Quotulatiousness

May 27, 2010

The absurdity of spending $1 Billion for G20 meeting security

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:30

Hard to disagree with anything Rex Murphy says here:

Summits are useless, expensive and potentially dangerous anachronisms.

Let’s take the G20 summit, which will be held June 26-27 in Toronto. No one from the general public will be meeting with the world leaders — summits are not for mingling. So why are the leaders gathering in the middle of Canada’s most populous city when the very idea of interacting with any of the city’s population is absolutely impossible?

Once inside the summit venue the leaders — and their insanely bloated retinues — will be almost antiseptically sealed off from every other bit of Toronto. It’s all fortified meeting rooms and security-proofed hotels for them. Effectively, they will come to Toronto, stay behind a shield of impassable security and talk to leaders they’ve already met. It makes zero sense.

If you’re of a Toronto-centric, anti-Stephen Harper mindset (that would be most Toronto voters), you might attribute it to Harper recreating the famous pacification policy of Henry II: imposing the costs of supporting the royal court by visiting the powerful nobles (that is, the victim can’t refuse the honour of hosting the King, and then has no money or time to plot or scheme against same).

Update: Kelly McParland makes another good point:

Hard as it is to fathom, the Conservatives appear to have successfully created a bigger waste of money than the Liberal gun registry. It took a long time — they’ve had 15 years to study how the Liberals went about wasting so much money on an agency that costs a lot and doesn’t work — but they’ve managed.

In doing so, they’ve disqualified themselves from ever complaining again about money-wasting Liberal schemes, or the gun registry itself for that matter. If Tories can blow a billion forcing everyone in Toronto to find somewhere else to spend the weekend of June 26-27, Liberals can force farmers to get shotgun licences.

May 25, 2010

Charges against Michael Bryant unexpectedly dropped

Filed under: Cancon, Law — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:53

Just in from National Post:

All criminal charges have been withdrawn against former Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant.

Special prosecutor Richard Peck made the surprise announcement in a Toronto courtroom Tuesday morning.

Mr. Bryant was charged after an altercation with a cyclist in downtown Toronto last summer; the cyclist, Darcy Allan Sheppard, died in hospital afterwards.

If the speculation went wild after a former backbench federal Conservative MP got off with a (relative) slap on the wrist, it’ll pale in comparison to the outrage this development is likely to provoke.

Initial discussion of the incident here and here.

March 30, 2010

I guess I can’t complain

Filed under: Cancon, Economics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:17

According to the latest figures, my commute is only a bit longer than average for Toronto:

After more than six years of enlightened, environmentally-conscious left-wing government under a pro-transit mayor with a compliant anti-auto city council, Toronto has been told its gridlock is among ther worst in the world.

The Toronto Board of Trade surveyed 19 cities and found that commuting times in Toronto are the longest of the lot. Worse than London. Worse than New York. Worse than Los Angeles. Worse than Berlin or Milan. The average beleaguered Torontonian spends 80 minutes a day trying to get to and from work.

Imagine what it would be like without an enlightened, activist, pro-transit city government.

Well over half of my commuting time is spent inside the city boundaries, even though it constitutes a bit less than half the total distance. I’m fortunate that I don’t have to do my commute every day of the week . . .

March 25, 2010

This is positive, but it’ll be more positive when it isn’t even news

Filed under: Cancon, Liberty — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:44

The pursuit of equal opportunity for all has another minor milestone: the first black police officer to head Toronto’s homicide squad:

Inspector Mark Saunders became the first black head of Toronto’s Homicide Squad this week, replacing the division’s first female leader.

Staff Inspector Kathryn Martin was promoted after just one year as homicide’s top cop; she now heads the professional standards division, charged with integrity on the force and public confidence.

Insp. Saunders, a former homicide detective who most recently worked in professional standards, moved from that division back to homicide this week.

Police Chief Bill Blair has stressed the importance of diversity on the force and also promoting the best people. Since he became chief in 2005 year, he has named two black deputy chiefs, as well as women as heads of the sex crimes and fraud units.

This is a good sign that institutional racism and sexism is becoming less and less a factor (at least within the Toronto police force), although it’ll be a great day when this sort of announcement isn’t even remarkable. That would mean that the best candidate for a job is the one who’s offered the job, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. Humanity being prey to frailties, it might never happen, but it’s still worth working towards.

March 24, 2010

The Guild breaks into comics

Filed under: Gaming, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:11

Didn’t it used to be the other way around, with comics graduating to live action shows or movies? Well, in this case, Felicia Day’s brilliant web series The Guild is moving to comic form, at least for three issues:

It’s too bad she has to work on her new Syfy movie today. Otherwise, Felicia Day would totally be stopping by any and all Toronto comic shops.

An actress, writer and much-loved geek goddess, Day has successfully transplanted her popular Web series The Guild from the Internet to the page as scribe for Dark Horse Comics’ charming new The Guild, a three-issue miniseries debuting in stores today.

She’s reminded of the one random day in Barnes & Noble when she first saw a DVD of The Guild, the award-winning online comedy that for three seasons has followed a girl named Cyd (Day) and her guild of eccentric fellow online gamers known as the Knights of Good.

“I kind of geeked out and took a picture of it for my own posterity. But I’m such a book and comic lover. It’s just seeing something that has my name on it. And then my face twice on one of the covers! So that’s kind of like, ‘Ugh, get over yourself,’ ” Day says, laughing.

“I can’t help but get a little sick of my face, but it is exciting. It’s fun to see myself drawn.”

I’m sure hoping that the no-longer-accurately-titled “World’s Biggest Book Store” has a copy in stock when I visit there tonight.

Update, 25 March: No, they didn’t. They also didn’t have John Scalzi’s The God Engines or The Trade of Queens, the final book in the Merchant Princes series by Charles Stross. I did manage to get one of the four items I was looking for, The New Vichy Syndrome: Why European Intellectuals Surrender to Barbarism by Theodore Dalrymple.

March 13, 2010

Privatization? Let’s not be ideological!

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Economics, Government — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:03

Robert Fulford on the problems with unions in the public service:

Unions hate the very word “privatization.” And no wonder. Their present system is close to perfect: Their workers can’t be fired but can strike, as they do from time to time, demonstrating their power. They win most of their struggles with politicians, who throw billions at them just to keep them quiet. (After all, it’s not as if the politicians were spending their own money.)

This arrangement became commonplace in Canada about half a century ago, turning public-sector employees into princes of the working class who make more money than other people doing the same jobs, and receive more generous benefits.

Union members passionately believe this is no more than their due. The unions and their friends believe public ownership is fundamentally good, private ownership at best dubious. In 1994, when it seemed possible that Ontario would privatize liquor sales, the Ontario Liquor Boards Employees’ Union commissioned a study by a York University economist, Nuri Jazairi. He found, no surprise, that this was a bad idea and that the provincial government should continue to control every ounce of liquor sold within provincial boundaries, presumably for eternity.

But his report was most revealing when he turned to the motives of those who favour privatization. He suggested the idea sprang from “purely political and ideological reasons,” among which he listed “the control of public expenditures” and “limiting the role of government in managing the economy.”

It’s no surprise that the folks who benefit disproportionally from the current arrangement are the most vocally opposed to any changes which would reduce their advantages. If the government did get enough political will to go ahead and privatize, there’s no way (unless the government tied their hands in advance) that private enterprise would give — or could afford to give — their employees the same pay and benefits they currently enjoy under public ownership.

Update: Speaking of situations which could only arise under public ownership, here’s a perfect example:

More than 1,250 Ontario Ministry of Revenue employees will soon be receiving severance packages of up to $45,000 each — but they won’t be out of work. Most of them aren’t even switching desks. They’re simply being transferred from the provincial payroll to the federal payroll when the province moves to a federal harmonized sales tax this summer.

March 10, 2010

Mr. Miller’s media gotcha

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 18:30

Police funding: Toronto increases budget, reduces staffing

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:07

Toronto’s police force is going to have to cut back on the number of officers on the beat, in spite of a $33 million budget increase since last year:

At an emergency meeting at police headquarters, the board voted to find temporary savings, which would bring spending down to the $888.1-million approved by the city in February, avoiding a clash over a $5.9-million disparity.

Police Chief Bill Blair said even temporary budget reductions would mean fewer officers on staff, and concerns about a reduction in the force’s effectiveness.

“At the end of the day, this is what you need to fund these service levels. The city doesn’t want to come back and say, ‘cut police officers,’ because politically, that is a difficult thing to suggest,” Chief Blair said. “But what they instead say is, ‘We won’t give you enough money to pay their salaries.’ So inevitably we have to cut the number of police officers.”

Last year’s budget was $854.8 million. So an increase to “only” $888.1 million means automatic cutbacks to staffing levels. That must make sense to someone, but it seems like only in the public sector can an increase in funding go hand-in-hand with a decrease in provided services.

March 9, 2010

We’re pulling soft drinks from schools, but we’ll now charge for water

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Education — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:40

680 News had this delightful little news item in the round-up this morning:

Some parents are questioning a plan by the Toronto District School Board to put a vending machine in a Parkdale elementary school that sells water refills and flavoured water.

The vending machine is scheduled to be installed at Fern Avenue Public School, near Queen Street and Roncesvalles Avenue.

The machine will charge students 50-cents for filtered water and $1 for flavoured water.

The pipes at the school apparently need to be replaced, which has some parents concerned that this little “convenience” will come to replace the water fountains altogether. If that happened, the 50-cents-per-drink machine would be a nice little earner for the school board.

After this became news, the board decided to delay the installation until after a meeting to consult with concerned parents. (Translation: the phones were melting down from the angry responses the board was getting, so they’re at least pretending to pay attention to parental concerns.)

February 10, 2010

It’s not the affair that disqualifies him for mayor, it’s the lies

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:50

Royson James sums up the Adam Giambrone scandal pretty well:

Mayoral candidate Adam Giambrone can be gay if he wants to, or bisexual. This is Toronto.

Giambrone the playboy can have a 19-year-old girlfriend on the side, a common practice among the political elite of the day.

Giambrone the TTC chair can use the couch in his city hall office to bed Kristen Lucas late at night when he should have been using the office to solve customer-relations problems at the TTC.

Giambrone the defender of the public purse can even give his girl and her mother inside information about an upcoming transit fare hike while barring commuters from hoarding tokens in advance of the said fare hike.

And when caught with his pants on the ground, the man with the clean-cut, fresh, youthful image can admit only to having an “inappropriate” text message relationship with the girlfriend, as if it amounted to mere digital sex, a peccadillo.

But the 32-year-old city councillor can’t do all that and expect Torontonians to embrace him as their mayor.

Update: Giambrone seems to have realized it’s over: he’s announced that his bid for mayor is over.

February 9, 2010

Scandal hits Toronto mayoral candidate

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:35

It’s early for this kind of media-friendly scandal to break, which makes it unlikely to actually affect the outcome of the election (that is, it’s a self-inflicted wound, no partisan assistance required). Adam Giambrone gets to try to finesse his way out of an “inappropriate relationship with a young woman.”

Giambrone, who currently lives with long-time partner Sarah McQuarrie, admitted to the relationship with university student Kristen Lucas after she forwarded a series of text messages to the Toronto Star. Lucas said she had been in a relationship with Giambrone for about a year.

Andrew Coyne has been sending lots of twitter updates on the matter:

I can’t decide whether this Adam Giambrone business is funnier than it is creepy, or creepier than it is funny.
As always, the issue isn’t the sex — that’s the funny part — it’s the multiple, multiple lies.
Was he lying when he told his teenage paramour the “live-in partner” at his mayoral launch was just “someone political… for the campaign”?
Or is he lying to us when he publicly apologizes to the “partner,” as if she were anything more than a flag of convenience?
Did he lie to her too? Or did he tell her I need you to pretend to be my lover, but don’t worry I’ll be shtupping a teenager the whole time?
[. . .]
And best of all: the “threatening email” he showed the Star, purportedly from her, in which she misspells her own name.
So the question for Toronto voters is not, do you want a serial liar for mayor, but do you want an incompetent one?
As for me, I’m sticking with my initial reaction: What a maroon.

February 1, 2010

The bureaucratic response to pedestrian fatalities

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:08

Along with the politicians’ leap to regulate, the bureaucracy is responding in a highly predictable way to the high number of pedestrian fatalities in the Toronto area this year: ticketing jaywalkers.

I don’t mean to minimize the impact of these accidents. Several years ago, someone very close to me was killed by a car while crossing the street. Without going into the details of the incident, I can tell you that I understand firsthand the pain of losing a loved one in a sudden, senseless way.

Yet, it’s no salve for a mourning family to know that the men in blue are out making a show of ticketing jaywalkers (and at intersections nowhere near where the fatal accidents took place, no less). That’s not education. It’s wasting valuable resources for the sake of appearing to be “doing something.”

The one sensible bit of advice for pedestrians I’ve heard come out of the recent rash of deaths is this: Don’t assume it’s OK to cross just because you have a green light (or friendly white walking man) on your side. Look around with your own eyes. Check the intersection and take a glance behind your back. In other words, don’t blindly rely on someone or something else — a driver or a traffic indicator — to keep you safe.

Interestingly, it’s precisely the opposite of the message the police are sending every time they dramatically nab a pedestrian for not slavishly following the rules. Go figure.

I drive into downtown Toronto a couple of times each week. Every day, I see pedestrians doing stupid, dangerous things. Every week, I see drivers going too fast, making sudden lane changes, and turning without signalling or appearing to visually check before turning. Given all that, it’s amazing that there aren’t more accidents.

Posting police officers on busy intersections to hand out jaywalking tickets is an almost complete waste of time and effort, but (as so often is the case) it provides a visible mark that the city is doing something about the problem. The fact that the something is useless doesn’t deter the bureaucracy: that’s a feature, not a bug. No newspaper or TV reporter is going to be able to say the city isn’t doing something. Mission (bureaucratically) accomplished.

January 27, 2010

Is it open season on Toronto’s pedestrians?

Filed under: Cancon, Randomness — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:16

Toronto has had a remarkable spike in the number of pedestrian fatalities this month. Last year, two pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents in the city. This year (so far) there have been 14. There are a number of possible answers as to why this is happening, but you can always trust politicians to leap at the answer that inconveniences the largest number of people:

That increase prompted City Councillor Bill Saundercook (Park-dale-High Park) to lobby for the city to reduce speed limits in areas identified as hot-spots — those areas with a high amount of pedestrian activity.

Mr. Saundercook, who co-chairs the city’s pedestrian committee, says decreasing the speed limit by 10 kilo-metres per hour in those key areas will increase reaction time and hopefully prevent the kind of accidents that have been happening over the last three weeks.

That may or may not help: the police have not definitely identified excessive speed as the primary or even major contributing cause to the high number of fatal accidents. If past experience is any guide, it might actually frustrate drivers by forcing them to go slower than the “natural” driving conditions in that area, encouraging more speeding. Of course, the city is looking at a big budget shortfall, so increasing the chances for issuing speeding tickets might be the real reason for the suggestion.

Constable Hugh Smith, of Toronto Police traffic services, said that all the fatalities so far this year were preventable.

“All the fatalities this year have been due to some kind of human error,” he said. “These were either pedestrians walking into a live lane of traffic or a motorist not taking the time to come to a stop, or turning a corner unsafely.”

January 13, 2010

Toronto bureaucrats and politicians at odds over pond skating

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Liberty — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:11

After yesterday’s article at the National Post, Peter Kuitenbrouwer finds that the new “no skating” policy was implemented without informing the elected politicians:

Toronto parks department bureaucrats permanently banned all skating on city ponds without consulting any elected city officials, Councillor Paula Fletcher, the parks chief, said yesterday.

Ms. Fletcher (Toronto-Danforth) and the committee’s vice-chair, Karen Stintz (Eglinton-Lawrence), believe the ban on pond skating is wrong, and plan to bring the topic to the Parks and Environment meeting at City Hall this morning. Ms. Fletcher suggested yesterday people should continue ignoring the signs, as long as they believe the ice is safe.

“I believe that there should be skating on ponds,” Ms. Fletcher said yesterday.

“It certainly was not a public policy,” she added, to ban skating on city ponds. The councillor said she was unaware of a document, “Activities on Frozen Open Bodies of Water Policy,” until I reported on it in the National Post yesterday.

“When this is a public debate it should be a public document,” added Ms. Fletcher.

January 12, 2010

“You should not obey every sign you see”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Liberty — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:03

I’m not even a skater, but I thoroughly agree with Rob Roberts Peter Kuitenbrouwer on this:

Toronto’s biggest skating rink is now (unofficially) open for your winter pleasure.

Please ignore the City of Toronto’s yellow plastic signs, fastened to trees and posts around Grenadier Pond in High Park, which read, “Danger. Ice unsafe. Keep off. Municipal Code #608.”

The affirmation on these signs is false, as hundreds proved this past weekend when we piled onto the city’s largest pond. Some cross-country skied. Some walked dogs. A photographer from a community newspaper got on to take pictures. One young man who had a thick Russian accent brought an ice drill and bored eight holes (the ice is about 25 cm thick) and sat down on his cooler to fish.

Mostly, we skated: people shoveled off five beautiful hockey rinks along the 1.2 km-long expanse of ice, linked by ice lanes. Shinny was never so glorious. Yesterday I skated again, joined once more by skaters, skiers and walkers.

Flaunting the municipal signs doesn’t bother me; I explained to my son (who is seven) that, “you should not obey every sign you see.”

Update: Corrected attribution to the actual author of the piece. I must say that the National Post author attributions are sometimes rather confusing. The page currently says the piece is by Rob Roberts, but elsewhere on the site, Chris Selley refers to it as Peter Kuitenbrouwer’s article. Selley also perfectly encapsulates the municipal government’s preferences: “Just do what the government says and no one gets hurt”.

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