Municipal Politics – Page 10

Kudos to Vancouver’s Kennedy Stewart.

October 26, 2018 by Peter Lowry

It took guts. That was no walk in the park for a new democrat to give up his seat in parliament and challenge for the Vancouver mayoralty, as an independent. It was a tough fight with no guarantees. And the remaining problem is that there is now a progressive in the mayoralty with an equally split right and left-wing council.

Stewart might be the first independent mayor in Vancouver in more than 30 years but, if he plays his cards carefully, the right-wingers on council will be reluctant to vote against him. The five are all from the highly partisan ‘non-partisan Association, known as the NPA. With only ten councillors in total, the others are three Greens and one each from two left-leaning parties. (And you thought premier John Horgan had a tenuous situation.)

Stewart defeated the NPA mayoralty candidate by close to 1000 votes. He is definitely the mayor the city needs for the problems ahead. Few will be neutral as the Trudeau government tries to force the expansion of the Trans-Mountain pipeline to Burnaby.

Mind you, Trudeau seems happy to let tempers cool on the pipeline while the judicial demand for reconsideration is taking place. The earliest there will be any construction activity is expected in March or April of 2019. One of Trudeau’s major problems is that there are growing elements from within his own liberal party that are resisting the expansion.

When the pipeline is twinned, equipped with heaters and higher-pressure pumps, it will be capable of bringing close to 900,000 barrels per day across the Rockies to Burrard Inlet. This will be barrels per day, mainly of diluted tar sands bitumen, the most polluting of all oil sources.

Mining bitumen requires heating vast quantities of water and forcing it down to the layers of bitumen strata and bringing it up to the surface. This creates vast settling ponds of greasy water that can kill wild life. Bitumen contains about three times the carbon of normal crude oil and this creates huge piles of what is called bitumen slag in the refining process. This is why the oil companies prefer to send it to third world refineries where nobody cares about the pollution.

With more spokespeople such as Kennedy Stewart, we will be heard.

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Follow the money to Brampton Brown.

October 24, 2018 by Peter Lowry

He used to be Barrie Brown. His best friend, Toronto lawyer Walied Soliman describes him in the Toronto Star as the “hardest working person, I have ever met.” Those of us who have watched Brown manipulate his way through politics over the years are less complimentary. This is not the kind of politician you should trust.

The main concern about Patrick Brown’s career in politics is where the money comes from. It took him two tries to latch onto the Harper bandwagon in 2006, dump his job as a city councillor in Barrie and get elected as the member of parliament for Barrie and area.

He became known as a retail politician. He did what he was told in Ottawa and worked at getting in solid in Barrie. He used local charities as his publicity base and never got involved in political controversy. Studying his financial reports in elections, I found he was creative but there was nothing major to complain about. The main concern was that it was such a waste of time sending him to Ottawa.

But the plan was emerging. His friend Jason Kenney, then minister of ethnic support for prime minister Stephen Harper, suggested that Brown spend some effort getting to know the people from the Indian Sub-Continent. It was the Canadian taxpayers who paid for Patrick Brown’s trips to India. All he had to do was stay out of all the ethnic troubles of that part of the world.

What it enabled Brown to do was build up a large base of support and knowledge of those groups in Canada. That is why his first office to capture the Ontario conservative leadership was in Brampton. With more than 260,000 South Asian immigrants and descendants in Brampton, they represented 44 per cent of the total population.

And that was when we started to seriously question where the money was from? You hardly go over night from raising $100,000 for a federal election campaign to raising over a million for the provincial leadership. His South Asian organizers paid the memberships of close to 40,000 people across Ontario. Where did that money come from?

And where did the money come from at the time for Patrick Brown to acquire a mansion out in Shanty Bay? This is not a guy known for saving his nickels.

And skipping over the problems of January 2018, where did the money come from for a failed attempt to take over as chair of Peel Region? That is not a small area to put up signs.

And finally, where did the money come from for that very expensive campaign in the City of Brampton?

Enquiring minds want to know.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Voting for the future?

October 20, 2018 by Peter Lowry

It has always been my observation that there are fewer ‘Come line’ bettors in municipal voting than ‘No line’ bettors. If you are not a craps player, I should explain that there are fewer civic voters voting positively for the future than there are people expressing themselves with a negative vote. (I should also mention that the ‘No’ side in craps gets slightly better odds.)

Despite this seeming negative advantage in craps, the casino still makes money on the game from what gamblers get hooked on, which are the propositions. These are all those funny markings in the middle of the craps layout that players throw chips at the stick-person to place for them.

But it has always been my observation that municipal politics is far more of a crap shoot than people realize. We elect people in municipal elections on far less information than a McDonalds’ would require from a teenager wanting an after-school job. We use rumour and name recognition to pay someone an outrageous sum and we cannot even fire them for four years.

I mention all this in response to the Toronto Star promoting the paper’s own version of confusion in how they promote candidates for office. I have noticed lately that columnists who might never have been to a city council meeting (or stayed very long) are now telling us how to vote for their candidate.

The best example recently was an op-ed piece by the Toronto Star’s Heather Mallick promoting Jennifer Keesmaat for mayor. Frankly, Keesmaat might not be the super solution that Mallick suggests. She would hardly be the first civic employee who thought she could do a better job than that bunch of elected screw-ups. I would like to know what she could not do as an employee that she could now do in the mayor’s chair?

The reason I say this is because Mallick is impressed with Keesmaat’ s level of planning in her plans for transit. Suggesting that Keesmaat must be better because she has made ten promises in regard to transit and John Tory has only four. Maybe Mallick should realize that Tory has a far better chance to achieve what he promises. Keesmaat has a lot to learn.

And if she had a way to get the downtown relief line for the Toronto subway system built three years sooner, she should have pushed for it back when she worked for the city.

Toronto is a rapidly growing city that needs a better form of governance. We need people who understand the problems and can help. Toronto news media need to fight for better governance—not encourage dilettante reporters to pitch their unqualified favourites.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Dumb ideas for publicity.

October 12, 2018 by Peter Lowry

The toughest challenge for municipal candidates is the problem of getting some decent publicity during the campaign. You sometimes get the feeling that all reporters hate you and you are just wasting your time. It always seemed that it was only the really dumb ideas that can break down barriers. What proves that theory is the latest effort by Toronto mayoralty candidate Jennifer Keesmaat.

We hear that the erstwhile candidate wants to shut down three of the city’s public golf courses. It seems that since the three are operated at a loss by the city, she thinks they should be put to other civic use. (That would likely cost us more.)

Reading her suggested uses, it would more likely increase the costs for taxpayers than to save any money. And why does she want to annoy Toronto golfers? Those golfers really appreciate the city providing facilities for many different recreations. And the candidate had better stay away from baseball diamonds. All that would get her would be thousands of little league mothers after her scalp.

I have played the public course in the Don Valley at the 401 and Yonge Street many times over the years. It was less than ten minutes from where I lived. I can also report that reaching par on that course was a fond hope that I never came close to achieving. I always felt that if I just held back a bit on my swing, I could have saved a lot of golf balls. I can assure you it is not just the green fees for golf that cost so much.

Remembering the Dentonia Park course, I always thought of it as a par three course for mountain goats. I think I played the Scarlett Woods course once but it must have been a long time ago. I usually rated courses by how many balls I lost and Scarlett Woods is in the ‘not bad’ category.

But if Keesmaat thinks she is going to get the hoi polloi to revolt against the elite with doing away with a few public golf courses, she must be kidding. If she wants to expropriate the Toronto Hunt, Rosedale, Weston and St. Georges, she might have a point. All those restrictive courses are sitting on prime land for development. I think you even had to have a pedigree as a Torontonian to just get to caddy at those courses.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

In John Tory’s Toronto…

October 10, 2018 by Peter Lowry

It was fascinating to read the Toronto Star municipal reporter’s opinion on the current mayoralty race in Toronto. It was as though he wanted to go backwards to gain ground forward. He damned Tory for stepping down into the mayor’s role and not growing in the job. What the reporter does not appreciate is that the man is probably the last patrician to take the job. And if he cannot see that John Tory has the patience of Job, he must be in the wrong line of work.

And, frankly, candidate for mayor Keesmaat is a joke. And a sad one at that! We should all worry about this trend of city employees thinking they can casually move into elected positions. This one does not even think she should start at the bottom. Jennifer Keesmaat contributed little as a city planner, she can contribute even less in the mayor’s position.

John Tory brought grace and dignity to the role of mayor. What was remarkable about his last four years was his sensitivity to his city and its needs. That was, in itself, a remarkable job. I do not remember how many times watching some breaking news on television seeing Mayor Tory arriving to bring what help the city could provide to people caught up in the claustrophobia of big city events.

How quickly does premier Ford show up? When did he ever show up at that horror on Yonge Street south from Finch?

The reason John Tory beat Doug Ford and Olivia Chow for mayor four-years ago was because the city needed a civilized mayor such as Tory to bring some order. He cared about the city, not self importance.

And for the Toronto Star reporter to complain about Tory not ranting and roaring at the Queen’s Park Tories brings into question the reporter’s understanding of how things work. The province has full control of the cities in this province and they are never going to let us forget it. The mayor’s strength and effectiveness are built on his or her ability to cajole and convince. Other than that, the mayor is just one more vote on council.

If I was still living in the City of Toronto, I would vote for John Tory one more time. I would certainly not vote for a know-it-all reporter or a know-it-all former city employee such as Jennifer Keesmaat.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Getting elected in Toronto.

September 27, 2018 by Peter Lowry

The ‘Hey Rube’ at Toronto city hall is over, for now. Candidates for the 25 wards are busy candidating. The next big event will be municipal election day on October 22. Similar to Halloween, it will be a scary time. And they have the nerve to call it democracy.

It will be the same old, same old. Other than a few scores settled in this ward or that one, look for the return of familiar faces. The only good news is there are fewer wards and fewer old faces. Nobody will be particularly surprised when John Tory continues to occupy the mayor’s chair.

Democracy is supposed to be government ‘by the people.’ In truth, it is government ‘for the people’ and we sometimes wonder what they did to deserve it?

The people who get elected in municipal politics are the ones who can convince the most voters what they can do for them. They are often helped in this by having a reasonably recognizable name and some decent promotion by the news media. Also having an Italian name with a voting population heavily weighted by people from that part of the world can work wonders.

It also helps to make friends with developers who have pushy projects to propose and need friends on council. You need their money to buy signs that show you are a serious candidate. One or two decent brochures would also be most helpful.

It also helps if you have a couple hundred pleasant looking volunteers who are going to help you knock on every door to identify your vote. The candidate that gets his or her voters to the polls is the one who will win the election. You should never underestimate the value of another 50 or 100 votes.

You should also set a target of morning coffee parties. They have a multiplier effect and even five housewives at one of these events can add up to 15 votes.

Hard work, smart material, and lots of volunteers can be a winning formula. It will be after you win that you will wonder if it is all worth it?

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

…Now, where were we?

September 23, 2018 by Peter Lowry

It seems to me that we left off when premier Ford of Ontario pulled a rabbit out of his hat and told Toronto council hopefuls to stop running for 47 council wards in Toronto and just run for 25. Since people had been campaigning for weeks for the 47 wards, many of them were unhappy with their broader horizons. Regrettably Dougie and his crew at Queen’s Park came into some serious criticism for his sudden and unexpected interference.

And then a superior court judge stuck his oar in on behalf of the somewhat indignant city council. In response to this Dougie threatened to use the “Not Withstanding” clause of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He also appealed the judge’s ruling. The appeal was successful, so now it is not necessary to “Not Withstand.”

But this commentator does not consider the number of councillors on council as the most serious question. In fact, the number of councillors has very little to do with their ability to get things done.

In fact, let me suggest to you that there are certain councillors in Toronto who are going to have a friend at Queen’s Park. If you think it is nice to have friends, let me also point out that Dougie has a bone to pick with some of the other long-time councillors on Toronto city council. These people were not friends when the Ford brothers tried to rule Toronto council. And Dougie has only begun to get even.

Now, you might suggest that Doug Ford has more important things to do as premier of Ontario than screw around with Toronto council. If you think that, you do not know him. Dougie is as small-minded and petty as they come.

Whether there are 26 or 48 members of city council, each of them, mayor and councillors alike, have only one vote. The mayor has some other powers available to him or her to enable the mayor to appoint committees that will work with him or her to move things along.

What is needed is some sort of political structure that enables mayoralty candidates and councillors to run on a platform that says what they will do if elected. If elected, then they will have a responsibility to keep their promises and give the citizens responsible city government. When you realize that Toronto has a larger population than most provinces, you have to admit that these people deserve the chance to have their city run properly.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Carpetbagger Brown.

September 14, 2018 by Peter Lowry

In politics, the carpetbagger is a figure of derision. The person is considered an unscrupulous opportunist who is seeking to exploit some real or imagined opportunity among local voters. No politician in Ontario better fits this description than Barrie’s Patrick Brown.

Or should we now call him: Brampton Brown?

In the last two years, this fast-moving individual has slipped and slid from being a member of parliament to becoming a provincial party leader, to a member of the legislature, down to provincial pariah, to candidate for Peel County chair and then to candidate for mayor of Brampton. Which is just as well as nobody would expect him to win if he came back and ran against the current mayor of Barrie.

And why should Brampton be so lucky?

But then why would you expect his former conservative friends at Queen’s Park to be so vindictive?

Just the other day, Brown called a news conference in Brampton and told the local media that he has noted that there is a great concern among Brampton voters about a rise in crime. It is not that there has been an overall increase in crime—in fact, there has actually been a decrease. The burghers in Brampton might not have been aware of this concern but Mr. Brown was attuned to this dilemma and had the solution. He was convinced, of course, that the same old solution (Whatever that was?) was not going to work. He was going to have a task force study the problems and report back to him—on the day after the election.

It would have been an appropriate touch for Brown to then close his news conference with a rendition of Meredith Wilson’s song: Seventy-six Trombones Led the Big parade.

Not satisfied with that event, Patrick Brown called another news conference later to announce that he would also promote a multi-use sports complex that would be built around a world-class cricket pitch. This is not surprising when you check Google and find 35 per cent of current Brampton residents come from the Indian Sub-Continent and Brampton already has a rapidly growing roster of more than 30 cricket teams. How he is paying for this new complex was less clear.

Our best advice to the people of Brampton is that they can do better than Patrick Brown.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

The politician as huckster.

September 2, 2018 by Peter Lowry

It is hard to estimate the times a politician has said to me: “What do you think of this great idea? In most cases—if part of the campaign team—I will listen to the idea and then say: “That’s nice, now go to that wall, hit your head against it ten times and hope you have forgotten the idea.” It is cruel but, in most cases, necessary.

Luckily party candidates federally and provincially are expected to toe the party line and most understand they are not allowed to throw in their own ideas helter-skelter. Most of the ideas come from municipal candidates. And sometimes I have actually encouraged their use.

But there are strict conditions. The idea has to be simple and easy to communicate, of value to everybody and of long term value to the community and, if not free, at least inexpensive.

A good example of this is a mayoralty candidate here in Barrie who came up with an idea for a year-round farmers’ market. It is a simple idea, easily understood, proposed for an excellent location, could be self-funding and, besides, the present farmers’ market is desperate for a larger and more accessible home.

I liked that idea and actually did some of the publicity work behind it. My only regret is that the same smart guy is running for re-election again, eight years later, and we still are still stuck with the same over-crowded farmer’s market at city hall.

I could make the same remarks about the SmartTrack plan espoused by Mayor Tory in Toronto. Here he is running for re-election four years later and still talking about how great SmartTrack could be.

The difference between Tory’s SmartTrack proposal and challenger Keesmaat’s transit plan is that, typical of most professional planner’s suggestions, Jennifer Keesmaat’s plan requires an advanced degree in transit services to even comprehend. The only hope for it is that a voter might see a transit stop close to their home.

The SmartTrack idea appealed to me from day one because it reminds me of why the ‘El System’ in Chicago helped build that great city. Chicago used the already existing train lines into the city to build a workable mass transit system. That is what SmartTrack does. It can save billions in routing costs.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Restoring democracy in Toronto.

August 31, 2018 by Peter Lowry

If you are not being sued by the Ford government in Ontario, you might already be suing it or hoping to sue. What is of particular concern at the moment, are the various lawyers getting together to sue the government for reducing the new 47-ward council in Toronto to just 25 wards. It would not be worth comment if it was not such a terrible waste of time and money.

Reducing or increasing the size of council has very little to with what Toronto council really needs. In a city of almost three million people it is the efficacy of local government that matters. Good government requires effective taxing powers to enable the city to fulfill the needs of its citizens. It needs to have access to the funds needed to build and maintain the infrastructure required in the city.

What it also needs is to enable citizens to communicate effectively with their elected representatives. In assuring that ability to communicate, the numbers of constituents each elected representative serves needs to be considered. And before you guess at numbers for an ideal ward size, remember that several years ago, Toronto had a mayor who took pride in his effort to return telephone calls from most of the citizens across the city who called him.

You also need to consider the ability of the politicians to provide adequate direction of the more than 40 municipal divisions with more than 50,000 employees providing the city with services, with an operating budget of over C$12 billion a year. This alone might require more than 26 individuals to assure effective oversight.

But the essential need is for the citizens to understand that they can take problems to city hall. It is an essential component of democracy. Citizens must not only be heard but be assured of a fair hearing. They must see that wrongs can be righted. They must see that democracy works for them.

But there are many ways to deliver the service needed. Community councils have been tried. More staff for councillors can help. More councillors is also a possibility. The only problem with more councillors is the lack of discipline. Without political parties of some sort, every councillor is an island of ideas and ambition—or the lack of either. Council meetings, with 47 councillors to be heard from, presents a frightening picture of deadlock.

People need to be considering how best to get the job done—not massaging the egos of council wannabes!

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