Province Should Supersede Toronto's Management And Declare An Emergency

By Joe Fantauzzi

ninetytwopointeight@gmail.com

Days after the first bit of freezing rain began falling, there are still hundreds of thousands of Torontonians without power.

Toronto is also without political leadership. Rob Ford, the city's figurehead mayor, who apparently still has too much power, is rejecting help from Queen's Park and is refusing to declare an emergency.

It's time for the province to step in and do what the city's management will not. As soon as the final requirements fall into place for a declaration of emergency, if they have not already, the province must do so ─ issues around precedent and politicking be damned.

If nothing else, it would send a strong message to residents, such as those freezing in the dark, that this situation is being taken seriously. That impression is lacking at present.

The Constitution gives the province the ability to dissolve municipalities at its will; it should also enable the province to help a city paralyzed by a partisan fool who thinks he will come out of this storm a hero.

Tory Non-Confidence Stunt Fails Torontonians

By Joe Fantauzzi
ninetytwopointeight@gmail.com

The announcement today by the Progressive Conservative Party that a non-confidence motion will be  attempted with the aim of punishing the Liberal government for ineptitude on the gas plant cancellation portfolio is a stunt ─ and bad for Toronto.

The collapse of the provincial Liberals would not get Torontonians any closer to the things for which we need provincial involvement. Those important items include, but are not limited to, improved public transit, Queen's Park's eye on the ongoing Toronto casino debate and a reduction of sky-high auto insurance premiums, being pushed for by the New Democratic Party.

When the Liberal government prorogued the Legislature last October, the Tories, along with the NDP, condemned the government and accurately accused it of suspending democracy for partisan purposes. The Liberals said an over-heated environment was gridlocking progress at Queen's Park.

The Opposition noted prorogation, which came at the same time as the resignation of then-Premier Dalton McGuinty, gave the government an opportunity to avoid hearings into the gas plant scandal.
It also allowed the party to refresh itself with a new leader in a highly questionable way.

But since the legislative session has begun anew, the Tories have done little to nothing to reform the abuse of prorogation they stamped their feet so loudly about, even though it is wholly possible.

Photo/Saharalipour, Wikimedia Commons

By contrast, the NDP introduced legislation to fix the broken prorogation framework in Ontario.

Meanwhile, by pushing for a confidence motion on the very issue that arguably already contributed to the suspension of the Legislature for four months, the Tories are playing exactly the same cynical political games they accused the Liberals of in October.

Coupled together, the optics of this lack of interest in the reform of prorogation and the attempt to use a confidence motion to fall the government while gas plant committee hearings continue, is worrying.

And all of this before the Liberals unveil a budget May 2, which will provide a conventional opportunity for the government to test whether it has the confidence of the entire legislature.

With this gas plant-related non-confidence attempt, the Tim Hudak-led Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario is ignoring the needs of Torontonians.

Torontonians should ignore the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario during the next election ─ whenever that may be.

Transit Debate To Unearth More Than Revenue ─ It Will Show Us Who We Are

By Joe Fantauzzi
ninetytwopointeight@gmail.com

"Revenue tools."

Those two words seem to be the rallying cry in an attempt to spur transit expansion in a talk-weary Toronto desperate for respite from crowding into subway cars, squeezing onto streetcars and waiting in the cold for another bus after being left behind by the last, packed to capacity.

Metrolinx, the provincial transit authority, has announced $50 million worth of lines on maps called The Big Move. 'Lines on maps' in the sense that the costs of the plan cannot be covered at present. 

And yesterday, Toronto's business community threw down the gauntlet. 

During the release of a discussion paper, the Toronto Region Board of Trade estimated the annual economic cost of gridlock at $6 billion. If we fail to invest in adequate transit expansion that number will rise to $15 billion by 2031, the board said.

To stave off the complete collapse of the Toronto we all know and love, the Board of Trade thoughtfully offered suggestions to raise some cash: a sales tax; a fee on non-residential parking spots; a fuel tax; and high-occupancy lanes that motorists driving alone could access for a price, The Globe and Mail told us. 

In fact, the Globe was so enthusiastic about the Board's advice, its Queen's Park columnist even joined the business bigwigs at the news conference, according to Toronto Community News.

Meanwhile, the civic-minded corporate lobby proclaimed we Torontonians "can't continue to turn our back on solutions" and demanded those who have issues with their suggestions to come up with their own.

A call for action during dire times, it would seem.

The problem is, all of the Board's suggestions would hit low-income Torontonians harder because they serve as flat taxes, meaning everyone pays the same ─ unlike income tax, which rises based on the ability to pay.

In a post today Spacing noted that the only office-holding politician at the Board's policy announcement was Trinity-Spadina's MP Olivia Chow, who serves as the federal New Democratic Party's transportation and infrastructure critic, and who has also been publicly musing about running for mayor in 2014. (Full disclosure: I want Chow to run for mayor and am actively encouraging her to do so. She has not publicly declared her intentions.)

The Ford Administration was quick to dismiss the Board's recommendations because it apparently wants to pursue public-private partnerships that do not currently exist.

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath also said she wouldn't support the recommendations because they shift the transit cost burden onto residents while allowing corporations to dodge taxes via loopholes, the CBC reported.

Meanwhile, Liberal Party-affiliated Councillor Shelley Carroll, who also harbours mayoral ambitions, seemed content to snipe at Ms. Horwath from the sidelines via Twitter.

Political argle bargle aside, many people likely can't convince themselves in good conscience that, as desperate as they are for more transit, it's fair that the poorest Torontonians should have to contribute at the same rate as the richest Torontonians just for the privilege of commuting to work.

It's just not how a society that acknowledges, and wants to curtail inequality, operates.

Surely, we don't want to go down the path of ends (more transit) justifying the means (disproportionately taxing those who are already struggling). Do we?

No. This is Canada.

It stands to reason then, that we should be asking the wealthiest Torontonians to pay a little more ─ which is something the Board of Trade didn't do yesterday.

The February 12 issue of Canadian Business magazine revealed the amount of so-called "dead money", or money Canadian businesses are not reinvesting into the economy after years of tax cuts, at an estimated $600 billion.

$600 billion. Of idle money.

If we're going to create new taxes, we might as well add one for companies that get giant tax breaks and do nothing with the money. 

Tax that idle cash and invest it into transit. If businesses want an economy free of gridlock, they'll have to pay for it, too.

As a side note, the Canadian Business article identified what the magazine called the "Top 25 Corporate Hoarders" in Canada. The Bank of Nova Scotia was first at $54.8 billion. The Royal Bank of Canada was third at $12.6 billion.

Meanwhile, as an unrelated interesting fact, representatives of both Scotiabank and RBC sit on the Toronto Region Board of Trade's board of directors.

Admittedly, the revenue tools are out there. The tools we choose will define us.

Stronger Commitment To Toronto Student Nutrition Needed From The Province

By Joe Fantauzzi
ninetytwopointeight@gmail.com

As part of its 2013 budget, the city approved $1.163 million more for a program that provides subsidized meals, primarily breakfasts, to needy children at school.

The motion to add the money, made late in the budget approval process by St. Paul's Councillor Joe Mihevc carried 37-8. In October, Dr. David McKeown, the city's medical officer of health told the Toronto Star the program was underfunded by 60 per cent.

The student nutrition program helps 143,000 kids across the city, according to Toronto Public Health.

Meanwhile, contained in successful motion that led to the money being allocated to the program was a request that Dr. David McKeown, the city's medical officer of health engage in strong appeals to both the province and Ottawa for increased funding for the program. And that he embark on "aggressive" efforts to strike funding deals with the private sector.

At the provincial level at least, word that the nutrition program was granted a cash injection was greeted as good news.

"I’m very pleased to see that the City of Toronto is supporting this important program through additional budget funding," Liberal Minister of Children and Youth Services Laurel Broten said in a statement to NinetyTwoPointEight.

Broten trumpeted the province's previous investments into the program, noting that student nutrition serves as a pillar of the province's Poverty Reduction Strategy, that the province invests $17.9 million a year in the program and also added that last year, the provincial funds helped get breakfasts, snacks and lunches to more than  690,000 elementary and secondary students. The Liberals have quadrupled their investment since they took office, she added.

But the minister was non-committal on a question about whether her ministry would make the subject a priority and push for additional funding for student nutrition during this year's provincial budget negotiations.

That's disappointing.

Past successes are important but difficult to laud when the issue at hand continues into the future ─ especially when it involves hungry kids.

Children should not have to wonder if their school will receive food funding ─ especially during a period during which the city's conservative mayor is leading a charge against spending and was among the eight councillors who against increased municipal funding for the nutrition program this year.

And waiting for the private sector to pony up the cash is not how publicly-funded programs are supposed to work. Would increased private sector involvement lead to a loss of control over the food being placed in front of Toronto's children?

Student nutrition programs are linked to higher math, reading and science grades and obesity prevention, public health tells us.

How much will it cost us in the future if we don't invest into our children now?

Amid Toronto Casino Consultations, A Troubling Lack Of Clarity About Hosting Fees

By Joe Fantauzzi
ninetytwopointeight@gmail.com

Public consultation continues about the idea of Toronto hosting a provincial casino.

But the lack of concrete information about how much money the city will receive every year by hosting a gaming house means this whole exercise is currently one of best hopes for the future.

Without clear details about a hosting fee, accompanied by some kind of agreement between Toronto and the province via Ontario Lottery and Gaming, the Crown corporation responsible for its gambling assets, to hold everyone to those details, Torontonians are being left in the dark ─ and potentially in the lurch.

Our current municipal administrators are showing questionable leadership on the matter as well.

The Globe and Mail pointed out November 5 that Mayor Rob Ford has pushed ahead with a demand for public consultation without those aforementioned very important details.

And now, in the absence of those details, the estimates being used by the city and the OLG are starting to move in different directions.

In a Toronto Star story Wednesday, City Manager Joe Pennachetti said the city could expect anywhere from $30 million to $168 million as a hosting fee. The $168 million figure is based on a report by Ernst and Young using unaudited information from the OLG.

But the same story notes the OLG now expects the hosting fee to be closer to between $50 million and $100 million.

Even less helpful to Torontonians is that some groups have suggested casino revenue could be used to finance transit infrastructure, while floating numbers that neither the city nor the province are using.

In March, 2012, when the province announced that it was moving ahead with what it termed a "modernization of gaming" and that said modernization would include a casino in the Greater Toronto Area, its statement noted that new gaming initiatives could generate as much as $1 billion.

But, given that Ontario's deficit is $14.4 billion and this province is in the midst of an austerity regime that has already birthed cutbacks and public sector labour backlash, is it realistic to expect the cash-strapped province to negotiate a hosting fee that primarily benefits Toronto?

Public consultations should not have begun on a casino. Torontonians weren't given the information we need to make a real decision.

And OLG boss John Godfrey has already shown he has about as much knowledge about Toronto as residents have been provided by the province and city about a casino being located here.

Both the province and the city must step up with real hosting figures (not one single figure but a reasonable range, since it is unknown exactly how many people would use a casino in Toronto), strike a deal and show a memorandum of understanding that uses those figures to allow residents to make informed choices.

If not, a casino should not be welcomed here, be it proposed for the downtown, in the Port Lands or at Woodbine racetrack.

Attorney General Must Streamline Police Oversight

By Joe Fantauzzi
ninetytwopointeight@gmail.com

It would be easy to laugh at the debacle Wednesday involving Toronto Police and three different civilian police oversight organizations: The Special Investigations Unit (a provincial police watchdog), the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (a civilian complaints agency) and the Toronto Police Services Board.

But when the laughter caused by watching one public agency slam another ─ which then turns around and says the first agency doesn't know what it's talking about ─ and then both point the finger at a third public agency ─ which in turn offers a response to the first that would plunge it back down a bureaucratic hole ─ a response the first rebuffs and then for reasons unknown slams a fourth public agency, which gets enraged [deep breath] ...died down, the frustrating reality would remain. As it does.

This isn't good for anyone. Not Toronto, not Toronto Police and not Queen's Park. 

The province, specifically the Attorney General, needs to step in now to ensure this doesn't happen again.

In a nutshell, here's some key information:

• In a news release issued by SIU Director Ian Scott, headlined SIU Closes Investigation due to Toronto Police Service’s Refusal to Disclose Complainant’s Statement, the agency, which investigates reports of death, serious injury and sexual assault involving police, notes that Tyrone Phillips, 27, was arrested by Toronto Police July 28, 2012. Phillips alleges he was beaten unconscious during the arrest.
• Phillips takes his complaint to the Office of the Independent Review Director, a arms-length civilian agency accountable to the Attorney General, which manages complaints against police and investigates some of those complaints but orders local police to investigate others, according to the SIU.
• The OIPRD sends Phillips' case back to Toronto Police, which then calls the SIU, because Phillips alleges he was seriously injured, according to the SIU.

Here's where it all gets sticky:

•  As part of its probe into how Phillips got his injuries, the SIU asks Toronto Police for a pile of documents, including the original complaint that Phillips sent to the OIPRD.
  
• Toronto Police refuse to provide that complaint document even after the SIU gets Phillips to sign a waiver, the SIU alleges. That alleged lack of co-operation results in the SIU's stating it can't do its job properly and it pulls the plug on the Phillips investigation. It also goes as far as to say the refusal "may be a breach of Toronto Police Service’s duty to fully co-operate with the unit."
• In a short statement released only moments after the SIU's, Toronto Police respond by saying the complaint document is not theirs to hand over. And that SIU Director Scott is wrong. And that if the SIU wants the complaint document, it will have to go to the OIPRD.
• Late in the afternoon, an OIPRD spokesperson tells Allison Jones of the Canadian Press that if the SIU wants the complaint document, a "simple" solution would be to have Phillips call the OIPRD and ask for it himself. Then, ostensibly the SIU could have it.
• Director Scott tells CP's Jones that the SIU has better things to do. He also told her the SIU did ask the OIPRD for the document but was rebuffed due to confidentiality reasons.
• Then, in the same interview with CP's Jones, Scott muses that he could complain to the OIPRD about Toronto Police but that could result in his complaint landing on the desks of the civilian Toronto Police Services Board, which manages police policy and broad objectives but not day-to-day operations. He then tells CP's Jones that previous dealings with the Toronto police board have left him skeptical that it would deal with his complaint solemnly.
  
• Toronto Police Board Chairperson Alok Mukherjee tell CP's Jones that he is "livid" about the comment.

All of this leads to several questions: Why doesn't the SIU get Phillips to call the OIPRD for the document? Why isn't Toronto Police giving up the OIPRD document? Why won't the OIPRD co-operate with the SIU?

So far, the answers seem to be: The SIU is too busy to knock on more doors; and Toronto Police don't hand out third party documents without the express permission of that third party ─ which is arguably the strongest and most reasonable position.

As for OIPRD-SIU co-operation, both agencies are governed under different sections of the province's policing legislation, appropriately titled the Police Services Act.

The OIPRD spokesperson told CP's Jones the police act "requires the office to preserve the confidentiality of the information they receive and therefore the OIPRD doesn't share information with the SIU."

The confidentiality to which the spokesperson is referring is found in Part II.1, Section 26.1 (9) of the Police Services Act:

"The Independent Police Review Director, any employee in the office of the Independent Police Review Director, any investigator appointed under subsection 26.5 (1) and any person exercising powers or performing duties at the direction of the Independent Police Review Director shall preserve secrecy in respect of all information obtained in the course of his or her duties under this Act and shall not communicate any such information to any person..."

But it goes on:

"...except,

(a) as may be required in connection with the administration of this Act and the regulations;

(b) to his or her counsel;
(c) as may be required for law enforcement purposes; or
(d) with the consent of the person, if any, to whom the information relates. 2007, c. 5, s. 8."

I'm not a lawyer. But I do know that both the SIU and the OIPRD derive their agency from the Police Services Act. And therein lies the rub. 

The OIPRD is forbidden to release any information except in limited circumstances. One of those, as subsection 9(a) states, is the administration of the Police Services Act itself. 

Given that the SIU is also governed by the Police Services Act, where does that leave the OIPRD's decision not to release the complaint to the SIU? You can draw your own conclusions.

Like I said, I'm not a lawyer.

But Simon King is. He tweeted yesterday that Subsection 9(a) might not compel the OIPRD to hand the complaint to the SIU "but it definitely allows for it."

So, where does this leave us?

It leaves Toronto with a resident who was not afforded an investigation for injuries he claims he suffered during an arrest by Toronto Police. It also leaves our police force butting heads with the civilian watchdog set up to monitor it and all other forces in Ontario.

The Attorney General, to which the OIPRD and the SIU are both accountable and share similar raisons d'être, needs to step in now. 

The ministry should clarify in policy what the Police Services Act arguably permits: Tell the OIPRD to co-operate with the SIU if it asks for complaint documents.

Anything less than that and any Torontonian with a complaint about an interraction with police may also be denied a proper oversight investigation.

And, given SIU Director Ian Scott's unprovoked and irrational tirade in the national press about the Toronto Police Services Board, he should resign.

If nothing changes, it is conceivable that the OIPRD and the SIU could even square-off in court in a highly embarrassing and costly dispute over this same issue in the future.

This is a quick fix. It's time for Queen's Park to act now.