New Ontario Government 2018

[Fishbone Jones]

Anyone concerned about emergency services in Toronto during the Ford Nation era,

Not really. It's all in the past and irrelevant to the current situation. Maybe I'm in a minority, but I don't read anything you post about the past, the ambulance service, Rob Ford, etc. It's usually irrelevant to the discussion.

Rob Ford is dead, but keep beating the corpse.

Doug Ford did not keep this secret. Tory decided not to take him serious because he didn't think Ford would win. Now he's playing catch up and losing groud daily.

Doug Ford won a majority government. That is his mandate and perogative. It is also his decision, not Tory's and not Miller's.

The view through the windshield is much bigger and brighter than the view in the rear view mirror for a reason.

I can see TO being upset. They don't drive Ontario politics anymore. They are no longer the centre of the universe. They are having trouble accepting that the they are no more important than the rest of the province and that the rest of us have a vote.

So, no, I'm not concerned about emergency services in Toronto during the Ford Nation era, but maybe that's just me. I'd rather concentrate on the future and forget the last 15 years when Toronto was in the driver seat.

Time to move on.

 

[Altair]

Its a lot easier when your ward is only 10KM wide vice 40 or 50 KM. When you cram 4,000 people in a sq KM, a lot of their issues are similar because most are living in multi-family apartments. One neighbourhood 10 KM away can have a completely different set of priorities than another when you're in the suburbs.

I have a feeling a lot of the councillors are more pissed about losing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dDfr89eRd0 than actually losing representation of their constituency.

At the end of the day, this will happen, people will forget it happened by the end of the election in October and go back to complaining about transit in Toronto.

again, if 1 percent of constituents email or mail their representative in a week, it doesn't matter if the ward is 10 kms wide or 50.

No councillor is going to be able to keep up with 115k constituents.

As for people forgetting about it,  I think the PQ thought that as well,  but I know a lot of people who voted for the liberal party in quebec because of anger of the province ramming through forced mergers early in their mandate. The liberal party of quebec promised referendums  on reversing it and they won,  and a lot of towns demerged as a result.

 

[Altair]

https://www.thespec.com/news-story/8768816-nearly-half-of-torontonians-oppose-ford-s-plan-to-slash-city-council-poll-finds/

Nearly half of Torontonians disapprove of both Premier Doug Ford and his plan to dramatically shrink the size of city council, while a third are in favour of the ward reduction, according to a new poll by Forum Research.

Reason why Ford won't take this to a referendum.

The people he's supposedly in government for,  are largely opposed to the idea.

 

[Jarnhamar]

[quote author=PuckChaser]

I have a feeling a lot of the councillors are more pissed about losing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dDfr89eRd0 than actually losing representation of their constituency.


[/quote]

Holy toledo . Those are some sweet perks.

 

[PuckChaser]

Reason why Ford won't take this to a referendum.

He doesn't have to. Much like at the federal level where the current government can pretty much do what it wants, even if it didn't exactly campaign on it. In this case, people knew what Doug Ford wanted: more efficient government with less waste. The rest of Ontario (and suburban Toronto) voted for that. I realize its probably a shock to the downtown Toronto Liberal/NDP voters, but provincially, the world doesn't revolve around them.

 

[mariomike]

I have a feeling a lot of the councillors are more pissed about losing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dDfr89eRd0 than actually losing representation of their constituency.

Holy toledo . Those are some sweet perks.

Ford's problem with free perks
https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2010/10/13/fords_problem_with_free_perks.html

Metro can keep it's perks. I took the OT/Stat/shift bonus/ paid duty / meal allowance etc. in cash.

I never paid to park on City property. I never paid to ride the subway when in uniform.

 

[Altair]

He doesn't have to. Much like at the federal level where the current government can pretty much do what it wants, even if it didn't exactly campaign on it. In this case, people knew what Doug Ford wanted: more efficient government with less waste. The rest of Ontario (and suburban Toronto) voted for that. I realize its probably a shock to the downtown Toronto Liberal/NDP voters, but provincially, the world doesn't revolve around them.

Of course.  He has a majority government,  he can do whatever he pleases.

And naturally,  he can get sweet revenge on his political opponents like those in toronto who didn't support him for mayor or didn't vote for him for premier.

It's all constitutional and well within his power to do so.

I will just call it as I see it. He could have done this province wide. He focused on toronto. Is toronto the only municipality that has too many councillors per constituent?  I would dare say no. What is good for toronto would probably be good for ottawa or Hamilton,  or Windsor or thunder bay.

But by focusing on toronto this reeks of settling scores. And he's premier,  he can do that now.  People do have long memories though. Some people still haven't gotten over bob rae,  so I don't think people will forget about this in 4 years time.  And I sure party is going to run on overturning this decision.

 

[Altair]

Ford's problem with free perks
https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2010/10/13/fords_problem_with_free_perks.html

"Nearly half of Torontonians disapprove of both Premier Doug Ford and his plan to dramatically shrink the size of city council, while a third are in favour of the ward reduction, according to a new poll by Forum Research."

Interesting.

the burbs who more representation in this plan are no doubt ecstatic.

Same burbs that vote for Ford Nation. 

Just a hunch.

 

[mariomike]

Same percentage as voted for Doug for Mayor. One-third. 33.73% to be exact.

 

[PuckChaser]

Seems The Beaverton has a solution to your number of constituents issue: https://www.thebeaverton.com/2018/07/ford-announces-plan-to-cut-toronto-city-council-size-by-killing-1-million-torontonians/

 

[Jarnhamar]

Seems The Beaverton has a solution to your number of constituents issue: https://www.thebeaverton.com/2018/07/ford-announces-plan-to-cut-toronto-city-council-size-by-killing-1-million-torontonians/

Order 66?

 

[Remius]

Order 66?

More along the lines of what Thanos did in the last avengers film.

 

[Altair]

Seems The Beaverton has a solution to your number of constituents issue: https://www.thebeaverton.com/2018/07/ford-announces-plan-to-cut-toronto-city-council-size-by-killing-1-million-torontonians/

would make his reelection campaign easier without a extra million progressives voting the wrong way.

 

[Altair]

Same percentage as voted for Doug for Mayor. One-third. 33.73% to be exact.

Those who didn’t support us, I want you to know I will work even harder to earn your confidence.

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.macleans.ca/politics/doug-fords-victory-speech-ontario-is-open-for-business-full-transcript/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwi5qtfr8cfcAhXo6IMKHQLoBf0QFjADegQIABAB&usg=AOvVaw0wO_TNV_cbN1HFS9DRmnnd&ampcf=1

Always funny when politicians say stuff like this then immediately forget about it.

And yes,  the liberals do it too.

 

[Jarnhamar]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-doug-ford-is-right-about-toronto/

Not every citizen is enraged, however. To be honest, I doubt that one in a thousand Torontonians knows how many council seats there are, or whether this number is too many, too few or just right. What I do know is that Canada’s largest municipal government is unwieldy and dysfunctional – a talking shop for windbags where it’s extremely hard to get stuff done. Even insiders say so.

That’s the view of Michael Thompson, the long-time city councillor for Scarborough Centre. He’s with Doug Ford on this one. “It’s hard to get us to make decisions,” he told me. “The business of council could be done in a more timely, efficient manner if we had fewer people talking about the same things over and over.”

Toronto’s government has no party system. That means that each councillor is effectively a party of one – motivated to speak (at length) on every issue to show that she is serving her constituency, whether or not she has anything to say. “Everyone comes with a different tactical view,” Mr. Thompson says. “Every one of us can come up with a new subway plan and every one of them has to be discussed. We can’t form a collective view.”

The gridlock over public transit is the biggest victim of council’s inefficiency. But countless lesser matters – the casino debate, the garbage debate, the debate over King Street – get bogged down in endless process. Endless reports are commissioned that are never read. Councillors use their positions to stall and bargain for concessions on other issues. Mr. Thompson is convinced that fewer councillors would improve democracy, not diminish it. Doug Ford’s plan is to reduce them to 25 – close to the number of Toronto MPs in Ottawa and MPPs at Queen’s Park – and to adopt the same geographic boundary lines.

So 47 councilors create an administrative burden that slows the system to a crawl and prevents timely resolution of matters. Interesting point of view.

 

[Altair]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-doug-ford-is-right-about-toronto/


So 47 councilors create an administrative burden that slows the system to a crawl and prevents timely resolution of matters. Interesting point of view.

it not 47 councillors that slows the system to a crawl and prevents timely resolution of matters.

Montreal has 65(more like 200 when you count the demereged cities) and things work very quickly.

Its 47 independent councillors that makes it unweildy.

If there were 124 indendent MPPs or 338 independent MPs the problem wouldn't be the number of MPs or MPPs, it would be that there is no party system to push legislation.

 

[FJAG]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-doug-ford-is-right-about-toronto/


So 47 councilors create an administrative burden that slows the system to a crawl and prevents timely resolution of matters. Interesting point of view.

As I said above, when we cut back the number of benchers in the Law Society of Manitoba by and to roughly the same number we became significantly more efficient. I'm firmly on board with this move. But then it's been a long time since I lived in Toronto and actually cared about what goes on there.

Incidentally for anyone above that has/had the attitude that Torontonians feel that they are the centre of the universe; well we sure had the attitude back in the 1960s that everything that mattered in the world was situated south of the 401. Not really sure if that has changed any. But that's for another thread.

:cheers:

 

[mariomike]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-doug-ford-is-right-about-toronto/

According to a new poll by Forum Research, "a third are in favour of the ward reduction".

Same percentage as voted for Doug for Mayor. One-third. 33.73% to be exact.

So 47 councilors create an administrative burden that slows the system to a crawl and prevents timely resolution of matters.

Wonder how other cities manage,

QUOTE

London, England has only 25 members for a population of more than eight million people. But that city also has 32 elected borough councils, many with more than 50 or even 70 members, and each of those has its own mayor. He also noted that Los Angeles has only 15 councillors and a mayor, but failed to mention the 97 neighbourhood councils that are part of its government structure. Chicago, about the size of Toronto, has 50 councillors, a mayor, and an elected clerk and treasurer — slightly larger than the body Toronto would have had after this election. New York City, between its city council, its community boards, and its borough presidents, has more than 3,000 politicians running it.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZyAaWNyXAZ8J:https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/07/27/fords-move-to-slash-toronto-council-without-consultation-an-undemocratic-move.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

END QUOTE

In 1998, with a smaller population back then, Toronto had more than 100 politicians.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/toronto/article-fords-plan-for-toronto-is-vindictive-and-undemocratic/

 

[Altair]

"Not every citizen is enraged, however."

According to a new poll by Forum Research, "a third are in favour of the ward reduction".

all about the base :

 

[Jarnhamar]

No treble