A love (and anti-hate) letter to Toronto

I love Toronto. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, although likely whenever anyone says those words, they mean something quite different. I wanted to write a bit about what I love about Toronto, in part to counter all of the frustration and anger that is filling the city lately, at least in terms of its political leadership. Some of this anger is recent, but much of it seems to have been boiling up for a while now. I’m tempted to respond to this with an equal measure of anger, but I’m going to try something more hopeful and positive.
    I grew up in the suburbs west of Toronto, and came to the city on the GO Train for most of my childhood - to see a baseball game at the old Exhibition Stadium, to go to a museum, or maybe visit the Eaton Centre and the “World’s Biggest Bookstore.” But I didn’t really fall in love with Toronto until I moved here in my 20’s.
    I couldn’t wait to get out of the suburbs, but wasn’t in a hurry to move to Toronto. When I went to university, I went to Guelph, which is a lovely town, but by the time I finished a four year degree, the excitement and possibility of Toronto was calling me.
    My first job was in the office towers downtown, where I did fairly awful temp work in mailrooms. But there was something amazing in those tall towers, separated by narrow canyon-like streets, their long elevator rides, their crush of people, and their breathtaking views (on the rare occasions I got near a window).
    I found an apartment in the Annex, and soon had a new job where I could bike or walk through Kensington Market on my way down to Queen and Spadina. I smelled aromas of coffee and food in the air as I rode through. I would eat breakfast at the Stem, at a time when Queen Street West was still safe for greasy spoons, and go to the 360 to play pool on their ripped up tables. I would discover new foods in Chinatown or Little Korea, buy used books and CDs on College and Bloor, and walk by elderly Italian and Portuguese men and women sitting on their front porch on neighbourhood streets. Many of my closest friends lived nearby. Although myself and my friends have mostly moved elsewhere in the city, and some of these things have diminished or disappeared, there continues to be an amazing diversity of communities, buildings, food, culture, ethnicity, incomes, and just about any other category you’d care to name - in both the small area I’m describing, and just about any other slice of geography you could carve out in the city.
    Later on, my Toronto grew - I moved west to Bloor and Ossington for a few years, before moving out of the city, chasing love and adventure.
    Toronto’s never been the easiest city to live in. During the period I describe above, I probably lived under or around the poverty line - part of the reason I left was for better work. But Toronto has a magic that brought me back, and still lingers here, even if you have to walk past some condo scaffolding to find it. There’s something about Toronto that has an honesty and truth, an authenticity in the old brick houses and mature trees that I don’t quite feel in other places.
    And yet, there’s also been a creeping anger that’s been taking over this city.  I guess my love for this part of the city makes my love for Toronto a particularly downtown, urban kind of love. But that neither makes me an elite, nor a hater of the suburbs.
    I find it hard to believe that a sizable part of the population is so filled with anger and hatred that they are happy to be lied to, have their tax money given to drug-dealers and murderers, and wasted on cover ups, boondoggles, and addiction, with no accountability, and seem to be willing to set all morals aside in favour of what? That rich white men should be able to do whatever they want, with no respect for everyone else? That people who live downtown shouldn’t be allowed to have any say in how their city is run? A few weeks ago, I went to a protest at city hall, and someone opposed to my views threatened to punch me in the face. He seems to have taken his cue from leadership that is driven by violence, anger, fear, and hatred.
    I’m saddened (and yes, angered) by this, and feel like I can’t take much more of it. I won’t pretend to be an expert at Scarborough, North York, or Etobicoke (although I’ve spent a fair bit of time in each area). But I don’t come around and tell people in those places that their loves and dreams and hopes are worthless, and the places they live don’t matter. I’m not willing to stoop to lies and corruption to attack other people and places. This doesn’t make me an elite, or full of myself. I'd like to think it just makes me a good person, who loves the place they live - no matter where the imaginary boundaries are drawn.
    At this point, I could join the chorus of voices calling to deamalgamate Toronto. I would prefer not to do this; I would like to think that the different parts of Toronto can come together and make all of us stronger. But I also cannot in good conscience stand idly by while deceit, cover-up, corruption, and addiction are encouraged. I still believe that there are enough people in Toronto who want to make this city work, and want to start fires that light the way and warm our hearts, instead of burning down what I and so many others find beautiful and precious.

Transit funding, part 3: end the war on transit (and bikes and pedestrians)

Well, the good new is that some of my previous posts seem to be getting some traction - not that anyone's directly listening, but I'd like to think some reverberations are making their way around. Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath said some stuff about transit the last week or so, both being frustratingly vague and dancing around making any commitments; which is perhaps fair enough, as Metrolinx is releasing its report on revenue tools in about a month.  Wynne supports new revenue tools, although none specifically. Horwath has seemed perhaps less vague but no less confusing, advocating corporate taxes (which I agree with), but, unfortunately, also ruling out road tolls and other taxes on drivers. She should have waited until I wrote this long-planned part 3 of transit funding.

About the best thing about some of the recent consultations has been the focus on various fees on road users in different ways. Some are no-brainers, others less so. There's some shyness about taxing motorists, in large part because of the unpopularity of the brief period of the Toronto Vehicle Registration Tax, which both managed to raise the ire of many, as well as not not particularly generating a lot of income for the city. Not to mention it likely contributed to getting what's-his-name elected mayor. The thinking being, I guess, that since the right seems to have won some battles on this issue, those interested in thoughtful and good policy should just roll over and surrender the war.

I have some sympathy for drivers - maybe because I am one occasionally, plus I grew up in the suburbs where a car was fairly necessary. Drivers figure they already pay gas taxes and other taxes to pay for roads, plus a whole bunch to run their vehicles, and don't want to pay more. But this points to the inefficiency of motor vehicles for transportation as much as anything else. Cars are deeply tied into our North American mythology of independence and the free market, but are in fact the result of major government spending over many decades, and all that spending came out of years of taxation as well.

Figuring out the details of car subsidies is tricky. Many of the external costs of cars outside of just road building are hard to calculate - the health and environmental costs, for instance. Parking is one of the easier elements to figure - free or cheap street parking costs government at least $60 a month, and likely much more.  In Ohio, they did a study that found that the government subsidizes 40% of the cost of driving. Perhaps more telling is that they also found it costs $1 per mile to drive a car, vs 67 cents for commuter rail.

Transit subsidies are mostly easier to figure. Transit users in Toronto pay for themselves almost entirely, with fares covering about 70-80% of the cost of the TTC, with the other 87 cents per trip being a subsidy, making it essentially the least subsidized transit system in North America.

If we're talking about the entire GTHA, Go transit riders pay an even higher percentage of the cost of their trip through their fare. But then, if you're taking the bus in the suburbs, you're likely much more heavily subsidized.


I point some of these things out in an effort to add to the chorus of seeing transit funding not as an attempt to just tax resentful drivers, but tie it to an attempt to make all citizens equally valued no matter what transit mode they choose. I fear the current discussion throws a bunch of car-taxing transit tools at a wall and hoping some of them stick, rather than really re-examining our collective goals as a society, such as equality.

Ultimately, for a variety of reasons, we may decide to subsidize transit more than drivers, for a whole range of reasons. But keeping the status quo out of fear in a broken system is not an option.

So, what could we do?


1.  Parking Levy: This is the most no-brainer of all the options on the table. Not only are no drivers or individuals charged directly, but it also has the potential of encouraging developers to build less parking, and nudge them towards less big-box retail and more dense and pedestrian friendly design. It also has the potential to raise $1.2 - 1.6 billion a year throughout the GTHA. Unlike some of the other tools, it makes sense that those in urban areas would pay this, rather than those elsewhere in the province.

2.  Gas Taxes: It seems pretty easy to add a few cents to the cost of gasoline. It would make sense, too, given that the price of gas has risen substantially over the past number of years, (nearly double the last decade) and by charging per litre rather than a percentage, the government has been increasingly taking less of a percentage of each litre sold. A percentage might then make more sense than a cents per litre charge. Another option, currently scuttled, would be a carbon tax to pay for transit, such as exists in BC, and would apply on gasoline as well. Unlike the others, which I think the city of Toronto could do on their own, this makes the most sense for Metrolinx and the province to do.

3.  Vehicle Registration Fee: You know what they say - if at once you don’t succeed... Despite the aborted attempt at a Vehicle Registration Tax in Toronto, we already have a provincial registration fee which I don’t hear any provincial political party promising to repeal. However, maybe a random number isn’t the way to go... Adam Vaughan briefly proposed, once upon a time, to link the cost of a metropass to the Vehicle Registration Tax, which is a great example of potentially linking transit funding and driving in an equitable way. It also points to a way to make it politically more salable; unlike other costs that are hard to pinpoint, you can directly link it to another decision. As an example, the NDP recently had success with pushing a 15% cut to auto insurance. For me that would mean about a $15-20 a month savings, or about $100 a year. This could be a huge opportunity to make a tax not like a tax, by instituting an increased registration fee of $120 a year at the same time, I’d still be in the black.

Having said all that, the Vehicle Registration Fee is a bit of a blunt instrument, which unlike other fees, is the same whether you have a gas-guzzling suburban or a smart car. It also has a lot less potential to bring in the kind of revenue needed to pay for very much.

4. Road Tolls: I sort of have a soft spot for our free highways - I remember visiting the US as a kid, and I always thought that our lack of toll roads said something about how our government ran effectively and provided services for people for (seemingly) free. However, if no one's going to listen to me about raising income or corporate taxes, then sure, go ahead and toll. I do think this is the hardest sell to drivers, especially in areas under served by transit, if there aren't new roads being built. The places in which it would work best are areas well served already by transit - in particular the DVP and the Gardener. I'd prefer they tore down the Gardener, but if not, by all means toll it at double what it would cost to rebuild and maintain properly, and put the extra half towards transit. I sure don't want another penny of my (usual) tax dollars to go to that thing.

I'm not saying anything new when I point out that for decades we've built our cities and towns to favour cars. Fossil fuels are diminishing our health, the health of our environment, and have drastic consequences for the planet. I'm sick of asking people to do nice things on this front - so maybe it's about time for some sticks. For 2 years, I lived in Alberta, where the oil industry infects the government, and scars the landscape. In the last 2 weeks, I watched a documentary about how the Caribou are going extinct in Alberta because of oil, and also went to what I thought would be a serious discussion about oil, industry and the environment, but featured a walking talking industry advertisement named David Manning who gets paid by Alberta government tax dollars working in the Ministry of Truth (TM).

I'll cut that rant short, but just say that we need to get serious about some of these larger issues, and although there's a limit to what we can do about environmental issues through transit funding, I think it's time we got serious in a big and holistic way. We shouldn't give up on proven revenue like income and corporate tax. But if taxes and revenue is being shifted to fix some of the disparity of the car and oil friendly policies of the past 50+ years, and towards complete streets and amazing, safe, healthy, livable communities and awesome transportation for everyone, then I'm very fully on board.

Toronto the better

It's about time to make this blog about what blogs are about at their core - petty complaints about the mundane details of life.

With that in mind, I went to my weekly game in my multi-sport league the other day; this week it was rugby basketball. I joined as an individual member, so my team is a rag-tag bunch, some of whom rarely show. Tonight, in fact, we only had 3 people show up on our team, so it was 4 on 3 all game. Which was fine. Although it occurred to me, as the game was about mid way and we were down by countless baskets (which are hard to come by while using a football), that maybe I should suggest nicely and jokingly that maybe someone from their team join us, as they had about 8 people on their team, more than enough. But I ended up not saying anything, mostly because I was too tired and out of breath. But it did occur to me, especially at the end of the game, that it sure would have been nice of them to offer.

It seemed to me to say something about Toronto and its people. We play by the rules, sure. But we also don't stick our necks out very often and go that extra mile towards sportsmanship and putting out a little extra common decency to our fellow person. We passively sit by and let inequality happen - not just to others, but to ourselves. I include myself in this, as I didn't really say anything at the time and am now passive aggressively writing a blog post about it. But it's something that sort of stuck with me as I rode home on the subway.

Because that's kind of how our city government operates, too. It's how, perhaps, Rob Ford gets his support. He plays (maybe, just barely, depending on which judge you believe) by the rules, but never does he go the extra mile to say, hey, maybe I was wrong, and hey, maybe I'll give back some money that I raised for my football foundation or mayoral campaign. Maybe I don't even want the appearance of wrong doing, as it lowers people's opinion of this government and government in general. There's been an general lack of sportsmanship in city hall, and it's not just the mayor, but a disturbingly large number of council members.

Pushing at the edges of the rules and against the spirit of them is increasingly how all levels of government operate, where the rules are just something to be changed, and the spirit of the rules is forgotten or perverted in the name of power. That's increasingly how our society operates, where not just government but the business world, who is increasingly dismissive of and hostile towards scientists, artists, unionized and non-unionized workers, teachers, first nations, nature, animals, etc, etc, etc...instead of agreeing that we all have something to add to the economy, the society, and improving each others way of life. In Toronto at least, it's too often how we drive, bike, walk, and rush for the subway, streetcar, or bus.

It does, however, seem worse in government - maybe because they make the rules, they seem to have forgotten the spirit of it. It does seem to be worse among those who see the free market and greed as a virtue, where the rules of government are mostly resented and just get in the way.

I know there isn't necessarily a golden age of days gone by that really existed; if anything, maybe we're just laying bare more honestly the divisions we once papered over with lip service and platitudes. But it's worth committing to a level playing field, some common decency, and sportsmanship, in our lives and in our politics.

Transit funding: why not corporate taxes?

In my last post, I suggested one of the simplest ways to pay for some of the transportation improvements we'd like to have in the future, and it looked a lot like how we've paid for transportation infrastructure in the past - income tax.

Although Metrolinx doesn't seem to be seriously considering this as an option, the City of Toronto's "Feeling Congested" initiative does, and according to its math, a 1% increase gets us 3/4 of the way to $2 billion a year. But despite that, income tax ranks 7th as of last check on the site in terms of where others rank their choices. So maybe I'm not in step with the wider population on this.

Yesterday I went to the Metrolinx "Big Move" consultation at Metro Hall. I was glad to hear some voices asking about another tax that had already been on my mind and is curiously absent from these consultations, a tax that's been lowered substantially over just the past few short years: Corporate tax.

One of the greatest arguments in favour of expanded transportation and transit funding is its detriment to the economy - $6 billion dollars a year, says the Toronto Board of Trade.
Also in the name of the economy, we've cut corporate taxes.

Nationally, the numbers look like this:

 

Currently, corporate federal taxes stand at 15%. Raising them back to 19.5% would raise $10 billion a year. Since the GTHA represents 20% of Canada's population, that could raise - again, exactly the amount Metrolinx is looking for of $2 billion per year.

But we'll wait forever if we expect the feds to do anything (or at least until 2015). So let's try the province. They haven't been so foolish as to cut their revenues so drastically, have they?

Of course they have - lowering the corporate tax rate from 14% to 11.5%. 
Let's see, Ontario budgeted $10.8 billion in revenue in corporate taxes in 2012-13.
14/11.5 = 1.217
x 10.8 billion
=13.15 billion.
That's a difference of $2.35 billion per year.
Again, it's amazing how each of these tax cuts, corporate and otherwise, over just the last 2 or 3 years so consistently add up to almost exactly what Metrolinx is looking at additional revenue to build the Big Move.

I point this out in part because I fear we're being offered a slightly false choice in some of these consultations. There certainly seems to be a lot of appetite for dedicated transit funding, which I completely understand. But it's also important not to lose sight of the big picture of what kind of revenue tools not only build transit, but build our society in a just and equitable way, and where the tax/revenue tool burden should fall.

I say this in part because many rather smart people seem to be increasing advocating for a regional sales tax - an idea I have some sympathy for, but moves increasingly lower on my list of options the more I think about it. For those of you weighing your options for transit funding, ask yourself this question - if you were premier, would you lower corporate tax cuts and increase sales taxes? Would you lower progressive income taxes in order to raise regressive, flat sales taxes that hurt the poorest of us more than the wealthy? Probably not. And there's an element of the current discussion that seems to seek to do so in an awfully sneaky way.

Of course, another option is to seek revenues from drivers in a variety of ways. I think this is generally a good idea, although fraught with peril, as Rob Ford's repeal of the modest vehicle registration tax in Toronto demonstrates. But after yesterday's Metrolinx session, I'm thinking a bit differently about some of those, thoughts that I'll save for my next blog post.

A brief history of financial transit choices

First of all, I'll make an announcement for those who don't already know that there are two consultations coming up that are pretty important for transit users and pretty much anyone who leaves their house from time to time. Most of the details are in this Torontoist piece. Basically, they both have to do with transit, and how to fund it.

This transit map is empty, dagnabbit!

Metrolinx (who don't make these consultations very easy to find - or re-find - on Google) is holding a few throughout the GTA and beyond (or GTHA, for the Toronto-is-not-the-centre-of-the-Universe people), including a couple in Toronto proper. If you haven't already played with Metrolinx's neat online tool that shows you how much fun it is to raise taxes, you should. I'd imagine it's the home-game version of the consultations, without as many cranky long-winded people (depending on who else is in the room with you when you go through it at home). Anyway, circle your calendar for Feburary 9 at Metro Hall. A few days later, you can hang out with Toronto's chief planner Jennifer Keesmat and tell her what you think about almost the same thing. I will say the Feeling Congested initiative deserves credit for actually making an effort at getting people involved in a way we rarely see from the Toronto's municipal government, and just about the best website I've seen with a City of Toronto logo on it.

But I'm actually not going to say much about what these consultations and the general movement to generate new "revenue tools" are about. For one, others are doing a decent job of covering and examining it so far. I will say that parking levies are a no-brainer, and I have conflicting feelings about others, but I'm generally supportive of nearly anything that breaks Toronto transit users unprecedented reliance on the farebox,

It's worth being hopeful when the new premier, Kathleen Wynne, lists easing gridlock as a top priority. But it disturbs me when she says, as she did during her interview on Metro Morning earlier this week that "there are going to have to be new revenue tools" to build transit. This seems to be a too-often repeated attitude that we have no other option, and that the powers-that-be somehow stumbled into this situation that no one could have predicted - except that everyone has been complaining about gridlock and a lack of transit in Toronto for years. The truth is that government, especially provincially and federally, has failed to take responsibility for its past mistakes by failing to take advantage of old revenue tools.

So, to recap the basics, we supposed need 50 billion across the region for the Metrolinx "Big Move" over 25 years: that's 2 billion a year.

Edward Keenan makes a good argument in favour of using sales tax as a revenue tool by arguing that we could pay the same sales tax rate as 2006. But hey, some other taxes have changed since 2006. And what raises more taxes in Ontario than sales tax? Income tax.

Gratuitous chart. Curiously no mention of gravy as a major expenditure.

To be fair, income tax is a solution as part of the "Feeling Congested" consultation to an extent. But I don't even need to go back as far as 2006 to get money from income tax in Ontario. I could just go back to 2010 when McGuinty cut income tax by 1% on the first $37,106 of taxable personal income. How much did this take out of Ontario coffers? Nearly 4 billion a year.

A little more math for those who think Toronto shouldn't get all that money...
Population of Ontario: 13,505,900
Population of GTHA: 6,574,140 
Notice that's roughly half. And roughly half of McGuinty's 2010 tax cuts equals... $2 billion per year! Exactly how much the Metrolinx "Big Move" will cost per year. That was way too bloody easy for all this hand wringing and "new revenue tool" talk.

I just figured out how to buy a crapload of these. You're welcome.

Yes, reversing that particular income tax cut would essentially raise taxes on the poor, but so does raising sales taxes to an extent. Our current income tax system overall is actually quite progressive, and an income tax increase can easily be structured to also work towards lessening the increasing gap between rich and poor. This is what the NDP compromise budget with the Liberals did less than a year ago, raising nearly $500 million a year by raising taxes on those making more than $500,000 per year, and that policy is hugely popular. That money all went to reducing the fiscal deficit, but it could have gone towards reducing our transit deficit. Why take a risk on new revenue tools when we know there are old revenue tools with the potential to be popular, and are so effective at raising lots of revenue?

 All this shows how there are lots of ways to use income taxes to raise lots of money quickly, if you have the political courage. This is something the Ontario Liberals, thus far, have had difficulty with.  It's why it's hard to believe that Kathleen Wynne is serious about easing gridlock when her government could have done so much more over the last 8 years. And to say that new revenue tools are the only way shows an alarming myopia about how to raise revenue.

Some of the new revenue tools being discussed certainly have their merits, such as potential environmental and social benefits. But they also have their pitfalls. And sometimes it's hard not to feel like politicians are forcing a bunch of new taxes on us with a different name because they're afraid to raise the old-fashioned taxes that built so much of what once made Toronto an enviable place for public transit.

I haven't even gone into past income tax cuts in the Harris years, or other falling taxes such as corporate taxes. Maybe I'll save that for a future post. In the meantime, go out and support new revenue tools at consultations, with your local representatives, and with your neighbours. But don't let anyone tell you theses "tools" or taxes or whatever are better just because they're "new."

Municipal terms

There is much hand wringing about the municipal state of affairs in Toronto right now, specifically whether this should the new mayor be appointed by council, or should there be a byelection. It should be a no-brainer at this point, in my opinion, in favour of a byelection, and that's where the momentum needs to be. Although the issue seems to make otherwise sensible and intelligent people temporarily foolish / insane.

I don't feel the need to write a lot about this issue, but I did want to point out something that was underlined in the great exhibit that Dave Meslin put on, "The Fourth Wall." Not long ago, we had 3 year terms municipally, and before that 2, and, up until 1956, elections were held. If we still had 3 year terms, as we did up until 2006, it would make sense to just appoint a caretaker mayor until an election this coming fall, and much of this crisis would have been averted. Part of the reason Ford's removal from office is such a big deal is possibly because our terms are too damn long. Now would be a great time to renew the call for shorter municipal terms. It seems like a no-brainer to me.

Gravy, part 1: Corruption & Conflicts

Well, it’s been quite a week here in the big smoke, with the promise and excitement of a new mayor - who may or may not be the same as the old mayor, depending upon how the wind blows through the courts, city council chambers, and potential voting booths. Along the way, and through FordCourts 1 & 2, there’s been much talk of conflicts, corruption, and how to deal with these and other misbehaviours.

When the mayor of Toronto won the election, he was elected on the promise to cut corruption at city hall. I am, of course, talking about David Miller, and the 2003 election. Or, I could be talking about Rob Ford. The only thing for sure is that if you want to get elected as mayor, talk about corruption a lot and shout loudly about how you’ll be rid of it.

Miller was elected on the heels of the MFP scandal, and held a broom aloft when elected to represent how he would clean up the city. Rob Ford, similarly, talked of the gravy train, a key element of which was to suggest that there was secret deals that were costing taxpayers millions of dollars, and once he found them, we’d have lots of money left over to cut taxes, give to the police, and build subways all over the place.

Of course, we can all agree that no one wants corruption at any level of government.

The conversation that we rarely have, and what we’ve been dancing around lately, is a discussion of what legislation and levers should be in place to deal with corruption.

Let’s listen to what our current (for now) mayor has said on the subject:
‘In Aug. 2010, Ford told the Toronto Sun the city contract Foulidis had won smells of civic corruption. He went on to say: “it’s confidential and I wish you guys knew what happened behind closed doors.”
Ford also told a radio station: “I truly believe” someone is getting money under the table in connection to the contract.’
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/cityhallpolitics/article/1267542--boardwalk-pub-libel-lawsuit-case-begins-against-ford

One interesting element of the Foulidis libel case (for those who can remember back through the mists of time to a couple of weeks ago to the previous Ford Court case) is that since the mayoral election, there’s basically nothing Ford’s done to combat the corruption he once railed against so emphatically. If he was so concerned about it during the election, what steps has he taken to root out corruption at city hall?  Largely, his attitude has been to just trust him, and he’ll eventually dig up the aforementioned corruption/gravy. Meanwhile, we’re two years into his term, with very little to show for it on that front (or other fronts in the war against gravy, as I’ll get to in later posts). In fact, the in-camera meetings that Ford railed about during the 2010 election have only been repeated by his administration: http://www.torontolife.com/daily/informer/ford-focus/2011/04/08/ford-is-breaking-all-the-rules%E2%80%94but-is-it-political-swagger-or-a-worrisome-pattern/

What the libel case brought to the fore, and that his removal of office has really reminded us of, was that Ford has basically abandoned this particular gravy ingredient.

About his only achievement on this front is tackling major problems at the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, although its discovery would happened anyway, and his solution of privatizing it is both unrealized and unproven.
http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2011/11/05/the-privatization-of-social-housing/


As is frequently mentioned, Ford wasn’t removed from office this past week for corruption, but for a conflict of interest, and a minor one at that, some say. But the reason for having rules about conflict of interest is that they can quickly degrade into corruption, not to mention embody a world of bad governance along the way.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about Rob Ford’s controversies is that not only does he deflect criticism as being politically motivated, he and other members of the media seem to focus on the particulars of the situation rather than the larger issues. Ford “only” raised $3000 for his football foundation. If he’s blameless in this particular instance, what if he’d raised $300,000 or $3 million? What if it wasn’t for charity, but for his own enrichment? Then, he uses his staff to help with his football team - would this also be okay if his staff was working at his label factory instead of for his office? Would it have been okay if Miller had solicited for donations for an environmental organization on his city letterhead? I guess, according to the logic of the Sun and other Ford villagers this would have been just fine (but we all know they’d be screaming their heads off about it.)

If we’re really serious about corruption, we should probably have some hard and fast rules about it. And yes, there’s probably going to be some grey areas, and areas in which we should forgive mistakes, especially when well-intentioned or out of honest ignorance. The Municipal Conflict of Interest Act seems to be doing not such a bad job of this. Perhaps it’s somewhat inflexible, but flexibility when it comes to the rich and powerful tends towards toothlessness. Such rules are there for a reason: so they don’t turn into larger, more serious transgressions.

Running roughshod over the checks and balances in place seems to be increasing at all levels of government, with prorogations and pushing at the edges of electoral laws, just for starters. Even if you believe Rob Ford when he says to trust him (or other politicians), what about the rest of council (or parliament)? Or future mayors (or Premiers or Prime Ministers)?

David Miller’s regime produced the appointment of a municipal ethics commissioner, and a lobbyist registry. It's worth assessing the effectiveness of these measures, but at least they're actual, concrete actions to discourage corruption, and the slippery slope of impropriety that leads there.

So, what are some other solutions we can all agree on? I mentioned the in-camera meetings - repeated recently with the reversal of the plastic bag ban. We could also do more about about sole-source contracts, a practice that continues on Ford’s watch: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1035856--city-improperly-approved-millions-in-sole-source-purchases.

Another possibility is to ensure city staff, particularly police, are paid well enough to ensure they’re less tempted by bribes and corruption - but of course, that costs money (although maybe sometimes you have to make gravy to save gravy).

If we want to see just how far things can go wrong, we only need to turn to Montreal, and the revelations at the inquiry there. Or look at Joe Fontana in London - do Rob Ford supporters think what he’s done is fine, and he should serve out his term?

I’m not an insider, and I have no idea if Toronto is nearly corruption free, or if there are some giant skeletons hiding in the closet of council chambers. But if there are, I’d like to hear some real solutions to head in the right direction, and now would be a good time to start looking.

Further reading:

http://www.fasken.com/en/leasing-lives-on-torontos-mfp-scandal-provides-lessons-01-01-2006/

http://spacingtoronto.ca/2012/11/26/lorinc-the-last-stand-of-rob-ford/

http://www.nowtoronto.com/mobile/story.cfm?c=190104 

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1296099--james-rob-ford-refused-to-protect-himself-from-himself

UPDATE: Actually an older piece, but an excellent look at a variety of conflict of interest / corruption allegations by Paula Simons in the Edmonton Journal: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/touch/story.html?id=7636405

Also, Democracy Watch is doing some good work on this at other levels of Government: http://democracywatch.ca/20121203-penalty-for-ford-too-high/