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

Poverty is not just about the money

Last week Catherine Porter wrote an excellent column in The Star titled “Playground politics are unfair” where she explained how Thorncliffe Park lacks a playground despite having the largest child population in the city. Actually they had one, which “was ripped out in 2006 after it was deemed unsafe by city inspectors.” Its replacement is slated for: 2015. Yes, 10 years to get a replacement playground.

By coincidence, this week as part of the work that I do leading the non-profit 8-80 Cities, we had presentations, workshops and interviews with the Thorncliffe Park community. Not only was I able to confirm this sad reality, but also visited an elementary school which has over 600 students in JK classes; how can you provide personalized education in that environment?

Parks and small schools are becoming a luxury that only the rich neighbourhoods have access to and this is wrong. It seems very Canadian to pride ourselves on being an egalitarian society, but the social and economic divide is growing in Toronto and across Canada. More than one in five households in Toronto lives under the poverty cut-off, in Thorncliffe Park it is 47 per cent, almost one in two, and there are poorer neighbourhoods.

Next door, Flemingdon Park does not even have a grocery store. Both are terrible places for pedestrians, cyclists and transit is proportionally extremely expensive. The bus stops are dirty and deteriorated.

Who wants to live in a neighbourhood if you take your children to the park and you find out that there is no playground and its replacement will be installed in 10 years? How about in a place with no grocery stores, which means that you need to travel long distances just to buy eggs or milk, probably paying more for transportation than the milk itself? No wonder we found most people in a transitory mood, as if wishing to get a bit of money to get out of that neighbourhood as fast as possible. And this is very wrong.

Now the news is that the Harper government has decided to purchase 65 war planes at $160 million each for a total of $9 billion, which added the maintenance contract totals $16 billion. This is in the middle of an economic crisis and done by a government asking the citizens for austerity.

When we spend $16 billion in war planes and over $1 billion in security for the G20 meeting but does not have $120,000 for a playground in the neighbourhood with the highest rate of children in the city, we have a problem with our priorities. By the way, the money spent in one fighter plane could buy 2,051 playgrounds.

Last year the City of Toronto, the government of Ontario and the federal government joined forces to spend $2.6 billion to build 8 km of subway in Vaughan, which will not solve any major transportation issue in Toronto. A Bus Rapid Transit could have been done for 10 per cent of that cost or a Light Rail for 20 per cent, satisfying current and future needs and leaving money for all the pedestrian and protected bikeway infrastructure in the entire GTA.

Wouldn’t it be nice if they joined forces to end poverty in Toronto? They might not be able to provide housing for all in the short term, but relatively quickly they could provide magnificent public parks for all, as well as state of the art schools, safe and beautiful sidewalks, crosswalks, a grid of protected bikeways linking all places of origin and destination in the city.

This would certainly contribute to really having a more egalitarian city, with healthier and happier residents, who would strengthen their sense of belonging, for new and old Canadians alike. Along the way, they would also improve the transportation system, end up with a cleaner environment and have a more vibrant Toronto.

Ending poverty is NOT a technical or financial issue: it is political.

About Gil Penalosa

Budget for an active Toronto

I am one of those people that anxiously awaits the always entertaining federal and provincial budget announcements every year from Ottawa. I hope for the best, expect the worst and keep my fingers crossed that maybe this will be the day that they wake up and realize what will actually make this country and our cities a better place. 

I have to admit, though, I am constantly amused by the number of complaints upon complaints from every single person that wants their needs to be met, their programs to be flooded with resources and their lives to be bettered. I find it ironic that it becomes a battle between provinces and a clash between people and certain groups that are all out for "me."

To be honest, I am not going to sit here and say that I haven't thought of my needs over others and preach to all of you to be more altruistic. But I will say that on the whole I think we all need to commit to think about what's best for all of us: WE all owe it to each other to make this a better place to live.

Realistically, it all ends up with the privileged few politicians that hold the fate of our city in their hands. The last few years it has become increasingly more apparent that Toronto has one of the largest municipal infrastructure deficits across the nation. This has been a weight that we have been struggling under for years and it shows. 

In November 2009, the city declared that more than half of its capital budget for 2010 will be going towards the maintenance and expansion of the TTC. Actually, transportation is eating up about 70 per cent of the entire budget over the next 10 years, putting aside $11.7 billion.

To put it into perspective, Toronto is already running a $382 million debt and balancing the books calls for, you guessed it, higher taxes and service cuts. But hey, we're going to have some new streetcars out of it. This is a classic case of when all else fails, just cut programs. It seems to be the easiest thing for our government, so they can say they're helping our city by getting us out of debt, when in fact hundreds of thousands of people are going to suffer for it. 

Last year 39 public pools were closed leaving 700,000 kids, students, athletes and adults with nowhere to go for physical activity. With not only childhood, but adult obesity on the rise and health care costs going through the roof, we are cutting after-school programs and increasing the time our citizens can opt for the couch over getting active. You'll be hard pressed to find modern, up-to-date community centres in areas that are desperate for that kind of facility. The access to get active is lacking.

The connection between sport, physical activity and health is a no-brainer. We know this, our politicians know this. By investing in real, quality programming through schools, community centres and local recreational groups, there is the great potential to reach the lives of thousands of Torontonians. Healthcare costs would decrease, albeit not over night, but the development of a city that prides itself on being active is a long-term solution that would dramatically help these costs over time. 

Cutting services and programs is just a means to look good on paper, but off the page is an uglier picture that even a smoother road or faster streetcar can't fix. 

About Alexandra Orlando

Food for thought

Okay Toronto, so Canadian spuds are duds. No surprise there. After all, we are at war with the ailments of the world (bird flu, mad cow et al.) and using our culinary arsenal of “good fat” (thanks Omega 3), immunity building boosters (yes, I mean ginger) and memory building wonder foods (blueberries anyone?) to demolish the enemy. French fries only slowed us down. It was dead weight that found itself wrapped snugly around our mid-sections, taunting our hearts and arteries to concede defeat.

Nope, French fries are not our friends. But what about couscous? Or oxtail? Or pho?

Where am I going with this? I’m talking about Toronto as the covert culinary Canaan of Canada. Translation: Toronto as the city that takes its unique position as a potential food mecca for granted.

Toronto, we are a city that prides itself on diversity (albeit superficial, sometimes). This diversity is often reflected in the endless options to satiate the stomach and the soul. Craving Greek food? Hit the Danforth. Looking for some good jerk chicken? That’s Eglinton West. Good Pho? St. Clair and Old Weston Road. And that isn’t including the suburban gems in places like Etobicoke (i.e. Anatolia), Scarborough (Johnny’s), North York ( Pepper’s) etc.

With so much choice, it’s a wonder how anyone goes hungry around here. And yet every month more than 85,000 people visit food banks like Daily Bread Food Bank to get their daily bread.

Food is a right and we are a city of plenty. We just have the distribution of plenty a bit skewed. The gap between rich and poor is exacerbated by the gap between the hungry and well-nourished.

With a little bit of innovation, ambition and creativity, that can change. Organizations like Evergreen and Food Share are creating ways (via the Brick Works and the Good Food Box, respectively) that completely reconfigure people’s relationship to the ways food is made, distributed and eaten. As cliche as it sounds, the food movement is pretty revolutionary because the beneficiaries include everyone.

Let’s become a city that uses our culinary diversity to attract tourists and mobilize residents.

What's the benefit, you ask? A focus on food also means a focus on health, particularly as it relates to what we consume.

This kind of attention to food consumption also wonderfully lends itself to food production, that is the environmental conditions and the technology used.

The element that makes this approach unique is that it's about introducing international foods into our everyday lives. Doing this would require a bit of education. Imagine health studies classes in grade schools, middle schools and high schools across this city that included culinary diversity.

Nationally, we would build bridges with other provinces that are interested in bringing our international approach to their own cities. We could work with the farming industry, the food and beverage industry, the tourism and hospitality industry, the education sector and even the manufacturing sector. Internationally, we could import and export food, materials and culinary expertise to fuel the economy.

Let's accept that steak and potatoes is the culinary diversity of yesteryear. Variety is the spice of Toronto life and it's something that we should use to differentiate ourselves from the rest.

In all honesty, the folks at Tourism Toronto should stop marketing Toronto as an amazingly beautiful city. Not when we have to compete with beautiful cobblestone streets, historic (i.e. 200 year old) architecture, exotic tropical plants or Vancouver. Instead, let’s focus on the beautiful people in this city and the food that they bring from their countries of origin.

While that is happening, we need to encourage food innovation through projects like community gardens and work with organizations like Foodshare, AfriCan Food basket and others to create neighbourhoods of nourished people. What about a communal bake oven in a few parks across the city, like the one at Dufferin Grove Park?

We could even add an enterprising element to this, by selling our yields and baked goods to whomever. Whomever could include anyone attending Winterlicious, Summerlicious, Nuit Blanche, Caribana and the many other events that attract locals and tourists alike. I can’t help but feel like the possibilities are endless

Please don’t mistake this effort for a one-time, annual event. This is not about a self-congratulatory food festival. Nor is this a solution to the disaster that is A La Cart. This is about making food part of our everyday Canadian existence and inviting others to join us for the feast. Equally as important is that we can do this in a way that makes food accessible through simple innovations like community gardens, local sourcing and even making our Canada food guide more, um, inclusive. Add that to Adam Zendel's idea of retail in our neighbourhoods and voila, Nirvana.

Can our next mayor use this as one of many strategies to make Toronto a city of the 21st century? If we can’t see the immense potential of Toronto’s culinary diversity and use it to establish our city as the livable, innovative and memorable place we want it to me, then we are definitely out to lunch.

About Tonika Morgan

We need a decision-making intervention

Anthony Novac.

This is my first blog post for the Star and I must admit that my mind is still on the Olympics.  Last night I pounded the clicker trying to find a channel that could deliver my Olympic fix. No such luck.  My beloved Raptors were losing by 20+ so I opted for an hour of Intervention. One episode was about a poor kid who was following his father's road to ruin - a destructive path of self-denial, self-delusion and bad decision-making (made so much worse by a pain-killer addiction).

Fast forward to this morning and an article in the Star caught my eye. It discussed the opportunity to privatize the management of the City's two ski hills. My first thought was, "really, the City owns two ski hills?" Ustinov's statement about Toronto being New York built by the Swiss also came to mind. 

I became stuck, though, on Councillor Joe Mihevc's apparent opposition to the use of a private ski hill management group which could save the City $800,000, saying that it is "deliberate policy to subsidize" this program.  He defended his position by arguing that the accessibility of recreation, not budgetary concerns, is "the goal of recreation." 

Like the addict on Intervention who convinced himself of a reality that did not exist (despite his steadfast assertions he was neither Italian, a music mogul, nor his father's best friend), Mihevc seems to have taken a position here based on something that simply cannot exist. I'm trying to picture city councillors mandating an $800,000 subsidy to Toronto-area skiers. I mean, is it really City of Toronto policy to have an asset undoubtedly worth millions (and likely 9-figure millions) sit on its balance sheet producing negative cashflow so that maybe a few hundred people who would not otherwise be able to get to the next nearest hill can learn to ski? 

It is an absurd statement by Mihevc.  And it highlights the sort of decision-making errors that evolve from dogma and the reverse-engineering of fact.  

The city owns two ski hills + it believes in recreation accessibility + it has run the hills at a loss = Mihevc skiing subsidy argument.  It's a logical fallacy. I think we deserve better.

About Anthony Novac