Barber: Hazel Takes Up Charge for Municipal Funding

[ShonTron]

Doady pushes the envelope much farther than anyone with legitimate criticism of Mississauga and McCallion. For example, she made one really bad, nasty, racist remark, and was mentioned in the news, but quickly forgotten. Had many other politicians done that, there would be calls for their head. I'm willing to overlook it as well (it, as far as I know, doesn't reflect a pattern of such behaviour), but it stands out as an excellent example of how differently she's treated compared to say Miller or even McGuinty. She grew up in Quebec, but like anywhere else, there's that rural/urban divide that separates tolerant, cosmopolitan cities like Montreal with backwaters like Hérouxville.

All that said, I'm glad she spoke out like this. At least using her cult of personality towards, what I feel, is a very laudable goal.

I will also say that Hazel is one skilled politician, like her politics or not. It is her skill as a politician that has allowed a lazy media (Royson James and Jim Coyle, step right down!) to revere her.

 

[Hydrogen]

I hate Hazel as much as the next guy, but is it really necessary to call her a Quebecker?

naughty, naughty.

 

[The Mississauga Muse]

It's disconcerting when our political leaders take us for granted and expect us to believe thier b.s. all the time. Keep up the fight and expose them for who they are and your message will be heard.

OK. Had to be away from UrbanTO because I had to work up two videos for you all.

It is of the Mississauga June 27, 2007 Budget Committee. This is now the "genesis" of the "CITIES NOW" campaign. Actually, I'll be giving the URL to Mr. Harper and Mr. McGuinty so they can see for themselves the grave concerns that McCallion et al had for "infrastructure" back last June.

Hint: In the long version --57 minutes, there was ZERO occurrence of the word "infrastructure".

A good portion of the Director of Finance's presentation is about staff salaries. Get this. ALL union contracts are up for negotiation in 2008-2009. The June budget estimate assumed no change in the biggest benefit OMERS (Ontario Municipal Retirement System) AKA pension and also benefits such as health/dental.

In this video there's a chart that projected a tax increase of 6.7% for 2008, 9.2% in 2009 and 8.5% in 2010. And get this, the 3% Enersource dividend is counted in! Meaning without the 3% dividend from Enersource the June 2007 6.7% would've been 9.7%.

Now, fast forward to November 2007 and McCallion's minions set a 5% "infrastructure levy" on top of the regular 3.9% property tax. Works out to 8.9% overall for Missisauga.

If you listen to the tape, the Director of Finance stated the 6.7% bottomline was dependent on union benefits staying the same. I guess they didn't.

2.2% difference from the June projection.

Then again a battlecry of 3% or 4% CITIES NOW! infrastructure doesn't sound near as good as the old rounded off 5%.

Here are the two versions of the June 27, 2007 Budget Committee meeting. Now that we know about this "CITIES NOW" campaign, we can look at this footage with 20-20 hindsight and can even see some hints of the genesis of "CITIES NOW" (how to sell a big increase. McCallion warns councillors that 2008 and especially 2009 will bring them to 2010 and another election...)

A Brilliant marketing ploy to deflect union contracts being up and pressures/increases in salaries, benefits and pensions (after all, can't have the most overpaid councillors around not having staff equally well taken care of...Think Royson James billboards here.)

And the media bought it just like the McCallion lapdogs they are.

"CITIES NOW!" Genesis (Mississauga Budget Committee Meeting June 27, 2007) short [if you want to cut to the chase]

and almost-complete version. 57 minutes. Not complete coverage, sorry. At one point I got distracted by the video surveillance camera in the council chambers. Twice actually. And I ran out of tape when Parrish started to say she's so glad she's not a Toronto councillor.

"CITIES NOW!" Genesis (Mississauga Budget Committee Meeting June 27, 2007) 57min

After you watch this stuff you can "appreciate" Jim Coyle's article today with this:

Dumb move, fellas, provoking Mayor McCallion

"McCallion slapped a 5-per-cent infrastructure levy in place – no muss, no fuss, no months of squeamish agonizing – to vacuum up some of Ottawa's GST cut and take care of what the feds won't do.

And, step aside, boys, from now on she'll lead a national campaign entitled Cities Now!, to demand Ottawa use its huge surplus to help urban centres tackle their many and mounting problems.

"I'm not fighting for Mississauga," she declared. "I'm fighting for the municipalities of Canada.""

Suuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrre she is.

I tell you. What passes as media around here is just KILLING me. No research. No memory. And above all, no...

 

[Hydrogen]

I tell you. What passes as media around here is just KILLING me. No research. No memory. And above all, no...
[/IMG]

It's media alright, you just want someone to do something useful with it.

 

[The Mississauga Muse]

It's media alright, you just want someone to do something useful with it.

OOPS. Forgot to post this as well. Accountability mechanisms in place for municipalities according to province. Ombudsman jurisdiction comparatives.

Check out the dead-last embarrassment that Ontario is.

And now there's a "CITIES NOW" campaign to give back money to Ontario cities? They're LESS accountable now than before the pre-Harris landslide.

And check out Peel Region from Thursday. The staff there has recommended ducking the Ontario Ombudsman.

Peel Regional Council Plans to Duck the Ontario Ombudsman (Nov 8, 2007)

Why should Canadians in other provinces pay for Ontario's unwillingness to hold municipalities accountable? Harper knows. And as a liberal so do I and I don't blame him for refusing to participate in the sham-scam.

Exception for me would be to any municipality that will allow its citizens access to the Ontario Ombudsman (right now I know of only one city.)

*sigh*

shhhhh... let's not wake the "media"...

 

[The Mississauga Muse]

I will also say that Hazel is one skilled politician, like her politics or not. It is her skill as a politician that has allowed a lazy media (Royson James and Jim Coyle, step right down!) to revere her.

Thanks SeanTrans. I still haven't figured this all out yet.

The cult-status, I mean.

I remember a mayoral debate by Don Barber during the 2006 election campaign where he ended his speech with "Vote like she's a man and not a little old lady". Something like that.

Had the entire audience groaning including me.

But jeeze you know, ya got to wonder.

Seeing through all that P.R., spin and above all snow, it's easy SeanTrans. And it's so pervasive. Someone just had to attend meetings and VIDEOTAPE it.

I mean they have televised Parliament and the Legislature but there's only Rogers Council and not General Committee or Budget meetings and stuff. And people just never are able (even if they were so inclined) to discover the facts for themselves.

You'd be sickened just like me at the number of times, SeanTrans when there's a Council meeting and I swear aside from the Council itself and a couple of Corporate Security, I'm the only one in there.

Just my eyeballs. And cripes if I weren't there, they'd HAVE a closed meeting. That's the hilarity of it all. Even their public meetings are essentially closed because when you hold the things on a Wednesday at 9am, like-- who's going to be able to attend?

If a municipality is serious about public input, Council meetings would be held in the pm --7 or 7:30 or so.

I've despaired at actually being able to change things. Now I just document --like bear witness, at the contemptuosity of it all.

"contemptuosity" --new word. I find covering Ontario municipal governance, I'm constantly forced to create new vocabulary.

I feel SO SORRY for seniors on fixed income when these new tax hikes hit.

 

[syn]

Why should Canadians in other provinces pay for Ontario's unwillingness to hold municipalities accountable? Harper knows. And as a liberal so do I and I don't blame him for refusing to participate in the sham-scam.

Well, I think one of the issues here is that it wouldn't be other provinces paying for anything - it's just Ontario getting some of it's money back.

What about provinces that do hold municipalities accountable? Shouldn't they get more funding? Citing accountability is really just an excuse by the Federal government (one that hasn't been that accountable themselves) to not provide more funding.

 

[doady]

Mississauga Muse is right. All the budget problems that Mississauga has is the fault of Hazel. The higher levels of government are just a scapegoat to deceive the public about the real problems of the city. The city could just trash the transit system and save $100 million a year right there, so it is a not a difficult prbolem to fix by any means.

The real problem is that Mississauga is incorporated in the first place. Just dissolve the city and get rid of the municipal government. No city = no government = no Corporation.

 

[The Mississauga Muse]

Well, I think one of the issues here is that it wouldn't be other provinces paying for anything - it's just Ontario getting some of it's money back.

Now this part I'm not sure of so I'm just asking ok? But I'm assuming when I'm paying Federal taxes, it's for Federal stuff like the CPP and Federal programmes and not bailing out municipalities that a province doesn't bother holding accountable.

What about provinces that do hold municipalities accountable? Shouldn't they get more funding? Citing accountability is really just an excuse by the Federal government (one that hasn't been that accountable themselves) to not provide more funding.

That citing accountability is me not the Federal government. The province of Ontario is one pathetic joke in its municipal matters. Cripes, Ontario legislated evil empire powers to municipalities in 2001, then added some more and all the while making noises about making provinces more "accountable" as well.

They can float THAT turd in someone else's drinking glass.

 

[The Mississauga Muse]

Mississauga Muse is right. All the budget problems that Mississauga has is the fault of Hazel. The higher levels of government are just a scapegoat to deceive the public about the real problems of the city. The city could just trash the transit system and save $100 million a year right there, so it is a not a difficult prbolem to fix by any means.

The real problem is that Mississauga is incorporated in the first place. Just dissolve the city and get rid of the municipal government. No city = no government = no Corporation.

doady, if you'd have sat in on the meetings that I have, you'd realize that the best thing about Mississauga IS the transit system. At least the Commissioner of Transit is a straight-up guy, who when he's made a mistake, up and admits it with no excuses.

And while I agree to a considerable extent that the problem is so many municipalities are corporations given "natural person" status, the greatest problem of all is that there's absolutely no oversight into municipalities.

And while they float a line about "transparency" they are anything but.

Example. That Mississauga speaker series. The first one with Stephen Lewis. McCallion congratulates the audience on how there's such a terrific participatory element drawing from all over Mississauga.

I took one look around and dropped down a Freedom of Information the very next day.

Asked for street names and postal codes of all who attended (NOT numbers just the street).

Got my Freedom of Information results back on Friday. Can't give me street names. And will only provide the first three letters of the postal code.

And they're gonna charge me $17.00 for a list of attendees with just the first three postal code letters.

And I'm going to be able to determine whether McCallion was being honest about the diversity-draw of that Stephen Lewis audience.

It's like that for EVERY thing, doady. Bad enough our tax dollars are going into an unaccountable black box. But then that unaccountable black box tells me how accountable and transparent it is --AND, that it's fighting for all Canadian municipalities.

At least at the provincial level there's an Auditor General and an Ombudsman to look into provincial agencies.

It's simply NOT possible to make municipalities accountable. Just isn't. And that's what we're hanging our GTA future liveable cities programmes on.

I want to quote one of the Mississauga News writers, Craig MacBride. Writing about Larry Beasley of Speaker Series III.

Mr. MacBride wrote:


"He [Larry Beasley] also said this: "You don't want to continue as you have in the past, and you probably can't afford to continue on as you have in the past."

He was saying what everyone has said on that stage, all in different and vague ways. He was saying what everyone knows, that Mississauga was built poorly. It's ugly, it's stupid, and we're going to have to pretty much start from scratch if we want to make it a real liveable city with an identity."

So your comment:

"Just dissolve the city and get rid of the municipal government. No city = no government = no Corporation."

...well, Mr. MacBride would agree with that.

We're takin' most of the same people who built Mississauga poorly (and expensively by the way) and --what? Believe that they're capable of getting it right this time 'round?

You should'a heard what came out of Wards 1 and 2 last Wednesday about that 5% tax levy. Then you'd know it would be impossible to give less of a shit about Mississauga's vulnerable.

 

[Disparishun]

Asked for street names and postal codes of all who attended (NOT numbers just the street).

Got my Freedom of Information results back on Friday. Can't give me street names. And will only provide the first three letters of the postal code.

And they're gonna charge me $17.00 for a list of attendees with just the first three postal code letters.

Weird -- it's hard to believe street names would reveal individual attendees. There's always the appeals process.

 

[CDL.TO]

People do have a right to privacy. In an urban area the postal code could be used to identify specific buildings or locations. I sure as heck wouldn't want them giving out my postal code to a member of the public who requests it.

...but for that matter I usually give out fake postal codes anyway. Hello A1B 2C3!

 

[syn]

Now this part I'm not sure of so I'm just asking ok? But I'm assuming when I'm paying Federal taxes, it's for Federal stuff like the CPP and Federal programmes and not bailing out municipalities that a province doesn't bother holding accountable.

It's no secret that Ontario (and Toronto for that matter) contributes more in taxes that it receives.

That citing accountability is me not the Federal government. The province of Ontario is one pathetic joke in its municipal matters. Cripes, Ontario legislated evil empire powers to municipalities in 2001, then added some more and all the while making noises about making provinces more "accountable" as well.

They can float THAT turd in someone else's drinking glass.

The government has played the accountability card before.

I don't disagree with you - there should be more accountability. I also agree that McCallion shouldn't be giving lecutures on the subject. However, I also think that there is a serious funding problem that needs to be addressed.

 

[The Mississauga Muse]

People do have a right to privacy. In an urban area the postal code could be used to identify specific buildings or locations. I sure as heck wouldn't want them giving out my postal code to a member of the public who requests it.

...but for that matter I usually give out fake postal codes anyway. Hello A1B 2C3!

Hi there. I just got back from talking to the Mississauga Freedom of Information guy. You're right. That's exactly the reason he gave. That it IS possible with only a street name and a full postal code to zero in on an individual (He said it's possible for just three houses to be in one postal code).

It would be hypocritical of me to be fighting for the rights of others by violating other people's rights --even if they are the affluent and well-connected who routinely show up at these Mississauga events.

You're right. What I will do is see what kind of information I can glean from just the first three letters. I believe that Malton will be badly underrepresented while Wards 1 and 2 will be there bigtime.

We'll see.

 

[The Mississauga Muse]

I don't disagree with you - there should be more accountability. I also agree that McCallion shouldn't be giving lecutures on the subject. However, I also think that there is a serious funding problem that needs to be addressed.

Oh man do I ever agree. There IS a serious funding problem. But it's not going to be fixed handing over $$$$ to governments that simply aren't accountable. It's just not possible to determine whether that money is well-spent.

It's not possible to follow the money trail.

Seriously, it's REALLY bad. You should've seen what just happened to me today at the Mississauga 3rd floor Freedom of Information/clerk's office.

You would NOT believe. Even me, with all my "experiences", I didn't believe this.

I suspected that Mississauga Corporate Security might be spying on me and others in the audience. For example last Wednesday, Royson James came over and introduced himself to me.

I figured that might tweak the interest of anyone operating the video surveillance camera.

So I requested the tape last Friday. Found out today that there's a bit of a problem. Ready?

The tape has "four gaps" --FOUR GAPS! "Camera not working" was the reason.

HAHAHAHAHAHA...