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.

 

Electoral Victory Of Deplorables

I do believe Brittlestar has divined the mystery of why undesirables proliferate and prosper in public office:

Tunnel Vision

H/t Moudakis

Continuing with yesterday's theme, Star readers offer their views of Doug Ford's latest scheme:

The idea of a Highway 401 tunnel is ludicrous. It can’t be built quickly enough. It won’t be big enough. The cost-benefit analysis will show it was a bad idea before it started. From an engineering perspective, how will entries and exits be done? How will it be ventilated? A better solution to congestion is to move commercial vehicles to Highway 407, and spend the money on health care and social services.

Grant Baines, Uxbridge, Ont.

How many billions of dollars would a tunnel cost? How many years would a tunnel take to dig? Is there not a better way to spend the money a tunnel would cost, like housing, hospital staff or education? Would the tunnel even help congestion? What about the people who don’t drive or own a car? Do they want their tax dollars spent on more roads? We need to let Premier Doug Ford know we won’t stand for him wasting our tax dollars.

Barbara Eckert, Etobicoke

I remember the Big Dig, when Boston decided to replace a relatively short section of interstate. The effort took 20 years from planning to completion. The cost ballooned to three times the original estimate, and totalled $8.08 billion ($21 billion with inflation today). Traffic was a disaster for over a decade and, as of my most recent visit this summer, traffic is still a disaster. Meanwhile, the tunnels leak. 

John Gavin, Toronto

Ontario should do what most other modern countries with big cities have done and go to high-speed electric rail. Look at Beijing, Tokyo, Paris and London. It would help the entire province, not just the 50 kilometres across the top of Toronto, and it helps to solve our emissions problem at the same time. 

Hugh Holland, Huntsville, Ont.

All of the above letters employ both reason and judgement. As such, expect their sentiments to be completely ignored by our current provincial government.

UPDATED: He's A Trial For All Of Us

From Frank Kafka's The Trial

Someone must have left some envelopes upon which he doodled, because Doug F. , without having done any thinking, announced another scheme one fine morning: a tunnel under the 401 highway in Toronto.

While it may not be the giant ferris wheel he once envisaged for Toronto's waterfront, it does seem to be of a piece: fill the electorate with fantastic visions that have no chance of realization, while all the other politicians carp at him about such mundane crises as homelessness, tent encampments, and hospital overloads. 

If one were to search very hard, no doubt would could discern the real philosophy underlying this government: better a sweet lie than a bitter truth.

Expect more bread and circuses as we edge closer to the next provincial election.

UPDATE: Brittlestar gives Ford's 'idea' all the respect it deserves:

Sifting Through The Propaganda

H/t Theo Moudakis

Having purchased this past summer a used hybrid vehicle that gives me remarkable fuel economy, I am now a very infrequent customer at the gas pump. My greenhouse gas emissions are much less than was the case with my late 17-year-old car, and that pleases me immensely. The fact that I will also come out even farther ahead in my carbon tax rebate is an additionally pleasing benefit.

Yet according to the propaganda promulgated by lil' PP (and, sadly, now echoed by the NDP), that 'tax' is the source of an insupportable burden on the backs of hardworking Canadians. PP, of course, never lets the facts get in the way of demagogic rants. 

However, his denunciation 

flies in the face of the fact that 90 per cent of the revenue from the fuel levy is rebated to Canadians — the Parliamentary Budget Officer has found that most households, particularly low-income households, receive more from the rebate than they pay in additional costs.

PP trades in people's ignorance and susceptibility to propaganda. Fortunately, not everyone is buying his "alternative facts",  as attested to by these letters to the editor:

Carbon pricing makes sense if you understand it

Poilievre poisoned Canadians against the most effective tool we have for fighting climate change, Sept. 17

An open letter signed by hundreds of economists, followed by another written by Nobel prize winners, called carbon pricing the most effective and cheapest way of reducing emissions. Fee and dividend, as in Canada, is also said to be the fairest model. Who is qualified to come up with a better idea? How a carbon fee changes consumer behaviour is quite simple. The “pain” will be felt and the benefit is in the cheaper alternatives and less wasteful use. Our system has a double benefit: the savings and the rebate are greater than the usage of the average middle-income earner. According to the World Bank, 110 countries had either pricing, taxes or emissions trading. All have the same effect. This includes China where coal use has peaked and more coal plants are being closed than opened. Wind and solar are more environmentally friendly and cost-effective than carbon and are scalable. Canada has the best possible scheme but sadly, it has been watered down due to political pressures. It might be more useful to have opinions from informed parties rather than those who admit they do not understand.

John Peate, Peterborough, Ont.

I’m angry that the Liberals can’t communicate the simple concept that we get back as much as we put in to the quite reasonable carbon levy. Our government has (with a major push from the NDP) set in motion the filling of glaring gaps in our health care system (dental care and prescription drugs) and an affordable child care system. I’m puzzled how they’ve now managed to become so unpopular that we might elect a right wing government that could wipe out all that progress. Ironically, the Star recently had a review of Henrik Ibsen’s play “Rosmersholm” in which a character says “elections used to be won by those who spoke with the most sense, not the most volume.” Enough said!

Garry Watson, Niagara Falls

Wait a minute! The carbon levy has been under sustained attack from the Tories for two years, but it is not dead yet. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been spreading lies and misinformation about the levy, and I have yet to hear or read any media questioning his position. It is his main talking point, so is it not time to take the gloves off and press him to explain exactly what he means? Poilievre is on shaky ground because he clearly does not understand why a price on carbon is essential. He cannot refute the arguments in favour of the carbon levy and rebate, as stated by knowledgeable economists and scientists, and he has no clue of what a better, more effective alternative might be.

Teresa Ganna Porter, Newmarket, Ont.

Most people who do not understand the carbon levy, or don’t want to be bothered finding out what it is all about, would rather listen to the other guy at the coffee shop who appears to have read the headline “Axe the Tax” which should read “Axe the Facts.” What does your rebate cover for you? What do you spend it on? Can you balance your budget without it? If you can’t then do not support Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s drive to cancel the levy and rebate. Poilievre is not offering us anything else to fight climate change. And if you are complaining about the gas prices, remember the price of gas always jumps up and down. It isn’t driven solely by carbon pricing. 

Beverly Northeast, Goodwood, Ont.

How refreshing to read the truth about carbon taxation in Canada. Studies have shown most Canadians receive more money in rebates than they pay out in carbon tax. How is this not embraced enthusiastically? We get money from the government and feel good about doing our bit for climate change. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has pulled the wool over many Canadians’ eyes just to get elected. 

Claire Barrey-Junop, Quinte West, Ont.

It has been said that if a lie is repeated enough times, it becomes the truth. It therefore falls to those of us who can think and don't salivate at the sound of the dog whistle to set the record straight.