City
Saturday Brew: Moving on from Miller, More TTC Problems, Provincial Budget Shortfall, Food Bank Running Dry, Meteor Spotted
Photo: The Sky's Tears, by Danielle Scott, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
With yesterday's announcement that David Miller will not seek mayoral re-election, the speculation regarding those who will replace him has elevated considerably. And although no one has officially declared his/her candidacy, there's certainly a decent number of potential combatants starting to make a little noise. I was always ambivalent about Miller, but, not surprisingly, reaction to his announcement has been quite mixed. But of the articles I've read -- and I must admit that haven't read them all -- I particularly admire Marcus Gee's analysis of Miller's strengths and weakness.
Amid all the talk of the TTC's 17.4 million dollar operating deficit and its putative source in the transferable metropass, the news that the commission is now seeking an additional 350$ million from the province for funding of proposed light rail vehicles (and specifically a garage to house them) has flown a bit under the radar. City council had originally ponied up the money when the Feds refused, but in the face significant capital shortfalls, the new Bombardier streetcar project needs an influx of cash. Although the two budgets -- operating and capital -- are separate, it seems pretty clear both are in pretty dire straits.
Speaking of troubled budgets, word came yesterday that the provincial budget shortfall is far higher than expected at 6.4 billion (up from estimates of around 3.9 billion). The major culprit? Corporate tax revenues, which fell an 'unprecedented' 48.1 percent. Worse still, the estimated shortfall for 2009/10 of 18.5 billion could now also rise.
The Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank is calling for contributions after a 'long' summer that that has depleted their supplies. With shelves nearing bare, they're asking for 500 000 pounds of food and the same amount of money (dollars). Although donations have apparently stayed high, tough economic times are being blamed for the increased need.
And, in another instalment of cool shit that I've somehow missed, numerous GTA residents reported the presence of a sizable blue-green meteor in the night sky yesterday. Eye-witness accounts spanning from Mississauga to Ajax, and as far north as Collingwood, confirmed the presence of the object but differ in their observation of its flightpath. I know it's just a rock entering the atmosphere, but I find stuff like this extremely enticing for some reason. Perhaps it's because I'm a former X-Files junky?
Discussion
21 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
This bodes especially bad for Toronto, which is already in worse shape financially than the Province. Collectively, we Canadians are likely more than a trillion dollars in debt by now, if we toss in all the Crown Corporations, the feds and the deficits of all other cities (wait until the bill for the 'Vancouver Olympics' finally arrives.)
And we thought inflation of the '70s was bad! Wait until all this hits the fan. We have been spending way beyond our means for decades now. People are going to have to understand that all these pie-in-the-sky dreams cost money and in these days of globalization where both capital and jobs can flee the country in a heartbeat, Canada in general and Toronto in particular, is not well entrenched for the future. Canada is spending itself from First World into Third World status and nobody seems to notice or care, as long as they get 'their piece' first.
My respect for the accountants, lawyers and supposedly educated professionals who are in charge is dropping by the day. I mean, what a couple hundred million between friends, right Miller?
And from the shenanigans I've seen in my professional life, I don't think the real estate bubble has burst yet. Toronto's entire real estate house of cards depends on the lie that this is the best place to live, and so far immigrants are buying that. When the news gets out that the jobs are gone, as are the welfare handouts, the immigrants will go to greener pastures - wherever that may be! Then we will see a double digit price decline in real estate in this city, putting to rest the last myth of Toronto the Good.
But we can continue to drive our imported cars, buy our federally subsidized subway trains (on money borrowed from foreign banks), use our appliances made in China and salivate over spending $3-4-500 millions on lofty urban renewal projects (also on borrowed money), while patting ourselves on the back that we live in the best city in the best country in the world!
I weep for the generation coming up. My parents handed us a big IOU, now we are handing the university students today an even bigger one.
Anybody need a good laugh? Head over to Now Magazine's website -- they look like they're ready to commit ritual Seppuku over the whole thing. You'd think Churchill died or something.
The next mayor wlil have to either drastically cut services or introduce new levies. Either way, (s)he will be incredibly unpopular. That's why it's almost preferable that we have someone shitty (Stintz?) win in 2010 to get the ugly work (budget cuts) done so someone better (Smitherman?) can come in and manage a renewed city with realistic expectations about services and without the bitterness engendered by being the one to order the cuts.
This same thing - cutting services - will have to happen on the provincial level as well. Expenditures far exceed revenues and we'll have to face up to that. We can have McGuinty do it slowly, minimizing the impact on the most vulnerable, or we can have Hudak come in with a chainsaw. Either way we'll have to face up to it.
One thing you can count on is that the people demonizing Miller now will also be whining when services start getting slashed and user-fees become the norm. These sorts of people are generally small-thinkers who revel in being self-righteous knowing they'll never be tasked with the responsibility of making the tough decisions.
I was never a fan of his. He was a socialist so he could not reduce services because he is fundamentally against this. He was a big dreamer, with big plans, which we need from time to time. Unfortunately, now was not the time for this type of behavior. IMHO what Toronto needs now is a real back to basics type leader.
But when I look, we have a city with serious financial problems run by a socialist, a province with serious financial problems and ever increasing debt run by a liberal, and a country amassing massive deficits run by a conservative. Where to turn?
David Raymond Miller (born December 26, 1958 in San Francisco, California)
The whole sky lit up bright white, then a glowing ball of light with a tail that was sparking all the way till it simply died out...lasted about 5 seconds overall.
Pretty damn cool
Why shouldn't Canada be run by Canadians?
Speaking from first hand experience I can tell you that the food bank is a bit of a scam. They accept food that is contaminated and must be disposed of, I assume they do this for funding reasons.
Food comes in the front doors, gets weighed and then goes out the back door to the landfill. Not all food, just the contaminated and rotten stuff, but why would they accept it then pay to throw it away? Again I assume it is so it appears they are doing more and helping more people and get more funding.
Then there are the rodents within the building that contaminate even more food. I would not want to eat much food that these bandits offer. The offices are full of people making nice salaries, that is likely where the $500,000 will go.
I worked at the food bank building trying to get a project off the ground that would have trained many people and made them employable. The Daily Bread did everything in it's power to derail this program so they could hijack the project as their own.
You want to talk fraud and corruption I saw more go on in that building than I have ever seen in the Private sector.