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link — Comments Off on Pop will sell itself
30
Mar 11

Pop will sell itself

News from yesterday that’s made the rounds: Councillor Doug Ford made quite the spectacle of himself at the Government Management Committee yesterday at the same time the committee voted against moving toward 100% healthy options in city vending machines:

In a 3-2 decision, the committee decided to maintain the status quo: vending machines should carry 50 per cent healthy choices. The proposal would have limited the available options to milk, fortified soy beverages and 100 percent juice or vegetable drinks.

An impassioned Councillor Doug Ford argued that government has no business dictating what kinds of drinks people can buy.

“This is socialism at its best,” he said, adding he was working at “socialist city hall.”

Ford went on to thank the cola industry for creating jobs and sponsoring city events. The mayor’s outspoken brother concluded by taking a swig from a Coca-Cola bottle.

via Pop will still be sold at city rinks – thestar.com.

On Twitter, Astrid Idlewild has done a remarkable job questioning Government Management Chair Paul Ainslie about his position on this issue. In an earlier Toronto Sun story by Sue-Ann Levy, Ainslie called the proposal a ‘pile of crap.’

I’ll be a little softer on this issue than some — I have a major weakness for Diet Coke. I’d be open to compromise solutions beyond the simple elimination of anything that’s not milk or fruit juice. Sad as it sounds, revenue implications are important to consider given where the city’s finances are going.

But let’s be clear about one thing: nothing about this is socialism. No one is talking about blanket bans of these items. This is about whether or not the city should be in the business of selling kids unhealthy things. I think that’s a question that deserves more careful consideration than it apparently got yesterday.

Ainslie is now talking about rescinding the city’s earlier ban on bottled water sales on city property, something that was moved by two of his allies, Councillors Del Grande and Di Giorgio.

Worth noting: Doug Ford also commented that the city should sell cigarettes in vending machines if there’s a demand for it. He also accused the Toronto Star of stalking his mother and being a ‘ruthless’ paper. Yet he’s widely still considered the calmer, more intelligent Ford brother.

link — Comments Off on Sheppard subway a two (hundred)-step process
20
Mar 11

Sheppard subway a two (hundred)-step process

InsideToronto.com’s David Nickle got Councillor Norm Kelly to talk on the record about the new Toronto Transit Infrastructure Limited group (made up of Kelly, Doug Ford and former Councillor Gordon Chong) and their plans for the privately-financed Sheppard subway extension:

“It’s a two-step process,” said Kelly. “The first is to get P3 money that would fund the study, and then at the end of the study see who might be attracted to the line in the private sector – see if they agree with the numbers we come up with. We’re taking the nascent steps to create a business case.”

Kelly said he hoped to have the funding “sooner rather than later,” but would not commit to a timeline or share any theories as to how a public private partnership might work, other than to say the subway would be built by the private sector and operated by the Toronto Transit Commission.

via InsideToronto Article: Company seeks ways to privately finance Sheppard subway.

“Taking the nascent steps to create a business case” is code for “THIS WILL TAKE A MILLION YEARS.”

Don’t be surprised, though, if the federal government announces their full support for this project and funds the P3 study in the next few weeks. It would make a very good election announcement and work to build confidence that the Conservative Party cares about 416 ridings.

link — Comments Off on Trust us: we’re not going to do what we’ve said we’d like to
14
Mar 11

Trust us: we’re not going to do what we’ve said we’d like to

Royson James’ latest column has a neat exchange with Doug Ford toward the end of end of it:

The mayor’s brother, Doug, also took great pains over the weekend to explain that Ootes’ job does not involve selling off public housing.

So, why has the mayor not made an unequivocal announcement to that effect — words that might stop the rumours that the city’s poorest tenants may soon be on the streets?

“You can trust me on that, take my word for it,” Doug Ford said in an interview. “Case is not being brought in to sell off public housing.”

Then why not issue a statement or news release saying the mayor expressly does not want Ootes selling tenants’ homes?

“We may have to do that (this) week,” he said.

via I’m not here to sell off housing: Ootes – thestar.com.

It’d be pretty funny if the mayor’s office actually released a statement assuring tenants that Case Ootes wasn’t going to sell off public housing. That would seem to serve as a strong indication that perhaps tenants weren’t clamouring for this move, and in fact the hundreds in attendance last week actually were a good representation, wouldn’t it?

And, again: maybe the first step toward reassuring people that you’re not going to privatize public housing should be NOT publicly musing about privatizing public housing. But what do I know.

The weird thing is that even I don’t believe Ootes was brought in as part of a Machiavellian scheme to sell off housing. I do believe — and I think this is reasonable — that the Mayor’s Office does have in mind a long-term goal to consolidate control over the TCHC board and eventually implement some degree of privatization. Given the mayor’s comments during his campaign and afterwards, plus the need to achieve significant cuts in the 2012 operating budget, I don’t think I’m being over-the-top.

All the drama that happened last week over Ootes is, I think, emblematic not of an immediate privatize-everything conspiracy but of an administration that is totally unwilling to compromise. Team Ford decided on the outcome before anyone got a chance to debate, and even the most reasonable of compromises were voted down.

link — Comments Off on The taxpayer isn’t here
10
Mar 11

The taxpayer isn’t here

David Rider:

Doug Ford thanked the tenants for attending but said their views were unrepresentative.

“Folks, I’m telling you, there’s no one that cares more about the folks at TCHC than Rob does,” he said. “Out of the 164,000 tenants that are in TCHC housing, I see maybe four or five hundred, which — I appreciate you all coming down, but there’s 163,500 that’s saying, ‘Move forward. Let’s have a clean slate.’”

via Council ousts TCHC board, appoints Ootes as temporary leader – thestar.com.

This part of last night’s meeting was illustrative of the weird semantics used by the Fords and their allies. They can talk at length about respecting the taxpayer, but the ‘taxpayer’ they care most about is seemingly never represented by an actual person.

People who come to meetings, who give deputations, who write about city issues — basically anyone who pays attention — don’t count. Because, we’re told, the real taxpayers, who we hear about but never see, are out there. And they agree with the Fords. They called the mayor and told him so.

That’s the story, anyway.

 

link — Comments Off on Speaking instead of the mayor, not for the mayor
02
Mar 11

Speaking instead of the mayor, not for the mayor

Meanwhile, the Globe & Mail’s Anna Mehler Paperny has a cute quote from Doug Ford in her article about the TCHC spending brouhaha:

Meanwhile, both Mr. Ford and his councillor brother Doug Ford were circumspect about what they’d like to do with the housing corporation, which they said earlier this week deserves a complete overhaul.

That could mean a tighter municipal leash for the TCHC and other arms-length agencies, boards and commissions.

“Personally, I would [like to see direct oversight],” Doug Ford said. “I’m not speaking for the mayor, but Doug Ford would like to have more control over these ABCs.”

via Firm behind controversial housing contract defends its work – The Globe and Mail.

I like that, reading between the lines, you can see the moment where he realized that he was speaking for the mayor and then decided to make it really really clear that he wasn’t.

It will also be interesting to see Toronto politicians simultaneously argue for more oversight and control while pushing for privatization of city programs. That’s a hell of a magic trick.

link — Comments Off on When the oversight office isn’t ideological enough
27
Feb 11

When the oversight office isn’t ideological enough

Two quick stories that feel very much related.

First, Daniel Dale and Paul Moloney at The Star tell us about the three million dollars the city will spend this year hiring consultants to, presumably, save the city half a billion dollars:

Facing a $774 million budget shortfall for next year, Toronto will spend up to $3 million this year to pay consulting companies to scrutinize the city’s operations in search of savings.

While the city regularly employs consultants for specific projects, the $3 million will be devoted to what for Toronto is an unprecedented, wide-ranging corporate review of government departments and programs.

via City to spend $3M on consultants – thestar.com.

Then there’s this from Chris Selley, which contains some clarifications from City Obudsman Fiona Crean after her office was attacked by Councillor Doug Ford at this week’s council meeting:

During the debate, councillor Doug Ford levelled a variety of allegations at Ms. Crean: that she has been “lobbying” every councillor for more money; that her office only fielded 1,500 telephone calls last year, or roughly six a day; that unlike all the other accountability officers, she has a director of communications; and that because she hasn’t posted her expenses online, we don’t know how much this communications director might make — he guessed $100,000 — or how much her recent “36-page, … four-colour, self-promoting brochure” cost to produce.

All of that is either wrong, misleading or forcefully disputed by Ms. Crean.

Crean, you may recall, had her budget cut, despite Ford changing the city’s boilerplate to now read “Toronto’s government is dedicated to … creating a transparent and accountable government.” That dedication doesn’t extend, I guess, to properly funding an office dedicated to transparency and accountability.

So the city is now in the weird position of funding two things – an independent ombudsman and a group of consultants. They’re both dedicated to increasing accountability and efficiency, though the latter, presumably, will be far more concerned with the city’s bottom line. More importantly, though, the consultants will likely work for the mayor’s office — conforming to their ideology and following their direction.

It’s starting to look like Team Ford may want to replace the city’s independent ombudsman with one who works for them.

link — Comments Off on No gravy at City Hall
21
Feb 11

No gravy at City Hall

Over at the Toronto Star this morning, Robyn Doolittle takes a look at what all that “Stop the Gravy Train” rhetoric has amounted to. Spoiler alert: it’s nothing.

But when the city is $774 million short, a hundred thousand here and a million there don’t go very far to fill that hole.

It’s a lesson that Rob Ford’s team is also learning.

Insiders — ranging from members of the budget and executive committees to city financial staff — say that bubbling pot of gravy still hasn’t been found. The financial renaissance Ford campaigned on is still a few years away, they say.

via Looking for the gravy – thestar.com.

The article confirms that the mayor will be releasing a draft 2012 budget sometime this spring, which will at least give everyone a lot of time to argue about it. Apparently Caribana, TIFF, The Zoo, police funding and community grants are all on the table as ways to save money. (But not much money.)

Selling assets is an option, though Doug Ford says Toronto Hydro is not on the table. Selling the Toronto Parking Authority would be an incredibly short-sighted move (Just raise rates! That’s what the private sector would do!) but could happen.

Best part? “The goal is to be Mississauga, Doug Ford said.” They should have made that their campaign slogan.

link — Comments Off on Strategy in the mayor’s office: identify subversive elements and crush them
17
Feb 11

Strategy in the mayor’s office: identify subversive elements and crush them

Torontoist’s Hamutal Dotan writes a good piece on the aforementioned Globe & Mail article, highlighting the other ridiculous part of the interview with I-assure-you-he’s-not-the-Mayor Doug Ford:

More distressing than the lament about the perils of voting and council debate, however, was when Doug Ford went on to object to the recent OCAP protest at City Hall—not the fact that it disrupted a meeting, but that the protesters apparently were considered a legitimate part of public debate in the first place. “Some of those folks are actually getting grants from the city to lobby against the government…I just don’t understand.”

That’s what we do in a democracy, Doug: we fund our opponents. Ensuring opponents have a voice is, roughly speaking, the whole point.

via The Brothers Ford Are Concerned About Democracy – Torontoist.

There’s been a witch hunt vibe coming from the Mayor’s Office lately. See also this Sun-Ann Levy column where she goes to great lengths to identify all the councillors who attended a CUPE meeting last week, held in response to the mayor’s call to privatize garbage. Apparently it isn’t possible to attend such meetings simply to get an understanding of both sides of an issue – instead anyone there must be a union-loving traitor who hates taxpayers.

feature — Comments Off on What pushed Doug Ford to publicly call for a strong mayor system?
17
Feb 11

What pushed Doug Ford to publicly call for a strong mayor system?

The city hall headlines of the day are once again being made by the newly elected councillor from Ward 2 – Etobicoke North, who — it must be continually said — is neither the mayor nor deputy mayor. Nor does he chair any of the city’s standing committees. He recently moved back from Toronto after living in Chicago and has never, to my immediate recollection, been sighted on a TTC vehicle.

But I digress.

In an interview by the Globe & Mail’s Anna Mehler Paperny, Doug Ford fantasizes about a world where he and his brother don’t need to worry about the meddling of other duly elected officials:

It’s been a tough transition for the Ford camp to shift from a highly partisan, highly successful mayoral campaign to the enforced diplomacy of governing, attempting to woo councillors and win votes on a 45-person council with no party system, in which the mayor has only one ballot to cast.

“You’ve always got that council. You’ve got to have your 23 votes to get it passed,” Mr. Ford said.

He’d like the mayor to be able to override council “100 per cent. … So the mayor has veto power.”

via Toronto needs strong mayor with veto power, Doug Ford says – The Globe and Mail.

In the abstract, I would agree — as I did when Miller was in office — that the amalgamated Toronto could use some changes to its governance model. This would include elements of a strong mayor system at the top but also some devolution of powers down to the community council level, allowing the former municipalities of Metro Toronto to govern their local affairs more independently.

More specifically, though, I have to wonder what motivated this outburst from Doug Ford. I don’t have him pegged as the type who gets all charged up about the structure of municipal government. Is there something on the Ford’s immediate agenda that they know they don’t have the votes to pass? If so, what is it?

link — Comments Off on Doug Ford might be provincial
10
Feb 11

Doug Ford might be provincial

Anna Mehler Paperny with the Globe & Mail:

Doug Ford won’t rule out a provincial run in 2011 – and he says the Etobicoke North residents he has represented as councillor for barely four months shouldn’t be worried he’s considering jumping ship to run for the Progressive Conservatives.

“The residents, I represent them if I run provincially or if I’m a city councillor. But I’m going to focus as a city councillor right now.”

via Mayor’s right hand Doug Ford hints at bid for Ontario Tories – The Globe and Mail.

I don’t think he’ll do it, but I suppose stranger things have happened. It’s hard to imagine Mayor Rob Ford without Nick Kouvalis and his brother. I’m not sure he’d know what to do with himself.

Some people are really pushing the idea that the 416 is totally ripe for the Conservative Party, both provincially and federally. I’m not sure I buy that. The problem with pure populism — the kind that promises better services at a lower cost, and also cheaper beer while we’re at it — is that it inevitably blows up. Promises can’t hold. I think Ford supporters are already starting to see the true face of Ford’s populism, and I think it will get even worse as we approach the 2012 budget.

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