Ontario's Common Sense Revolution at 20: A Look Back [cross-post]

By Joe Fantauzzi
ninetytwopointeight@gmail.com

Today marks 20 years since the Progressive Conservative Party foisted its so-called "Common Sense Revolution" on Ontario.
Former PC Ontario leader Tim Hudak took to Twitter this morning to extol the virtues of this full-throated neoliberal experiment, declaring it "the most effective, courageous gov[ernment]" in his lifetime.

Some remember those days differently. Here are a few highlights of the "Common Sense Revolution" (1995-99) and the subsequent "Blue Print" era (1999-2003).

• The death of Dudley George/Ipperwash Crisis
• The death of Kimberly Rogers
• The Walkerton water disaster
• A double-digit cut to social assistance rates
• Punitive “workfare”
• Unnecessary tax cuts
• Criminalizing poverty via the "Safe Streets Act"
• The 1997 teacher/student walkout
• Demonstrations against poverty held at Queen's Park
• Health spending cuts
• Eliminating rent control
• The dented cans of tuna fiasco
• The fiscal nightmare that is the Toronto megacity
• The privatization of, and subsequent gouging by, Hwy. 407
• Cancelling Toronto transit projects
• The repealing of proxy comparisons for pay equity (reinstated by court challenge)
• The repealing of employment equity legislation
• The Magna budget and contempt for the legislature

Many Ontarians are still dealing with the aftermath of heartless program cuts initiated by the PC regime and the general neoliberal political culture that continues today at the provincial, federal and municipal (in Toronto) levels of government.
This is not a day to celebrate.

UPDATED: Post-Democratic Trend Lines in Etobicoke [cross-post]

By Joe Fantauzzi
ninetytwopointeight@gmail.com

UPDATE, OCTOBER 2018

• Michael Ford has been re-elected to Toronto city council.

UPDATE, JULY 2018

• The PC Party government of Doug Ford

UPDATE, JUNE 2018

• Doug Ford has won the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party and, following the provincial general election, has become the Premier of Ontario.

UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 2016

• Rob Ford was returned as Ward 2 Councillor in the 2014 municipal election.
• Rob Ford, 46, died March 22, 2016.
• Michael Ford was elected a TDSB Trustee in 2014. He was elected to Rob Ford's former Ward 2 council seat in a 2016 byelection.
• Doug Ford plans to release a book in 2016 (co-written with Rob about the family's base of political support. He also plans to again seek elected office.

---

ORIGINAL POST, SEPTEMBER 16, 2014
Since news broke of the decision by Toronto mayor candidate Rob Ford to step away from the mayor's race and be replaced by his brother Doug the term "feudal" has been thrown around a lot.

The argument quite often associated with the use of this term generally appears to be that the Ford family is treating Etobicoke as if control of the borough is to be inherited and that elections are merely a formality.

I understand the need to put what has happened at odds with what should be happening in a healthy democracy ─ I'm even tempted to use the term feudal myself. But, I argue, the nature of what the Ford family is attempting in Etobicoke does not smack of what is prior to democracy but what comes after the democratic institutions we know and many of us cherish. In other words, I argue that the Ford family is acting inherently post-democratic in Etobicoke and that current democratic structures are permitting this.

The origins of the term post-democracy are often attributed to political scientist Colin Crouch. The idea is essentially that a small clique of elites control decisions within democratic structures. Tendencies seen in post-democracy include few common goals, a common agenda, the conflation of the public and private sectors and privatization.
This is arguably what the Ford family is attempting in Etobicoke, and more broadly in Toronto governance.

The Ford agenda can be characterized by the pitting of neighbourhoods against each other (no common agenda), that Rob and Doug are seemingly interchangeable (a common agenda), alleged missteps involving lobbying on behalf of private sector firms (the conflation of the public and private sectors) and the use of private capital to fund major public projects (privatization).

By running Doug for mayor, Rob for Ward 2 councillor and Mike Ford for school trustee, the Fords, a wealthy business family from Etobicoke, are using democratic institutions to achieve what could easily be described as a post-democratic aristocracy if the election sees all three elevated to office. The Fords are up against challengers for every seat but the trend lines are there. A healthy democracy won't permit one family to treat elections as a hoop through which to jump.

Election 2014: A Lost Opportunity To Push For A Real Deal For Cities

By Joe Fantauzzi
ninetytwopointeight@gmail.com

The Toronto municipal election has been dominated by coverage of issues such as transit, taxes and housing. Each of these issues unto themselves are important and crucial to a healthy, viable city.

However, this election is turning out to be a lost opportunity for Toronto's candidates to call on Queen's Park to loosen the political strings and establish a Real Deal For Cities that locates our metropolis as a viable, respected entity ─ instead of a so-called "creature of the province."

This analysis doesn't call for an amendment to recognize Toronto and other cities as third levels of government in the Constitution Act, 1982, but merely a push ─ a needling ─ of Queen's Park, and by extension Ottawa, to devolve new spending authorities and building mechanisms to Toronto within the framework of Section 92.8 of the Constitution, which as the sidebar to this blog notes, grants municipalities wholly to the provinces as if they were some sort of colony.

Rejecting the conservative and paternal framework of the current province/city arrangement isn't revolutionary. In fact, as Warren Magnusson tells us in "Are Municipalities Creatures of the Provinces?" while municipalities are generally seen to be at the bottom of the constitutional heap, many cities predate the provinces to which they are seen to be subservient.¹ Toronto is one of those cities: "a relatively late creation...(it) had been around in one guise or another for 74 years at the time of Confederation."² In other words, the historical record simply doesn't back up the creatures of the provinces mantra.

The neoliberalism (read: public private partnerships or outright privatization) of the modern age may also, perhaps ironically, back the argument for more official authority at the city level and a divesting of responsibility from the provincial and federal levels. That the federal and provincial governments are seen to have consumed all available sovereignty ignores the idea that many services are now "provided by agencies at one remove from government: private firms operating under service contracts, non-profit organizations with multiple funding sources and missions of their own, public authorities with their own boards of directors, regulatory boards, advisory agencies, joint ventures and all manner of other bodies"³. The provinces do not have "command" over what happens in the day-to-day operations of these agencies other than perhaps funding and defunding decisions, which some agencies may be able to get around depending on their revenue stream(s). The point here of course is that today, there aren't merely two levels of governance at play vis-à-vis services provided to Canadians ─ despite what the Constitution Act says about which level of government is "responsible" for the delivery of service. There are already more players than the province and Ottawa; why can't Ontario grant more power to the local council closest to those agencies making on-the-ground decisions such as the power to fund and defund? Or even the power to abolish and or assume control of?

In fairness, it has been tried before. The much-discussed New Deal For Cities was a hot topic in the early 2000s, culminating locally in the new City of Toronto Act, 2005. The truth, of course, is that the 2005 Act was merely an update to the very Act that precipitated the amalgamation of Toronto in 1998.⁴ The irony of using a tool that led to five municipalities (North York, Scarborough, East York, York and Etobicoke) disappearing overnight to somehow empower the city through new spending measures is rich. 

While the city now has powers of taxation such as the vehicle registration tax and the land transfer tax, substantive taxation powers, such as income tax and sales tax, remain controlled by senior levels of government. These are powers best managed by the city. People work in the city and buy things in the city. It is in the city and to the city that they should pay their taxes.

There is still time for the leading mayoral contenders to take up Toronto's cause. But it is looking less and less likely that such a task, one so clearly connected to the essence of what Toronto is to its residents, will be even discussed, let alone made an item of debate during this election campaign.

_________________________________________________


[1] Warren Magnusson, "Are Municipalities Creatures of the Provinces?" Journal of Canadian Studies, 39 no. 2 (Spring 2005): 7.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ron Levi & Mariana Valverde, "Freedom of the City: Canadian Cities And The Quest For Governmental Status," Osgoode Hall Law Journal, 44 no 3 (2006): 456

Province Should Supersede Toronto's Management And Declare An Emergency

By Joe Fantauzzi

ninetytwopointeight@gmail.com

Days after the first bit of freezing rain began falling, there are still hundreds of thousands of Torontonians without power.

Toronto is also without political leadership. Rob Ford, the city's figurehead mayor, who apparently still has too much power, is rejecting help from Queen's Park and is refusing to declare an emergency.

It's time for the province to step in and do what the city's management will not. As soon as the final requirements fall into place for a declaration of emergency, if they have not already, the province must do so ─ issues around precedent and politicking be damned.

If nothing else, it would send a strong message to residents, such as those freezing in the dark, that this situation is being taken seriously. That impression is lacking at present.

The Constitution gives the province the ability to dissolve municipalities at its will; it should also enable the province to help a city paralyzed by a partisan fool who thinks he will come out of this storm a hero.

Tory Non-Confidence Stunt Fails Torontonians

By Joe Fantauzzi
ninetytwopointeight@gmail.com

The announcement today by the Progressive Conservative Party that a non-confidence motion will be  attempted with the aim of punishing the Liberal government for ineptitude on the gas plant cancellation portfolio is a stunt ─ and bad for Toronto.

The collapse of the provincial Liberals would not get Torontonians any closer to the things for which we need provincial involvement. Those important items include, but are not limited to, improved public transit, Queen's Park's eye on the ongoing Toronto casino debate and a reduction of sky-high auto insurance premiums, being pushed for by the New Democratic Party.

When the Liberal government prorogued the Legislature last October, the Tories, along with the NDP, condemned the government and accurately accused it of suspending democracy for partisan purposes. The Liberals said an over-heated environment was gridlocking progress at Queen's Park.

The Opposition noted prorogation, which came at the same time as the resignation of then-Premier Dalton McGuinty, gave the government an opportunity to avoid hearings into the gas plant scandal.
It also allowed the party to refresh itself with a new leader in a highly questionable way.

But since the legislative session has begun anew, the Tories have done little to nothing to reform the abuse of prorogation they stamped their feet so loudly about, even though it is wholly possible.

Photo/Saharalipour, Wikimedia Commons

By contrast, the NDP introduced legislation to fix the broken prorogation framework in Ontario.

Meanwhile, by pushing for a confidence motion on the very issue that arguably already contributed to the suspension of the Legislature for four months, the Tories are playing exactly the same cynical political games they accused the Liberals of in October.

Coupled together, the optics of this lack of interest in the reform of prorogation and the attempt to use a confidence motion to fall the government while gas plant committee hearings continue, is worrying.

And all of this before the Liberals unveil a budget May 2, which will provide a conventional opportunity for the government to test whether it has the confidence of the entire legislature.

With this gas plant-related non-confidence attempt, the Tim Hudak-led Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario is ignoring the needs of Torontonians.

Torontonians should ignore the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario during the next election ─ whenever that may be.