500 gather to stop ‘across the board’ city cuts

Nigel Barriffe was a rare suburbanite among the downtowners at Dufferin Grove Park on Saturday at a gathering of about 500 people bent on organizing against planned austerity measures at City Hall.

“We’re part of Ford Nation but we feel we’ve been just thrown out,” said Barriffe, who lives and teaches near Kipling and Finch Aves.

It’s in the northwest part of the city represented by Mayor Rob Ford’s brother Doug Ford and Ford supporter Vincent Crisanti.

The prospect of cuts to libraries, the arts, parks, fire and police have rendered him “almost hopeless” on behalf of his students and their families at Greenholme Junior Middle School, said Barriffe.

In his diverse community only about half the kids have Internet access at home so the closure of a single library would be devastating, he said.

“These cuts are going to have a detrimental effect on the black and brown people in (Wards 1 and 2),” he said of his neighbours.

Saturday’s event was organized by the Toronto Stop the Cuts Network, with the goal of drafting an alternative vision for the city.

A homeowner, Barriffe was among those at the park near Dufferin and College Sts., who support property tax increases over service cuts when city council decides later this month how to close a gap estimated at up to $775 million in Toronto’s 2012 budget.

But Stop the Cuts organizer Jessica Lyons doesn’t buy the dire financial picture.

“We’re coming from a perspective that this is a crisis that has been manufactured,” she said.

A nurse and mother, Lyons said she’s personally concerned about cuts to daycare and public service workers, and Mayor Ford’s initial refusal to accept provincial funding for two public health nurses.

“The thing about these cuts is that they’re so across the aboard. There’s nobody that won’t be affected,” she said.

Saturday’s meeting was peaceful. Although one man, wearing an anti-union T-shirt and carrying another pro-Ford shirt, was asked to leave.

Toronto artist Cleo Halfpenny used the occasion to sell her homemade Mayor Rob Ford voodoo dolls for $20 as an outlet for anger she said people were feeling about the Ford administration. Ford dolls with Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti in the pocket sold for $25.

Organizers said the city tried to shut down the event by cancelling all programming in the busy park and closing the washrooms. But supportive city councillors intervened on Friday and arranged to have the washrooms remain open.

Another meeting is being planned for Sunday by the councillors for Toronto-Danforth, Paula Fletcher and Mary Fragedakis. Representatives trying to avert cuts to Riverdale Farm, libraries and environment programs will meet at Eastminster United Church on Danforth Ave., east of Broadview, at 2:30 p.m.

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Source: Toronto Star