Happy Thanksgiving

To new and long-term readers, the best of the season. 

H/t Greg Perry

And this warning seems appropriate for the times in which we live:

Suddenly, Canadians aren’t so different from Americans

We Canadians have always seen ourselves — rightly or wrongly — as  smarter, kinder, more sensible, more progressive and more forward-thinking than our American neighbours. We watch with a mix of horror and bemusement the three-ring circus American politics has become. Then along came Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and suddenly we have to ask ourselves “What happened?” His insufferable sloganeering — if I hear “axe the tax” one more time, I think I’ll scream — his aspiration to climb down to the lowest common denominator, and his mean-spirited, schoolyard name calling have somehow appealed to a shockingly large portion of our population. He has increasingly been following the Donald Trump playbook, maybe even trying to “trump” Trump with his outrageous accusations.

Suddenly, we find ourselves not so different from Americans and the social and political mess in which they find themselves. Ironically, we still don’t see ourselves as “them.” We need to open our eyes and search our consciences because at this rate, if things don’t change, it won’t be long.

Michael Bines, Toronto 

Continuing With A Theme

This seems to fit nicely with my previous post about the Trump Grift.

UPDATED: The Grift Continues

If one can say anything even remotely positive about Trump and his team, it is that they are very resourceful. Resourceful at separating their true MAGA believers from their money, they have a couple of new schemes (no, not the Trump Bible or Trump coins) that are almost guaranteed to replenish Mr. Trump's coffers. 

I cannot reproduce the entire lurid display in each of the cons, but underneath each I place the web addresses where you can ponder the implications at leisure. P. T. Barnum would be proud.

See the full ad here. And if you read down to the fine print at the end of it, you will find that the enthusiastic takers of this offer will be on the hook for a payment per month on the 'free' material.

And, for older kids, there is this:

You can see the full display here.

Get 'em when they are coming and going. A strategy fit for a dictator.

UPDATE: This seems a fitting complement to the above:

More On The Therme Sweetheart Deal

The following video is the NDP's Chris Glover talking about how the deal Doug Ford has struck with Therme Spa is a bad one for taxpayers. Just before watching it, here is a little context for the rent from Therme that Glover talks about:

The amount the provincial government expects Therme to pay it in direct rent payments — estimated to be at least $1.1 billion — over the [95-year] course of its lease will be partially dependent on the business’ success. Its lease’s terms will require Therme to pay the province minimum rent at a rate of 3.5 per cent of the land’s value. Additional “performance rent” payments from Therme are also expected by the province, several years after its facility opens.

Under the lease, Therme’s annual payments to the province will be capped at eight per cent of the land value. 

Despite his folksy charm, at almost every turn it is clear that Mr. Ford is not here for us, the taxpayers.

 

 

Worth Repeating

In my previous post, I wrote about the Ford follies involving luxury spas on Toronto's waterfront. This letter to the editor about the premier's predilection for favouring private interests at the expense of taxpayers is well worth reading.

Public vs. private interests

In 1999, Mike Harris’ Progressive Conservative party sold Ontarians down the river by signing away Highway 407 on a 99-year lease to a private consortium. In the quarter-century since, Ontarians have looked longingly at this asset, which has expanded and runs across an increasingly busy part of the province, as it makes money for foreign shareholders, and costs the people of Ontario dearly in access to transportation options, exorbitant tolls and gridlock.

Last Thursday, Premier Doug Ford’s Conservative government, having sold off Ontario Place for a private, foreign-owned spa on prime public land, watched as the urban forest of mature trees on the site was turned into wood chips to make way for the plans. Earlier this year, Ford paid off another private consortium (The Beer Store) to get out of a contract a year before it was to expire just to get beer into corner stores. Last year, instead of using taxes paid by Ontarians to improve public health care, Ford decided to promote private health care by encouraging use of for-profit clinics in the province.

Is it just me that feels that every time we give the Conservatives the keys to our province they insist on selling it off to private interests and stick it to the taxpayers who should have access to, control over and benefit from these assets?

Brigitte Nowak, Toronto

How Sweet It Is

 

People of a certain age will remember Jackie Gleason and one of his famous taglines: "How sweet it is." Delivered with an insouciance only Gleason was capable of,  it was a line that was applicable to many of his skits. Unfortunately, applying it to a real-life situation in Ontario means it must be spoken only in a bitter and cynical way, unless you are part of the Austrian group developing the Therme Spa on Toronto's waterfront. 

The Doug Ford government recently released some of the details of its 95-year-lease with the company, but first, just a couple of details about group:

Therme Canada, the latest deep-pocketed firm with designs on a chunk of Toronto’s waterfront, is a far more opaque organization, privately held, with no publicly disclosed source of financing besides the entry fees and ancillary revenues generated by its spas.

The company, however, has deep local connections, overseen by executives who have worked in the office of Premier Doug Ford as well as lobbyists such as StrategyCorp’s John Perenack and Leslie Noble, and Amir Remtulla, Ford’s former EA from his days at City Hall. Its local architect is Diamond Schmitt, whose renderings have stirred controversy since they were made public in the summer.

Mmm. friends of Doug Ford do have a history of prospering. In any event, the details of the deal that we are thus far permitted to know seem to suggest a very sweet deal at the expense of the usual suspects: taxpaying citizens:

The lease shows Ontario has promised 1,600 dedicated parking spaces for Therme, and the government says it is proposing a total of 2,500 parking spaces for Ontario Place. Some of Therme’s parking spaces are set to be shared with Live Nation during concerts.

Bear in mind that these spaces care being paid by the taxpayer, but the pain doesn't necessarily stop there:

If the province fails to meet its parking obligations before the spa resort opens, or 2030, whichever comes first, the lease compels taxpayers to give Therme $5 per spot per day for a portion of the unbuilt spots, which Lindsay said could total $2.2 million per year.

Depending upon whether those parking spaces are underground, the public could be handing over hundreds of millions of dollars for their construction. This is in addition to Infrastructure Ontario's Michael Lindsay's admission "that provincial taxpayers have so far spent “hundreds of millions” of dollars on site servicing to get all of Ontario Place ready for redevelopment."

But, not to worry, the government insists, because the economic benefits will be astronomical. 

Benefits of the redevelopment plan, Infrastructure Ontario said in briefing documents, “include, at a minimum, nearly $2 billion in estimated revenue contributions from Therme Canada to the province over the duration of the lease and $700 million in upfront capital investments from Therme Canada.

However, like many of the claims by the Ford coterie, these revenue projections are based, to put it politely, on wildly enthusiastic (i.e., wholly unrealistic) expectations. 

The province says it expects the revitalized Ontario Place to attract more annual visitors than the CN Tower and Empire State Building combined, a estimation that some experts are questioning. 

On Thursday, the province revealed it expects 6 million visitors annually at the site, which includes the waterpark and spa being developed by Therme Canada, a concert venue, the new science centre, a new marina and public park land. The estimation was made public when the province revealed its lease with Therme. 

By comparison, the CN Tower sees about 1.8 million visitors a year and the Empire State Building 2.5 million. The six million visitor figure would put Ontario Place closer to Eiffel Tower-level tourism, which sees just under seven million visitors a year.

But Wayne Smith, a hospitality expert from Toronto Metropolitan University,  is rightly dubious of this number:

"But you know when you take a look at that and, we did the numbers, six million guests a year would be almost 16,500 people a day. That's a lot of people."

However, there is one bright spot in the midst of this fiscal morass. The lease with Therme  prohibits one of Ford's passion projects: a waterfront casino.

When you live in Doug Ford's Ontario, you look for victories, however minuscule, wherever you can find them.

 

 

The Horror Of Uncertainty

I am convinced that, as a species, we have an innate aversion to uncertainty. Rather than admit to some very real facts of life, contingency and complexity, we prefer to cling to the illusion that all problems are solvable if only we have the right people leading us. Unfortunately, the 'right people' are seldom fit for the job.

Hence the appeal of demagogues like Donald Trump and PP, both of whom make life sound so easy. "Make America Great Again" and "Axe the Tax" and "Let's Bring It Home" readily come to mind as taglines by and for the simple-minded.

Lord knows that our world is beset with chaos from which we would like to hide. Raging conflict in the Middle East, intractable war between Ukraine and Russia, civil wars in Africa are but three examples. Unfortunately, and this is a profound failure of political leadership, we are urged to see such conflicts in binary terms, the "good guys" versus "the bad guys". I can't think of a better recipe for the prolongation of such chaos.

But one need not look to the world stage to see this aversion to uncertainty. Here in Ontario, our populist premier, Doug Ford, continues to ride high in the polls. To listen to Doug, so much of the domestic chaos we bear witness to on a daily basis is eminently solvable. Are you homeless? Then get off your ass and get a job. Traffic congestion got you down? Let's build a tunnel and stop building bike lanes. 

Things are simple when you are simple. Unfortunately, our collective passion for certainty only encourages the reckless rhetoric and sophomoric solutions offered by people like Ford et al. One of the latest examples of this is the Ontario government's response to a very serious problem investigated by the Toronto Star: the plight of Ontario's most vulnerable children with complex needs in care. 

Ontario is failing its most vulnerable children. A broken system is leaving kids with complex mental health and developmental needs unable to get medical help and supports — and pushing families to the brink. 

The series includes details about how kids are being housed in office buildings, Airbnbs, etc., because Children's Aid Societies lack the resources, both in monetary and personnel terms, to adequately safeguard them. And they are getting little help from the province.

CAS leaders say the problems extend beyond the child welfare system and they’re demanding both an immediate emergency response and commitment to long-term systemic change. It’s far past time, they say, for the provincial government to confront the crisis.

“We’re yelling at the top of our lungs that we have a five-alarm fire and it feels like the intervention (from the government) is: here are some batteries for a smoke detector,” said Derrick Drouillard, executive director of Windsor-Essex Children’s Aid Society.

If you were to read the series, you would know that this is a complex problem to which the bromide of certainty is inapplicable, but that has not stopped Mr. Ford from trying his best to reduce it to its lowest common denominator.

Ford said his government has increased funding to children’s aid societies, but alleged some are abusing taxpayer money rather than properly spending those funds on kids. 

“We’re hearing nightmare stories about the abuse of taxpayers’ money — I’ve heard stories of some of these agencies working in Taj Mahals. They’re paying rent — $100,000 for rent,” Ford said when asked about the issue at an unrelated announcement Wednesday morning in East York.

Not everyone is comforted by the premier's 'analysis'.

Irwin Elman, who served as Ontario’s child and youth advocate from 2008 to 2019, said he was angered by the Premier’s comments Wednesday.

“To think that this crisis across the sectors is in any way about the mismanagement of money — and will be solved by addressing the mismanagement, if it exists — is dangerous and puts children at risk. Pure and simple,” Elman said.

Unfortunately, "pure and simple," aided and abetted by an often complicit electorate, is exactly what Ford and his fellow travellers are offering. And until more people do the hard work of thinking, analyzing and voting responsibly, nothing will change.