unimaginative2
Senior Member
Finally, a smart voice on the right
With council ready to rumble over revenue tools, Ms. Stintz comes out swinging
JOHN LORINC
Special to The Globe and Mail
October 20, 2007
As she gulped a giant coffee and tapped away at her BlackBerry in the local Second Cup one damp morning this week, Karen Stintz looked more like a harried North Toronto career mom (which she is) than a crusading politician.
Ms. Stintz, 36, was in the midst of preparing the speech she delivered on Thursday to the Economic Club of Toronto, during which she told an appreciate business audience that the city must impose new user fees, slash business taxes, and take a tough approach to union contracts. Most controversially, she argued that the city must offload responsibility for a subway system that costs hundreds of millions to maintain and operate.
She was clearly intent on delivering a glancing blow to Mayor David Miller's hold on power, which will be severely tested when City Council convenes Monday to resume debate over the two hotly contested "revenue tools."
"Mr. Miller thinks the best way to achieve [financial] stability is by levying these new taxes.
"Well, I disagree," she said.
Opposition politicians, of course, are masters at the art of unflinching bravado, and Ms. Stintz, first elected in 2003 in Eglinton-Lawrence, is no exception.
But as one of the more cogent members of a disorganized right wing dominated by super-sized egos, veterans and shouters, Ms. Stintz has emerged as a critic who (unlike some of her ideological allies) actually goes to the trouble of fleshing out a rational, if contentious, plan for how the city should confront its money woes over the long term.
In fact, many City Hall watchers feel that she's one of two right-of-centre councillors - the other being Scarborough's Michael Thompson - who could make a plausible run for Mr. Miller's job in 2010.
With the measured praise of a potential rival, Mr. Thompson describes Ms. Stintz as a practical-minded fiscal conservative. "Is Karen mayoral material? Oh yes, I would think so," he says.
Ms. Stintz, who acknowledges that she harbours mayoral aspirations, is no stranger to epic battles.
In 2003, working as a civil servant in the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, she answered an ad placed by North Toronto residents groups looking for someone to oust councillor Anne Johnston, who supported the unpopular Minto towers at Yonge and Eglinton. Amid Mr. Miller's hard-fought reformist sweep, Ms. Stintz - a small-c conservative with two master's degrees who had worked on various Conservative campaigns - prevailed to defeat one of the mayor's staunchest allies.
Parked in the council chamber next to Willowdale Councillor David Shiner, she spent the first term finding her sea legs. In meetings, she came across as jumpy and strident, and seemed to be taking her rhetorical cues from Mr. Shiner.
While Ms. Stintz quickly mastered the art of the partisan shot, she confided to some council centrists that she would like more of an in with the mayor's office. Some insiders saw her as a potential link between the left and the centre right, but she and the mayor never clicked, possibly because she had defeated one of Mr. Miller's political mentors.
Consequently, Ms. Stintz became an outspoken fixture of the diehard anti-Miller faction, crossing swords with the mayor over councillor pay hikes and union contracts. She was frozen out of choice council jobs after the 2006 election, when she prevailed in Ward 16 over Steve Watt, who was backed by Mr. Miller.
Her modus operandi has been to ride the coattails of other right-wingers. Early in the first term, she and Mr. Thompson orchestrated a City Hall briefing by former police chief Julian Fantino to raise the stakes in a fight over the mayor's approach to guns and gangs. This term, she and North York Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong drove to St. Thomas, Ont., and tried to enter the Green Lane landfill to discredit the city's plan to buy the site. They were turned back at the gates.
Like many sharp-tongued politicians, however, Ms. Stintz has a Jekyll-and-Hyde quality. Those who have met her socially or worked with her on planning matters say she comes across as personable, intelligent and strategic. "She's pretty well on top of things," says Bob Michener, a director of the Lytton Park Residents' Organization, one of the groups that put Ms. Stintz in office.
But Mr. Michener and other North Toronto ratepayer activists who know her say Ms. Stintz remains frustrated about being perennially on the outs with the mayor's office. The stunts and the shots have not helped. Yet that dynamic may change by the end of next week if Ms. Stintz and her allies in council prevail over the mayor's party in the epic fight over the proposed tax measures - a land-transfer tax and a vehicle-registration levy - that are intended to partly rescue the city from fiscal quicksand. As she says, "It's not about the taxes, it's about the future of the city."
Indeed. Absent all that extra revenue, the onus will be on ambitious critics such as Ms. Stintz to come up with politically saleable alternatives that can keep the city from sliding into bankruptcy. Essentially, next week's debate will be a confidence vote for Mr. Miller.
In her speech Thursday, Ms. Stintz sought to reframe the debate, insisting that the opposition isn't just afraid of approving new taxes. Rather, she argues that Mr. Miller's revenue and budget plan will do little more than "allow council to avoid having the serious discussions" about making Toronto competitive and livable.
She took direct aim at the city's labour agreements, stressing, as she's done before, that restrictive external procurement rules, which guarantee higher wage rates to outside contractors, end up costing Toronto taxpayers as much as $100-million a year.
Still searching this week for a majority, the mayor has leavened his proposal by reducing the land-transfer tax for first-time home buyers, appointing an expert panel to review city finances and making concessions on several of the most unpopular service cuts.
It's not enough, says Ms. Stintz, who feels that the province and the city must embark on a rebalancing of responsibilities that goes beyond the promised uploading of some social-service costs. "The city has to get out of the [rapid] transit business," she said, adding that it may be time for some brinksmanship. "We've given the province no reason to move on the upload with any kind of haste."
In fact, she is critical of the mayor for not holding the Liberals' feet to the fire during the election. "The mayor didn't take direction from council in making [the city's financial crisis] an election issue."
In an interview, Mr. Miller said his intergovernmental strategy has been "enormously successful," and he points to the fact that all three provincial parties agreed that municipalities needs to be relieved of the burden of social-service costs.
But Ms. Stintz feels that if Queen's Park drags its heels with the review of which level of government pays for social services, council should refuse to balance its budget - an admitted radical gambit that she says has been discussed within the right-of-centre caucus.
"What are they [the province] going to do?" she laughs, "Put us in jail?"
The transit gambit
Councillor Karen Stintz's call this week to hand off the subway lines to the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority may up the ante in the debate over the city's fiscal crisis, but it's not a new idea. "It's been floating around for years," transit expert Richard Soberman says.
The argument in favour of such a realignment, he points out, is for a central agency to control all the rail service - both GO Transit and the Toronto Transit Commission - throughout the Greater Toronto Area.
Ms. Stintz believes that consolidating the two services would pave the way for a more regional approach to transit planning, especially now that the Spadina extension will push the subway network beyond the city of Toronto's boundaries.
Such a proposal is the ultimate hard sell. "Incredibly short-sighted," says Mayor David Miller, who feels that such a move would pave the way for worse service and higher ticket prices.
In New York, Paris and Madrid, regional authorities build, operate and maintain the subway and commuter-rail networks. "It's worth looking at," says Mr. Soberman.
John Lorinc
With council ready to rumble over revenue tools, Ms. Stintz comes out swinging
JOHN LORINC
Special to The Globe and Mail
October 20, 2007
As she gulped a giant coffee and tapped away at her BlackBerry in the local Second Cup one damp morning this week, Karen Stintz looked more like a harried North Toronto career mom (which she is) than a crusading politician.
Ms. Stintz, 36, was in the midst of preparing the speech she delivered on Thursday to the Economic Club of Toronto, during which she told an appreciate business audience that the city must impose new user fees, slash business taxes, and take a tough approach to union contracts. Most controversially, she argued that the city must offload responsibility for a subway system that costs hundreds of millions to maintain and operate.
She was clearly intent on delivering a glancing blow to Mayor David Miller's hold on power, which will be severely tested when City Council convenes Monday to resume debate over the two hotly contested "revenue tools."
"Mr. Miller thinks the best way to achieve [financial] stability is by levying these new taxes.
"Well, I disagree," she said.
Opposition politicians, of course, are masters at the art of unflinching bravado, and Ms. Stintz, first elected in 2003 in Eglinton-Lawrence, is no exception.
But as one of the more cogent members of a disorganized right wing dominated by super-sized egos, veterans and shouters, Ms. Stintz has emerged as a critic who (unlike some of her ideological allies) actually goes to the trouble of fleshing out a rational, if contentious, plan for how the city should confront its money woes over the long term.
In fact, many City Hall watchers feel that she's one of two right-of-centre councillors - the other being Scarborough's Michael Thompson - who could make a plausible run for Mr. Miller's job in 2010.
With the measured praise of a potential rival, Mr. Thompson describes Ms. Stintz as a practical-minded fiscal conservative. "Is Karen mayoral material? Oh yes, I would think so," he says.
Ms. Stintz, who acknowledges that she harbours mayoral aspirations, is no stranger to epic battles.
In 2003, working as a civil servant in the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, she answered an ad placed by North Toronto residents groups looking for someone to oust councillor Anne Johnston, who supported the unpopular Minto towers at Yonge and Eglinton. Amid Mr. Miller's hard-fought reformist sweep, Ms. Stintz - a small-c conservative with two master's degrees who had worked on various Conservative campaigns - prevailed to defeat one of the mayor's staunchest allies.
Parked in the council chamber next to Willowdale Councillor David Shiner, she spent the first term finding her sea legs. In meetings, she came across as jumpy and strident, and seemed to be taking her rhetorical cues from Mr. Shiner.
While Ms. Stintz quickly mastered the art of the partisan shot, she confided to some council centrists that she would like more of an in with the mayor's office. Some insiders saw her as a potential link between the left and the centre right, but she and the mayor never clicked, possibly because she had defeated one of Mr. Miller's political mentors.
Consequently, Ms. Stintz became an outspoken fixture of the diehard anti-Miller faction, crossing swords with the mayor over councillor pay hikes and union contracts. She was frozen out of choice council jobs after the 2006 election, when she prevailed in Ward 16 over Steve Watt, who was backed by Mr. Miller.
Her modus operandi has been to ride the coattails of other right-wingers. Early in the first term, she and Mr. Thompson orchestrated a City Hall briefing by former police chief Julian Fantino to raise the stakes in a fight over the mayor's approach to guns and gangs. This term, she and North York Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong drove to St. Thomas, Ont., and tried to enter the Green Lane landfill to discredit the city's plan to buy the site. They were turned back at the gates.
Like many sharp-tongued politicians, however, Ms. Stintz has a Jekyll-and-Hyde quality. Those who have met her socially or worked with her on planning matters say she comes across as personable, intelligent and strategic. "She's pretty well on top of things," says Bob Michener, a director of the Lytton Park Residents' Organization, one of the groups that put Ms. Stintz in office.
But Mr. Michener and other North Toronto ratepayer activists who know her say Ms. Stintz remains frustrated about being perennially on the outs with the mayor's office. The stunts and the shots have not helped. Yet that dynamic may change by the end of next week if Ms. Stintz and her allies in council prevail over the mayor's party in the epic fight over the proposed tax measures - a land-transfer tax and a vehicle-registration levy - that are intended to partly rescue the city from fiscal quicksand. As she says, "It's not about the taxes, it's about the future of the city."
Indeed. Absent all that extra revenue, the onus will be on ambitious critics such as Ms. Stintz to come up with politically saleable alternatives that can keep the city from sliding into bankruptcy. Essentially, next week's debate will be a confidence vote for Mr. Miller.
In her speech Thursday, Ms. Stintz sought to reframe the debate, insisting that the opposition isn't just afraid of approving new taxes. Rather, she argues that Mr. Miller's revenue and budget plan will do little more than "allow council to avoid having the serious discussions" about making Toronto competitive and livable.
She took direct aim at the city's labour agreements, stressing, as she's done before, that restrictive external procurement rules, which guarantee higher wage rates to outside contractors, end up costing Toronto taxpayers as much as $100-million a year.
Still searching this week for a majority, the mayor has leavened his proposal by reducing the land-transfer tax for first-time home buyers, appointing an expert panel to review city finances and making concessions on several of the most unpopular service cuts.
It's not enough, says Ms. Stintz, who feels that the province and the city must embark on a rebalancing of responsibilities that goes beyond the promised uploading of some social-service costs. "The city has to get out of the [rapid] transit business," she said, adding that it may be time for some brinksmanship. "We've given the province no reason to move on the upload with any kind of haste."
In fact, she is critical of the mayor for not holding the Liberals' feet to the fire during the election. "The mayor didn't take direction from council in making [the city's financial crisis] an election issue."
In an interview, Mr. Miller said his intergovernmental strategy has been "enormously successful," and he points to the fact that all three provincial parties agreed that municipalities needs to be relieved of the burden of social-service costs.
But Ms. Stintz feels that if Queen's Park drags its heels with the review of which level of government pays for social services, council should refuse to balance its budget - an admitted radical gambit that she says has been discussed within the right-of-centre caucus.
"What are they [the province] going to do?" she laughs, "Put us in jail?"
The transit gambit
Councillor Karen Stintz's call this week to hand off the subway lines to the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority may up the ante in the debate over the city's fiscal crisis, but it's not a new idea. "It's been floating around for years," transit expert Richard Soberman says.
The argument in favour of such a realignment, he points out, is for a central agency to control all the rail service - both GO Transit and the Toronto Transit Commission - throughout the Greater Toronto Area.
Ms. Stintz believes that consolidating the two services would pave the way for a more regional approach to transit planning, especially now that the Spadina extension will push the subway network beyond the city of Toronto's boundaries.
Such a proposal is the ultimate hard sell. "Incredibly short-sighted," says Mayor David Miller, who feels that such a move would pave the way for worse service and higher ticket prices.
In New York, Paris and Madrid, regional authorities build, operate and maintain the subway and commuter-rail networks. "It's worth looking at," says Mr. Soberman.
John Lorinc
