City Services
City services are crucial to supporting residents. First and foremost they need to be kept public. The privatization of half our garbage collection hasn’t been saving us anything for years, and if tonnage goes up, might cost us more. It is a neoliberal myth that the private sector is more efficient. We must find ways to provide more services, from childcare to senior care and everything in between.
Bylaw Enforcement
The vast majority of law-breaking in Toronto is not criminal, it is bylaws. And despite infractions being widespread and easy to find, we do very little enforcement. A small army of bylaw officers were paid to remove people from park benches and playgrounds during COVID, but it seems they cannot be used to actually earn revenue and ticket the real offences that make the city a more frustrating and unlivable place.
Why are bylaws pretty much exclusively enforced on a complaints basis, why can the city not be proactive about it? Not only would it fill city coffers, it would start changing the negative behaviours that drag our city’s livability down and eventually it would lead to a culture change. It would appear that politicians may not want to preside over enforcing what many residents might perceive as too many restrictions, but environmentally destructive behaviour has to be remedied somehow.
We need a bylaw app for the city, to inform people of the bylaws (similar to how Waste Wizard informs people of waste disposal) and to record bylaw infractions. The app would connect to a person’s camera and upload pictures or videos of bylaw infractions straight to the city, with both geo and time stamps. This evidence is not likely usable by bylaw enforcement to issue a ticket, but it would let bylaw enforcement know when and where infractions are happening and in what volume so they know if a problem is getting big enough that it needs attention.
I spoke about enforcing idling laws in my section on climate change, and enforcing proper waste disposal in my section on waste, but there are many other bylaws in serious need of regular enforcement, like illegally off-leash dogs, littering, illegal signs that make sidewalks inaccessible, and many more.
TTC
Putting aside the issues with the efficiency and connectivity of transit (which I plan to solve in Ward 19 with my transportation network), the TTC needs much better customer service, more cleanliness, and to be far safer.
The TTC’s biggest problem is a lack of funding, which started when Premier Harris cut the 50% operating budget subsidy. Now we are one of the most expensive transit systems for a city our size in a developed nation. This is why we need dedicated funding from things like bringing back the vehicle registration tax (but base it on a formula).
There seems to be very little accountability or oversight of TTC operators, in particular bus operators. Compared to the past the average operator no longer seems to take any pride in their work, are often quite surly, and because they are always being moved to different routes they can have wildly different timing on the routes, which plays havoc with riders trying to get to work. Very few follow TTC policy in not idling buses in bus bays, and seem to be able to rush their routes to get a little more time at the station with impunity.
There has been a lot of talk about safety on the TTC. The solution is not constables on subway platforms, that’s not where the problem is. To deter troublesome behaviour constables need to be on every train, visible and moving throughout the train, not standing around on platforms.
Connect TO
COVID restrictions proved just how crucial a service like internet access is in modern times. And Canadians have some of the highest telecom charges in the world, it is simply unaffordable to many. We need public internet access in EVERY home, it should be considered a utility no different than water or power, and ConnectTO was the answer.
It is shameful the mayor’s executive committee voted down ConnectTO, but not surprising considering our mayor is the former CEO of Rogers. Tory may have recused himself, but it is part and parcel of neoliberal ideology that the public sector not compete with nor provide any service that the private sector can profit from.
Policing
There is no point in history that policing in Toronto has not been rife with problems, in particular discrimination, and the problems and discrimination do not really change that much. Much of the problem comes from police culture, and officers’ fear of reprisal for speaking out against a fellow officer.
Policing is one of the main forms of systemic racism. Black, Indigenous, and other racialized groups are targeted far more than Whites, and more force is used against them. It took a protest at 55 Division to get the police to look into a racist assault in the Dentonia Park area. This is a multi-faceted and longstanding historical issue with no easy solution, but the least we can do is ensure the issue stays in the spotlight and receives the attention it deserves.
The LGBTQ2S+ community has also had its share of police discrimination. The classic example was the bath house raids of the 80s, but we also have modern examples, like the lack of effort by police to stop a serial killer targeting gay men.
Some of the massive TPS budget could be defunded , starting with the mounted unit. I wrote about the issue in a blog post a few years ago and even started a petition. Mounted police are an obsolete anachronism, they serve no purpose other than pageantry or intimidation, are dangerous forced labour for the horses, and are costly.
Police also need better training on how to deal with people in a mental health crisis. Too often mentally ill people have been unnecessarily shot dead by police overreacting. Better yet, we need a separate team that specializes in dealing with people in crisis to answer such calls.
Policing needs some serious reform and a culture change. Part of the problem also stems from how may TPS officers are not residents of Toronto, so they take no ownership of the city, it is not their home, just the place where they deal with criminals all day.
Snow Removal
Snow removal has become a contentious issue ever since bike lanes started getting their own plow. The biggest problem is that snow removal is done entirely by private contractors, and so we are beholden to their availability and schedules, and they do not coordinate much or have any oversight to ensure they are doing things efficiently or logically.
For example, this past winter had some pretty serious snow. There were larger plows for the streets, and smaller plows for bike lanes and sidewalks, and then a crew with a small bulldozer to clear out corners and such. The southbound bike lane on Woodbine south of Kingston Rd was cleared during weather which made riding a bike ill-advised, but they left the bus stop at Woodbine and Norway completely blocked so if anyone with accessibility issues needed to get on the bus they would not be able to.
We need a proper protocol and plan in place for every major avenue across the city to guide snow removal in the most logical fashion that caters to the most vulnerable first, and we should consider taking a page from NYC’s book and pay residents to help shovel snow.
Access to City Staff
When I first started engaging city staff 12 years ago I found them quite accessible and open. I don’t know if it’s a change in internal policy, or a change in councillor attitude, but now I find them almost impossible to engage outside of public consultations.
I understand budgets are strained and staff have too much on their plate, but when residents cannot get answers from staff it is not just frustrating, it is disheartening. People start to give up on being civically engaged and their complaints about the city not caring start to seem valid. Councillors strained by double-sized wards can only filter so much back to residents, city staff need to be accessible.
Our city has grown faster than our bureaucracy, and I know city staff are dedicated to their jobs and residents, but they are under too much strain. We must expand departments to include staff whose sole job it is to engage residents and answer their questions, staff who are expert in their department but serve no other purpose than engaging residents.