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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 03 March 2019

The story so far: Last week (Thursday 28 February) York Regional Council agreed a Budget for 2019 that raises taxes by 2.96% excluding an additional 1% tax levy specifically dedicated to speeding up the program of road construction giving a total increase of 3.96%. 

This year’s Budget is “multi-year” in that it looks over the horizon to the end of the Council term. For 2020 through to 2022 the Council endorsed a tax levy increase of 2.96% which incorporates a projected 1% annual tax increase for the so-called “roads acceleration”. 

The Budget increase for all other services excluding roads would therefore be capped at 1.96%. This is likely to be far below the prevailing rate of inflation. Here in Newmarket the base budget assumed a 2.95% inflationary increase (the 2.7% October 2018 annual increase in the Toronto CPI and another 0.25% to reflect costs which bear on municipalities.) 

Is this 1.9% increase feasible without taking the axe to a swath of York Region services and those provided by other organisations that the Region funds?

And how did the Regional Council get there?

Getting roads built faster

At the Committee of the Whole on 21 February 2019 the members have a report in front of them from the Regional Treasurer (who comes to York Region from the City of Vaughan) explaining how the “Infrastructure Acceleration Reserve Option” might work.

The highest paid Mayor in Ontario, Markham’s bald baritone, Frank Scarpitti, wants to approve an additional 1% tax levy in 2019 earmarked for roads. 

Newmarket’s John Taylor says there is another way of doing this without landing people with a big, unnecessary tax hike. He wants the money taken from the Region’s Asset Replacement Fund for 2019 and repaid in due course from development charges as they roll in. His amendment would have a workshop look at all the options for the following years

Georgina’s Robert Grossi likes the idea of looking at the options in a workshop. He can’t support the full 1%. He tells Frank he could do half a per cent. 

Emmerson sounds exasperated. He is wondering why they are tying themselves in knots. 

“None of this (the new roads) is gonna happen for four years!” 

"Absolutely nuts!"

King’s Mayor, the rotund Steve Pellegrini, says he wants the 1% “baked in to the 3.37% tax levy”. Pellegrini is a man of few words, preferring to suck candies and listen. He usually appears as a backdrop to Scarpitti who talks a lot. Pellegrini, now finding himself centre stage, says his proposal would mean a 2.37% increase for everything else. He wants staff to come back and show them how to find that 1% in either operating or capital efficiencies.

Incredulous, Vaughan’s Mayor and former Liberal MP, Maurizio Bevilacqua, doubts Pellegrini’s sanity:

“The motion is crazy! It’s absolutely nuts… I can’t believe we are doing budgeting (in this way). What priorities are you going to get rid of? From a governance point of view this is a spectacle. There is no seriousness here. Absolutely zero.”

“I am unimpressed. I’ll be honest with you. To just say that you want to bake in 1%... You understand the impact of that? What is the impact?

Steve Pellegrini protests saying he is only trying to align the Budget within a respectful increase.  

“I’ve heard loud and clear the priorities – we’ve all heard the priorities – it’s transportation. I am trying to align the budget within a respectful increase to acknowledge that we need to increase transportation and move people in this Region… I am asking staff to come back with a list – how they can find a 1% reduction.

Scarpitti's Lapdog

Bevilacqua is now getting into his stride. He suggests Pellegrini is Scarpitti’s lapdog:

“The point I am making is this. You have to accept this. You would not have moved that motion had Mayor Scarpitti not moved his. You did not come here today with (the idea of) baking anything inside anything… I know that for a fact. It is a reaction to the Scarpitti motion (interruption)

“This is serious, right? If you (the Regional Chair Wayne Emmerson) are not going to say it then I am going to say it. The reality is this. You cannot proceed and make budgets in the manner in which you are doing it now. It is laughable. It just doesn’t make any sense… This is absolutely crazy…How can we say we can make a decision on the 1% on the spot? That’s serious.”

Now Markham’s new Regional Councillor, Don Hamilton, a man always on the hunt for efficiencies, tells us Bevilacqua wants members to rubber stamp whatever the staff comes up with.

John Taylor, a stickler for procedure, says members can of course reduce the Budget but it has to be done through a reasonable process. He says they should not be reducing the Budget by one per cent in one week.

Richmond Hill’s Carmine Perrelli agrees it is too late in the day for a change of this magnitude. Markham’s Joe Li is wringing his hands. His Markham colleague Jim Jones backs Pellegrini.

Now Pellegrini says he wants to extend the Budget process by one month. He concedes a 3.37% increase is “hefty”. Now, unusually, the centre of attention, he affects indignation.

“I take great offence about what was said about my sanity!”

Cuts to come from across the board

Emmerson says that 1% would have to come from across the organisation. 

Scarpitti says a tax increase cannot be avoided and that if the Region is going to find this money then all the external bodies (that get cash from the Region) will have to be part of the solution.

Taylor says:

“I’m not opposed to looking at (a lower tax rate). But if we want to do it let’s aim for next Budget. Let’s look at all the options for bringing it down to 2%-2.5%. Make sure we make wise decisions informed by public input.”

He says he wants a report and a workshop for achieving the 1% and, importantly, a proper process - that will take months - for the next Budget. The workshop is agreed. But when the Minutes of the meeting go up to Council on 28 February 2019 there is no mention of any workshop. It has been airbrushed out of the record.

Fast Forward to Thursday 28 February 2019. The Regional Council agrees the Budget. 

Taylor, visibly exasperated, demands to know what has happened to his workshop. It has disappeared into the ether.

The Region’s Chief Administrative Officer, the smooth, unflappable Bruce McGregor says:

“We bring back what we think are your expectations.”

Taylor says the recommendations in front of Council do not reflect what they talked about and agreed last week.

Emmerson says he thought there was an appetite to put something in the roads budget. Taylor insists the motion that was agreed was to take options to a workshop.

Markham’s Jim Jones tells McGregor he did exactly what they were expecting. Richmond Hill’s Joe Di Paola agrees. Markham’s Jack Heath compliments the staff and the Chair for coming up with something they can all agree on. 

Now Steve Pellegrini gives a “huge, heartfelt thank you to staff” for accommodating his revised budget.

Inscrutable

McGregor can be inscrutable when the occasion demands. He isn’t asked to comment on the shape of the likely service reductions implied by Pellegrini’s 1.96%

Scarpitti thanks staff and Pellegrini. Everyone is now thanking and congratulating everyone else.

Georgina’s Roberto Grossi slaps Emmerson on the back for the leadership he has shown. East Gwillimbury’s Virginia Hackson agrees with Scarpitti and Pellegrini and says she is pleased the increase is below 3%. 

Aurora’s Tom Mrakas says it’s a great job keeping the increase below 3%. He supports 2.96%. But he agrees with Taylor that clear direction to staff comes with a motion.

Markham’s Don Hamilton says he can’t support 2.96% - it’s far too much. But he will support 2.5%. The increase should stay “within” the rate of inflation.

Markham’s Joe Li agrees that 2.96% is still too high. He complains that no-one takes any notice of his opinion and, for that reason, he will vote against the Budget.

Richmond Hill’s Carmine Perrelli and Vaughan’s Gino Rosati say they will support the Budget. As does Georgina’s Mayor, Margaret Quirk who smacks down Joe Li for threatening to vote against the Budget. She says he should put forward something that is more to his liking. 

Don Hamilton says it is not a “solid” budget. For him, there’s always more fat to be trimmed:

“In a week we’ve found some efficiencies.”

John Taylor supports the 2.96%. Taylor tells Markham's Joe Li it is not irresponsible to vote against the Budget if he is unhappy with it. 

Disgusted! 

Now the pressure cooker that is Joe Li explodes. At Markham we learn he can sit down with senior staff who will listen and try to accommodate his concerns. But here at York Region he complains no senior staff person has called him in 8 years! He says he is disgusted! (But why doesn’t he just call them? He isn't a wallflower. He doesn’t need to sit by his phone, waiting for a call.)

Jack Heath says there is no need for an additional 1% tax levy right now, in the first year. He says there is no urgency and would prefer an “incremental approach”.

Emmerson says now is not the time to nickel and dime.  You go for the 1% or not. Emmerson likes to give members two clear alternatives. That way no one gets confused. He is black and white with no shades ofd grey.

Now the Regional Clerk tells us staff upstairs have been checking the tapes of last week’s meeting (on 21 February) and confirms what Taylor said. There was a decision to hold a workshop on non-tax levy options for raising the 1% but this is not reflected in the minutes - nor in McGregor's presentation.

Now Gino Rosati is calling for more road building and road widening oblivious to the fact his roads will fill up as soon as they are finished. Pellegrini's 1% is not enough for him. He wants it to be topped up with other revenues and transfers.

Taylor warns: The public won't support this

Taylor reminds his colleagues about the burden they are about to impose on the taxpayer. He says a 4% (2.96% + 1%) tax increase won’t wash. The public will not support it. He says they don’t know what kind of service level reductions are implied by the proposed tax levy. He stresses again the way forward is to look at all the options in a workshop.

Frank Scarpitti is clearly upset having to listen to this. 

“The public is frustrated as hell about our ability to accelerate the roads program. Transportation is a major issue in the southern municipalities. It far outpaces all other issues. It is mission critical the 1%.”

Whitchurch-Stouffville’s new Mayor, Iain Lovatt, backs the additional 1% tax levy as does Markham’s Jim Jones, who is a rail enthusiast. He says it could be used for grade separations. East Gwillimbury’s Virginia Hackson will support the 1% on the grounds that lots of people in her patch work in Markham and other areas down south. 

Jack Heath says it is important to get the ball rolling even if he does think the 1% in 2019 is too much. Perrelli and Quirk will back the 1% as will the conflicted Joe Li with all his public agonising and hand-wringing. He wails:

“4% is a dilemma”

and then votes for it.

Mrakas backs Taylor

Aurora’s Tom Mrakas is siding with Taylor. He wants to look at the options in a workshop setting and take the 1% from the Asset Management Reserve rather than impose an additional 1% tax levy.

Markham’s Don Hamilton, always on the quest for efficiencies, says he cannot support a tax increase of 3.96%. The process they are all following is putting the cart before the horse. He is in Taylor’s camp – three of 18 voting against the additional 1% tax levy.

Taylor explains for the nth time that the money can be drawn from the Asset Management Reserve and repaid in due course rather than take it from the taxpayers. He says we borrow it from ourselves and repay it from DCs (development charges) as they come in. (Taylor's Newmarket is of course billing its residents for the cost of the newly purchased Mulock Farm Park through a separate tax levy but that’s another story.)

Now attention turns to future years – 2020 to 2022 – when the projected tax levy is capped at 2.96% which will include the 1% for roads. Is this even remotely realistic?

Scarpitti wants to leave it as is for the moment “and see what comes out of the workshop”.

I learn it is to be held on 25 April 2019.

But I don't know if that will show up in the minutes.

Probably not.

And the discussion on the Council’s proposed Code of Conduct is put off until next time.

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 25 February 2019

11pm. With one third of the polls reporting in Burnaby South NDP leader Jasmeet Singh has a clear lead over his Liberal challenger.

In York-Simcoe the Conservatives, as expected, have held the seat, squashing Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party.

The Liberals have taken Outremont from the NDP.

Voter turnout is lamentable in all three ridings.

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Update on the by-election results (posted 26 February 2019) 

What can we learn from the results of yesterday’s by-elections? Personally, I think we should be cautious in reading too much into the runes. 

But the Globe and Mail’s John Ibbotson takes a stab at it.

“Conservative Scot Davidson held the vote at 54 per cent, while the Liberal vote slumped from 38 per cent in 2015 to 29 per cent Monday night. Even more encouraging for Mr. Scheer, the People’s Party sat at only 2 per cent, suggesting Mr. Bernier won’t be a factor in the fight for the 905, the large belt of suburban ridings surrounding the city of Toronto, named after its area code. The 905 almost always votes for the party that forms the government…

For the NDP, the news is both bitter and sweet. Sweet: Mr. Singh will finally be in the House of Commons. He will arrive with Justin Trudeau’s government staggering over the SNC-Lavalin affair, giving him a perfect opportunity to reboot his troubled leadership, only eight months before the next election.

Bitter: The New Democrats are no longer in the game in Quebec. The NDP appears destined to become again what it was before: a rump, a third place-place party in English Canada, and soon to be only a memory in Quebec.”

Can Vote. Won’t Vote

The majority of voters in the three by-elections didn’t vote. Lots of factors could be in play. The weather, perhaps. Or maybe a sense the result was a foregone conclusion. That may have been the case with York-Simcoe but surely not in Outremont and Burnaby South?

Turnout in York-Simcoe was down from 63.66% in the general election in 2015 to a woeful 19.91% yesterday.

In Outrement, turnout collapsed from 62.42% to 21.38%. 

In Burnaby South things were better. 60.78% in 2015 down to a still miserable 29.89%.

Turnout in elections is highly variable but the long-term trend points to falling participation rates. In the federal general election of 20 June 1882 a mere 32% of the electorate in Manitoba voted. The highest voter turnouts in a federal general election were in Yukon on 31 March 1958 and in PEI in 18 June 1962 when in both cases 90% of the electorate voted.

The highest voter turnout nationally in a federal general election was on 31 March 1958 when 79.4% of the electorate voted.

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And Chantal Hébert’s take on the results in the Toronto Star (27 February 2019)

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 24 February 2019

The three Federal by-elections in Burnaby South, Outremont and York-Simcoe on 25 February are important pointers to what could happen in the general election this fall. 

If the NDP leader, Jasmeet Singh, doesn’t win he is finished. Politics is a rough old trade and I simply point out the obvious. There is no way he could carry on as the Party’s standard bearer and fight the general election as NDP Leader in October if he loses in Burnaby South.

The demography of the riding is also a factor which may unfairly work against him. The Chinese Canadian community is the largest ethnic group. And while that community is clearly not monolithic, a Chinese heritage candidate may nevertheless still have an edge. 

The Vancouver Sun tells us that Singh’s

“path to a win got harder when the Liberals’ first candidate resigned over racist remarks and the party appointed Richard T. Lee, who for four terms represented the provincial riding with similar boundaries”

Bitter and Divisive

The Toronto Star tells us this morning that the tone on the campaign trail has been “unusually bitter and divisive” with the candidates’ debates marred by hostile audiences angry about immigration and refugees.

In Outremont – the Quebec riding held by Tom Mulcair since 2007 – things again look bleak for the NDP if we are to believe the polls. And every second news item seems to be about Singh’s turban and what it means to French Canadians who have been obsessing for years about “reasonable accommodation”.

York-Simcoe, immediately to the north of Newmarket, is a true-blue riding – one of the safest for the PCs in the entire country. 

Last week, eager to hear the candidates in person I take myself off to Georgina to see them set out their stall and sell their wares in a meeting organised by the Social Planning Council of York Region. I feel a bit like an interloper as I don't have a vote up there.

People's Party challenge

The PC candidate, Scot Davidson, is absent. I don’t know if he simply couldn’t be bothered or if he had another pressing engagement.

The People’s Party hopes to make a big dent in the PC vote with their candidate Robert Guerts. He looks formidable on paper but, in the flesh, he is nothing to shout about.

He is banking on Bernier’s message of right-wing Conservatism having resonance here. Guerts says the Conservatives are morally and intellectually corrupt. This is a man who doesn’t mince words. His People’s Party promises to defund the CBC, privatize Canada Post, end corporate welfare and phase out supply management over four or five years. And they would bring in a 15% flat tax on all incomes between $15,000 and $100,000. And no capital gains tax.

If the People’s Party can cream off a sizeable percentage of Conservative votes they will claim victory. I can’t see it happening - no matter how you define sizeable. The first past the post system is brutally efficient at killing new parties at birth. (When Bernier boasts of doing very well in Burnaby South he is whistling in the dark.)

Shaun Tanaka, an academic at the Universities of Toronto and Queen’s, was the Liberal candidate last time and decides to give it another go. She tells us she increased the Liberal vote in 2015 and this doesn’t surprise me. She comes across as engaging and capable. 

Immigration

A question from the audience about restricting immigration gets all the candidates animated. She coolly recites her family history. She describes herself as a fourth generation Japanese Canadian whose father was interned here during the last war. Her answer is a reprimand to those who see Canada through the lens of the “old stock” (as Stephen Harper would say).

Newmarket’s irrepressible Dorian Baxter is also a candidate, claiming a connection with the riding through Bradford where he raised his two daughters. 

For a man of the cloth, he startles me with his forthright views on immigration. He tells us “we don’t need every Tom, Dick and Harry here”. He says we should look after Canadians first. We learn he was an immigrant himself 51 years ago – but he tells us he came through the front door. 

Dorian asks his audience:

“How many people would open their front door tonight for someone from Toronto?”

That made me sit up and think. I suppose in Dorian's universe they don’t open the Pearly Gates for any old Tom, Dick or Harry.

Dorian, of course, has no hope of winning. But he is always entertaining even when I’ve heard his gags before. He reminds us he

won the Collingwood “Elvis thing” about 23 years ago and when he gets to Ottawa they’re gonna be “all shook up!” 

It is difficult not to laugh. It is pure vaudeville, delivered with such panache!

Knowledgeable and passionate

The NDP candidate, Jessa McLean, comes across as knowledgeable about the issues and passionate. She is a powerful speaker. Not for her the bromide we get from so many calculating wannabe politicians. She tells it as she sees it and would make a good MP.

But York-Simcoe is unlikely to give her the chance.

The Green candidate, Matthew Lund, says they are not "old environmental hippies". It is a good line. I close my eyes and try to imagine him in a kaftan and fail.

The other candidates - Keith Komar the Libertarian, Adam Suhr of the National Citizens Alliance - are also-rans and will pick up a handful of votes between them.

Included in their number is the curious arm-waving eccentric, John Turmel, who has run for elective office and lost on more than 90 occasions. He is the most defeated candidate ever in Canada and is regularly thrown out of meetings.

One of his supporters is sitting directly behind me, from time to time making loud comments in Russian or Polish or some other language I couldn't understand.

Exasperated, I pivot round with my index finger over my lips.

Shhhhhh!

I like a good heckle but what I am hearing is all Greek to me.

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 17 February 2019

The Globe and Mail is providing a running commentary on the Stronach family feud each disclosure more jawdropping than the last. 

Frank Stronach’s granddaughter, 18-year old Selena, is the latest to go to Court, filing a lawsuit against her aunt, Belinda. A month earlier, Selena’s mother, Kathleen, who is divorcing Frank’s son Andrew, filed a claim for financial support: 

“focused on maintaining a lifestyle that includes a 15,000 square-foot home in Aurora, Ont., with five staff, including a chef, two luxury cars, and vacation homes in Palm Beach, Fla., and Muskoka. She and her daughter receive $15,000 a month in direct transfers from the family’s private holding company, The Stronach Group, plus unrestricted use of credit cards, and private jet flights for monthly vacations at five- and six-star hotels. In the divorce claim, Kathleen Stronach said her daughter owns a ranch with one full-time employee, where she raises cattle that are shown in country fairs, and ‘the operation is expensive to run.’ ”

Frank Stronach set the litigation ball rolling last October when he sued his daughter for over $520M 

“alleging mismanagement of the family’s various private business ventures, which include U.S. horse-racing tracks and real estate”.

She counter-sued and it has been a Punch and Judy show since then.

"I've never sued anybody in my life."

In Frank’s 2012 autobiography “The Magna Man” he tells us forthrightly how he made his millions. In the early days, after a merger between his company and another he fell out with business partners on the direction the new company should take. They were focussed on aerospace. He saw big profits in the automotive sector. He said he was going to resign, sell his shares and start all over again.

“I told my fellow Board members my intentions and a number of them asked if I would sell my shares to them. We drew up a contract and they issued a promissory note. But when the note came due, they didn’t have the money. I could have tried to collect the money by launching legal action but I have never sued anybody in my life.”

That paragraph will have to be re-written for the second edition.

Anyway… he tells them to forget the money if they resign from the Board (which they do) leaving him in control. 

Like most people I never gave the Stronachs a second thought before the family feud erupted. 

That said, the Stronachs have always been on the edge of our consciousness. You see the name all over the place, on the side of big buildings in Aurora and Newmarket, but that’s the way it has always been. Aurora, in particular, is the archetypal company town.

Development and Real Estate

People close to Frank Stronach are powers in the land in their own right. His “good friend and partner” Tony Czapka was responsible for real estate acquisitions in the 1970s. His son Peter now runs Tricap, a "family-owned, operated and financed company" which is a major landowner and land banker in Newmarket. Tricap owns land at Davis Drive and George Street that has been sitting empty for years despite getting planning approval in 2009 for a 280 unit 20 storey condo. 

For her part, Belinda Stronach is developing one of the last big chunks of open space left in Aurora – the so-called Stronach surplus lands.

Next to the new development, Adena Views, but separated by a landscaped pond, sits the high-end gated development at Adena Meadows with its unusual street names. I see Awesome Again Lane and Glorious Song Lane. 

And then it occurs to me. It’s not about the glorious streetscape and the awesome houses. It’s about Frank’s thoroughbreds. Glorious Song and Awesome Again who won million-dollar purses for him.

I don’t know where it will all end up for the Stronachs. 

After a brief skirmish in the Courts will Frank call it a day and gallop off into the sunset? Or is it a fight to the death with his daughter Belinda?

But whatever happens, things will never be quite the same again.

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