People Will Remember

 

H/t Moudakis

A cynic and pessimist by nature, I rarely attribute any lasting, long-term results arising from protests. In the case of the Greenbelt Corruption and Destruction, however, I have to admit to being guardedly optimistic.

People are not quickly forgetting this desecration of environmental stewardship, democracy, and ethical, principled government.

‘Dougtator?’

I don’t understand why anyone is surprised by the Ontario Conservative government. It was long evident that Premier Doug Ford has no use for democracy, consultation or voters once they have cast their ballot. He stuffed his cabinet with toadies and sycophants, and now has a free hand to show his true colours. “The people” are viewed as a cost centre and a liability — not owners and stakeholders in this province. “The people” are expected to let their betters, (millionaire developers) take care of business. “The people” don’t need green space — they just need to shut up and go to work. Like any employee they should do as told and not express an opinion in the “dougtators” presence. Oh and no unions need apply!

Wayne Stansfield, Hamilton

The Greenbelt was a controversial topic when it was first introduced, mainly because farmers were never compensated for the loss in their land value, and it has become a matter of considerably more controversy today, as Bob Hepburn has pointed out so well his article, “Keeping developers from cashing in on the Greenbelt” (Dec. 2). It is hard to understand why developers/speculators would continue to buy up property in the Greenbelt when it was not possible for development to occur there. What or who did they know? It is also hard to understand how the entire Conservative government could ignore the input from so many experts, including city planners and experienced environmentalists.. It is time for all of us to become more involved. Try HandsofftheGreenbelt.ca.

Jim Warren, Hamilton. 

Hearteningly, young people are also becoming active in opposing this mess that they will eventually inherit. Western University graduate student Brendon Samuels writes:

On a blustery Friday afternoon in December, a group of students, faculty, staff, elected officials and community members gathered at Western University for a student-led demonstration about Bill 23, the “More Homes Built Faster Act.”

... students recognize that Bill 23 has little to do with building affordable housing, and instead focuses on removing essential processes for land use planning. Bill 23 limits the role of conservation authorities, municipal governments, and the public in reviewing and approving new developments that may impact habitat, biodiversity, farmland and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

While not all of the proposals by SOGS (Society of Graduate Students at Western) are likely to bear fruit, such as their call for a general strike to protest the bill, three of their demands seem eminently achievable. 

... students called on Doug Ford’s government to disclose its secret mandate letters immediately, per its legal obligation. The Auditor General of Ontario’s 2022 value-for-money report warns that the province is failing to provide transparency that it owes to its constituents. How much taxpayer money has been spent by this government fighting legal battles to withhold the mandate letters?

... students call on the Ontario government to answer questions directly and provide evidence-based justification for its decisions and policies related to the housing and climate crises. It is unacceptable that we continue to tolerate blatant lies, deflections and marketing gimmicks from the majority government in response to questions from the opposition in the Legislature.

 Finally, students urge everyone to continue sharing what you are concerned about in Bill 23 and other changes imposed by this government. We must continue to apply pressure and prepare for our next opportunity to vote for real leadership in 3.5 years. We need more effective public education and organizing, with messages designed to reach disillusioned voters and young people especially. Readers, please consider this an open call for spicy Ontario memes.

The environment's well-being, made especially urgent by our climate crisis, should be a matter of real concern to everyone. The fact that people are writing letters and contacting their representatives is all to the good. That young people, with a great deal of present and future skin in the game, are taking up the cause suggests this is a vital issue that, contrary to government bluster and lies, will not go away anytime soon.

 

 

The Fox In The Henhouse

My apologies for titling this post with a cliché, but it seems particularly apt given who is really behind the plan to degrade our greenspace and wetlands, also known as The Greenbelt Grab. 

No surprise: it is the developers and homebuilders.

In a rather telling article, David Wilkes ( President and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association) lays bare, perhaps inadvertently, the influence he and his ilk have over the Ford government's decision-making process.

He begins by trying to provoke a sense of outrage in readers, especially the ones hoping to buy a new home. 

When a family buys a new home in the GTA, as much as a quarter of the price consists of fees, taxes and charges imposed by the three levels of government.

More than half of that amount is levied by the municipality in the form of charges intended to pay for growth-related infrastructure, additional local services and new parks.

What does that mean in dollars and cents?

Across the GTA, municipalities collect $116,000 per new housing unit, on average, in growth funding charges. These include development charges, community benefits charges and parkland cash-in-lieu. The rates for the most significant of these charges — development charges — are based on background studies that municipalities are required to produce every few years.

His dishonesty begins by implying that any savings made through his plan, which I will get to in a moment, will be passed on to the homebuyer. Apparently, the market forces we have been taught to believe in will be magically suspended, so great is the builders' desire to bring affordable housing to all.

His plan, which is also an admission of the great sway builders and developers have upon Doug Ford, is this:

Ensuring that residents get the infrastructure and services they need is important. Unfortunately, for more than a decade, GTA municipalities have been collecting far more in growth funding charges than they have been spending, accumulating an estimated $6 billion in reserves. This estimate is based on the financial information returns that municipalities file each year with the provincial Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

When challenged about the intended use of these large reserves, municipalities state that the funds are allocated. However, in most cases it is not clear whether the funds have been allocated for the new infrastructure and services for which they were ostensibly collected. Transparency and accountability are missing here. (Emphasis mine.)

The last sentence is especially rich, given that, in concert with the government, developers have operated in an atmosphere that can only be politely described as opaque. But the extent of their  influence is apparent in the following:

Given the accumulation of large reserves of growth funding charges by municipalities and the housing affordability crisis we are facing in the GTA, it makes sense that our industry — and the public — wants transparency and accountability around how these charges are collected and spent.

This is why the Ontario Home Builders’ Association (OHBA) last month called on the province to audit major municipalities’ collection and use of growth funding charges. (Emphasis mine.)

Like the obedient soldiers they are, the Ford government intends to do precisely that, at least in cities like Toronto and Mississauga. Recently, the Housing Minister, Steven Clark, promised to make Toronto whole if reduced or eliminated development fees compromise their finances.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Thursday that he does not believe that the loss of development charges entailed in a housing bill his government passed this week will hurt municipalities and said they can likely make up some of the shortfall by cutting waste.

While Clark promised to make the city whole, he also said Wednesday that the province would be launching a third-party audit of municipal reserve funds.

Ford evinced little but contempt for other municipalities objecting to the loss of development fees, including Mississauga's Mayor Crombie.

Ford said Mississauga has increased its fees on new homebuyers by nearly 30 per cent in the last two years and that makes it difficult for people to buy a home. He also accused Mississauga of not fully spending the development charge revenues it gets now, saying the city is sitting on millions of dollars in development charge reserves.

“I see that Mayor Crombie’s out there handing out flyers and doing this – all I say is get on board, stop being disingenuous, you know, with the people of Mississauga,” Ford said. “It’s just absolutely wrong.”

Crombie said development charges do go into reserves, but municipalities are not simply sitting on the money, rather they are treated like savings going toward future long-term projects, akin to a homeowner saving up for a new roof.

“We do not collect money we do not need, and we do not have unlimited chequing accounts,” Crombie wrote.

“In fact, the funds we collect are often not enough to support new growth – we are often short and have to use tax dollars to cover the gaps.”

The Ford government is wholly incapable of any kind of nuanced thinking; that is the limitation resulting from both inveterate, extreme Conservatives and Doug Ford's cognitive and educational shortcomings. 

And all Ontarians will bear the high cost of those failings.

 

 

 

A New Marvel

Since it is Sunday, it seems an appropriate time to introduce you to a new marvel - the laying on of pillows:

Mike Lindell spoke at a Christian college and donated My Pillows, which he then called “Prayer Pillows,” and this happened.

H/t Kate

I eagerly await the sequel: the resurrection of the bedsheets.

UPDATED: Look Who's Talking

I know that Donnie Jr. has had a rough time, what with his cocaine addiction, limited intellect, hellish girlfriend and an incompetent narcissist of a father. As well, I suspect his acquaintance with 'real work' is peripheral at best and largely informed by second-hand accounts. 

But only in Amerika will you see the privileged scion of its chief grifter pontificating about life in the 'real world' as he bashes people 'whining 'about losing their jobs. 

Junior says the people just laid off at Washington Post are all Gen Z and Millennials who grew up spoiled rich kids who never had to survive in the real world and make it on their own.

h/t Ron Filipkowski

UPDATE: My friend Gary just dropped me a note pointing out something that had escaped my notice - the bookshelf behind Donnie has no books, only pictures. I wrote back to him that it probably makes perfect sense, given that he is the son of a man who thinks he knows everything. 

What a legacy!

This Is Not A Parody

 Paging P.T Barnum:

But wait! There's more!

H/t Keith Edwards

If you are considering this as a gift for someone who has everything, please make sure they are in possession of a large bucket or a big bottle of Pepto Bismol first.

Truly, We Have Reached The End Times

 As a man, should I be embarrassed to admit I didn't know this was a thing?

I guess we can all rest easier knowing that Big Parma is on the job, ridding mankind of one of its biggest scourges. However, one might want to consider the side effects before using.

One thing I know for sure, I will never ever again think of carrots in the same way.

More Of The Same

 

H/t Moudakis

For those hoping my monomania would end after my hiatus, please stop reading now. The depredations of the corrupt Ford government are too much with me.

And apparently also with others, as these letters suggest.

That’s rich: Ford accusing Tory of mismanaging the revenue (he) already collects. What a laugh! Of course, Bill 23 hurts cities’ finances. Why should I pay for some urban sprawl somewhere that needs roads, hydro, water, and so on?

What I would really like to know is what do Ford and his developer cronies consider “affordable, attainable homes”?

Dollars to doughnuts, it will not be affordable housing except for those than can afford over $1 million for a home.

Developers are out to make money, bottom line, and they don’t make it with “affordable” housing, and that’s the problem.

You can bet that monster homes will be built with four garages, because the only way to get into the city will be by highway.

Georgia Volker, Toronto 

We all know the government of Ontario is not being run the way it was originally designed. All the ministries are made up of professional experts in their fields, so why doesn’t the Ford government use them more?

Would the Deputy Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs want to build houses on Ontario’s No. 1 farmland, which Bill 23 calls for?

Part of the ministry’s mandate is land-use planning. I would imagine that housing would be encouraged on the less fertile lands. Again, the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, not to mention the conservation authorities, should be very upset with development plans for the Greenbelt.

It seems to me that the proper way to approach Bill 23 would be for Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark to bring in all the views from affected ministries, such as agriculture and environment, if they haven’t already done so.

I would expect the ministries to work together to find common ground as Minister Clark is dramatically affecting the land-use decisions (that affect) the other ministers.

Greg Prince, Toronto 

Former Ajax mayor Steve Parish is right on, (in saying) development charges are not used as a slush fund by our municipalities; they are used to fund the growth-related component of new infrastructure, such as water and wastewater treatment plants, roads and firehalls.

Without development charges, local property taxes are expected to rise significantly in Ontario.

Ratepayers should not be expected to pay for growth-related infrastructure.

Surely there is a better way to build homes faster than to eliminate development charges and destroy municipal planning departments and our conservation authorities, which are essential.

Telling our municipalities that they need to find new efficiencies to make up for lost development charges is a huge pill to swallow, especially for our smaller cities and towns, not to mention that the math does not equate.

As an alternative to Bill 23, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing should be consulting with Ontario’s municipalities to see where proposed housing densities can be increased under local Official Plans.

Jim McEwen, Bowmanville, Ont. 

Besides threatening clean water, biodiversity, wildlife and Grade 1 farmland crucial to food security, Bill 23 will gut protection for renters because it will no longer require developers to replace affordable units.

By taking away development charges, it puts money in the pockets of developers at the expense of municipalities which will be forced to drastically cut services or hike property taxes.

The argument that the Greenbelt needs to be encroached upon to build much needed housing is bogus; there is enough land within urban boundaries to build housing and create sustainable communities and many municipalities have already created and put forward excellent development plans ready to implement.

Esther Cieri, Toronto