Toronto is the principal city of this G-7 country, and among the world’s top 10 most influential financial centres. It’s among the fastest-growing cities on the continent, and one of the most culturally diverse towns on Earth. As such, it’s a complex city that requires the greatest competence civic leadership can bring to bear.
To its detriment, Toronto is currently represented on the world stage by the most bizarre mayor in the city’s 179-year-old history, with the possible exception of its first chief magistrate, William Lyon Mackenzie.
Mackenzie imagined that with two dozen or so fellow rebels armed with antiquated muskets he could realize his ambition of responsible government in Upper Canada against the armed forces of Great Britain, then the world’s sole superpower.
Mackenzie’s quixotic mission was doomed, but was just-cause milestone on the path to Confederation. The record of Rob Ford and unofficial co-mayor Doug Ford consists chiefly of inviting worldwide comparisons between Toronto’s civic leadership and the Kardashians.
The fiscal record. The Fords came to office with a simplistic promise of “ending the gravy train.” Doug Ford claims our two-headed mayoralty has saved taxpayers $1 billion. That’s utter nonsense.
In fact, Toronto’s gross operating budget has risen during the Ford years by 2.3 per cent, to $9.4 billion. That’s an increase in the taxpayer burden of almost $200 million. And the portion of the budget paid in property taxes, Metro’s Matt Elliot points out, has jumped by 5.7 per cent during the Ford years, to $3.7 billion.
Meanwhile, examples of Ford-era dubious spending abound.
Two examples, one minor, one major: Toronto spent $86,000 in 2010 to install a bike lane on Jarvis Street. It then spent another $270,000 to remove the bike lane by order of the Fords.
Bike lanes improve safety for pedestrians no longer forced to share sidewalks with bicycle couriers. Bicycle commuting promotes a more physically fit workforce. It makes the air cleaner for all of us. These are all elements of higher quality of life and advanced economic efficiency - twin draws for employers considering locating in Toronto.
A bigger boondoggle is the city’s bid to streamline internal information management – a scheme called the Financial Planning, Analysis and Reporting System. Its estimated cost has soared from $7.9 million to almost $70 million on the Fords’ watch.
On the revenue side, a crowd-pleased Rob Ford revoked the $60 annual vehicle registration fee that buttressed civic finances with no corresponding savings to cover the lost revenue.
Broken promises in economic progress . Rob Ford has not scrapped the unpopular land transfer tax, as promised in his 2010 campaign. His current call for a mere 10 per cent reduction in the tax is a dead letter at council, given its aversion to any initiative linked to the Fords.
Rob Ford’s vaunted Scarborough subway line that would be privately financed and thus save Toronto $2 billion – an inflated figure that amounted to so much pixie dust – remains a fantasy. And Ford’s fixation with big-ticket subways has held up less costly transit improvements.
Kathleen Wynne took a strike and exacted a settlement with teachers’ unions that will save Ontarians about $2 billion a year. Ford, a comparative pushover intent on avoiding the populist ire that David Miller endured from a garbage strike, settled with municipal-employee unions largely on their terms.
Authority. The Fords have lost control of city council, and thus of their agenda. The gratuitously belligerent brothers have so alienated erstwhile allies among their 43 fellow councillors (a “dysfunctional” body, according to Rob Ford, some of whose members are “two steps left of Joe Stalin”), that in a lopsided vote, council voted against Rob Ford’s ardently sought casino project. Even Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday, long the Fords’ ablest and staunchest ally, is now distancing himself from the Fords over the alleged video showing Rob Ford taking crack cocaine.
The Fords have also squandered away Toronto’s influence in Ottawa and at Queen’s Park. That bodes ill for everything from federal infrastructure projects in the GTA to long overdue Ontario-funded upgrades in public transit.
Having become radioactive, the Fords have scared off kindred spirits Stephen Harper, Jim Flaherty and Tim Hudak, who have refrained from their characteristic defence of the mayor. Meanwhile, the Toronto focus of Premier Wynne and her cabinet is on the means by which Rob Ford can be removed from office before inflicting further injury on Ontario’s economic powerhouse.
Reputational damage. In a speech this week to the Economic Club, former Ontario treasurer-turned-businessman Dwight Duncan, citing the “ongoing insanity” in the Toronto mayor’s office, said, “I think (Rob Ford) should step down.” Noting that as provincial treasurer he was often advised of the financial cost of negative media coverage, Duncan said the reality show that is the Ford co-mayoralty is “doing horrible damage to the reputation of this great metropolis.”
Actually, Toronto can handle being a global laughingstock. What it can’t afford is continued inattention to challenging problems arising from civic governance in prolonged disarray.
The problems include traffic congestion that is among the worst in the world. A leading culprit in economic inefficiency, the gridlock costs Toronto an estimated $6 billion per year in lost productivity from commuters arriving at work over-stressed and snail’s-pace delivery of goods and services.
Our perpetual gridlock also forces employers to locate or re-locate outside Toronto, where streets are more navigable. That curb on employment growth puts a ceiling on Toronto’s tax base. It also shifts an unfair portion of taxes onto ratepayers.
Strongly related to traffic woes as a constraint on economic growth is an increasingly deficient public-transit system. The TTC’s capacity has failed to keep pace with a population growing by the size of Calgary each decade.
And reform is imperative in our urban planning. That’s evident from the haphazard condo development that has further walled off citizens from their waterfront. Less affluent communities like Oshawa and North Bay managed to turn their waterfronts into models of recreation space some 30 years ago. The real “waste” in Toronto includes forsaken tourism and convention revenue from a neglected waterfront and Don River estuary.
Torontonians determined to benefit from the competent governance they deserve (and Ford voters thought they would get) could amass at each of Nathan Phillips Square and Queen’s Park to demand the ejection of a cravenly incompetent mayor.
But well-fed Toronto has long been a complacent town. A silent majority that wishes for better than Rob Ford exchanges jokes about him every day. But it does exactly nothing to replace him with a mayor of vision. Check the Scriptures: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Then glance in the mirror to see why there is no vision.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: David Olive
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