2012 Budget: The Day After

Photo: Deborah Baic/Globe and Mail

Yesterday the budget happened and it's tempting to paint it with all kinds of significance. It's the kind of day that creates an easy narrative of absolute heroes and villains, but it's important not to get too caught up in the moment and lose context; the budget is part of a greater process that represents evolution, not revolution. 


First of all, how it happened. Rookie Councillor Josh Colle introduced an omnibus cuts bill two hours into the proceedings that protects: the school based child care rent subsidy, child care centre programming, priority centre youth programs, ice rink funding, pool funding, CPIP community grants, funding to shelters, reverses user fees on children's, youth and older adult programming in priority centres, adds $5M to the TTC to limit route cuts and also protects mechanized leaf collection.  


The $15M worth of cuts this motion protects was most of the $19M council's opposition won in the end, and Colle was painted as a hero for his work. Much of this is deserved in part for his willingness to stand up and advocate for the motion in the face of strong opposition from Ford allies. Giorgio Mammoliti accused him of engineering the motion for 'pet projects,' (even though there was little of anything in his ward), Speaker Nunziata editorialized comments about Colle's Dad Mike, the MPP for Eglinton-Lawrence, John Parker accused him of not answering questions directly (which is true), and Doug Holyday lost his cool and accused him of horse-trading.


Colle, who has been an infrequent speaker in Council (which many have surmised is because of the Mayor's opposition to the Lawrence Heights project, just passed in November) handled his own quite admirably which only seemed to cause further frustration on the Mayor's team. 


While this moment surprised many City Hall watchers, myself included, it was in the works for a while, as David Rider reports in this excellent piece. From this piece it seems the left wing of the newbies in the mushy middle (McMahon, Bailao, Colle and Matlow) grew sick and tired of the budget process in December and sought to find ways to protect services. Working with the stalwarts on Council's left, they knew they would have to get two of Jaye Robinson, Michelle Berardinetti, Gary Crawford, Gloria Lindsay Luby and James Pasternak (in addition to the increasingly frustrated Chin Lee). 


It was the latter two who took the plunge. For Luby, mechanized leaf collection was a dealbreaker for her in Etobicoke and protecting it was necessary for her support. From Inside Toronto:


"'(Leaf collection), for me, was absolutely important. Some of the other services (included in the motion) were not, but, you know, if I get support for leaf collection, I have to support them," she said. "It is what it is, but we definitely did a good thing for the City of Toronto...I had one chap write and say 'you rock.' I don't often get that'


Pasternak was likely a tougher sell, as there were a series of less prominent cuts that had an impact on his ward. According to Rider's article, Robinson and Berardinetti were lobbying for Pasternak's support right until the end and even the mayor confronted him. Various staffers mentioned that the amount of pressure the likes of Pasternak were under from the Ford administration was unprecedented in their experience.   


While Colle was the public face of Council's middle to protect the cuts, Pasternak took the biggest leap behind the scenes to make that happen.


For Luby and Pasternak, it raises some interesting questions. On the one hand, they'll gain some credibility among their constituents for protecting services, which a CUPE poll released yesterday showed was the public will. On the other hand, the Ford administration has shown a spiteful streak that targets specific councillors (like Wong-Tam or Layton on the Jarvis bike lanes or Fort York bridge). Pasternak is now that much less likely (read: not at all) to get a plum mid-term appointment or library funds in his ward that he has sought and Luby could be given a tough time on routine requests for her ward at Etobicoke Community Council. The Ford Team will likely want to serve notice in some way that this kind of opposition is not appreciated. 


Politics is a zero sum game of power and leverage, and so while yesterday was empowering for Council (and the middle in particular), it is disempowering for the Mayor's office. As Royson James notes in his reaction to the budget, if this budget vote occurred at Queen's Park or Parliament, it would be a vote of no confidence. 


The Ford team has their spin, and there's a grain of truth in it. It is true that this is a mostly conservative budget. It has a property tax increase lower than the rate of inflation, so it's a decrease in real terms, it has less spending than last year (although more taxes and fees) and it puts away more than $100M for reserves, which is good. 


But everything in politics is relative to expectations and the parameters for the given situation, and in this respect the Ford Team was clobbered. Their body language and general loutishness showed it too, and Mayor Ford reverted to an animal analogy to describe council's opposition as dogs salivating at budget money (animal comparisons have not served him well in the past, as Giorgio Mammoliti could tell you). 


Ford has thus far used the mayor's bully pulpit effectively to demand deference from council and forward his agenda, but this will likely decrease. Already councillors have been questioning whether the Ford-proposed 10% sale of Toronto Hydro has the votes to go forward and now that Pasternak has untied himself from the Ford administration, his critical vote on any transit plan will be pursued in greater earnest. 


As Josh Colle told me (for The Grid) after the vote last night, this vote wasn't a palace coup. But the budget was something that shaped all sorts of relationships, from citizens responding to City Hall, to the diminished authority of the Mayor's office, to Colle becoming the subject of headline news to Pasternak being the unlikely hero of this sprawling epic.


For council's opposition, the budget was about preserving services they value. But more than preservation, the budget changed relationships, an understanding of the city and levels of trust in City Hall. So in that way, the budget changed the city in small ways, but the most important ones weren't contained within the document.  


Further Reading:
Matt Elliott at Ford For Toronto breaks down the votes like the mensch he is.

Edward Keenan provides his typically excellent analysis at The Grid. 


Neville Park provides a really nice personal response and round up of the day. Added bonus: excellent use of a meme. 


John McGrath does his thing at Openfile, which is his typically good thing.


Torontoist had a bunch of coverage as you would expect, and kudos to Hamutal Dotan for making that happen. 


Marcus Gee provides a different view on the meeting for the Globe, one which I disagree with. Sue-Ann Levy has similar arguments for the Sun, but doesn't argue as effectively (or reasonably), so don't bother there.  

Pasternak Foolishly Supports Ford's Sheppard Folly

Most sensible people can agree that in the face of overwhelming evidence, it’s OK- perhaps even admirable- to change your mind. When the critics are proved right and you’re forced to alter your plans or argument, it’s time to look at the value of the original idea rather than doubling down and trying to plow through.

There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that the Sheppard subway extension is not the right idea. Current TTC Chief General Manager Gary Webster opposes the idea, transit expert and former TTC Chief General Manager David Gunn has called it ‘a joke’ and even Ford ally and current TTC Chair Karen Stintz has expressed reservations about the plan and the idea for Webster’s ouster.

The Toronto Environmental Alliance- not a pro-Ford source mind you- provides this handy map to quantify the impact of cancelling Transit City in favour of the underground Eglinton LRT and Sheppard subway extension:

Not only would Transit City serve more people overall (subways don’t serve ten times as many people as Ford claims), it would also connect more communities. Importantly, this would also mean the property values of these neighbourhoods  and overall business activity would increase, thus improving the city’s tax base. Transit City may not have been perfect, but it would serve more people for a better value.

In contrast, Sheppard lacks the density to support a subway extension. According to the Pembina Institute, subways require a density of 115-140 people per hectare to make them economically feasible. Sheppard currently has 68, slightly more than half of the minimum needed (LRTs require a density of 70 per hectare). Granted, this is expected to grow to 102 by 2031, but that’s still not meeting the requirement 20 years from now. It would mean 20 years of massive ongoing subsidies to a subway line that would bleed money from the rest of the system. Ridership on Sheppard is projected by Gunn as being 5,000 riders per hour and he claims 20,000 are needed as a starting base (other numbers suggest 10,000). Those missing 15,000 fares per hour would have to be subsidized by poorer service and overcrowding elsewhere.

Team Ford is a big fan of the free hand of the market giving the thumbs up or down to the value of ideas and products. So far, the Sheppard line has been a big thumbs-down. Ford went cap-in-hand to see Premier Dalton McGuinty today to ask for $650M allocated for the Eglinton LRT (a reserve for cost overruns) to be shifted to Sheppard. Of course, this is partially due to difficulties in attracting private partners for Sheppard. The idea here is to indicate to other partners such as the Federal government and private industry that the start-up capital is there to make it happen. After all, no one wants to take the first risk, particularly if they think it’s a bad idea and don’t have a safety net. So far, the market has responded, and it’s a deafening no to the Sheppard extension.

But that hasn’t stopped Team Ford. The Sheppard extension- which has had no public consultation (in contrast to campaign rhetoric)  and no council vote yet (despite what seemed to be a promise to Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne)- remains a priority. It is a foolish and wrong-headed priority, support for which normally wishy-washy uber-mushy councillor Josh Matlow has called ‘intellectually dishonest’. 

While it’s unsurprising that this hasn’t stopped Rob and Doug, a tweet from James Pasternak today stood out for its nonsense:

Pasternak is seen as a thoughtful conservative, as seen in his critique of the city’s buyout packages. But this statement is pathetic politicking and pandering of the first degree.

Pasternak prioritizes his own ward, which is to be expected and can be understood to an extent. But to do so in a way that completely ignores the volume of the distressed downtown Yonge-University-Spadina line (720,000 daily weekday passengers) and claims that the Sheppard Line, (47,000 daily weekday passengers) being connected is somehow more vital? That’s not thoughtful at all.

In fact, it’s stupid. It's exactly this kind of talk from reasonable councillors that shouldn't be tolerated and should be called out. There’s all sorts of other more vital priorities that could be done in more cost-effective ways. Additionally, as August Murphy-King points out, Transit City would have taken care of the Downsview to Yonge St. link too.

Pasternak won his ward with only 19% of the vote, largely on the name recognition of being a local school trustee. He could carve out a respectable role as a thoughtful and reasonable conservative on council, willing to consider and discuss the merits of various plans based on real numbers and expert advice. But in this moment, Pasternak has chosen the Fordian route.  His thought and consideration here- like Ford’s idea for the Sheppard extension- is dense.