municipalities » Ren Thomas

Out on a technicality

In what is possibly the biggest municipal story this year, Toronto mayor Rob Ford will be removed from office by December 14th–two weeks from now. Over a measly $3,150, which Ford himself referred to as “an insignificant sum”, the mayor of Canada’s largest city has been ordered out of office. Justice Charles Hackland issued the verdict: that Ford had contravened the City of Toronto Code of Conduct in using city resources (including letters sent using official letterheads) to raise money for his football foundation. Even though Ford refused to reimburse the money, as recommended by the Integrity Commissioner and City Council, this alone was not enough to topple him from office. The crux of the matter was that in any member of council faced with a violation of the Code of Conduct is disqualified from speaking or voting on the matter when it is discussed at council, since council has the right to levy a financial sanction. However, Ford voted on the issue at a February 7, 2012 council meeting. This puts him in contravention of the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, for which the penalty is immediate removal from office. The judge declared that Ford’s seat is now vacant, but he suspended the operation of his declaration for 14 days to allow the city to make the necessary administrative changes. This leaves Ford 14 days to file an appeal, which he is certain to do (“Rob Ford’s appeal will be filed ‘in the next couple of days’”, Toronto Star, November 27, 2012).

While many feel that Ford “got what he deserved”, Rosie DiManno writes that it may have been better if Ford had lost in a re-election, rather than the courts (“Little to celebrate in way Ford got the boot”, Toronto Star, November 27, 2012). She feels that Ford’s supporters will reinforce efforts to have him re-elected. Adam Goldenberg agrees (“Rob Ford lost the batle, not the war”, Ottawa Citizen, November 26, 2012), saying that Ford won the mayoral race as an outsider, and the ruling makes him an outsider once more. It certainly puts Toronto into uncharted territory as a rush of candidates prepares to run for mayor in a by-election. But the mayor of the country’s largest city has a major impact: Justice Hackland wrote that such an influential mayor has first and foremost a responsibility to act with integrity; news of Ford’s removal from office trended on Twitter around the world on Monday. And it wasn’t the first time Ford’s opponents have resorted to the letter of the law in exposing the man’s errors: just a few short months ago, an emergency council vote was held following the issuance of a legal opinion on the matter of Ford’s cancellation of the Transit City plan.

As for Ford, as he put it,”This comes down to left-wing politics. The left wing wants me out of here and they’ll do anything in their power to.” We didn’t hear much about the “right wing” supporting him in his successful bid for mayor, and we rarely heard Ford describe himself as a right-wing politician. Rather, his campaign promise to “trim the fat from city hall” fell flat, and the fiscal conservative finds himself in the ironic position of being removed from office over a few thousand dollars. Adam Goldenberg of the Ottawa Citizen characterizes Justice Hackland’s decision as “a model of judicial modesty, which conservatives like Ford are supposed to love.”

Several writers have addressed the difficulties in governing Canada’s largest city; undoubtedly councillors face some major challenges in the weeks ahead (“Toronto councillors critical of Rob Ford’s defiance”, CBC News, November 27, 2012). In “What kind of mayor does Toronto need?” Toronto Star columnist Christopher Hume says that the city needs a mayor that understands transportation solutions, who can lead other Canadian cities towards more equitable fiscal arrangements for cities, who will celebrate the city’s diversity, and who will lead it towards planning for climate change. It needs a mayor who understands rules and is able to abide by them, but can unite people from polarizing viewpoints and make compromises.

“Toronto is a hugely complicated, even contradictory, organism, beyond the control of any one person or institution.” –Christopher Hume, Toronto Star, November 28, 2012

Ford will be absent while Toronto scrambles for a new mayor (“Rob Ford out: Mayor can’t run in by-election, city lawyer says”, Toronto Star, November 27, 2012), but nothing will stop him from running again in 2014.

Update: Ford appealed Hackland’s decision and won on January 25, 2013.

Parking still a problem, even when it’s bikes

Bike parking at Amsterdam Centraal Station

Anyone who’s visited Amsterdam could tell you that while it’s “the capital of European biking”, it has serious parking problems. I’m currently teaching a class on metropolitan transport planning at the University of Amsterdam, and two groups of students have chose to study biking issues: one will examine the ever-rising rate of cycling injuries and the other the problem of parking.

A recent article in the New York Times mentioned that the City of Amsterdam plans to spend 120 million euros on cycling infrastructure in the next eight years. And it should, considering that it has 881,000 bicycles for its 780,559 citizens. While car-obsessed countries might be envious, there are some serious drawbacks to cycling’s increasing popularity in a city built on precious reclaimed land: while cycling increased 14% from 2001-2011, the number of cyclists seriously injured in accidents also increased to 56%. And building enough parking spaces for bikes is as much of a problem as it is for cars in the US or Canada.

Amsterdammers treat their bikes like Americans would treat a second-hand beater car with a rusted-out engine. Bikes are left out in the rain on a daily basis, they’re often left unlocked, and as one student told me, “they have little value.” Contrast this with Vancouver, where people go out of their way to rent the few coveted bike storage boxes provided by TransLink to protect them from the rain. In many North American cities it’s not unusual for cyclists to carry their bikes up several flights of stairs rather than leave them outside. Bikes are more expensive in the US (in Amsterdam you can pick one up for as little as 50 euros) they’re also more complicated: you need gears, and derailleur gears don’t respond well to daily rain.

Underground parking at Amsterdam Zuid Station

Another pervasive cultural practice in Amsterdam is owning three or four bikes; most people leave them in various places so they’ll always have access to a bike when they need one. In a city where every square centimeter of land is precious and most housing units are too small to store bikes (either indoors or out), this adds up to overcrowded bike racks, bikes blocking sidewalks, bikes affixed to every possible railing and pole, and bikes left for weeks in one place without being used. While some organizations will remove bikes left overnight (including the University of Amsterdam) this practice is controversial, as most people believe they have the right to park anywhere they want and for as long as they want. Covered bike storage is available for commuters at some places for a fee, but many people will cycle out of their way to park for free, leaving nearby neighbourhoods cluttered with two-wheelers. Shades of The High Cost of Free Parking, anyone?

The City plans to create an additional 38,000 bike parking spots at the rail and transit hubs over the next eight years. But more crucially, they plan to create more bike parking laws and enforce those that already exist, such as ensuring that Amsterdammers don’t leave their bikes for over 14 days in high-demand locations. It seems that the Dutch have discovered that unlimited free parking doesn’t work–even for bikes.

Cities need new infrastructure to cope with climate change

We’ve all read or heard about crumbling overpasses in Montreal, overburdened water treatment plants in Vancouver, and aging highways in Toronto. Inevitably, the physical components of our cities will face a new challenge in the coming decades: climate change adaptation.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities will release a set of recommendations today, asking the federal government for long-term investment in municipal infrastructure. FCM is part of the Municipal Infrastructure Forum launched earlier this year, which includes governments like the City of Toronto and the City of Ottawa, and business leaders such as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Insurance Board of Canada. Members of the Forum announced principles for a new federal long-term infrastructure plan in Toronto on November 8, 2012. FCM conducted a study of 123 municipalities in 2009-2010 and reported on them in the Canadian Infrastructure Report Card. A major focus then was the declining quality of wastewater infrastructure, with over 40% of wastewater plants, pumping stations and storage tanks in “fair” to “very poor” conditions. Half of the roads surveyed fell below the rating of “good”. The report also found that many municipalities lack the capacity to assess the state of their infrastructure: they have limited data on their wastewater treatment plants or on buried infrastructure such as distribution pipes, some don’t have regular condition-assessment programs for their roads or a capacity/demand assessment process. They are also limited by financial and staffing constraints. But climate change is already beginning to take its toll: today, the forum notes that one in four wastewater plants needs major upgrades to meet federal regulations, storm events that used to occur every 100 years now happen every 20 years, and the insurance industry pays out more than $1 billion per year in sewage back-up claims. Stable, long-term funding will be more cost effective than replacement and will contribute to cities’ resiliency as the climate becomes more unstable.

FCM is encouraging municipalities to engage in the discussion on municipal infrastructure: a growing list of communities has already passed resolutions endorsing Target 2014, calling on the federal government to ensure that a new infrastructure plan is in place before the current federal programs (worth two billion dollars per year) expire in 2014.

The newest City of Vancouver Community Plans

Tree canopy on a Marpole residential street. The neighbourhood has a variety of commercial, industrial and residential land uses.

This year the City of Vancouver will be starting community plans for three neighbourhoods: Marpole, the West End and Grandview-Woodlands. In addition to the usual open houses and community meetings, the City has been using its new Public Engagement Division (within its Communications Department) in innovative outreach. This past weekend the City, local residents and designers coordinated walking tours of the three neighbourhoods as part of Jane’s Walk. The Marpole walk was hosted by Margot Long, landscape architect and urban designer, and local resident Jo-Anne Pringle. Lil Ronalds, the City planner working on the Marpole plan, and City Councillors Heather Deal and George Affleck also attended. For more info, check out my article “Get with the plan (Marpole edition!)” for Spacing Vancouver; others will be writing upcoming articles about the West End and Grandview-Woodlands walks, so stay tuned!

Tax-averse? Not so much

Public participation in planning processes is required by law, but it can be time-consuming, difficult and expensive. This year the City of Vancouver introduced a broader range of public participation tools in their budget planning process, as I detailed in a previous post. The City aimed to educate the public on the cost of services and the challenges in balancing the budget; to measure and understand why any changes in tax tolerance and service priorities; and to gather ideas for identifying cost efficiencies in the budget.

The City produced a Budget Basics booklet available online and distributed it to all city libraries, created a web portal at www.talkvancouver.com, introduced an online budgeting tool, and advertised in local newspapers, on the radio, and on Twitter. A total of 1221 residents and businesses completed the phone or online survey. Although people were also encouraged to comment by email or the City’s 3-1-1- phone services, most chose to do the surveys. A surprising 31% of respondents to the online survey were 25-34 years old; while the response rate for 18-24 year olds was only 7%. Thirty-seven participants used the online budget allocator tool. This is a vast improvement on public meetings on the budget (at a public meeting held this year, only 13 people attended).

The proposed 2012 Operating Budget details the City’s commitment to fund critical programs, increase productivity and make strategic adjustments to programs and services, while increasing property taxes by 2.5%. Several improvements in efficiency have already been made: the City introduced a bylaw adjudication model to deal with unpaid parking tickets quickly, expanded their electronic pay notices to include 97% of City employees, and streamlined sanitation services. The City also increased its utility revenues from sewer, solid waste and water utility rates by 7.9%. In the 2012 Operating Budget, there are increases in the policing and utilities budgets, and small increases to libraries, parks and recreation, and engineering services. The other areas remain the same as in 2011.

There were some other interesting findings for planners. The top three local issues were identified as social (homelessness, affordable housing), transportation (public transit, congestion and bike lanes), and taxation. Several of these issues are federal or provincial responsibilities, illustrating the challenges municipalities face in responding to critical priorities among residents. Crime and personal safety were lower priorities less than ever before; only 10% of residents and 8% of businesses identified this as a major issue. The vast majority of citizens and business were satisfied with city services, but felt that property taxes were too high. However, when asked specifically about the 2012 budget, 80% of residents and 65% of businesses indicated a willingness to accept up to a 3% property tax increase; in fact, most people (81%) were unwilling to reduce city services, preferring a property tax increase or increase in efficiencies instead. Half of homeowners were willing to pay a tax increase of 9% and 59% were willing to pay an increase of 6%, which the report states is “quite typical” (I found this surprising). Among renters, 77% were willing to pay $5 more in rent per month to maintain current service levels. Businesses are far less supportive of these higher tax levels. Some initiatives to lower costs had strong support from the public: using green techniques and less mowing to manage open spaces, offering more city services online rather than in person, and reducing garbage pickup frequency while increasing the ability to recycle food waste.

Planners and planning theorists take note: both residents and businesses were in favour of decreasing the number of public hearings and meetings, reduced enforcement of nuisance and minor City by-laws, and reduced land-use planning as cost saving measures. Other forms of feedback (phone/online surveys, mail-back and email methods) were preferred over public hearings/meetings. This is a sign of the times, and a confirmation of Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s comment that town halls and public meetings were the most expensive and least useful engagement methods in their budget planning process last year. I’ve never been a fan of these types of open forums, and I’d love to see more targeted outreach to demographic groups such as youth and young adults (e.g. Facebook surveys, continued advertising of planning processes on Twitter).

The City of Vancouver will hold a public hearing on February 29th to allow citizens to respond the proposed budget, and then deliberate on the Final Budget Report, which will presented March 5th.

Transit City rises from the dead

After a special council meeting that lasted all day, Toronto City Council voted yesterday to restore proposed LRT lines to Finch Avenue and part of Eglington, and convert the aging Scarborough line to an LRT. As Marcus Gee at The Globe and Mail writes, “City hall veterans are struggling to remember a time when a mayor of Toronto suffered such a humiliating and public setback.” Oft-maligned TTC chair Councillor Karen Stintz emerged with a major victory: she petitioned for the council vote, mobilized a group of supporters, and even proposed an option that would have allowed the mayor to save face (the Sheppard line could still be a subway if an outside panel of experts approves). She needed 22 votes: the motion passed 25-18. Council also voted 28:15 to strike an advisory panel to report back on the best solution for Sheppard.

Mayor Rob Ford, his brother Councillor Doug Ford, and other supporters like Councillor George Mammoliti have been saying for a year that “people want subways.” But consider the momentum on this issue in the past year, from shock and confusion when Ford cancelled Transit City on his first day in office, to hope this January 29th when Councillor Joe Mihevc produced a lawyers’ report saying Ford overstepped his legal rights and council would have to vote on the issue. Last Sunday 120 prominent academics, transportation planners and civic leaders sent a letter to city councillors urging them to overturn the Mayor’s transportation plan or risk impeding transit initiatives in Toronto for the next century. Cities Centre director Eric Miller, planning consultant Ken Greenberg, former Toronto chief planner Paul Bedford and former Mayor David Crombie, among others, called for an end to “the war on common sense.” The Pembina Institute weighed in on the issue, also in favour of LRT construction. And yesterday, while councillors debated and decided the issue, The Toronto Star conducted a [statistically questionable] public opinion poll asking what they thought council should do: 87 voted for “build more subways”, 332 for “build a Light Rapid Transit system”, 2 for “don’t do anything” and 15 had other ideas.

Just over a week ago, I intimated that most of us needed to learn more about municipal governance, and that without this ignorance Ford could never have cancelled transit city or signed an MOU with the province based on his own Sheppard subway strategy. I assumed that Ford knew exactly what his legal rights were, but was banking on councillors and the public being unsure that the Transit City issue had been approved by council and therefore had to be voted on. But last night at the end of the council meeting, Ford expressed his frustration with the results, saying, “Technically speaking, that whole meeting was irrelevant. The premier, I’m very confident, is going to continue building subways.” While it is true that the Transit City plan (like any major transit infrastructure in Canada) hinges upon provincial funding, the MOU that Ford and Premier McGuinty signed was only an agreement in principle until council voted on the issue. Indeed, the Premier confirmed this today: “I’ve also been very clear with the mayor from day one. At the time the memorandum of understanding was entered into, there was a specific provision that he’s got to seek the support of the council.” (“Premier Dalton McGuinty says he is obligated to consider council’s transit decision”, The Toronto Star, February 9, 2012). McGuinty said he reiterated this to Ford last week.

It is telling that it was the legal argument, not the transit experts’ advice or the cost projections, that allowed Transit City’s resurrection. Kudos to Stintz for putting her job on the line: she went public with her opposition to Ford’s transit plan two weeks ago and could easily be unseated a few months from now by the Mayor’s allies on the TTC board, along with TTC chief general manager Gary Webster. And to those who fought the legal battle, including Mihevc and the legal firm of Cavalluzzo, Hayes, Shilton, McIntyre & Cornish. That is one legal report that will go down in history.

Participatory budgeting in Canadian municipalities?

In my previous post, I wrote that many Canadians don’t know much about municipal planning processes, the implications of the legal division of powers in Canada, and what this means for service provision in our cities. In this vein, readers might be interested in some examples of municipal efforts at citizen engagement that go beyond the often-uninspired public meeting.

Participatory budgeting originated in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1989. It’s driven by core principles such as democracy, equity, community, education, and transparency. Thousands of citizens assemble in Porto Alegre each year to elect delegates to represent each city district, prioritize demands, serve on the Municipal Council of the Budget, and produce a binding municipal budget. Proponents of participatory budgeting say that because people with the greatest needs play a larger role in the decision-making process, spending decisions tend to redistribute resources to communities in need. In Porto Alegre, for example, there has been a marked increase in funding for badly-needed sanitary sewer projects and schools. Participatory budgeting is used in about 140 municipalities in Brazil as well as towns and cities in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, India and Africa. It is used for municipal school, university, and public housing budgets.

The process has also been used in several Canadian municipalities: Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) allows its tenants to participate in decision-making on local, neighbourhood and city-wide spending priorities. TCHC’s participatory budgeting process first took place in 2001, when tenants were asked to help decide how to spend $9 million per year (13.5% of TCHC’s budget); 237 local capital projects were funded. In Guelph, residents allocate a small portion of the City’s budget through the Guelph Neighbourhood Support Coalition. Since 1999, neighbourhood groups have been sharing and redistributing resources for local community projects, including recreation programs, youth centres, and physical improvements to community facilities. In 2005 some 10,000 people participated in the process and 460 events and programs were funded.

In a review of participatory budgeting efforts in Canadian cities, Josh Lerner and Estair Van Wagner outline several challenges for participatory budgeting in Canada: the fact that Canadians are extremely diverse in language and culture, the small scale of these efforts so far, the limited power of citizens in the process, the fact that none of them have fundamentally changed their cities’ political systems or created a more progressive social agenda, and the potential for the process to become co-opted by politicians.

City of Calgary "Our City. Our Budget. Our Future."

Other efforts at participatory processes in budget planning have included the Cities of Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. In each case municipal officials encouraged citizens to get involved in the City’s budget planning. For the 2004 City of Toronto budget, Mayor David Miller initiated the Listening to Toronto consultations. A City Budget Community Workbook was posted on the website and seven public sessions were held. This wasn’t participatory budgeting (participants didn’t help formulate priorities that were then adopted); in a process similar to integrating feedback from public meetings, participants’ ideas were used to guide City Council during the drafting of the budget.

In February 2011, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nehshi opened up the budget planning process to the public through a citywide engagement process. In “Our City. Our Budget. Our Future.” the City aimed to help people feel like they were part of the process, make the budgetary process clearer by simplifying communication from city staff, and gather ideas on the budget. Their online budgeting tool allowed users to see how much each department currently spent, and what an increase or decrease in areas like transportation or safety would look like. The City heard from 24,000 people during this process. Again, citizens’ ideas were considered in drafting the budget, which was adopted in November 2011. The new three-year budget resulted in property tax rate increases of 6.0% in 2012, 5.7% in 2013 and 6.1% in 2014 and included (among other things) additional funding of $1 million for Calgary Transit, a reserve fund of $3.5 million for snow clearing in 2013 and 2014, a $225,000 increase to the Calgary Arts Development Authority.

“We used to do things like open houses and town halls when we had those discussions. And what we learned this time around is that the open houses and the town halls are the most expensive and least successful part of the process.”– Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi

A screen shot from the City of Vancouver Budget Allocator

The City of Vancouver followed suit this year, encouraging citizens to get involved in the 2012 budget process. In addition to attending public meetings and completing an online survey on budget priorities, a section of the City’s website lets users to download a primer explaining how the budget works (how the city raises funds, what percentage of taxes goes to pay for utilities, fire and police services, etc.). The interactive tool lets them “be Councillor for a day, see what it costs to run a city.” This simple tool gives you options to remain at the current level of funding or to increase or decrease funding levels in each area. When you’ve finished making your budget, the Budget Allocator tells you whether you have a surplus or a deficit, and how much you would have to raise taxes to cover the increased costs. You can submit your budget, along with the reasons for your choices, directly to city staff: if you’re a local, go to www.talkvancouver.com/Budget 2012 before February 10th to have your say.

In short, there are varying levels of participation in budget processes, from consultation to surveys to participatory budgeting. In addition to various levels of power for the participants, the educational aspects differ as well: one could argue that while Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver have made strides in educating the public on the budgetary process, they stop short of allowing residents to learn how to prioritize spending objectives and vote on them. Nevertheless, Canadians in other municipalities might want to find out how their budget works, when their budget is up for adoption and what the process is for citizen involvement. With so many online and interactive ways to get involved, there seem to be many opportunities to inform and involve communities that may not participate otherwise: young adults, immigrant groups, seniors living in facilities, etc. High school teachers, college and university professor could use the online budgeting tools in civics, planning, political science, or urban studies courses. Immigrant groups could organize online participation at a community event. Residents and health care support workers could help seniors participate. If your municipality doesn’t currently encourage participation in the city budget process, ask your councillor to suggest the idea.

Update: check out the latest national issue of Spacing magazine for integrated approaches to public engagement in Saskatoon, Vancouver, and Halifax (“Speaking with Your City” by Rachel Caroline Derrah).

The problems with democracy

“Rumours of the death of Transit City have been greatly exaggerated.” –Toronto Councillor Joe Mihevc, former vice-chair of the TTC

According to lawyer Freya Kristjanson, an expert in municipal governance, Mayor Rob Ford did not have the right to cancel the Transit City plan without council approval. In an article in today’s Toronto Star, Kristjanson says that generally, executive and legislative powers rest with full council, in a “weak mayor-strong council” system. The City of Toronto Act (2007) requires that any act approved by council must be rescinded or amended by a subsequent vote of council. That includes Transit City. The legal firm of Cavalluzzo, Hayes, Shilton, McIntyre & Cornish, who produced the report, says Transit City was approved by council in 2007 as part of the Climate Change, Clean Air and Sustainable Energy Action Plan. “After that, City Council considered and voted on the necessary elements of the program as they came before council.” So when Mayor Ford signed an MOU with the province pursuing his “subways only” alternative plan, he was acting without legal authority. The lawyers’ report says that council must vote on the MOU for it to be valid; until then, it is only an agreement in principle.

The legal ramifications of Ford’s decision, made on his first day of office in December 2010, are yet to be seen, as are the economic costs (the unofficial estimate is $65 million). When Ford announced his intention to cancel Transit City, city councillors asked the Mayor to put the matter before council, but he refused, denying that the plan ever had council approval. My Toronto readers surely remember that Ford rode a wave of local support to victory, and a provincial election was to be held a mere 10 months after the municipal election; there was significant momentum, legal issues notwithstanding, propelling Ford’s rash decision.

Transit advocates like myself are interested in any policy or procedure that might restore a more balanced transit plan to the City of Toronto (kudos to Marcus Gee at The Globe and Mail, whose frustration at the City of Toronto’s lack of transit infrastructure foresight was unmistakable in “Toronto’s transit planning: No way to run a railway”, Saturday, January 27, 2012).

“Transit planning in Toronto is a colossal, humiliating failure. It is hard to imagine how any city could make a better hash of it…A city cannot act like this and expect to build a decent transit system. Rapid transit requires long-term planning, firm, consistent leadership and huge amounts of money. Cities that do it properly come up with a plan looking decades into the future and stick to it. Toronto? Toronto plays politics, cancels projects in midstream, draws up plans only to rip them up and delays, delays, delays.”–Marcus Gee, The Globe and Mail

But at the heart of this procedural debate is how little most of us know about municipal governance in Canadian cities. All of us, whether we are city councillors, planners, electricians, teachers, service workers, or students, need to familiarize ourselves with municipal and regional governance as it concerns service provision, local by-laws, and local budgetary decisions. Without a certain level of ignorance of our most basic legal principles (or an unwilingness to defend them, take your pick) Ford would never have been able to sign the fated MOU. Yes, legal principles on governance seem dry and uninteresting, and to be fair, the City of Toronto Act is only a few years old, so residents might be forgiven for not knowing all the details. But almost every aspect of our lives, from whether we can get our children into day care centres to whether our snow gets plowed on schedule, depends upon the division of powers between municipalities, the provinces, and the federal government. While Ford’s supporters allege that the defense of weak policy is a reliance on legal procedure, the office of Mayor compels adherence to specific legal procedures. Ford knows that, which is why his decision to cancel the Transit City plan hinged on his denial of its approval by council. Presumably, provincial Premier Dalton McGuinty is also familiar with these procedures from his career as a lawyer; yet, the MOU remains.

Maybe we need a new CBC series on the soap opera that has ensued since Ford took office. “…after DaVinci’s City Hall, tune in for Ford Twinmayor: Riding the Gravy Train.”

Update: Toronto City Council will vote at a special meeting on Wednesday, February 8th on whether to tunnel the entire Eglington line or bring the eastern end to the surface, using the savings to introduce light rail on Finch and Sheppard Avenues.

The dream is alive in the Great White North

We can all rest easy. Despite many studies showing increased income inequality and a shrinking middle class in Canada, a rags-to-riches story is more likely to happen here than in the “land of opportunity.”

University of Ottawa professor Miles Corak, a social policy economist and former director of family and labour research at Statistics Canada, and his co-authors Lori Curtis (Professor of Economics, University of Waterloo) and Shelley Phipps (Professor of Economics, Dalhousie University) found that Canadians are three times more economically mobile than those in the US. The difference is largely due to those at the very top and the very bottom of the income distribution. In Economic Mobility, Family Background, and the Well-Being of Children in the United States and Canada, the three researchers found that social supports such as the Child Tax Credit, paid parental leave benefits, and schools funded through provincial income taxes help ensure that children receive better care and schooling than in the US, where these supports are absent and schools are funded through local property taxes, leaving poor neighbourhoods with failing schools. With sky-high tuition fees at universities, the richest Americans can buy their children the best educations and tutors. These differences between rich and poor mean that if you’re born poor in the US, you tend to stay poor; this also applies to the 1%–the very top of the income pyramid. For example, although “the average Canadian child is not as affluent as the average American, the poorest Canadian is not as poor in an absolute sense as Americans at the bottom of the income distribution.” This may help explain why discussions of class are more prevalent in the American literature and popular press.

The authors caution that rising income inequality rates in Canada could erode the high rate of economic mobility that we see now. Indeed, a look at their graphs shows that we still have issues: 15% our poorest children may still grow up to have incomes in the lowest decile (Figure 3, p7), but they have a better chance at the 7th, 8th, and 9th deciles than they do in the US. More Canadian children are born in the lower income deciles than American children (Figure 8, p33). But Table 1 (p21) shows some clear differences in the characteristics of families and parents. In Canada, 2.1% of children are born to teenage mothers; in the US, it’s 8.3%. In Canada, 14.9% of mothers are single compared to 22.1% in the US. Far more mothers and lone mothers in Canada have completed some post-secondary education or a post-secondary certificate (but oddly, more American mothers have completed degrees). Health problems among the poorest mothers are also more prevalent in the US, likely due to the cost of health care. As the authors suggest, Canadians must protect policies such as paid parental leave, the right to return to their jobs after the birth of a child, tax-transfer programs that help reduce the severity of poverty, and funding for schools through provincial income tax, ensuring a more equal distribution of resources across municipalities and neighbourhoods. Although we have fewer barriers to health care, we need to ensure the lower-income population has sufficient knowledge on navigating the health care system and can pay for prescription medication.

Corak, Curtis and Phipps write that “The citizens of both countries have a similar understanding of a successful life, one that is rooted in individual aspirations and freedom. They also have similar views on how these goals should be attained, but with one important exception: Americans differ in that they are more likely to see the State hindering rather than helping the attainment of these goals. Yet, at the same time the citizens of both countries recognize the need for public policy to contribute to reaching this ideal, with Americans believing more than Canadians that a whole host of interventions would be effective in improving the prospects for economic mobility. One interpretation of these findings – an interpretation that only becomes evident in a comparative context – is that in some sense this need is going unmet in the United States.”

Economics 101

Obviously, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford only has a cursory knowledge of economics. He was, after all, elected to “trim the fat” from a city budget that he considered overflowing with “gravy”. He said he could do this without cutting city services. And yet, while city services get hacked to the bone, high-profile citizens like Margaret Atwood campaign to save Toronto library branches from closure, and nearly 1200 City employees await pink slips, Ford has personally wasted about $65 million.

As many of you know, Ford’s first order of business when he was sworn into office last December was to cancel Transit City. I leave aside the insanity of refusing to implement provincially-funded transit infrastructure in the largest city in the country. I won’t go into the fact that increases in TTC ridership actually resulted in a $60 million budget surplus in 2010 and the system even saw a 3% increase in 2011 (in what world is high transit ridership rewarded with intense cuts to transit services?) I won’t even dwell on the Scarborough LRT riders who will now be forced to ride buses for four years while their crumbling line is rebuilt. I will concentrate on just one fact: the man who said he could save taxpayers’ money already cost them millions of dollars in cancellation costs. In a single day: his first day in office.

Now, I’m no economist. But clearly, neither is Ford. The false duality between services or no services is a device often raised by the balance-the-budget crowd to enable cuts. Canada’s largest public-sector union recently slammed the federal government for forcing Canadians to make an “absurd choice” between a balanced budget and strong public services. Among the services provided by the Public Services Alliance of Canada are environmental protection, food inspection, infectious disease tracking and search-and-rescue. After years of fiscal restraint, PSAC is concerned that a government-wide austerity program will seriously disrupt services in communities across the country. Do we really want to risk increases in E. coli or Avian flu in our cities just to save a few bucks? As we enter the winter months, does decreasing search-and-rescue funding make sense? PSAC insists that balancing spending and services doesn’t require an either-or choice (check out their hilarious videos at ThirdChoice.ca).

As Jim Stanford writes in The Globe and Mail, running a government like a corporation cannot possibly work: while Canadian corporations have retained strong profit margins and benefitted from tax cuts, they’re too spooked by recent financial chaos to actually spend their growing cash hoard. Their reticence is deeply damaging to the system as a whole. Stanford argues that governments shouldn’t focus on decreasing their own spending and debt, but on getting people back to work. And for that, they need more spending, not less. Increased government spending during recessions has been a staple since the Great Depession. You would think Mayor Ford might have learned that over the course of multiple recessions in Ontario.

Ren Thomas

M.A., Ph.D. (Planning)