Chaos and invented crises — Doug Ford is borrowing from the Mike Harris tool box
The mayors and political leaders of the Toronto-centred region’s nearly 10 million people are much like the Toronto Maple Leafs: skilled, prominent, hyped and, fatally, lacking grit and fight.
So, expect them — the municipal politicians — to be steamrolled by a pugilistic Premier Doug Ford and his marauding provincial government looking to reduce a provincial deficit on the backs of local taxpayers.
Like Toronto Mayor John Tory before them, these leaders have already folded like a cheap suitcase in the face of provincial intent to meddle and mess up the way our communities are governed.
The municipal leaders have not been asking for this. The provincial bureaucracy has not issued any warnings or concern. The new government was not elected on a platform to fix identifiable problems. There is no study or data or report or discussion or consultation or white paper or recommendation or debate. There is only the facile mantra to reduce government and gain efficiencies.
Some seem to put great stock in the fact that well-regarded “advisers” Michael Fenn and Ken Seiling have been tapped to do a review and report by summer. But what exactly is their mandate? And their task is so designed to deliver private advice to the government, not a public report for wide consumption and review.
Some 82 cities and towns in the Golden Horseshoe are threatened — or, if you are deluded, on tap for great improvements. When was the last time a provincial government, unprompted, pursued municipal reforms that were designed to improve anything within municipal mandate?
No comments:
Post a Comment