Details

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 06 May 2015

The threatened part privatization of Hydro One has triggered an avalanche of hostile comment, warning Ontario not to sell the family silver.

In a spirited piece in the Toronto Star earlier this week, Transit Union chief, Bob Kinnear, reminds us:

Transit in York Region north of Toronto is the only fully privatized system in Canada and charges the highest fares — $4 for a single Zone 1 bus ride, a dollar more for Zone 2. It is also the most heavily subsidized in Ontario, with taxpayers kicking in an additional $5 every time a paying passenger boards that bus.

While cash fares are being pegged for the next two years, non-cash fares continue their steady progression upwards.

A book of 10 adult tickets goes up from $33 to $34 on July 1 and up again to $35 in 2016. Similarly a book of 10 student tickets rises from $25 to $26 and up to $27 next year. The full list is shown here.

Tomorrow, York Region’s Committee of the Whole will be receiving its regular report on how many riders the buses are carrying. Councillors will find out why ridership is down in the first quarter of the year.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Details

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 29 April 2015

To the Newmarket Public Library for their latest IdeaMarket offering:  

“Smartphones, You Tube, Infamy: Video Activism and Social Change”.

Soon after kick-off I realize the sweep of tonight’s topic is way, way too wide with nothing staying in focus for more than a few minutes before discussion is moved on.  We hear about cyber bullying and the damage it can do to a person’s self esteem. Now I am watching a promotional video for a women’s refuge. Next up is a short movie clip from a young woman expressing her feelings through the medium of a silent video. It's a jumble that seems very Art House-ish to me.

There is a panel of six (too many) including Tracy Kibble, the Editor of the Era, Newmarket’s local newspaper which is dumped unsolicited on driveways week in, week out.

She tells us that much of what is out there on the internet cannot be trusted. That’s why local newspapers are needed. They care about the truth and double check the facts. As I am listening to this, I am smiling to myself.

Now she is asked about citizen journalism, blogging and its impact on the mainstream press. She seems curiously unconcerned.

Nwkt Town Hall Watch

She mentions by name, Newmarket Town Hall Watch, brushing them aside disdainfully. They hide behind their anonymity and don’t bother to check their sources, peddling half truths and distortions as fact. (That was the gist of it.)

Now Tracy is talking about how the Era is coping in an age where news travels fast. A tweet can be sent in seconds. She concedes they are never (or rarely) going to be first with breaking news.

Indeed, I learn the Era no longer routinely publishes photographs of accidents and the like. One way or another, these go on the web instantaneously. By the time they appear in the print version they would be old news.

We are told the on-line site chalks up an impressive 500,000 page views per month. I am astonished. Clearly, there is life in the old dog yet, albeit in the digital version.

A Huge Cylindrical Roll of Bumf

In the old days, when people bought the Era, there had to be a certain percentage of news in the content. (I was told it was about 40% but this may be way off the mark.) But now the paper is a freebie there is no minimum requirement for news and editorial. What little there is is submerged under a huge mass of advertising bumf.

As I am listening to Tracy I am wondering how many people would take the Era if they had to pay good money for it. And will it exist in its current form in, say, ten years?

Nowadays, people get their news from a huge variety of sources and newspaper editors, like Tracy Kibble, are no longer the gatekeepers they once were, deciding what should be reported and when. That paradigm died years ago.

Nevertheless, I want local newspapers to survive. They could still fulfill an important function.

But they’ve got to offer more than we are getting now; which is a very thin gruel of local news and comment.

They need to become relevant again.

Here's an idea. The Era should start running stories on local issues that influential people would prefer to see going unreported.

I have a list.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Details

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 28 April 2015

In last year’s Provincial Elections Kathleen Wynne promised to give municipalities the choice of ditching first-past-the-post and changing to the ranked ballot.*

In an interview with the Toronto Star today, the Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister, Ted McMeekin, says he is to consult municipalities in the fall with a view to introducing legislation in Spring 2016.

The Premier wants the new system to be in place for the 2018 elections.

I want to see it happen too.

There are still big unanswered questions about how we get from a-to-b but the direction of travel is clear. First-past-the-post can produce spectacularly bizarre results especially when there are lots of candidates in the race. In last year’s election in Toronto, the successful candidate in Ward 16 (Eglinton-Lawrence) got 17.4% of the vote.

This is unusual but it happens more often than you would think. And of course, there are lots of first-past-the-post elections where the successful candidate gets less than 50% of the vote. The ranked ballot ensures that the winner always gets more than 50%. With that comes a measure of legitimacy.

The Ranked Ballot and Newmarket

However, here in Newmarket the ranked ballot may not make much of a difference. In last year’s election most of the incumbents were home and dry – either because of their own sterling qualities or because the opposition was less than stellar.

The ranked ballot wouldn’t help a polarising figure who is uniquely unpopular. As I tap this out, I immediately think of Maddie Di Muccio, the Ward 6 incumbent, who got 785 votes (24.6%) while her challenger attracted 2115 votes (66.5%).

By contrast, the ranked ballot may well have made a difference in Ward 3 (Twinney 45.9%; Woodhouse 37.8%; Madsen 16.2%) or in Ward 5 (Sponga 46.7%; Heckbert 30.9% and Martin 20.3%). Who knows? That said, it is clear that giving voters the opportunity to express a preference can change voting behaviour.

And candidates, too, will have to think about how their views play with voters whose first preference is for someone else. In some wards, securing lots of second preference votes is likely to be a winning strategy.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

* also known as “preferential voting” or “the alternative vote”.

Details

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 24 April 2015

To the Regional HQ for the Council meeting. It is not streamed so you've gotta be there to see the whites of their eyes.

Mary-Frances Turner, President of York Region Rapid Transit Corporation, gets the ball rolling with a presentation on the Annual Report for 2014. Her delivery is relentlessly positive.

We learn that work on the Yonge Street Rapidway will start in June when construction crews will start digging up the road outside the Regional HQ. How deliciously appropriate.

John Taylor wants to know about compensation for businesses ground down by years of contruction work in Davis Drive. She tells him there will be a meeting with Metrolinx on Friday (24 April) to discuss business support and details will be posted on the website.

Now she is telling councillors about the series of “monumental announcements” made by the Province over recent days on transit infrastructure. We hear an update will go the next Committee of the Whole on Thursday 7 May.

Everyone seems happy enough with the way things are going with no discordant voices.

Tony Van Bynen says nothing (again)

Newmarket’s Mayor, Tony Van Bynen, is hunched over his desk, scribbling away. He rarely says much, if anything.

Van Bynen is also a Director of Newmarket Hydro and I learn that a report is coming to councillors on the development of a 20 year Electricity Plan for York Region. With Hydro One dominating the news this will be interesting stuff. On 28 April 2015, the “Integrated Regional Resource Plan” will be published showing how we can keep the lights on. This could become quite the political hot potato.

Now we are on to the controversial report from the Committee of the Whole meeting on 9 April 2015 which saw the recommendations from the Region’s Chief Planner,Val Shuttleworth, on the future of employment land in Markham rejected by councillors on a vote. Straight into the trash can they went.

Regional planners want a blank check

I am now listening to a lively discussion on “High Density Development within Identified Intensification Areas” where the Chief Planner seems to be asking for a blank check. She wants

“Regional staff (to) be authorized to appear before the Ontario Municipal Board in support of the Region’s position, as required, for all development proposals that seek to reduce approved densities within intensification areas.”

Markham Regional Councillor, the splendidly inquisitive Jack Heath, says he is uncomfortable with this. It could be cutting regional councillors out of the discussion for things that will happen in the distant future.

An unusually assertive John Taylor joins in. He doesn’t want regional staff trooping off to the OMB to take a position “in opposition to a lower tier position”.  He suggests a compromise. Regional staff could appear at the OMB “when in alignment with the lower tier”. The language is clunky but we all know what he means. He doesn’t want Newmarket to be shafted by York Region at the OMB.

Shuttleworth explains that the Region wouldn’t want to see a reduction in density or “down zoning” in a centre or corridor earmarked for intensification.

Open disagreement (and more of this needed)

There is a real difference of opinion and it is unusual to see it burst out into the open in such a public way.

Jack Heath wants to know if the recommendation, as worded, simply reflects existing practice. If so, he would be reassured and be content with the wording.

Shuttleworth, squirming in her seat, is forced to concede that the wording “is a little bit different”.

Not all development proposals come to the Region. She explains there are other “approval authorities” (meaning the lower tier municipalities) where the Region’s role is to comment. The Region usually leaves delegated approvals alone but there may be instances where it would wish to take a position in support of the Regional Plan and its policies.

Left out of the loop

Taylor counters by insisting that councillors should not pre-approve a course of action, years in advance, giving Regional staff wide-ranging authority to challenge a local solution which, perhaps, may involve some reduction in density. He fears being left out of the loop.

Brenda Hogg, Taylor’s ally from Richmond Hill, wants to know about high density developments, outside the centres and corridors identified for intensification, which are equally a matter of concern. They draw activity away from the very areas earmarked for high growth.

Now things are getting complicated and Shuttleworth is losing her grip on things. It is time to smooth ruffled feathers. We hear that the planners are not going to go to the OMB “guns blazing on every issue”. She says she doesn’t want to open a Pandora’s Box. Hmmmm.

The Chair, Wayne Emmerson, says councillors will be told when the Region goes to the OMB. Shuttleworth adds: “If the Region is offside with our local municipal partners then you will know about it. It would be brought to (Regional) Council.”

And this is how it is left. Some councillors clearly believe that the planners, left to their own devices, would follow their own “city building” agenda even at the expense of the clearly expressed wishes of the lower tier municipalities such as Newmarket.

Markham Employment Lands

Now we return briefly to the thorny issue of the re-designation of employment land. Markham Regional Councillor, Joe Li, who previously had concerns about putting an hotel and theatre/convention centre on employment lands, wants to change the position he took a fortnight ago. He has met the developer and it is now OK.

Taylor asks Shuttleworth if she has any comments. No.

Now the Mayor of Vaughan, Maurizio Bevilacqua, moves an amendment expanding the study area of a proposed mobility hub at the Concord GO Centre. The Secondary Plan envisages a new GO Rail Station. (So does Newmarket’s Secondary Plan though the one at Mulock Drive is a figment of Rick Nethery's imagination.)

Taylor, who admits he knows nothing about the amendment, again presses Shuttleworth for her views. She is well briefed, telling him it expands the study area to both sides of the railway track and envisages a mix of uses, not just employment.  He is right to press the planners for answers and to do so without equivocation.

Di Biase has nothing to say

Throughout all these exchanges, Newmarket’s Mayor looks on in a disinterested kind of way while the chair of Planning and Development, the disgraced Michael Di Biase, censured a few days ago by his own City of Vaughan for improperly interfering in the tendering process, stays resolutely silent. Not a word passes his lips throughout the entire meeting. He will be picking up his York Region pay cheque nonetheless.

I look at his face for signs of penitence or contrition but I see nothing.

Meanwhile Wayne Emmerson chairs the meeting with his usual jolly banter.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.