explicitly progressive? Particularly in an era of <a href="http://www.urbancentre.utoronto.ca/pdfs/researchbulletins/CUCSRB41_Hulchanski_Three_Cities_Toronto.pdf">vastly growing inequality</a>, some areas have done very well, but large swaths have been left trailing behind. As the city cannot levy income taxes, a progressive property tax would be a great way to begin to address the inequality. From <a href="http://www.urbancentre.utoronto.ca/pdfs/researchbulletins/CUCSRB41_Hulchanski_Three_Cities_Toronto.pdf">"The Three Cities"</a> (p1), this:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o5pIkojfWtQ/Uo124PLYKrI/AAAAAAAAARE/tekbBVox9sM/s1600/inequality.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Toronto income change by area" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o5pIkojfWtQ/Uo124PLYKrI/AAAAAAAAARE/tekbBVox9sM/s400/inequality.PNG" title="Toronto Income Change by Area" /></a></div>
<br />
Is why the politics of property tax increases are as contentious as they are. Many of the people in the brown sections are hurting. Even if they're renters, some amount of property tax increases flow through to them, and for those who own in lower and low-middle class neighbourhoods, property tax increases hit them hard. Many quite legitimately feel they cannot afford higher taxes, and are not just grousing, it actually materially affects their lifestyle. It even forces some out of their homes. Like Toronto's other mostly flat taxation powers, the problem is that flat taxes max out at the realistic ability to pay of the least affluent people subject to them. Yet many others above that level have the means to pay more, but this can only be achieved with progressive rates. In the past this awkward reality was "squared" by contributions from the Province, who can and does have explicitly progressive taxes, but they're proving less willing to pay their share over time. Rather than assume trends like this below (chart refers to the TTC) will reverse themselves, Toronto should act to address its needs and not wait for the fairy godmother to re-appear.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GHSFUBcRIRY/UxaSIDBA7nI/AAAAAAAAARs/KEpf44oOQpc/s1600/TTC_subsidies.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GHSFUBcRIRY/UxaSIDBA7nI/AAAAAAAAARs/KEpf44oOQpc/s1600/TTC_subsidies.png" height="239" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Singapore provides an example of another advantage here, by introducing a progressive property tax structure that <i>cut taxes </i>on lower valued properties while increasing taxes on the high value ones. Not only can we charge more from those who most benefit from the city, but we can give those more likely to find each day a struggle a break.<br />
<br />
A final advantage worth mentioning is that it is administratively very simple to do, since the city already has a property tax collection, assessment and enforcement system in place. Unlike setting up fun and exciting new forms of taxation like road tolls or sales taxes, which need things like infrastructure and whole new departments of staff to run, this would only incrementally increase the work effort of the existing property tax staff. Toronto already charges different rates for different <i>types</i> of property (including a regressive <i>higher</i> rate charged on multi-unit apartment buildings that mostly falls on low-income renters once passed along by the landlords), this is logistically very easy to do.<br />
<br />
<b>Problem: It's Illegal</b><br />
<br />
The province would need to amend the City of Toronto Act to allow this. They should, particularly if Toronto City Council asks them to. Toronto has an elected government, why should it not have the same capacity the Province does to decide that wealthier citizens should bear more tax burden? Virtually every other tax in Canada is at least somewhat progressive, even the GST has rebates for low-income Canadians. Why should municipalities not have this power? Premier Wynne is currently searching for "revenue tools" to fund transit. Keep searching, but give Toronto increased taxation powers as a mature order of government (Ford notwithstanding) - something the province has already acknowledged in the 2006 Toronto act, which granted the city extraordinary powers that other Ontario municipalities do not have. This is just a concession to reality: Toronto is Canada's sixth biggest government, if it cannot "handle" these powers, we'd better amend the Constitution to take these powers away from the five smallest Provinces too. <br />
<br />
Toronto is going to need sigificant new revenue to address its urgent and still growing needs:<br />
<ul>
<li>Massive transit improvements from new lines to major maintenance deficits on the existing system</li>
<li>Upgrading our proven insufficient flood managment capacity</li>
<li>The large unfunded repair bill to maintain our social housing stock</li>
<li>Whatever we do with the Gardiner won't be cheap</li>
<li>Huge <a href="http://www.torontolife.com/informer/columns/2013/07/18/philip-preville-champion-of-the-working-class/">areas of economic need left behind</a> as inequality swells will need social services & revitalization to ward off possible descent into slums</li>
</ul>
Up until now the City has basically been waiting for higher orders of government to fund these things. A progressive property tax need not preclude that, but it would allow the city much greater flexibility to move on these items on its own, and ask the Province or Federal government to contribute to an <i>in-progress</i> plan which the City can lead, rather than spend months or years careening back and forth between the levels trying to work out a financing deal for any major project. Toronto needs progressive property taxes.<br />
<br />
<i>Like this? Please <a href="http://www.progressivebloggers.ca/vote/http://autonomyforall.blogspot.com/2014/03/toronto-needs-progressive-property.html">click here</a> vote for it on <a href="http://www.progressivebloggers.ca/">Progressive Bloggers</a>. </i><br />
<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-44149960339892994362014-03-04T11:30:00.000-05:002014-03-04T11:30:00.462-05:00Yes, Rob Ford is Currently LosingThere's still some confusion about this. Ford is the <i>incumbent.</i> He has as close to 100% name recognition and voter awareness as any politician can possibly attain. Short of people who have particular mental illnesses or who purposely avoid all news, it's difficult to imagine any potential voters in the city who aren't aware of Ford and have some opinion on him.<br />
<br />
The challengers are just that: Challengers. Unknown, untried. That at least two of them (I'm assuming Chow will challenge) can already beat Ford in match ups even with multiple other vote-splitting candidates left in, is very bad news for an incumbent.<br />
<br />
Basically, voters have already decided against Ford, they just haven't yet finalized who they want to replace him with. That means the initiative in the campaign is all with the challengers. It almost doesn't matter what Ford does or says. Everyone knows him, almost nothing he does now will change many minds about him (hence desperate stunts like going on Kimmel). But the challengers can either make or break themselves in the campaign. If they all manage to break themselves, Ford can possibly be re-elected with some kind of plurality vote (I'm prepared to predict he cannot get a popular vote majority). If.<br />
<br />
This is a terrible position to be in as the incumbent. It is not hopeless, defeat is not certain, but his victory is dependent on several others failing. Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-29477245001916539752014-03-03T21:42:00.000-05:002014-03-03T21:42:38.239-05:00Nenshi: Right About LRTs, Wrong About IdeologyCalgary's Mayor Naheed Nenshi visited Toronto last week and made some sensible comments about LRTs. He also made some mushy and poorly reasoned comments about ideology, his ideas are popular, but fundamentally wrong and beliefs like this actually hinder progress on issues people care about. You cannot wish away ideology. It doesn't go out of style because it is simply how you view the world, and how you think a better world can be made. <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/calgary-mayor-baffled-by-scarborough-subway-plan/article17170003/">Here's what he said</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Here’s the thing: nobody cares about those old labels of left or right and liberal and conservative. Is removing the snow a right-wing or left-wing idea? Is fixing the potholes more New Democrat or Conservative? It’s ridiculous,” he said.</blockquote>
This is very unpersuasive. It isn't hard to find libertarians who disagree with the ideas of having the state <i>tax</i> its citizens to provide & maintain <i>public</i> roads or plow those roads during winter. Are such people a significant political force on the municipal scene? No. But then all Nenshi is saying that the politically potent forces agree on these particular ideological questions. Even so, you can find plenty of left/right division in the details: Should the workers providing these services be government employees or private contractors? Should sidewalks be plowed? Should homeowners be responsible for shovelling & fined if they don't? etc. <br />
<br />
Further, Nenshi here has (cherry) picked two quite settled matters of debate. That the contemporary left and right mostly agree about these two things hardly means the End of History and agreement on everything else City governments might do. Nenshi himself, who has been targetted by right wing forces in Alberta for his urban centric policies must know this. Try asking conservatives whether public transit should be a subsidized public service or a for-profit business. Or whether city governments should provide free or subsidized services for their residents from pools to libraries to parks, homeless shelters and sporting fields. Ask whether urban planning should preference mass transit & higher density construction or sprawl & car-centric roads. Ideological divisions abound once you stray from the easy matters of largely settled issues. <br />
<br />
The general positions that left and right take on these issues can be relatively easily derived if you understand what the division of "left" and "right" mean. The labels themselves are arbitrary, a throwback to the French pre-revolutionary parliament. We could call them "coke" and "pepsi" or "dogs" and "cats" - but the underlying heuristic employed by each camp does not tend to vary much across cultures or time periods. It's not an accident that these labels have survived centuries & crossed oceans intact. If you understand what drives the right, you can then understand why say, they want car-centric sprawl and public services minimized. The eternal cry for "smaller government" applies just as much to municipal government as national ones.<br />
<br />
The basic cleavage is this: <b>The left seeks to enlarge the circle of human compassion, and the right seeks to shrink it. </b>There are other ways to express this, (you can state that the left seeks greater equality and the right greater hierarchy) but this basic division underlies the policies positions on specific issues taken by "liberals" and "conservatives." This does not mean necessarily that people on the left and right think of their positions as such, in these terms (or even consciously), but the high consistency in finding these cleavages on such a disparate set of issues as handled by the modern municipality it not a mistake.<br />
<br />
<b>How is that Relevant to Municipal Politics?</b><br />
<br />
One objection might be that municipal politics are "low-level" nuts-and-bolts issues that should not really concern people concerned with the high questions of the human condition. But of course this is untrue. Who needs reliable, affordable and timely public transit more than the poor? What decides which communities the poor can afford to live in more than municipal policy? Whether you live in a violent slum or a safe and healthy neighbourhood are largely decided by things like land zoning, provisioning of parks, and how the local schools are funded. I'm sure some issues exist that don't easily translate into grand questions of social equality, but whatever their prevalance, municipal policy affects such questions in important ways. <b> </b> <br />
<br />
<b>What is Ideology?</b><br />
<br />
Nenshi doesn't use the word (and even mixes in partisanship by referencing political parties) but that's really what he's talking about. It's important to spend a few words defining "ideology" - never mind whatever dictionaries say, ideology usually has a derisive meaning when used, and you frequently see people trying to dismiss someone else's ideological position in favour of their own ideological position by labelling it as such. Typically anything that challenges universally accepted ideas is "ideology" but those universal ideas are not understood as such. Much like "treason", ideology doth never prosper. <br />
<br />
So what is it? <b>Ideology is your heuristic means for understanding how the world works.</b> It is a set of beliefs, both conscious and unconscious about how people behave, what is right and wrong, and what is the "good life." Are you pre-disposed to think people are basically honest and will behave ethically with minimal supervision, or that they're dishonest and require monitoring and enforcement to behave themselves? <b> </b>What do think "right" and "wrong" mean and are decided? The Bible? Utilitarianism? Your ideology decides how you address these. <br />
<br />
None of this is to say that all ideological beliefs are empirically or ethically equal. Evidence matters (says my ideology, at least!). Our heuristics may lead us to think that say, lowering taxes improves economic growth. Does it actually do so? This is an empirical question (to the extent reliable empirical tests of large numbers of people can be accomplished and accurately measured).<br />
<br />
Nenshi is rejecting ideology. That belief is, itself, ideological. How do you know? Well if my disagreeing with his ideology isn't enough, let's ask what empirical proof he can provide to prove me wrong? Two sample consensus issues in a universe of divisive ones?<br />
<br />
<b>Yes, Nenshi's Statements Are Popular</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“If we went on to Bay Street today and asked 100 people, ‘Are you left-wing or right-wing?’ I guarantee you, 85 of them would have no idea what we were talking about and 11 of them would answer incorrectly. And the rest would be John Tory.’” he said, to wild laughter.<b> </b></blockquote>
This is also weak. First off it is an argumentum ad populem fallacy. That most people might have trouble placing themselves on a left-right axis doesn't mean one doesn't exist, it just means many people don't think very much about ideology. Why should they? <br />
<br />
But at a deeper level, most of those people will be relatively easy to place on such a spectrum if you actually query them on their views of various issues. Yes, there will be iconoclasts who are difficult to place, and most people have an issue or two in which they differ from their otherwise prevailing ideology. By and large Nenshi's 100 will divide fairly predictably. This is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Foundations_Theory">an empirical result</a> of psychologists <a href="http://www.yourmorals.org/">quizzing thousands of people</a> on moral questions and finding wide agreement on the moral issues liberals and conservatives found more important. The ethical bases of liberals and conservatives are different in significant and persistent ways. People may widely believe they are not ideological, but that doesn't make it true.<br />
<br />
<b>What's the Harm?</b> <br />
<br />
We should think about the harm this does. The biggest harm is that ideology that is not understood as such is the most dangerous kind. These are the kinds of beliefs that are the most difficult to challenge and change when evidence mounts that the belief is not working. Those of us who admit our basic ethical systems are ideological and that those systems guide our beliefs about what even municipal governments should do, and how they do it are at least conscious of these choices. Those who treat their ideolical beliefs as "self-evident" or "common sense" are the least apt to accept evidence to the contrary.<br />
<br />
The other major harm is that it makes a negative out of the highly necessary process of democratic disagreement and debate. Challenging ideology is the surest way to ensure only the best ideas win out. Many of the worst debacles started with unanimous or overwhelming supermajority votes. Many of the most cherished and successful government programs started in strife over vehement opposition. I realize Nenshi did not explicitly say so, but you frequently see this kind of talk followed by calls to "move past" the old divides and "work together to get things done." Whenever you hear someone say that, ask "<i>get what done? How? Why is that thing something that should be done?</i>" You will quickly see ideology at work. We cannot "work together" on common goals unless <i><b>we have those goals in common!</b> </i>We cannot agree on means to achieve those goals unless we share enough ideology to agree those means will achieve the agreed ends, and further that they don't have ideologically undesirable other effects which outweighs our desire to achieve that agreed goal. <br />
<br />
An example may help bring this last, crucial point home. Let's leave the field of road maintanance and talk about poverty reduction. Left and right will both tell you (usually) that they agree reducing poverty is a noble goal. Great. But how? The left supports policies like a minimum (or "living") wage, income support programs paid for by progressive taxation, free public education up to and including post-secondary, etc. The right generally opposes these things, and proposes freedom, choice, deregulation, private enterprise personal responsibility and negative disincentives to poverty (e.g. that you'll starve in the dark if you don't work will incent you) to reduce it. They may or may not support private charity intervening, funded only by voluntary donations. To the extent they support government helping out, they want strings attached, from drug tests to "workfare." The differences between these approaches cannot be papered over. In fact, the differences are so vast, and the empirical results of right wing approaches so apparently counter-productive that most on the left conclude that the right's support of the basic goal is not an honest representation of its views. That it is disingenuous. Whatever, not going to settle this here, but the point is that you cannot wipe away these vital debates over both means and ends and get to some magical place where we all agree on what and how we should be doing.<br />
<br />
None of the above is to say that one should consciously self-identify with the "left" or "right" and then adopt the positions of that tribe for the simple reason that they are the tribe's beliefs. That's partisanship, and a very different matter than ideology. If that were all Nenshi meant, fine. Great. Of course it is better if people arrive at their policy positions by individual thought, and even desirable that intra-ideological debate occur. What "liberals" believe is not a fixed and eternal quantity. It can and should change as new evidence arrives as to the results of previous real world policy experiments. This in fact has already happened, with the major shift of 19th century liberals away from laissez-faire capitalism and toward mixed-mode social democracy. That liberals today believe in, say, the minimum wage, should not mean they must always believe such. A sufficient quantity of quality evidence showing that policy is counterproductive to the underlying goals of liberalism should change the beliefs of liberals. <br />
<br />
If it were just Nenshi, one politician saying such things it would not be worth replying at such length, but as he himself says, such beliefs are common and receive applause when expressed. No one wants to be one of those silly <i>ideologues</i> who are closed minded and unreasonable. Except the aversion to recognizing your own ideology as such is about as ideological as it gets. I would infinitely prefer an honest debate between ideologues to one in which some are pretending to be above ideology, claimants to the one, true, pure nature of the world. Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-62983154427990807252014-03-02T11:55:00.000-05:002014-03-02T11:55:18.510-05:00Canada Moving Toward US Style Partisan Administered ElectionsI am by no means well read on the nitty gritty of Canadian federal elections, <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/elections-bill-would-give-incumbents-too-much-power-expert-warns-1.2555498">but this strikes me as an incredibly bad idea</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Former B.C. Chief Electoral Officer Harry Neufeld] says Section 44 of the government’s new legislation <b>would allow all central polling supervisors to be appointed by a riding's incumbent candidate or the candidate's party.</b><br />"It’s completely inappropriate in a democracy, " said Neufeld.<br /><br />Under current legislation, <b>central poll supervisors are appointed by returning officers, </b>who are hired by Elections Canada. The supervisors are put in place at polling stations to make sure voting unfolds smoothly.</blockquote>
<br />What could possiblay go wrong with such a well conceived scheme? The government's answer? <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But a spokeswoman for the minister of state for democratic reform says the Elections Act already allows for candidates and parties to appoint other polling station officers.<br /><br />"This is the case for revising agents in s.33, deputy returning officers in s.34, poll clerks in s.35 and registration officers in s.39 of the existing Canada Elections Act," said Gabrielle Renaud-Mattey.<br /><br />Renaud-Mattey <b>also points out that the idea was recommended by the Commons procedure and House affairs committee</b> and that the returning officer can refuse to appoint the central polling supervisor recommended by the candidate or party.</blockquote>
Nowhere in here do we see an actual reason for doing this. That other elections officers might be picked in a similar manner doesn't tell us whether this is a good idea. The CPS is the chief official at each polling facility, overseeing however many deputy returning officers (who run each individual "poll") there are, as well as more general issues to that site. Whatever the merits of letting the incumbent party pick the DROs, having the whole operation overseen by a non-partisan appointee who reports to Elections Canada (and owes nothing to the local incumbent party) is self-evidently wise. <br />
<br />
That a commons committee dominated by Conservative MPs recommended this is similarly unpersuasive. <br />
<br />
The bizarre thing is that the appointment power of <a href="http://www.elections.ca/res/pub/ecdocs/EC50355_e.pdf">Central Poll Supervisors</a> was not among the issues raised by anyone to the government or the Commons' committee on Procedure & House Affairs. It is a solution in search of a problem. Even if you delve into the actual Committee report on matter, it really appears like Elections Canada asked to solve a different problem (not enough Elections officers supervising) and the Committee just interjected "Great, how about we also let the parties pick these people?" <a href="http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=5339250&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=41&Ses=1&File=30#4">Section I.3</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Chief Electoral Officer proposes to amend the Act to authorize
returning officers to hire additional election officers in situations where the
Act does not grant this power. In the last general election, the CEO used his
power of adaptation of the Act to enable returning officers to hire additional
election officers including poll clerks, registration officers, information
officers and central poll supervisors. These additional election officers were
required mainly for advance polling stations. The authority to hire additional
election officials has been necessitated in recent years by the increasing
voter turnout at advance polling stations. <br />
<br />
[...]<br />
<br />
<b>The Committee, however, raised a related issue</b> in the course of its
consideration of this recommendation: permitting candidates or electoral
district associations to nominate those individuals who may be selected by
returning officers to perform the functions of <strong>central poll supervisors</strong>,
given the important role played by these officials.</blockquote>
Wait, what? What is the argle bargle reasoning here? It's almost completely non-sequitur to the issue Elections Canada raised (the need for <i>more</i> officials), and the logic is baffling: "given the important role played by these officials." Yes, the role is important, why does that make partisan control a good idea?<br />
<br />
The whole <i>raison d'etre</i> of having a thing like Elections Canada is to ensure the government of the day cannot easily manipulate election outcomes. Everything that moves away from that goal must be viewed with extreme skepticism. This isn't quite Katherine Harris giving the 2000 election to George Bush, but it's a couple steps in that direction.<br />
<br />
It is true the Returns Officers (still picked by Elections Canada) <i>can</i> reject particular nominees under the proposed changes, but that puts the onus on Elections Canada to find reason to reject specific individuals. The practical reality is this won't happen very often, as most partisan shenanigans will tend to fly under the radar, and is entirely reactive to people who have behaved in sufficiently egregiously partisan ways while acting in election oversight capacities. <br />
<br />
Even relatively honest people so appointed are now aware their role as CPS is a result of the incumbent party picking them, so their loyalty goes that way, rather than to Elections Canada. If they want to be picked again (or have other ambitions in that party) they will need to do a "good" job by the party's reckoning. I realize nearly everyone working on elections has personal opinions and many may be loyal party members, but that is still materially different from <i>getting</i> your election job as a result of partisan loyalty. It's safe to assume the people picked will not be picked because of their ability to run a clean election as the top criteria.<br />
<br />
In what I am sure is an unrelated matter, the Committee supports increasing the pay rates for Elections workers & officers. <br />
<br />
What's doubly alarming is that neither the NDP or Liberals, who have representation on this committee dissented over this point. The <a href="http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=5339250&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=41&Ses=1&File=198">NDP's report</a> only disputes 3 unrelated issues, and the Liberals didn't seem to even issue a dissent.<br />
<br />
I hope I am missing some great countervailing control that makes partisan manipulation of election conduct still a very difficult and risky proposition but I'm not seeing any merits in this. At the very least it just creates a system of partisan patronage, even if the people picked do their jobs with reasonable honesty, the prospect for graft is real. <br />
<br />
I doubt most Canadians will know that when they go to vote in 2015, all the leading officials at their polling place are partisan picks. It certainly changes how I view the process of voting, and undermines confidence in the system.Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-34654036477730829532014-01-26T11:03:00.001-05:002014-01-26T11:03:22.367-05:00Why Do Conservatives Accuse Everyone Of Marxism & Nazism So Much?Anyone familiar with politics online has encountered the very common strain of right winger (some are "libertarians" instead of conservatives, but I didn't want to burden the title too much) who run around equating all forms of left wing politics from liberalism, social democrats and other soft-socialists to full bore Marxist-Stalinists, Maoists & (of course, <a href="http://www.hnn.us/article/122247">nonsensically</a>) Nazis & fascists.<br />
<br />
Why do they do this? I mean, the distinctions between left-of-centre politics as practiced in the entire rich world set of democracies and those totalitarian ideologies are glaring and numerous. It can't be persuasive to anyone who can just look at a European style welfare state and realize whatever the faults, there aren't gulags, reeducation camps, political thought police, single party rule, abolition of private property, emigration controls and on and on. Add to that the obvious general prosperity, happiness, health and long life in most such states and it's really boggling to reconcile on any kind of conherent or intellectually honest line of thought.<br />
<br />
I'm sure many such people who make these absurd claims really don't get it, and actually can't see the distinction between liberalism and Stalinism (nevermind fascism). <b>Mostly though, this comes from their manifest inability to really argue against the outcomes of reasonably successful welfare states.</b> The people are mostly happy, well fed and prosperous. It's not perfect, and you can imagine many criticisms but it's really not that bad. Nothing about it aligns with the kind of catastrophe they're always predicting from any policy deviation from hard core laissez faire economics.<br />
<br />
A fictional movie President of the United States (Michael Douglas in the speech at the end of The American President) called this when he said of an opponent:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. <b>Bob's problem is that he can't sell it!</b></blockquote>
This sort of right wing hyperbole against the liberal welfare state & interventionists government has long roots going back (at least) to 1944 with the publication of Friedrich Hayek's "The Road To Serfdom." 1944 was a long time ago, seeing as we're not at "serfdom" yet (and really right wing neoliberal economics is what threatens to make serfs of most of the population if anything does) it's got to be one hell of a very sticky & gentle "slope" we're on here. <br />
<br />
Let us know when Norway implements single party rule, but until then this is just another right wing effort to reinvent reality to suit their myths.Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-31434803599081099402013-12-03T20:22:00.002-05:002013-12-03T20:22:10.953-05:00Government That Works: CPP is Healthy Say ActuariesEvery 3 years the Canada Pension Plan is analyzed by professional actuaries (with peer review by independent actuaries picked by the UK government) to analyze its financies against the best practice means of assessing likely future pay outs and revenue. Once again, the 26th such report <a href="http://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/Eng/oca-bac/ar-ra/cpp-rpc/Pages/cpp26.aspx#Toc-1e">finds the CPP is healthy</a> over the "long term" at current contribution rates. In fact, since the 25th report, the CPP has become mildly healthier in that the minimum contribution rate needed to support it has dropped slightly.<br />
<br />
<b>This is government working</b>, and succeeding where markets are generally failing: Some people do very well saving for their own retirements but more do not, and rely either on work provided defined benefit plans (which fewer and fewer employers offer) or the government programs of CPP/OAS and GIS. Very few people manage to put enough into RRSPs and TFSAs to retire with security, and rather than cluck at them about "personal responsibility" while leaving them to choose between starving or freezing in gutters, we should just acknowledge that this is not about individual irresponsibility but another symptom of growing inequality and accept the public responsibility to ensure retirement security for all.<br />
<br />
The only problem with CPP is that it is too small and meagre a program on which to retire. I hope Premier Wynne manages to get support for increases to CPP's scope and failing that, Ontario should set up a provincial supplimentary pension plan as <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/ontario-ready-to-act-if-ottawa-stalls-on-canada-pension-plan/article15401577/">her government suggests it is considering</a>. <br />
<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-20006741815005501262013-11-10T09:30:00.000-05:002013-11-10T09:30:02.296-05:00The CBC's Right Wing Personalities Have No CounterpartsFor all of the various whining that the CBC is "statist" and left wing biased, I ask, where are the left wing CBC counterparts to these gems:<br />
<ul>
<li>Rex Murphy, seen here <a href="http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/11/09/rex-murphy-an-early-bitter-christmas-for-the-ford-haters/">writing an absurd polemic</a> attacking Rob Ford's critics using a series of cliched strawman puerile caricatures of his opposition as just a bunch of downtown elitist snobs. Ford has been seriously unpopular for years now, having left net popularity in mid to late 2011 and never looked back - even after the Scarborough subway victory.</li>
<li>Don Cherry, among his many offensive comments and reactionary views (many completely unrelated to hockey, which never stops him), peaked with his sneering and gloating speech at Rob Ford's inauguration where he went out of his way to insult Ford's opponents (also with cliched puerile caricatures)</li>
<li>Kevin O'Leary, who makes the evil banker in <i>It's a Wonderful Life</i> seem like a nice guy and takes pro-capitalism to a level of self-parody. He's also just <a href="http://autonomyforall.blogspot.com/2011/10/cbc-its-time-to-fire-kevin-oleary.html">generally a rude host</a> and jerk to guests he disagrees with. </li>
</ul>
Cherry and O'Leary have their foils Ron McLean and Amanda Lang but neither is anything like as left wing as they are right wing. That's OK, I really don't want a left wing equivalent to Don Cherry, or Kevin O'Leary (because they suck) but really, for a network supposedly so drowning in left wing bias, these three get a remarkable amount of prime time to spout off. Rex plays some kind of more measured curmudgeon on TV but that column is grade-A wingnut, guess he can really let the flag fly when writing for the National Post.<br />
<br />
<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-77358430398414331372013-11-09T10:29:00.000-05:002013-11-09T11:16:31.769-05:00Mayor Rob Ford Is Headed For Defeat In 2014Nothing is ever certain, but as it stands, Rob Ford would lose almost any conceivable election for Mayor if held today. It is not useful to cower in fear from the far overblown "Ford Nation" and act like Toronto is doomed to "Ford more years." It isn't, and Ford should at this point be understood as the underdog. The <i>fading longshot.</i><br />
<br />
Before I talk numbers, including the infamous Halloween poll which found his approval jumped 5% after the Police confirmed they have the crack video, it's useful to note that Rob Ford effectively campaigns <b><a href="http://autonomyforall.blogspot.ca/2013/11/rob-fords-permanant-campaign.html">all the time</a>.</b> Only 2 opponents of his have announced, and neither is "campaigning" except to the extent Stintz can try to claim credit for the Scarborough subway extension. The point here is that Ford is already doing his utmost to raise his numbers, and even before the crack scandal was barely keeping his head above water. He hasn't been above 50% approval since his first few months in office. This isn't usual - David Miller had 69% approval as late as 2005, and <a href="http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=4442">was said to have "plummetted' to 43%</a> after the garbage strike in 2009. Way earlier, his approval was in the 80s. Mel Lastman was re-elected with 80% of the vote in 2000. Municipal politics can be pretty easy, keep basic services running and keep reasonably clean and most voters will be fine with you. Ford's even arguably done the former, yet failed so badly at the latter that, well, let's see...<br />
<br />
<b>The 31 October 44% Approval Poll Revisited</b><br />
<br />
Initially there was some reason to doubt a poll taken on Halloween night when huge demographics are too busy handing out or gathering candy to take pollster calls, but several subsequent Forum polls find approximately the same 43-44% approval. These same polls showing a 5% increase in Ford's approval to 44% <a href="http://www.forumresearch.com/forms/News%20Archives/News%20Releases/56871_TO_Mayoral_Approval_%282013.10.31%29_Forum_Research.pdf">also find 60% want him to resign</a>. That isn't just people who "disapprove" but actively think he should quit now. Eric of 308 <a href="http://www.threehundredeight.com/2013/11/ford-now-that-i-have-your-attention.html">looks at this and figures</a> that the Oct 30 poll finding Ford's approval at 39% is probably the outlier.<br />
<br />
About Forum's <a href="http://www.forumresearch.com/forms/News%20Archives/News%20Releases/37016_TO_Mayoral-Council_Approval_%282013.10.30%29_Forum_Research.pdf">October 30th</a> poll just the day before? Couple items of interest:<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-62pPe3tfHOQ/Unh5Ou9rVyI/AAAAAAAAAO8/bnXD5zFjlxo/s1600/worst_mayors.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-62pPe3tfHOQ/Unh5Ou9rVyI/AAAAAAAAAO8/bnXD5zFjlxo/s1600/worst_mayors.PNG" /></a></div>
The key here is that the number of people very firmly negative on Ford is greater than the total number of supporters, even lukewarm ones. Even if you conclude this poll is an outlier and add 5% to Ford's numbers. Ford's "base" here is that 18% who think he might be one of Toronto's "best" mayors. 39% go into this election outright unpersuadable and basically no one is truly undecided. There's nothing for Ford to work with here. <br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P2nY9TtKAVs/Unh5QMnwb0I/AAAAAAAAAPE/TrUt5mJPBGA/s1600/ford_billionsaved.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P2nY9TtKAVs/Unh5QMnwb0I/AAAAAAAAAPE/TrUt5mJPBGA/s1600/ford_billionsaved.PNG" /></a></div>
Ford has been pushing this <a href="http://metronews.ca/voices/ford-for-toronto/688301/doug-ford-says-critics-cant-go-after-our-fiscal-record-challenge-accepted/">nonsense for months now</a>, and despite only some bloggers challenging it to that point (The Star weighs in since with <a href="http://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/robford/2013/11/08/deconstructing_mayor_rob_fords_fiscal_record.html">an excellent effort in the genre</a>), voters are generally rejecting it. Again, not helpful when trying to dig out from a personal scandal when your primary economic/fiscal argument is pre-rejected.<br />
<br />
It gets worse, Forum also polled the subway/LRT question again on Oct 30 and this too is a nail in Ford's coffin:<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fzBEvSmw8YQ/Unh6hbE-VVI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/ZkaY5er96Qk/s1600/subways.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fzBEvSmw8YQ/Unh6hbE-VVI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/ZkaY5er96Qk/s1600/subways.PNG" /></a></div>
This was supposed to be Ford's other big policy success and at best it's a wash. It's really amazing that this happened given the almost total lack of an organized pro-LRT advocacy in the face of Ford's camp's, and the Provincial & Federal Tories lying about it. That video of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vCpKUNRBEw">Matlow embarassing Ford</a> in the May council debate went viral, and probably helped, but I really wonder if voters dislike Ford so much they questioned their own approval of subways in the face of his puerile "subways subways subways" jingoism. Ford was going to ride his subway success to re-election but voters aren't nearly so keen on it as he thought.<br />
<br />
<b>Not Done Yet</b><br />
<br />
Forum has been polling head-to-head matches of various kinds for several years, with various names against Ford, including 3 way and 4 way match ups. Ford's troubles are much older than a crack tape:<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CC79utzDa4E/Unh8AfnNy8I/AAAAAAAAAPg/y14vWfxXF3o/s1600/ford_chow.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CC79utzDa4E/Unh8AfnNy8I/AAAAAAAAAPg/y14vWfxXF3o/s400/ford_chow.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_m4bZyjQPYc/Unh8Ae4DYVI/AAAAAAAAAPc/jO-HeN2KnfI/s1600/ford_stintz.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_m4bZyjQPYc/Unh8Ae4DYVI/AAAAAAAAAPc/jO-HeN2KnfI/s400/ford_stintz.PNG" width="400" /> </a></div>
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Ford has lost EVERY poll against either Karen Stintz or Olivia Chow going back to early 2012. He loses almost every match against John Tory too, meaning there are multiple people who can unseat him and one has already announced she's in (Stintz). What about the dreaded vote-splitting in multi-way races?</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sNqRkhpQXys/Unh8afG01GI/AAAAAAAAAPs/V9c75E3P0QM/s1600/ford_3ways2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="136" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sNqRkhpQXys/Unh8afG01GI/AAAAAAAAAPs/V9c75E3P0QM/s400/ford_3ways2.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Note the dates here - this is the same night as the 44% approval poll, and yet Ford only musters 33% against Stintz - a 7% drop in 24hrs. Going back to the theory that the Oct 30 poll was an "outlier" in undersampling Ford supporters in some way, it's remarkable that the number of people prepared to vote for Ford is higher than the next night which finds this "jump" in his approval. <br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZEjUcjfQWrI/Unh8afimasI/AAAAAAAAAPw/NZ3DBV-WwlY/s1600/ford_3ways.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="393" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZEjUcjfQWrI/Unh8afimasI/AAAAAAAAAPw/NZ3DBV-WwlY/s400/ford_3ways.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Seven polls of 3-way races and Ford loses all but one. Chow wins every poll when she's in it. The news gets a little more ambiguous on the four-way races (though Ford usually doesn't win), I will only show one (<a href="http://www.forumresearch.com/forms/News%20Archives/News%20Releases/86650_TO_Trial_Heats_Summary_%282013.11.01%29_Forum_Research.pdf">lots more here</a>) for discussion:</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BwEVHgEvpDo/Unh9IbIsMEI/AAAAAAAAAP8/1y6myoKjr9c/s1600/ford_4way.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="65" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BwEVHgEvpDo/Unh9IbIsMEI/AAAAAAAAAP8/1y6myoKjr9c/s400/ford_4way.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Again from the same night as the 44% approval and Ford ceilings at 33% support. Tied with Chow, who as noted above is not actively campaigning. Unlike Ford. </div>
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<b>Four Way Finish Highly Unlikely</b></div>
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The key problem with 3 and particularly 4 way races is that they almost never finish that way. It's the nature of first-past-the-post voting systems. 3rd and 4th place challengers usually get irrelevant and their support evaporates. They drop out entirely, or maybe limp to the finish with little money. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_mayoral_election,_2010#Results">2010</a> was quite rare that Pantalone managed a double-digit third place finish. Rocco Rossi, despite ample coverage dropped under 1% for 4th place. In 2003, 3rd place went to a pre-amalgamation Old Toronto Mayor, Barbara Hall, with under 10% and 4th at 5% to a pretty prominent former Liberal MP & cabinet minister, John Nunziata. </div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
You really don't find many viable 3-way races, and I didn't find any 4-way ones where 4th place took more than a small chunk of the vote. Interestingly, 2003's split (with left candiate Hall in 3rd) still elected centre-left "downtown" candidate David Miller, so the idea that a split will re-elect Rob Ford is not some inevitability. </div>
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<b>What If Ford Goes To Rehab?</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Forum (I wish someone else would poll Toronto) treated us the breathtaking revelation that "Ford wins<i> </i>races if he goes to rehab" in <a href="http://www.forumresearch.com/forms/News%20Archives/News%20Releases/31681_TO_Mayoral_Approval_and_Trial_Heats_%282013.11.06%29_Forum_Research.pdf">this November 6th release</a>.<b> </b> </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aJIOVnRz9bc/Un5S6YPwK6I/AAAAAAAAAQ0/9G6KiyjejLk/s1600/rehab.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aJIOVnRz9bc/Un5S6YPwK6I/AAAAAAAAAQ0/9G6KiyjejLk/s1600/rehab.PNG" /></a></div>
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Again Ford cannot even reach 40% support even if he goes to rehab. This of course is a big "if" and it requires some measure of success - Ford not only has to go to rehab, but he can't have a subsequent episode like the Danforth. As above, this is the support of a candidate who is already campaigning for months against people who are respecting the laws governing when they can campaign. </div>
<br />
<b>The Usual Anti-Polling Excuses</b><br />
<br />
Of course these are just polls and the usual unthinking anti-empiricism can be thrown at them ("remember BC's election?" "Tell that to Premier Danielle Smith in Alberta!"). You can ignore polling I guess, but then you have zero basis for predicting elections or even reading current voter opinions. Polling isn't perfect, but it's what we have.<br />
<br />
Ford can of course win re-election. Maybe. If the stars align. If scandal befalls his closest rival. If the Police suddenly announce his full exoneration in their investigation. If, if, if. A set of unlikely things has to happen to get Ford over the finish line. But with scandals a daily event and no sign of stopping, and his primary policy arguments neutered even before his adversaries attack them, it's difficult to see where he can turn to. None of this means you have to like Stintz, Tory or Chow but the main point here is that we can defeat Ford resoundingly, and maybe even knock off some of his main council allies & enablers. That would be a defeat not just for Ford, but Fordism, the politics of urban/suburban division and hatred. That alone would be a big improvement and worth working for. It's time to think big and run the score. Ford is <i>losing</i> and that can be used to make some real change on Council too.<br />
<br />
<i>Please consider <a href="http://www.progressivebloggers.ca/vote/http://autonomyforall.blogspot.com/2013/11/mayor-rob-ford-is-headed-for-defeat-in.html">clicking here</a> to vote for this post on Progressive Bloggers.</i>Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-34024117252681536482013-11-07T22:51:00.000-05:002013-11-08T22:52:42.245-05:00Old Toronto & East York Have Been Shut Out During Ford Mayoralty<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Nothing about Ford's substance abuse & possible legal problems has
changed the basic problems at the heart of his governing which make him a
destructive presence corroding the basic social fabric of the city. He
fundamentally and deliberately seeks to divide the city against itself
to win elections. As he <a href="http://autonomyforall.blogspot.ca/2013/11/rob-fords-permanant-campaign.html">campaigns continuously</a>, it is not just a
question of running ugly capaigns and then seeking to heal the rifts
once in office, it's what he really wants to do, and has done thus far
in his Mayoralty.</div>
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To see the most glaring instance of this, which pervades the entire system of Toronto's government let's ask how the Mayor, and this Council have allocated the key committee and commission/board roles during Ford's term. We'll look at the Executive Committee (closest thing to a cabinet in Council), the Budget Committee, and the Councillor members of the TTC Commission and Police Services Board, which represent the two biggest cost items in Toronto's budget. These bodies make the most important decisions as to how Toronto governs, funds, transports & Polices itself. Here's the result, tracked by Council ward (some Councillor are on multiple things, and this includes both past and present members of these bodies):</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="222" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HHpYJkw1y5U/UmB5ZrhV9DI/AAAAAAAAAJM/iJcpuHCxCYo/s400/ford-all.PNG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Major council roles, Dec 2010-Oct 2013</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Notice the complete lack of any coloured markers in the wards representing the pre-amalgamation cities of Toronto ("Old Toronto") and East York. <b>Entirely shut out.</b> This is what the next Mayor, a new Mayor, has to fix. We cannot go on like this.</div>
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Notes/Caveats:<br />
<ul>
<li>I use the "Community Council" groupings to decide what former city a given ward falls under. Some wards, like say 26 span more than 1 of the pre-amalgamation cities.</li>
<li>I'm not the first to do <a href="http://spacing.ca/toronto/2010/12/15/miller-vs-ford-who-excluded-whom/">this sort of post</a>, but I am trying to extend further that excellent analysis. I do rely on the information from that post. </li>
<li>In 2012, Council <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/05/toronto-city-council-votes-to-install-councillors-citizens-on-ttc-board/">dismissed Ford's original TTC board and put their own up</a>. Those members are not represented in this map, but in fact adding them would not change anything as no one from Old Toronto or East York is amoung the new board.</li>
</ul>
Not all of this is Ford's fault, but it is clear that this is deliberate on his part. Council for their part, has not rectified this complete shut out from the committees of greatest import, despite multiple opportunities with even 1 token appointment to anything. In fact, just recently, to fill a vacant Executive Committee slot, some on Council <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/10/11/adam_vaughan_nearly_appointed_to_rob_fords_executive.html">tried to get downtown Councillor Adam Vaughan appointed</a> but failed to win a majority and instead, Ford put the brand new, unelected "caretaker" Councillor for Ward 3, Peter Leon on his executive.<br />
<br />
Maybe pushing an unwelcome adversary onto the executive is not the way to rectify this, but clearly if council wanted to ensure every region of the City was represented, it could have put one on the new TTC board, for example.<br />
<br />
<b>So? Miller Snubbed the Suburbs Just the Same!</b><br />
<br />
No, he didn't:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IqQP3DWmTCM/UmB5p-Vf7jI/AAAAAAAAAJY/JkKtjL6BPRM/s1600/Miller-All.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="222" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IqQP3DWmTCM/UmB5p-Vf7jI/AAAAAAAAAJY/JkKtjL6BPRM/s400/Miller-All.PNG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Key council roles, actual or offered, 2006-2010</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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This is for Miller's second term, where he was confortably re-elected with a strong majority of the electorate. Yet every region of the city is represented in Council's key posts. In particular, every former city is represented on Miller's executive committee. Does this mean Miller was a great Mayor and we should just re-elect him? No. It just means it doesn't have to be like this under Ford. Winning the Mayor's chair does not require trying to divide the city. Ford has chosen to be this way. Here's Miller's 2006 election map:<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OQz-A-74WRk/UnxLnBaDPAI/AAAAAAAAAQM/T7wtKRBP-Hk/s1600/20101012-Toronto_mayor_-_2006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OQz-A-74WRk/UnxLnBaDPAI/AAAAAAAAAQM/T7wtKRBP-Hk/s320/20101012-Toronto_mayor_-_2006.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Ok, that was Miller's re-election when he was quite popular. What about his initial election, a very competitive race against John Tory? <br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PU-9IvUM1W8/UnxNnTD658I/AAAAAAAAAQY/vEnWIKvPjKg/s1600/2003map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PU-9IvUM1W8/UnxNnTD658I/AAAAAAAAAQY/vEnWIKvPjKg/s320/2003map.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Yes Miller's support was stronger downtown, but he did pretty good in some other less urban parts of the city. Now here's Ford's map:<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xzb6yi--C64/UnxR5l8AhgI/AAAAAAAAAQk/lYzM-Z8UsEM/s1600/ford-2010-election.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xzb6yi--C64/UnxR5l8AhgI/AAAAAAAAAQk/lYzM-Z8UsEM/s1600/ford-2010-election.jpg" /></a></div>
Other than Karen Stintz in ward 16 (a "North York" ward), not a single councillor from a ward won by Smitherman got any of the key council roles. Far from seeking to heal this rift (one which of course pre-dates Ford) he reinforces it. By all indications, barring his substance problems derailing his 2014 campaign it will be more of this. <br />
<br />
Many focus on Ford's various offensive comments, like blaming cyclists for getting hurt in accidents, or saying that the "downtown people have enough subways" despite the clear and obvious overcrowding problems on the Yonge line south of Eglinton station. These sorts of downtown-bashing comments are representative of his views, but pale in comparison to literally locking out over 30% of the people of the city from any voice in the most important governing bodies. This is representative democracy and of course the result of this is going to be a disproportionate emphasis on the areas of the city that are overrepresented in decision making bodies at expense of those shut out. <br />
<br />
<b>Quantifying the Lock Out</b><br />
<br />
While Ford's map displays obvious regional favouritism, Miller's map would seem to somewhat favour Old Toronto. It does, but some numbers would be helpful, here's the raw number of key roles alloted to councillors from each former city under Ford and Miller's 2nd term:<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Uq4HrITpYRU/UmCSPNGO2XI/AAAAAAAAAKk/BVAW7dZ5mKU/s1600/ford_miller.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Uq4HrITpYRU/UmCSPNGO2XI/AAAAAAAAAKk/BVAW7dZ5mKU/s400/ford_miller.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
That's somewhat helpful, York and East York are quite small compared to others, it's hard to tell which areas are represented proportionately to their populations. Let's compare each former city's percentage of the total population, and the percentage of these key roles they got by Mayor:<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H_mh2P3JocE/UmCSes-3L2I/AAAAAAAAALA/B6qkLGwzBJo/s1600/Ford-KeyRoles.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H_mh2P3JocE/UmCSes-3L2I/AAAAAAAAALA/B6qkLGwzBJo/s400/Ford-KeyRoles.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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So, as you'd expect, Ford has frozen out Old TO and EY, and given the extra spots to the more suburban former cities. How does Miller's chart look?<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O6cnyGcUuqs/UmCSejPYZpI/AAAAAAAAAK8/hJsF5P7vv9Y/s1600/Miller-Keyroles.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O6cnyGcUuqs/UmCSejPYZpI/AAAAAAAAAK8/hJsF5P7vv9Y/s400/Miller-Keyroles.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Ok, Old Toronto is somewhat overrepresented, but the supposed "downtown" mayor was pretty fair to the 3 suburban former cities. Scarborough even comes out a little ahead.<br />
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Let's stack these up, each administration saw certain areas over and underrepresented, who does worse?<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DE-UFS8wDUg/UmCSeoOd5lI/AAAAAAAAAK4/Wdvtzsv7ghA/s1600/inclusiveness_millerford.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DE-UFS8wDUg/UmCSeoOd5lI/AAAAAAAAAK4/Wdvtzsv7ghA/s400/inclusiveness_millerford.PNG" width="400" /> </a></div>
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There's just no contest. Miller's "most excluded" city, Etobicoke does a hell of a lot better than the two cities Ford locked out completely. If Miller did favour Old Toronto, he didn't favour them as much as Ford has privileged Etobicoke, Scarborough and York (York is kind of skewed by Frances Nunziata). </div>
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Some of these is just natural. Miller is on the left so he's going to somewhat prefer Councillors of a similar persuasion on his key committees. Ford is on the right, and will feel the same. Right leaning councillors will tend to be suburban. Left leaning ones more urban. Yet it shouldn't be allowed to go this far. Stephen Harper put a major city candidate into the Senate and his cabinet just to ensure some kind of urban representation after his party didn't win any seats in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver in 2006. No Ontario cabinet would skip having a northern or south-western member if the Premier could possibly avoid it. Yet there's no sign that Ford even had talks with any Old Toronto councillor to see if they could come to an understanding that would let them work together. Miller had a Scarborough councillor turn him down for a seat on the Executive. It happens, but it is important he offered it (even though he had other Scarborough Exec members).</div>
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There are of course other metrics of inclusiveness than geography. Ford's current executive now infamously doesn't include any female councillors despite this council having record (but still unacceptably low) numbers of them. But region is a pretty vital one so long as we govern ourselves by a single member district council, instead of say, some kind of proportional representation party system. Councillors will favour their wards in their decisions. That's their strong incentive. Letting this kind of disparity occur is going to lead to unhealthy outcomes. To the extent that Ford has deliberately allowed and caused this to happen, is all the more reason why he cannot be Toronto's next Mayor. We need a Mayor for the whole city, not just their favourite parts. </div>
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Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-92114633712134593792013-11-07T08:00:00.000-05:002013-11-09T09:46:11.658-05:00Deamalgamation Won't Fix Toronto's ProblemsRob Ford has ridden to the Mayor's office by stoking a sense of grievance and alientation in many suburban Toronto voters toward those who live "downtown" (usually meaning the entirety of the pre-amalgamated Old city of Toronto, which is of course much bigger than the downtown core).<br />
<br />
While this was forced on Toronto by the Harris government for its own cynical reasons, reversing it now would not cure what ails us.<br />
<br />
Most of the big problems we fix are regional in scope, in fact, in some cases, like transit, amalgamated Toronto is not big enough to address them properly (hence, Metrolinx). But others:<br />
<ul>
<li>The Gardiner is primarily used by suburban 416 and 905 area commuters, do we really want Old Toronto responsible for fixing (or getting rid of it)?</li>
<li>The flash flooding is a regional problem - too much pavement and too little green. Want to redivide the city and let various elements have different rules on driveway size & lawn paving?</li>
<li>Climate change is going to have big impacts on everyone and cities will need coordinated responses. Flooding is one thing, but things like west nile virus show there's much more.</li>
<li>Inequality is at severe levels, and is going to reduce vast areas to slum status unless things are done. I fear this too, needs a bigger, rather than more localized response</li>
</ul>
Some of this, like transit was previously addressed by moving certain issues to the Metro government, but there, Old Toronto would be again outnumbered by the suburbs should they choose to unite.<br />
<br />
The biggest reason against this is that it is unnecessary. The suburbs are not monoliths. David Miller did pretty well there in 2003 and won them outright in 2006. <a href="http://www.threehundredeight.com/2013/11/ford-now-that-i-have-your-attention.html">Polling by forum</a> now suggests Olivia Chow would beat Rob Ford not just downtown, but in Scarborough, North York and even Ford's home turf of Etobicoke: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Once Olivia Chow is included, however, Stintz falls away significantly.
This suggests that Stintz's support in the first poll is more about not
being Rob Ford than it is about being Karen Stintz. Chow wins by a much
wider margin with 43% of the decided vote, against 32% for Ford, 18% for
Stintz, and 7% for Soknacki. <b>Chow wins every region of the city</b>, with
48% support in old Toronto, 44% in North York, 41% in Scarborough, and
38% in Etobicoke (where Ford comes closest to winning). </blockquote>
Toronto is going to need to do a better job defusing this suburban/urban tension somehow, but I don't think turning the clock back to <strike>1995</strike> 1997 is the answer. Maybe we can bolster the powers of the community councils to keep the most purely local issues locally decided, or strengthen their voice in, say, things like whether the Island airport should be allowed to use jets - maybe Old Toronto's councillors should have more weight in that decision. We certainly can't allow more Ford type demagogues to profit from this angst. A city that regularly elects Mayors who hate the downtown, and encourages flight to the suburbs? I think that sounds a bit like Detroit, a fate we should hope to avoid. Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-85886015759975349112013-11-06T22:03:00.000-05:002013-11-08T22:53:15.395-05:00The Senate Scandal's Connection to Harper's Worst ActsReading <a href="http://rabble.ca/news/2013/11/bye-bye-ford-and-harper-would-their-departure-have-any-benefit-canadas-left?utm_content=bufferb8476&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer">this excellent piece</a> by Shawn Whitney on how the left shouldn't assume great policy will automatically come from the downfall of either Harper or Ford, the author speaks to my own discomfort with the Senate expenses scandal:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
At the federal level, Stephen Harper’s troubles have nothing to do
with his murder of thousands of Afghans in support of NATO’s attempt to
subdue that country. It has nothing to do with his shutdown of the
national daycare plan that Paul Martin put in place to try and save his
own skin, or his scuppering of the deal he made with first nations
people. [...] </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It has nothing to do with his unbridled support for big oil and their
enthusiastic destruction of the environment of Alberta and, indeed, the
whole world with the tar sands. Nothing to do with his support for
fracking to recover natural gas.</blockquote>
My own list of Harper's worst misdeeds relate to his contempt for democracy, and specifically the systemic safeguards which help guarantee it continues. A government which got itself re-elected after making history for <a href="http://rabble.ca/columnists/2011/03/contempt-parliament-contempt-reasons-parliament">being held in actual contempt of Parliament</a>, a leader who <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/tape-suggests-pm-knew-of-alleged-cadman-offer-1.768289">authorized an attempt to bribe</a> an independent MP to vote against the previous minority Liberal government's budget, a group that actually gave its MPs a <a href="http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/columnists/story.html?id=b8122d51-95e8-4b29-b99b-34217406425d">manual on how to disrupt and confuse</a> committee hearings, and then used the ensuing rancor to break at least the spirit of its own fixed election dates law and <a href="http://dwatch.ca/camp/RelsMay2610.html">call a snap election</a> at a politically opportune moment.<br />
<br />
As Whitney does, I find it very easy to keep listing these things. Really, the point is that nailing Harper and his crew vicious ideologues over $90,000 in misclaimed expenses feels a lot like putting Al Capone in prison for tax evasion. Sure, it might get the job done, but it feels hollow and unsatisfying.<br />
<br />
<b>Casuistry Is The Connection </b><br />
<br />
My thinking has changed a bit in considering Duffy's claims that <a href="http://news.ca.msn.com/local/ottawa/mike-duffys-lawyer-says-expenses-approved-by-senate-pmo-1">the PMO and Senate Majority leader pre-cleared his expenses as being compliant with the rules</a>. This is entirely believable, and has been signature of Harper's lot their entire time in power: They stretch the meaning of every rule & law to their own benefit <b>well past the point of credulity</b>. In this case, it is the Senate's internal interpretation of the Constitution's Senatorial residency requirements <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/housing-expenses-audit-blames-senators-and-unclear-rules/article11806798/">which external auditor Deloitte found to be "unclear."</a> It's easy to see what Harper's government did with these "unclear" rules: Interpret them maximally to their own needs of the moment. This is what they do with everything else, and they have typically gotten away with it.<br />
<br />
The examples of this abound:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_and_Out_scandal#House_investigation_and_snap_election">In-And-Out</a>: Breaking Canada's election financing laws using blatantly contrived specious reasoning about the interpretation of party spending.</li>
<li>Coaltion with traitors: Rabble rousing and treason-baiting over the 2008 opposition coaltion deal for including confidence vote support of the BQ when <a href="http://www.liberal.ca/newsroom/news-release/reality-check-stephen-harpers-2004-coalition-letter/">Harper himself had obviously cut a similar deal</a> with the BQ when in the opposition.</li>
<li>Using the ordinarily routine practice of proroguation in quiet times to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Harper#2008_Parliamentary_dispute_and_prorogation">save his premiership</a> from that same opposition deal in the face of a signed letter by a majority of MPs indicating their intent to vote non-confidence against his government.</li>
<li>In the case of the previously mentioned <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harper-government-to-be-found-in-contempt-could-trigger-election-call/article573042/">contempt of Parliament</a> finding, I'm not even sure Harper's crew bothered with any rationalization for refusing to provide the documents required, they just judged (correctly) that they could get away with this, and it even suited their purposes for the opposition to force an election.</li>
<li>They did get slightly burned over Bev Oda having a non-political staff recommendation falsely reversed to give her cover in refusing funding to an organization the Conservatives just don't like. <a href="http://www.canada.com/news/Harper+ignores+calls+resignation+over+altered+document/4287600/story.html">Harper just rode this out</a> with characteristic arrogance. In a preview of the current troubles, Oda would eventually fall to a personal expenses scandal over charging, among other things <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bev_Oda#Controversies_and_scandals">a $16 glass of orange juice</a>. </li>
</ul>
It isn't a coincidence that it is Duffy & Wallin in trouble for expenses either, since their very appointments were <a href="http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/karl-nerenberg/2013/10/harper-created-this-mess-cynically-appointing-non-residents-to">constitutionally ludicrous to begin with</a>. Of course Duffy & Wallin needed to rack up unusual travel & housing expenses: <i>they don't actually reside in the provinces they were supposed to represent.</i> Harper wanted these two famous, charismatic and fairly popular media personalities on his team, working the speech and fundraising circuits and employed his typical level of intellectual sophistry to re-interpret some very clear law so that "residency" doesn't mean what it obviously means to most people by any plain language interpretation. Same link on the actual constitutional requirements for Senators: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One requirement is that the Senator must own $4,000 worth of property in the province he/she represents. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Another and more basic requirement is that a Senator <i>be a resident</i> in the province he/she represents.</blockquote>
I'd bet the Senate has attempted in its arcane and ordinarily publicly ignored way come up with some set of guidance around what "resident" means to cover some uninteresting snowbird Senators who probably spent significant periods of the year in Florida or other sunny climates. Let's say it is even somehow true that Duffy's living arrangement somehow meets these loose rules - Harper tried to, as usual, drive a barge through this loophole and has ultimately been tripped up on a combination of his own contempt for laws that inhibit him, and the very plain and obvious meaning of the clause in the Constitution. <b>Nobody cares</b> what the Senate previously decided "resident" means because we know it cannot possibly legitimately include how little Duffy & Wallin were actually "residing" in their Senatorial provinces. Harper's government got caught in a trap of their own deceit, and their only shield would be the self-serving rules of an undemocratic and poorly respected institution. <br />
<br />
This is the core linkage of <i>l'affaire du Sénat</i> to this government's most grievous crimes: Right from the top Harper has set the example of self serving linguistic and legal casuistry. On arcane but vital matters of democratic institutional survival, he has regularly gotten away with it. When combined with plain old ripping off the treasury, it finally caught up to them, and him. All the rest, Duffy's inability and unwillingness to repay out of his own pocket, the crooked deal with Wright, the need for Mulcair's excellent prosecutorial style of QP jousting falls from this core ethical failing of Harper's ministry. They too, like Bush's wrecking crew thought that they can just act and create their own reality no matter what we say. This, finally, appears to be a wall such gall cannot breach.<br />
<br />
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<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-6393881956256625702013-11-04T23:25:00.000-05:002013-11-04T23:25:11.199-05:00Rob Ford's Permanant CampaignA break from his legal troubles to talk about the fact that Rob Ford basically campaigns for his re-election all the time. <br />
<br />
Officially, that's not allowed, the election period starts January 2014, but think about:<br />
<ul>
<li>Weekly no holds barred highly political and opinionated radio program for Rob & Doug</li>
<li>Handing out Fridge magnets everywhere (including <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/05/22/just-another-day-at-city-hall-crack-video-sideshow-invades-tim-hortons-as-rob-fords-staff-take-heat-for-handing-out-campaign-magnets-at-funeral/">funerals</a>..) </li>
<li>2
"Ford Fest" campaign rallies this year, held in large parks with free
food & drink (advertised by robocalls all over the city, I was
called and I have never contacted the Mayor)</li>
<li>Spending an inordinate amount of time taking constituent calls & visiting voters to address problems </li>
</ul>
The
last is probably worth a few words because it's the most effective form
of continuous campaigning Ford does and the secret to his success. It
is true that all local policians should do a certain amount of direct
constituent interaction, to keep an "ear to the ground" and stay in
touch with actual voter concerns unfiltered by staff or consultants.
However everything we can discern from Ford is that he goes well beyond
any reasonable amount of time spent on this. According <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/08/26/mayor_rob_ford_had_light_schedule_for_march_to_july_itinerary_suggests.html">to this count from mid 2012</a>, constituent meetings were one-third of his agenda. He proudly brags that he
returns every call, and gives out his personal numbers all the time.
He's known to show up and get that pothole filled or that leaky hydrant
tightened or whatever small bore constituent concern he can address.<br />
<br />
This
is all textbook retail politics. Toronto is a big city, 2.5M people is a
lot, but spend 10-20 hours a week (guessing here) on this for four years, and you can
visit and interact with several thousand voters, all over the city.
Each will tell the story of the Mayor personally attending to their problem to 5 or 10 people, and suddenly you may be
talking about 25-50,000 voters positively moved. Think, a first person account from a friend will weigh more heavily than any newscast or TV ad. Ford won in 2010 with
380,000 votes, so yes, this matters a great deal.<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a problem?</b> In general, the campaign period restrictions provide some level of fairness against the natural advantages incumbent candidates have for precisely these sorts of reasons. Even if it was legal, almost no opponent is going to campaign for four years, most can't afford it, and it's an absurd investment in time when the chances are the incumbent will be sailing to re-election anway when you get to election year.<br />
<br />
So in general you are campaigning with no real opponents - sure, some critics on council, but they are not given the same weight in media time as the Mayor.<br />
<br />
In addition to fairness, making re-election too easy for incumbents has obvious negative democratic ramifications for the system. Quality challengers are not going to jump in when the Incumbent looks unbeatable. Mel Lastman may have been popular in 2000, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_municipal_election,_2000#Results">but to tune of 80% of the vote</a>? The lack of a serious challenger did Toronto no favours that year.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>What to do about this? </b> The first and third items are clear violations which should have legal enforcement in some form. The second is kind of trivial, not really worth a big fuss. The last I am not prepared to propose any kind of formal ban, but I think we should observe it and understand why Ford is so relentless about serving voters one at a time. This is obviously not an effective way to really solve the problems of the city, and I'd argue Ford's emphasis on it is counterproductive. Think about the city crews that have to be diverted from scheduled, planned work to address spot problems the Mayor wants fixed right away. The crew fixing a pothole could be systemically moving through a whole neighbourhood fixing every pothole, but get stopped to drive across town to wherever Ford is to fix just one pothole. <br />
<br />
If Ford used these experiences to highlight ill functioning city services at Council and allocate more resources or identify actual inefficiencies in their delivery, that would actually be helpful. Maybe the pothole teams aren't working smartly and could be better organized. Maybe there's just not enough of them. Who knows? Ford doesn't bring these experiences back to City Hall to get them on Council's agenda. He's just out to win voters one at a time. That his efforts might make potholes and worn out street sign problems more serious is no concern of his.<br />
<br />
Yes, I'm sure the individual voters he helps are sincerely grateful, and perhaps had a hard time getting help through normal city channels like 311 (something Ford, by the way, <a href="http://www.torontosun.com/2013/09/10/mayor-rob-ford-steps-on-left-toes-at-committee">made a point of voting against</a> improving in committee). But Ford's job is not to pick a couple thousand lucky voters to help while millions might suffer a problem, the Mayor needs to be looking at the big picture more of the time. A CEO who spent 33% of their time taking customer calls or working the factory floor making product would most likely be less effective for their company than one who put more emphasis on turning those sample experiences into systemic fixes that make the whole organization stronger, rather than fixing a few symptoms.<br />
<br />
Some of Ford's illegal campaigning should be addressed through enforcement, as a vital service to municipal democracy. The endless voter visits is in the realm of politics. We should judge his governing choices and recognize that what seems like acts of civic service are, when taken too far, really just self serving.Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-50486124843865753722013-10-31T21:53:00.001-04:002013-10-31T21:53:44.017-04:00The Rot In Toronto Goes Deeper Than FordThere is a temptation to view Ford as a mere aberration, a statistical anomaly of no greater significance. This is a mistake. It is true Ford's drug problems are quite exceptional for major politicians, but this is far from the whole story of what makes him an outright awful Mayor. For comparison, Doug Ford supposedly doesn't drink and is even a vegetarian but he's still a vicious and mendacious operator Toronto would be well rid of, and Ontario had best avoid. A <i>clean</i> Rob Ford would still be an awful Mayor unworthy of a second term. Ford's <a href="http://torontoist.com/2013/10/the-rob-and-doug-ford-radio-recap-super-fact-check-edition/">rampant dishonesty</a> on a <a href="http://metronews.ca/voices/ford-for-toronto/688301/doug-ford-says-critics-cant-go-after-our-fiscal-record-challenge-accepted/">myriad of subjects</a> should be enough to want the man replaced. Now today's news makes that event as near a certainty as you get in electoral politics, but let's talk about the deeper systemic problems in Toronto's political system that Ford has exposed:<br />
<ul>
<li>No regular means of Mayoral & administration accountability to the public, the media (our proxies in the halls of power) or even to council itself. Ford <i>never</i> has to address questions from anyone if he doesn't want to. City Council needs something like "Question Period" where "opposition" Councillors would at least have some chance to put questions to the Mayor and his team. This is a huge part of how Ford is able to just create his own reality, because he almost never has to face it colliding with the actual one (when it does, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vCpKUNRBEw">it is a sight to behold</a>).</li>
<li>Weak election regulations, particularly on campaigning outside the defined election period. This year's Ford Fests are nothing but campaign rallies. Ford and his brother campaign weekly on a radio show <i>they </i>host and use to smear & attack opponents and "address" media questions as they see fit, but without any opportunity for rebuttal or follow up. They take callers (screened in some way) but have full control rather than a nominally impartial host. He uses official city numbers as the caller ID for political robocalls. He threw himself into campaigning "for" Doug Holyday in a provincial by-election. Sure, Ford spends his own money for all these very campaign like things, but that he's a wealthy man with money to burn on such events is all the more reason to strengthen these rules.</li>
<li>No means to remove him short of outright criminal conviction. Impeachment rules are dangerous and must strike a delicate balance lest they be abused for partisan or ideological persecution, but Ford's disreputable actions make regular business in Council wellnigh impossible. Impeachment is always a political question, but some form of outlet and possibility of it would do something to keep a future Mayor of his inclinations in some kind of check. At the Provincial and Federal level, the government leaders can always be removed by their own party caucuses or by losing a confidence vote in the legislature. Ford faces neither. </li>
<li>No automatic enforcement of the City's ethics codes and other regulations of politicians. Ford's conflict of interest troubles required an ordinary citizen to take the matter to court. The propriety of his radio show & the Ainslie robocalls could only be reviewed if someone makes formal complaints to the Integrity Commissioner (or bodies like the CBSC/CRTC). Laws need enforcement that doesn't rely on brave and motivated citizens making a legal stink. </li>
<li>Ford's "cancellation" of Transit city: I don't know how to fix this, but it was a clear abuse of his authority as Mayor. Transit City was ratified by City Council. The Mayor alone should not be able to cancel acts of Council. </li>
<li>Weak consequences for most ethical violations. Items like using city letterhead to write letters of reference for friends are violations but even if someone braves the Ford Nation ragestorm, the most the offending politican faces is non-consequences like a "reprimand." </li>
<li>Weak formal mechanisms of transparency. The media have to file FOI requests to get even partial versions of Ford's schedules. He shows up at noon most days and leaves at 3. He claims to be working away from City Hall. Who knows what he's doing? Other reports have a major city property developer giving two councillors on Ford's executive committee <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/mammoliti-shiner-get-rent-deals-from-toronto-developers-1.1865022">accepting sub-market rents for prime apartments</a>. What happens with this? Why does it take a media investigation to uncover this?</li>
<li>Weak financial controls. Ford makes a lot of hay paying his own way for official work expenses. Everything from office supplies to business travel. Not all politicians are personally wealthy. Should those that are be able to buy positive press this way? Doug Ford supposedly doesn't even take his salary. Ford overspent significantly on his Mayoral campaign, nothing at all was done about this.</li>
</ul>
I'm really only a latecomer to the Mayor's sad saga and I suspect there's much more that could be said about this. My main point is that we should view the Ford Mayoralty as an impetus to reform our municipal system and ensure the bar of behaviour is raised, along with the system's ability to respond. We are damn fortunate to have a weak mayor system, because even this not particularly great council did block many of Ford's most egregious policy ideas. If he hangs on to run a mayoral campaign, I suspect we will have many new items for this list. He openly promised a "<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/mayor-rob-ford-says-2014-campaign-will-be-a-bloodbath-1.2254963">bloodbath</a>" and his brother, a "dirty" campaign. These are not people who obey the spirit of the law, or even the letter when they feel they'll get away with it. The city's rules and enforcement were apparently not made for such, and need to catch up. The next administration at this level of prevarication & malign indifference to the greater good may well be competent at what they do.<br />
<br />
If this really is the end of Ford, Toronto got lucky to escape as lightly as we did. It could have been a lot worse.<br />
<ul>
</ul>
Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-19138773285977417182013-10-29T20:56:00.001-04:002013-10-29T20:56:51.277-04:00No, The Senate is Not a Worthwhile Check on the Prime MinisterFar better ones exist. I really d<a href="http://nor-re.blogspot.ca/2013/10/abolish-senate-youve-got-to-be-kidding.html">on't get where this idea comes from</a>. Can you name anything bad, ever that our Senate has prevented? Did it prevent Trudeau's Martial Law? Did it stop the internment of Japanese Canadians? Racist laws like head taxes on Chinese immigrants? Aboriginal residential schools? The death penalty? <br />
<br />
You might say that the Senate needs reforms and election of its members to be more effective as a check on tyranny, but the US Senate has an even worse record of preventing injustice and atrocity, in fact spending much more time blocking laws to stop things like lynching and segregation than it did to block anything truly bad. Even more recently the US Senate was <i>more </i>supportive than the US House of the Bush era abuses, from the Patriot Act, the Iraq War authorization, to the permanent detention without trial of many people at Gitmo. <br />
<br />
A Canadian elected Senate would still be controlled by the party leaders via our strict party discipline system. Elected Senators would have to stand for re-election as independents if they flout their party leader. They would be relegated to back-bench opposition irrelevancy. If the PM has a majority in the House, chances are s/he has a majority in the Senate (think how province-wide Senatorial elections would have turned out in 2011). So even the hope that we have split government in each chamber will not tend to happen. In fact, if things are bad enough that a leader's own legislators are turning, House members are far more powerful in that they can trigger the Prime Minister's resignation by joining the opposition to defeat the government in a confidence vote. Senators could block bills, but House members can force new elections.<br />
<br />
The worst injustices perpetrated by governments tend to be popular in their time, which means politicians are a poor safeguard. The proven, far more effective safeguard is the Courts, enforcing our Constitutionally embedded Charter of Rights. Further, Canada, as a federal society leaves significant powers (including administration of justices and most criminal code enforcement) in the hands of the provinces. Throw in Quebec being never more than 3 or 4 steps from independence (and Alberta not far behind it sometimes seems) and you really have a hard time concocting a viable "runaway Prime Minister" scenario with or without the Senate.<br />
<br />
Finally, if by "tyranny" you literally fear Harper setting himself up as a literal dictator via some kind of "Enabling Act" - let's take a closer look at Hitler's rise. When Weimar Germany's legislature passed the Enabling Act, Hitler <a href="http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/enabling.htm">had SA thugs all over the building</a>, and had already banned a major opposition party, the Communists, so none of their members were even present to vote against it. There's simply no basis for believing a Weimar Senate, if it had existed, would have not been equally coerced by intimidation and politics of the day to pass the thing. Hitler had already seized defacto power. The real lesson of dictatorships is that by the time the dictator gets around to formalizing powers in actual written laws, it's already too late for legislative opposition to stop him. You can tell a similar story for the rise of Mussolini, whose rise to power begins by leading a <a href="http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/march_on_rome.htm">fascist black-shirt army</a> on a march to Rome.<br />
<br />
Two thirds of the world's democracies do fine without upper houses. Canada can too. Meanwhile Senates often prove unable to prevent (or even contribute to) slides into dictatorship such as in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet">Chile</a> or Argentina. Voters will have to remove Mr. Harper (assuming his own party doesn't do it first), and if they're waiting for the Senate to do something effective to block him, they'll be waiting a long time. <br />
<br />
<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-37523962762735569502013-10-28T22:18:00.001-04:002013-10-29T19:00:11.404-04:00Hudak Promises To Incur Massive Project Cancellation Costs As Premier<b>Update (</b>29 Oct): A <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/liberals-and-tories-spar-over-light-rail/article15129578/">subsequent G&M piece</a> says Hudak would respect signed contracts and would likely leave the Eglinton LRT alone. Also, <a href="http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/passenger/light-rail/toronto-paying-penalties-to-bombardier.html?channel=61&utm_source=WhatCounts+Publicaster+Edition&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=RGN+10.29.13&utm_content=Full+Article">this site claims</a> Bombardier was paid an extra $68M for the order reduction in cancelling the Scarborough LRT. That brings cancellation costs to $153M.<br />
----<br />
<br />
Yes, a Hudak led Ontario government <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/hudak-would-extend-subways-scrap-lrts-as-ontario-premier/article15113241/">would cancel LRT projects in the Big Move</a>, causing major project cancellation losses to sunk costs (many projects are in-flight in planning or construction) and contract escape penalties to vendors like Bombardier for cancelling or scaling back orders.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I think GO and our subways are the strengths in our system, and I do not
believe in ripping up existing streets to lay down track.” - Tim Hudak</blockquote>
Toronto's decision to cancel the previously agreed and in-flight Scarborough LRT has cost at least $85M in sunk costs, plus a yet to be determined amount in fees by Bombardier for lowering the LRT car order. Hudak isn't specific, but reading the Globe's synopsis, it seems pretty clear his intent is to cancel all LRT projects, possibly even including the already under construction Eglinton Crosstown line (Hudak was in Mike Harris' government, which filled in the under construction Eglinton subway line in 1995, so the history repeating here would be simply grotesque). In addition, this would almost certainly include the in-progress but not yet under construction Finch and Sheppard East LRTs, then a raft of other projects in the province such as LRTs for Mississauga and Hamilton.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“You set priorities and you make choices. But I think that every dollar
we build underground is there not just for a generation, but for
potentially a century. It’s a worthy investment. You’re absolutely
right: I’ll lay down less track than I would if I did LRTs, but I think I
get bigger bang for the buck in helping beat gridlock.” - Tim Hudak</blockquote>
The cancellation costs for all this would easily run into the hundreds of millions. For someone hoping to ride the gas plant scandal to power, this is just astounding.<br />
<br />
Additionally, Hudak showed he intends to use the proven talking points for subways such as the old "100 year" chestnut above. Yes Mr. Hudak, subway <i>tunnels</i> last 100 years, but the trains, tracks, platforms & switches do not. By this argument, we should bury all our roads, because hey, 100 year "investment."<br />
<br />
The other favourite line of LRT proponents is the old "we cannot rip up roads" bit. It is true that some LRT projects entail road disruptions & dedicated lanes, but <a href="http://autonomyforall.blogspot.com/2013/10/dedicating-lanes-to-transit-speeds-up.html">as Seoul found</a>, that can actually result in faster commutes not just for those taking transit, but car drivers as well, as removing the buses from their lanes (and possibly some amount of traffic as some drivers opt for transit) speeds up their commutes too.<br />
<br />
The biggest whoppers come here:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“[The money] comes from the same place where the Spadina line came from,
where the Bloor-Danforth line came from, where the Yonge line came
from. It comes from the treasury,” he said. “We did that without tax
increases in the past … You do it by finding efficiencies within
government.”</blockquote>
First off, <a href="http://worldwidewickens.com/?p=699">the province did not fund the majority of the existing subway network</a>. Of 64 existing stations, the first 38 stations (or 60% of the total) were funded by the city/metro governments without funding from the senior levels of government. More importantly Hudak is hinging all this on the ever failing strategy of "finding efficiencies" in the existing government.<br />
<br />
How often will voters fall for this deeply dishonest tactic? Try and take seriously the idea that Hudak knows of <i>billions</i> of dollars of true "inefficiencies" in the current government, as I joked on twitter, perhaps there is a Ministry of Burning Cash that can be shut down. If so, wouldn't he be bragging about this specifically? Embarassing the government day after day over the waste in Question Period?<br />
<br />
Even as a matter of good public service, if the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition knows of significant areas of taxpayer waste, is he going to sit quietly on them waiting for an election which might be years in coming, letting the government keep wasting money which could be saved?<br />
<br />
On the other hand, maybe the claim is true that he plans to "find" these efficiencies, but only once in government. If so, how can he promise they are there? He can't <i>know</i> this. It's a hope, maybe an educated one, but still a gamble. Even if you think say, 5% of all government spending is true waste (like leaving unused buildings lit at night or whatever example of clear out and out waste you can think up, not talking here about spending you just don't like, which still has a purpose) - it will tend to be a thousand or more little spots of waste. There isn't really going to be a Minister of Burning Cash that accounts for 80% of the waste. Finding those unnecessarily lit buildings or other duplication, overpayment & such is going to be tough. Maybe the process for getting someone a driver's license take 14 steps and can be shaved to 13 steps with months of work by the Ministry of Transporation and this saves like $5M a year. I'm sure such inefficiencies exist in government as they do in every large organization, but wringing them out is tough work. Complex multi-deparment processes have dozens of stakeholders and usually no one person fully undertands the purpose of everything in there, so spotting the "waste" takes weeks of stakeholder interviews to find the steps that no longer serve useful purposes or are duplicated elsewhere.<br />
<br />
The obvious place this is going is that Hudak's idea of "efficiencies" is a set of service cuts for programs he doesn't approve of. Wage cuts for public sector workers. Layoffs. Social assitance payment reductions. Facility closures. This is what is glibly hidden in the euphemism of "efficiencies." Hudak doesn't spell these out because naming specific cuts before you're safely in power with a majority government is harmful to your chances of getting there. This is an "elect me and then I will tell you my agenda" promise.<br />
<br />
Yes, some of this is up on the party's website in <a href="http://www.ontariopc.com/white-papers">a set of lengthy "white papers"</a> which are statistically read by no one at all. The reality is that if Hudak had popular cuts to make in the name of efficiency, he would be bragging about them. In fact, even <a href="http://ontariopc.uberflip.com/i/103092">Hudak's specific paper</a> on the public sector has vague or small bore promises like a "top to bottom program review" and "a smaller cabinet" - about the only headline cost saver is a public sector wage freeze (which is a cowardly way of implementing a wage cut, since inflation will still increase government revenue, while increasing costs for these workers).<br />
<br />
All of this makes me extremely dubious of the one good promise in Hudak's talk with the Globe, to build a relief subway line for the overcrowded Yonge line. Even just the smallest version of the relief line running a backwards L between Pape on the Danforth line and to King station on the Yonge line <a href="http://ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Commission_reports_and_information/Commission_meetings/2012/October_24/Reports/Downtown_Rapid_Trans.pdf">will run over $3B</a> in current dollars, while the likely needed version which goes up to the Eglinton LRT (assuming Hudak doesn't cancel it) is $5.5B.<br />
<br />
When push comes to shove and the magical efficiencies don't appear, will this really get funded by a party whose fortunes rest on 905 belt voters? How will Mississauga and Hamilton voters feel about their LRT projects being cancelled to fund a DOWNTOWN RELIEF LINE subway? This would be the first thing cut. <br />
<br />
All of that in exchange for halting a bunch of viable, funded and shovel ready transit projects in exchange for ones that cost much more, serve fewer people and take years longer to complete with much additional risk. It will be the Scarborough subway but at a province-wide scale.<br />
<br />
Here's hoping the Premier hangs on another year or two with Horwath's legislative support, and maybe even accelerates the existing projects to make the political costs for Hudak cancelling them too high to countenance. Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-51919781131302778932013-10-28T08:00:00.000-04:002013-10-28T08:00:01.365-04:00Dedicating Lanes to Transit Speeds Up Cars & Other Seoul LessonsIn <a href="http://autonomyforall.blogspot.ca/2013/10/what-free-market-municipal-transit.html">a previous post</a> we looked at Seoul's experience with a free market led surface transit "system." Seoul has several other important lessons to teach Toronto though. From <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.170.9559&rep=rep1&type=pdf">that excellent paper</a> I was citing:<br />
<br />
<b>Removing car lanes and dedicating them to transit can speed up everyone's commute:</b> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BibPuLIsGxI/Um0zbFVnVkI/AAAAAAAAAOM/q1NfUxzraCE/s1600/seoul-brt.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BibPuLIsGxI/Um0zbFVnVkI/AAAAAAAAAOM/q1NfUxzraCE/s1600/seoul-brt.PNG" /></a></div>
<br />
In Seoul's case this was done with "Bus Rapid Transit" (BRT) where buses operate in dedicated lanes and private traffic is not allowed in those lanes. But surface LRT on major roads would achieve a similar effect since it would remove the need for buses to operate on those roads (say, Finch Ave W or Sheppard Ave E in Toronto). Seoul's experience was that bus speeds of course increased tremendously, <b>but so did car speeds: </b><br />
<br />
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<b>Private Funding of Transit Infrastructure is No Panacea:</b> </div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-odpfMvG6xto/Um0zeAxTc0I/AAAAAAAAAOU/bCTJK64IZ1I/s1600/seoul-privatefunding.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-odpfMvG6xto/Um0zeAxTc0I/AAAAAAAAAOU/bCTJK64IZ1I/s1600/seoul-privatefunding.PNG" /> </a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Similar to Mayor Ford's difficulties in finding a for-profit partner to build (or even share costs) on his desired subway expansions, Seoul has found this difficult too. The above is about LRTs, but even in subways bringing in PPPs is risky, as Seoul has discovered with the privatized "Line 9" subway, constructed in a PPP and where government is <a href="http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/598812.html">required to guarantee revenue to the privatized operators</a> if ridership doesn't meet projections: </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
if ridership is lower than predicted, the city has had to pay the company tens of millions of dollars each year. MKIF and other investors made 13.1 billion won (US$11.8 million) from the line in 2010, 29.2 billion won (US$26.2 million) in 2011, and 38.4 billion won (US$34.5 million). </div>
</blockquote>
As they say of PPPs, the net result is to privatize the profits and socialize the risks. The experience has already had <a href="http://www.koreabang.com/2012/stories/seoul-mayor-considers-buyout-of-fare-hike-subway-line.html">Seoul nearly come to just buy out the private entities</a> once over a planned fare increase, and as the previous link shows, they are currently changing the structure of the deal due to sustained pubic dissatisfaction with the arrangement. These changes are causing one of the partners to pull out, poor dears:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But the biggest change is a deep cut in the rate of return guaranteed to private investors, from its <b>current annual level of just over 13%</b> (8.9% after taxes) all the way down to just under 4%.</blockquote>
If it takes a 13% annual ROI to keep free market players in the transit game, this isn't anything like viable. No way running a subway line should be this profitable - it's literally a utility.<br />
<br />
<b>World Class Cities Do So Use LRTs In The City:</b><br />
<br />
One of the absurd arguments from subway advocates, led by Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly was that "world class" cities don't put LRT in the city proper, they use it in the outer suburbs, which for Kelly & co means the 905 belt, deeming everything in Toronto's legal boundaries to be "urban" regardless of actual density or zoning. As noted in a previous post, parts of Scarborough and Etobicoke have lower density than Mississauga or even Brampton, but apparently anything less than subways is a grave insult to these "urban" areas of large single family houses on wide lots with plenty of parkland. Despite the above mentioned problems getting private partners for all of them, they're pushing ahead on a set of up to 10 lines, <a href="http://seoulvillage.blogspot.ca/2013/07/seoul-light-rapid-transit-back-on-tracks.html">from here</a>:<br />
<b> </b><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6c0L0bf5CUE/Um04cqEWqlI/AAAAAAAAAOs/pwmF7ZOW1Ck/s1600/SeoulVillage20130712seoulltrSV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6c0L0bf5CUE/Um04cqEWqlI/AAAAAAAAAOs/pwmF7ZOW1Ck/s1600/SeoulVillage20130712seoulltrSV.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
That is a map of Seoul the city, proper. These are not in their equivalent of a 905 belt surrounding the city.<br />
<b> </b><br />
In fact, Seoul's has one <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_Line#Ridership_and_finances">LRT line running already</a>, this one is admittedly outside the city proper, but it was built to serve 32 million riders a year at opening, rising to over 50 million/year in years to come, quite comparable to the projected ridership on the planned Scarborough subway extension. <br />
Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-57431543757041777682013-10-27T10:13:00.000-04:002013-10-27T10:13:43.289-04:00What a Free Market Municipal Transit "System" Looks LikeFormer Rob Ford chief of Staff Mark Towhey gained some notoriety in the 2010 mayor's race for a blog post he wrote prior to joining Ford's team where he advocated the <a href="http://stevemunro.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/201002TowheyTransit.pdf">city simply shut down the TTC</a> and sell off whatever assets that anyone wants to buy. For anyone familiar with internet libertarians, it is a familiar refrain of blind ideological faith in the free market to provide for all needs, and that government cannot do so.<br />
<br />
Sometimes libertarians are operating in the realm of sheer fantasy with no actual real-world examples of the magical benefits they claim will happen out of their various privatization schemes, but in this case there is a contemporary example of a major city that largely left the free market to determine its surface local transit, Seoul, <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.170.9559&rep=rep1&type=pdf">South Korea prior to 2004</a>:<br />
<br />
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The likely libertarian excuse for all this will be the government controlling the fares and providing operating subsidies - of course the fact that the government found it <i>necessary</i> to control the fares to keep transit affordable to the people most in need of it, the working class & poor won't register with them. Instead the price controls & subsidies will be some do-gooder activist government intervening apropo of nothing, lacking adequate faith that eventually the free market will cure all its own self created ills.</div>
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Nonetheless, even if we accept that fare controls & subsidies have some negative effects, the multiplicity of coordination problems and unethical competitive behaviour are inescapably the consequences of running transit as a for-profit business. Each transit company still competes for passengers and has incentive to overcrowd, rush & avoid unprofitable passengers. </div>
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All of this goes into why in 2004 Seoul found it necessary to greatly extend the level of government control over the surface transit system, taking control over schedules & routes in addition to fares (while leaving the private companies to still operate the system). </div>
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Some context about Seoul is important here - today it is a (groaning as I type this overused moniker) "World Class City" and biggest city in a prosperous rich-world democracy, but that is quite a recent development. South Korea's income per capita rose tremendously in recent decades so the fact that its bus system was very nearly fully private is an artifact of a developing world governance structure & capability, it also takes place in the context of a society that mostly couldn't afford cars, and thus most people had no other options than transit, however unsafe & inefficient it was. Once prosperity rose to the level of mass car attainability, use of this wild west bus system fell precipitiously (ibid):</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E0vfePw92fU/Um0Vf6njrDI/AAAAAAAAAN8/_y4xti6qEt0/s1600/seoul3.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="366" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E0vfePw92fU/Um0Vf6njrDI/AAAAAAAAAN8/_y4xti6qEt0/s400/seoul3.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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The alternative is to realize that transit is a natural government function as roads & rails are natural monopolies - there's only so much land to build them on, and use is rivalrous, so each competitor on the network makes the network <i>worse</i>. Government must <i>govern</i> these things if they are to work for the people who need them (rather than for shareholders). The actual drivers & operators may not need be government employees but the system as a whole needs to be, well, <i>centrally planned</i> or it will be a disaster. Public transit is a utility, a necessary and proper function of government.</div>
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This is really quite common for libertarian fantasies - you usually find that their fantasy system used to exist in the early stages of societal development and the government intrusive/managed systems were introduced to solve the obvious, real and pervasive problems that leaving whatever function to the free market created. Liberal do-gooders and socialists don't win these arguments to have government intervene unless there are already big problems with the status quo. That government runs transit in most places is no different from why every rich world society found it necessary to have government manage health care, the US being just the latest (and very late) example: If you want these things to work, government must be involved. <br />
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As usual libertarians, it has been tried your way, and it failed, which is why the government is in there to begin with. <br />
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Incidentally the article I'm quoting is an <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.170.9559&rep=rep1&type=pdf">excellent look at Seoul's stupendous transit system</a>, and more importantly how it got that way, as opposed to "transit porn" pictures of the subway route maps without any context of how it was all funded and built.Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597988080513921863.post-70488225789262613692013-10-24T23:23:00.000-04:002013-10-27T08:58:43.696-04:00Toronto's Wards By Population Density<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rtuc_JIIwr4/UmnHqKZ4t4I/AAAAAAAAANA/DZc_AMDDbss/s1600/wards-density-resize.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rtuc_JIIwr4/UmnHqKZ4t4I/AAAAAAAAANA/DZc_AMDDbss/s1600/wards-density-resize.PNG" /></a></div>
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These are Toronto's current 44 wards listed in order of decreasing population density, expressed in number of people per square kilometre. The colours indicate which pre-amalgamation city a given ward is grouped under. Some wards cross these previous borders, such as ward 26, which covers both North York and East York. Still, it gives you a pretty good picture of Toronto's population density:<br />
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<li>The top 5 wards are in the pre-amalgamation version of Toronto ("Old Toronto")</li>
<li>All 10 Old Toronto wards are in the top 12 for density</li>
<li>The lowest density ward (#2) is also the ward that Rob Ford represented before becoming mayor, and currently represented by his brother Doug.</li>
<li>Noted Ford foe Adam Vaughan represents the highest density Ward, #20 with more than 10,000 people per square KM - that these two are such foes does not feel like a coincidence</li>
<li>While Etobicoke's 6 wards are all well toward the low end of the scale, North York's wards cover a pretty big spread, and to a lesser extent, so do Scarborough's. This speaks to the idea that the suburbs are not a monolith irrevocably doomed to vote for Ford and "anti-downtown" divisive politicians like him in perpetuity.</li>
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For reference, here's the current densities of the former cities as well as the entire merged City of Toronto:<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-x9wxbouyjGk/UmnbepKnPLI/AAAAAAAAANM/g5WGJEDKWHk/s1600/Toronto_Density.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-x9wxbouyjGk/UmnbepKnPLI/AAAAAAAAANM/g5WGJEDKWHk/s400/Toronto_Density.PNG" width="400" /> </a></div>
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With an average density of just over 4000, this gives us just 18 wards below the "average" for entire city, and 26 at or above it. </div>
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The relevance of all this can play into many of our city's raging debates and challenges from subways to bike lanes to social service placement. I don't believe that demographics are destiny but that we have a Mayor who cut his teeth representing a ward that would be low density even for Mississauga, his obvious and manifest refusal to even try and understand the challenges of dense urban life are among the many reasons we need a new mayor next year. It's certainly possible that a mayor from a lower density area of the city could do a fair job for the urban core areas, but Rob Ford isn't that person. His entire agenda largely amounts to an effort to apply surburban governance as a one-size-fits-all solution for the whole city. His unrealism about the realities of funding the most expensive transit technology in low density areas is just par for the course. Ditto his expectation that we can dig our way out of gridlock without ever losing a lane of traffic on any road or inconveniencing drivers in any way. No doubt many voters think this way too, but for those of us who think our elected representatives have an obligation to tell us truths we may not want to hear, this fact is not persuasive that Ford's pandering should be the end of the discussion.<br />
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Edit (27 Oct): This post should include the Toronto ward map, so here it is:<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-scMDRZj3OQg/Um0NyuNAJVI/AAAAAAAAANc/y_CMd4B5X6I/s1600/wards.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-scMDRZj3OQg/Um0NyuNAJVI/AAAAAAAAANc/y_CMd4B5X6I/s400/wards.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355077650707854680noreply@blogger.com1