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.

Several Canadian municipalities have also used the process: 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, Daniel Chavez and Einar Braathen 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 Budget planning website

Other efforts at participatory processes in budget planning have included the Cities ofToronto, 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.

“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

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.

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.

“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.”

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.”

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.

Recently, journalist Neal Peirce advocated the return of rooming houses to address the need for smaller, more affordable units for young people, who have been adversely affected by the US recession (“Bring back the rooming house?” citiwire.net, November 12, 2011). Like other notable writers (Edward Glaeser, Richard Florida, Mark Hinshaw, Joanna Pachner), Peirce argues that it’s time to turn a new page on the postwar suburban single-family home:

“Unquestionably, tens of millions of oncoming youth will disconnect from the American vision of home as a “homestead”–the self-contained units of our American forbears, translated since World War II by a suburban home occupying its own lot.”  Neal Peirce, Washington Post Writers Group (citiwire.net)

Among the reasons young people will need new, affordable housing options: lower salaries, lower employment rates, delayed marriage resulting in more single-person households, a desire to live in mixed-use neighbourhoods near transit, and lower car ownership (does this sound familiar?) In Canada, the rising demographics (youth and young adults, immigrants, single-person and single-parent households, seniors) would probably jump at the chance to live in rooming houses, worker housing or affordable rental units, considering housing prices across the country. For example, where do you live if you’re an immigrant in Canada on a temporary worker permit? Your only real choice is renting a market-rate apartment, likely sharing with people you scarcely know. Downsizing senior? Good luck finding a condo that costs less than your house once maintenance fees are added in. Young adult working in your first job? You’ll be forking over about one-third of your salary to rent, even if you live in a mid-sized city.

Hinshaw, a Seattle-based architect and planner, argues that the recession has forced cities to think about Smart Growth rather than rushing forward into new development faster than public investments can be made (“Recession is producing a needed reset on land use”, www.crosscut.com, September 30, 2011). Now, cities and counties have the time to decide how and where to move forward. Some areas where local governments have made progress, according to Hinshaw: economic development through the construction of shared public spaces, redesigning streets to encourage different travel modes, and the development of rental housing.

“For far too long, elected officials and citizen groups have treated apartment developments like a pariah, relegating them to noisy arterial streets or slamming them behind strip malls. It’s as if only decent folk are those who own single family homes. If we learned anything from the past five years it is that the American ideal of home ownership has been cruelly oversold.”  Mark Hinshaw, www.crosscut.com

Changing development conditions (stricter lending standards, foreclosures, and a rapidly growing rental market) have made investing in multi-family rental housing a safe move for developers who, just a couple of years ago, would have built high-rise condos. Increased demand for rental units has resulted in rent increases in many cities that can provide developers a reasonable return on their investments (“Demand for Denver apartments exceeds supply”, November 29, 2011, NPR). NPR reports that this could be a lasting trend; one that harkens back to an era of when renting was more common than owning in many countries. In Canada, for example, pressing postwar housing needs were met through a boom in apartment construction during the 1950s.

If only Canadian provincial and federal governments would enable developers to build rental housing, rooming houses, granny flats and other housing types that would provide alternatives for various demographic and income groups. We’d have to turn back the clock to the 1970s, when experiments like co-operative housing became popular in Canada as foreclosures and interest rates rose. It seems that during economic crises, homeownership loses its rosy glow. Renting, co-housing, co-operatives, rooming houses, and rent subsidies make more sense to policy makers, developers, and planners during economic downturns, when few can afford to buy and governments are too poor to subsidize ownership. And yet, as all the authors cited in this article point out, North Americans still display a slavish dedication to the “dream of homeownership”; most have long forgotten that the “dream” was enabled by dirt-cheap postwar mortgages, artificially-low interest rates and government incentives for first-time homebuyers. If the current rental housing trend persists for more than five years in the US, and Canada finally passes its national affordable housing strategy, we might see the beginnings of a paradigm shift to rival the one that gave us single-family suburban homeownership in the first place.

This week, FCM and the Canadian Urban Transit Association met with members of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities to discuss the idea of a National Public Transit Strategy. They argued that fast and efficient transportation connections through public transit are crucial to strengthening the economy. MP Olivia Chow, NDP critic for transport and infrastructure, introduced a private member’s bill on September 30th (Bill C-615, An Act to Create a National Public Transit Strategy) calling for the federal government to work with municipalities in the creation of a national transit strategy and create a stable source of funding for municipalities. She noted the economic benefits and the disadvantages of long commute times: Canada’s big city mayors have been pushing for a national strategy since 2007. In the CBC’s unofficial poll on this topic, 88% of readers agreed that Canada needs a national transit strategy. I needn’t go into this issue here in Vancouver: this week, an Angus Reid poll of 504 Vancouver residents showed that 85% want improvements to transit service and 75% felt those improvements should be funded by the provincial government. As I wrote in my last post, the Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation votes today on the adoption of the Moving Forward strategic plan, which includes a 2% hike in property taxes and the beginnings of a new provincial-municipal funding agreement to help pay for transit improvements.

It looks like public transit is becoming a hot issue among cities of all sizes. The Regional Municipal of Waterloo is in the process of constructing an LRT line (currently in the planning process) funded by the provincial and federal governments. A strong motivation for the Region, which includes the municipalities of Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo, was increased immigration to the area, a point they raised at this year’s Metropolis Conference on Immigration and Migration in Vancouver. It’s very humbling to see the recommendations I made in my Ph.D. dissertation being echoed at the municipal, regional and federal levels. Considering the numbers of immigrants settling in Canadian cities every year (approximately 250,000 Permanent Residents and 200,000 Temporary Workers), governments need to do a better job of helping them integrate, and that includes more housing and transportation options. Maybe after decades of research and policy innovation in municipalities, we’re finally reaching the tipping point: let’s keep a close watch on Bill C-615 and Bill C-304, the bill creating a national affordable housing strategy, which passed third reading in the House of Commons last year and is now under Senate consideration.

The mayors cite increased traffic levels and the 19.6 percent jump in transit ridership from June 2010 to July 2011 (due to transportation mode shifts during the Olympics) as proof that the region is overdue for transit improvements. 2011-2012 is shaping up to be another record year. They also reflect on the vision of previous leaders, who in 1980 struggled with the concept of rapid transit lines but eventually decided in favour of them. Clearly, they see themselves in sync with the region’s early strides towards sustainability.

“We have had the debate. Now we must move from words to deeds. The decision we make on Friday will forge the path Greater Vancouver so badly needs. Passing the 2012 Supplemental Plan is the right decision for Metro Vancouver’s transportation system, economy, and future livability.” –Dianne Watts, Peter Fassbender, Richard Walton, Gregor Robertson, Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, Greg Moore, and Richard Stewart

However, the municipalities of Burnaby, Richmond, the City of North Vancouver, Delta, and Langley Township have said they will probably vote against the plan. This is surprising considering TransLink’s extensive public consultation during the creation of Moving Forward showed that 80% of those consulted agreed with the proposed improvements and 75% said the Evergreen Line was important in reaching the goals outlined in Transport 2040, the regional transportation strategy. It’s also surprising considering Burnaby and Richmond have both been big winners in terms of transit infrastructure: the three existing LRT lines have paid off for them. With municipal elections a mere five weeks away (November 16th), the stakes are high; yet the stakes for the region have never been higher.

Update: The Mayors’ Council voted to support the Moving Forward Plan with 70% support from its 22 members.

A sign in Portland's Pearl District

Stereotypes of urban groups are well-known: hipsters, yuppies, DINKs, soccer moms. Writers exaggerate them for comic effect: we’re all familiar with the suburban family (starting way back with Leave it to Beaver), the glamorous single girls (Sex in the City), and the teen misfits (Degrassi, Glee). Urban cultures are also contrasted: in Hot in Cleveland, four L.A. women decide to move to Cleveland when the local men show a lot of interest in them. In real life, there’s practically a cultural divide between the urban lifestyles of Toronto and Vancouver, or New York and L.A.

Portland can be characterized as a West Coast city, with its attention to local food, emphasis on physical activity, and enormous variety of independent retailers. You’ve all seen the video clip by now: a couple of hipsters grill a waitress about just how local their chicken is, and are presented with every minute detail of their dinner’s upbringing, habitat size and even its name. The series Portlandia has become somewhat of a cult classic in its portrayal of overzealous hipster culture: it parodies fixi bikes, facial hair, animal protection, and independent bookstores. My first visit to Portland occurred last week, before I’d seen a single episode of the show. So how do Portlanders measure up to their stereotypes?

Many have written about Portland’s devotion to public transit and urban planning initiatives, including the urban growth boundary adopted in 1976. To the tome of articles written on this topic, I have nothing more to add: I also found travelling in Portland quite easy thanks to the streetcar, which extends to the northwest neighbourhood where I was staying, and the MAX LRT lines. I could walk to the Pearl District, home to many independent shops including the legendary Powell’s Books. But I suspect that I got to know Portland in somewhat of a unique way: through food. Specifically, gluten-free food.

Food cart "pod" downtown

Travelling with dietary restrictions can be brutal, especially if we’re talking about allergies or other life-threatening conditions, as opposed to our militant foodies in Portlandia’s pilot episode. Put a couple of these conditions together and it can be really difficult to find anything to nosh: I vividly recall planning a high school camping trip with a vegetarian, a celiac, and a dairy allergic among our party of six. Now, in Vancouver there’s no shortage of restaurants catering to every dietary need (or people with dietary needs). Recently, my husband and I went to a gluten-free dinner at Whole Foods to learn recipes that he can safely eat. There, we met two women who blog on gluten-free restaurants and products in Vancouver (glutenfree-vancouver.blogspot.com). Based on this experience, we decided to search for a similar website on Portland. And there it was: Gluten Free Portland (www.glutenfreeportland.org). Thanks to their restaurant list and Google maps, we were able to find places all over the city that met my husband’s celiac needs: in fact, we wanted to try the restaurants so much that we actually explored neighbourhoods that we probably wouldn’t have, including the Hawthorne District and the Belmont area.

Local winery

The neighbourhoods are Portland, with main streets full of shops, restaurants, and food carts that have more or less become permanent installations: one coffee cart had an attached seating area with stools and a corrugated plastic roof. There were even “pods” of food carts with four or five vendors in a row. We feasted on fried yucca and quinoa-breaded shrimp, drank hazelnut milk, and tasted the local wines. These folks do, indeed, take their food seriously. One restaurant had a cheese menu as extensive than their wine list, mostly sourced from Oregon dairies.

Within 40 minutes of Portland, wineries share the land with hazelnut orchards, grazing horses and alpacas, corn fields, and dairy farms. I doubt that any of this is an accident: the Portland/Multnomah Food Policy Council runs immigrant farmer workshops, completed an inventory of city-owned land available for urban agriculture, awarded Portland State University $125,000 to initiate its Learning Garden Laboratory, and addressed food security in Lents with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

So is Portland, in fact, Portlandia? Well…yes. At one point, two bearded men in their mid-20s strode towards each other on Belmont, and one said to the other, “Hey man, what it is,” despite the fact that it is not 1971. (My husband and I burst out laughing, as we strode out of yet another gluten-free bakery). The same urban stereotypes can be found in Vancouver, Toronto, London, and Melbourne, but Portlandia writers really know their subject material!

It is a sad reality that Layton, who led the NDP to its most powerful position in its 50-year history, should not live to see the next Parliamentary session. Layton lost his battle with cancer quite quickly and unexpectedly in the early hours of Monday, August 22nd, and a nation mourns his passing. Many of us were looking forward to his sharp debating tactics and keen insights while defending the working class, urging protection of the environment, and supporting urban issues in Stephen Harper’s first majority government. The NDP as Loyal Opposition was the sole consolation, many of us believed, for the unsettling Conservative majority that came about on May 2nd after polls had consistently predicted another minority government.

Layton was a true leader: charismatic, passionate, fair, and deeply committed. And yet, he embodied contrasts. Layton grew up in a home steeped in politics; his father, was Conservative MP Robert Layton and his mother, Doris Steeves, was a grand-niece of William Steeves, a Father of Confederation. Although he received a Ph.D. in political science and taught at Ryerson University, Layton moved quickly  into public life as a Toronto city councillor. From 1984 to 1991, Layton was one of a handful of left-wing councillors, known for cycling, coming to council meetings in jeans and opposing mega-projects such as SkyDome. He became head of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in the mid-1990s. After a couple of unsuccessful campaigns to become an MP, he was elected leader of the NDP in 2003; he won the Toronto-Danforth seat in a 2004 by-election.

Like many politicians, Layton worked hard at refining his image, crafting his responses to the media and developing insightful critiques of policies and agendas. He made lots of public appearance and became something of a media darling in the 2000s; “Smilin’ Jack”, he had become. He wasn’t universally popular; no NDP leader could be. Yet there was something real, something of the ordinary and everyday Canadian, that remained in that calm, well-honed political persona. As John Ibbitson writes, “Always there was, at his centre, this unshakable belief in social justice, married to principled conviction that politicians should treat each other and the voters who gave them their mandate with some measure of decency and respect.” That honesty shone through this spring’s campaign trail, as Layton poured beers at a Montreal bar and sparred with Michael Ignatieff during the English-language debate. Despite his education, his political lineage, and his polished public image, Layton appealed to Canadians as the guy next door, the politician you’d most like to have over for drinks. Compared to Ignatieff, who struggled to connect with voters not just because of his Ph.D., but because he did not appear to have an unwavering commitment to Canadians or to the public service, Layton appeared dedicated and genuine.

Layton’s commitment to public service were evident even when, less than a month ago, he disclosed that he was fighting a new type of cancer. He promised to take a few months over to deal with his health and then return when Parliament resumed in September. As The Globe and Mail reports, he met with NDP staff just two days before his death to hammer out two letters: one to Canadians, and the second to his party outlining the direction for the coming months. As always, he was optimistic, but also realistic:

“Hope and optimism have defined my political career. … As my time in political life draws to a close, I want to share with you my belief in your power to change this country and this world. Your energy, your vision, your passion for justice are exactly what this country needs today.” Jack Layton, August 20, 2011

Jack Layton’s death will rock the NDP’s foundations as much as the death of its first leader, Tommy Douglas, who also died of cancer after a political career that shaped this country through the introduction of its most cherished social welfare programs. The NDP will struggle rudderless during the months to come, but they will be the Official Opposition for at least four years. They will have to quickly elect a new leader and work desperately to maintain a strong presence in Parliament among the Canadians who voted for Jack, and not necessarily the NDP.

I only saw Jack one other time, also at a distance. A few years ago he was in Vancouver for the annual Gay Pride Parade, where he rode in a car festooned with orange NDP balloons, waving and smiling at the thousands who lined Denman Street in support of the LGBT community. He was present just six weeks ago at Toronto’s Pride Parade, an event that Mayor Rob Ford boycotted. In the jaded world of politics, Jack Layton had an integrity that spoke to Canadians regardless of their political leanings: he was committed to doing what he believed was right. He now stands among those great Canadians who fought for the greater good–Tommy Douglas, Nellie McClung, Pierre Trudeau, Terry Fox, Lester B. Pearson–whose deaths struck us to our very cores. Canada was built upon the work of these.

Until now, the city has remained in limbo in terms of building affordable housing, despite millions of dollars in contributions to its Affordable Housing Fund through density bonusing and a 20% social housing requirement for major rezonings of lands to multiunit residential use. Leaving construction of affordable homes to private developers hasn’t worked, so the city will partner with developers by providing grants and land in exchange for social and supportive units. The city will also lever its land resources and capital projects against funding from provincial and federal governments. The plan also calls for the city to approve more laneway housing and secondary suites. New affordable rental units have been achieved recently through the City’s Short Term Incentives for Rental Housing (STIR) initiative.

Like many municipalities tired of playing chicken with upper levels of government, Vancouver now has its foot firmly on the accelerator. The housing affordability crisis in Canada has reached ridiculous proportions, but we’re still working on the national affordable housing strategy (Bill-C-304), which passed third reading in the House of Commons and is now under Senate consideration. Industry warnings of a housing market collapse have been circulated. And yet, the price of renting has increased much slower than the price of ownership over the past twenty years, as Canadian Business illustrated recently (“Rental Complex”, July 14, 2011). This article, the latest in a series of pieces in the popular press exploring the follies of ownership in today’s market, exposes the increasingly doomed love affair Canadians seem to have with homeownership:

“With widespread warnings that we’re approaching the peak of the housing boom, with Canadians more indebted than ever…why aren’t more of us re-examining the math? The reasons are cultural and emotional, backed by ill-conceived public policy. This Canadian Dream is an expensive delusion. There’s never been a better time to rent.” Joanna Pachner, Canadian Business

Along with increased acceptance of renting, the fallout from the US mortgage crisis includes recognition that the suburban, single-family home is no longer in huge demand: households without kids will increase by 90% from 2010 to 2020, according to Arthur Nelson, professor of planning at the University of Utah. This means far fewer buyers than sellers for single-family housing and an increased demand for multi-family and rental housing. As demographics and attitudes towards housing shift, the City of Vancouver is once again on the leading edge of policy innovation, though the plan is not without its critics. Hopefully elements of the plan will be evaluated throughout implementation, and discussed in other municipalities, which could help accelerate Bill C-304: the absence of a national affordable housing strategy has been holding up programs and funding between all three levels of government.