Toronto's Election for Mayor: Come Clean Kathleen

a reply to: intrepid

I certainly hope she won't. I don't have a crystal ball. In politics nothing is certain.

Photo: archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/29051922/



I'm willing to predict that she loses. I'm pretty confident about it.

I want to add something here, as an aside, that I think is important.

I have referred, on more than one occasion, to a slip of the tongue made by John Tory in an interview conducted by AM 640 radio during the last election for Mayor in Toronto. I have no doubt that this interview is archived. I'm sure it could be produced by them, if it became an important issue.

What I heard Mr. Tory say, to the best of my recollection, was, "I would never trust my own judgement." There may have been a very, very brief pause, during which Mr. Tory did not elaborate or emend the comment. The interviewer did not remark on such an extraordinary statement and simply moved on to something else.

I don't think the statement really represents what Mr. Tory intended to say. I think he meant to say that he would be collegial and consultative about decision making, in the style of a team leader, rather than dictatorial or presumptive.

However, the mere fact that Mr. Tory did not correct himself immediately, to make his meaning clear, is troubling.

Was he frightened by his own mistake? Did he not want to lose dignity? Did he misjudge the importance of what he had just said? Was he just tired? Was he really focused on the task at hand?

The remark has an importance in that context. It points to a kind of disjunct between Mr. Tory and regular, ordinary reality, the world where most of us live.

Am I making too much of it? Perhaps.

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark", but relax, everything is fine in the Province of Ontario, isn't it?

Apparently not. Let's sample some of the grumbling.

www.cbc.ca...

A Conservative MPP wants Toronto to become Canada's 11th province.

Bill Murdoch, MPP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound says (in 2010) rural Ontario is fighting a losing battle against what he calls "a Toronto mentality."

He wants residents who live in the Greater Toronto Area to remain part of Ontario, while Toronto becomes its own province.

Mayor David Miller said on his Twitter account that the "Province of Toronto...an idea whose time has come? MPP Murdoch makes an interesting point."

Miller's spokesman Stuart Green told CBC News the mayor wants to open up a public discussion about the possibility of Toronto seceding from Ontario.

Green said Toronto's fiscal deficit is something "that a provincial status may solve."

Green, on the Toronto side, is implying that too much money is going into the provincial treasury and not enough of it is coming back to the City of Toronto.

Why ever could that be? Who's the villain in this piece? Sometimes great literature can help us get a perspective on our troubles. Let me quote myself:

Taxmen have bigger taxmen upon their back to fleece'em
And bigger taxmen bigger still and must forever grease'em.

Here is an interesting quote from an article that appeared in The Globe and Mail in december of 2012:

www.theglobeandmail.com...

Citing the Drummond Report, the Chamber concludes that Ontario contributes $12.3-billion more to the federal government than it receives in transfers, even though 600,000 Ontarians are out of work, little economic growth is expected over the foreseeable future, and the provincial debt is approaching $300-billion.

The whole article is well worth reading. I mean it. Read it and weep.

It raises the question, "Is the Province of Ontario witholding moneys which should be going to the City of Toronto because it, the provincial government, is itself being fleeced by the federal government?

It raises another age old question, "How do you drain a swamp (fix the transit system) when you are up to your neck in alligators (federal and provincial tax collectors)?"

Let's look at a situation that encapsulates the sort of problem Toronto faces with respect to infrastructure, taxation and political patronage.

Toronto and its "partners" (lol) in the provincial and federal governments are revitalizing the Toronto Waterfront via the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Initiative (TWRI). Waterfront Toronto recently came under criticism for its spending choices in revitalizing Sugar Beach.

news.nationalpost.com...< br />

Councillor outraged after Waterfront Toronto ‘secretly’ spends $946,000 on two large rocks and 36 pink umbrellas

The councillor, Denzel Minnan-Wong:

Mr. Minnan-Wong, who says he is often met “with a brick wall” when seeking information from Waterfront Toronto, held up the umbrellas and rocks as examples of frivolous spending that angers taxpayers.

“You can have nice things but you don’t have to spend $12,000 on an umbrella,” said Mr. Minnan-Wong on a stroll through Sugar Beach Wednesday. “A councillor who would vote for that would be strung up by their ankles.”

“They spend money secretly, and they have meetings secretly without telling taxpayers where their money is going and the result is this type of waste, when money could be spent on far more needed and valuable projects,” said Mr. Minnan-Wong.

This highlights the dangers of "multi-tier" government oversight. Such situations degenerate into a family variety show where everyone gets to put on their party piece no matter how atrocious.

This is gubmint at work. (Patronage plum distribution.)

The design for a Toronto facility is outsourced to a Montreal architecture firm. (I'm not suggesting they didn't do a good job. They did an excellent job.) An outlandishly extravagant amount of money ($500,000) was spent on purchasing and transporting granite rocks (I guess they were unavailable in Ontario's portion of the Laurentian Shield.) to the park on the Toronto waterfront from QUEBEC.

Might I dare suggest that neither of these two ideas would have occurred to a two tiered (City and Province) committee building a park on the waterfront in Toronto?

Mayor Ford was as annoyed by this kind of spending as Mr. Minnan-Wong.

However, the park is beautiful and is expected to generate gobs of spin off investment and, "goody goody", tons of tax dollars resulting therefrom.

Hoorah for tax dollars! Now we can get serious about upgrading the transit system with all those tax dollars! . . . . Or can we? (I need a vid clip here of Dave Letterman shifting his eyes warily from one side of the audience to the other.)

Who is going to get this tax money from this very worthy investment, (back patting all around) Sugar Beach? Who's the biggest taxman of all in this country?

www.fin.gc.ca...

Accordingly, the three governments have spent, to date, $1.26 billion and the study estimates that this direct investment on public lands generated impacts as follows: $3.2 billion of Canadian economic output, 16,200 full time years of employment and $622 million of tax revenues to government ($348 million to federal, $237 million to provincial, and $36 million to municipal).

The federal government, who is already sucking the province dry will get ten times the tax revenue out of a Toronto beach than Toronto will. The provincial government, battling on two fronts, will get roughly seven times as much out of a Toronto beach in taxes as Toronto will.

That in a nutshell, for me at least, indicates that over the decades the taxpayers of Toronto have probably paid for subway and transit expansion ten times over and yet have had that money withheld from them . . . so that the province could make up for money withheld from them by the federal government . . . so that body could satisfy the demands of its political patrons for rediculous plum contracts as payoffs and the demand from its principal trading partner for American job saving purchases of such things as the F-35 (the lemon from Lockheed) and participation in criminal activity abroad, like the mugging of Libya.

This Gordian Knot has to be cut by somebody. Tory? Not a chance. Ford? He should start gnawing at it.

My Canada includes Québec.

I don't object to purchasing things from Québec, but bringing granite to Ontario at great expense or bringing coal to Newcastle at great expense, or peddling the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn, or conning Eskimos into buying refrigerators at great expense or shipping sand from Sudan to Saudi Arabia at great expense . . . it's going too far. It's rubbing our faces on the side of the pork barrel.

It's bad enough that it is obviously gubmint at work, but it is "bad gubmint". It is too obnoxiously insulting to people from around here. OK, maybe we're rich and stupid but we're not that rich and not that stupid.

We can't spend money on this kind of stuff, just to make sure that some backer of the federal government in Québec is "taken care" of. We have more pressing things on the shopping list than solidifying support for the Conservatives in Québec.

The people's candidate, if there is one out there, should say to the federal and provincial governments,

"We want our God damned subway brought into the 21st century and we are not putting one more penny into it. We have already paid for transit improvement many times over with our taxes and YOU have used that money to pay off your backers with plum contracts and outright stolen money ($247,000,000 completely missing at the time of the G8/G20 conference) or used it to suck up to the Americans in all kinds of criminal undertakings overseas. Fix our subway you bastards!"

There is a good article on TIF (Tax Increment Financing) in the Toronto Star, of all places, in their Sunday edition.

www.thestar.com...

This scheme, being touted by John Tory as a way of financing transit expansion in the city, is a scam in my opinion. It is a typical "bait and switch" scam that will have the effect, whether by design or not, whether Mr. Tory is aware of it or not (always a question mark in itself), of ultimately raising taxes in Toronto.

That is just the practical truth.

I've made it clear in this thread that I think Toronto's taxpayers have already paid for the expansion of the Subway/LRT system in this city. The money went upstream in taxes to the Federal and Provincial governments but failed to return in support from them for periodic upgrades to the system that should have happened regularly over the years.

Read Stevie Cameron's book, On The Take. Look at the Sugar Beach revitalization project. Look how we spent $1,800,000,000 dollars on security and other arrangements for the G8/G20 conference in 2010. Look how some contracts were awarded at the time which forbade the revealing of the names of the signatory companies involved. Look how, according to the Star, $247,000,000 vanished off the books completely, without a trace. Look how Vic Toews authorized the installation of hi-fidelity surveillance microphones in the lobby of every airport in the country.

Look into Canada's investments in American brinkmanship around the world, how we are helping to bankroll the activities of the most reckless and foolishly aggressive nation on the planet. Of what use to us are foreign military bases? Yet we are seeking to establish them:

www.thestar.com...

The Provincial government can't be blamed for the financial situation. The buck stops with the Federal government, the biggest tax grabber and tax waster in the land.

The problem with our local and provincial politicians is that they are not talking to their federal counterparts in a tone above a whisper. The din of pirates off the Somali coast is drowning them out. Do you hear the pirates? I don't hear them either but they still drown out municipal politicians who are allowing Somali pirates and their ilk and pirates in Washington and Ottawa to determine where Canadian taxpayers' money will be spent.

Tax Increment Financing should be an ingredient in any thinking about financing Subway/LRT expansion in Toronto, but it should only be an adjunct to the principal job of approaching the Federal and Provincial governments and talking to them about moving our tax dollars back into our municipalities, Toronto among them, and talking IN A VOICE ABOVE A WHISPER.

I don't think John Tory is prepared to do this. In fact it is my opinion that he has undertaken, at the provincial level, not to do this.

Whether the mayor will or not, I don't know yet, but I think the answer to the question, "Who is prepared to bring our tax dollars back to the city?" will determine the outcome of the current mayoralty race in Toronto.

Don't vote, it only encourages them.

Tory is a joke.
So is Chow.
So is Ford.

We can't win.

originally posted by: Psynic
Don't vote, it only encourages them.

We can't win.

We can ruin their day.

They all want to win.

Seriously though, I think people should stick to democratic form and vote, particularly here in Canada. I don't think electoral corruption has reached the proportions here that it has in the US. This is a big topic, but I haven't seen anything in Canada yet that would make me stop voting on principle.

It looks like the Liberal government in Ontario has finally come out endorsing John Tory for Mayor of Toronto. I think this is the right thing to do.

fullcomment.nationalpost.com...

In order to have an election that accurately reflects the informed opinion of the public, it is necessary to inform the public which candidate is favored by the provincial government, because that particular bit of information bears importantly on financial issues involving transit expansion and other infrastructure issues facing the city.

An endorsement of John Tory implies an "understanding" between him and provincial government as to how much financial support he has agreed to accept and more importantly, how much financial support he has agreed to ask for, from Kathleen Wynne's government.

The press, at least the National Post, is talking about this as if it were a matter of "cosmetics", getting rid of a mayor who is an embarassment to cosmetologists in the city. Much of the press campaign in this city has been along those lines.

The mayor is a drunk. The mayor's highschool friends, whom he still runs with, smoke crack and are in and out of jail all the time. The mayor smokes crack. The mayor bumps into people at council meetings and cameras at press conferences. The mayor wangles perks from the TTC for his highschool football team.

Those are the "issues" upon which the fight to replace Mayor Ford has been fought, but mark my word, the real fight is all about money. Very large amounts of money needed to fund transit expansion and other projects.

Municipalities in this country have been getting shortchanged out of their just share of tax dollars by the provincial and federal governments for decades in this country. Toronto is the largest of those municipalities. Toronto has been cheated out of very large amounts of tax dollars that should have been returned to the city in the form of federal and provincial support for infrastructure and in some cases services (!!!) downloaded by more senior levels of government.

Although there is an appreciation of this fact at the federal and provincial level (Stephen Harper just cut more than $2 billion dollars out of the defence budget.) there is an assumed desire on the part of those governments, despite the situation, to remain in the driver's seat on these matters.

Change yes, but on our terms and at our pace.

In order to assure that is what takes place in the city that God downloaded to the Toronto Star, a suitably compliant candidate for mayor must be in place, one who undertakes not to make waves, only to cooperate with a financial agenda set elsewhere, at Queen's Park. He has now been suitably endorsed (by the provincial government) and is currently beginning to be puffed and fluffed by the Toronto Star.

That candidate is John Tory.

What makes him special is his plan to fund transit expansion by means of Tax Increment Funding (TIF). The net result of this plan will be to buy transit expansion on credit, ultimately leaving taxpayers on the hook to repay very large loans when expected increases in tax revenues from development fail to materialize, as they have failed to materialize in other places this has been tried.

Voting for Tory is a big mistake in my opinion.

We need someone who will go after the provincial and federal governments aggressively for tax dollars that we have already paid.

Is Rob Ford that man? It is not clear at this time but I think it will be before too long.

originally posted by: ipsedixit

 

 

Hilarious!

It's YOUR thread!

Nobody is even interested in your monologue and you get "deleted for off topic".

Hahaha!

a reply to: Psynic

True, but the real kicker is that in the deleted posts I was referring to another thread I started on this subject, comparing John Tory to an "economic hitman" in the style made famous by John Perkins, (Confessions of an Economic Hitman), but, wait for it,. . . a mod sent the thread to the Hoax bin, or so he says, but actually seems to have deleted it entirely, because the last time I looked, I couldn't find it in the Hoax bin.

He is a Tory supporter, I assume. Fun times.

Most of what I said in that thread is here in this one though. It was just the characterization of Tory as a Perkins-style "economic hitman" that must have offended the mod.

originally posted by: ipsedixit
a reply to: Psynic

True, but the real kicker is that in the deleted posts I was referring to another thread I started on this subject, comparing John Tory to an "economic hitman" in the style made famous by John Perkins, (Confessions of an Economic Hitman), but, wait for it,. . . a mod sent the thread to the Hoax bin, or so he says, but actually seems to have deleted it entirely, the last time I looked, because I couldn't find it there.

He is a Tory supporter, I assume. Fun times.

Most of what I said in that thread is here in this one though. It was just the characterization of Tory as a Perkins-style "economic hitman" that must have offended the mod.

Priceless!!!

a reply to: Psynic

Tory has almost a 20 point lead over his nearest rival in the latest polls, but they are pushing the panic button over what is written in an obscure forum by a complete nobody who is only read by extremely discriminating people of style, high intelligence and taste, i.e., .001% of the population.

originally posted by: ipsedixit
a reply to: Psynic

Tory has almost a 20 point lead over his nearest rival in the latest polls, but they are pushing the panic button over what is written in an obscure forum by a complete nobody who is only read by extremely discriminating people of style, high intelligence and taste, i.e., .001% of the population.

Hahaha!

I'm laughin' out loud!

The fear of Tory getting elected is about the only thing that might get people to vote,

for Ford.

a reply to: Psynic

I certainly hope so, although I am beginning to think that whomever is elected, Torontonians should attempt to understand the infrastructure financing plans of the candidate before they vote.

Ford's reputation is anti tax, but he will have to do a lot of brilliant maneuvering to avoid laying more taxes onto Torontonians. I just hope he can significantly undercut what Tory is likely to produce along those lines.

Tory's plan, as so far elaborated, is naked jiggery pokery in my somewhat informed opinion. One hopes that Ford's will be less so.

Have you seen the new streetcars Toronto just bought?

They are at least twice as long as the existing ones!

It's almost impossible to pass the current ones; getting by these 5 section long things will be totally out of the question.

Traffic will be restricted to streetcar speeds and stops.

Ford is many things, most of them negative, but he's the only candidate that will limit this new Ayn Randish scourge.

We keep losing car lanes to bike paths, making it more and more inefficient to do business in this city.

Bike lanes in Toronto in February are about the most useless waste of space and money that a twisted mind could come up with.

a reply to: Psynic

Now I'm laughing out loud!!

The new street cars are exactly wrong for the city. They couldn't be worse as traffic blockers.

The newest thing in police outrages in the city, instead of shooting the mentally ill on a streetcar, will be riot control on a steetcar that will hold 250 people!!!

Horror headline in the Sun: Cops in riot gear swarming on board, "kettle" and "herd" passengers into panic and stampede, with people being crushed and suffocated.

Those things will hold enough people for a mini-insurrection, not to mention regular "pile on" brawls.

Seriously though, putting that many people on a streetcar might mean causing that many people trouble, or delaying that many people, if things are not going well for some reason.