Toronto :: City of Dreams - Run by Morons

Something Good For A Change

2008-05-17T12:23:00.003-04:00

Just in case you're thinking all I do is whine, just the skew the average slightly the other way, let me tell you about something really nice.

About two weeks ago I noticed on my daily drive up the DVP that someone had planted a long strip of daffodils in the middle of the grass median just south of the Eglinton cutoff. There must be 100 feet of them, about 4 feet wide.

So congratulations to someone, whether city or province or masked midnight gardener, for this random act of beauty in a city that otherwise has no sense or budget for making things look nice.

By the way, I also notice that whoever cuts the DVP grass managed to trim a foot off the edge of the daffodil field. Nice work chucklehead.

Nothing to do with Toronto

2008-05-14T22:22:00.003-04:00

Okay, it has nothing to do with Toronto, but I saw something in the paper and couldn't resist -

Apparently a security guard found an 18 month old boy wandering between the security clearance area and the departure gate early Monday morning at the Vancouver airport. His parents forgot to board with him on their flight to the Philippines, and left him behind to be found by Vancouver airport security.

All I could think on reading the story is the child, who speaks no English, is damn lucky he wasn't tasered.

Grainy Sasquach Photos

2008-05-12T22:45:00.007-04:00

Not really, but it is a rare sighting of the TTC's now defunct "Worth A Million" campaign. Trust TTC laziness to not actually pull the ads from inside the subway cars.

Considering how many of the inside ads on TTC subway cars and buses are self-promotion, I guess there isn't a lot of replacement cash to be made from real advertisers, so there's no incentive to rush to pull the ads down. Plus it would make their backs hurt.

Anyway, here are a couple of grainy phone snaps I took last week just to be sure I wasn't dreaming the whole thing up. Notice the defunct website is still shown, as well as a contest for free monthly metropasses daily until April 30th - except the website was down by then.

Worth A Million

2008-05-03T23:03:00.002-04:00

Anyone notice the lame and insulting "Worth a Million" PR campaign brought to you by the TTC union has disappeared without a trace?

Don't believe me? Click on its dedicated website link: http://www.worthamillion.ca/

Unveiled just before the "we have a deal / we have a strike" PR fiasco, ATU Local 113, which represents most TTC workers, put big bucks into the campaign, with posters, commercials and a fancy website.

But I guess people looked at the poster of ten TTC employees they had in subway stations and decided at $100,000 a year each in pay, they were indeed worth a million.

I suppose whoever was behind this campaign never heard of focus groups - that basic idea in the ad biz that you show the campaign to some ordinary joes and ask them what they think. If they had, this Rosemary's baby of a campaign would never have seen the light of day. What it really shows you is how disconnected the TTC union is from reality.

If I was a union member, I'd be asking how much of my pension fund was spent to bring this short-lived monster into this world. Of course, starting the campaign in advance of contract negotiations was probably seen by some union rep in a suit from Moores as a good way to soften up the public for the next round of extortionate pay demands - show the public why they should love and respect the TTC workers and we'll pony up. Proof they've been spending too much time in the unventilated subway tunnels.

Thanks to the wonder of the Internet, you can still read cached pieces of the pages from the site to remind us how wonderful our TTC employees are:

[Photo missing] ATU Local 113 President Bob Kinnear (centre, blue shirt) with the stars of the union’s Worth a Million television and transit advertising campaign. They come from many different areas of TTC operations, including Maintenance and Wheel-Trans. Some are here because they did something special and noteworthy while on the job. The rest are here because just in doing their daily jobs, like all their fellow ATU 113 members, they make Toronto a cleaner, safer, and more prosperous city. Read more about them here.

The Special Report by leading environmentalist and former Ontario Cabinet Minister Marilyn Churley [still available on YouTube - a must see - ed.] calculates that the economic, environmental, health and other benefits of the TTC to Toronto total at least 12 billion dollars. And that’s a conservative estimate. Many benefits of the TTC are literally incalculable, but real.

Since about 11,000 people work for the TTC, that means each contributes, on average, more than a million dollars in benefits every year. Most TTC workers are represented by ATU Local 113, the sponsor of this site. We’re proud of the work our members do, work that deserves public recognition. Each one is literally Worth a Million.

Well, at least a tenth of million.

TTC Gets Its Money's Worth for Information Technology

2008-05-03T18:55:00.004-04:00

If anyone doubts the TTC is getting its money's worth out of its Information Technology budget, just have a look at their slick website: http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/

It's amazing what the TTC can do with IT expenditures of $170.4 million.

Our Mayor in the Dark

2008-05-03T18:23:00.009-04:00

Okay - it's old news now. In politics it's positively ancient history. But still, it bears repeating often and deserves to live on in the infinite pass-along world of Internet searches.

The date was March 29, 2008. Specifically it was 8 pm.

Earth Hour - a cult-like ceremony of national hypocrisy when we feel better about our year-round Kultur of incredible excess and wastefulness by turning off our lights. We were led in this exercise by the city's high priest of hypocrisy, the Mayor.

The Mayor even posted an Earth Hour video on YouTube, where he sits by a flickering gas fireplace, wearing an earth-friendly brown suit and tie, and says:

“On March 29, at 8 p.m. for one hour, I encourage you to switch off all non-essential lighting, and watch as other cities around the globe power down as well. Just one hour of your time to help people around the world realize the difference each of us can make and what we can accomplish when we work together. Switch off for Earth Hour and see the world in a whole new light. The issue is real. Your actions will count. So join me in the dark.”

At 8 p.m. he stood on the stage in front of City Hall with Jagoda Pike, publisher of the Toronto Star, and pulled a ceremonial switch to plunge City Hall into actual and not just intellectual darkness.

“I want to ask you all to do one thing tonight,” His Worship told the crowd. “Be a leader.”

Curiously, "Leader" is defined in the dictionary as both: "a person or thing that leads" but also "a duct for conveying warm air from a hot-air furnace to a register or stack".

What happened next was reported the next day by a journalist who dared follow the Mayor off the stage. As NP writer Peter Kuitenbrouwer reported:

"At 8:15 p.m. on Saturday, Mayor David Miller got in a car and drove from City Hall to a Shoppers Drug Mart on Eglinton Avenue West. He bought a card for the bar mitzvah of a family friend. Then he got back in the car, driven by his press secretary, Don Wanagas, and went to the bar mitzvah."

Questions about this amazing display of hypocrisy where rejected by press secretary, Don Wanagas as "petty", who said there was nothing wrong with the Mayor's actions, which are after all, just "symbolic".

One question then - why haven't we been able to find the YouTube video posted by the Mayor's office? It hasn't been pulled by them, has it? Like a gun used in a hold-up thrown in the river?

If anyone can find it, let me know, and I'll post a link.

So sleepy...

2008-05-03T18:13:00.004-04:00

There are so many metaphors I could use... The poetic and heroic one is King Arthur being awoken on Avalon where he sleeps until such time as he is needed by a nation in trouble. More appropriately, I'm probably more like a bear awaking in the spring wondering what the heck has been going on during hibernation.

Okay - so its just a pretty way of saying I've neglected my blog and now I'm back, and the last thing you need is one more Blogiste opining on how hard it is to keep at one these things. After all, 12 year olds can keep a blog going, and in the words of Zap Branagan, "they seem pretty sharp".

Plus I lost my password for a while.

So what has escaped my facile interpretation and glibly snide comment in the past few months? You name it. The TTC, pool closings, yapping city councillors - the list goes on. It helps that it is the same list from before.

Read on, and all will be revealed.

Spend while you can?

2007-08-21T16:09:00.000-04:00

I've noticed for the past couple of days that some of the city services that are being cut by Mayor Miller are out in full force. I've seen a city truck with the required 3 people (driver, worker, guy who goes to Tim Horton's) parked beside a stop sign on Mortimer cutting small tufts of grass growing around the base of the sign with a weed whacker.

Next I passed a crew out picking up a few stray pieces of paper at the side of the DVP.

One of the city parking lots on the weekend had five city guys building a flower box off the Danforth.

What gives? Could it be that city departments are doing their best to spend their budgets in a hurry before the cuts come down, defeating any cost saving?

Just wondering.

Let's Go To The Ex

2007-08-20T14:12:00.000-04:00

I was at the CNE this weekend. Unfortunately I seemed to be there on Half-Price Hillbilly Saturday.

If you want to spoil a white supremacist's day, just take him to the Ex. You won't find a more disappointing collection of Aryan genetic material anywhere. I felt out of place being the only man without a blue Celtic tattoo on my neck and five children at my ankles, each kid about eight and a half months older than the next.

The least popular food there was corn on the cob, because to eat it everyone would have to line up to share the family tooth.

Somehow, everyone had cell phones and someone to speak to, since a lot of the mothers entertained themselves by staying on the phone while the children tried to climb under the tilt-a-whirl and their husbands / boyfriends checked out the passing trailer park talent in the Paris Hilton Does Walmart clothes.

And there's no better place to have a public fight with your husband than on the Midway, where you have to shout extra loud to be heard over the guy calling "Doggie, doggie" into the microphone.

At least there's one thing you can say about the crowd - it helps the carnies with their self-esteem issues.

2006 Budget Expenditures

2007-08-12T20:11:00.000-04:00

From the City's 2006 Budget document (http://www.toronto.ca/city_budget/)

Circling the Drain

2007-08-12T17:39:00.000-04:00

When I started this blog a few weeks ago I thought it was going to be a collection of minor annoyances about Toronto and its loopy governance. Little did I know that I chose Toronto's equivalent of the fall of Rome to begin my smarty pants observations.

The Toronto $575 million budget shortfall (which nobody saw coming apparently because we're now all in shock throwing together a Plan B of hasty program and service cuts like we're throwing together a pot luck dinner for unexpected guests) keeps spinning out of control.

On Friday Mayor Miller announced a round of cuts - $34 million this year, $83 million next year. The announcement wasn't made by our elected Mayor or councillors, nor were the cuts apparently thought through by any of them. That duty fell on Shirley Hoy, Toronto's city manager. There's democratic leadership.

And the cuts? Closing community centres on Mondays, stranding thousands of single moms and low income families and disrupting their work schedules. Closing libraries on Sundays - wouldn't want people getting smarter if you can save a couple of bucks.

We were also warned that city hall will stop answering the phone. You mean they actually have phones? I called three times last week and each time was touch-toned into the dumpster. Not even an answering machine or "please hold". Straight to hang up.

Most of the cancelled programs involved making Toronto clean and livable: garbage collection, litter, trees, parks, grass cutting. All things that will let the voters see the city in decline.

The one that got me to show how petulant and mean-spirited the mayor has become over his tax hike rejection - the City will not be picking up old Christmas trees in December. The Grinch would be so proud.

The 2006 Toronto Budget Document identifies where most of the city's money is spent:

"The 2006 Approved Operating Budget is detailed by major expenditure and revenue category. Salaries and Benefits, which total $3.517 billion or 46 per cent of the gross expenditure, represented the largest expenditure category. Emergency services (Fire, Police and EMS) and TTC alone totalled $1.932 billion which approximated 55 per cent of the total salary and benefit budget."

See: (http://www.toronto.ca/finance/pdf/bs06_far05_vol4.pdf, p 149.)

There you are. It is impossible to make any kind of dent in our budget without seriously looking at salaries. And I'm not someone who begrudges the mayor or city councillors their salaries. There's not enough money there to make any difference so why bother with the symbolic?

What they need is a line by line review of plans, programs and policies and see if we really need them to keep this city clean and functioning - not some clumsy, hatchet-wielding, 11th hour "that'll teach you" slash and burn to make the voters feel the pain.

City council and the Mayor have to sit in open session and put every item on the table and sharpen their pencils. No sacred cows, no vote getters, no ideological hobby horses that cost a bundle and go nowhere - just good fiscal policy. And if they can't do it they shouldn't run next time for a job they can't do.

Oh, and they should stop whining to get someone else to pay. Make your best deal with the province and the feds, and then raise the rest. Pass tax hikes, but just make sure you raise it on the backs of the people who can afford it - like the developers of the booming condo market and land transfer tax.

Jacking up property taxes blindly across the board only feeds the spending beast and doesn't encourage a culture of savings.

Find something to sell - there's a point when you have to realize you can't raise enough to get out of debt, and our city's debt of $507 million now costs about $200 million a year to service - our 2nd biggest expenditure.

(See: http://www.toronto.ca/budget2007/pdf/pres_mar7.pdf)

Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that no one is interested in saving money - not the TTC, not the police, not council nor the mayor. They're only interested in finding more so they can keep spending the same way.

Tasting the Danforth

2007-08-10T12:01:00.001-04:00

This is the weekend we mark on the calendar to make sure we leave the city. This is Taste of the Danforth weekend.

The Danforth is at the end of our street, so we get the full frontal assault of people wandering around aimlessly with greasy hunks of fat and gristle on a stick trying to figure out if there is something actually going on.

With a million people from Scarborough standing in the middle of the road trying to choose from 300 booths all selling souvlaki, it doesn't take long to flee to the side streets clogged with cars all sporting handicapped parking stickers.

I can't figure out why people will stand in a line 30 people deep to buy a $3 souvlaki or spinach pie when any other day of the year you can get the same thing on the Danforth without any crowd to speak of, and no one in a booth is trying to sell you cheap long distance or a subscription to the National Post.

Paying Loblaws to Save Money?

2007-08-07T10:55:00.000-04:00

I'm sure it makes sense somewhere, but did you know that Loblaws gets paid to save hydro?

Yep, it's true. Those lights that go off and air conditioners turned down at its 110 stores in Ontario result not only in savings to the company, but also a cash payment by the Ontario Power Authority.

As reported in the Toronto Star, something called the IESO (http://www.ieso.ca/) got the grocery giant to sign a "'demand-response' agreement with the province back in 2005 promising, in exchange for payment, to cut its electricity use by 10 megawatts when given three-hours notice by the Ontario Power Authority."

Other companies can sign up too, and the power authority hopes they do. As their spokesman says: "Unlike existing voluntary programs, participants sign a contract obliging them to reduce or shift their electricity use during a power crisis in exchange for payment."

I'm all for managing our power system. I'm without power at home at the moment myself (see below), and no one wants Toronto to get even more like the third world than it already is with regular brownouts, but do we really need to pay companies like Loblaws to save money on power?

Of course, paying people to do what is in their own and everyone else's best interests is typically Canadian, rather than simply having someone at Loblaw's switch threatening to pull it if they don't cut back.

Sitting in the dark

2007-08-07T10:26:00.000-04:00

My home is without power at the moment. It went off yesterday afternoon and then again sometime last night.

I first turned on the portable radio to see what was happening. If it was World War III, I have a bottle of booze I've been saving. It seems like it is only a few blocks around us that is affected, so I reluctantly put the bottle away.

These things happen, but it's always kind of nice to know what's going on and if I should be eating all the frozen steaks in the freezer for breakfast before they go bad.

Being a connected kind of guy, I decided to go to Toronto Hydro's website on my handheld for an update. After all, even my Internet provider has a live "system status report" page in case of trouble. Electricity has to be more important than not being able to download the latest movie trailer from iTunes.

Apparently not. On Toronto Hydro's website there is a button for "Wind Turbine Status", but nothing to let customers know about emergencies, work in progress or power outage status.

You can send their customer care centre an email, which they will respond to "within three business days", or call their power outage service number (open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m), which I did and got the general help line that referred me back to the website.

You'd think that if Toronto Hydro wants to seriously get into the WiFi provider business, they might think about becoming their own customer and joining us in the 21st century by providing useful emergency service information in real time on their website.

The TTC - The Better (Paying) Way

2007-08-06T18:05:00.000-04:00

The National Post recently published a chart of the average wages of city workers as part of its review of why Toronto is always in debt.

According to the various collective agreements of unionized employees for the city and TTC, garbage collectors make $24.14 an hour; litter pickers make $21.14 an hour, and TTC drivers and ticket takers make $26.58 an hour. This is base salary - overtime is extra.

So the guy in the jumpsuit who picks up trash at the side of the road or in parks (possibly with an MBA), makes about $44,000 a year, without counting overtime or seniority. Being the City, on top of that they also have some of the most extensive health and other benefits available in the civilized world.

And for those of you who have gone without raises recently, its nice to know the City of Toronto's employees have had a 3% or better raise every single year since 2001 (except for 2005 when they only got 2.75% poor darlings).

Bus drivers with the TTC make over $55,000 a year, plus an incredible array of benefits. That number goes up with seniority, of which there is a great deal since no one ever leaves the cozy confines of a TTC seat.

The TTC also just published - as required - its list of employees who made more than $100,000 a year in 2006. It now has 277 employees who make more than a hundred grand. At least 17 of them were bus drivers. Makes you wonder why Ralph Kramden from the Honeymooners lived in such a shabby apartment.

But we are not to take this the wrong way, the TTC says as it contemplates service cuts to save some cash, even though salaries and benefits comprise about 75% of the TTC’s $1.1-billion budget. This is according to TTC spokeswoman Marilyn Bolton, who herself earned $101,444 in 2006.

To help us put this in perspective, Ms. Bolton was reported in the National Post to have said “$100,000 has actually depreciated in buying power”. After all, "$100,000 isn’t the $100,000 of 10 years ago, like a millionaire isn’t a millionaire anymore.”

Now I feel better. At least they have a good grasp on reality.

Aiming for Nonsense - U of T and Guns

2007-08-06T17:42:00.000-04:00

It's hard to say I'm impartial on the subject - I was a member of the Hart House Pistol Club at the University of Toronto - but the weaseliness of the decision to close the gun range in the bowels of Hart House still puts my nose out of joint.

When I was there more than 20 years ago it was already known that it was much unloved by the politically correct. It would have been even worse if anyone could find the place. It occupies an area no more than 20 feet wide and as long as a bowling alley somewhere in the sub-basement underneath Hart House, accessible only by narrow halls and stairwells. It was specifically built as a gun range.

They floated the first trial balloon, saying the university needed the space, but then admitting it really wasn't any good for anything else, except storage.

Finally someone had the guts to admit the decision to close it was simply optics and ideology - there was no place for a gun range at a university. Of course the University of Toronto was the recruiting and training ground for thousands of young men who fought in several wars, where shooting a gun often came in handy.

Fortunately, I never had to shoot a gun in anger, or had any desire to point it at any living thing, but it is a lot of fun using one to poke holes in a piece of paper 50 feet away. I even have my name as best shot on one of the club's trophies - the turkey shoot. And for the weak-kneed, let me assure you that no turkeys were hurt in the process. The turkey was the prize. (In all honesty the "best shot" thing is a bit misleading, because half the scoring was random.

The shooters at the club were far from Rambos. In fact, they were a little bit nerdy and treated their target pistols like a concert musician treats a violin.

It's no surprise that the club hasn't had an accident or incident in its 88 years. If it was a safety issue, the University would first have to close down the football team which injures students on a daily basis; rugby, which encourages hurting people on a daily basis; and track and field with all its pulled muscles and heart attacks in waiting. I think the cafeterias hurt more people than the pistol club.

No doubt there will be a call to confiscate the javelins from the track & field shed as the weapons of choice from Spartans and other gang members from 2500 years ago.

No this is politics, where reality is completely unconnected with decision-making. Seems somehow appropriate that this kind of irrational thought takes place at a university.

Remember - when javelins are criminalized, only criminals will have javelins.

Chile 'Fesses Up

2007-08-01T13:00:00.000-04:00

So Chile wanted to make a diplomatic incident out of the Toronto police doing riot control during the international soccer championship (see below)?

The news yesterday was that a member of the Chilean soccer team - remember them, the poor innocent victims of a brutal, unprovoked police assault? - admitted he watched a team mate punch a female Toronto police officer in the face.

The police's report out the other day showed that the Chilean team tore the arms off their bus seats to throw at the crowd and the cops, and then punched, kicked and threw things like little girls having a tantrum. The cops were trying to keep them under control while at the same time keep a couple hundred fans on both sides from breaking out in a testosterone-fueled, intelligence-deprived riot.

Somehow I don't think I'll hold my breath waiting for an apology from them.

Brutally Honest

2007-07-22T22:06:00.000-04:00

So the Chileans are lodging an official diplomatic protest about the fight between their soccer team and Toronto police.

They claim they were just standing there signing autographs when the police attacked. Oh yeah, that sounds like something our cops would do. Nothing makes them break out the pepper spray faster than autograph-signing South Americans.

Actually, the Chileans, hot off the field from a game marked by their belligerence and threats (not to mention pretending to be injured) in fact got into a shoving match with some big-mouthed Argentinian fans and streamed out of the team bus to deliver some Chilean goodwill on their skulls. When the police got in the middle to protect the fans, the Chilean team turned on them and got the treatment reserved for all hooligans.

The Chilean government cries these are just children - mere teenagers. Teenagers at their physical and testosterone peaks who are treated like rock stars in other countries in a sport where riots are common.

A friend of mine at the scene told me the Chilean team was aggressive, abusive, violent and out of control, and the Toronto police showed remarkable restraint in dealing with them. The pepper spray and tasers only came out when the police had to defend themselves.

"Police brutality," they sob. Wasn't Chile the country where a few decades ago their police dropped people out of helicopters into the ocean with car batteries tied to their feet?

"Racism," they yell. Isn't this the same team whose supporters throw bananas on the soccer field when playing their rival Ecuador because they consider them monkeys?

And as for the Toronto police, you won't find a police department that is more culturally sensitive, harder to provoke and slow to use force. The paperwork alone hardly makes it worth hitting someone even if they deserve it. Would they wade in and start clubbing and tasering a high profile soccer team for the fun of it? Sorry - I'm not buying it.

That's the kind of thing that happens in South America.

Feeling Lucky?

2007-07-20T12:31:00.000-04:00

Toronto's cash shortfall - which apparently no one saw coming even though it has been headed for us like a transport truck on a deserted highway - apparently has no contingency plan in case the proposed tax hikes didn't go through, which it didn't.

Nothing like having a Plan A and no thought of a Plan B, C, or D. All I can say is if you put all your eggs in one basket, you better make sure you have all the votes you need to get it passed.

So now various people are floating the idea of a downtown Toronto casino - the last refuge of the desperate, in more ways than one.

Casinos are essentially a tax on the stupid. I've been to Vegas and gambled pocket change, but you look around and know that the big shiny buildings and free drinks are being paid for by a whole bunch of suckers losing pretty reliably. Fun to watch - not so much fun to lose.

Canadian casinos are even worse - being sad, joyless affairs that suck money out of busloads of seniors. Like Vegas run by Canada Post.

Being Canada, casinos are guaranteed to not be fun, because we only believe that people should enjoy one vice at a time. You can gamble, but not drink. If you want to smoke, you can go outside. At least in Vegas you can indulge all your vices simultaneously, and even discover a few new ones.

Of course, studies show that casinos bring little economic benefit to the area. People show up, lose money and leave. They don't shop, eat or pump any money into the local economy. The only people who get rich is the provincial government, which takes 95% of the profit. That's why the mafia liked it so much.

And aside from low-paying dealer jobs, casinos don't create wealth. They don't produce anything. They are "entertainment". They just take money from some people and give it to the government.

For Toronto to agree to a casino the Province would have to agree to split the take with it. Not going to happen. For the record, the mayor has said he doesn't like casinos, at least not any more than he liked "support out troops" stickers on public vehicles, but we know that too is subject to change.

And I quote...

2007-07-19T09:26:00.000-04:00

I saw Red Skelton when he came to Toronto to do his show years ago. He opened with an old joke I'm sure told in many cities, but seemed particularly appropriate here:

"Toronto will be a nice city when you get it finished."

It encourgaed me to look for other quotes about Toronto. Oddly, a Google search only turned up car insurance quotes. Somehow it seemed appropriate on so many levels.

Invisible Jack

2007-07-18T16:55:00.000-04:00

One of the good things about living in Jack Layton's riding is it's the one place you can be guaranteed you won't run into him.

The NDP leader keeps his moustache wax next to his bed across the Don Valley in the riding of Trinity Spadina where he lives with wife and fellow MP Olivia. I can't recall hearing about him setting foot across the border into Toronto-Danforth except to accept the nomination. He probably has, but it was likely under the cover of darkness.

Before Invisible Jack, you couldn't walk down the Danforth without being accosted by Dennis Mills, former MP. Dennis seemingly lived in his constituency office on the north side of Danforth between Broadview and Chester, and was wont to hang around the sidewalk outside and drag in unsuspecting constituents to discuss government policy.

What a nice change Jack is. Not only don't you see him between elections, as NDP leader at election time he's off criss-crossing the country in his bio-diesel powered 747 mostly kept aloft by righteous indignation. Much too important to meet any of the people he represents. Busy thinking lofty thoughts about carbon credits and feeling the oppressed's pain.

In fact, Jack doesn't even mention the riding he represents (it's Toronto-Danforth, Jack) in his biography on his webpage. Ooops! In fact you have to put in a local postal code to find out he's your MP. Oddly, he does mention that he vaguely "lives in Toronto with his wife Olivia Chow, NDP Member of Parliament for Trinity-Spadina, and her mother Ho Sze." I guess home is where the heart is, not to mention the mother-in-law.

He confidently counts on the proudly unfashionable denizens of Red Riverdale and the Carrot Common with their cohorts of crystal-wearing canvassers to bring out the vote without having to bruise his alabaster knuckles on any of the half million dollar plus doors to the bastions of socialism in the riding.

The guy sitting on the sidewalk out front of Postables selling the homeless newspaper at least shows up for work every day. He doesn't take anything for granted.

Won't Someone Think of The Children?

2007-07-17T16:57:00.000-04:00

If something is working for you, why change it?

Take for example the City's favourite head-fake - closing swimming pools. Whenever the mayor or city doesn't get its way when it wants to raise takes (like a new sidewalk tax, or a tax on using a Toronto postal code on your letters), it always does the same thing. It says that there won't be enough money to keep the city's swimming pools open in the summer. Then it backs off when there is the predictable outcry. Money is found, pools stay open, life goes on.

There is a tear in the mayor or budget chief's eye when they say this - usually on a hot day - but it must sadly be done because council / the province / the feds / Santa Claus has failed to come up with the dough a hefty tax increase would create.

The pools will be drained, lifeguards laid off, and children will have to cool themselves in a bucket of warm spit, or turn to crime...

Every year that I can remember, this has been the bugle cry of the city looking for money.

Yesterday Mayor Miller lost a vote to implement new taxes on cars and land transfer taxes. What does he say today? Drum roll please...

From The Toronto Star:

"And Miller warned councillors that programs are likely to suffer as a result – such as swimming lessons for a boy he knows who lives in public housing."

If only everything in life were this predictable.

Where Are The Dinosaurs?

2007-07-17T12:26:00.000-04:00

I had a call last night from the Royal Ontario Museum selling memberships.

I loved the ROM as a kid. I was part of their "Saturday Morning Club" summer camp, and spent many happy hours looking at the rocks, bones and swords.

But I haven't been back since they crazy glued the crystal monstrosity to the side of it. Maybe it's because the ticket price for me, my wife and 5 year old is now $54 (or $25 Friday nights, or free for a quick run around after 8 pm if you don't mind feeling like a moocher).

Unfortunately, the ROM has gone out of the museum business and is now a "venue". It's for holding your socialite cocktail reception or corporate kick-off, not for marvelling at the wonders of the earth.

Critics have said the crystalline entity that is sucking the life out of the beautiful old Edwardian building also makes it difficult to display the extensive and wonderful collections gathering dust on shelves in the back rooms. The light is wonky, the walls are wonky, and the current management really wants you to look at the aluminum and glass architecture and not so much at the artifacts. I don't think there is a single photo of the front door of the old building on the website anymore. Everything looks like a set from "Space 1999".

Here's a list from their website about that they've closed:

"During our period of growth the following areas of interest will be closed:

Byzantium
Canadiana
Dinosaurs/Vertebrate Palaeontology
Earth Sciences Gem and Gold Room
Insects and Their Relatives
Islam
Mammals
Nubia
Roman World
South Asia"

So no rocks, dinosaurs, mammals, insects, Canada...

On the bright side, until November you can see "Over 250 miniature worlds of brilliant colour and style are featured in this exhibition of spectacular 19th- and 20th-century glass paperweights". That's worth my $54.

And the cafeteria now serves "earth friendly" food, whatever that is.

For me, the killer is they haven't had a dinosaur display for the past 2 years. What's a museum without dinosaurs? Just a bunch of Japanese plates and native clay pots. They promise they'll be back this winter. Maybe I will be too.

Maybe, unless I feel a real need for paperweights in the meantime.

Something to fill your toilet

2007-07-13T14:19:00.000-04:00

Don't you hate it when people forget to flush? Our Uber-mayor did that at a Michigan news conference testerday while launching his campaign to persuade other mayors to bring in water conservation programs.

Miller told the crowd that Toronto hadn't yet reached its 2011 target of a 15 per cent cut to water use, and that low-flush toilets would be the key.

Wrong.

To quote the Toronto Start article (July 14, 2007): "The city set out in 2003 to reduce average water use to 1.18 billion litres a day by 2011. Turns out the rate was down to 1.17 billion litres by the end of 2006. "We're doing awesome," said Georgopoulos."

The day before the Star reported Pamela Georgopoulos, a manager of the city’s water program, as saying Toronto is "on course to hit the 1.18 billion litre target", despite a population growth the size of Peterborough.

Of course we were on target - we had already passed it.

They went on to project the $74.3 million plan is expected to save the city around $250 million by 2011, and $4.5 million every year after that. It will also have saved the atmosphere 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases within the next four years, as less electricity is needed to pump water through treatment plants and then throughout the city.

So, had no one noticed we had already saved all that cash?

Makes you wonder what other decisons are made based on made-up information easily available down the hall.

Poor People Not Recycling Is All Your Fault

2007-07-10T17:13:00.000-04:00

There was an article in the Toronto Star a month or so ago about a city summit on recycling. One of the presentations was about how the recycling rate and generally eco-friendly activities of Toronto's poor was far, far below that of people in good neighbourhoods with jobs and educations.

Stupid me - I thought poor people didn't recycle because they are not as informed, educated or have the luxury of being environmentally conscious as rich people.

It turns out, according to some presenter representing I'm sure thousands of disenfranchised members of the underclass (if she only had the time to meet them), that Toronto's poor do not participate in recycling programs because the rich people purposefully exclude them. That's right - we deliberately prevent them from recycling and participating in recycling initiatives.

She even had a name for it: the "class eco-divide".

I have seen the enemy, and it is me.