The Real Waste at City Hall

Rob Ford and Karen Stintz, as drawn by Charles Schulz Neville Park.

Throughout the mayoral campaign and his first year in office, Rob Ford reminded anyone who would listened that it was all about waste. City Hall was filled with waste, he claimed, and he would be the one to look after it.

This language characterized his KPMG budget too. It was about finding 'efficiencies,' separating the nice-to-haves from the must-haves and making tough choices to move forward.

But the conversation was limited and the politics were small. The scope of Toronto's budget reform focused on how to cut services rather than the larger question of analyzing the structural relationships that give rise to the underlying issues. So while Ford had the public willingness to do a deep-dive in to how Toronto addresses its finances and the underlying issues, it was more Sue-Ann Levy than John Lorinc.

So it is with Toronto's transit plan. Ford was legitimately elected with a platform to re-visit Toronto's transit plan and specifically the poorly communicated Transit City plan. But instead of addressing the underlying flaws of Transit City- a lot of transfers and increased stress on the at-capacity Yonge-University-Spadina line- he decided to plow ahead with his completely unrealistic Sheppard line, accompanied by no funding and no transit experts who would support the idea.

And so The Mayor's office dithered on transit for a year, and Gordon Chong's much anticipated report was delayed multiple times before an optimistic version was released that still argued Sheppard was not feasible unless tolls, new parking charges or congestion taxes were introduced.

Of course, these suggestions were non-starters and Council's opposition fought to preserve the status quo, a vast improvement over the Mayor's crayola-planned underground.

It is rightly a triumph for Council's opposition; they effectively neutralized the uncompromising delusions of the Mayor to avoid a disastrous policy commitment.

But much like the other two big Mayoral defeats of the budget or the Port Lands, there's a bitter aftertaste to this victory. After all, it's all about preservation of existing policy, not progress. In this way, waste once again rears its ugly head, as the theme of this administration has become wasted opportunity.

In the aftermath of campaigning on criticism of the city's budget, planning and transit, Ford had the chance to lead a conversation of what Toronto has to do in order to achieve its goals. Of course, the populist and intellectually disinterested former Ward 2 councillor was never the man for that job.

Now it's up to Council to lead that conversation and assert its primacy beyond playing defense against a harmfully reactionary Mayor. Until then, in the glow of a historic victory, we have City Hall in the same place as the Mayor's disposition, stuck in arrested development.

Analogy Day: Taking Gravy Far Too Seriously

A tourist visits Toronto

In a way, I never really got the gravy metaphor. I mean, gravy is delicious. Sure, it’s something to have in moderation, but it’s also something to look forward to.

OK, I get it, the idea was to use gravy as a stand-in for the waste within City Hall and focus on the core material. But let’s step back for a moment and see if this analogy is actually a good thing. No, seriously.

2 tablespoons pan drippings

2 tablespoons flour

1 cup milk

1 cup water

Salt and pepper to taste

Gravy is a sauce made from the juices that naturally run from meat or vegetables during cooking. That’s it, not too evil. In fact, it’s a good thing. Making gravy involves taking the secondary runoff from the core material and using it to complement the meal. As opposed to, say, completely wasting that secondary material. Looked at that way, gravy is actually efficient. We take it for granted, but it uses innovative thinking to maximize the materials at hand, precisely what Rob Ford promised he would do.

I can acknowledge that gravy-as-metaphor means something else, that it’s something which is superfluous or unnecessary. Looking at it from that angle too, the gravy metaphor is limited.

When people travel and come back saying they loved a certain place, they’re not going to tell you they loved the fact that chipmunk suits weren’t expensed or a local politician didn’t throw a lavish party. Of course, these things should not be tolerated. But what people really admire in a city are the intangible bonuses. They’ll talk about how the great architecture adds to the mood and character of the city. Or they’ll talk about how pedestrian shopping provides a unique and  more meaningful way to experience the nuances of the city. Or maybe they’ll talk about a great festival or cultural event that was unique and significant to the area. These things are gravy in one sense: they add flavour to the city by using creative thinking to build on the existing structure.

That’s not waste, that’s adding value. So even the most core metaphor of the Rob Ford campaign has problems when you pick it apart. Sure, cancel your council snacks and trim expenses where possible, but the ability to distinguish between waste and value-added reuse and investment is what makes for good management. Failing that is wasting opportunities.