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.

 

Teflon Doug

He's loved of the distracted multitude,

Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes

- Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 3

It is deeply disappointing to discover that Ontario Premier Doug Ford is continuing to show ongoing strength in the polls. Indeed, those polls suggest the above quote from Hamlet is an appropriate explanation of public sentiment toward the retail salesman often called "Teflon Doug."

What explains the popularity of a man mired in scandal thanks to his intimate relationship with big developers? Robert Benzie offers this:

In new polling for the Star, Abacus Data found voters are so far willing to forgive — if not quite forget — transgressions that would have derailed the electoral careers of others.

...the Tories are confident about the two-term premier’s skills on the stump and his ability to connect with Ontarians in their everyday lives.

Pollster David Colletto says:

He’s polarizing in the sense that if you don’t like him, you don’t like him. And there’s a lot of Ontarians who don’t like Doug Ford,” said Coletto.

“But he has enough who do and they think he’s just a friendly, nice guy who isn’t perfect, but admits mistakes when he makes them and tries to fix them,” the pollster said.

“He’s forgiven because he asks for forgiveness.”

Revealingly, when asked how to describe Ford, 44 per cent of respondents felt he was “friendly,” while 20 per cent said he was “mean.”

Similarly, 39 per cent said he “gets things done” while 38 per cent insisted he “fails to deliver”; 38 per cent said he is “normal” while 28 per cent said he’s “weird”; and 37 per cent said he “admits mistakes and corrects them” while 38 per cent said he “refuses to admit mistakes.”

“That’s a winner — during the last campaign that became his new brand: the guy who gets things done,” said Coletto, hearkening to the Tories’ successful 2022 re-election slogan, Get It Done.

Apparently, Ford's mastery of retail politics makes him a winner:

“It’s service above self. He’s very easy to talk to,” said Borecky, a retired program analyst.

To Coletto, “that is at the core of Doug Ford’s brand,” the perception of a folksy populist that has developed since he came to office in 2018.

“He is the guy who will call you back. You run into him in the airport or on the street, he’s going to shake your hand, he wants to meet you — he’s that ultimate retail politician,” he said.

Unfortunately, from my perspective, there is also a darker reason for Ford's ongoing popularity: people's general ignorance of what is going on around them. Matt Gurney writes: 

The average voter and citizen doesn’t spend much time paying attention to the news. They might be able to name Olivia Chow as the mayor of Toronto, but there’s a good chance they don’t know who their local councillor is. They almost certainly know that Justin Trudeau is the prime minister, but it’s not a given that they know he’s a Liberal.

A Maru poll from last year pegged the number of Canadians who were hyper-engaged in the news at 16 per cent, and that felt about right to me.

The catastrophes in our long-term care homes during the pandemic may not have registered with them because they were busy managing the pandemic’s effects on their own lives. The Greenbelt scandal is probably something they’ve heard mentioned but haven’t looked into deeply. The closing of the Science Centre, if it registered at all, was probably forgotten in days. And so on.

So there you go. Unscrupulous politicians (is that a redundancy?) count on a superficial citizenry, one that is easily manipulated by smiling faces, catchy phrases and inflammatory rhetoric.

Truly, they are an autocrat's dream. 

 

 

For Someone Who Doesn't Drink

 ... Doug Ford seems to have an unhealthy preoccupation with alcohol. Or perhaps he wholehearted believes that the way to a (wo)man's heart is through the bottle?

At a time when increasing numbers of people are being killed and maimed on the roads due to alcohol misuse, the one statistic that seems to matter most to Mr. Ford is the number who will vote for him and his party of narcissistic n'er do wells for whom the public good is a quaint notion to be paid lip service when the occasion merits. Hence his recent promise to stiffen sentences for those who drive while having enjoyed too many stiff beverages. 

In light of his announcement yesterday to make alcohol even more conveniently accessible very, very soon, that promise has the heavy whiff of performative politics. Here is Dougie's exciting news, news that will undoubtedly set atingle the loins of the dipsomaniacs who walk amongst us but perhaps cause conscientious taxpayers and citizens to blanch:

Ontario is speeding up its expansion of alcohol sales in the province, and the move comes with up to $225 million in public money for The Beer Store.

Premier Doug Ford announced late last year that sales of beer, wine, cider and ready-to-drink cocktails would be allowed in convenience stores and all grocery stores by 2026.

He announced Friday that the phased expansion will now start on Aug. 1 of this year, with licensed grocery stores that currently sell beer, cider and wine able to sell ready-to-drink cocktails and sell large-pack sizes like 30 packs.

After Sept. 5, eligible convenience stores will be able to sell beer, cider, wine and ready-to-drink cocktails, and after Oct. 31, all grocery stores and big box stores could sell those products, including large-pack sizes. Over time, the changes will add up to 8,500 new places where people in Ontario could buy alcohol, the government said.

Saner voices, lost in the crush of enthusiasm from those undoubtedly contemplating a few 'pops' (as Doug likes to call them) en route to the cottage (he knows his people), have expressed their concerns.  

... a coalition of public health and advocacy organizations have called on the province to develop a comprehensive alcohol strategy for reducing harms.

The coalition, which includes the Canadian Mental Health Association and the Canadian Cancer Society, has said alcohol-related harms cost Ontario more than $7 billion annually, and the last time access to alcohol was expanded in the province, the number of emergency department visits related to alcohol grew.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto said it was disappointed with the news of the early rollout.

“There are already more than 6,000 alcohol-attributable deaths a year in Ontario, and the changes announced today will significantly increase this number,” it wrote in a statement.

“The main driver of alcohol-related harm is convenience. Decades of research show that increased ease of access leads to more consumption and, in turn, more harm.”

That's the social cost. In terms of the fiscal price, the PC government, mythically deemed responsible economic stewards, will not only be paying out the above-mentioned $225 million to the Beer Store, but also

 .. the beer companies could receive an additional $375 million because some fees they currently pay the LCBO will be rebated, potentially meaning a total cost to taxpayers of $600 million or more.

Political reaction has been swift:

NDP Leader Marit Stiles questioned Ford’s priorities, noting that paying off the brewers comes as “emergency rooms are closing, millions of Ontarians are without a family doctor and our shelters are at capacity.”

Green Leader Mike Schreiner said “people need the government to fast-track funding for housing affordability and health care instead of giving hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to The Beer Store to speed up a timeline they announced just five months ago.”

Not to be forgotten, Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie

said the announcement was “a blatant attempt by Doug Ford to buy the election at a massive cost to the people of Ontario” and said the Tories are scrambling to change the channel from the $8.28-billion Greenbelt land swap scandal now being investigated by the RCMP.

Doug, of course, seems impervious to such carping, betting, perhaps correctly, that if the electorate does not become blind drunk over his promise, it will at least remain blind to anything that smacks of reasonable political discourse and public policy in this province.

More On Ulmar Zameer

H/t Graeme MacKay 

Yesterday's post highlighted the rush to judgement many people embraced when Ulmar Zameer was charged with murdering a police officer. People like Doug Ford, John Tory and Patrick Brown condemned the fact that he was granted bail. A publication ban prevented the reasons for the bail from being published, but anyone could have gone down to court to find out why bail was granted. Justice Malloy had declared the evidence very weak, and hence the bail.

But populism has its own reasons, and it is generally more politically profitable to stoke the fires of rage and bitterness than to be reasonable. Witness PP's meteoric rise in the federal polls.

Nonetheless, public opinion is variable, and there were many, including me, very much relieved that Zameer has finally achieved justice, often a rare occurrence in this fractured world. Of those who stoked the fires, many are demanding accountability.

Congratulations to Justice Anne Malloy. She analyzed the evidence in the complex Umar Zameer case thoroughly. She instructed the jury in a clear and concise manner. Through her efforts, the jury came to logical conclusions and acquitted. To top it off, Justice Malloy had the good grace to apologize to Zameer and his family on behalf of the public for the ordeal through which they had been put. She demonstrated a fine example of how justice should be administered. Truly a class act.

Bill Howes, Toronto

My faith in the Canadian justice system has been restored. Notwithstanding the deep hurt suffered by the family of Toronto police Const. Jeffrey Northrup, it is clear this was none other than a tragic accident. What we need to now see is an apology from those politicians — Premier Doug Ford, and former Toronto mayor John Tory and Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown — who so quickly and publicly assumed Umar Zameer’s guilt without knowing the full facts of the case. 

Jack Fearnall, Owen Sound

John Tory states all we can do from this experience is “learn.” Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown completely avoids the issue, Premier Doug Ford, as usual, remains silent. Not one has the decency to admit their error and apologize. But there is something each of us can do, donate to the Zameer GoFundMe program. Money cannot bring back all that the Zameer family has lost, but it can help erase the enormous financial burden. It can also reinforce the fact that Canadians actually do care.

Keith Perrott, Toronto 

Given how Mr. Ford has recently been demanding judges who will bring down the hammer on those those accused of serious crimes, a reader offers this thought:

First, I would like to address the profound need for public apologies to Umar Zameer from Premier Doug Ford, former Toronto Mayor John Tory and Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown for their unfounded accusations when he was released on bail. This should be front page and detail what they said so that the public is aware. As Zameer’s lawyer, Nader Hasan pointed out, we expect more of public officials than their stoking of hatred and tribalism when they pretend to know the facts and we, the public, do not. 

Related to Ford’s words in this case, is his desire to fill the judiciary with his “like-minded” judges whom he believes will “get tough” as their first priority, rather than seek a fair and just trial based on the facts and reasonable truths, as we observed in this trial.

We, the public, need to challenge, along with those of the legal professions, Ford’s efforts to undermine our judiciary, one of the foundations of democracy. And, reflecting on what Zameer said after the trial, we want to be able to say, in the future, that we are a fair and just country, for all. 

I wish the Zameer family peace going forward.

Penny Sartor, Toronto 

Small Minds And Big Power

It will probably come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I have a rather low opinion of our species. There are too many small-minded people thinking they are the smartest people in the room, reflecting the classic Dunning-Krueger effect. Nothing can be done about this reality, as they seem wholly incapable of taking any semblance of instruction.

The real problem, however, is when politicians target that audience for their political support. We see it, of course, in the U.S. as Don Trump cultivates his MAGA morons. Unfortunately, the problem also occurs closer to home. We see it in PP's simplistic aphorisms like "spike the hike' and "axe the tax", his answer to climate change mitigation efforts. And here in Ontario, Doug Ford has no doubt provided sociologists and political analysts all manner of fodder when it comes to populism. Indeed, he has made an art out of promulgating the picayune.

Ford, our very own arrested development premier, has made a virtue out of small-minded policies at the expense of constructive, long-term ideas. As you know, thanks to his 'magnanimity', we no longer have to pay licence plate renewal fees, at an annual expense to revenues of $1.2 billion. Add to that the ongoing gas tax 'holiday', and you are left with a substantial gap in the provincial treasury. And perhaps you have heard of Ford's latest scheme to force the LCBO to bring back paper bags to spare the expense of having to buy a reusable one if you have forgotten yours at home, all in the name of making life more affordable.

One of the problems when you concentrate on the 'needs' of the 'little guy' is that you think you can fool everyone and ignore those who want real intelligence in decision-making. Take, for example, his latest scheme. Because his government is woefully behind in the goal of building 1.5 million homes by 2031, Ford's solution is to count the rooms in Long-Term Care homes and dormitories. 

It's an idea being met with ridicule in the legislature. Rob Ferguson writes:

“What are they going to count next … jail cells?” New Democrat Leader Marit Stiles said Tuesday as she criticized Ford for fighting fourplexes as a way to improve the housing supply.   

Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra — who on Wednesday will announce new measures to “cut red tape and help municipalities build” — pushed back at critics with his own argument.

“Obviously, student housing is very important,” he said.

“Every time we build new housing, or a college or university campus builds new housing, that is more housing that is available in the community. I don’t think that’s a very difficult concept to follow.”

Why such transparent fraud?

To meet its 1.5-million target, the province needs to build an average of 150,000 new homes annually.

But the last two years, the actual numbers were well below that, with 109,111 in 2023 and 80,300 in 2022. Soaring interest rates and higher building costs driven by inflation were factors.

 Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie, a former three-term mayor of Mississauga, accused the government of “trying to prop up their numbers with dorms and retirement units because they’re not meeting their (housing) targets.”

“It’s misleading, and it’s just a shell game,” she told a news conference at Queen’s Park. 

“You can’t even have a microwave in a dorm room. My goodness, that is not a home,” Stiles said in an exchange with Calandra in the legislature’s daily question period.

 Green Leader Mike Schreiner mused whether the government might go further.

“At this point, the government is going to start counting tents,” he quipped.  

Stiles's, Crombie's and Schreiner's objections are based on an assumption that the electorate is not stupid. That is likely a miscalculation on their part. In any event, people who know things, read papers and keep up with events are clearly not the target audience the Ford government has in its sights. Quite the opposite, in fact.

 

On Being Slyly Subversive

When a democratically elected government becomes dishonest and dictatorial, any legal action to hold it to account is welcome. Ontario, groaning under the yoke of the Ford government, may find this young lady's suggestion useful:

You want stop Doug Ford from “getting it done” and privatizing our healthcare and education and destroying Greenbelts. This young lady has a solution!!! #onpoli #dougford #healthcare #educatorsjobs #Greenbelt

@ontarionurses

#onted #cupe

@CUPEOntario

H/t 

Bev

@Garnet_2203

Click here for the PC Party Site.

From The Land Of Make Believe

That would be Ontario, though I suppose, in truth, it is far more widespread: a rising number of deaths from Covid (this week was the worst since last May, despite three days missing from the weekly data) in the province. Nevertheless, our political overlords and their minions continue to do little to dispel the delusion that the pandemic is over. 

That, presumably, would be bad for business.

True, Ontario's medical officer of health, Kieran Moore, has made some mewling sounds about mask-wearing and booster shots, chiding us for the low rate of -fourth-booster uptake among those 70 and up (a mere 16% , which he deemed "not acceptable"). Yet he seems strangely reluctant to really address the issue:

While a return to mandatory masking is not yet being recommended, Moore called on people to consider [italics mine] wearing masks indoors as cases rise and said he would not hesitate to recommend a stronger measure if necessary.

“If there is any significant impact on our health system where we can’t care for Ontarians appropriately, I will absolutely have the conversation with government (around) whether we have to mandate masking for a set period of time,” Moore told Global News.

Huh? Hasn't he heard about the current crises of overcapacity and staff burnout in our hospitals?

Perhaps his pusillanimous response is the inevitable outcome of working for the Ford government. The message seems to be: normalcy no matter what the cost. 

And the cost could be substantial. New immunity-evading variants are of growing concern.

The increasing concern around these emerging variants has earned them unofficial Twitter hashtags that spare users from constantly typing awkward combinations of letters and numbers. BQ.1.1 is known as #Cerberus; its parent BQ.1 is known as #Typhon; BA.2.75.2 is being called #Chiron; and XBB has earned the moniker #Gryphon.

Whether or not these new immune-evading variants will lead to worse health outcomes than previous variants is the key question.

Dr. Peter Juni, former head of the Ontario Science Table, says thanks to vaccines and previous infection, the new kids on the block may not be as deadly as previous iterations. However, he admits of the possibility

that a variant that is both very good at evading the immune system — and also more virulent than existing strains — could one day arise. 

Of course, the chances of new and deadlier variants increase with each new infection. Undeniably, vaccines are of tremendous importance in preventing serious illness and death, but so is masking. While neither confers absolute protection, statistics show significant reductions in infections and thus significant reductions in the chance for endless mutations to arise when both are embraced.

So why the increasing stigma and public repudiation of masking? I suppose some see the mask as a very visible constraint on what they regard as their freedom, binary thinking being very popular amongst the simple-minded. And, of course, as alluded to earlier, government sees it as a reminder that the pandemic isn't over, and that is surely viewed as an impediment to the economic imperatives that drive government.

It has been said that we get the government we deserve. Perhaps that observation needs to be updated to include the diseases that can decimate us.

Me, Me, And Me

 

Here in Ontario, the 2022 June election will likely see another Doug Ford majority, in part achieved by cynically buying the electorate with cash gifts that I have written about in previous posts. People will use their own inflation-induced economic hardships to justify supporting Doug Ford. Isn't he, after all, the man who has already rebated and ended licence-sticker fees, promised a six-month reduction of gas taxes post-election, etc.?

What is a voter to do other than revert to an 'it's all about me" approach to the world? Voting with principle and integrity seems not within the cribbed philosophy of many. At the very least, they should have the courage to admit their selfish shortsightedness.

The following letter, taken from the print edition of today's Toronto Star, neatly encapsulates the political prostitution a sizable segment of the electorate is willing to engage in:

Ontarians should be ashamed if Ford is re-elected

• Toronto Star
• 24 May 2022

If Doug Ford is re-elected, it will prove Ontarians do not care about the environment.

If Ford is re-elected, it will prove Ontarians do not care about our seniors.

If Ford is re-elected, it will prove Ontarians do not care about nurses.

If Ford is re-elected, it will prove Ontarians do not care about the young.

So what will Ford’s re-election show that Ontarians do care about?

This election is about “affordability,” so in effect, if Ford is re-elected, it will prove Ontarians do care about their own bottom line — they are selfish. To be fair, a majority will probably disagree, but a sizable enough plurality will have shown we’re not “in this together” but, in fact, we’re each in it for No. 1. 

Ernest Tucker Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.