City services: Something's gotta give

Recently I've been chatting with friends about how tax money is spent on city services. Torontonians expect the city to operate smoothly, and when glitches occur, we notice. Whether it's the efficiency of garbage pick-up, the quality of TTC service, the condition of our city streets, the presence of public libraries and public health services, or the cleanliness of our parks and attractions, we expect a lot from our city.

My husband and I own our home and the property taxes we pay are not insignificant. I understand the principles of give and take - living in the city is expensive, but we have beautiful parks, many public services for children, families and the elderly, a world-class public library system, and decent roads. The city water I drink is clean and tastes good. The TTC, for all its recent troubles, gets me to where I need to go. Those of us who commute by bike are fortunate to be able to do so fairly safely.

But of course, there is never enough money for everything. Specifically, not enough tax money is generated to support the wide range of city services we want and expect. You can see at a glance what I mean when you take a look at this chart illustrating city expenses vs. city revenues provided by the City of Toronto web site.

So, what's a city to do? The answer is, we must compromise. But how, and on what?

In upcoming weeks and months, the mayoral candidates will be ramping up their campaigns. When listening to the positions and promises from the candidates, consider framing their arguments through a different lens: rather than focusing on what you want from your city, consider what you'd be willing to give up.

In a world of limited resources, where are you willing to compromise? Would you trade improved TTC service in exchange for reduced health resources for families and seniors? Would you pay more for public child care in exchange for more frequent garbage pick-up? How do you compare the need for affordable housing with the demand for clean water?

I certainly don't have the answers, but it's a different way of thinking about the candidates, and it's a perspective I'm going to try. At the very least, it will provide me with a new way of evaluating the campaigns as we get closer to Election Day on October 25.

About Kimberly Silk

A taxing situation

The constant call for cutting taxes that is used to troll for votes on the right -- along with more police and less gay pride -- tends to reverberate well among a number of the better off, especially those who feel victimized by having to contribute to the communal pot. It seems this group will always find and support a simplistic and bombastic candidate for mayor, as long as the mantra of less taxes and less government is first and foremost.  It would seem to be the only criteria that counts.

It puzzles me as to why some folks chose to live in Toronto while at the same time actively trying to dismantle what makes this city a worthy address. 

What are the benefits of being a city dweller? Step out your door and look around.  First and foremost, the diversity of languages, colours, dress and class. I remember old Toronto, having spent a year here in 1968: how terribly white and plain and stuffy and cold after the streets and sights of Montreal.  I couldn't wait to leave.  Now I can't imagine living anywhere else.

And then there are the summers, the public concerts, the celebrations, the book fairs, the arts, the joy of meeting new people, hearing new music, watching good documentaries.  And the food, every possible taste, every exotic spice, if you can afford to eat, you are in the best place in the world to do so.

The different neighbourhoods, the public offerings of individual gardeners, the glorious trees, the relatively clean sidewalks and streets, the parks, big and small, the lake and yes, even the streetcars all enhance our lives. 

We put our garbage out on the curb, and a truck comes and takes it away.  We bring our children to day care, and there are staff there to welcome them. Restaurants are inspected, our water is monitored, our drive home kept safe by patrol cars, and our lives protected by firefighters. Living in community means sharing, it's pooling and growing our tax dollars so that we have big buying power, to keep our transit running,  our garbage collected, our food safe.

We can't go back to having a city in constant turmoil, to having a populist for mayor who appeals to greed and the "I'm alright Jack" mentality of gated communities and gated lives. Toronto deserves better, we all deserve better. 

So ask yourself, what's this city worth? 

Preserve the gains Toronto has made.  Speak up for the city.  Speak out for good government, and our need to ensure it has the funds to govern well.

About Pat Capponi

Sex for Life and other lessons in leadership...

TV, billboards, posters around the city… Everything is saturated in sex. What's a 9 year old to do?

Last week, looped into helping with my daughter’s Grade 3 field trip, I spent a solid hour on the TTC with twenty 8 and 9 year olds … Eye-opening to say the least.

Somewhere on the Yonge line, one boy loudly blurts out: “SEX FOR LIFE”, and much giggling ensues. Following his gaze leads me to that all-too-familiar subway ad. Aha. The boy then proceeds to read out the entire ad.

Erectile dysfunction, anyone?

Much more giggling, whispers of "what does that mean" and then more whispers, leave me wondering how one 9-year old explains erectile dysfunction to another 9-year old?

I’m agog that the Premier has backed-off updating sexual education programs in schools. Aside from the unending ridicule he will face over his flip-flopping, lily-livered lack of leadership, it’s a move in the wrong direction.

Speak to anyone working in sexual health or public health and they will tell you that many children are simply not being taught these things at home. They are learning it from similarly misinformed friends, TV, movies and the Internet. And what they are learning is not always positive or healthy.

Meanwhile, Toronto Public Health assigns sexual health educators to work with schools, but I gather they are assigned to 10-20 schools each, in addition to their other responsibilities.

So, with such a lack of leadership on the provincial front, if we are going to rely on parents to actually feel comfortable enough to speak with their children about sexuality, I guess we also have to work on that parent comfort-zone. Our City is as good a place to start as any.

To that end, let’s look again at what our own city is doing right. Toronto Public Health has a program underway called “Raising Sexually Healthy Children Peer Parent Leadership Training.”

To date, 106 parents from seven cultural communities have graduated from the program and themselves have become Parent Mentors in their community. Some of these Parent Mentors are now running their own workshops within their communities, answering questions that are often considered taboo, and helping to develop language and culturally specific sexual health resources for use in those communities.

So, how do we get parents to embrace and support sexual education in schools, and demand as much from government? Well, I suppose we need to educate the parents. Teaching sexual education in schools does not remove parental responsibility for sexual education.

We need to help clear up the confusing messages are kids are getting (those whispers on the subway) and use that as an opportunity to share our own family and cultural values with them. And while we bulk up on the courage-front and learn about leadership, we can show Dalton McGuinty how it’s done.

About Marit Stiles

Hello surplus! Let's talk child care!

I’m choking back the tears. I mean, let me get this straight: the Tories promise a surplus and give us a deficit, but Mayor David Miller gives us a surplus and he’s slammed for it?

Perhaps it was the show he made of it, but let me tell you I am breathing a sigh of relief that SOMEONE has been handling our finances to the point where we have more and not less… unlike --and indeed in spite of -- other levels of government.

Let’s think for a second about an issue that is dear to the hearts (and pocketbooks) of many Toronto families: child care. For working parents in this city, child care is a constant concern.

Toronto is full of women who have toddled into every day care they could find, while still pregnant, to get their names on waiting lists. And even then, they are told their chances of finding a spot, when and where they need it most, are slim to none. Just this week a single working mother in my neighbourhood was told her child can’t go to our neighbourhood school because there simply aren’t any spots available in local day cares. And she doesn’t need a subsidized spot.

The federal and provincial governments have dropped the childcare ball, and we – the working families they scramble to embrace in their rhetoric – are left juggling increasingly outrageous daycare fees (for example, for one child in kindergarten and one in after-school care, you will be paying close to $20,000/year for daycare). Meanwhile, families with subsidized spaces teeter on the edge of losing their subsidy, and daycare workers remain some of the most overworked and underpaid.

The provincial and federal budgets failed to step up to the plate. All they had to do was come up with a paltry $63.5-million to save 8,000 subsidized spaces. And then, to top it off, city staff propose to cut rent subsidies for some day cares …adding $60-80 a month to fees. That’s enough to push anyone over the edge!

Our little day care is run by a board of parent volunteers, all of us struggling to understand the extraordinarily complex finances involved in running a not-for-profit day care. Right now, we are in the midst of trying to figure out how to keep the day care afloat, trying to ensure that once the much-welcome all-day learning comes to fruition, we will still have enough day care spaces – throughout the city – to accommodate the infants and toddlers and preschoolers…

So, hello surplus. I welcome you with open arms and hopeful heart.

If you are a parent with kids in child care or you ever expect to be one, join in the call for support for child care. Tell the city to shelve the plan to cut the rent subsidy. And celebrate the fact that things at least didn’t get worse...