Municipal Politics – Page 19

How about gun control that works?

December 27, 2014 by Peter Lowry

Just for a couple minutes, we can assume that the coming federal election will create a government other than that controlled by the Conservative Party. And, if we are finished enjoying the thought after almost 10 years of the Conservatives, we know we have lots of work ahead of us. One area that we need to address is gun control. This problem has to be fixed. And one way to fix it is to look at the past.

The one thing that we know for sure is that there is a serious dichotomy between urban and rural voters on the issue. The argument is that farmers do not want to be bothered with red tape just to keep a varmint rifle. The people who want guns better controlled are the city folk. So why do we not just accommodate everybody? Do you remember the old western movies where the cowboys had to check their six-guns with the town marshal? And that is the answer: make it a municipal option.

Canada should have a gun registry for only those municipalities that want to use it. The people who use these registries are the police. The police could say to the local council, “We want to use the registry and the feds will pay for it.” Can you imagine any municipality east of Regina that would say “No.” And people can fill out the forms and pay a fee on the Internet.

It would only take one serious gun incident to convince municipalities to cooperate. Most would be smart not to wait.

Now there is a deal, nobody can refuse. The signs coming into town say “Welcome to our town, check your gun podner at the nearest police station.” And if you do not and are caught with an unregistered weapon, you can be found guilty of an offence.

There will have to be some adjustments to Public Safety Minister Stephen Blaney’s proposed bill on the transport of firearms. Gun owners moving their licensed gun from one place to another would need to be in the registry rather than run afoul of a municipality that requires guns to be registered.

Mind you the only way this is going to work is if urban voters make it clear to their Members of Parliament that they want better control and registration of guns in their community. All there needs to be are people to speak up.

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Not likely, David Peterson.

December 23, 2014 by Peter Lowry

Former Liberal Premier David Peterson has been labelled as a left-wing social democrat by the Toronto Star. It is hardly the first time the Star has been wrong but even Peterson denies the label. It was pinned on him after trying the Vox Pox Labs’ political Sentimeter quiz. The quiz divides respondents into four right wing political slots or four left wing political categories. It is an interesting exercise but determining someone’s political stance is much more complex.

What is interesting about the questionnaire is that of the 50,000 people claimed to have participated, roughly half have been labelled as right wing and the other half as left wing. It is only when you do the exercise that you see how easy it is to push your reading one way or the other. This writer found that his hardening views on environmental concerns moved him from the social democrat left to the anti-establishment left. While there are quite a few Liberals who would concur with that assessment, we would be deliriously happy if more people in the Liberal Party just moved to the social democrat left.

And a social democrat, David Peterson is not. As are most Liberals from London, Ontario, David is a fine, caring person but his politics are very definitely right wing. The Vox Pop people could better describe David as Libertarian right in that his views and concerns on social issues are more moderate. He thinks of himself as a centrist.

And that is one of the failures of the Liberal Party in Ontario. It is all these right-wingers in the party who think of themselves as centrist. They try to put down those of us who preach reform. Their attitude is that if the problem does not bite them in the ass, they can ignore it. They spend their political days putting out little fires and get nothing constructive done. This is the party that thinks all-day kindergarten is a reform when it was only about 50 years behind the times.

Based on the Vox Pop Lab’s findings, there are clear differences of opinion among the Toronto population. While only four per cent of the survey’s respondents fell into the anti-establishment left, we hardly write these blogs just for just that segment of the population. In each of us there are elements of the entire political spectrum. And the truth is only what we perceive to be truth each day.

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Arm-wrestling with police services.

December 13, 2014 by Peter Lowry

Just like Toronto Mayor John Tory, this writer once thought he could make a difference on the local Police Services Board. The boards are made up of elected municipal politicians and citizen appointees. This resolve was strengthened the first time we saw the local Police Services Board chair stand up at City Council to present the police budget. It seemed to make a lie of everything we thought we knew about these boards.

A person appointed by their council or by the province to their police services board does not work for the police. These are the people who are supposed to oversee the activities of the police on behalf of the public. Their employer is the public.

The worst type of member for the board is someone like Alok Mukherjee Chair of the Toronto Police Services Board. He is considered a survivor. In ten years on the board, he has avoided controversy and stayed out of trouble. Other than a very naïve posting to his ill-advised Facebook page, the man is rarely noticed. He has done nothing, achieved nothing and the Toronto Police have remained a law unto themselves.

If it were not for the tensions between the senior police staff and the rank and file officers with their union, we would have anarchy. As a paramilitary organization, you expect disciplined behaviour and an effective command structure. You also expect the behaviour of your police to reflect well on your community.

While they do not always live up to ideals, your police are ambassadors. Politeness and smiles do far more for your community than a heavy hand of enforcement. Scruffy, ill-kempt officers in dirty cars tell you volumes about a city.

The truth be told, John Tory is probably not helping himself to take on a role on the Toronto Police Services Board. The job would take too much time and would be a major distraction from his other priorities. He neither needs to take on the police union nor should he allow himself to be drawn into dialogue with the union head. Relations with the union are the police chief’s problem. In fact that might be the main concern in appointing the next chief.

Living in Babel, this writer is not available for a seat on the Toronto Board. Mind you if we were appointed to the board here, we would have to stop writing this blog. And the blog is much more fun.

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These people can’t even spell ‘Rabbit.’

December 6, 2014 by Peter Lowry

There is a group in Toronto promoting ranked balloting in municipal elections. They call themselves RaBIT. This means Ranked Ballot Initiative in Toronto. They seem to be also linked to the Fair Vote people—the ones who tell you your vote will not count unless your candidate wins. If it was not for the support of the Toronto Star and their friends at Forum Research, you could just ignore the foolishness.

In the last couple weeks, Forum Research made 950 (completed?) automated telephone calls in Toronto that indicated 65 per cent of whoever answered approved of ranked balloting. And so what? You would think that while they were at it, they would find 78 per cent like ice cream. The problem is that the Toronto Star then breathlessly reported that 65 per cent of Torontonians want ranked balloting.

The problem is that 65 per cent of Torontonians could not tell you how ranked ballots are counted. And that is the rub with ranked voting schemes. Stating your preference is the easy part and that appeals to voters. If they can understand it, they could be for it. And yet, they do not understand it entirely.

What is most objectionable about this method is that the losers choose. Instead of having a runoff vote, you have to make all your choices in advance. It is the second and sometimes third choices of the losers that are then counted to choose the winner.

Ranked ballots are also easily subjected to manipulation but we will leave that subject for private discussions. Putting information such as that on the Internet for anyone to use does nobody any good.

And what makes anyone think that the second or third choices of people who chose losers to begin with are any smarter than their original choice?

What this type of predetermined choices produces is mediocrity. The weight of the decision is shifted from the winners to the losers. It makes winners of people who have annoyed the losers the least.

And it does seem silly to even be discussing this at a time in history when we can do the entire voting job on the Internet. We can get almost immediate results and can easily and cheaply hold run-off elections to make sure of a majority choice. We can vote from home, at malls and libraries and with smart phones, we can vote from almost anywhere.

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The Tory-Wynne Two-Step.

December 4, 2014 by Peter Lowry

They might not be Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire (if you are old enough to remember the era) but Toronto Mayor John Tory and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne have more than voters in common. Tory is a left-leaning Conservative and Wynne is a right-leaning Liberal. And they dance to the same tunes.

Pundits seem surprised at how quickly the Premier is buying into Tory’s SmartTrack proposal. They should not be. Wynne’s Liberals have already bought into the proposition of electrifying the GO trains in the Greater Toronto Area. Tory’s SmartTrack solution can only work with an electrified system as electrified trains can come up to speed faster and provide faster service to more stations.

And there was no animosity between Kathleen Wynne and John Tory when they ran against each other in Don Valley West in 2007. It was home turf for both of them. Besides, John Tory defeated himself. To offer full funding to faith-based schools in Ontario in that election was anathema to Ontario and the voters of Don Valley West. Tory could have defeated Wynne if it were not for that gaffe.

But the two became friends in that election. It also probably gave Wynne the impetus to enter and win the Liberal leadership contest when former Premier Dalton McGuinty bowed out. There is a mutual respect.

John Tory has even offered to act as a go-between to get Wynne an appointment with Prime Minister Harper. Wynne has a long action list for the federal government that Harper has no wish to address for her. He will do something about some of her issues but only if he can mask them as federal Conservative initiatives.

There is an open door though for John Tory at the Prime Minister’s Office. He is not only among the elite of Toronto Conservatives, he has a history of experience with former prime ministers Brian Mulroney and Kim Campbell. He knows his way in that federal world better than at Toronto’s city hall. Tory might not get all he asks for but he will be sure of a polite hearing.

As Fred Astaire was king in his genre back in the golden years of Hollywood studios, John Tory is the closest thing to nobility we have in Toronto these days. Wynne does not mind being his dance partner as long as he remembers, she is the Queen!

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Tory takes over in Toronto.

December 2, 2014 by Peter Lowry

The problem is that we sometimes get what we ask for. On February 10 this year Babel-on-the-Bay was pleased to note that John Tory would be running for mayor of Toronto. The tell-tale signal was that he was sporting a new toupée. That was a most worthwhile investment. It carried him through the campaign in fine style.

But all is not roses.

What we always added to any comments about John Tory was that he is a card-carrying Tory. There was nobody else in the running who could defeat Rob Ford. Olivia Chow’s supporters did her in. And she is no leader anyway. That does not excuse John Tory for not considering a better balance to his executive committee. It is a perk of the mayor to make the choices. To ignore the centre and left of council in favour of a bunch of old and tired Tories is a bad call. Tory needs to hold out an olive branch to the left wing. He is going to need their help over the next four years.

Considering the messes left by the Ford administration, Mayor Tory cannot fix them without cooperation. He has to get the left wing to hang up their bicycles for the winter and concentrate on Toronto’s real transit problems. He needs to have the right wing of council paying attention to the shocking conditions for community housing tenants and agree to a make the repairs and help in doing the planning.

What everyone on council has to recognize is that there is a growing strain on the city’s food banks as more and more people are coming to them for help. The province and the city have to recognize that the recent increase in the minimum wage came nowhere close to helping people in Toronto and either the province is going to have to make separate rules for Toronto or let City Council address the problem.

Toronto can be a wonderful city. Like a really beautiful garden it takes continued efforts to keep it growing and looking good. Torontonians elect politicians at three levels of government, each in their own sphere, who need to pay attention to this city’s problems. The focus for this is the city council lead by its elected mayor. The mayor has almost 100 elected councillors, MPPs and MPs to call on to help him do the job.

Okay Mayor John Tory, get to work!

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Why does a culprit pick the judge?

November 28, 2014 by Peter Lowry

It must be one of those anomalies you come across in the Canadian judicial system. It is justifiable curiosity to wonder why someone as guilty as Chief William Blair of the Toronto Police Service gets to pick the judge to try his co-conspirator Police Superintendant David (Mark) Fenton? The first judge must have been sick from all the B.S. he was subjected to. This second choice judge seems to make a mockery of the process.

But why are Canadians being so damn quiescent? Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair is far guiltier of exceeding his authority than Supr. Fenton. Making Fenton the scapegoat more than four years after their despicable actions makes a mockery of justice in this country. It helps us remember: Canada is a country of law; not of justice.

If you doubt that little homily just ask any lawyer if former Canadian Conrad Black would have even been tried in Canada for stealing from his shareholders. Your lawyer will tell you that you would have to sue the bastard and the only people who would benefit from your lawsuit would be the lawyers. At least the Americans realized that Lord ‘Crossthepond’ belonged in jail and sent him.

And that must be where Bill Blair belongs. More than four years ago we are told Blair asked Queen’s Park what law enabled him to shut down the area of the G20 in Toronto. We heard he was given an act that was wrong for the circumstances, out of date and superseded by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He chose not to challenge the act he was given. Blair chose to ignore the rights of Canadians. He chose to arrest and imprison Canadians without right to counsel, without charge, under appalling conditions and in contravention of Canadian law.

In the three days of the G20 Summit, Toronto’s Bill Blair had a total of 25,000 trained police officers available to him to keep the peace in Toronto. Canadians watched on television while this enormous number of officers walked away as a small group of anarchists, mainly Black Bloc from Montreal, smashed shop windows and burnt police cars in downtown Toronto. Many people thought the police must be busy elsewhere. They were not. They watched on their own closed circuit links and local television as they allowed the mayhem. When they finally did act it was entirely out of proportion. The Black Bloc seemed to be just an excuse.

Bill Blair is leaving Toronto next year. When does he pay for his G20 actions?

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What about Blair’s role at the G20?

November 22, 2014 by Peter Lowry

Are Canadians supposed to believe that Toronto police Chief Bill Blair is just an unindicted co-conspirator in the illegal actions of the Toronto police during the G20 in Toronto in 2010? It is somewhat late for him to claim that he did not know that he was breaching the rights of Canadian citizens during the police actions of that dreadful weekend. Simply getting rid of Blair is not the answer.

Toronto Police Superintendant David (Mark) Fenton is currently the only senior officer charged and is now before a tribunal under the Police Services Act. He is charged with five acts of unlawful arrest and discreditable conduct during that weekend when some 1100 people were arrested and detained. It seems Supt. Fenton was the officer who ordered the unwarranted kettling incidents of walkers and gawkers in downtown Toronto, nowhere near the G20 meetings. His lawyer claims that Mr. Fenton’s defence is that while he ordered the arrests, he was not responsible for how officers carried out his orders. (Seriously, his lawyer is quoted saying that by the Toronto Star, Nov. 21/14.)

This defence is what brings us back to William Blair. Canadian police forces are organized as quasi-military organizations and there is always a well defined chain of command. The initial and ongoing training of police officers is designed to ensure an understanding and proper follow-through of orders from those officers over you. Senior officers who give ambiguous orders do not remain officers for long. Police officers of all ranks who prove they cannot follow legal orders from superior officers do not stay long on a properly run police force.

And the buck stops in the office of the Chief of Police. That confusing array of emblems on Bill Blair’s uniform epaulets say he is the boss. He is responsible. If people under him are not trained to do their job as ordered, it is the chief’s problem.

What everyone needs to understand is that Toronto, Ontario is not Ferguson, Missouri. Canadian police had never used kettling tactics before June 2010. They do not need army surplus equipment with which to frighten citizens. Canadian police should never have to block, contain or arrest citizens who are lawfully on the street.

Toronto police have a long way to go to recover from the damage done to their reputation in that summer weekend in 2010. There were politicians to blame aplenty. There were confusing orders given to the Toronto Chief of Police. He had the responsibility to have them clarified. He did not. He was wrong. His police acted improperly. He is to blame.

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Wynne wins in Toronto shoot-out.

October 28, 2014 by Peter Lowry

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne pulled it off. She got her candidate into the mayor’s chair in Toronto. Despite disturbing early tabulations, John Tory emerged as the peoples’ choice for mayor. And if you did not know that John Tory was Wynne’s choice, what do you think her aide Tom Allison was doing in Tory’s campaign headquarters? And was there really any other choice but John Tory?

Torontonians need to remember always that the city is a creature of the province. It is not separate. It does not do its own thing. The past four years of Rob Ford was an aberration and this recent campaign had the task to fix it. Mind you it was frightening to see a bald, bellicose and bloated Rob Ford accepting the cheers of his sycophants at his Ward 2 headquarters promising to be back in the mayor‘s chair in four years.

But even a healthy Rob Ford lacks the funds and strategic smarts to take on Queen’s Park. Through the second half of the Twentieth Century, people who cared about Toronto endlessly batted their heads against all Ontario parties on the need for reform of Toronto governance. The attitude at Queen’s Park was “Let them worry about potholes and garbage and we will solve the big questions.”

They never did solve the big questions. All Toronto got was incremental solutions to its on-going problems. It got boroughs and Metropolitan governance but all that did was confuse and frustrate the civic voters. Subways were built but always too late. Planning itself became an endless argument.

And when Premier Michael Harris abruptly amalgamated the city, he solved none of the governance problems and downloaded social costs that the city was completely unequipped to handle. Amalgamation became the fighting ground between the city and its suburbs. It is said that it was being opposed to the amalgamation that brought the present premier into Ontario politics. She has wisely been silent about this since becoming in a position to fix some of the problems.

But we wish John Tory well in the coming four years. He has a city council that has far more experience than he does in the manipulation of the civic processes. He will bring cooperation and conciliation to a more respectful administration. Now let’s see what the bastards do to him?

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

Discrimination in municipal voting.

October 23, 2014 by Peter Lowry

You know you are a second-class citizen in Ontario if you are a tenant and have moved since last time you voted in a municipal election. The municipal people across Ontario explain it simply: if you are a tenant, you are responsible to register to vote. If you are a real property owner, you are on the tax rolls and you are automatically on the voters’ list.

This situation is hardly an improvement over the time when the federal and provincial electoral officers hired enumerators before each election to create the voters’ lists. Even the city was enumerated by the commercial collection for the city directory. These are long gone but they never were as discriminatory.

But since tenants do not turn out to vote in huge numbers, the politicians say that tenants do not care. They do not worry very much about tenant issues in their municipalities. And since the politicians do not care, why should the city staff? And the problems for tenants continue to snowball.

The politicians get their comeuppance when they think condominiums are full of tenants. Many are not and these people are often home owners and voters. And that is why smart politicians give condos high priority for rainy campaigning days.

Mind you, here in Babel, we are all second class citizens when it came to voting this year. The city still uses an antiquated voting system that actually creates a paper trail. This is a system that figuratively includes both belts and suspenders. Four years ago, the system came unglued when the voting unit counts where tallied (supposedly automatically) by the city computers. Between the delay at the polling booths to ensure everybody in line got to vote and the cumbersome system, we were about an hour and a half late finding out the final results.

When it was suggested that the city should make the move this year to start using Internet voting, the civil servants seemed horrified at the suggestion. As silly as it is, they seem to like their strangely mixed system. All the voter sees is that this very helpful person goes into the voting booth area with them and one-at-a-time tells the voters how to cast their ballot. This takes more time with some than others but each voter is given access to the correct school trustee vote and the correct list of ward councillor aspirants.

They are then left alone to make their choices. What we found was that the explanation took at least a minute (with no questions or concerns) and then about 15 seconds to vote and to end up with a screen ready for the next voter. All in all, it is not very efficient or fast and those machines look very expensive. And we bet the new software every election costs more than a few dollars.

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