The venerable Toronto Sun — now sadly down a relatively sensible voice — has been going full bore all week, writing article after article on their three ideas that they say will improve Toronto. Reporter Don Peat kicked things off with an article published on Sunday:
But despite the looming budget, Ford could tackle three things in the last four months of his first year that would make Toronto a better place.
Pushing city council to ban panhandling on city streets, moving forward on a cyclist licensing system and scrapping the bag tax are improvements many would welcome.
While the budget is still the big beast facing city council, there are other issues that stick in the craw of many Torontonians.
It’s time for Ford to deal with them.
via How Rob Ford could improve T.O. | Toronto Sun.
So there you have it — city building as envisioned by the Toronto Sun: free plastic bags, a bike licensing bureaucracy and making poverty less visible. Let’s take these one-by-one.
The five-cent plastic bag fee is a proven success. It’s resulted in a reported 70% to 89% drop in the number of plastic bags distributed by grocery stores in Toronto. Even if you discount the environmental benefits of fewer bags littering our parks and assorted bodies of water, this policy still remains a significant money-saver for the city, as over the course of the year the solid waste department is undoubtedly now processing far fewer plastic bags at recycling centres and landfills.
And here’s the secret, which should be spoken about only in a whisper as it might be spoiled if too many small-scale retailers catch on: no one has been charged for distributing free plastic bags since the bylaw came into effect in 2009. If the city were to further reduce their level of enforcement — from the minimal level it seems to be at now to, well, none — we’d continue to derive the economic and environmental benefits that come from reduced plastic bag use while not spending money on administrative and enforcement overhead. It would appear to be a win-win policy for the city.
A splashy political fight over repealing the fee would — assuming the item passes — assuredly lead to more plastic bag use, especially at convenience stores as some consumers would again feel entitled to free plastic bags. Any spotlight given to this issue will have immediate negative environmental impacts. And for what? For a nickel?
Bicycling licensing is a complete non-starter. The City of Toronto actually maintains a page on its website documenting the three past occasions the City has explored — and rejected — the idea of a system for licensing bikes and riders. The cost of the bureaucracy needed to manage such a program would mean an annual fee daunting enough that a percentage of cyclists would simply opt not to bother. They’d put the idea of a bike out of their minds and return to their cars or public transit.
But ultimately that seems to be what this is about: despite the fact that every person commuting via a bicycle results in a net savings for the city, some would rather there were fewer bikes on the road.
Lastly, banning panhandling. It’s hard to understand how some people can spend hours attacking the efficacy and competence of governments and then turn around and propose that those same governments could be limitlessly effective at eliminating something they don’t like. If we’re going to pretend like we can, with simple law and order policy, ban a symptom of poverty, why not just go whole hog and ban poverty itself? Let’s ban not having money and a job. Let’s outlaw being poor.
What any so-called plan to ban panhandling would really do is result in a wave of antagonistic police behaviour toward the homeless and the destitute downtown, which would serve to push these people away from Bay Street and into already marginalized neighbourhoods. If you’re not working to eliminate poverty, you’re just working to move it.