Railroaded by Metrolinx

Rally for Respect against the Silencing of Toronto

2011-09-26T06:13:00.000-07:00

“Regular Programming in Dufferin Grove Park will be cancelled during the day time hours on Saturday, September 10, 2011 due to an anticipated, large, unpermitted event.” (sic)

- Sign posted on a tree in Dufferin Grove Park by Toronto Parks and Recreation, as ordered by Mayor Rob Ford.

According to Mayor Ford, democracy is a large, unpermitted event.

On September 10th at Dufferin Grove Park, 500 people gathered to discuss core public service cuts under the banner of Stop Ford’s Cuts! Spread out on picnic blankets, Torontonians organized into twenty focus groups to strategize how to protect essential services, keep public sector jobs, and work together to draft the People’s Declaration for presentation to City Hall on Monday, September 26th, the ground zero of the cuts. The sum of these 2012 budgets cuts amounts to $100 million, which matches the 2011 revenue cuts by Mayor Ford, which include the $60 vehicle registration tax, and the refusal to increase property taxes by 3%. This infographic by ‘Ford for Toronto’ blogger, Matt Elliot, shows it a glance -- Ford finds it necessary to privatize core services, eliminate the Hardship Fund, environmental monitoring, such as the Toronto Environment Office and Atmospheric Fund, and reduce transit service levels so that people can drive cars and own homes. Sound familiar? In August, Harper eliminated 776 jobs from Environment Canada.

At the Dufferin Grove rally, situated in the west end hotbed of urban hippiedom, Cleo Halfpenny was selling hand silkscreened voodoo dolls of Mayor Ford with Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti in his pocket for $25 a pop, $20 without Giorgio during the meeting. Colourful Mayor Ford graffiti is springing up on walls throughout the city, faster than the white brush of the Fords’ can erase. As one of his decrees, Ford said taxpayers should call 9-1-1 to alert them of graffiti, and in the Dufferin Grove sign, he asks park-goers to call 3-1-1 to stop outdoor meetings, but he cannot stem the fabulous graphics,incisive political blog entries and pithy information visualization charts protesting his efficiency-finding measures.

Toronto is awash with graffiti - - Ford as a corpulent octopus, with his tentacles in many jars, his white potato head saying ‘Spud’, the stenciled word ‘Nightmayor’, and online campaigns such as Margaret Atwood for Mayor and 500,000 citizens against Ford. The silencing of creative constituents has brought about agitprop resistance provoked by anger, and softened by mirth, pointing out how ludicrous this all is, while laughing at Ford’s anti-graffiti legislation as a ‘catch me if you can’ tactic. A photojournalist friend, R. Jeanette Martin, is documenting the Rob Ford graffiti art for posterity; she cannot keep up with the sightings. Whether it is ‘Brazil’, ‘Twelve Monkeys’ or ‘Jabberwocky’- it seems like Toronto City Council is directed and scripted by Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam. Mayor Ford tried to close the park washrooms during the Stop the Ford’s Cuts! rally through an edict to Toronto Parks and Recreation; local councillors had to formally request they remain open.

On September 19th, I witnessed the first morning of the second round of marathon deputations from an overflow room at City Hall. Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti asked for a motion to cut deputations down from five minutes to two; it was granted, and speaking time for the opposition was divided by more than half. Within the first several hours, when a blind PWA spoke eloquently to keep funding for HIV services, he paused to turn to face a councillor and consider his question. Mayor Ford cut him off brusquely, timing him out. Councillor Adam Vaughan quickly invoked City Hall’s policy for accommodation for disability. For the next twenty hours, in an absent, monotonous tone, Ford continued to recite the names of the deputants, ending their time to the allotted second, as his form of efficient, cattle call democracy. Mayor Ford no longer accepts interview requests with Toronto Star, or Spacing, the urban planning magazine, or any other publication held to be partisan to ex-Mayor Miller’s regime, from his City Hall throne. (The video of Dave Meslin pointing out the lack of respect for deputants can be seen here- 87 left because of how late the deputations went.)

Shortly after the PWA deputized, a nurse, outfitted in a beautiful Caribana headdress of her own design, spoke of her dependency upon rehabilitation services after a severe concussion, and mentioned a podiatrist who attended her homeless shelter, and offered services to her for free. You could almost hear the pens scratching by Ford’s note takers to ensure that this service was suspended; Ford has refused the hiring of two nurses who specialized in HIV caretaking from the province, but allowed three nurses who focused on the spread of bedbugs. Councillor Mammoliti threatened a young mother with a 35% tax increase if she demands childcare; 35% is the recurring refrain of tax hikes threatened by the Brothers Ford to budget dissenters, and is completely without factual basis. (See more here.)

Repeatedly, deputants said there is a revenue problem, not a spending problem, and were soundly ignored by the executive council, who pointed out the number of times they had deputized previously to discredit them. Many of these deputants were incensed by this tactic; they were representatives for large constituent groups, such as graduate student unions, and when Councillor Mammoliti pointed out they were being paid handsomely for their services, noted their $15,000 graduate student stipends. And in the most hypocritical repudiation of Ford’s campaign tactics conceivable, Nick Kouvalis, the principal architect of the Gravy Train campaign meme, has jumped the mayoral ship to work as a public relations consultant with firemen, on the site Notgravy.ca, to save them from 300 layoffs.

There is a reason why the neo-conservative tag team, or in an oft quoted tweet calling Ford, Hudak and Harper the future "trifecta of Republican-style, right-wing ignorance and bigotry", is working so quickly to privatize core public services at the municipal level- they realize that sustainable urban planners, architects, grassroots organizations and citizens who build progressive movements are strong, organized and thoughtful in cities, and want to quash them. This was openly admitted by PM Harper when he attended a barbeque with Mayor Ford in his backyard this spring. Conservative PR flaks have made repeated attempts to take down this video from Facebook, but it pops back up again. This tactic is congruent with the Canadian European Trade Agreement, more comprehensive than NAFTA, which is presently in its ninth round of backroom negotiations, and will open up municipal services to European interests. PM Harper intends to ensure the rungs of the municipal-provincial-federal ladder are filled with his yes-sayers. If elected as the MP in Ontario, Tim Hudak wants to get rid of the Human Rights Commission to further silence leftist dissent; for more on his future initiatives, see the web site The Best Ontario Election Web Site, brought to you by Truthfool Communications, who put up the site Shit Harper Did last election.

Just last week, the inclusion of electronic surveillance in the Conservatives’ tough on crime omnibus bill was stymied through a Stop Spying petition with 70,000 signatures, organized by Openmedia.ca. These wiretapping bills are really about the censorship and control of social media by PM Harper and his media advisors - - they are well aware that Facebook and Twitter are the locii for grassroots organizing. Although their new media firms still monitor social media postings, these bills were drafted to ensure that their warrantless stalking of grassroots opposition would be admissible in court. These bills were excised from the omnibus bill this round, but will no doubt be revised, to crop up in different versions to be reconsidered in future legislation.

And finally the Ford Brothers have lost an important battle. A concerned citizen has registered a formal complaint against Doug Ford for meeting with an unregistered lobbyist, an Australian developer, to sell off the Lower Port Lands, putting in jeopardy the development plans of Waterfront Toronto. These award winning sustainable plans, developed over six years, and with thousands of hours of good faith consultancy of citizens’ groups, were supported by a letter signed by 147 architects, urban planners and professors in an emergency press conference to denounce the revised east end theme park version, replete with a ferris wheel, mono-rail and mega-mall. In addition, CodeBlueTO presented 7,300 signatures on their citizens’ petition to preserve the three key principles of the Waterfront Toronto plans – flood proofing the Port Lands and South Riverdale, renaturalizing the mouth of the Don River, and building urban neighbourhoods – citing them as essential. Media reports say this battle loss has created a rift between the Ford Brothers, and pundits have asked for the return of the unauthorized $500,000 for this unneeded, second consultancy, directly from Rob and Doug’s bank account.

The silencing of the dissenting left by the neo-conservative public relations policy apparatus continues on, whether in the careful handling of Mayor Ford to monitor his press access, his controlled role-calling during the marathon deputation sessions, the shortening of deputation time at City Hall, or the censoring of the barbeque video on youtube by PM Harper, and the hidden inclusion of all-inclusive electronic surveillance in their omnibus crime bills.

When citizens are being censored, they act with graphic ingenuity. As witnessed during the people’s wake for Jack Layton in Nathan Philips’ Square, internationally, chalk has become the unique identifier and ephemeral signature of hope and optimism for Toronto, easily washed away by rain, only to fill the square again. This Monday, during the People’s Rally at City Hall, chalk filled the square again with heartfelt requests to protect our core services, and question the unfounded logic of the Fords’ service cuts. Regular programming of democracy will resume one day, and together, we will make it happen. Torontonians have proven themselves capable of compassion through accepting property tax hikes, and additional taxes, as they realize services and jobs for many will ensure the health of all. They have said so through many hours of City Hall deputations, waiting patiently for their shortened turn to speak.

Update: Mayor Ford and Councillor Mammoliti showed up in new business suits, and debated for a day and a half; one-third of 1 per cent of the city’s $9-billion-plus budget, $28-million in “service adjustments” was found, and the votes can be seen here at http://torontoist.com/2011/09/budget-votes-at-city-hall/ By a vote of 22-23, The Hardship Fund, which offsets medical costs for the needy, was cut. Councillor Vaughan reminds those watching the cuts will be on the table again after the election in November. Mayor Ford is claiming a ‘huge victory’ for finding efficiencies.

Watch this excellent video for more on today's 5:30 pm Rally for Respect: TORONTO'S PRICE TAG / Ayesha Adhami ... ALL OUT MONDAY SEPT. 26 - 5:30pm at City Hall‬ at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNuuR12HxBc

References:
Matt Elliott, City Hall budget infographic at http://fordfortoronto.mattelliott.ca/
New Port Lands Agreement Apparently A Win For Ford, http://www.torontosatire.com/2011/09/22/new-port-lands-agreement-apparently-a-win-for-ford/
John Michael McGrath, EXPLAINER: Where does this "35% tax increase" come from?
http://toronto.openfile.ca/blog/curator-blog/explainer/2011/explainer-where-does-35-tax-increase-come
Andy Radia, Harper Conservatives try to quash Rob Ford barbeque video: Liberal blogger http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/harper-conservatives-try-quash-rob-ford-barbeque-video-172632797.html
Firefighter's site, Not Gravy.ca http://www.notgravy.ca
Truthfool Communications, The Best Ontario Election Web Site http://www.thebestontarioelectionwebsite.ca/
Truthfool Communications, Shit Harper Did http://www.shitharperdid.com
Openmedia.ca at http://www.openmedia.ca
Stop Spying at http://stopspying.ca
CodeBlueTO at http://codeblueto.com/

A Dozen Oranges for Jack: In Memoriam from City Hall

2011-08-24T14:31:00.000-07:00

“Jack was the reason I started voting.”
- Message written in chalk on Nathan Phillips Square wall

Much has been said about NDP Opposition Leader Jack Layton over the past few days, but much more can be written about the legacy he left as a City of Toronto councillor. His son, Councillor Mike Layton, will be hard pressed to continue his work, and fight against deep cuts to core public services at Toronto’s City Hall this September.

Representing bicyclists, the homeless, those with HIV, union members, and cultural producers, Jack Layton was an activist for a just society, with the flexibility to adapt to the new realities of climate change, AIDS, housing shortages, labour policy and pay equity. Mentored as a student by ex-mayors John Sewell and David Crombie, his policies instituted from his 1982 election at City Hall became the foundation of a progressive Toronto; these same policies are currently under systematic attack through a new neo-conservative agenda, spearheaded by Mayor Rob Ford.

The Monday morning of his death, I awoke to find that R. Jeanette Martin had posted on Facebook a photo of Jack and Olivia riding on a tandem bicycle at Pride, clad in orange, surrounded by fluorescent drag queens, and tagged it This is our Royal Couple. This is how Jack Layton attended Pride, cycling in tandem with Olivia, emanating joy, pride and inclusivity, surrounded by the love of a community whose causes he championed far before it was fashionable. Olivia and Jack are, and were, a team that could not be beaten, and deeply in sync.

When I asked Jeanette permission to write about this photograph, she said that Jack would not have liked that his regulation headshot was published in the mainstream media to commemorate his death, that her office is still a wreck from culling her archives to find the best shot after the announcement, and that this is one of her favourite photos that she has ever taken as a freelance photojournalist. As her photo made the Facebook newsfeeds, the irony was not lost that our present mayor, Rob Ford, was present at Pride only in effigy, as dozens of people pointed out his absence in painted imagery and sign.

At 4 p.m., I biked to City Hall, and bought a dozen oranges in Chinatown, close to where Jack and Olivia once lived. A bouquet of oranges, rather than roses, seemed a fitting tribute to the one known simply as ‘Jack’, who advocated that the wealth of the commons, taken from our natural and social resources, was redistributed to enable each citizen to live with dignity, with the possibility of a brighter future. As I handed each of these oranges to my friends - artists, musicians, social justice activists, public sector employees- all proponents of city building - I asked them to say a few words, and photographed them with City Hall in the background. Most were speechless with grief.

Meanwhile, mourners chalked their condolences for an outpouring of affection covering the walls and ground in Nathan Phillips Square, writing well into the night. Jack Layton was a brilliant auctioneer with his red armbands and fast patter, but he auctioned for beneficial causes, such as the 519 Community Centre, not with the future resources of our country.

How do we commemorate a politician, activist and author who opened the first food bank, and wrote extensively about affordable housing issues in Homelessness: The Making and Unmaking of a Crisis? As suggested by the Toronto Star editorial this week, do we name a bicycle network, or re-name an existing Toronto space or service, such as Dundas Park, a homeless shelter, or, Huron Street, the short stretch of road leading to the house he shared with Olivia in Chinatown?

To honour his political legacy, I would suggest renaming a homeless shelter, and establishing a scholarship for developing homeless policy through donations through the Broadbent Institute. I am afraid if we name a commuter bicycle network, under the current regime, it will never come to pass.

Swinging his cane, Jack Layton may have hastened the progression of his cancer during his campaign for Prime Minister by leading the NDP to a landmark victory as a formidable opposition to the Conservative majority; it is moot to know, and something he hid from public view. He carefully chose not to share the prognosis, diagnosis or treatment of his spreading cancer so as not to influence the decisions of others during their course of treatment, and so as not to upset his supporters.

The unprovoked vitriol, in the National Post article by Christie Blatchford, hit a man when he was gone, when he was unable to defend himself. His legacy of orange hope will live on, long after her words will be forgotten. For Blatchford, his last letter was grandstanding with empty platitudes, but she has shown that the position of the new right focuses on a Canada whose soulless future does not include, or reflect, the common good it once served.

Rest in Peace, Jack. We will defend the house that Jack built.

This article is dedicated to my cousin, Ali, and her husband, Adrian, on their wedding day. May your relationship be as in sync as Jack and Olivia's tandem ride.

Reference:
Christie Blatchford: Layton’s death turns into a thoroughly public spectacle, August 23rd, National Post, at http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/08/22/christie-blatchford-laytons-death-turns-into-a-thoroughly-public-spectacle/

Playing with Team Ford

2011-07-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

“It is clear that there is a program to eliminate the public from our great city.”

- Kim Fry, the 11th deputant during the Core Service Review at Toronto’s City Hall on Thursday July 28

For a penny-pinching populist, Mayor Rob Ford’s policies are very expensive. Since his October 25th election, he has spent over $533 million in a strange sibling rivalry against his arch nemesis, ex-Mayor David Miller. During Miller’s time in office, Rob Ford was the least respected councillor, and was relegated to the benches during Miller’s confabs with his handpicked, executive council. In retaliation, cribbing from his tactics as high school football coach, Ford has crafted his defensive lineup - an executive council of six strong ‘yes’ men to systematically take apart Toronto’s public infrastructure – which Miller intended to be his legacy - through cutting core services. Ford is like a younger kid brother knocking down the carefully placed building blocks of his brother’s toy castle because he does not know how to build a city of his own design or imagination.

Select items from a spreadsheet itemizing Mayor Ford’s expenses to the City of Toronto? Canceling Transit City, initial penalties of $179 million, removing bike lanes, $469,000, bailing out an under-used arena, $43.4 million, subsidizing an underused ski lift in the ward of his ally, Councillor James Pasternak, $2 million, and the loss of revenue from the Land Transfer Tax and Vehicle Registration Tax, $204 million and $50 million respectively. Another $100,000 was spent to hire a TTC consultant, and $3 million to hire KPMG, an external consulting firm- both of these expenses are part of city councillor’s jobs, and so are redundant.

While ex-Mayor Miller left a $375 million surplus, Mayor Ford is dangerously close to spending money equivalent to the $774 million budget deficit he wanted to balance by 2012. Left unchecked, these expenditures will almost double the projected 2011 deficit within his first year of office, showing the true cost of privatization. With over three years left in his term, he huddles with his brother, Doug, as his closest advisor, quietly strategizing during City Council meetings, cautioned by his rightwing consultants to remain tightlipped with the media.

Ford’s first agenda item was to hire consultancy firm, KPMG, to perform a core service review. When KPMG’s results were made public, the results backfired for Team Ford. 96% of services are mandated by the federal government, there was no gravy, and the report unintentionally highlighted that the previous surplus left by ex-Mayor Miller was an act of financial wizardry. Apparently, the left can be bean counters, too.

On July 28th, there were over 300 deputations at City Hall on the agenda, with irate citizens decrying these cuts, and police at the council chamber’s door; the new executive council will make the final decision regarding these core service cuts in September. Bowing under thousands of emails of public pressure to attend the deputations- Mayor Ford did not sit in for the first round - he decreed that they take place over a marathon 20 hours. The deputations have become a kangaroo court, a sham procedure, to get them out of the way of his city fire sale, as ‘efficiencies’ are found, cutting core services from the elderly, children, those with HIV, caretakers, bicyclists, and at risk youth, including a program that funds 685 student nutrition programs, 42 AIDS prevention projects and 38 community drug prevention programs. Although police refused access to City Hall’s green roof for his picnic, activist Dave Meslin is part of hundreds attending a City Hall slumber party tonight; internationally, other cities are taking over squares to protest similar austerity measures.

By pitting the KPMG report against community deputations, Team Ford has deliberately polarized the downtown core against suburbanites. Call it ‘wedge politics’, ‘culture wars’ or ‘divide and conquer’, it is a tactic used to distract GTA citizens as hard won public assets are sold off to invisible bidders. Think of the Canadian version of Koch Brothers as high school football coaches, rather than democratic mayors, with transit at the center of the debate.

Ex-Mayor Miller’s legacy was to be Transit City, a light rail network designed to add street level connectivity and make workplaces accessible for outer neighbourhoods; Team Ford proposes to bring another football team and football stadium to downtown Toronto, and extend a Sheppard subway line to nowhere. ‘Austerity will not be pretty’, read a sign at the KPMG protest, but for Team Ford, stadiums, subways and athletes are certainly more important than transit, bicycle lanes, and ‘bike people’, as we are called by Councillor Doug Holyday. For the right, bike lanes are easily sacrificed on the altar of the Almighty Car, and traffic lanes and parking lots are held to be places of worship.

On July 12th, over three hundred bicyclists converged on City Hall, to ask that the newly installed Jarvis bicycle paths remain in place. Used by 890 riders daily, the bike paths connected the east end of the city with the west. Wearing bicycle helmets, and raising silently waving ‘jazz hands’ to show support for councilors arguing for their right to share lanes of traffic, a heated discussion in City Council raged over two days. Central to the debate were these questions- are bicyclists considered worthy of protection? Is Jarvis Street a cultural corridor or highway? And can a lane on Sherbourne Street, 400 m away, be considered sufficient, or do bicyclists have the right to be integrated as part of a citywide network with multiple options of bike routes?

Councillor Shelley Carroll argued that bicyclists will use Jarvis Street anyway, and modes of transport cannot be forbidden under the Highway Transport Act. Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker said, “I think cyclists should start suing the city when struck by cars given this council's recorded indifference to our safety.” Every seven hours a bicyclist is hit in the City of Toronto.

Finally, in procedural chaos, City Council voted that the Jarvis lanes were slated to be removed in two years upon the completion of the segregated Sherbourne lanes. A calculated, last minute motion by Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti re-added the reverse fifth lane, to render the prior Environmental Assessment and consultations null and void. Feisty Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam objected to the last minute amendment by Mammoliti about the lanes in her Ward; rightwing partisan Speaker Nunziata allowed the motion, and eight left leaning councillors walked out upon learning that they will be unable to vote upon the bike plan item by item in the future. The final blow - City staff told Wong-Tam, who is lesbian, that returning the reversible centre lane to Jarvis would cost $570,000, more than 4 times the city grant to Pride, an event which also takes place in her Ward, and is next on the chopping block. (For a detailed discussion of the vote, link here.)

Upon hearing this verdict, ever-ingenious Dave Meslin, the founder of the Toronto Bicyclist’s Union, posted a Facebook call out for riders to take back Jarvis. Two days later, 1100 respectful bicyclists, ringing their bells, circled Jarvis Street to Church Street and rode to City Hall chanting “We just want to share.” As I rode my bike down Queen Street West, an onlooker called out “Pay some taxes”, a byproduct of the new nastiness now made publicly permissible by Torontonians modeling the behaviour of our Mayor, and his allies, toward bicyclists.

In his nine months in office, Mayor Ford has shown preferential treatment for his constituents. He prefers car-drivers over bicyclists, the suburban elite over the downtown intelligentsia, the very wealthy over the marginalized, and corporations over unions. He cannot walk several minutes from his office to a podium to read a brief speech for the flag raising ceremony of Pride; he attends Caribana instead to show that while he may be homophobic, he is not racist. He makes his preferences known by picking and choosing which events to attend, and which deputations to listen to, and when frustrated by community consultation, changes access to democratic process by changing the date of motions, or by running an all-night deputation session, so that the public cannot attend, or hand signaling a councillor to add a last minute motion to stymie progressive motions.

Inappropriately, Mayor Ford has used his office to discriminate against those who are most defenseless, and in need of defense- whether bicyclists or marginalized groups. Ford as a football coach, if not as a democratic mayor, should rise to the challenge of inclusive policymaking, if he wishes to remain in his position. So should his brother, Doug. Going forward, we need to be Team Toronto, not Team Ford.

With special thanks to the blog ‘Driving the Porcelain Bus’ for the expense breakdown of Mayor Ford.

References:
‘Driving the Porcelain Bus’ at http://drivingtheporcelainbus.blogspot.com
Robyn Doolittle, Toronto Star, Urban Affairs Reporter, 'Critics see KPMG report as ‘smoke and mirrors’ at http://www.thestar.com/news/torontocouncil/article/1028588--critics-see-kpmg-report-as-smoke-and-mirrors
Matt Elliott, 'Ford for Toronto', 'The Jarvis vote: What the hell happened?' at
http://fordfortoronto.mattelliott.ca/2011/07/13/the-jarvis-vote-what-the-hell-happened/

The Melancthon Mega-Quarry threatens ‘A Place to Stand, A Place to Grow’

2011-05-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

From western hills,
To northern shores.
To Niagara Falls,
Where the waters roar.
Give us a land of peace,
Where the free winds blow.
And we will build Ontario
A place to stand, a place to grow
Ontari-ari-ari-o!

- 'A Place to Stand, A Place to Grow', lyrics by Dolores Claman, 1967.

In 1967, ‘A Place to Stand, A Place to Grow’, one of the films commissioned for Expo’s Ontario Pavilion, won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Subject. Commissioned by Progressive Conservative Premier John Robarts, composer Dolores Claman perfected the jingle, and filmmaker, Christopher Chapman, developed the ‘multi-dynamic image technique’ to show autumn leaves turning colour, farmers tilling the land, and fall vistas as floating panels on the pavilion’s widescreen.

Broadcast repeatedly on television to celebrate Canada’s Centennial, 100 million people saw this promotional film for tourism, which has become the unofficial anthem for the province of Ontario. I was one of them. I grew up singing this jingle as a small child, and it is hardwired into my memories of a halcyon time when Ontarians had the illusion of infinite, rolling farmlands and resources. A massive, open pit quarry is next on the Liberal agenda, enabled by a 1969 law that says that gravel must be mined as closely as possible to where it is used, in this case, the ever-expanding, exurban edge of Toronto.

The Places to Grow Act was enacted in 2005 by the Liberal government to ensure that the fruit belt in Niagara and the green belt of the Oakridge Moraine, and its freshwater aquifers feeding into Lake Ontario, were protected from then startlingly aggressive development of subdivisions. In 1978, it was first recognized that the fruit belt was becoming asphalt, shopping centres and subdivisions, and today, E.D. Smith trucks fruit into its Grimsby factory, as this fine, fertile farmland no longer supplies Ontario fruit for its jam.

A poster child for this soon-to-be bygone rural Ontario, Melancthon Township is threatened by a development of a 2,100 acre aggregate quarry, with a capacity of mining 6 million tonnes of limestone at an unlimited amount annually. The mega-quarry is proposed is to be deeper than Niagara Falls, at 200 feet below the water table. The North Dufferin Agricultural Community Task Force (“NDACT”) is leading the charge with their with their petition site against Baupost, a Boston-based hedge fund representing investors with holdings estimated at $23 billion.

In 2006, Highland Companies acquired 7,000 hectares of the land under the pretense of potato farming. The cost of the land was $80 million for Baupost; a market estimate of the real value of these limestone resources at $120 billion, a 1000 per cent mark up, while Baupost pays $1.2 million in taxes to the township.

Upon acquiring the land, Highland promptly tore down 30 homesteads, cut thousands of trees, and began digging test holes in preparation for their real purpose, extraction of the underlying limestone. Extraction companies call trees and soil ‘overburden’; Melancthon Township farmers call this grade A soil ‘Honeywood Silt Loam’, and their livelihood. The water is close to the surface, the soil is so rich it has its own classification, and generations of Ontarians downstream have been supplied their water sources and fed from Dufferin County produce.

Highlands proposal, as submitted, calls for the management of 600 million litres of water. Since their plans call for farming in the “rehabilitated” pit, this means this water will have to managed forever. Their application calls for 24/7 blasting, except on statutory holidays, crushing plants, and at maximum capacity and peak market, 3,200 trucks loaded and 3,200 empty trucks in and out of the plant every single day. These trucks will pass by farms, schools, businesses and head to unknown areas, as the traffic study in Highlands proposal shows no impact or routes for this traffic after Primrose (Hwys 89, 10 & 24). The Highland Rail Corporation, a subsidiary of the Highland Company has purchased the Orangeville rail line and is lobbying Dufferin County Council and other municipalities in Grey County to purchase the rail line to Owen Sound, yet their application is not specific as to what they will be shipping.

The water at the site of the proposed quarry will be diverted from a watershed which is fed by the Grand, the Nottawasaga and the Pine rivers, and in all probability will be contaminated by the residue of the aggregate, diesel, and blasting compounds, which would result in a million people downstream will no longer have access to this uncontaminated water. If you live in southern Ontario, look at your tap. You could be drinking this aggregate soon. Ontari-ari-ari-o!

The David Suzuki Foundation has protested this massive pit as it will deplete fish species, the National Farm Union on the grounds of farmland preservation, the Council of Canadians on the grounds of water scarcity, and CAUSE (the Citizens for the Alliance for a Sustainable Environment) has put up an informational site. Nearby residents have been protesting the sleight of hand by Highland by changing their proposed land use from potato farming into open pit limestone mining without notice. Even the Conservative Dufferin-Caledon MPP Sylvia Jones has asked for an enquiry into this environmental study.

Melancthon Council is currently having in camera sessions to debate the Highlands zoning and environmental applications without pesky citizen input, and Premier McGuinty is sending out his usual form letters citing review processes such as the Water Resources Act, the Aggregate Resources and oversight from the Ontario Municipal Board as processes yet to be invoked, as if they will make a difference to the rapid sell off this land, which, incidentally, should be protected as part of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

Highland Companies has a laughably content thin site to justify this quarry, where they have posted a video of an aerial view of their extraction plan, with a voice of God voiceover ponderously describing their best practice methodology for sustainable extraction. Over its 40-year lifespan, only two pits will be open at any given time, this deep voice booms, and berms of natural foliage will be placed around the quarry, obscuring the view of the pit, and buffering the sound of continuous blasts of dynamite from the adjacent farms. There is no dust in this video, no line of dump trucks snaking down rural roads, no shaking of the ground, and it looks a bit like an excerpt of Sid Meier’s video game, ‘Civilization’, in which you build communities to see what will happen when you place a hypothetical, open mine quarry in the middle of a historic county. Except in this turn-based strategy video game, this quarry is being built without the consent of the farmers, this county is called Dufferin, and there are many farming families which will be displaced. 'Civilization’s’ goal is to “Build an empire to stand the test of time”; so should the Ontario government’s.

As a cautionary tale for the future of this project, a documentary directed by Antony Baxter, “You’ve Been Trumped”, was shown at Hot Docs this year, in which Donald Trump destroyed a Site of Special Scientific Interest in Aberdeen, Scotland, in which he replaced pristine sand dunes and beaches to build two golf courses, and 1,500 condominiums. The Scottish government would not grant a broadcaster’s license for this documentary, so it was premiered at Hot Docs for world distribution. Word on the street is that the Scottish government regrets that they allowed the construction permit, worth thousands of millions of pounds, to the Trumps to build two gaudy golf courses in a country chock full of tasteful courses, such as St Andrew’s, and would prefer that Scots not witness their gaffe on TV.

In response to the Township’s outrage, the Liberal Minister of Natural Resources, Linda Jeffrey, stated in February 2011 to the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Melancthon in an one on one meeting, “It is too bad that this has split your community apart. It is your job to get your community together, get them to think long term about rehabilitation, because this will not be going back to agriculture, but maybe you could get a nice golf course.”

Posted on the Stop the Quarry! Facebook page, there is a very funny drawing done by a Melancthon Township resident, Gail Prussky, in which she shows their compensation for the gravel pit. Her inscription "When the limestone's gone, we won't be sorry. We'll have a lovely little farm at the bottom of the quarry..." In fact, the bottom of the mega-quarry could easily hold 15 golf courses.

The Melancthon Township Quarry application has been proposed to the Ministry of Natural Resources to ensure that tonnes of aggregate will be shipped to the United States and abroad, and promises a mere 88 jobs. As our federal legislation for extraction processes are as outdated as our perception of our water and farmland as boundless, this quarry will be a blight on our landscape, a toll on our water sheds, a UNESCO heritage site lost for us all and a drain on taxpayers.

And if Premier McGuinty allows an American company to externalize the cost of extracting their $8 a tonne gravel on our watershed, farmland, transportation network, and health care system, included as part of his ‘green policies’ as a mistaken asset, he will pay the electoral price in six months. Extraction is finite; as is water; farming lasts for generations.

The invaluable Ontario farmland of my youth is being sold off to not only the lowest bidder, but for a 6-billion-tonne quarry which will undercut Ontario’s food and water sovereignty to ensure that we need to import what was once grown locally- witness the E.D. Smith jam factory in Grimsby - and purchase clean water which once flowed freely from these headlands. To whom, and where, will we turn to buy fruit, vegetables and water when our own resources are in short supply, sold off for 12 cents on the tonne, undermined by our own outdated and inadequate environmental legislation, Ontario Municipal Review Board and the Liberal’s policies on natural resource management?

To quote Premier McGuinty: “If you have not already done so, I encourage you to submit your comments for consideration through the Registry's website at http://www.ebr.gov.on.ca citing EBR number 011-2864, before the July 11 deadline.” Please do so, and request a full Environmental Assessment of this project.

Many thanks to Gail Prussky for her quote and drawing, and Karren Wallace, for fact checking.

References:
CAUSE, the Citizens for the Alliance for a Sustainable Environment information at http://www.citizensalliance.ca/Cause-proposal.html
Environmental Registry to submit your comments at http://www.ebr.gov.on.ca, citing EBR number 011-2864, before July 11th
Jacob Wolinsky, GuruFocus, ‘Seth Klarman Buys Land Worth $120 Billion for $80 Million!’ at
http://www.gurufocus.com/news/129627/seth-klarman-buys-land-worth-120-billion-for-80-million
Kathryn Heming and Andrew Sheppard, ‪Melancthon Mega Quarry‬ video at http://youtu.be/I8ZkwK22hqI
Stop the Melancthon Quarry! at http://stopthemelancthonquarry.ca/
The North Dufferin Agricultural Community Task Force (“NDACT”) Petition at http://www.ndact.com/NDACT/Petition.html
Wayne Roberts, NOW, ‘Open-pit politics: “Eat my dust” could well be the legacy of obsolete laws unearthed in mega-quarry fight’ at http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=180790

End Subsidies to the Fossil Fuel Industry by the next Federal Budget

2011-03-20T22:05:00.001-07:00

This is the second video produced by our frenetic little team at the Citizens' Climate Lobby (Toronto Chapter) about why the Conservatives paying $1.4 billion dollars to the oil, gas and coal companies is just absurd.

Please call the Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty at 866-599-4999 and let him know that this massive oil subsidy could be better used for green jobs and renewable energy. For more information, go to the Climate Action Network web site.

No Heat for You!

2011-02-14T05:37:00.000-08:00

This is a video I shot, and produced, with Cheryl McNamara (writer), Jane Moffat (director), and Evan Moir (editor). To vote for us, link to the People for Corporate Tax Cuts contest at http://www.peopleforcorporatetaxcuts.ca All proceeds will go to the Citizens' Climate Lobby to help us advocate for the clean energy sector, and end oil subsidies.

What a delightful shoot, and such a pleasure to work with such fine people. Had to control my giggling so the camera would not shake.

Those who know me know this based on a true story. News flash - we won for this week!

Sticks, Stones and the CRTC Ruling For Easing Broadcast Restrictions

2011-02-08T21:56:00.000-08:00

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
- English Proverb

This is false logic. As a new media professor, I live in a steady stream of constantly updated newsfeeds through my social media networks. Daily, I watch how these newsfeeds also affect my students in their analysis of issues, perception of events, and subsequent social interaction and political engagement. As a result, I am deeply opposed to the easing of the CRTC regulations to ban “any news that the licensee knows is false or misleading and that endangers or is likely to endanger the lives, health or safety of the public.” With the addition of the second clause, how do we know when sticks and stones break bones? What line has to be crossed? What would my students say? And what would I say to myself as a younger student?

Words do lead to political and social agency. As I watch a new generation struggle with the social impact of negative comments, from the recently banned Bathroom Wall application in Facebook on which any friend can anonymously post what ‘they really think of you’, to young teens struggling with their identity, precipitated by prejudice of the newfound right, which has led to the rash of young gay suicides in the United States, I grieve for an earlier generation that could turn their social network off when they entered their home after school, and build their identity in private.

I was gaybashed growing up. It was one incident, and I was fortunate that it was not posted on a web site, permanently accessible to all. The scar would have been even deeper then, and more public in its impact, written on Facebook’s Bathroom Wall, and perhaps lead to suicide, as online postings have done for some gay youth in Canada, and the United States. I was able to lick my wounds privately, because no one tweeted or posted video of my attack. Today, I support campaigns such as ‘It gets Better’ which work to prevent gay teen suicide. These campaigns are made possible by those who work in the arts and media, such as Rick Mercer, but few have time to constantly generate responses to change public opinion. Social media campaigns cannot keep up with the generously funded, onslaught of news reportage, and online petitions are discounted by the government as ‘slacktivism’.

24/7 feedback on who you are does not allow adolescents to develop who they are independently of peer review, and form their identity backstage, with time down for family support. These same principles apply to the body politic as defined by news organizations. Our Canadian identity will be eroded by a barrage of misinformation masquerading as ‘news’, but will be really used to encourage bigotry and self-hatred if these CRTC regulations are weakened. Just as social media is beginning to determine adolescent identity, so will news deregulation alter our national identity, and embed the culture of name-calling, travelling down from the media into high school hallways. It will be alright to sling mud, and this news stream will not be able to be able to be turned off long enough to be examined in light of where and how it originated, particularly for impressionable youth, as there will simply just not be enough time to do so. As a journalism student said on the petition ‘Keep Canadian Media Honest - Don't Let The CRTC Deregulate Truth in Journalism',

‘I'm currently a Media and Communications student in my final semester. I chose this path so that I would be able to share the truth with the public. How can that be taken seriously if journalists can lie?’

And I add to this- why does the onus have to shift to the public to have us verify facts, rather than fact-checking the core mandate of the broadcaster? Who has time to do so?

Information is often separated from its original source in this social mediascape, and its content abbreviated through Tweets, links or viral memes, while traveling quickly to impact public opinion before its sources are confirmed for their veracity. (An example of this is the accusation that a cinema had bedbugs; the Toronto International Film Festival spent hours doing damage control to end this unfounded rumour, but still lost business.) The proposed easing of the CRTC regulation will encourage this trend, and allow a quick and dirty ‘truthiness’ to dominate the airwaves. Hate speech is powerful, and is used to end political discussion with epithets like ‘leftard’, ‘poverty pimps’, ‘commies’ and ‘pinko-kooks’- terms originated in Sue-Ann Levy’s Toronto Sun articles, names which now frequently come up in the online comments. Ms Levy, who is married to a woman, will have a soapbox on the new Sun TV channel to name-call in public, as of March 31st, and if this CRTC regulation passes, without censure. It is curious that Ms Levy feels she has the right to vilify the left, but would be quick to call foul if her sexual orientation was mocked in kind. May I remind her that the left fought for her right to marry?

The Conservatives govern through emotion, and it is not a coincidence that revisioning of what constitutes truthful reporting is being slyly introduced by the Harper government to be enacted September 1st , before Sun TV takes to the air on March 11th. Emotion will be permitted to trump rational-critical discourse, and ramp up the volume on vicious attacks on the left by the right. Truth in journalism is essential to a functioning democracy, and this narrowing of the scope of truth will make us callous to the nuances of kindness, just as researchers are finding with adolescents, who are exposed to constant criticism through their social media networks, are becoming more callous to their peers. We have built a just, tolerant, and diverse society, with a higher standard of journalism and education, and Canadians deserve more from the CRTC in terms of what defines acceptable information for broadcast.

In addition, the easing of this ban further harmonizes Canada with the United States, and its Fox News Network, to undercut our Charter Rights and Freedoms. The right contends that Sun TV guarantees freedom of speech, and its opponents, such as Margaret Atwood, are anti-free speech, however, is it my right to say anything I want without social repercussions? The Crown did not think so in the case of Ernst Zundel, and his NeoNazi denial of the Holocaust. His case was determined "to likely to incite hatred against an identifiable group"- and if that group is the left, progressive, ‘elitists’, why it is permissible that it is put further under attack by Sun TV through the CRTC?

At Harvard, one can say anything one likes, as long as there is a name attached to it to debate it. Will there be time for debate when the burden of proof lies with the judiciary system as to whether the Canadian version of Howard Stern, or Glenn Beck, spewing hate speech, "is likely to incite hatred against an identifiable group"? Will it be possible to protect the Charter of the Rights and Freedoms then?

I was fortunate after I was beaten up. I had a friend follow me into the bathroom, and console me in an era where homophobia was the norm. I dedicate this column- which is also my submission to the CRTC - to every adolescent I know who is different, and is told so daily, and to the gentle courage of my long ago friend. I do not want the media to be allowed to aid and abet hate crimes by the loosening of norms for truth in reporting, and encourage name-calling on air, so that adolescents are left on their own, with no back up from the government, to be attacked by words just as I was bodyslammed against a cafeteria wall, with no recourse to defend me from the culture of hatred perpetuated by high school in groups.

If it is not true, it is not news, and it should be recognized for what it is - tabloid journalism descending into hate speech for the purpose of entertainment. Words have the potential to be used a weapon to incite hate crimes against specific groups, and that whether this hatred is accrued incrementally, or immediately, it will be difficult to trace its point of inflammation in this ceaseless flow of media which determines our public and private identity. My small town encouraged the homophobic small talk; I paid the price for their ruthless pettiness. Ernst Zundel and his denial of the Holocaust was the Canadian test case for this theory; I was a minor player in the application of free speech in the public domain, and I was allowed to lose my dignity, throwing my body in rage against the bathroom cubicle that day, undefended by authority.

As a new media expert, educator, and a committed, sustainable designer and environmentalist – an active member of all the groups which will be taunted, derided and dismissed by the SunTV network- I ask that the CRTC take into account Canada’s communitarian history in relation to the application of free speech, and ensure that news networks are held accountable. As a petition-signer wrote, “A less regulated news culture will be created where the public may be inflamed by hidden agendas or political biases which will divide the people of Canada instead of uniting them.” I add to that that this new regulation will enable homophobic bigotry to be supported by public name calling, and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to determine when words turn into physical assault, after these names become legitimized through entertainment-driven news.

As Canadians, we pride ourselves on the higher level of integrity usually present in our media. Let's not endanger that special trust. There may be a student in a small town high school who is waiting for their rights to be defended by the CRTC, not overturned.

I encourage all those who want to submit their comments to the CRTC to do so today, February 9th, at http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-14.htm and sign the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?stopcrtc&1001

References:
RMR: Rick's Rant - 'Bullying - It Gets Better' at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Y7qpiu2RQ
‘Keep Canadian Media Honest - Don't Let The CRTC Deregulate Truth in Journalism’ at
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?stopcrtc&1001
Gloria Galloway, 'CRTC plan to lift ban on false news prompts political investigation', Globe and Mail, February 8th, at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/crtc-plan-to-lift-ban-on-false-news-prompts-political-investigation/article1898147/

Getting to Work on Transit City

2011-02-04T08:21:00.000-08:00

This is the deputation I gave in City Hall on February 2nd regarding bus service cuts. Meeting Room #2 was overflowing -- 160 constituents, 30 above fire code -- waited their turn for over 5 hours for 5 minutes of time to speak to Toronto Transit Commissioners, and City Councillors. Run by Councillor Stintz, the new TTC Chair, the deputations were tightly constrained to five minutes. To her credit, she was unfailingly polite to the deputants, although she showed visible irritation when Transit City was defended.

The diverse face of Toronto was out in full force. York University students asked for late buses so they could attend basketball practice and night classes, the Roller Derby chicks pleaded for safe access to their arena to practice their moves, and a 90 year-old man spoke eloquently about his need to have access to a pharmacy for his medication, and visit his wife in a chronic care facility. His neighbourhood would have bus service cut in half, and isolate even him further. The TV reporters fled with his heartfelt testimony, but I have yet to find it on CTV news.

With no further ado, here is my deputation.

TTC Deputation: Proposed Transit Cuts on Bus Schedules for the Davenport Riding in relation to Lower Income Residents and Support for Transit City

Dear TTC, Mayor Ford and Toronto City Councillors,

I am a constituent of Ward 18, part of the Davenport Riding. I am also a member of the Clean Train Coalition, and have spent the last two years advocating for all-encompassing, sustainable transit policy in Ontario.

I am here today to speak of the correlation between low-income wage earners, transit, and the right of citizens to public transit – transit which should be egalitarian, surface level, consistent and frequent. This right for accessible transit should be a democratic right, not a privilege, which can be revoked or suspended by City Council, to implicitly prioritize cars over public transit. By cutting bus frequency, and routes, the City Council will force people back into cars, or in the case of the Davenport Riding, to take taxis, which they can ill afford.

Cutting bus service in the Davenport Riding flies against equitable treatment of those who provide services upon which we are dependent- the invisible glue of our society. These constituents are night shift workers- nurses, office cleaners, factory employees, minimum wage earners – all of the most vulnerable members of society to transit cuts. And who are these workers? Single mothers, new immigrants, those just entering the workforce, night school students, and the elderly- all of whom need off rush hour transit to go to work, school and church safely.

It is well-known in transit system planning that once bus service is cut back, or becomes intermittent, passenger numbers drop throughout the route, so cutting back on bus frequency at any point in the schedule will reduce passenger numbers on that route. Eventually, the route will be avoided altogether if service frequency is cut back to the bone. In addition, low income constituents also have the least access to ‘just in time’ information for online information regarding schedule changes due to the high cost of Internet service, and are affected most by erratic schedules because they cannot access transit updates.

The residents of Davenport are particularly dependent on transit, as many cannot afford cars. As new immigrants, and service sector employees, they often have the least control over the hours of their employment, thus are the most vulnerable to service cuts during the evening and weekends. Traffic cannot shift into rush hour schedules; these constituents cannot determine the time and need for bus service. Those who work minimum wage jobs cannot afford to take taxis, and often require transit to ensure that they get home safely at night in at risk neighbourhoods. Minimum wage in Ontario is $10.25 an hour, and the cost of a cab from downtown Toronto to west-end Toronto can cost up to $40, more than half the daily rate of a minimum wage employee. Is this fair?

Davenport Riding has twice the number of racial minorities in Canada at 33%, a higher percentage of single people at 41% (as opposed to 33%), and 43% who are completely dependent upon public transit, a statistic much higher than the national average of 10%. Will cutting back services mean that riders will not be able to afford to go to work because of the cost of transit, if they are forced to take taxis at night?

In addition, many immigrants - Portuguese, Italian and Asian - have communities which centre around church. Cutting back Sunday service will restrict their access to their place of worship and right to congregation- cornerstones of society building- and which benefit the multinational city I am proud to call home.

The same principles of consistency and access to transit service apply to the proposed expansion of light rail transit for Transit City. This expansion of service level transit will revitalize and benefit entire neighbourhoods along its 75 km route, enable over three times this same demographic of rider to access and support businesses in their community, and build businesses within a far greater area than the area directly above subway stations. The air rights directly above the few subway stations proposed by Mayor Ford’s ‘Transportation City’ are not his unilateral right to sell to highrise developers. Transit City’s LRT is being implemented in dozens of cities internationally, and is proven to improve the quality of life within neighbourhoods, and provide interconnections to subway stations. Why wait seven years for a few subway stations, when Transit City can be built in three to serve almost four times as many riders, and provide facelifts and multiple transit stops for entire districts?

In summary, by cutting back bus service to Davenport Riding, one of the poorest in Canada, the Toronto City Council will make this community poorer, and may force riders to choose between being able to go to work, or not, based upon transit costs. Those who can afford cars are fortunate, and expect society to pay the cost of road maintenance, traffic control, and highway expansion, why are any cuts even considered in public transit, and car drivers prioritized over citizens’ rights to go to work on public transit? Taxpayers subsidize cars, and I have not heard of any cuts to any services required to maintain the highway system proposed by the current Mayor or City Council.

We need to support current bus routes, and get to work on building Transit City immediately, so that Torontonians in the GTA can go to work- safely, equitably and quickly.

Photo Credit Warren McPherson: Image of Transit Guru Steve Munro, and others, crowded into Meeting Room #2, waiting to deputize with great patience.

Research:

Davenport Riding Statistics at http://www.mothercraft.ca/resource-library/research-data/Davenport-2005.pdf

Marcus Gee, 'Calgary’s C-Train: Light rail that works', Globe and Mail, at http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/marcus-gee/for-light-rail-that-works-look-no-further-than-calgary/article1887237/?service=mobile

Stuck in Traffic in Transportation City

2011-01-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

"Send in the clowns
Don’t bother they are here."
- Stephen Sondheim from the 1973 musical 'A Little Night Music'

As a transit rider and taxpayer, I write of our right to moral outrage. The events since the October 25th municipal election have left me reeling- from the Ringling Brothers pomp and circumstance of Don Cherry’s inauguration of Rob Ford as mayor of our once progressive city, to the new regime’s attempted transit fee hike and service cuts, and to the higher personal income tax garnered to subsidize corporate tax cuts, our political arena has become a three-ring circus.

PM Harper, Premier McGuinty, Mayor Ford -- each have become ringleaders in their own right. Each promotes obstructionist duplicity, deflecting questions about who really holds the reins on our right to dissent without censure, discounting, or ridicule, while cutting tax revenues needed to support essential public services, such as transit, which enable us to get to work efficiently. Once service becomes intermittent, such as the recently proposed scaling back of the nighttime schedule of 48 bus routes, riders will no longer use these unpredictable routes. Who rides the later buses? Shift workers, recent immigrants, service sector employees, teenagers – those who cannot afford cars, and are the most vulnerable to being stranded within a system. With this plan, and the construction of 18 km of subway with 11 stops, rather than Transit City, Mayor Ford has announced his ‘Transportation City’, thus his ‘War on the Transit Rider’. Cars are machines; we cannot have a war on them.

Mayor Ford’s reign was kicked off on December 7th, when Don Cherry, the host of ‘Coach’s Corner’ on the CBC, placed the chain of office around Mayor Ford’s neck at City Hall, and said “Actually I'm wearing pink for all the pinkos out there that ride bicycles and everything.”

With that speech, the municipal gloves were off, and my bicycle helmet was on. The tone was set for the new City Hall, which was to be run by an executive council queried, hand-selected, and confirmed by his staff that their allegiance to Mayor Ford was absolute. Adam Vaughan, the councilor that everyone wanted to run for mayor, turned his back on the proceedings.

Within days of his election, Mayor Ford was granted the ear of Premier McGuinty, and convinced him to abandon seven years of Transit City planning. In those same few days, Spacing, the new urban magazine, designed bicycle-riding leftwing pinko buttons to fight this inaugural costume drama with humour, and a signifier of moral outrage. 10,000 buttons were sold in the first two days by Spacing, with 10 per cent of the proceeds going to the Toronto Cyclists’ Union.

For 25 years at the CBC, a pinko-kook institution, Mississauga resident Don Cherry has earned up to $700,000 a year for 5 minutes per game of Yogi Berra commentary on hockey, and now his ‘bite the hand that feeds him’ malapropisms have been immortalized on a button, and banded together downtown Toronto pinko-kooks. I wear my button everywhere with amused and exasperated pride, and often point to it as a mutual badge of honour to fellow pinkos-- on the streets, in the subway, and in cafes -- to build solidarity.

Those who conjecture about why Transit City is being dismantled also believe the mayoral modus operandi of Mayor Ford is calculated. Ford wants to return the favour of his election to property developers who bankrolled his campaign, and by doing so, undermine the egalitarian, urban planning begun by ex-Mayor Miller, which would integrate communities into the subway corridor by continuing to build 75 km of priority lines of Light Rail Transit. This project has already been whittled down 47 km by budget cuts by Premier McGuinty; ex-Mayor Miller's original plan included 122 km of LRT.

In addition, they believe Mayor Ford wants to sell off valuable air rights for high rise development above subway stops to his developer friends. This plan is in direct contrast to ex-Mayor Miller, who wanted his legacy to be Transit City. This LRT system includes multiple transit stops to encourage business and street level development within neighbourhoods, supports mom and pop businesses along its route, and enables those who are disabled and elderly access to surface level transit. The vision of Mayor Ford is elitist-- massive high rises will mark the spot of subway stations, which will take 7 years to build, serve 122,000 people, and are difficult to access, whereas the plan of Transit City is to enable transit-oriented development to serve 400,000 people, revitalize entire communities, and can be built within three years to relieve the gridlock, and a portion of healthcare expenses, which cost Ontario $6 billion a year.

And the three-ring circus continues. Premier McGuinty allowed Mayor Ford’s fireside chat for significant reasons-- Ontario views the HST as a corporate tax grab, he is culpable for enacting 233/10, the 5-meter fence rule, which permitted the suspension of civil liberties during the G20, and he has made a series of exceptionally poor decisions in the last year, including outsourcing $6 billion of wind turbines to Samsung. Who is advising him?

Yet even as Premier McGuinty exclaims from the center of his ring “Ontarians understand the need for corporate tax cuts”, provincial corporate tax rates are cut from 14 to 12 per cent so that $2.4 billion in public revenues will be lost for Transit City. No, I don’t understand why I am paying much more for fewer services, any more than I understand why the new City Council recently attempted to raise transit fees by 10 cents to $3.10 for each token when I buy a set of ten to offset the $60 lost from the vehicle registration fee, and federally, why my taxes have increased between $144 (income $44,000) to $447 per annum (income $100,000) so that $14 billion in tax revenues are lost to the public purse, and why Canadian corporations will pay the lowest taxes in the industrialized world at 12.2 per cent, when American corporations pay 28.3 per cent.

As a Liberal premier, Premier McGuinty has added to my tax burden given to me by the federal Conservatives, thereby supporting PM Harper’s corporate agenda. I thought they were opposing parties. As a result, I am getting far fewer services for far higher transit fees, increased taxation from all sides, and a possible public sector wage freeze — a triple whammy. And watch — this federal tax loss in tax revenue will be used to justify even more downloading of transit infrastructure costs to the provinces by forcing them to finance overruns. PM Harper and Premier McGuinty could have allocated some of these revenues to fund sustainable transportation infrastructure and upgrades, including electrifying the Air Rail Link, and the Georgetown corridor by Metrolinx, and easily included a 15% contingency fund.

$14 billion federally, and $2.4 billion provincially is $16.4 billion in lost tax revenues. $16.4 billion can buy world class, sustainable, electric transit infrastructure, education, research and innovation, and the capacity for forward thinking design and self-governance; $16.4 billion in tax cuts widens the gap between the car-drivers and transit riders, and closes the door on municipal services, including legal clinics, home care, and public housing for those who need them most, yet were the target demographic for Mayor Ford’s Gravy Train campaign. It also complicates travel time in the GTA for citizens do not want to waste half their workday in gridlock, as drivers idle in single occupancy vehicles (SOVs) behind their buses. These diesel buses, as proposed by Mayor Ford, should be Light Rail Vehicles, which are twice as fast, with no emissions, and serve the entire GTA. ‘Transportation City’ is not as efficient or clean as ‘Transit City’, and depends on fossil fuels in a post carbon economy.

Cities, including the GTA, need to become the epicenter of all greening initiatives, as up to 70% of the world will live in urban centers by 2050. It is clear that Mayor Ford will not be able to represent the City of Toronto on the world stage with his backward policies prioritizing cars, subways, and buses. GTA transit infrastructure is 25 years behind international standards already, and his version of fossil-fuel based transit, and expanding highway system, will be considered archaic before it is built. Cuts from federal and provincial corporate tax revenues could have been used to build this transit infrastructure so that TTC riders can get to work, quickly and efficiently without congestion, to their lungs or their workday.

Just as Mayor Ford’s inauguration did on youtube, his self-serving version of Transit City, ‘Transportation City’, will make us a laughing stock internationally. And as other countries build sustainable transit for resilient cities, we will be stuck in traffic, waiting for a change in transit policy and governance. As the economic engine of Canada, this funding is owed to the TTC transit rider more than the tax cuts are owed to the executive class, but it is not seen this way by this corporate glad-handing, three-ring circus.

We need to get to work on Transit City- and right away - so we can go to work.

References:
DON CHERRY and ROB FORD "...for all the PINKOs out there, that ride bicycles...", posted on youtube.com, December 7, 2010 at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHzCoUZG2Js
Left-wing pinko buttons store at http://spacing.ca/store/buttons/left-wing-pinko-button/
Pembina Report, “Making Tracks Torontonians”, January 5, 2011, at http://www.pembina.org/pub/2151
John Cartwright, The Toronto Star, July 11, 2010
'Opinion: Cancel corporate tax cuts to deal with deficit'at
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/834317--cancel-corporate-tax-cuts-to-deal-with-deficit
Sean Marshall, TTC holds off on fare increase, service cuts, January 12, 2011 at http://spacingtoronto.ca/2011/01/12/ttc-proposes-fare-increase-service-cuts/

DIY Citizenship - Not in Canada, My Dear

2010-11-23T15:14:00.000-08:00

“If we do not define citizenship, others will do it for us.”
Participant at the Do It Yourself Citizenship Conference,
University of Toronto, November 13, 2010

Citizenship is defined as “a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it.” Hilarious. I do need protection from my government, but I am not sure that I owe any allegiance to it in its current unconstitutional manifestation. My preferred definition of citizenship is “working towards the betterment of the community one lives in through participation, volunteer work and efforts to improve life for all”, but what do you do when the process of public consultation and rising tide of conservatism work to confuse, weaken and defeat you? Federally, with the defeat of Bill C-311, the Climate Change Accountability Act, by an unelected senate, and provincially, with the decision of the arm's length transit agency, Metrolinx to purchase diesel trains, rather than electric, for expansion of the Georgetown South corridor and Air Rail Link, this has been one bad week to be an engaged citizen working for sustainable change.

From November 11th to 14th, I attended the Do It Yourself Citizenship Conference at the University of Toronto. Sponsored by the Center for the Study of the United States, it was an jam packed, erudite conference, organized by Matt Ratto and Megan Boler, which pulled together one hundred and thirty-five international new media scholars to discuss how citizens have created civic engagement through e-government, remix culture, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and participatory media campaigns, such as the Rally to Restore Sanity, as a compendium for civic interventions critiquing our, American and Canadian, increasingly rightwing regimes. Canada gets PM Harper, and Toronto, Mayor-elect Ford, and the US gets Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party- a tragicomedy about to played out on both sides of the border.

As a resident of Ward 18, located in west-end Toronto, I presented my personal air monitoring station in the HackLab at DIY as a device for tactical, civic intervention. This mobile air monitoring station is a prototype of a physical computing device, which will act as my externalized lungs. Designed to refute the falsified data for projected air quality exceedances in Metrolinx’ environmental assessment reports, the lungs will hang over my balcony to analyze and collect air quality samples, and compare this new data with Metrolinx’ official projections, as winds blow easterly from 300-450 diesel trains passing two blocks beside my house until 2020 as part of their Regional Transportation Plan.

As Canada moves from a manufacturing economy to an extraction economy, and the Internet perfects surveillance of personal data through clickprints, ‘dataveillance’, it enables the shrewd and rapacious culling and selling of our data by third party collection companies to government agencies. Similarly, Geographical Information Systems enable detailed mapping for extraction locations for our natural resources. Our online identity, through social media and email, is monitored through the clickstream of our Internet searches, as well as our natural resources. Intellectual property, social identity, air, water and land are being mapped, mined, and readied for monetization and corporate profit. Neither the privacy commissioner, nor the federal court, have policies which are able to keep pace with this invasion of privacy, and assumption of privilege, by the data mining companies, as well as the rapid itemization of assets by extraction companies - mining, water, oil and natural gas- of our commons at civil society’s expense.

During the DIY Citizenship Conference, Sara Wylie, co-founder of ExtrAct, developed at the MIT Centre for Future Civic Media, presented a textured GIS map of icons marking the location of natural gas wells throughout the US, and discussed their satellite connectivity, which streamlines rapid extraction through data flow. This map of gas well locations is so dense, it crashes Google. As part of this project, the Land Man Report Card aggregates user-generated intelligence through civic engagement, in which landowners recount the sales pitch by itinerant landmen, who try to convince them to open their land to natural gas mining using hydraulic fracturing, which forces poisonous chemicals into the shale to fracture it, and release gas from its pockets. These tactical information systems, the LandMan Report Card, social networking, and the gas well map, enable landowners to communicate, document and warn others. A superb, and very important, documentary about this is ‘Gasland’, directed by Josh Fox, which forewarns us about government policy allowing ‘fracking’ on the Canadian east coast for shale reserves.

Since Bruce Mau’s exhibition ‘Massive Change’, I have foreseen that every square centimeter of our commons will be monetized, as if an invisible grid has been placed over the world, assigning value, partitioning assets and superseding our natural rights to a clean, healthy environment, and our private right to research and connect. Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms no longer protects any of these commons as our natural right, and federal policies controlling corporate extraction and environmental practices lag far behind the imposition of this intrusive data mining and surveying technology. Our commons- intellectual, cultural and physical- all will be on the auctioneer’s block, and Ron Diebert of the Citizen Lab is fighting to maintain net neutrality to ward off this impending fragmentation of the ‘Net, and monitoring of grassroots democracy.

Corporations are rapidly taking advantage of this slippage between policy and technology, and our ability to fight back is being undercut by PM Harper. On November 16th, the Climate Accountability Act, Bill C-311, was defeated by the senate by a snap vote of 43 to 32, held when opposing members were absent. This unelected senate, padded by PM Harper with his Conservative allies during his second prorogation, is a further indignity to democratic process. David Suzuki has launched a letter writing campaign protesting this unfair senate vote at http://action.davidsuzuki.org/C-311, and is trying to reach 15,000 letters to MPs.

The tactics of PM Harper are clear- if you cannot repeatedly defeat a bill with multiple readings, all of which have passed soundly, ensure the House is empty of its supporters during its final passing. Bill C-311 was Canada’s only offering for the Cancun climate change summit on November 29th, and it is no longer on the table. Under no circumstances does Canada want to stand in the way of the development of the tarsands, as Canadian oil sands giants, Suncor and Syncrude, are allowed to pay royalties based on a bitumen price that is half of what all other producers pay, while continuing to externalize the cost downstream to Fort Chippewyan communities through high cancer rates. There is no corporate cost for destroying the Boreal forest and the Athabasca River, except for the superficial planting of wild plants on the defunct tailings ponds. This area in Northern Alberta will be left as a bruise on the earth, visible by satellite, for generations to come.

Meanwhile, outside my window in Ward 18, Metrolinx has commissioned eighteen, Tier 4 diesel trains from Japan for the Air Rail Link, piggybacking on the Sumitomo bid in Sonoma, Marin, to provide a premium- read exclusive- service to Pearson. These trains will not resolve issues of noise, pollution or vibration, as Tier 4 emits four times the nitrous oxides, and twice the greenhouse gases, of equivalent automobiles, nor will they provide service to the communities they disturb. The noise and vibration of these necessitates the building of 10 km of 5.5 metre walls as noise barriers, which were not included under visual impacts in the report. Provincially, the $4 million electrification study is being ignored by Metrolinx in favour of buying these diesel trains before the study is completed, or considered. To her credit, the newly elected, Liberal-backed councilor, Ana Bailao, supports the Clean Train Coalition and the residents of our communities for electric trains, despite the position of Metrolinx and the provincial Liberals. And in these hard economic times, why are we buying diesel trains from Japan, when Quebec-based Bombardier makes topflight electric trains?

Our west-end communities, with Weston leading the way, have advocated for electric trains from the provincial Liberals for over 5 years, transit that the rest of the developed world takes as a matter of course, and yet Metrolinx is forcing through diesel trains, which will actually work against commercial and residential development by necessitating large buffer zones. When I attended the charrette for the design of the Junction Triangle, which is bounded by all three tracks of the GSSE corridor expansion in the centre of Ward 18, Castlepoint, who is redeveloping and remediating the lands of the Tower Automotive site, is forced to use parking structures and commercial office space as physical noise, vibration and sound buffers to the Georgetown corridor. With electric trains, much more of this real estate would usable for habitation and work. Castlepoint has the ear of Metrolinx- it seems to me that a fair trade off would be a tariff for developers going toward building electric trains in the Junction Triangle, an excellent suggestion for Premier McGuinty, thus releasing this land from dead zones, and the cul de sac view of concrete walls.

As Rob Fairley, a member of the Clean Train Coalition and a resident of Parkdale, said to the Board of Directors meeting on November 16th, during which they voted in favour of the Tier 4 trains, “We want electric trains, not diesel trails. We’re not here to disrupt the meeting, we just want to make sure you know where the community stands.” Politely, with only twelve seats available in the back row of the boardroom, advocates for electric trains stood at the back, cycling every two or three minutes to change our guard, so that we could all take turns to bear witness to the botchery of Metrolinx’ public consultation, and moot electrification study.

Do-it-yourself citizenship? Ward 18 has produced documentaries, ‘Bending the Rails’ by Jeff Winch, site installations for Nuit Blanche, ‘Rail of Light’ by Jeff Winch and Richard Mongiat, anthems, ‘Go Electric’ by Rob and Soli Joy, and marches, the Clean Air for Little Lungs Stroller Parade, and the Human Train, and a white elephant performance piece showing the next $1.3 billion abuse of taxpayers’ funds, after the G20 - but our consultation, peaceful protests, and our electrification study have been shoved aside by the self-imposed need to make the Pan Am Games deadline. What do 300,000 citizens do next, when the process is stacked against do-it-yourself civic intervention, and their health is put at risk, to prioritize dirty, diesel trains for a two week sporting extravaganza, touting itself as “green”, when buses would be just fine for the athletes?

As Adlai E. Stevenson said, “As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end.” Not in Canada, despite all our do-it-yourself citizenship supporting our commitment, through advocacy and research, to build an electric transit system in our west-end communities. To the organizers of the DIY Citizenship Conference, thank you for an extraordinary experience. I suggest that the next conference be entitled ‘How to Build a Civil Society’, as it is clear that Canada has forgotten to include us in its democratic vote for sustainable transit.

References:
DIY Citizenship Conference, University of Toronto at http://diycitizenship.com/
Sara Wylie, co-founder, ExtrAct, MIT Centre for Future Civic Media, LandMan Report Card at
http://civic.mit.edu/projects/c4fcm/extract-landman-report-card
Josh Fox, "Gasland" at http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/
Bruce Mau and the Institute without Boundaries at http://www.massivechange.com/about
Citizen Lab at http://citizenlab.org/
David Suzuki Blog, "Senate vote to kill Climate Act disrespects Canadians and democracy" at
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/panther-lounge/2010/11/senate-vote-to-kill-climate-act-disrespects-canadians-and-democracy/
Letters to MPs regarding Bill C-311, the Climate Change Act, at http://action.davidsuzuki.org/C-311
Darcy Henton, Canwest News Service: "Oil-sands royalty estimates could be out by $100M: auditor" at http://www.financialpost.com/related/topics/sands+royalty+estimates+could+100M+auditor/2060831/story.html#ixzz15xfqrCQM
Richard Mongiat and Jeff Winch, "Rail of Light" at http://railoflight.wordpress.com/
Natalie Alcoba, National Post: "Electrifying Pearson rail link by 2015 'can’t be done': Metrolinx" at http://www.globaltoronto.com/Electrifying+Pearson+rail+link+2015+done+Metrolinx/3837926/story.html

In Remembrance of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

2010-11-11T08:04:00.000-08:00

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
- John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963), in a speech at the White House, 1962

I write this on the eve of Remembrance Day, 2010, as PM Harper flies to South Korea for a repeat performance of the G20, as three days of testimonies unfold in Toronto and Montreal to question RCMP conduct, and the government continues to refuse a public inquiry into the G20. This judicial inquiry is morally imperative as it would enable the federal court to subpoena evidence from witnesses under oath to knit together the patchwork of incriminating evidence, establish the chain of command of policing during the G20, and finally assign culpability. Both parties are standing firm- this all-encompassing inquiry must not be allowed happen. It may be the only issue they agree upon at this time, having closed ranks to goose-step around civil liberties. Meanwhile, PM Harper is fiddling while Rome burns, selling more of our assets to multinationals in South Korea. Has it occurred to him that Canada is not his to sell?

I dedicate this article to my grandfather, who fought in the First World War, and was one of the few who survived the air force. He came back so shell-shocked that if his family spoke while he drove, he had to pull over to the side of the road to calm down. Within my extended family, several members have been awarded Orders of Canada for public service. I am, however, a vilified ‘protester’, as I believe that there must be a full inquiry into the G8/G20 Summit so that both levels of government are forced to be responsible for the gross abuse of police power, violation of civil liberties and powers of taxation, and desecration of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. If the Charter cannot defend its own constitution and abrogation of civil rights, it is a constitution no longer.

It is exactly one week since I witnessed the voting down of the second reading of Bill 121, a public interest investigation into the G8/G20 Summit tabled by Welland’s NDP MPP, Peter Kormos, by 8 'ayes' to 28 'neas' in Queen’s Park. Upon the resounding ‘nea’ across the floor by the consolidated Liberals and Conservatives, there was a unanimous, audible gasp by those in the peanut gallery. Included in that singular voice was my own, and within an hour, having sped away on my round legs, I was listening to Chris Hedges talk about his new book, “The Death of the Liberal Class” at the Munk School for Global Affairs. His lecture was a play-by-play of what I had seen at Queen’s Park, and spoke directly to me.

Could it be, according to Chris Hedges, that the liberal left - unions, churches and universities, progressive political parties, and the press - has lost moral suasion as a guiding voice for democratic dialogue? Have we abandoned our moral compass in favour of corporate elitism? And have we allowed the gutting of ethics, and the erosion of civil liberties, for financial gain? As I watched the provincial NDP fight back at Queen’s Park, and be mocked for their efforts by the opposing parties, I thought no- it is worse- citizens’ rights are being viewed with contempt as they contest the streamlining of economic interests, the growing division between the rich and poor, and the destruction of the environment. As Chris Hedges notes, without a robust liberal voice to engage in this debate, there is a very real danger that things will degrade into violence as the middle and working classes become increasingly disenfranchised, angry and confused. Internationally, general strikes rage, generated by falsely imposed austerity measures imposed by the banks, and Chris Hedges predicts that the US, then Canada, will be next, on the front line. A cynical friend said that no doubt the Conservatives had a contingency fund for legal challenges as part of their G20 bottom line, a line item right after their $500, 000 worth of delegate party favours -glow sticks, hand sanitizer, and $100 pens.

At Queen’s Park, throughout the presentation of the bill, I was distressed by the disregard the opposition had for the NDP. They held extended conversations during their presentation, loud enough to be heard by me in the upper gallery, to show their displeasure at the possibility of the second reading of Bill 121. For me, as a Canadian citizen, it was a momentous historical occasion, for the Liberals and Conservatives, it was a $1.3 billion farce of the highest order, worthy of a William Hogarth cartoon - when Peter Kormos mentioned the editorial in the Star demanding a formal inquiry, a Liberal MPP turned to the fashion section, searching for it there. I watched her. A MPP from the Muskoka region, Garfield Dunlop, mentioned the success of the G8 in Huntsville, although I heard how golfers were losing balls off the green, and militia were crawling out of the brush, holding the golf ball up, and warning them not to hit off the fairway again.

I have always been wary of publicity stunts on the Ontario Parliament Network, the official channel of the provincial legislature, but I was glad that it was recording and broadcasting this debate for posterity, ignored as it was by the opposition. MPPs, please be aware that you are being observed. I have heard how the intellectual level of discourse, as transcribed in the Hansard, the official record, is the lowest it has ever been historically, but the resounding speeches of NDP MPPs, Peter Kormos, Andrea Horwath, and Cheri DiNovo , showed courage, a monumental standing up for the underdog. As I left the gallery, I made the universal symbol for typing to Cheri DiNovo. I will transcribe my own citizen’s Hansard of events, and I will remember this travesty of justice in the defense of the Charter, and my grandfather, who fought for a kinder, gentler Canada, and my right to protest. During the G20, police erased incriminating photographs on iPhones by resetting the factory settings to default, and stomping on memory cards, to erase incriminating evidence of police brutality. I refuse to let these memories be erased, but I am a pacifist, and want to believe that the Charter can rise to its own defense.

Later, at the lecture, deeply shaken, I asked Chris Hedges about the vilification of protesters, and he spoke of having his microphone cut off, twice, during a lecture, and being escorted off a university campus. The press reported that he had created a riot, and the university sent him his coat by mail. Protesters, intellectuals, academics, environmentalists- these are all epithets, just as a Liberal MP pointed out the eloquence of Peter Kormos was due to his background as a lawyer during the Bill 121 debate. Those who ask for educated discussion are discredited to enable bigotry and prejudice, as PM Harper plays his role as ideologue to evade facts, discourage analysis, and hold court through emotion. Elitists, treehuggers, latte-sippers, lefties, union members - these have all become dirty words – just read the comments section online, and see how democratic discourse has descended into name calling, supported by this new form of government.

There will be no justice until there is a public inquiry, which ties together the disparate inquiries into a coherent series of events enabled by a chain of command, and yes, assigns blame. We deserve to know what happened, and not to be distracted by the pomp and circumstance of yet another G20 Summit, quick on the heels of our own. Regulation 233/10, the five meter fence rule, will lead right back to the Premier McGuinty’s office, then to the Prime Minister’s Office.

Investigation of this fallacious law will prove PM Harper’s desire to cut away the backbone of peaceful resistance by targeting caring, educated and engaged youth to ensure their future political passivity. The young woman, hit by rubber bullets, may never return to Toronto, and sadly, these memories of the state of martial law have changed a generation's perception of police. As an educator, I will never forget this deliberate humiliation of over eleven hundred protesters, and as a citizen, I will never forget that my grandfather fought for naught, because I can be taxed to the hilt to have my civil liberties suspended for a political spectacle enabling police brutality, and civilian abuse. Canada is not safer since the Summits and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been allowed to be put into question, and with that, the fundamental rights of every citizen. Shame.

References:
Hedges, Chris. The Death of the Liberal Class. New York: Nation, 2010. Print.
Theo Moudakis, Opinion in Toronto Star, Public Inquiry November 1st, link at http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/883743--g20-summit-public-inquiry-still-required
Krystalline Kraus, "Activist Communique: Ontario G20 inquiry public members bill failed to pass second reading and the Summit cost totals", ‏link at http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/krystalline-kraus/2010/11/activist-communiqu%C3%A9-ontario-g20-inquiry-public-members-bill
The Hansard, November 4th, h ttp://www.ontla.on.ca/web/house-proceedings/house_detail.do?locale=en&Date=2010-11-04&detailPage=%2Fhouse-proceedings%2Ftranscripts%2Ffiles_html%2F04-NOV-2010_L066.htm&Parl=39&Sess=2#P1300_294131

Green belt, tighten our belt: Contesting the Places to Grow Act

2010-11-02T05:46:00.001-07:00

People living in vigorous cultures typically treasure those cultures and resist any threat to them. How and why can a people so totally discard a formerly vital culture that it becomes literally lost?
- Jane Jacobs, "Dark Age Ahead", 2004

Toronto has been divided and conquered, its downtown core sold for $60, the cost of the vehicle registration tax, for the right of those in the subdivisions to drive downtown with impunity. Good bye road tolls and bicycle lanes.

There is not a single campaign promise that Rob Ford can keep, but loyalty came cheap from those who live outside the subway system, lured by Ford's promise of extending the Sheppard line, and his campaign to end the “war on cars.” His electoral promises were flimsy and repetitive, but as former Liberal premier Bob Rae noted, Ford’s campaign was supported by the federal Conservative Party, and the hard-sell town hall phone technology developed by the ultra right Tea Party, and used to cull phone numbers from 7,000 would-be voters. Ford had lots of help, and he is paying off his campaign manager, Nick Kouvalis -- the real brains of his outfit -- with the position of mayoral chief of staff at City Hall (see CBC As it Happens’ phone interview for Ford’s first interview as mayor).

Rob Ford is the municipal piece of the Conservative puzzle, Tom Hudak, the provincial, and a majority with Stephen Harper would secure the Conservative trifecta for unregulated, rightwing government. Although Ford's “Stop the Gravy Train” platform seemed simplistic at best, it spoke in a crystal clear voice to those who felt that they have been done a disservice by Toronto City Hall -- you will save money under Ford, and you have been wronged by the downtown lefties, who have wasted money trying to establish sustainable transit systems, such as Transit City, and planting trees.

Stephen Harper partied gleefully at Ford's victory party as the Gravy Train will be helmed by his man now -- still a Gravy Train, but run by Big Business on the tracks of unbridled commerce, without restraint, or censure. The Conservatives are using the same penny-pinching campaign strategy in the TV ads for provincial candidate Tom Hudak, citing McGuinty’s EcoFee as the culprit. The provincial race could be won for even less than $60, for a tax, although badly conceived, which was revised immediately. How quick people are to form allegiances for tiny, temporary savings.

There was a less known campaign behind Ford’s 47 per cent vote win.

Regional developers footed 60 per cent of the bill for Ford's campaign to ensure their future victory in contesting the Places to Grow Act in 2014. The Places to Grow Act was enacted in 2005 by the Liberal government to protect 1.8-million acres that form the Green Belt, including the Oakridge Moraine, and its freshwater aquifers feeding into Lake Ontario, from aggressive subdivision development. This act will become in jeopardy as Conservatives consolidate and contest its growth restrictions to pay back their Ford campaign supporters.

Disastrous environmental policy is not the sole domain of the Conservatives, however. The Liberal’s Legislative Framework for Modernization has also undercut the Places to Grow Act. On Oct. 21, the Open for Business Act was passed by the provincial Liberal Party, which ensures exponential environmental degradation as Big Business is permitted to monitor itself, without full disclosure or recourse to the Environmental Bill of Rights on the part of watchful citizen groups, like Lake Ontario’s Waterkeepers, headed by the extraordinary lawyer, Mark Mattson.

One hundred small amendments were hidden away to guarantee “competitive advantage” over our right to protect our commons, as part of this modernization act. Mattson sent the provincial government a 100-page defense of the citizens’ right to contest major projects through the Environmental Bill of Rights; it was completely ignored. Both parties are culpable for the environmental race to the bottom this electoral year.

What will the new Ontario look like, if Ford and his developer supporters -- which, not coincidentally, include former commissioner for Ontario police, Julian Fantino, as the new Conservative candidate in Vaughan -- have their way?

Developers own thousands of hectares of farm, lakeside and moraine land, protected by the Places to Grow Act, and they are waiting for the full changing of the guard to Conservative so that they can resume building massive tracts of suburban mansions, circumnavigating the act. In the 1980s, my grandfather, who worked in real estate, prophetically called these “the ghettoes of the future.”

As Ontario's subdivisions are given renewed license to sprawl throughout the 905 region, they will add thousands of hectares of asphalt for highways to absorb heat, and enable toxic petroleum water to run off directly into the Great Lakes.

In the last three years, massive algae blooms have been seen from satellites in middle of our Great Lakes, a by-product of nitrogen fertilizer from the increasing number of lawns edging around the lakes from exurban development. Much of this fertilizer is used by golf courses, so that a tiny white ball can be better seen against bright green backdrop.

There has been 8.5 per cent loss in the Great Lakes of water through extraction for suburban development and golf courses, which use a staggering amount of groundwater. The Open for Business Act opens possibilities for water exploitation, even as lake levels go down and our population grows.

The cost of the increased infrastructure for this 905 exurban development for water mains, electricity, and highways will be passed on to the taxpayer in the downtown core, as well as increased commuter traffic, although none of these residents are benefiting from these services.

Good bye tax cuts by Rob Ford; this exurban expansion all but guarantees a higher cost of taxation to guarantee developers’ profit at civil society’s expense, as Ford cuts municipal services. Our streetcars are the envy of municipalities throughout the world, and we are getting rid of them? Why?

When the green belt will no longer be able to naturally cleanse and generate water, its aquifers destroyed by containment, extraction or diversion, development will create a loop in which we are forced to use electricity or gas to do artificially what nature, such as the Great Lakes, or the Green Belt around the Oakridge Moraine, does without human intervention. We have not developed the science or technology more efficient than nature, despite the ridiculous claims of climate engineering scientists. All of these costs to purify water will be passed on to the taxpayer, an additional gift from the developers to the downtown core. And as the Boreal forest in the 905 becomes fractured by expanding highways, it will become prone to disease, just as the Asian pine needle invaded the forests in British Columbia as logging roads cut through their stands.

In 2004, in her last work, “Dark Age Ahead,” Jane Jacobs predicted the newly enacted “Legislative Framework for Modernizing Environmental Approvals” with frightening accuracy describing the undermining of the "five pillars of our culture that we depend on to stand firm":

“Bad science is the elevation of economics as the main ‘science’ to consider in making major political decisions;

bad governments are more interested in deep-pocket interest groups than the welfare of the population;

and bad culture prevents people from understanding the deterioration of fundamental physical resources, which the entire community depends on.”

Any contestation to the Environmental Assessment Act is refuted as a conflict to competitive advantage by the government, and protected by the Freedom of Information Act, and “competitive advantage,” so immune to public scrutiny. Jacobs extrapolated from observing the lobbying tactics of Big Business that we would lose our right to protect future generations from asthma, birth defects and learning deficiencies, such as autism, all of which are on the rise, and directly linked to our environment.

It takes seven generations to judge precautionary measures for major infrastructure developments as recommended by indigenous peoples, but it has only taken one generation to lose our farms, our lakes, and our health through bad policy.

On Oct. 27, C-300, a private members bill by Liberal John McKay, which made mining, oil and gas companies accountable for their abuse of human rights and environmental violations, was defeated 134-140 votes in the House of Commons, a vote which the world watched in horror.

This is the quality of federal legislation which the Conservative Party will try to bring down the rungs through their provincial and municipal candidates. By allowing companies to self regulate, we have lost our international reputation, and a place on the United Nations Security Council. Michael Ignatieff did not appear for the vote, to show support for McKay -- and he wonders why the politically engaged do not consider him as a viable candidate?

We will be faced with the same aggressive tactics as the mining lobbyists from developers pushing for urban expansion, and the selling off Ontario’s green space, as the 100 amendments in the Open to Business Act whittle away our right to protect our commons -- clean water, land and air.

This is Rob Ford’s true Gravy Train, directing profits to his campaign supporters, developers. The rights for self-determination in central Toronto were sold off for $60, and false election promises, to suburban voters in a campaign, which deliberately misrepresented City Hall’s state of finances. As Atom Egoyan said, “This city is the envy of the world and we’re acting like it’s falling apart.” I feel a lot less safe riding my bike in this new Toronto.

Provincially, if voters are not careful, we will sell off even more of our environmental rights to penalize the Liberals for the HST, Green Act, and EcoFees, although by supporting Conservative candidates, we will not profit a penny from the profits of businesses to support education, healthcare or community services.

This is the saddest legacy from this municipal election, an aftershock which will reveal itself slowly to those who voted for Ford to be known as a betrayal, but predicted by those who did not vote for him.

There are dark ages ahead, and I intend to ignore Ford, and support progressive city councillors to enable the City of Toronto to plan itself, and protect the Places to Grow Act, and support the recent United Nations vote for the international right to clean water and sanitation.

No doubt when the recent verdict on the Places to Grow Act in Pickering is eventually contested, we will see if there are any teeth left in it as it goes head to head with the Opportunities for Business Act.

References:
Jacobs, Jane. Dark Age Ahead. New York: Random House, 2004. Print.
CBC As it Happens’ phone interview for Ford’s first interview as mayor at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHJGR4i7fhw
Kelly Grant, "Nick Kouvalis, the man behind the Ford campaign"
at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/city-votes/nick-kouvalis-the-man-behind-the-ford-campaign/article1738989/page2/
Places to Grow Act at https://www.placestogrow.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=5
Legislative Framework for Modernizing Environmental Approvals
http://www.ebr.gov.on.ca/ERS-WEB-External/displaynoticecontent.do?noticeId=MTA5MDI3&statusId=MTYzNzE1
Mark Mattson, Waterkeeper.ca Weekly http://www.waterkeeper.ca/2010/10/27/why-did-ontario-kill-public-participation-rights/#more-19106
‘The End of Suburbia’, a documentary directed by Gregory Greene, describes this in detail at
http://www.endofsuburbia.com/
Open For Business Act Passes at
http://news.ontario.ca/medt/en/2010/10/open-for-business-act-passes.htm l
Bill C-300 – Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas Corporations in Developing Countries
http://www.miningwatch.ca/en/bill-c-300-corporate-accountability-activities-mining-oil-or-gas-corporations-developing-countries
John McKay's Speech Moving 3rd Reading of C-300 at http://www.johnmckaymp.on.ca/newsshow.asp?int_id=80681
Province rejects proposed Pickering growth:Urban expansion onto valuable agricultural lands out of step with provincial limits on sprawl http://www.thestar.com/iphoneapp/article?assetId=882142

One Toronto, Now: An Election is a Terrible Thing to Waste

2010-10-08T18:24:00.000-07:00

Only when humans are again permitted to build authentic urbanism — those cities, towns, and villages that nurture us by their comforts and delights — will we cease the despoiling of Nature by escaping to sprawl.
Andrés Duany, 'Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream'

I think of Rob Ford as a powder keg, masquerading as a beer keg. At first glance, he appears populist, pleasing, inexpensive, and easygoing, and then you realize that he is elitist, divisive, and explosive. (To see Rob Ford's behaviour on City Council, here is the 'Rob Ford's Maturity' youtube video which is going viral.) As former mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson warns, the city risks “handing over the office of greatest local influence on the basis of anger and reaction, not that of responsible, thoughtful and mature policy”. Rob Ford has led a negative campaign against City Hall, and when people have been made afraid of the future, they fall back by default on conservative posturing, blinding them to socially innovative solutions. As George Smitherman seethed, "The City of Toronto’s motto is diversity is our strength. If Rob Ford is elected mayor, the first thing that will need to be done is change the motto".

Transit is by far and away the thorniest, and most important, issue in this mayoral race. Rob Ford's transit plan includes getting rid of streetcars, building suburban bicycle lanes, and extending the Sheppard subway line. By "stopping the war on cars" for his supporters, Ford has created skepticism toward Transit City's European-style Light Rail Transit system, without offering any viable alternatives. As Chris Bilton noted in Eye Weekly:

Ford’s focus on road repairs is admirable, but refuses to acknowledge that the reason we need to repair the Gardiner and the DVP is because they are used daily by 905ers whose taxes do not pay for Toronto’s road maintenance. And then there’s Ford’s totally worthless bike plan, which boasts 100km of off-road biking trails — mainly through the northernmost parts of North York and the far reaches of suburban Toronto — most of which would be completely useless to anyone trying to commute into the downtown core. Ford doesn’t seem to understand that cyclist commuters reduce traffic congestion (and transit congestion for that matter) and will ride on Toronto streets whether or not there are bike lanes. Trying to relegate cycling to a weekend pastime is not only delusional, but would make congestion worse.

Ford's slash and burn spending on transit initiatives will increase traffic congestion, air pollution, and road rage through urban sprawl, and benefit no one, while damaging everyone's health and Toronto's future economic prosperity. In addition, he is attempting to turn back the clock on Mayor Miller's legacy, Transit City, which forms the basis of network for the entire GTA, and democratizes accessibility for those who are underserved to have access to Toronto without relying on cars. Rob Ford's plan to extend the Sheppard Line has not been approved by the federal and provincial governments; Transit City has been, and is already being constructed, so the subway extension is an election promise impossible to meet.

Downtown, Ford will sell off bicycle lanes to SUVs, in a time of peak oil, when the rest of the world, including China, is building electric transit networks to espouse the principles of New Urbanism: Renewable Energy + Electric Transportation + Walkable Urbanism = Livable Cities. China, by the way, has canceled their contract with General Motors for the Hummer, knowing they would clog its arteries. China knows it does not want another 10 day traffic jam; Ford would be encouraging just that in Toronto.

I live in a triangle of three parks, Sorauren, MacGregor and Dufferin Grove, in Ward 18, part of Davenport Riding - recently singled out as 'a riding to watch' in all of the upcoming elections. Friday night suppers in Dufferin Grove are a magnet for first and second generation immigrants, designers, tradespeople, professors, those of many different genders, and priority youth - a neo-urban hippy community. This riding also has the largest growing immigrant population, and some of the greatest poverty, in Canada. We have had our growing pains, but my community believes in a bicycle lanes, farmer’s markets, and a 'Do it Yourself' culture, values which are a throwback to the Depression Era when each purchase was carefully considered, and household items were repurposed, reused, and shared through a network of neighbours. Parks are essential to the Davenport Riding. As Toronto becomes ever more crowded, they ensure equitable access to play for those who live in crowded conditions. Downtown parks are what make my urban life tolerable, and have stopped my flight to the suburbs.

One day, while watching the neighbourhood children make human pyramids in Dufferin Grove, a fridge magnet was thrust under my nose. I looked up and found it attached to Rob Ford. “Vote for me,” he said imperiously. I said “Not a chance, Rob. You know nothing about urban planning and environmentalism, the two things that matter most to this community.” “Call my office”, was his reply, and he stumbled off, with his three younger, identical acolytes in tow, like a lion stalking prey. As he approached a grazing herd of neo-urban hippies, they swiftly fled from his pack, loping like antelopes across the plains. I still wake up in the wee hours of the morning, giggling at this sight, until the seriousness of the upcoming mayoral election kicks in. I am afraid for the park system if Rob Ford is elected, and with very good reason, because the Toronto Islands are at stake as well. I love this park, and their beaches, and they are my most treasured part of Toronto.

The Toronto Islands attract 12 million visitors, including international tourists, a year to the waterfront. Ford’s decision to sit down with Porter Airline's Rob Deluce to discuss how to continue to expand the Toronto City Center Airport will jeopardize the right of those who love to picnic on the Toronto Islands- those who cannot afford to flee the smoggy heat of the city. Aircraft flying directly above the Islands, and Lake Ontario, bring international security risks, noise and air pollution directly into the city center, and by increasing traffic above this park, will detract from this green oasis. This constant air traffic will drop thousands upon thousands of tonnes of jet fuel into the Great Lakes, our drinking water. This water supply is not guaranteed to be our stable resource, as it is losing 1.4 million Olympic swimming pools of water annually. Particulate matter that goes up as smog, comes down as water pollution.

For the first time in Toronto's history, young children, who attend primary school near this airport, are acquiring asthma. Privileging the expansion of a short haul airport over less affluent citizens to enjoy the parks, schools or west end playgrounds, is a really an elitist position by Ford, as it assumes that people he represents own cottages, or do not live downtown. Toronto already has Pearson International Airport, and the TCCA is really only for those who do not live on the waterfront, or in the west end of the city, and do not care about either, for the sake of a couple of minutes' convenience in travel time. An unsustainable transit structure would be in play as proposed by Ford - cars battling bikes, and TCCA short haul flights prioritized over electric rail infrastructure on the Georgetown corridor. An electric, rather than diesel, Air Rail Link to Pearson would put downtown Toronto back into play on the world stage, rather than polluting the waterfront and west end, and every other mayoral candidate has signed a pledge to support the Clean Train Coalition, with the exception of Ford.

To build his Canadian version of the Tea Party, Rob Ford wants to get rid of 22 out of 44 councillors, and is actively canvasing rightwing councillors to support his candidacy. It would be to his benefit to fire those progressive councillors who oppose his bombastic style and supported Mayor Miller, and pad council seats with allies, so that he can impose his decisions without opposition. I think one of the ways to stop this juggernaut race by Rob Ford is to carefully elect a Toronto City Council who will voice our right to environmental protection through New Urban principles, so that Rob Ford's slash and burn transit and social service policies do not gain traction.

A significant number of Torontonians are not decided in their mayoral or councillor votes - I know that I am not - and I think that we have to come together as one Toronto, and start deciding on our mayoral and council candidates together as a united voice that loves this city, and wants it to prosper, rather than to be caught in a stalemate of consensus, and traffic gridlock, over the next four years. We need to elect a Mayor of Toronto, and City Council, who can predict the necessity for change, with enough foresight to ensure that Transit City is in place so that our city is resilient in this age of peak oil. It is not enough to say, as I witnessed Rob Ford say during a CP24 debate, "that we do not want 1 million more people in Toronto…we can barely take care of the people we have already". Population growth is inevitable, and his simple response is not good enough.

Curiously, the majority of Torontonians polled would vote for Mayor Miller once again if he were to run, so who are we going to choose to support Transit City, a green economy, social innovation and arts and culture? Who loves the City of Toronto, beyond personal gain, and who will defend us from unbridled growth, driven by the suburbs? I would say Joe Pantalone, with his 30 years of experience, but is to give Joe Pants a vote to take away a vote from George Smitherman, who appears to be the only real contender against Rob Ford? It gives me profound sadness to think strategically - I saw how quickly Joe Pantalone fought and won the redesign of an underground version of the Strachan Bridge from Metrolinx, and I think that we have spent so much time talking about Ford that we have ignored the magic powers of the feisty Small Wonder. Of all the mayoral candidates, I truly believe Joe Pantalone cares for Toronto the most.

However, in this time of crisis, I think we are forced to carefully band together to ensure that progressive city councillors are in the majority so that Rob Ford will be unable to hold dominion within City Hall. The Mayor is only one vote, and although he sets the tenor of City Hall, Ford will forced to reach consensus if we elect councillors who will contest his environmentally retrogressive bylaws, although as Councillor Ford, negotiating has been nigh impossible for him to do. We need to unite soon so that we have a fighting chance to have our downtown voice heard. It is up to us, as those who want to breathe, live, walk and ride our bikes safely in this city to determine how we are going to vote as a block, for both councillors and mayor, so Ford does not divide the left down the middle to take the far right.

To this end, I ask all those in agreement check out these sites, and join Facebook campaigns, so that we can work together as a unified, downtown vote, and decide what to do:

OneToronto.ca http://www.onetoronto.ca/ Watch 'Facts not Fury'- a video counterargument to Ford's negative campaigning at http://youtu.be/2Kn5YFnPc6E Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/OneTorontoca/160160227330948
People Plan Toronto at http://peopleplantoronto.org/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/peopleplantoronto
Toronto Cannot Afford Ford http://www.torontocannotafford.com/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=151516278207363

An election is a terrible thing to waste. Otherwise, four years of Rob Ford may drive people like me, a proud, leftwing, latte-swilling, arts and culture loving, downtown greening, smog-reducing, neo-urban hippie from my natural urban habit, and force me to flee to the ever-expanding suburbs to get my taxes worth of clean living. We need to be One Toronto, and to come together now.

References:
‪OneToronto.ca ~ Toronto is our Home, don't TRASH TALK it!‬
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-DxAcFLwU8
Rob Ford's Maturity Level at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOi2wIUCTnA
Principles of New Urbanism at http://www.newurbanism.org/newurbanism/principles.html
Chris Bilton, 'It’s on: the mayoral race gets serious' at http://www.eyeweekly.com/city/mayoralrace2010/article/101166
Steve Rennie, 'Yearly water loss could fill one million Olympic pools', at http://detnews.com/article/20100512/METRO/5120371/Great-Lakes-water-levels-drop-worries-boaters--shippers#ixzz11EG19NfN

This is not my Canada; This is not my Media

2010-09-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest.
Paul Craig Roberts
Good-Bye: Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It

At the end of September, Rick Salutin, an award-winning, left-leaning columnist, was fired by the Globe and Mail. His second last article, 'Stephen Harper – the last Straussian?' received over 590 comments. The first sentence is pure Salutin:

People keep asking why Stephen Harper acts as he does, it looks so buttheaded. He seems to muck up his own prospects: firing decent people, lashing out, raising the partisan rhetoric, proroguing Parliament haughtily, binging on military toys, mauling the census – he’s a bright boy, it’s hard to figure.

I am curious why the Globe and Mail is not publishing the numerous letters questioning why Rick Salutin was fired for writing articles of such gravitas, and supporting his twenty years of incisive political analysis. Indeed, Rick Salutin's final paragraph in his last article, 'Rob Ford and the loss of Hope', was censored by the Globe and Mail, as farewells are 'not permitted'. Rick gives a clarion call against Rob Ford coming to power, and states 'It's the failure or shortfall of hope that leads to fear.' As the London School of Economics responded by letter to the Queen, when she asked why their experts had not foreseen the economic meltdown of 2008, that 'it was a failure of imagination', so it will be for Toronto if we elect Rob Ford, and turn back the progressive policies enacted during the past seven years under Mayor Miller. Our actions will show that we no longer believe that our city that it can be a better place to live, and we will permit it to be ruled by suburban interests, rather than responsible urban planning and engaged environmental and social stewardship. Collectively, we care much more than Rob Ford for our city, and we have much more knowledge of how it can be run.

Is such a censored dismissal Straussian, Globe and Mail? Hundreds of thousands of readers, and Rick, deserve a proper explanation. 'Redesigning' is not enough. PM Harper pays $75,000 of our tax money to have a new media company monitor negative online comments, and no doubt, he just pressed the panic button to notify them to quickly repudiate the readers' indignation and howls of support for Rick. You can read the online comments here. Off with his head, the Conservative Privy Council Office said, and the Thomsons agreed. It doesn't pay to be controversial.

In their attempt to attract younger Internet savvy readers, who are not accustomed to investigative reporting, and prefer larger pictures, the Globe and Mail has revamped the newspaper to have a more glossy tabloid look and feel, with one of the issues that 'define Canadians' extolling the bright future of the armed forces. In the Globe's recent 'Canada: Our Time to Lead' TV ad, touting the redesign, a young woman, riding a bicycle on a country road toward the camera, says that 'Canada is not defined by universal health care or peacekeeping'. Funny- last time a poll was run in Canada, 80% of respondents said healthcare is the crown jewel, and distinguishing attribute of Canadian society, and why we accept high taxation levels. This subtext of this ad asks us to envision a new Canada, militarized and 'open for international business'- a corporate Canada we are beginning to know, driven by unsustainable, neoliberal policies for endless exploitation. Who will take care of us when media corporations own us, and our messaging? Curiously, Irshad Manji, 'Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare' has been chosen to replace Rick Salutin. The independence of the fourth estate is no longer.

This silencing of the media opposition is just another instance of what I have known for some time- the leftwing media is being censored and sidelined, soon to be extinguished, as part of the campaign against freedom of information in Canada. PM Harper holds a stranglehold on media relations stronger than any other prime minister in Canadian history. The scientific community's head, and right to speak, is on the block, as well, as the byzantine process of asking for scientific data has been enforced, no doubt, to control press releases about the recent, peer-reviewed report about the poisoning of the Athabasca River due to the runoff of the tarsands' tailings ponds. It is hard to speak when your head has been cut off.

On July 27th, I launched a formal CRTC complaint regarding the inequitable coverage of the G20, which prioritized images of police cars burning over issues peacefully presented by non profit and non governmental organizations. On August 16th, I received a phone call from a bigwig in one of the major Canadian TV networks. His tone was pugilistic, and twenty-five minutes later, after he mocked my commitment to march, I felt discredited, and verbally beaten up, for defending my rights to have adequate, or any, media coverage of the civil society response to the G20. I was told that footage of the 'violent riots was fresh, new, important and newsworthy', whereas the democratic discourse surrounding the dismantling of civil society, and fire sale of Canada to private interests, was a tale told again, and again, and was simply not newsworthy. 'Anyway,' I was told, 'the people in the Labour Parade on Saturday did get 30 seconds of airtime.' Let's divide 25-40,000 citizens by thirty seconds each, and see if they can get a word in edgewise.

I hung up the phone feeling that the onus was on the left to provide more and more flamboyant spectacles of protest, and that the left, by its nature diverse in its concerns, is beholden to provide a unified message for easy media consumption. It is the job of activist organizations to be credible public relations firms, and perform theatrically, for a few seconds of media coverage, although the pockets of our opposition run deep, lined with our tax money being readied to be used against us, such as hiring a new media firm to troll online comments, or looping clips of a police car burning ad infinitum. Whoever controls the media, controls the mind (Jim Morrison).

What is newsworthy was the current exponential speed, impact, and secretiveness of the media campaign attempted by the Prime Minister's Office to extinguish our democratic right to free speech through a Category 1 news channel, SunTV, nicknamed 'Fox News North' by Margaret Atwood. Fox has repeatedly undercut President Obama during his time in office, and its unrelenting critique of his administration is often perilously close to slander. SunTV would be a mirror image of Fox News, and a house organ of the Conservative party, as developed by Kory Teneycke, Mr. Harper’s former director of communications. Next, the Conservative Party will try to beam this news channel into schools as part of the curriculum, just after students rise for the new national anthem - 'O Say can you See'. 'No, I cannot, I do not have access to different media sources and opinions. I am blinkered by the government.' The public outcry has been swift, and there are over 87,000 signatures on a petition against this news channel initiative on Avaaz.org.

As a new media professor, I am aware that investigative reporting has become increasingly expensive for news networks, and print media, as media content becomes less profitable because of online access to primary source coverage, and decreased advertising revenue (read Clay Shirky's 'Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable'). I was reminded by the TV network representative that the alternative press culls from the mainstream media's content through search engines, yet his company bears the brunt of employing stringers on Parliament Hill. If I had had greater presence of mind, I would have reminded him that the alternative press reporters were denied access to the Fake Lake media press resort during the G20.

Disenchanted after the phone call, I was left feeling that mainstream media assumes that involved analysis regarding policy is considered too complex for the average citizen. This is condescending in the extreme, as evidenced in the brilliant citizen media reportage in the Real News Network, Democracy Now, and Tyee, which use the web and Youtube as outlets for distribution. I have turned to citizen media to supplement my media diet, and found such gems as Kevin P. Miller's "A QUESTION OF SOVEREIGNTY", which defends John Turner's nationalistic views of Canada. Historically, it recounts Mulroney's free trade agreement in 1988, and Bills C-51 and C-6, which have formed the basis of the yet-to-be passed Bill C-36.

Bill C-36 needs to be stopped for the following reasons, according to Kevin P. Miller:

In the new Bill C-36, Health Canada has proposed that the powers provided to Parliament should be forfeited so that Canada can “honour its international agreements and commitments.” If Bill C-36 and similar Bills are adopted, foreign entities, multinational corporate interests, Codex, WTO and WHO would be free to write self-serving laws that affect Canadians — and they could do so by bypassing Parliament completely.

Perhaps this is what they mean by 'Free Trade' — 'free' of oversight by elected officials.

In three weeks, PM Harper will attempt to hammer the last nail into the Comprehensive European Trade Agreement, which will make us the only company in the world which has free trade agreements with both the US and Europe, undercutting our sovereign ability to control international trade agreements, provide municipal services, and employ our own citizens. The government is dismantling regulation federally through C-36, and sub-nationally through CETA.

And despite signs, signs, everywhere signs, all 8,500 Economic Action Plan signs, carefully monitored by PM Harper and his Privy Council Office, with obligatory, Monday updates by eighteen, overstretched departments and agencies, that my quality of life is better under the Conservative regime, I know that there has been more environmental destruction during my lifetime than any other generation, and that PM Harper, and his ongoing advocacy of the tarsands, thus oil consumption, is directly related to why over three hundred diesel, rather than electric, trains daily will be running blocks from my house, and directly through and beside seven west-end parks, affecting my community's health, until 2020. Rob Ford, of course, cannot be convinced that the upcoming cost of 33 diesel engines and 11 ARL vehicles is three times that of electric, and that the final tally is even higher, once electric vehicles are bought in 2020 to replace diesel.

One of these Economic Action Plan signs is planted in front of the field house in MacGregor Park. I have written about my neighbourhood park, MacGregor Park, extensively in my blog, and enclosed this Youtube clip of children performing there:

I recognize this sign for what it is - part of a false advertising media campaign generated, controlled and tightly monitored by the federal Conservative Party. This flimsy sign is just another testament to the federal, and provincial, disregard of environmental and urban planning policy in citizens' best interests, constrained by the tightening of restrictions on access to environmental information, and the loosening of these regulations to privilege sole-sourced contracts to their corporate allies. Prisons, fighter jets, and the creation of a Conservative news network are more important than the right of children to play without harm to their health, and Ontario's right to clean, quiet, sustainable transit. The direct cost to me? At least $1000.

To finish as I began, another quote by Paul Craig:

Wherever one looks, truth has fallen to money.
Wherever money is insufficient to bury the truth, ignorance, propaganda, and short memories finish the job.

The policies being tabled will affect us long after the memories of the Action Plan have faded. Afterwards, we will ask "Where is my Toronto? Where is my Canada? And where is my media?" if we do not speak in defense of the dismissal of Rick Salutin, in support of a progressive mayor, and against the passing of C-36, and the final round of CETA, now. Unlike PM Harper, I believe Canadians are fully capable of determining our own international trade agreements, contracts for municipal services, and need for univeral healthcare, all of which require sovereignty, and a strong Mayor of Toronto working on our behalf.

Call to Action:
To defend Rick, please email: letters@globeandmail.ca, jstackhouse@globeandmail.com, nacampbell@globeandmail.com, sstewart@globeandmail.com

To support the fight against CETA, please demand permanent exemption for municipalities from CETA by supporting the Council of Canadians, and emailing your city councillors to support the Logan Lake Resolution, and also to vote against C-36.
More at http://www.canadians.org/action/2010/CETA-1709.html

References:
Paul Craig Roberts,'Good-Bye: Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It' at http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/03/26/good-bye-truth-has-fallen-and-has-taken-liberty-with-it/
Rick Salutin,'Stephen Harper – the last Straussian?' at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/stephen-harper-the-last-straussian/article1710880/
Rick Salutin, 'Rob Ford and the loss of Hope', at http://rabble.ca/columnists/2010/09/rob-ford-and-loss-hope
Globe TV Ad, 'Canada: Our Time to Lead', http://www.theglobeandmail.com/video/canada-our-time-to-lead/article1736099/?from=1735276
Bruce Wark, 'Rick Salutin out as Friday Globe columnist' at
http://www.thecoast.ca/RealityBites/archives/2010/09/29/rick-salutin-out-as-friday-globe-columnist
Kathryn O'Hara, 'Canada must free scientists to talk to journalists' at
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100929/full/467501a.html
Clay Shirky,'Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable' at
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/
Jane Taber, 'Margaret Atwood Takes on Fox News North'
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/margaret-atwood-takes-on-fox-news-north/article1692853/
Avaaz.org Petition, 'Canada: Stop "Fox News North'- Close to 100,000 signatures, and important to sign!
http://www.avaaz.org/en/no_fox_news_canada/?cl=716944315&v=7018
Kevin P. Miller, 'A Question of Sovereignty',
http://www.aquestionofsovereignty.com/ and
http://web.me.com/kevinpmiller/kevin/KEVIN_MILLERS_WORLD/Entries/2010/8/26_A_QUESTION_OF_SOVEREIGNTY.html
'Green Pan Am Games, Green Parks and the Right to Play' at
http://railroadedbymetrolinx.blogspot.com/2009/11/green-pan-am-games-green-parks-and.html

Stiffed with the Bill: A Private Banquet at Civil Society's Expense

2010-08-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

"With a stroke of the pen, a government can destroy the social safety net built carefully by generations."
- John Hilary, Executive Director of the War on Want
Left: A trade union picnic banquet before the G20 Rally on Saturday, June 26th

An untendered contract for $16 billion for unneeded fighter jets. $1.3 billion spent on security for the G8 and G20 Summits. 116 votes passed quickly by Premier McGuinty - time for consideration approximately 8.2 minutes each - to pass unheard of laws to criminalize dissent, days before the G20 Summit. A federal Conservative Party which filibustered the vote for a full public inquiry into police conduct during the Summits, calling all 25,000 protesters 'pro-violent'.

The provincial Liberal government's MacDonald Block offices raided on July 15th by the OPP - specifically, Ministries of Transportation, Economic Development and Trade and Community and Social Services - launching an investigation into “irregular financial transactions” between the provincial government and outside vendors. And the only good news - on July 30th, there was the sudden withdrawal of SNC-Lavalin from the $1 right of way contract for the Air Rail Link. The full responsibility for the ARL has been transferred to Metrolinx, whose Chief Operating Officer Rob Prichard is being replaced by Bruce McCuaig, with the possibility now of the ARL becoming electric. Preemptive?

Canada's national deficit stands at $54 billion, yet there were $6 billion in corporate tax cuts this year. A 13% HST has been imposed which means that the average wage earner will have even less discretionary income to spend, so that companies can have even greater tax cuts, ostensibly to invest in new jobs. New austerity measures, recommended by a right wing think-tank, the Conference Board of Canada, to cut many thousands of public sector jobs in health care, education and social services in the next three years, while testing an unproven job creation scheme subsidized by the HST.

Have you ever felt that someone else has held a private banquet at your expense, and stiffed you with the bill, and tip? A bill which now has the Harmonized, also known as the Hated, Sales Tax added? Is any of this HST going toward maintaining public services? No. It is an additional tax to enable banks, corporations and the military to fortify themselves at civil society's expense, and the public sector's demise. As someone pointed out, a wartime levy.

Canada is becoming militarized, and as we witnessed during the G20, this military state can work against its citizens as well as its aggressors. Provincially, the HST is streaming more funds into the pockets of corporations, with a tax deduction to them as they ransack Canada for its resources, and externalize the cost of destruction of our environment, and no one is fighting to defend the imperative civil right for the full environmental assessment process. On June 8th, Bill C-9, the Budget Implementation Act was passed, which contained several provisions enabling the National Energy Board to conduct their own environmental assessments for oil and gas developments - which is like asking my students to mark themselves. This bill was passed during the BP oil spill, with minimal outcry by the Liberal Party.

And what does it mean when 11,000 jobs from the public sector will be cut by 2013?

A close friend of mine told me that when his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, his family thought it prudent that she was placed into a private, rather than public, nursing home, assuming that the care was better. A few months later, they found that she was terribly neglected, and moved her into a public home. Surprisingly, they found that public sector care was much better than private, because the public nursing home was regulated by the government.

These are the public sector jobs - in nursing homes, schools, hospitals, transit, municipal services - which will be slashed to feed the bailout by the government for financial mismanagement incurred by the banks, which, incidentally, are making quite a healthy profit this quarter. The banks rebounded quickly, but our public sector, subjected to this drummed up, specious logic of emergency bill austerity measures, will not. Rather than requesting that the banks repay the debt they owe taxpayers by instituting a novel, and effective, infinitesimally small Robin Hood tax on bank transactions to tackle poverty and climate change, we will pay for these cuts with our society's health. PM Harper opposed the imposition of the Robin Hood tax before the G20 to ensure his illusory future job as CEO of an American corporation, with Canada as a subsidiary, specializing in natural resources.

Of course, there is no interest in a long census form by the Conservative Party. They have stopped representing Canadians, particularly lower income Canadians, long ago. Their goal is to have corporate taxes cut down to 15% by 2012. What does this mean? As the social safety net is eroded, the federal government is anticipating growing dissent from those they are contesting the need to collect data about - those who are lower income, disabled and on a fixed income- to justify building a larger military-industrial complex to suppress those who are disenfranchised. Part of this Orwellian speech model is to publicly conflate protesters with vandals in the public mind so that they ramp up their expenditure on weapons of war, as opposed to building public transit infrastructure for the rabble. Sustainable, electric rail transit throughout Ontario could have been handily built with this promised contractual money for fighter jets, but was not deemed worthy. No explanation needed.

We can look forward to much more violence in our cities as basic needs are no longer met, as they have robbed Peter to pay Paul, and the Pauls are a tiny fraction of the population, secure behind a costly fence which cost $9.4 million, almost double the quoted $5.5 million by SNC-Lavalin. During the G20, the Toronto police were handed a blank cheque by the federal government, enabling the purchase of a substantial arsenal for a police state, so that the military has been fortified to quell growing dissent. It is not a coincidence that this police arsenal will be kept in Toronto, one of the hot spots of the thinking left, but it is a pity that Mayor Miller, who has felt the brunt of this G20 fiasco on police credibility, did not defend the protesters who were speaking in his best interests for the environment, transit and social justice.

Historically, when a society's parliamentary process is suspended and disrupted, trade unions undermined, and people of property, such as the right wing press, banks and big business, are privileged, these policies are the precursors to a fascist state. I use this term with full cognizance of its weight and implication. Parliament has been prorogued twice by PM Harper within thirteen months, and the formal request by over 50,000 citizens, including lawyers, Amnesty International, and the Civil Liberties Association, for the full, public inquiry into the tactics and cost of the G20 and G8 Summit has been denied by PM Harper and Premier McGuinty. The Liberals stood up against the census, but did not speak out for a public G20 inquiry, which shows implicit support for the military apparatus being put in place. Spines, please.

In Journey to a Revolution, Michael Korda writes of the Hungarian Revolution:

"the general object of fascism was to stifle dissent, and bolster the existing establishment, while producing much drama in the way of rallies, parades, and propoganda, and the occasional foreign adventure to siphon off the energy of the lower middle class and the working class, who might otherwise have moved towards radical social reform".

The Olympics? The G8 and the G20? The Pan Am Games? Bread not circuses, anyone? In addition to ceaseless pageantry, PM Harper deliberately prorogued parliament a second time to enact a bill, more powerful than NAFTA to undercut our sovereignty, the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). This far reaching bill will provide sub-national access to municipal services, and undermine the public sector even further, losing thousands of good, Canadian jobs to international outsourcing.

Put it together. Civil society is no longer is prioritized by our government, our country is being sold off to corporations and banks, enabled by a newly armed police state, and expanding prison system, and jobs in our public sector are about to be slashed for international corporations to profit through CETA. This is a Conservative agenda campaign, military in execution, orchestrated by PM Harper, against local economies and the right to self-determination. Provincially, Premier McGuinty is designing his own policies through corporate gladhanding of governmental contracts.

Meanwhile, all over the Internet, discussion postings on news articles are polarized - are we allowed to protest, or not? And I think- for those who are Conservative - your rights are next. Although your values have been upheld by this minority government, I have noticed your online responses can only discredit the protesters by saying that they do not know what they are talking about, and labeling them as unemployed and shiftless. Name calling. Ad hominem attacks. And when you call someone names, all discussion ends. A primary school tactic used by bullies on the playground, undercutting fundamental rights upheld by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for the right to assembly, and free speech, which you are using to discredit serious concerns about the democratic process, and silence those who are brave, engaged, and well-versed in international policy.

I have never been so concerned about the future of Canada, and I am hearing this from many of those who lived through the events of the past seven weeks in Toronto. Nowhere is the civil society being served or protected - by our police, by our elected representatives, by our city councilors, our Mayor, or by our media. When I read letters on the editorial page ranting about the public sector salaries, I compare these costs to the multi-billion dollar bailouts given to the banks, the golden parachutes given to bank executives, and the inflationary pageantry, and corporate contracts, for the Vancouver Olympic Games and G8 and G20 Summits. Compare these taxpayers' expenses to those supporting our civil society, and quality of life. At least the public sector provides essential services, and is forced to be accountable.

I am an ethical citizen, yet my voice no longer matters. The moral and financial costs arising from all this pomp and circumstance, and the insidious HST, have already deeply hurt me. I have no government representation - not in Premier McGuinty, or Prime Minister Harper - and neither do the vast majority of Canadians. I cannot afford, and do not want to pay, for cuts to the public sector under these new, jerry-rigged austerity measures so that a self-selected corporate elite can pad their pockets, banks can prosper again, and a military empire, outfitted with new, massive $10.65 billion prisons, can arise from the ashes, and I am not sure I can. I am too busy counting my pocket change to pay the HST on my electricity, gas, transit and groceries to join the banquet, while predicting that I will be stiffed with the tab as the more important guests flee the table.

I ardently believe, though, if you held a poll of Canadians and asked them if they wanted to live in a country which valued the military, corporations and banks more than our health care system, social services, education, transit system and environment, even the most deeply Conservative Canadian would say 'no'.

References:
Shout for Global Justice, John Hilary speaks at 30:00, link to
http://vimeo.com/13227243
The War on Want, link to http://www.waronwant.org/
Jeffrey Simpson, 'Just what we need: a $16-billion fighter jet', link to http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/just-what-we-need-a-16-billion-fighter-jet/article1641373/
Robert Benzie, 'Cabinet rushed secret G20 change, documents show', link at
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/840529--cabinet-rushed-secret-g20-change-documents-show
Steven Chase,'Tory filibuster seeks to block hearings on G20 policing', link to http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tory-filibuster-seeks-to-block-hearings-on-g20-policing/article1637756/
Keith Leslie,'Questions linger over OPP raids Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne confirms Transport Ministry was a target', link to http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario/questions-linger-over-opp-raids/article1652761/
Tess Kalinowski, 'Province vows rapid rail link to Pearson by 2015 Pan Ams', link to http://www.thestar.com/article/842240--province-to-run-rail-link-to-pearson-airport
Michael Korda, 'Journey to a Revolution: A Personal Memoir and History of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956', HarperCollins; 2006. page 54. Link to http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Revolution-Personal-History-Hungarian/dp/0060772611 More at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/books/Heilbrunn.t.html
The Robin Hood Tax, link to http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/how-it-works/ and http://robinhoodtax.ca/
David J. Climenga, Bill C-9: 'Earmarks' have no place in Canadian legislation, link to http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclimenhaga/2010/05/earmarks-have-no-place-canadian-legislation
Heather Scoffield, 'Canada says no to 'Robin Hood' tax at http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/canada-says-no-to-robin-hood-tax-91683444.html
Stephen Hui, 'Statistics Canada head resigns over long-form census controversy', link to http://www.straight.com/article-335208/vancouver/statistics-canada-head-resigns-over-longform-census-controversy
Lauren O'Neill, 'G20 fence costs $9.4M, nearly double original estimate', link to http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/833495--g20-fence-costs-9-4m-nearly-double-original-estimate?bn=1
Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, link to http://www.canadians.org/trade/issues/EU/index.html

G20 Toronto Song of Peace and Redemption

2010-07-07T12:58:00.000-07:00

"You will not recognize Canada when I get through with it."
- Prime Minister Harper

This is one of the few things PM Harper has said which I hold to be true. Over the past three weeks, I marched on eight demonstrations, until Sunday, when I collapsed from heat exhaustion. I no longer recognize Toronto, or Canada, because of PM Harper's actions, and for the last two days, I have been disoriented as if I have been caught in a tornado, and landed head first and upside down in a city which I do not comprehend. This new city is a militarized state which can suspend civil liberties to impose a summit, with a history of violence, to enable a group of self-selected economic leaders to streamline economic revenues into the hands of the corporate elite, and exclude the rights of civil society to share in this profit. I was so politically naive, I had not even heard of the Black Bloc until days into the People's Summit workshops.

I marched for hours beside youth who had degrees in International Studies, organic farmers, grandmothers, trade unionists, First Nations leaders, and media activists. I had involved conversations about the International Monetary Fund, food security, child poverty, privatization of public assets and natural resources, and the pollution of native lands and waters through mining. We knew why we marched, and in great detail, but later, not why we were arrested for Breach of the Peace. And we watched the cameras watching us, and cameras became the protectors of pacifists, like myself, who wanted to nothing to do with the riot police, but wanted to bear witness to the brutality perpetrated on others, who were often non-confrontational as well. This 6 km, $5.5 million, zinc-bathed steel fence was commissioned by the government from SNC-Lavalin, which is paying $1 for the right of way to run 140 diesel trains daily in the Air Rail Link through west-end Toronto. (This is my nod to what I am supposed to be writing about in this column exclusively, and how everything is interconnected in terms of government contracts in the military-industrial complex.)

Although CSIS had ascertained that there was no terrorist threat for either the G8 or G20 Summits, on June 14th, Premier McGuinty secretly revived and passed a war bill from 1939, the Public Works Protection Act, to enable Chief Bill Blair to draw an invisible 5 meter line to mark an area outside this 3 meter high fence. This fence protecting the red zone of the G20 Summit became a net to catch protesters, who passed within this outlawed area, and police were able to invoke the Public Works Protection Act during their arrest. It was only after the G20 that the public was made aware that only protesters who were behind the fence could be lawfully detained by the police, and this law had no legitimate power, thus was used to suspend civil rights arbitrarily.

The media has completely ignored our stories of non-violent, educated resistance, and this possibility for equitable coverage was superseded by the Black Bloc burning police cars, and smashing store windows, with still less damage than the hockey riots in Montreal in April 2008, after the Montreal Canadiens playoff victory over the Boston Bruins. With the Black Bloc's direct actions, they took away our rights to be heard, and as a media activist and pacifist, I believe the citizen who sang the G20 Song for Peace has infinitely more value than the erasing of our social message by hammers, combat boots, and tossed lighters.

This elderly gentleman represents to me what I love about Toronto - he had the courage to sing his own peace song, alone, with a bullhorn, with his revised lyrics to Woody Guthrie's 'This Land is Your Land', because he fought for our rights in the Second World War, and was saddened to see our rights taken away by the state, police chief Bill Blair, and Premier McGuinty. At the top of this chain of command is PM Harper, who decided to hold the G20 Summit in the center of Toronto, despite the formal request by Mayor Miller to hold the Summit in the walled Canadian National Exhibition Stadium. This courageous singer can show his face, and walk alone to represent civil society's unrepresented majority, whereas the Black Bloc chooses to remain anonymous, and run in a pack.

I believe in ingenious protest, and the creation of visual metaphors to engage the media to compete for the small amount of air time allocated to the opposing discourse, as the amalgamated, corporate controlled media has swung far more right than the average Canadian citizen. All the mainstream news media - radio, print and TV - completely ignored the Shout out for Global Justice held by the Council of Canadians, and the People's Summit forum held at Ryerson, and other social forums held over the month leading up to the Summits. The CRTC should be notified that this complete lack of coverage on social justice policy was inequitable- they allowed the Black Bloc to dominate the media, as much as the police did by allowing the police cars to burn for 1.5 hours for the international photo op. Where were the riot police's water cannons then? Were they only to silence citizens? Based upon the Miami Model, military tactics learned from oppressive regimes, police brutality and kettling were used to corral protesters during a non-violent event that was promised to be in a Free Speech Zone, located in front of our provincial legislative buildings in Queen's Park. The irony of it all.

During the past two weeks, I have analyzed the mainstream media deficit regarding alternative social policy forums, and could not turn my eyes away in horror. During the union march on Saturday, I marched with two vibrant young women, and sang the Star Wars battle theme as we passed the police, who were outfitted in full Darth Vader riot regalia. We saw the visor of the leader of the squad tremble, and realized that he was giggling at our shaky, out of tune rendition.

An hour later, the Black Bloc rampaged, a small percentage of vandals who have criminalized the term 'protesters' for a new generation of educated, engaged citizens, and hijacked our rights to be heard by the mainstream media. The Black Bloc played right into the hands of PM Harper, and helped him justify the $1.5 billion cost for security, spoiling the event for the rest of us. During the Saturday play by play on CityTV, police Chief Blair felt it necessary to hold Sid Ryan, President of the Ontario Federation of Labour, accountable for encouraging families to bring their children to Saturday's union march, as if Sid Ryan could control the Black Bloc. This was a passing of the buck for police responsibility, and a deliberate undercutting of the labour movement by Chief Blair, I think.

As a civil society response to this suspension of our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and arresting of 1079 protesters during the G20 Summit, six of us have built a repository of citizen media, The Real G8/G20, to privilege our different perspectives, and focus on the Bolivian call to arms from Cochabamba for the rights of Mother Earth. This online forum is designed to enable the ongoing transformational, social policy making and activism that arose during the Summits, but was sidetracked by violence, and the media preference for sensationalism. For all of those who had the courage to protest peacefully, and want to add to the discourse of social, environmental, trade, and water justice to add Toronto's official voice to the People's Agreement of Cochabamba, I salute you with my metal water bottle.

As one of my fellow protesters said to me on Saturday, "We are the people who will not look away". These are the people I valorize by writing this column, and by volunteering to organize this online forum. I encourage you to submit material to the The Real G8/G20, and add to a movement which sets its own social policy and media representation beyond a police state, and militarized civil society. As Dr. Vandana Shiva said, as she threw her sari over her shoulder as she walked off the stage at the Shout Out for Social Justice, "This too shall pass". We must make it go away together.

Highly Recommended References:
G20 Toronto Song of Peace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSAdg3LEiGk (A special thank you for the citizen who sang this, and the person who posted this video.)
People's Summit, link at http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/story/3671
Mary Ormsby, 'Fortress Toronto: Secrets of the fence', link at http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/825908--fortress-toronto-secrets-of-the-fence
Public Works Protection Act, link to http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/source/regs/english/2010/elaws_src_regs_r10233_e.htm
Linda McQuaig, 'Police, bankers exempt from austerity', link at http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/829902--mcquaig-police-bankers-exempt-from-austerity
CRTC Complaint and Inquiry Form, link at http://www.crtc.gc.ca/rapidsccm/register.asp?lang=e
Catherine Porter, 'When police stick to phony script', link at http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/828876--porter-when-police-stick-to-phony-script
Star Wars battle theme, link at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aet9wYHaufk&feature=fvst
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, link at http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/1.html#anchorbo-ga:l_I
People's Agreement of Cochabamba, link at http://pwccc.wordpress.com/support/
The Real G8/G20 Submit Content, link at http://therealg8g20.com/
Dr. Vandana Shiva at the 'Shout Out for Global Justice', link at http://rabble.ca/rabbletv/program-guide/2010/06/features/watch-shout-out-global-justice

Seasick or Seachange: The G8 and G20 Summits

2010-06-15T20:40:00.000-07:00

Only when the last tree has been cut down;
Only when the last river has been poisoned;
Only when the last fish has been caught;
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.
- Cree Prophecy, oft-quoted as the rallying cry for the environmental movement

A belated happy World Oceans' Day. A plume of oil 228 km away from its source in the Gulf of Mexico has been found, and scuba divers are encountering oil masses the size of softballs. This oil spill is seven times the size than that of the Exxon Valdez, and is still growing. So far, 9.5 million litres of oil have been spilled into the Gulf.

ABC News has shown footage of the first days of the oil spill, which BP chose not to make public, which documented far more oil leaking than initially admitted by the oil company. Human error and omission on the part of BP has exacerbated the scope and size of the oil spill because of their slow response time, poor management of containment measures, and inability to coordinate clean up efforts with the thirteen American natural resource agencies, waiting for instruction from this British oil company. The Americans have written a letter to BP saying they have two days to contain the spill.

As oil begins to wash up on shore, white Florida beaches and marshes are blackened. Generations of fish will have birth defects, or not be able to reproduce, and coral will die, as far away as Cuba, suffocated by a coat of oil. A genie in the bottle has been let loose by unregulated offshore drilling, a legacy of the Bush era, and Barack Obama is powerless to defend American natural resources against British corporate interests, and force this renegade oil well to be capped.

When I was a child, I was given a technicolour atlas of Canada, and told that we had the second largest land mass in the world, and more resources than we could possibly ever use - that we were awash in timber, fish, and wheat. In my lifetime, I have seen cod disappear on the east coast, wild salmon become scarce on the west coast, and pine beetles ravage west coast forests. Americans are facing the probable extinction of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, and this oil spill will have repercussions as far away as Vancouver.

Several months ago, while I stood in line at the grocery store, I overheard a child say that we will not have fish in twenty years. He may be right. We can extract oil, but we can never generate life, or recreate ocean species, and our oceans have changed their temperature and acidity by absorbing our greenhouse gases. A revered Canadian journalist Alanna Mitchell writes brilliantly about this in her book 'Seasick'. She titled her book after witnessing the reaction of an oceanologist, who upon hearing of the radical chemical alteration in the world's oceans, threw up, and was sickened for weeks by thoughts of the scientific repercussions on the reproductive capacity of ocean life in the increasing number of dead zones.

In Canada, one million wild salmon swam upstream this year in British Columbia's Fraser River, when ten million were expected, shocking the First Nations communities and fishing industry. The government has launched a formal enquiry into the salmon farms, agricultural run off, and changing temperatures of the oceans, yet refuses to regulate oil sands' tailing ponds, which leak millions of litres of toxins into the once pristine Athabasca River. Upon hearing of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, an oil industry representative said that it will make Canadians think of the oil sands as a cleaner source of oil, as if leaching toxins into the Athabasca River is better than spewing oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Are not all water systems interconnected?

As PM Harper spends $2.1 million to build a Fake Lake as a backdrop for journalists to sell off the 'Muskoka Experience' to international interests for the G20, I have witnessed climate change in this lake district firsthand. There have been two hurricanes within the past five years in Muskoka. A century old tree fell down within two inches of a neighbouring cottage, and entire swathes of old growth forest have been ripped up throughout this region. Historically, there have never been tornadoes of this magnitude in Northern Ontario - this is a direct result of climate change, and our unlimited desire for oil. Meanwhile, PM Harper is touting Huntsville and the rest of the Muskoka Lakes region as a tourist destination, encouraging more traffic, exurban expansion, Big Box Stores, and oil consumption, both on and off the water.

During the past ten years, I have watched Muskoka become a suburb of Toronto, and lose much of its rustic charm. You can buy pillows embroidered with Muskoka chairs made in China in its gift shops, purchase pre-fabricated birch canoes, and watch Sea Doos roar through shallow inland bays, tearing up clam beds in their wake. Tourist traffic can protect a region through revenue, but in many cases throughout Muskoka has not, as some of those who vacation there have no vested interest in preserving its natural beauty, environment or heritage, as they are just passing through, interested in cottage culture as a commodity, far more than the actual experience.

In a few years, I honestly wonder what natural resources Canadians will have left after the Conservative and neoliberal 'Open for Sale' agenda has taken full affect. As world leaders ask that the environment be included on the agenda of G20 international trade summit, and PM Harper refuses this request, this media spectacle is a harbinger of what we will leave future generations- a Fake Lake with plastic Muskoka chairs, a small pool with chlorinated water, and a sky with artificial stars as a backdrop for TV journalists as they describe our Canadian natural vistas - when a short walk away is Lake Ontario, one of our great inland seas, which we have done little to protect environmentally, and in which many of its 179 fish species have become extinct (see FishNet for a fascinating art project on this issue). In America, Jean Baudrillard may have it right- all we may have left is the false front of what was once culturally important, and contained our heritage, like the storefronts along main street in the Wild West movies, or the view of a kiddy pool version of Muskoka Lake, from a dock no longer owned by us.

I would hope that the G8 and G20 Summits become a forum to discuss global fiscal initiatives to enter a post carbon future, including curbing transportation emissions, to protect the world's natural resources for future generations, but this discussion did not happen during Copenhagen, and has been suppressed once again. In effect, $1.1 billion in security measures have been paid by Canadian taxpayers to hold 18 hours of meetings to privatize our assets and sell off our natural resources to resolve our debt, while incurring a debt of over $2.1 billion for the summit. Dissenting voices have been discredited by the media as 'protesters' rather than as peaceful citizens with a sincere desire to represent our country's best environmental and social interests. Business as usual in the suicide economy is the agenda in these summits, despite the possibility of economic growth through the international coordination of sustainable environmental policies, and development of green technologies.

Whether oil is absorbed as carbon from the air into our oceans, or exists as greenhouse gas emissions in our air, we need to discuss going toward a post carbon future to protect our health, and this carbon orgy must come to an end. With a Fake Lake as a backdrop to our media campaign for the G8 and G20 Summits, PM Harper, and our leaders, are about to sell off our country's natural resources, and right to self-government through the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, as if our country is a tourist attraction for the fire sale of our citizens' hard earned assets. Politically, our land, air, and water should be protected by us, because they belong to all Canadians as our birthright, beyond present federal policy and corporate agenda, or we will be left with only memories of what was once our country, like the fading technicolour on the resource rich map of my childhood.

O Canada, I stand on guard for thee.

This article is dedicated to my nieces, Jesse and Sally, to whom I read on the dock each summer.

References:
Live feed footage of Gulf of Mexico oil spill, link to
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/live-gulf-oil-spill-video-feed_n_583682.html
Alanna Mitchell, 'Seasick', link to http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771061165
Claire Ironside and Angela Iarocci, ' FishNet Art Project on Species in the Great Lakes', link to http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/whatson/freshground/fishnet.cfm
David Korten on the Suicide Ecoomy, “Economies for Life”, YES!Magazine, Living Economies Issue. Fall 2002, link to http://peoplenotprofit.org/livingeconomies.htm

Jean Baudrillard on the 'aesthetics of disappearance' in America, Excerpts 2 Link to http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudrillard/articles/america-excerpts-2/
Important information on the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Link to http://www.canadians.org/trade/issues/EU/index.html
and Maude Barlow explains how the proposed Canada-EU trade agreement would deprive all levels of government of their ability to invest money in local economies, through programs such as Ontario's Green Energy Act. Link to http://www.canadians.org/tradeblog/?p=850

An Infinite Corridor, Reinventing the Automobile, and the Resilient City

2010-05-17T06:02:00.001-07:00

Two weeks ago, as I galloped down MIT's Infinite Corridor, I spotted a poster advertising the speech of Ray LaHood, US Secretary of Transportation, as part of the Transportation@ MIT lecture series. At MIT, 230 faculty are working on progressive transport initiatives, drawn from the School of Engineering, the School of Architecture and Planning, and the Sloan School of Management. Their united objective? To mitigate the greenhouse gases from transport, and build sustainable, livable cities through developing high-quality transit infrastructure, such as the networked electric car, for efficient urban mobility using advances in information technology.

Transportation is responsible for 33% of emissions, and by 2020, there will be 8 billion people driving 1.1 billion cars. In Ontario, transportation is the largest and fastest-growing source of climate-change. In a networked society, it does not pay for Ontario's government, and Metrolinx, to be intellectually isolationist with $50 billion for Ontario's Big Move on the table, doled out over 25 years. Part of MIT's mandate is to be of public service, and ensure that their research and design is to be openly available for access by international transit initiatives, while maintaining control of their intellectual property through patents. Toronto is not the only city with the expansionist woes, and yet we live in a bubble of inadequate funding, discourse and debate, and our political representatives are ignoring some of the finest minds of our generation discussing one of the most pressing issues environmentally - the rising greenhouse gas emissions of transport in relation to urban intensification.

Ontario should be using principles developed at MIT to enable mega cities, like Toronto, to become resilient cities - cities which can absorb population growth, decrease fossil fuel consumption, and adapt quickly to crisis and emergency. Boston, Mexico City, Los Angeles, and what is jokingly referred to as the "People's Republic of Cambridge", are incorporating these MIT initiatives, and Toronto could use these cities as reference points. Instead, Metrolinx is far from incorporating the input from universities, international or local, in the design of this transit corridor in any meaningful capacity - any input from their own, and outside, urban planning consultants has been undermined by Premier McGuinty's mandate to leave a personal legacy, and refute his critic's accusations that he is slow to make decisions.

It is fair to say that Premier McGuinty, the Liberal Party, and Metrolinx's, area of expertise is not in infrastructure projects, or in environmental policy, given the communities' unanimous opposition to the diesel driven transit principles evidenced in the planning of first component of the Big Move - the Georgetown corridor, and the Air Rail Link. The need to honour the 1999 deal with SNC-Lavalin has trumped the intelligent planning of the GSSE and Air Rail Link, and there is a growing disconnect between the will of communities, progressive urban planning principles, and the allocation of funds for transit, because of the safeguarding of this privileged Air Rail Link contract above electric transit initiatives.

As Ontario debates the future of transit policy in the stingiest of times, we are moving further and further away from the idea of resilient cities as realized through integrated, clean transit design, and our political will, civic pride, and economy have become exponentially fractured. Toronto residents will be paying for this low level of political discourse for a long time as we are already bearing the brunt of the air pollution correlated to population growth. This critical discontent is growing - witness the campaign for Transit City and its posters and subway announcements. Mayor Miller has taken off his gloves as he rails against the $4 billion funding delay announced by the provincial government for the LRT. In one corner is Premier McGuinty, and Metrolinx, delaying budgets for the Big Move, honouring a retroactive contract for the Air Rail Link, and making facile and backward decisions for a massive infrastructure project, and in the other, is Mayor Miller, fighting for what he considers to be his legacy- the 120 km of light rail transit to interconnect downtown neighbourhoods.

Transit guru Steve Munro has a brilliant entry regarding these these cuts on his blog 'Transit Village' at http://stevemunro.ca/?p=3708 - be sure to read the particularly juicy response by transit specialist and engineer, Greg Gormick, at http://stevemunro.ca/?p=3708&cpage=1#comments The revised Transit City plan will see lines cut by a total of 22.5 kilometres and 24 fewer stations than the original plan announced by the province in 2008. Curiously, the funding for all controversial, dirty diesel infrastructure - the Air Rail Link and Georgetown- was left intact, while the Eglinton LRT funding was cut, as it enabled access to the airport. This is viewed by many transit analysts as a calculated decision on the part of the provincial government to protect the Air Rail Link contract, and nip conflict of municipal and provincial transit interests in the bud.

MIT is reinventing the automobile as an electric, personal mobility device, and Boston is incorporating MIT's transit policies to ensure that their city is walkable, has complete streets to include bicycles, and is adequately served by a light rail transit system to its airport and throughout its greater region. Meanwhile, in Toronto, Metrolinx is trying to run 140 diesel trains daily to the airport, building the equivalent of a polluting sixteen lane highway through twelve inner city neighbourhoods, and cutting funding for electric, light rail transit corridors. My visit to MIT confirmed that the Big Move will make Ontario the laughing stock of urban planners and transit specialists as a case study for not only destructive urban planning, but the dysfunctional relationship between arm's length agencies, governmental policy, and civic goodwill. I thought we were just sixty years behind, but no, given the depth and scope of research at MIT, Metrolinx is positively prehistoric in its choice of fossil fuel based infrastructure and urban planning initiatives, as currently advised by Premier McGuinty.

When I traveled to the airport, I watched Boston's airport LRT quietly pass by a playing field, with no disruption at all to the baseball game, and as I boarded my plane, I heard an announcement boasting that the equivalent of 11 million miles in tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions have been alleviated by Boston's airport LRT and interconnecting electric buses. I felt a pang that my neighbourhood parks, MacGregor and Sorauren, will not be served by my provincial government equally, and concern that I will be paying significantly higher taxes for transit that will damage my health and my community. The poignancy of this recollection will never leave me. The time for global collaboration on transit policy is now, and Ontario must be part of this networking, discourse, and implementation. Otherwise, we are going to be left in the dust, far behind the Americans.

References:
Video on Ray LaHood Transportation Lecture at http://transportation.mit.edu/events.php
MIT Press, 'Reinventing the Automobile' at http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12044
Facts on Canadian Transport Emissions at Pembina Institute at http://www.pembina.org and

http://pubs.pembina.org/reports/driving-down-carbon-factsheet.pdf

Steve Monro, 'Transit Village' article, at http://stevemunro.ca/?p=3708
Greg Gormick Response to Steve Munro's article at http://stevemunro.ca/?p=3708&cpage=1#comments

"Stakeholders not Shareholders"

2010-04-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

Gordon Mack Scott, Managing Partner of the Strategic Improvement Company, speaks about the need to protect municipal assets, and public services, so that we can all be players in the greater economy.

I shot this interview in Ward 18, which is part of the Davenport Riding, a high priority region in the City of Toronto, which would be seriously impacted by the privatization of public services and sale of municipal assets.

It is my video response to the $4 billion postponed by Premier McGuinty for the Transit City Light Rail Transit system, which was to connect other priority areas, like Jane and Finch, into the economic and social life of Toronto more efficiently. Premier McGuinty first promised this funding in 2007.

Link to the full resolution Youtube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6VmvTLS2_k

Get Smart and Go Electric

2010-03-26T05:04:00.001-07:00

"We’re all in favour of a better public transit system. Everyone is on board. But no one should be asked to trade public health for public transit.” Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David McKeown
Electric vs Diesel Forum on March 22nd at City Hall
As I write this, I am sitting on a 4200-horsepower MP40 GO Train, and smelling the diesel emissions in my coach. My eyes are smarting. As a seasoned Lakeshore West commuter, I believe that people actually underestimate the future impact of the Georgetown South Service expansion, and Air Rail Link, will have on our west-end neighbourhoods. A GO engineer has admitted to me that GO ensures that there are buffer zones around train stations for a reason - the pollution and noise from diesel trains stopping and starting is too intense for nearby residential development.

Yet on the even more urban Georgetown Corridor, condos have been built within meters of the proposed expansion, their balconies overhanging the future seven, or eight, tracks. The number of tracks, or amount of exact train frequency, was not answered at the recent Electric vs Diesel Forum at City Hall, but was estimated to be around 200, with 140 of these trips by the Air Rail Link. I am still astounded by the informed standing room only audience, which asked pointed questions of VP Metrolinx, Gary McNeil which he could not answer, surrounded as he is by the Liberal Party 'cone of silence', an hysterically funny device perfected in 'Get Smart', a TV show which ran throughout the 1960s. NDP MP candidate, Andrew Cash, wrote so eloquently about the forum in NOW, that I can only link to his article. At the end of the forum, Councilor John Filion complimented those participating, and said it was a higher quality discussion than City Hall has seen in a long time. We all laughed.

The truth of this project is so simple- if the corridor is built with electric trains, it will add value to all the communities it runs through by transit-oriented development. If it is built with diesel trains, it will damage our communities, and reverse the current trend of investment and revitalization. A third rate transit system will mean a third rate Toronto.

Why are these basic urban planning principles so difficult for the provincial government, and Metrolinx/GO transit to see? And why is no one else in the world, and I mean no one else, expanding diesel rail corridors directly beside parks, schools and condominiums? And why, oh why, are we considered worthy of a third rate Air Rail Link which will last for generations to come as our tax legacy from the Pan Am Games? Vancouver parlayed their Olympic investment into the SkyTrain, which has added to the welfare of their city, and we will be running Olympic athletes through a rat's maze of 5.5 concrete meter walls on their way to their Olympic Village, blocking west-end Toronto from their windows. What is there to hide? Bad transit policy and contempt for the rights of citizens?

To add insult to injury, although currently spending $4 million for yet another electrification study (is it twelve? or thirteen?), Metrolinx/GO is in the process of researching and developing platinum catalytic converters and Tier 4 'clean diesel' for the MP40s, as well as custom built diesel multiple units for the Air Rail Link. They will test these new, specialized technologies on the Georgetown South corridor, shortly after the latest electrification study is filed. Does this mean that this electrification study is a sham, and its inevitable support of electrification is a moot point? Is it a 'done diesel'? And why is Metrolinx/GO engaging community stakeholders, and their valuable time, to discuss the obvious through a highly publicized series of electrification workshops, yet in their independent, separate time line, viewing the choice of diesel locomotives as 'fait accompli'? Is this operating in good faith to include the input of these participants? And why is this SNC-Lavalin contract protected by a Maxwell Smart cone of silence with the government agencies involved in an elaborate game of broken telephone with the community, and with each other? And why has Metrolinx recently purchased more MP40s, which have a life span of 40 years?

As Mike Sullivan, Clean Train Coalition head, has pointed out, they are building this massive track expansion to enable the privately owned Air Rail Link. We are fighting KAOS, a labyrinthine, unaccountable organization, which has refused to hear our unanimous message asking for electrification. Nothing was more evident at the forum, as there were no clear answers from the Metrolinx VP Gary McNeil about any aspect of this project- not the final number of the tracks, the inefficiency of the privatization of the Air Rail Link, or the rationale for diesel. When I told him that this corridor would reverse revitalization in my community, he said "I do not see it that way". Well, he is the only transit manager in the world who could say those words with impunity, with the public relations machine of an arm's length transit agency backing him.

The absurdity of this all never ceases to amaze me, but I have a personal, pressing concern. This fall, I had a viral respiratory disease which took my breath away. For six weeks, I had asthma. It felt as if liquid concrete had been poured into my lungs, and because of the asthma, my body could not use my lungs to fight the virus with oxygen, extending my illness. I know the impact of diesel rail emissions as a commuter firsthand, and that Toronto relies upon the health of its air, its citizens and their lungs. I write with all my remaining lung capacity to raise the cone of silence surrounding Metrolinx, and the provincial government, to unveil their secret contract with SNC-Lavalin so they can communicate with the community, and heed their unanimous, standing room only call for electrification of this west-end rail corridor. Get smart, Metrolinx, and go electric.

References:
Get Smart - Cone of Silence (from episode 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1eUIK9CihA
Andrew Cash: 'Dumb like Diesel: Residents' eco concerns take a back seat to Pan Am Games in great train debate'
http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=174249
Metrolinx Electrification Study
http://www.metrolinx.com/electrification/past_studies.aspx
'Diesel rail a health hazard, forum told'
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/783769--diesel-rail-a-health-hazard-forum-told

Invitation to Electric vs Diesel Public Forum at City Hall: Monday, March 22nd

2010-03-16T17:46:00.000-07:00

This forum is a public discussion of the proposed Metrolinx expansion of the Georgetown South transit line and the rail link from Union to Pearson.

The Board of Health supports expanded public transit as a way to reduce vehicle traffic, but remains concerned about health risks and air quality impacts predicted with the proposed diesel rail expansion.

Date: Monday, March 22, 2010
Time: 6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Place: Council Chambers, Toronto City Hall, 100 Queen Street W.

Presentation
Moderator: Eva Ligeti, Executive Director, Clean Air Partnership

Panelists:
Gary McNeil, Executive VP, Metrolinx
Prof. Christopher Kennedy, Transportation Infrastructure Expert
Dr. David McKeown, Toronto Medical Officer of Health

Please feel free to distribute this invitation widely.

"It's Not Fair, We Want Clean Air": Citizens for Clean Air Rally

2010-03-02T21:44:00.000-08:00

Today at 2 p.m., I attended an extraordinary rally at Queen's Park organized by the Citizens for Clean Air (C4CA). Thousands of people protested the proposed construction of a 900-megawatt natural gas power plant in Oakville, slated to be one of the largest in Ontario. They arrived en masse in 42 yellow school buses, with their mayors from Mississauga South, Oakville, and King Township leading the charge, to point out the flawed decision making process of TransCanada Corporation, and the Ontario Power Authority, which has permitted them to build this gigantic plant within 2 km of 5000 homes, and 16 schools. Why was I there? I care about clean air in Ontario, I teach at one of those nearby schools, and my brother's family lives near this area. The world is small and interconnected, and the Liberals, in their mad rush to grow an electoral empire, are putting this world I know at grave risk. My beloved Ontario is being threatened by those claiming to lead it. As I walked away from the rally, one of my students reached out their hand from a bus to wave good-bye.

This megawatt power plant is being fast-tracked, without a full federal Environmental Assessment process, which the Mayor of Oakville, Rob Burton, promises to pursue with all his formidable might. The C4CA might be gravely disappointed to find out, as I did in our case with Metrolinx, that TransCanada Corp., a private company, and the Ontario Power Authority, an arm's length agency, will collude with the federal Minister of the Environment to refine data during the Environmental Assessment process to avoid air quality exceedances and provide the go-ahead for construction. Most likely, the EA will say that the airshed in Oakville is already so highly polluted- what is a bit more 2.5 particulate matter added to the mix?

It is the same argument that I have heard from Metrolinx to rationalize the Georgetown South Service and Air Rail Link expansion, that CommunityAir has heard from the Toronto Port Authority, and most likely, that the C4CA will hear from the Ontario Power Authority. The pivotal question that must be answered is whether private companies, in this case, TransCanada Corp., have the best environmental interest of residents in mind as their highest priority due to their corporate mandate. In fact, is there not an intrinsic conflict of interest between a private company and residential communities when the objective of a company is to provide specific services for profit, vetted by a provincial arm's length agency? And when the mandate of the provincial and federal levels of the Canadian government, apparently, is to ensure that our infrastructure is dependent on fossil fuel, when the rest of the world is turning away from this dirty habit?

A public relations thorn in McGuinty's side is that two gas-fired power plants have blown up, one very recently. On February 7th, five people have died in Middletown, Connecticut, and twelve were injured, with a blast emanating for 48.2 km. The plant was run by Kleen Energy Systems (sic). The GO train serving Lakeshore West is within 50 metres of the proposed site for this plant, and its pipeline, and this gas powered plant will emit a vapour cloud, which will ice the tracks, and decrease visibility. If you were worried about Lakeshore West GO service before, you really should be now.

Premier Dalton McGuinty, and the Liberal Party, are directly responsible for this project, through faulty rationale enabling a false timeline. Our population is simply not growing that quickly, and Ontario has more than enough energy, a significant proportion of it renewable energy generated by Niagara Falls. In fact, as we speak, Ontario is selling off its surplus to the United States, and buying it back at a loss. NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns has revealed this information, published in a series of articles in the Star this summer. There is no other government in the world who would issue permits to build gas-fired power plants when they do not have a critical need of electricity, especially when they have surplus, renewable sources at their fingertips. This is part of the aggressive expansionist policy of Premier McGuinty, and he should prove the need for this plant to the opposition, and all Ontario residents.

Who is used to enforce these aggressive, fossil fuel guzzling decisions for unsustainable infrastructure? The Ontario Port Authority, the Toronto Port Authority, and Metrolinx are used to be the enforcers of these outdated projects. I am becoming very leery of any arm's length agency with the word "authority" as part of their title - it is guaranteed not to be one. There is simply no need to build this fossil fuel plant at $1.2 billion, there is no need to build a fossil fuel driven air rail link at $1 billion, and there is no need to expand fossil fuel short haul flights, with donations from the federal government rising to almost $600 million. In addition, all of these infrastructure choices have security risks associated with their operation as they are situated in the center of heavily populated regions. Premier McGuinty is leading us toward not only climate change, and environmental degradation, through heavily polluted air, but adding to this possible, future security breaches.

In the words of the assemblers, "It's not fair, we want clean air." This constitutional right extends to all residents of Ontario. There is no greater birthright, and no politician, or political party, who has the right to take this from us. Everyone who breathes should unite to say "We do not need to build fossil fuel based infrastructure for generations to come". The Liberals will feel the loss of these votes during the next federal election - they are angering enough ridings in the GTA. These constituents will become a critical mass as they form a coalition to fight for better air quality in the GTA. It is Premier McGuinty's job which might not be safe, although in his interview responding quickly to the rally, he guarantees that the gas-fired power plant will be.

There is an excellent documentary, 'Stop The Oakville Power Plant', at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUcVB0UgSmQ for more information.

References:
Citizens for Clean Air at http://www.c4ca.org/
Ontario Power Authority at http://www.powerauthority.on.ca/
Surplus Electricity in Ontario at
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/649763 and http://www.thestar.com/article/621552
At least 5 dead in Connecticut gas plant blast at http://www.canada.com/news/least+dead+Connecticut+plant+blast/2534227/story.html
Toronto Port Authority and Air Quality Measurement at http://www.torontoport.com/airport_facts.asp
McGuinty promises Oakville power plant will be safe at http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100302/plant_protest_100302/20100302/?hub=TorontoNewHome

We Need Heroes in the Davenport Riding

2010-02-23T20:45:00.000-08:00

"Toronto will commit suicide if it plunges the Spadina Expressway into its heart... our planners are 19th century men with a naive faith in an obsolete technology. In an age of software, Metro planners treat people like hardware‚ they haven't the faintest interest in the values of neighbourhoods or community."

- Marshall McLuhan, sometime during the campaign against the Spadina Expressway between 1959 and 1971

Sound familiar? Within the past month, I have sat across from Davenport Riding's MP Mario Silva, and MPP Tony Ruprecht, and discovered a void of leadership for my riding. It was like talking into a well, in which concerns echoed, but no resolutions were made, no actions taken, and the paper trail of contracts leading back to the Liberal Party and Queen's Park was erased.

Neither MP Silva, nor MPP Ruprecht, had made the slightest effort to prepare for this community meeting, or attend the Human Train Rally, and neither made any effort to pretend they had. MP Silva blamed the City of Toronto, and said that had the City of Toronto done more, this would not be happening. His buck passing met with a stony silence. Everyone at that table knew better, and had been working with Councillor Giambrone's office in different capacities, and his assistant made their involvement known - very well. The residents present were far more knowledgeable than either politician.

Vacuous. A vacuum. The center cannot hold, and that center of all this rail expansion is the Davenport Diamond, and that center has had no advocacy or representation. The Davenport Diamond will be the epicenter of the traffic, a triangle created by the Newmarket and Georgetown corridors running through Brockton Village, and bounded by CP tracks above the Junction Triangle. It will have all future rail traffic, freight and commuter, hurtling through this 5 km triangle. You would think that MP Silva and MPP Ruprecht would be alarmed.

When MP Silva asked why people in the rest of Toronto should be concerned about this rail corridor, I listed the $2.2 billion a year that the City of Toronto pays in health costs due to air quality, that according to the World Health Organization, particulate matter of diesel travels 200 km, and that Toronto is competing with Los Angeles for number of smog days. I had to reiterate that his riding, the Davenport Riding, was going to most impacted by the construction, traffic, noise, and vibration, and did he know which riding he represented? When was he here last? And why is his attendance record one of the lowest in the House of Commons?

Many in the Portuguese community believe that the corridor will be electrified at the outset through their Portuguese language media sources. Europe does not run diesel trains through inner city neighbourhoods; it is considered unconscionable. MP Silva has his M.A. in International Human Rights Law from Oxford, has been Vice-Chair of the Toronto Transit Commission, and serves the Canada-Portugal Parliamentary Association. He needs to advocate for the health of his immigrant constituents for integrated, sustainable municipal and intra regional transit, and for environmental justice, or he will lose his seat. He has the knowledge - we have paid for his extended leave for his education during a time when he should have been defending us. Currently, he is in Ireland researching failed states for his PhD dissertation. Failed states, and failure of representation. How apropos.

I have learned brutal truths as I have fought for the health of my ward, Ward 18. When a community is considered to be disenfranchised, it receives the lowest engagement of leadership and protection. This community is undercut by its representatives time and time again by their absence. Politicians predict their multicultural constituents will not protest, because if English is not their first language, they will have difficulty monitoring their advocacy. We are paying for the tuition of MP Silva abroad, and MPP Ruprecht has been AWOL for a long, long time, and in the meantime, my ward is about to be severed by diesel trains and walls that will divide its neighbourhoods. Davenport Riding is not considered to be part of the public, and the definition of 'public good' simply does not apply to our health, as there is no one advocating for us at the provincial or federal levels, and quite possibly in the future, at the municipal level. It is no coincidence that both these men are Liberal. Follow the contracts to the region beyond the greenbelt, ripe for development, and Liberal votes, and add to that party enforced silence.

Like the Spadina Expressway, this Georgetown South, Air Rail Link and Newmarket expansion will be the most pressing issue of the upcoming municipal, provincial and federal electoral campaigns. It is directly tied into quality of life for the entire City of Toronto. Make no mistake - the ongoing expansion of the Toronto City Centre Airport, Pearson International Airport, the addition of this GSSE, Air Rail Link and Newmarket rail corridor, and the Gardiner Expressway- will guarantee the GTA's championship status over Los Angeles for smog days, and bring with it even higher rates of respiratory disease, and they are proving, heart attacks. There is a 40% increase in the relative risk of death from heart disease and stroke in the most polluted areas, which will include the Davenport Diamond in the near future. Electrifying by 2030, indeed.

I must say that I am non partisan, but very green, and I will vote for any candidate who advocates for electrification, consolidates the project scope of this rail expansion, and works to protect the Davenport Diamond from diesel fumes. This issue is as important to Toronto as the Spadina Expressway was in the 1960s, with a similar social and economic price tag. Where is Jane Jacobs when we need her now?

As someone at the meeting said "Does the entire rail corridor have to become NDP before someone listens to us?" Parkdale-High Park MPP Cheri DiNovo has been the patron saint of this project, and no one else has earned my respect more. If future candidates come forward for all levels of elections, municipal to federal, who can also earn my respect, I will support their candidacy with all that I have. I want people to step forward to be heroes, represent Davenport properly as MP and MPPs, and as the new Mayor of Toronto. My ward and riding are waiting for you, too. It is clear that the Liberal Party does not care about our health, but they do care about our votes, and these votes are not being earned. So let others who have integrity come forward to earn our trust. Please, step into the void, so the center can hold again, and represent the best interests of those who live in the Davenport Riding and Diamond. We need you.

Invitation: On Tuesday, March 2nd at 7pm at the Gladstone Hotel, come out for the Railbender, the First Anniversary Party of the Clean Train Coalition. Mayor Miller will speak at 8pm.

References: Mario Silva's PhD in Ireland at http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/09/03/mitchel-raphael-on-who-wore-jeans-under-his-tuxedo/

Toxic Air Increases Risk of Death at http://www.healthzone.ca/health/article/579542#comments

Spadina Expressway at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spadina_Expressway

Jane Jacobs at http://www.pps.org/info/placemakingtools/placemakers/jjacobs

Fighting the System: Congratulations West Toronto Diamond Community Group

2010-02-04T06:14:00.000-08:00

On February 3rd, the West Toronto Diamond Community Group received a ruling in their favour from the Federal Court of Appeal regarding their opposition to GO's request for a Stay of the Canadian Tranportation Agency ruling, which regulates the use of quieter methods for piledriving. Their initial request was simple - would GO/Metrolinx use vibratory piledrivers, and augers, when possible, instead of diesel hammer piledrivers, please? The diesel impact hammers are making it impossible for us to enjoy our lives, and damaging our community. The group had already received the CTA ruling in their favour, but Metrolinx found it necessary to contest it, although they had recently purchased equipment to be more considerate. Their contention? That these less intrusive methods would add to the length of the project, and costs, although these were not proven in court.

It says volumes about the integrity of Metrolinx/GO that they contested what is common courtesy, the use of quieter construction methods, and spent thousands of dollars of legal fees to fight the rights of citizens so that they could pound this project through without checks and balances. It is emblematic of the ruthless, shortsightedness of GO/Metrolinx' project design, and extends to every aspect of its implementation. Congratulations to the West Toronto Community Group, and their lawyer, David Baker, for coming forward and demanding what is right. Legal costs were granted by the Federal Court of Appeal to pay Mr. Baker, confirming that it was a vexatious appeal.

People often ask me what is wrong with Metrolinx' plan for rail expansion, and the answer is that it is Quick, Dirty, Diesel, Divisive and Destructive as opposed to building a Corridor which is Livable, Electrified and Accessible for all Neighbourhoods. Try as I might, I cannot come up with a clever acronym like CLEAN for the Metrolinx' version of transit planning as I doubt they thought through their public relations campaign in advance.

This project planning is so quick that it is not integrated with TransitCity's Light Rail Transit in the City of Toronto, so duplicates future services. It is so dirty that it requires three air monitoring stations to analyze air pollution close to childrens' playgrounds. It uses diesel locomotives, which no one else in the world would use for inner city corridors. It is divisive, so requires very long and very high walls for sound mitigation as the noise from the volume of traffic will far exceed 10 db. These massive walls will run like the Berlin Wall through neighbourhoods. Finally, it is destructive to established neighbourhoods, with beautiful historic properties, and vibrant arts communities, such as the Junction, Queen Street West, Liberty Village and Weston, and runs roughshod over residents with its lowest grade practices for its construction. GO engineers are on record saying that these twelve communities are 'marginal' to justify this corridor's frantic imposition on west-end communities.

I spend a lot of my time thinking about, and teaching, human-centered interaction design and systems theory. Whether interactive systems, or transit systems, their ultimate goal should be to serve people. The Big Move, the document upon which the GSSE/UPRL is based, has never considered anyone other than the willynilly development of subdivisions in the 905, and the running of executives through our communities to the airport, racetrack and casino. I marvel at a project which would double its ridership, efficiency and value if it included those along the corridor by being redesigned to incorporate broader, integrated, electric transit initiatives. I shake my head at project timelines which do not include a far reaching vision for environmentally sound design, coordination with municipal transit systems, and analysis of the impact of its construction and operation on surrounding communities.

The West Toronto Diamond Community Group, and their lawyers, were the courageous, first line of defense in a fight which will continue along the tracks, as Metrolinx/GO begins construction on the Davenport Diamond, which requires three times more construction than the West Toronto Diamond. Let's hope this ruling is the beginning of standards to be set for methods of quieter construction in the future, and finally includes us, those who will be impacted by every decision made, for the first time.

The Decision: This is the ruling regarding Metrolinx/GO vs the West Toronto Diamond Community Group and the City of Toronto http://decisions.fca-caf.gc.ca/en/2010/2010fca38/2010fca38.html Its brevity speaks volumes.

NEWS ALERT

2010-02-03T14:57:00.000-08:00

THE STAY OF THE CTA RULING WAS NOT GRANTED BY THE FEDERAL COURT OF APPEAL, and diesel impact hammers have been halted. For more information, go to http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/transportation/article/760276--court-upholds-order-for-go-to-halt-heavy-hammer-use

Irreparable Damage? Whose Irreparable Damage?

2010-01-30T07:18:00.001-08:00

On Thursday, January 28th, social rights lawyer, David Baker, of Bakerlaw, represented the West Toronto Diamond Community Group in the Federal Court of Appeal. He was beyond eloquent, he was gracious. He was a force of natural justice.

The opposing argument by the lawyer, representing GO/Metrolinx, maintained that they will have irrecoverable costs, irreparable damage, and that the balance of convenience lies in their favour. 'Public good' was trotted out repeatedly, although GO/Metrolinx's definition of public good is counter to all socially responsible, environmentally sustainable transit planning initiatives.

When GO/Metrolinx boldly proclaimed that they will have irreparable damages, there were exasperated, barely audible chuckles from those who have incurred headaches and respiratory ailments, damage to the structural integrity of their houses, and lost business from the pounding of the West Toronto Diamond diesel hammer piledrivers over the past year. Excuse me- I can't hear you because of my hearing loss - who has had irreparable damage?

Stay tuned for the Federal Court of Appeal ruling next Wednesday at 6 pm, after three judges sit in Montreal to decide whether the previous CTA ruling has legs. This ruling is very important as the verdict will have far reaching implications for the cessation of noise in the West Toronto Diamond, the quality of construction methods used for the Davenport Diamond at Dupont and Lansdowne, and the future design of the overpass, or trench, on Wallace Avenue, east of Campbell.

May Natural Justice win out. What a guy.

When will they learn?

2010-01-27T05:33:00.000-08:00

"When justice is gone,
There is always force."
Laurie Anderson from 'O Superman'

250,000 lbs of force, 40 times a minute, an explosion of atomized diesel at the drivehead, which pounds a 36” diameter steel pipe 22 meters straight into the ground to produce 130 decibels of sound energy for rolling, continuous vibration and noise.

This is diesel hammer piledriving for the West Toronto Diamond, enabling a grade separation and underpass for the Metrolinx GSSE/UPRL corridor. This incessant pounding has induced headaches, cracked building foundations, covered homes with toxic dust, and disrupted school years. At any given time, three piledrivers could be working concurrently. There are 2,338 piles to be installed with diesel hammers.

Lucy McCormick Senior School, a special needs school for students with exceptional developmental disabilities, is located very close to the West Toronto Diamond. If you place a glass of water on a desk there, it will vibrate and shake. Try holding a year end exam for students, many of whom have ADHD, and are particularly sensitive to noise.

See for yourself the impact of this construction.

Tomorrow, on Thursday, January 28th, at 9:30 at the Federal Court of Appeal, 180 Queen Street West, suite 200, Metrolinx is challenging a Canadian Transit Authority ruling that ordered them to use the less intrusive, but more expensive, Giken vibratory piledrivers. Residents were delighted by the CTA ruling on December 7th. After the ruling, schools became quiet again, the elderly, caretakers, children and those who worked at home had the fundamental, constitutional right to enjoy their property, and heaven forbid, work, sleep and convalesce during the day in their homes.

This peace was short lived. Metrolinx did not like using the unobtrusive vibratory piledrivers. It forced them to take time, and precautionary measures, to think about each stage of the project, and the residents. Metrolinx does not like thinking about the impact of this project on the surrounding community, so Metrolinx circumnavigated the CTA ruling, and asked for an interim stay from the Federal Court of Appeal. It received this interim stay, and is approaching the Federal Court for a permanent stay tomorrow.

The definition of bullying "is repeated acts over time that involves a real or perceived imbalance of power with the more powerful individual or group attacking those who are less powerful". A bully is someone who knows how not to harm a community, yet contests the right to do so at $750 an hour, bankrolled by the residents' taxes. A bully is someone who chooses not to learn, and chooses to harm the learning process of others.

Draw your own conclusions. Speak up, and hold your hand steady, though, because the blackboard is shaking and your students can barely hear you.

Please come and support the CTA Ruling at the Federal Court of Appeal tomorrow. If this ruling is overturned, it will give Metrolinx carte blanche to pound through this corridor, without any environmental or social responsibility.

Also, post feedback on Minister of Transport Kathleen Wynne's site at http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/feedback/minister.shtml She should care, she used to be Minister of Education.

References:
Laurie Anderson 'O Superman'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzYu88jIDYs
Lucy McCormick Senior School
http://www.tdsb.on.ca/MOSS/asp_apps/school_landing_page/index.asp?schno=5310
Banging in Toronto. GO Transit Pile-driving. Spring 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRvFLVe9_bw
Property Rights and the Constitution
http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collection-R/LoPBdP/BP/bp268-e.htm

Recipe for the Iron 407 Pound-it-Thru Cake

2010-01-09T05:33:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of Jonathan Swift, this is a special recipe for all those who live along the Georgetown corridor for the Iron 407 Pound-it-Thru Cake. A New Year's summary of the events of the past year, it is also a recipe for disaster. This is not just a 'Modest Proposal', it represents $50 billion of taxpayers money used unwisely to devalue our health and homes through shortsighted choices for unsustainable transit infrastructure.

Take this time during the prorogation of Parliament to tell your MPs what you think of this plan- they have time to read their emails. Until March 5th, in fact.

Ingredients:

Tier 4 'clean diesel' with extra special, scientifically engineered ultrafine particulate matter
3 air monitoring stations (cost: 3 x $500,000 = $1.5 million)
8 railway tracks
MP40 Tier 2 diesel locomotives for the Georgetown and Lakeshore corridors
Platinum Catalytic Converters for these locomotives so that they can be retrofitted to become Tier 4 (if no catalytic converters available, develop 'clean diesel')
Hybrid Diesel Multiple Units for the Air Rail Link (specially engineered, as only electric are being built internationally to meet environmental standards)
10 km, 5.5 meters high of concrete wall (in total)
Private land along the rail corridor
Old growth forest along the tracks, to be destroyed for the additional tracks

Instructions:
In 1996, ask Minister David Collennette to write a secret memorandum of agreement with SNC-Lavalin and Infrastructure Ontario to create an Air Rail Link, like London's Heathrow Express. Ensure there are no other competitors for this Request for Proposal.

Sign the contract without taxpayers' consent. Hide it carefully behind the Freedom of Information Act so that taxpayers cannot question your future modus operandi based upon its commitments.

Create an arm's length provincial transit agency. Name the transit agency 'Metrolinx' and buy out GO Transit. Use diesel technology because GO has experience with diesel trains, although the rest of the world, both developed and developing, uses electric trains.

Devise a blueprint called 'The Big Move'. Tell taxpayers that this new, massive diesel rail corridor is 'getting cars off the road' rather than adding a significant number of transit corridors for carbon emissions and pollution. The residents are OK with clean, quieter electric trains- but diesel it must be.

Kick off all municipal representatives, including Mayor David Miller, from your Board of Directors. They are too concerned with the health and welfare of those who live in Toronto, and are slowing your rail expansion down with concerns about constituents.

Replace the old Board of Directors with a new, friendlier Board of Directors who have a corporate agenda to support the memorandum. This job must be done quickly before anyone finds out. Thank goodness you have the newly fast tracked Transit Project Approval Process to hasten the Environmental Approval process!

Now you are cooking! Ignore all international and local directives for sustainable electric rail corridors- you have an old pre-climate change agreement to fulfill!

Ensure that you appear to be consulting with the communities about their concerns about noise, vibration and pollution. Realize that corporate consultation is the 'new counter-insurgency' to quell your opposition. Consult, consult, consult. Ignore, ignore, ignore.

Nod your head and cluck your tongue when over 450 caretakers and children attend a Clean Air for Little Lungs Stroller Parade to express concerns about their future health on July 20th at Queen's Park.

Divide and rule by lining the rail corridor with pamphlets saying that the Medical Officer of Health was wrong - there will be no impact on the health of those in the 'strike zone' and near the 'cancer spots'. This is because the environmental impact of one carcinogen which causes leukemia- 1,3 butadiene- has been slightly changed by US EPA standards. This is your chance to publicly discredit the Medical Officer of Health.

Hide behind a curtain when over a thousand residents of this corridor walk along the length of this corridor as a 'Human Train' to protest at Whistle Stops at each of the twelve neighbourhoods along the route.

Spin basic facts with the provincial and federal Ministers of the Environment such as 'largest and most frequently used diesel corridor in the planet' to ensure their approval process. You get it!

Take the half-baked plan out of the oven - you can go ahead, and build your train tracks now, with far more tracks than you need. Destroy old growth forest along the tracks because it is in your way. All transit expansion is sustainable expansion, and how dare these 300,000 people live in an at risk, lower income transit corridor and expect to breathe or sleep between 5:30 am and 12:30 am? 5 hours is more than enough.

Build three air monitoring stations at $500, 000 each to monitor the affects of pollution. Provide a report to the Minister of the Environment on Bad Air Days. They can let the community know when there have been official smog days due to 'clean diesel' well after residents have acquired asthma.

Apologize to the 76 schools, 96 daycare centers, and 4 hospitals who are disturbed by the air pollution, vibration and noise of your diesel trains. You could had stopped to pick them up had the trains been electric, but when you studied electrification thirteen times, it was just too expensive. Much of the money has already gone into consultancy fees, after all.

Ooops! The highways have backfilled with more cars, and there are 60 more smog days a year. It is really not your problem anymore.

Walk away from this project. Hand the maintenance and running costs to the taxpayer, and the profit to the private company, SNC-Lavalin.

Well done. Another proud day protecting the environment in Canada. After all, Canada has won 6 Fossil of the Day Awards at COP15 from the Climate Action Network for the highest per capita Greenhouse Gas Emissions at 23 tonnes per person. You have done your duty to ensure our role as international leader in climate change.

In 15 years, revisit this Iron 407 at the taxpayer's expense, and rebuild the corridor as electric. Oil is $250-$400 a barrel, and it has become just too expensive to run. Just another public private partnership gone awry.

Canada wins Colossal Fossil Award! and The Hidden Costs of Diesel

2009-12-22T08:58:00.000-08:00

Congratulations, Canada, for winning the Colossal Fossil Award for the third year in a row at COP15 in Copenhagen! This blog entry is to support the decision of Climate Action Network, which tallied the vote of 500 NG0s to present this dishonourable award to my country. In the spirit of Christmas, I would like to present my own informal, ad hoc local chapter's award to Metrolinx for using diesel trains as part of our government's protectionist policy toward the tar sands, contrary to all environmentally sustainable, electric transit solutions.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Minister of the Environment Jim Prentice, have obstructed all constructive and binding agreements regarding carbon emissions to profit Alberta's tar sands at the cost of tarnishing our international reputation three years in a row. The tar sands leak 11 millions of litres of toxic water a day into the Athabasca River basin, and emit 40 million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually. The size of the tar sands, 149,000 square kilometers, is so vast it can be seen by satellite as a black blemish on the earth's surface.

How do our politicians' actions relate to the Georgetown South and Air Rail Link expansion? Why do you think these trains will run on diesel, when relatively non-polluting and increasingly renewable-based electricity from the Ontario grid is available at far more stable prices? This diesel rail expansion is another piece of the puzzle which shows that PM Harper was elected by oil interests, and does everything in his power to promote oil, when the rest of the world is scrambling to develop renewable, clean energy sources.

Many knowledgeable and well-informed energy analysts predict that oil will soon exceed $200 a barrel, perhaps as early as 2010. Why, in this midnight hour, are we developing a long-term piece of public infrastructure to run on non-renewable fossil fuel that will pollute the atmosphere, choke our city with fumes and particulate, and build zero resilience into our transportation system against rising fossil fuel prices? Tcktcktck. The clock is ticking, and the world was watching Canada defend corporate oil interests at all cost in Copenhagen.

There are many other hidden costs which add substantially to the base cost of this diesel 'solution'. These costs go far beyond the predicted peak of oil prices, and multiply its final tally. The diesel multiple units for the Air Rail Link are being custom built for this corridor, as well as the platinum catalytic converters to change Tier 2 into Tier 4 'clean' diesel on the larger, inter-regional, MP40 locomotives, and which will double their original cost. Neither of these are available on the market; they are being engineered solely for this diesel project as they are so far below international standards for electric trains.

In addition, there is the 5.5 m high, 10 km in total, concrete wall dividing our twelve neighbourhoods, and the cost of building and running three air quality monitoring stations to analyze the ultrafine particulate matter of Tier 4 emissions. Each of the stations is estimated to cost $500,000 per year, and is monitored by a mechanical intake device which tests the air quality. This device will alert Metrolinx on a 'Bad Air Day' to hold a boardroom meeting to consider what to tell people along the corridor when 'clean diesel' emissions are damaging their health.

As 'clean diesel' is being engineered specifically for this transit project by Metrolinx, scientists can only create computer models to hypothetically test its emissions. There is no scientific evidence beyond computer modelling that Tier 4 diesel will be any less harmful than Tier 2 diesel; in fact, there are fears that the concentrated particulate matter may be worse, and that it travels very far from its source to cover more surface area. Research is just beginning to understand the complex impact of 'clean diesel' emissions on human health, particularly the lung development of children.

Curiously, as part of the federal Rail Transportation Act, the data for mobile pollution for transit projects is not included in the Environmental Assessment, so the emissions of moving trains do not count. Why is this? This pollution still registers in my lungs. liver and kidneys as permanent and accumulating toxins. Is Metrolinx' mechanical monitoring service going to call me at home to tell me how much has toxicity has registered in my body, and to take a blood sample to verify their data? Or tell me to stop breathing entirely? Or that it is just another 'Bad 'Air Day' and to check in the mirror?

It is no wonder that the Prime Minister Harper, and the federal Minister of the Environment, Jim Prentice, can sign off on the Environmental Assessment on the diesel expansion of the Georgetown South corridor. They have already signed off on the Environmental Assessment of the tar sands. Their mandate is to guarantee, and develop the future supply and demand of oil by expanding air and rail infrastructure to support their supporters' corporate interests. In response to this government's hidden mandate for this project, the Medical Officer of Health has estimated that pollution-related health costs in Toronto are $2.2 billion, and has formally announced that to protect human health, this rail expansion must be electric, and that the Toronto City Center Airport should monitor and submit data on its increasing air pollution.

Why not just electrify this rail corridor from the start rather than continuing this absurd public relations charade to ensure diesel fuel consumption for loud, heavy MP40 locomotives? Electric trains are half the weight, half the noise, and will recoup the cost of electrification within ten years. Every other country in the world is electrifying their rail system, and curtailing short haul flights, and our government is expanding both to fulfill corporate promises to their campaign supporters.

For my part, the greatest cost has been my utter loss of faith in the federal and provincial Ministers of Environment, who have not stepped forward to protect the health of my community. My fundamental rights as a citizen have been brushed aside so that a secret memoranda of agreement may be signed for a public-private partnership between Metrolinx, Infrastructure Ontario, and SNC-Lavalin to profit from cheap diesel trains. It is just not the health of 300,000 Toronto citizens that has been ignored, it is the democratic process itself.

The Minister of Transport, Infrastructure Ontario, SNC-Lavalin and Metrolinx have an important choice. They can build an electric rail system, and add immeasurable value to businesses and cultural communities through transit oriented development, or they can reverse the revitalization of these communities, create a diesel ghetto, and turn back time to an industrial era when the west end rail corridor was lined with factories, rather than thriving, intelligent and diverse communities. And to cap it all off - SNC-Lavalin knows how to build electric trains. So does Bombardier. So what are we all waiting for?

My Christmas pledge to all of my readers is that I will work to shift Canadian transit policy to become environmentally sustainable and socially just. My devotion for the health and welfare of Ward 18, particularly its new immigrants building small businesses, and the progressive, green communities built around my parks - Sorauren, MacGregor and Dufferin Grove - is boundless. The twelve neighbourhoods along this corridor must not be devalued by illogical transit policy enabling the purchase of expensive, noisy and unsustainable diesel infrastructure, 10 km of retaining walls, and three air quality monitoring stations, and an extra, unneeded track for the Air Rail Link.

After Copenhagen, the world knows that there is no more time to waste. Every single decision must be sustainable.

Happy Holidays to all.

References:
COP15 Fossil of the Day Awards at http://www.fossil-of-the-day.org/
Climate Action Network Link at http://www.climatenetwork.org/
Fat Cat Post by Franke James at http://www.frankejames.com/debate/?p=964
Greenpeace Tar Sands at http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/campaigns/tarsands
Tcktcktck at http://tcktcktck.org/
Joe Fiorito's Toronto Star article "Metrolinx diesels are dirty, ugly and NOISY" on December 11, 2009 at http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/737504--fiorito-metrolinx-diesels-are-dirty-ugly-and-noisy

George Monbiot article "The Urgent Threat To World Peace Is … Canada" at http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/12/01/the-urgent-threat-to-world-peace-is-…-canada/

Better Transit is Better Business

2009-11-27T03:50:00.000-08:00

Everything is political. As I go from transit conference to design conference, and I wonder why Metrolinx is building three - count them, three- new train tracks for an Air Rail Link to run Pan Am athletes to their Olympic Village for a total of twelve days, this is what I hear from transit experts repeatedly. The type of the trains, the choice of fuel, the number and placement of tracks, and which corridor is electrified first - Georgetown or Lakeshore - everything is based upon trade deals, secret memoranda of understanding, and political promises. And it is clear that my neighbourhood is not the winner in this horse race of Liberal promises, which date back to 1994, when Minister David Collennette took the Heathrow Express, and said "Toronto should have one of these, too". Note that the Heathrow Express is electric, rapid rail, and 99.9% on time, none of which will be true of the Air Rail Link.

The Union-Pearson Air Rail Link is costly, and duplicates new and existing transit routes. According to recent Metrolinx research on cost-benefit scenarios, only 17% of passengers will leave from Union Station, and only 4-7% of passengers will go from Pearson directly to Union Station. Three extra train tracks will be built for a choo choo train for executives, at $35 a ride, to ensure that they have extra leg room so they not have to rub pinstriped shoulders with riffraff. The riffraff includes me, as not only will this regional transit will skip the Bloor GO Station, there is no reason for me to loop back east to Union-Station to go west again, and pay two transit fares when I can call for an airport limo for roughly the same price. Redundant activity, and so is this unneeded cost of these three tracks in this corridor, duplicated by Transit City's Eglinton LRT, which has just begun to be built by the City of Toronto.

Our taxpayer's money is paying $1 billion to fund another white elephant, directly after the eHealth scandal, but this rail corridor is much more actively destructive to health, as it eats diesel and private property as rail land for dinner. At least the eHealth scandal generated mountains of paperwork and consultation fees, and no doubt paid for at least one cottage renovation, but has had no long lasting effects except to add to Ontario's $24.7 billion deficit. Why add three tracks to the cost of this Air Rail Link to the highest deficit in the history of Ontario, Minister Bradley? At the very least, if the Air Rail were electric, it would require fewer tracks and less land acquisition.

Two days ago, as I attended OCAD's Health and Design Conference, I asked these questions: Why do we have to prove through predictive statistics the affect on health of transit projects, rather than applying tried and true measures, such as electrification, as primary prevention policies to protect the health of citizens first? Why are the Ministers of Environment not advocating environmentally sustainable 'best practice' initiatives? Why is it that the provincial Minister of the Environment, John Gerretsen, has allowed a rolling submission process for data by Metrolinx for months after the September 1st deadline of the Environmental Project Review? Since when did Minister Gerretsen begin to work with a transit agency to allow them to revise their data for their EPR submission to enable them to use their choice of rolling stock and transit infrastructure, thus to privilege a public-private partnership? Why is it valid to model future air pollution data for Tier 4 'clean diesel' emissions, when the ultrafine particulate matter of Tier 4 has not been tested yet? And when do our communities get to have a public forum on their views on 'clean diesel' as it does not impact the amount of noise and vibration by rail traffic, and still necessitates the building of 5.5 meter high walls for 10 kilometers through their neighbourhoods, and in many cases, directly beside their homes and businesses?

I also attended the Canadian Urban Institute's Designing Transit Cities Conference where, ironically, Metrolinx was one of the sponsors. Case studies from Zurich, Portland and Paris were presented, and delighted the audience with the ingenuity of their design, sensitivity to community input, and transit implementation. Each of these cities did everything within their power to preserve and enhance the integrity of their built heritage, ensure that the area walking to the transit hub was beautified, and increase business opportunities around each station to ensure transit oriented development. In addition, the business plan and design for each station was designed specifically according to its neighbourhood demographics, topography, location, historical tradition and cultural heritage.

My favourite transit designs were the wayfinding signs and decals for the Light Rail Transit for the RATP in Paris, based upon icons taken from daily life- their cafes, their grates around trees on boulevards, and their gargoyles. Toronto is forty years behind Paris and Portland in its transit policy, yet in a networked society, we can easily get up to speed as we have access to other cities' knowledge and expertise. We can make progressive transit decisions, unlike those given lip service to by Metrolinx in their 'Big Move'. I say "we" because "we" should have input on how our communities are impacted by this transit network as it is our money and future quality of life, and it is clear that noise, vibration and their subsequent mitigation walls are not considered as part of this consultation process by the recent 'clean diesel' decision.

The big question is why has it been decided that all transit projects are healthy, and beneficial to communities by nature, so not worthy of a full Environmental Assessment to ensure that environmentally sustainable decisions are made? As the Toronto City Centre Airport has gone from 25,000 to 750,000 passengers between 2006 and 2009, and the west end of Toronto is the center for all this transit activity, why are the communities in this transit corridor and region considered expendable? In the case of the Air Rail Link and Georgetown corridor, once the corridor is built as diesel with the Pan Am Games as an excuse, with a seven, or eight, track rail capacity, it is unlikely to be electrified, and the frequency of traffic will increase due to the expansion- see the TCCA as a case study. As air and noise pollution in this region increases, businesses will be less likely to invest in these areas affected, as customers are reduced as residents sell their houses. People are already moving out of the Brockton Triangle, which is at the fork of the future rail traffic. In effect, the Georgetown South rail expansion is enabling business development and exurban expansion of the 905 region at the expense of 416 future business development, and investment, in businesses along the rail corridor. Better transit is better business for both the GTA and the 905 when passengers can get on and off to do business from a rail system that has multiple access points along the corridor by being electric.

Had the federal government given the $736 million loan guarantee, and around $450 million of under the counter subsidies, given to a private company, Porter, as federal funds to begin to rebuild and electrify the rail system in Ontario, the desire for short haul flights would be reduced, and we would join the rest of the developed world in enabling sustainable, electric transit, and alleviate the role of our megacities to carry the health burden for the majority of pollution for Canada. Pollution and poverty are hand in hand, and the closing of businesses, and their loss of clientele due to these toxic transit systems, both air and rail, is a very serious and legitimate concern. In effect, our tax money is being used to fund two separate, public-private transit partnerships, aided and abetted by governmental agencies- Porter Airlines and the Toronto City Center Airport, enabled by the Toronto Port Authority and the federal government, and SNC-Lavalin and the GSSE/UPRL enabled by Metrolinx and the provincial government. As GTA citizens, we should press for answers why. It is our tax money, our businesses, and our health which pay the price for others to profit.

This Air Rail Link will be a joyride for executives and athletes on our dime, with no benefit to the neighbourhood businesses it passes by on its way to Pearson Airport. Better transit does mean better business for present and future provincial prosperity. There is an important business case study by the Toronto's Business Improvement Areas which should be launched to research the future economic impact of this rail expansion on their businesses in the corridor. And it should be soon, as Metrolinx is saying that the Air Rail Link must be built as diesel to meet the Pan Am deadline.

References:
Heathrow Express at http://www.heathrowexpress.com/Home
OCAD Health and Design Conference at http://www.ocad.ca/about_ocad/news_events/health_summit/news.htm
Presentation by Rémi Ferredj, Director for Real Estate of the RATP, résident Directeur général des filiales SEDP et Logis-Transports (groupe RATP), Paris, France at the Canadian Urban Institute's Designing Transit Cities Symposium at http://www.canurb.com/events/event_details.php?id=270
Pollution Watch 'Rankings for Pollution in the Great Lakes Basin' and 'Pollution Poverty Report' recommending The City of Toronto pass the proposed Environmental Reporting, Disclosure and Innovation Programme, allowing for better tracking of pollutants in Toronto’s neighbourhoods, at http://www.pollutionwatch.org/pub/pollutionandpoverty.jsp
Community Air and the Toronto Port Authority at http://communityair.org/

Green Pan Am Games, Green Parks, and The Right to Play

2009-11-09T06:10:00.000-08:00

Former Mayor David Crombie lobbies to keep 39 inner city school swimming pools open on April 17, 2009 because the City of Toronto cannot afford them. On October 22nd, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan announced that Ontario has the largest deficit in its history. On October 25th, my neighbourhood park, MacGregor Park, presented a children's play called "All Hallow's Train" about the train tracks crossing its border. On November 1st at the Pumpkin Parade in Sorauren Park, a mother put out her anti-diesel train pumpkin to represent the concerns of her 140 member Toronto Mom's Group for their childrens' health. On November 6th, Ontario won the bid to hold a $2.4 billion Pan Am Games in Toronto, 2015.

These seemingly unrelated facts are intricately interwoven. The two parks, MacGregor and Sorauren, have all the future eight tracks of railroad expansion running directly beside them, and these 464 trains daily will cause irreparable damage to these parks. I thought, as I watched the children's play, whether this play would be possible when the noise of the trains is a non stop wall of sound, and metallic diesel fumes from the trains fill the air. Metrolinx is currently purchasing MP40, 4000 horsepower locomotives, which are much heavier and noisier than previous stock, and their sound travels much further, with a distinctive, high pitched whine, and shudder when they brake. These new generations of children will have very little clean air, or quiet moments, in either playground, or on the running track, behind West Toronto Collegiate in 2015. I wonder if they will be able to perform with period costumes, cut out trains, rolling clocks, and stories written to delight in the railway and amuse their parents, when their lines cannot be delivered over the traffic.

It has been said again and again by Minister of Transportation, Jim Bradley, that the additional $200 - $300 million needed to electrify the Georgetown South Service Expansion and Air Rail Link - not the $8 or $10 billion repeatedly and erroneously stated by Metrolinx to dissuade the taxpayer - is too expensive, yet surprisingly, there is $2.4 billion for the Pan Am Games in the provincial and federal coffers. As part of this Pan Am Games, the Air Rail Link will take the athletes to the Olympic Village through these parks in west end neighbourhoods, so winning these games will speed up its construction to meet this hard deadline.

The Pan Am Games Committee has proclaimed that it wants to be the first 'green games in history'. I wonder what the athletes will think as they board the refurbished 1950s BUDD trains to go to their Olympic Village? If put to a vote, would they think that it is good sportsmanship to impair the lung capacity of children by diesel emissions when they are dependent on their own lung capacity to shave off milliseconds in their performance? The athletes will come from forty-two countries, many of whom have seen systemic poverty, and many of whom have learned that sportsmanship can bring opportunity to learn and travel. I am quite certain that many have been supported by the initiatives of the Right to Play, an organization which creates a healthier world for children through the power of sport and play in developing countries, and would say 'no' to giving children asthma.

In this era of private-public partnerships, untendered contracts, unbridled overspending and cronyism, it is unfashionable to say that I love my vulnerable Ward 18, and want to protect the health of all the children who act, learn and play sports in these parks. The athletes of the Pan Am Games should be made aware that my neighbourhood will be saddled with a diesel corridor which will impact my neighbourhood with a lifetime of pollution, vibration and noise, for their twelve day event. The free community-based events, the Pumpkin Parade, the children's performances, and the right of all children to play in parks without harm, mean the world to me. The welfare of my neighbourhood is priceless, and the health of the children who live within it is not to be used as collateral damage for a temporary sporting event, or air rail link. According to Unicef's Convention of the Rights of the Child, the use of diesel trains, with 'clean diesel' or not, for this rail expansion violates three of its fundamental principles: the right to survival; to develop to the fullest; and to protection from harmful influences.

It seems to me that the cost to electrify the rail corridor is a pittance in comparison to the total budget of the Pan Am Games. When Ontario hosts the Pan Am Games, the contractual agreements for building the infrastructure should be transparent and tendered, the Air Rail Link should be built as electric from the beginning, and the impact of its construction should be considered in relation to the neighbourhoods so that it improves the quality of life of those who live there. It may be that the athletes' lodgings, which will be turned into low income housing, in the West Donlands, will be the only positive, permanent contribution of the Games for disadvantaged residents, if other areas affected are not considered, such as this transit corridor.

I am quite sure that the Pan Am Games Committee, and its athletes, will agree that the lung capacity of athletes is worth as much as those of children. The Pan Am Games Committee should practice what they preach, and publicly announce that the performance of the athletes is based upon good sportsmanship, optimal conditioning, and the right to play, and support the goals of social and environmental justice by ensuring this games has green, electric transit. The Pan Am Games should be green for all parks, playgrounds and track fields throughout Ontario, so that no child is harmed when the athletes come to compete. None of these budding actors, or athletes, in my neighbourhood deserves to have impaired lung capacity to host a twelve day event, or to not be able to play safely in their nearby park for the remainder of their life. The playing field should be level for all in the name of sportsmanship and social justice, internationally and locally.

References:
Crombie begs city to rescue 39 pools, The Star, April 17, 2009 at http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/619943
The Right to Play Canada at http://www.righttoplay.com/site/PageServer?pagename=canada
Unicef: 'Convention on the Rights of the Child' at http://www.unicef.org/crc/
'Ontario deficit billions more than expected' on October 22nd at http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/714276--ontario-deficit-billions-more-than-expected

Quick, Dirty and Diesel: Our Health is Collateral Damage

2009-10-22T04:38:00.000-07:00

Recently, an alarmed neighbour of mine, who lives directly beside the future eight tracks of all the diesel rail expansion, sent me Metrolinx's official notice of their air mitigation measures. The notice states that:

"All trains utilized for GO Transit that travel to, from or through Georgetown along the Georgetown South Corridor shall be Tier 4 compliant when service begins or when Tier 4 compliant technology becomes commercially available."

What does this mean to someone, my neighbour, who is now dependent on Metrolinx to build ambient air monitoring activities 'at a minimum of three sampling locations' on a line 32.5 km in length, when the commercial availability of Tier 4 'clean diesel' could be a long time away? What good is community consultation with Metrolinx when air quality is being monitored to prove that your health is not being affected, when the trains are already running? Metrolinx's track record for community consultation is very poor, and its elaborate air monitoring and mitigation measures promise to be no better. My neighbour is horrified at the prospect of these diesel trains in her backyard, and rightfully so. These October 5th stipulations by Minister of the Environment have enabled Metrolinx to build air monitoring stations to study how to develop mitigation measures for 'clean diesel' emissions when the damage to her health is happening in real time, and to enable Metrolinx to buy diesel trains with government permission.

One term I have heard repeatedly, used by representatives from Metrolinx, Minister of the Environment, and Minister of Education, is 'collateral damage'. Collateral damage, a term used in warfare, is defined as 'damage that is unintended or incidental to the intended outcome'. None of the Metrolinx air mitigation measures address the issue at source, the scientific testing of 'clean diesel' before it is used in the midst of a heavily populated rail corridor, in comparison to the environmental impact of electric rail traffic. As part of Metrolinx's cost-benefit analysis, the health of my neighbour, and 300,000 other people, is viewed as 'collateral damage' to this project's rapid implementation. This collateral damage is justified as it will save a little bit of initial infrastructure money for the provincial government, and its straw man, Metrolinx, which cushions the blows for the Liberal Party.

What has become clear to me, through an interview with the head of Metrolinx, is that Metrolinx has recently purchased new Tier 2 diesel locomotives, which will be moved around the rail corridors like chess pieces to meet a series of aggressive project milestones. These new, heavier, noisier Tier 2 diesel locomotives will be shifted to the Georgetown Line to be fitted with platinum catalytic converters to become Tier 4 locomotives emitting 'clean diesel'. This is a form of environmental discrimination, in which the corridor considered to have a lower socioeconomic status, the Georgetown South corridor, is permanently given a noisier, polluting diesel corridor after the Lakeshore corridor has long been electrified. These project milestones are being forced through by Metrolinx before the Terms of Reference in its recently announced electrification study are completed in the coming year, which compares electrification to diesel infrastructure, including its social impact.

Sound confusing? It is to me, too. Industry expert, David Brann, says that these Tier 2 platinum catalytic converters will double the price of the diesel locomotives, and require new hardware. Even SNC-Lavalin has raised an eyebrow at the converters' cost, which depend upon untested and very expensive technology. Right now, platinum costs about $1,400 an ounce on the stock market. And to add insult to injury, officials won't say how much the privately operated rail link to the airport will cost by itself, or how much will be shouldered by taxpayers, until the contract is signed. Quick, dirty, and diesel is the name of this game of chess, and it is happening as I write.

Why not electrify all components of the rail corridor from the outset, and make transparent the private-public partnership with SNC-Lavalin to see whether the physical extent and frequency of service of this rail expansion is actually necessary? The cost of diesel is tied to fluctuating world market prices, platinum catalytic converters will double the cost of the locomotives, the cost of land acquisition along the corridor is high, and clean diesel has not been environmentally tested. The health of our communities should not be viewed as collateral damage for the desire of Metrolinx, and the provincial government, to save a few dollars upfront. We are not human guinea pigs on a chessboard, composed of privileged and less privileged neighbourhoods.

The Clean Coalition will be attending the Climate Change Rally this Saturday, October 24th from 2-4pm at Queen's Park. Come, sign a petition, and check out the absurdity of this Clean Diesel White Elephant with its new improved, platinum catalytic converter!

References:
Expert warns of high cost for planned diesel trains by Brodie Fenlon, October 6, at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/expert-warns-of-high-cost-for-planned-diesel-trains/article1314629/

Interview with Rob Prichard by Brodie Fenlon, October 6th, at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/an-interview-with-rob-prichard/article1314661/

18 Strict Conditions Placed On Metrolinx Diesel Rail Transit Expansion

2009-10-05T16:17:00.000-07:00

Just hot off the press. It has been decided that this GSSE/UPRL diesel expansion has been allowed to go forward with eighteen conditions for monitoring health risks, and using Tier 4 diesel, to be built by 2015.

To be honest, I am too angry to write, but I consider it tremendously important that those in the corridor have access to this information. The link to the press release and PDF of eighteen conditions is here: http://www.news.ontario.ca/ene/en/2009/10/strict-conditions-placed-on-metrolinx-rail-transit-expansion.html

"The conditions on the Metrolinx approval would help us deal with the health and environmental impacts from transit growth. As we work to improve transit, we must protect the health and well being of citizens who may be affected by these projects."

— John Gerretsen, Minister of the Environment

Yes, Minister Gerretsen, when did you privilege the right for urban expansion, and 905 developers, to build homes beyond the green belt, and to run diesel trains for passengers who do not exist yet, over the health and welfare of 300,000 residents who live in the GTA corridor? These are the people whose health and well being must be protected. What doublespeak- when you analyze Minister Gerretsen's remark, it is actually nonsensical as it points out that there is a need to protect those who will be affected by these projects. How about no affect at all, as with electric trains? Shame.

I have lost all faith in all levels of government, and governmental protection agencies, particularly those run by the provincial Liberals and federal Conservatives. There is no such thing as clean diesel, and there is nowhere else in the world that is using diesel trains in cities. Vancouver has the quiet, electric Skytrain, and Calgary has a train powered by wind turbines, and Toronto has hypothetical Tier 4 'clean' diesel trains as an 'alternate' infrastructure, which has not been tested on a population's health yet as it does not commercially exist.

Our communities are going to be used as an environmental test case for unproven technology and scientifically untested diesel fuel. As some online sage said, "Is clean diesel the same as clean coal?" Metrolinx is going to run an experiment on the GTA, and we are going to pay for it with our health so they can learn how to mitigate the effects of Tier 4 diesel fuel. Note that this 'clean diesel' measure will in no way address vibration or noise issues as diesel trains are twice the weight, vibration and noise of electric trains. Therefore, many concerns sent to the Minister of the Environment are not addressed about the impact of this rail corridor on our communities with this decision.

There is something very rotten in the State of Denmark with this project, and Crown Agencies, such as Metrolinx, which think they have the right to lie to taxpayers, poison our children, and pollute our neighbourhoods.

Please, take 5 minutes to call or email:

Dalton McGuinty

Tel: (416) 325-1941

dalton.mcguinty@ontario.ca, dmcguinty.mpp@liberal.ola.org, dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

John Gerretsen, Minister of the Environment

Tel: (416) 314-6790

minister.moe@ontario.ca

Jim Bradley, Minister of Transportation

Tel: (416) 327-9200

minister@mto.gov.on.ca

George Smitherman

Tel: (416) 327-6758

gsmitherman.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Keep your message short and to the point. I suggest:

"Premier, our children need clean air. Electrify the Georgetown Corridor Now!"

"Minister, demonstrate your commitment to Ontario's Green Agenda. Electrify the Georgetown Corridor!"

"We believe in clean, green, and modern transit. We demand electric trains!"

For more analysis, see Steve Munro: 'Weston Corridor GO/UPRL Approved, But With Conditions' at http://stevemunro.ca/?p=2705

Metrolinx Telemarketing Advisory:

2009-10-02T07:34:00.000-07:00

Metrolinx has hired a telemarketing company to ask homeowners about the number of children in each household over the next couple of days. Most likely, this poll is being held to ask leading questions in which telemarketers will try to convince people that the negative health issues have been resolved in this diesel expansion by the use of 'clean diesel'. There is not, and will not be in the future, 'clean diesel'. It does not exist.

Metrolinx is also trying to discredit the Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David McKeown, who has said on record that he recommends electrification as the only solution, by a series of pamphlets delivered to homes along the corridor saying that Metrolinx is working collaboratively with Dr. McKeown. This is not true.

Now is the time to let Metrolinx's telemarketers know that all children, parks, daycare centers, seniors' residences, homes and schools are to be protected as the highest priority, not polluted by 464+ diesel trains passing daily through our neighbourhoods.

Build it once. Build it right. Go electric.

Point out the White Elephant of the Metrolinx Diesel Rail Expansion!

2009-09-27T07:25:00.001-07:00

"What we know about air pollution in Toronto is that any proposal now should pass a very stringent test before it goes forward. This proposal has not passed that test in my view. The study, conducted by Metrolinx itself, indicates clearly that there will be impacts on air quality as well as health risks for those who live close to the line."
- Dr. David McKeown

More info, link to Transit Guru Steve Munro: "Metrolinx Fudges Clean Train Info"

Thank you to all who participated in the Human Train along the rail corridor! Many participants were deeply moved by the experience of walking along the tracks to connect with the railpath of communities. The protesters started in Weston, traveled down to Mount Dennis, the Junction, Wallace Bridge, and Sorauren Park, to go up Queen Street West, and to finally end up in Trinity Bellwoods Park, there to sign a huge card addressed to Premier McGuinty.

The citizens' outpouring of concern, anger, and love, urging the government to protect our neighbourhoods from the impending traffic of over 464 diesel trains a day, was extraordinary. I think this is the first time there has been a protest march organized along a railpath. As a network of communities, we are now informed, mobilized and ready for action against this project being pounded through by Metrolinx. Mike Sullivan, the co-chair of the Clean Train Coalition, noted that Metrolinx has been seen on the tracks, working already, which is in violation of formal codes of conduct during the Environmental Assessment process.

The speeches were passionate by the local politicians supporting the cause for electric trains. Cheri DiNovo, Adam Vaughan, Gord Perks, as well as Irene Atkinson, the Toronto District School Board trustee who enabled Sorauren Park to be built twenty years ago on this industrial site, spoke beautifully about the communities affected. Dr. David McKeown, the Chief Medical Officer of the City of Toronto refuted the claims by Metrolinx that the health of the residents would not be in jeopardy by the expanding GSSE/UPRL diesel traffic, and supported the communities' right to voice their strong opposition.

Liberal MP Gerard Kennedy for Parkdale-High Park outlined his opposition to the project, which is to have a moratorium on all infrastructure development for one year while electrification is studied thoroughly, whereas the Liberal MPP for the Davenport Riding, Tony Ruprecht, was nowhere to be found. Curious that those who represent the ridings which will be most negatively affected, and are legally designated most at risk socially, have been cautious to offer their support...why? And why are these vulnerable and priority neighbourhoods not being protected by their federal and provincial representatives? Is it that they are Liberals, and so is Premier McGuinty, and SNC-Lavalin is one of the major campaign contributors to the Liberal Party?

I have worked hundreds of hours to research this GSSE/UPRL diesel expansion, and I think that it should be legally decided that Metrolinx, as an arm's length agency of the province, is in direct conflict of interest with the goal of the City of Toronto, and the Greater Toronto Area, to support the objectives of public, accessible, clean transportation by privileging private-public partnerships for diesel infrastructure above the health of GTA citizens, as a matter of prudent avoidance for future health risk. If this were decided, the current Metrolinx Board of Directors, comprised of those vetting the interests of private corporations, could be formally dissolved, so that nonpartisan experts on transit could be instated, and Metrolinx could start the real work of electrifying the corridor.

As an artist, educator, and homeowner, when I get enraged, I get ingenious. My response, and gift to the Human Train Parade, was to make the obvious, obvious, and point out the White Elephant in the room. So I made a White Elephant, and here is the content of my broadside I distributed to those who attended the rally at Sorauren Park. We walked to Trinity Bellwoods Park, with the White Elephant balanced on the head of my 6'5" friend, Karl Junkin, and its body comprised of four white umbrellas naming the volatile organic compounds, the pollutants, and the ultrafine particulate matter, which will be emitted by exhaust hose pipe of these trains, carried by other members of the Clean Train Coalition, following along behind him.

The Absurd Transit Definition of the White Elephant:

A rare, expensive diesel rail expansion that is a financial, social and health burden for taxpayers to maintain.
Something of dubious or limited value in fulfilling public transportation needs.
464 diesel trains daily as an article, ornament, or household utensil not wanted by the residents of the Greater Toronto Area.
Publicly subsidized, privately owned transportation that is expensive to maintain, and generates too little revenue to pay for itself.
Any transit investment that nobody wants because it is unprofitable, and so is quickly politically abandoned by its owner, Metrolinx, and the provincial government, after its utter uselessness is proven. (See also 1950s Blue 22 retrofitted rail cars for the Union-Pearson Rail Link.)
An endeavor or venture that proves to be a conspicuous failure.
A papier-mâché elephant created by an outraged member of the community who refuses to pay the future, ongoing health, social and financial cost of absurd transit planning.
Or unlike this case: An electrified rail system used as the inner city norm, and Environmental Protection Act standard, throughout the world.

Historically, the White Elephant has a precedent - the "Big Owe" Olympic Stadium in Montreal, built for the 1976 Olympics, which Montreal finally paid off in 2006. The difference is that the pollution from GSSE/UPRL rail corridor will be far more actively destructive to the health of the residents than the big white eyesore of a stadium ever has been.

Human Train Media Coverage:

This is the link to the video of speech of Dr. McKeown's speech in Sorauren Park.

This is the link to Toronto Sun: 'Human Train Marches against Diesel'.

This is the link to the article from the Toronto Star: 'Diesel fumes unhealthy, MD tells train protest'.

This is the link to the video of 'Postcards to the Premier'. This video is a touching petition by the west end citizens to Premier McGuinty, captured during the Human Train.
This is the link to an insightful political analysis of the Environmental Assessment Process by John LaForet.

Design Amuck: ''Who's my Province, Premier McGuinty?"

2009-08-12T03:17:00.000-07:00

The City of Toronto prides itself as promoting, supporting, and developing the 'creative class', yet Metrolinx has been given a provincial mandate to impose a diesel rail corridor eight times its current capacity through the Queen West Arts District, slated to run past the Gladstone, the Drake, Artscape, MOCCA and numerous galleries and artists' studios by 2014. As a friend said, "they will be washing the windows at the Gladstone every 15 minutes" as the GSSE/UPRL runs a continual, noisy wall of traffic within 100 meters of its designated heritage windows.

How is it that the City of Toronto has created a consultancy seat at MaRS for Richard Florida, author of 'Who's your City?', so that his views on developing the creative society are embedded in the urban fabric of the City of Toronto, yet Metrolinx, as 'an arms length agency of the provincial government', is intent upon destroying this creative society which adds so much to the cultural vibrancy of this city? How many events do the Gladstone and Drake host for the Toronto International Film Festival, music festivals, and visual artists? The value given to international visitors, and GTA residents, by the Queen West Arts District is immeasurable. All the venues which enable this area to thrive and grow, and for artists and filmmakers to work and live, should be protected by Metrolinx, not destroyed by the soot, vibration and noise of continuous diesel traffic. Heritage buildings will be eroded by the increased nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide, and lung capacity and quality of life of those who live in the cultural sector will be diminished in the path of these 464+ trains daily.

Europe has been combatting the erosion of the facade of their heritage buildings by smog for years - why would a project be allowed in the GTA which will hasten our built environment's deterioration when Europe uses electric trains to protect their residents' health and preserve their historic buildings? How are the environmental and cultural policies of the City of Toronto so progressive, and those of Metrolinx, thus the Province of Ontario, so retrogressive, and actively destructive to the GTA? To paraphrase Richard Florida, "Who is my province, Premier McGuinty, and how has Metrolinx been allowed to pollute our neighbourhoods, schools and creative communities?"

As currently drafted, the GSSE/UPRL is the worst case study of bad design in urban planning imaginable, and should be requisite study for every urban planning and design student as such. There has been no intelligent design in the planning of this corridor, and no consideration for communities, or their social and cultural capital. It appears as if an engineer sat down, drew a thick line on the pre existing corridor through neighbourhoods and communities, looked up from their drafting board 15 minutes later, and with a sigh, said 'done'. This is railway engineering - not urban planning- which puts the vibrancy and health of the cultural sector, heritage buildings and tourism at dire risk. Metrolinx has held several design charrettes for community feedback, such as those in Weston, and has acted in bad faith by agreeing to the community's input, but not including the revised design from the charrettes in their final version of their Environmental Project Report.

I teach animation, and I think of the famous last scene of 'Duck Amuck' by Warner Brothers. Daffy Duck has been put through his paces by an unseen animator controlling his every movement. He has been drawn and erased to be made into a screwball, placed on a tropical island, and suffocated by an encroaching black hole of an iris in, which envelopes him in darkness, and through which he pokes his head to plead for mercy from his tormentor. At the end of the short, the camera pulls out from the edges of the animation cel to reveal the drafting table, and who is the animator and director of his fate? His arch nemesis, Bugs Bunny.

Daffy Duck in this animated short reminds me of how I feel about Metrolinx. Here is a puppetmaster, Bugs Bunny, who is engineering my demise - the loss of value in my home, the degradation of my own health, and the health and welfare of the cultural communities and educational institutions around me - to privatize our public transit system to enable SNC-Lavalin to reap corporate profit. And the only recourse I have had is to protest to Metrolinx, who has provided an Environmental Project Report so skewed in its findings, our research scientists find it unintelligible in its analysis of basic statistical data about the diesel emissions, especially as fine particulate matter below 2.5 microns is not included in their data. How frightening is this? As scientific research is still in the process of discovering the exceptional toxicity of diesel emissions, a significant portion of its most potent toxic particulate matter is not included in the EPR as it is beyond the technical scope of current scientific measurement.

In addition, as part of Metrolinx's Environmental Project Review (EPR), only a portion of cultural venues and heritage buildings are listed in their study. Many more heritage buildings, artist run centers, and cultural venues, including those in Weston, Liberty Village and Mount Dennis, are not listed as they are not yet officially designated as heritage buildings or cultural centers of provincial importance.

If you would like to point out this omission, now is the time to do so. Those who protect these heritage buildings, and represent cultural venues, should add their properties and venues to be preserved to the official list by writing letters to the Ministers of Environment, Culture and Tourism to contest their exclusion in Metrolinx's EPR. For heritage buildings, it is helpful to include research on the adverse affects of pollution on their architectural structure.

Otherwise, the GTA stands to lose what is the heart of soul of its artistic and cultural life, and which is central to the vibrancy of our culture. Every urban planning and historical preservation society, architecture program, and educational institution which teaches urban planning and design and environmental science - such as Sheridan, OCAD, George Brown, and the University of Toronto - and their practitioners, professors, and students need to band together to protest this environmental travesty, which runs counter to the cultural and environmental goals of the City of Toronto, by writing letters to Premier McGuinty, and the ministers in charge of tourism, the environment, heritage and culture.

This GSSE/UPRL project is a profoundly thoughtless and destructive design by railway engineers and businessmen, not by urban planners.There is also a conflict of interest between an arms length provincial agency and the Environmental Assessment process. Metrolinx has commissioned the writing of the Environmental Project Review through environmental consulting firms of their choice, yet has previously established contracts with SNC-Lavalin to provide diesel infrastructure. Therefore, it is in their best interest to aggregate and analyze the environmental data to protect their previous investment in diesel infrastructure, and provide the lowest grade materials for building this infrastructure, despite maintaining the illusion of community input through charrettes and public consulting sites. Metrolinx will maintain the diesel status quo at any cost to the community they serve, despite the moral imperative of a government agency to protect the health of its citizens as its first priority. In effect, if diesel infrastructure is implemented, tax payers will be paying to have their health jeopardized, and their property devalued, which can become the basis of a potential class action suit if this project is implemented as designed, and residents' health along the corridor is compromised as a result.

Metrolinx has just signed the first part of the contract with SNC-Lavalin to ensure that they will build the infrastructure, but has not yet signed the second part, which determines which type of infrastructure will be used. There is still a very short time to determine that this future infrastructure is entirely electric, and that no more diesel infrastructure is purchased.

Those intent on protecting heritage buildings and developing social and artistic capital, please make your voices heard to Premier McGuinty, the Minister of Environment, John Gerretsen, Minister of Culture and Minister Responsible for Seniors, Aileen Carroll, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, Jim Moore, and Minister of Tourism, Monique Smith, Minister of Transport, Jim Bradley, before the analysis of the Environmental Project Review ends on August 31st by hard copy letters and email, and please carbon copy info@cleantrain.ca for our records. Just cut and paste following email addresses into your send box, (and address the email to the previously listed names): McGuinty.D@parl.gc.ca, minister.moe@ontario.ca, info.mcl@ontario.ca, jbradley.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org,info@pch.gc.ca, info@cleantrain.ca, Smith.m@parl.gc.ca

Our arts and culture community must demand 'Clean Air for Vibrant Cities' to protect the cultural heart and soul of our city - the Queen West Art District, and all of the historic properties and cultural venues along this rail corridor. We are very close to being too late to protect what the City of Toronto and the GTA has been determined to support, preserve and develop - our cultural and architectural identity. Please join us in asking: "Who is my province, Premier McGuinty, and why are you not interested in protecting us?"

Join the Clean Train Coalition in 'The Human Train, A March for Clean Air for Vibrant Cities', which will take place on Saturday, September 26th along the rail corridor. Details will be posted on this blog soon.

Favourite Quote of the Week: "Why Ride the Toxic Train in Toronto, when you can Ride the Wind in Calgary?" Quote by Joanne B., as posted on the Metrolinx Consulting Site.

References:

MaRS at http://www.marsdd.com/MaRS-Home.html, Richard Florida on the Creative Class at http://www.creativeclass.com/, and "Duck Amuck" Chuck Jones, Warner Brothers, 1953, 6:59, considered one of the greatest 50 cartoons of all times by critics at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WahJLv65S-U

Factual information on 'The Big Move' can be found in a brochure at Metrolinx's site at http://www.metrolinx.com/thebigmove/brochure/default.aspx

Going Electric in Metrolinxland

2009-07-23T06:03:00.000-07:00

The Clean Air for Little Lungs Stroller Parade was a resounding success! 450+ parents, toddlers, caregivers, supporters and grandmothers showed up to strut their stuff to Soli and Rob performing such classics as 'Peee...Uuuu...Metrolinx Stinx' and electrified variations of childhood favourites, 'Electric Avenue' and 'Dalton Blow your Horn', as well as their own anthem, 'Go Electric'.

Thank you to all who took time from their busy schedule to say 'no' to childhood asthma and diminished lung capacity. Your collective show of will is heartwarming and courageous in the face of an arm's length provincial agency, Metrolinx, which thinks that honouring a 1999 contract with SNC-Lavalin to run over 140 diesel trains for the Union-Pearson Rail Link through our neighbourhoods daily is more important than your children's health. We will win this outrageous contest of wills, and corporate backroom gladhanding, and this demonstration was ten large baby steps in the right direction.

During the speeches, Dr. Ian Clarke, from Sick Kids Hospital, said that the synergistic combination of nitrous oxide and particulate matter from diesel emissions would be 354% higher than permissible environmental standards. When he asked Metrolinx why they had not studied electric trains rather than diesel during one of their Open Houses, they said "Why would we do that? Everyone knows that electric trains are better for the environment."

In particular, electric trains are much better for the lungs of young children as they have no toxic diesel emissions. Children breathe twice as quickly as adults, as their metabolism is twice as fast. As a result, the development of their lung capacity is curtailed by the absorption of fine particulate matter from diesel emissions during their childhood for the remainder of their lifespan. In the words of Sophia Wong, one of the organizers of the Clean Air Little Lungs Parade, (and I have to admit, I was one of the others), "My child is two now. In fifteen years, when this rail corridor is slated to be electrified, and my child is seventeen, when he says that he is going to play soccer, I will have to remind him to take his puffer- if he can play soccer at all due to his asthma."

Meanwhile, our tax money has just paid for an 800 page analysis by Intrinsik, an environmental consulting firm, which says that the airshed of 300 000 people 'in the strike corridor' will be poisoned within legal limitations. After the cover page of their Air Quality Assessment Report as commissioned by Metrolinx, there is a disclaimer by Intrinsik stating that they cannot be held legally liable for the content of this report. Who wrote this disclaimer - the Red Queen from 'Alice in Wonderland'? This disclaimer, for me, says it all - Metrolinx will not be held responsible for polluting the lungs of the residents of Toronto as they are, first and foremost, a corporate entity fulfilling their corporate contracts and provincial mandate to save money in every way possible by implementing retrofitted diesel trains from the 1950s for the UPRL. Strike corridor, indeed, as we will breathe daily this airshed's adverse effects. Is this really a term generated from an Air Quality Assessment Report that is designed to protect the health of citizens, Premier McGuinty?

My second favourite Alice in Wonderland remark, other than the disclaimer by Intrinsik, is the quote by Brian Peltier, Metrolinx's executive lead of the project, published in The Sun, stating "That analysis showed very clearly that the impacts being talked about are just not there. I think it's really good news that we can do this rail expansion with very little impact on air quality." I would like to extend a sincere invitation to Brian Peltier to invest in a condominium being built within 30 metres of the strike corridor as so many have done without foreknowledge of this rail expansion. Developers have been told to redesign their blueprints to not to include windows in the first three floors of these new condominiums due to the amount of soot these floors will collect from this diesel rail traffic.

To their credit, Metrolinx has established a Community Advisory Committee for Electrification comprised of sixteen community appointees who have expertise in urban planning and development, workplace health, engineering, and social innovation. This is positive news, however, as this is the eleventh study for the study for electrification during this long, arduous process of protecting this diesel rail expansion in the most ludicrous, involved manner imaginable, it is a trifle suspect. Really, Lewis Carroll could not have dreamed of a Wonderland in which the general public has paid for an Air Quality Report which says that over 464 trains a day would make no difference to the noise and vibration levels and air quality as they pass directly beside their homes, as well as ten studies trying to prove that electric trains are not better than diesel.

I want to ask every executive at Metrolinx who has children and elderly parents, especially Brian Peltier - at what length would you go to protect your own health, and your family's future health, from this level of toxicity in your neighbourhood? And why are we, in the 416 region, paying your agency $5 million of our tax money to have you convince us that diesel emissions are not toxic because you want diesel trains to hurtle their way through our inner city neighbourhoods on their way to your suburban homes in the 905, without even stopping to pick us up?

Brian Peltier Quote Reference and Video of the Stroller Parade:

Toronto Sun 'Residents want train derailed:

Rally at Queen's Park to demand halt to use of diesel engines on planned Union-Pearson rail line'

By JONATHAN JENKINS, QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU at http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2009/07/20/10199731.html#/news/torontoandgta/2009/07/21/pf-10202501.html

"Clean Air for Little Lungs Stroller Parade": Monday, July 20th 10-11 am Queen's Park

2009-07-03T08:20:00.000-07:00

A Callout to Parents, Caregivers, their Supporters, and Children!

Event: "Clean Air for Little Lungs Stroller Parade"

When: Monday, July 20th, 10 - 11 am

Where: In front of the Ontario Legislature (Queen's Park)

Why: Parents say NO to over 400 dirty diesel trains a day running through our neighbourhoods. For the sake of our children's health, tell Premier McGuinty that electric trains are the only solution. Bring your kids and noisemakers.

Featuring a musical performance by children's entertainers, Rob and Soli of Alistair Ant Productions.

For more information, go to http://www.cleantrain.ca and register through the Clean Train Facebook site to the "Clean Air for Little Lungs Stroller Parade" invitation list to RSVP.

As an educator, I support the Clean Train Coalition's "Clean Air for Little Lungs Stroller Parade" as research has proven that diesel emissions can:

impair lung development and lung capacity in children
decrease school children's ability to learn and retain information
increase the incidence of childhood asthma

The recent Air Quality Assessment Report by Metrolinx admits that this GSSE/UPRL diesel corridor expansion will emit nitrous oxide levels far beyond legal limitations. There are 76 schools, 96 daycare centers, and 4 long term care facilities, (including one chronic respiratory care hospital), within 1 km of this expansion whose school children and elderly residents will be negatively affected by these tonnes of nitrous oxide and particulate matter emissions. Children are particularly vulnerable due to the small particulate NOx matter impairing the growth of their lungs and diminishing their future lung capacity.

Come and protect the future health of our children!

Diesel in, Diesel Out

2009-06-23T05:38:00.000-07:00

Vancouver gets Canada Line- an electric Air Rail Link for their 2010 Olympic Games which will open three months before schedule. Calgary gets a renewable energy-driven electric rail system, powered by wind turbines. Toronto gets a 145 page report, commissioned by Metrolinx, from an environmental consulting firm stating that our health will be damaged 'within established standards' by over 400 diesel trains a day running through our neighbourhoods. Diesel in, diesel out - garbage in, garbage out. If a report is written using the worst case diesel emissions data to generate air quality results, the worst case air quality assessment will have to be carefully skewed by those who write the report to justify the expenditure on diesel trains, and protect the 'necessity' for diesel emissions into our air, soil and water sheds. And don't forget our homes and lungs.

What gives? Don't we deserve a better, cleaner and quieter train system like the rest of Canada? And why can SNC-Lavalin work with InTransitBC in Vancouver to build an automated light rapid rail system, but not work to utilize the same electric train technology for the Georgetown South Service Expansion with Metrolinx in Toronto? Why is Metrolinx still commissioning Air Quality Assessment Reports on the implementation of a diesel train corridor in Toronto? Why would the same transit company, SNC-Lavalin, go back in time to use diesel trains in a private public partnership in Toronto, when SNC-Lavalin has proven expertise to build an electric train system in Vancouver in exactly the same capacity?

Let's look at this logistically. Our taxpayer's money is being spent by Metrolinx on an Air Quality Assessment Report that justifies this logic - since the west end of Toronto's air quality is so bad already, a 'negligible' increase of 15% air pollution is considered irrelevant as added to this region's air quality by this rail corridor. This includes the fact that these diesel trains will be the greatest source of emissions for nitrous oxide in all of Toronto, and that these standards are far beyond legal guidelines. If the west end of Toronto's socioeconomic population is considered at risk, as well as this region, one of the most polluted regions in all of Ontario, would it not be logical to protect this at risk population and region, rather than adding to present environmental stressors? Why would a diesel corridor even be considered to be built in a region which has the greatest number of 'sensitive receptors' - young children - per capita when this region's existing air quality is already benchmarked as the worst in Ontario?

Enough already, Metrolinx. Use the proven track record of SNC-Lavalin to build electric trains in Vancouver for the GSSE in Toronto. Improve upon what SNC-Lavalin has learned in Vancouver while building this electric train system to adapt it to specifically meet the needs of the GTA. Work with the municipal government's TransitCity to streamline this rail corridor so that it works as a comprehensive transit system which does not duplicate services, such as the Air Rail Link provided by the Eglinton LRT, but supports an easily accessible, clean, unified transit system for the people that matter most- the passengers and those who live near the corridor.

Time's a-wasting. Our health is worth more than yet another report.

References: Canada Line at http://www.canadaline.ca/ and their FAQs at http://www.canadaline.ca/aboutFAQ.asp

GSSE and UPRL EA - Human Health Assessment of Air Quality Impacts June 2009 Intrinsik Environmental Sciences Inc. Link to http://www.metrolinx.com/gsse/docs/GSSE_UPRL_EA-Human_Health_Assessment-Air_Quality_Impacts-Full_Draft_Report-June-09.pdf

At Risk Neighbourhoods and Sustainable Development

2009-06-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

According the June 3rd Toronto Public Health report, the population most affected by the air pollution that will be generated by the Georgetown/Newmarket/Milton/Air Rail Link corridors has a lower socioeconomic status and higher incidence of illness than much of the Greater Toronto Area. I know this area well, as it includes my beloved ward- Ward 18.

These diesel corridor expansions, as planned by Metrolinx to begin construction in 2010 and enter service in 2014, will add to the west end of Toronto's pre-existing stressors for additional illness through pollution. For this fact alone, the rail infrastructure expansion should be electric, not diesel, as it passes through these at risk and vulnerable neighbourhoods to undermine their health further. This should be especially true for corridors owned by GO Transit, either in its entirety (Newmarket), or part of the corridor (Georgetown from Bramalea to Union). Particulate diesel emission pollution is even worse than previously thought- current research is coming out which states that the fine particulate exposure of diesel emissions to lungs increases the amount of lung cancer and other disease and mortality rates. In children, it prevents lungs from developing properly as they grow up near these corridors.

Sustainable development involves the streamlining of infrastructure development according to best business practices for supplying need on demand - the additional track for the Air Rail Link for the Private Public Partnership (P3) should be examined to see if this ARL, and its exclusive track, fulfills a proven market need for the GTA and whether business travellers will use this link to the airport in the numbers required, and $20 cost, as part of its cost-benefit analysis environmentally and socially.

Metrolinx claims that this track is not exclusively for the ARL, but for VIA and GO Express, in addition to ARL, so that they can overtake local trains. However, the need for this ARL track needs to assessed as part of a transparent, public study of the infrastructure through a systems analysis. Metrolinx refuses to conduct such a study, however, on the dubious grounds of the ARL being a "legacy project." If this ARL does not serve essential purposes according to the results of this study, and if this additional track does not need to be built, this revised infrastructure plan will be able to minimize the amount and impact of this expansion for the at risk neighbourhoods by not having to build the additional ARL track. This will also save Metrolinx, hence taxpayers, money.

As this Air Rail Link is duplicated by the Eglinton LRT as part of the TTC's Transit City Light Rail Plan, this exclusive Air Rail Link and its track will probably not be necessary to be built at all, certainly not at its elitist fare at least, and this will help to minimize the extent of home acquisition and amount of rail traffic through this vulnerable corridor. An updated market analysis should be done by Metrolinx to provide information on prospective passenger statistics, including the fare and its impact on ridership, and including the TTC's Eglinton-Crosstown LRT as its competition, and to provide the real cost of electrifying all components of the corridor.

Whether the train corridor uses diesel as the worst case scenario, or uses electric, in the better case scenario, the goal of this infrastructure plan should be to streamline the amount of rail traffic and justify the extent of the expansion of the infrastructure so that the at risk region's health, air quality and property value's are not undermined further. The best case, most sustainable scenario would be to use electric trains, and streamline the amount of traffic according to passenger use to least affect this area at risk. Although this a regional transit initiative, there is no reason why Metrolinx cannot work with the City of Toronto to analyze their overlap in transit service to co-ordinate the GSSE/ARL/Milton/Newmarket corridors with Transit City's infrastructure planning to save money, co-ordinate components of the infrastructure design, and gain social credibility in the process.

It is also a far stretch to build an entire track for the Air Rail Link to honour a contract, written in the 1990s with SNC-Lavalin, to use retrofitted, 1950s diesel engines when the frequency of trips is not yet proven by recent market need. As these BUDD diesel engines are 50 years old, they have outdated environmental standards for noise, vibration and emissions. This Air Rail Link alone comprises 140 trips a day on this corridor. Surely, this Air Rail Link can be electrified, have fewer trips, and be incorporated into the greater GSSE rail expansion to be less intrusive, such as coupling to GO Trains at their nearest common station in the northwest if both are using the same model of train cars, which would cut Georgetown South traffic by almost half.

This makes a very strong case for GO Transit to be operating service to the airport instead of SNC-Lavalin, as the use of infrastructure becomes dramatically more efficient. This reduction in traffic is necessary to minimize the Air Rail Link's noise, vibration, and, through electrification, pollution on this at risk region to protect schools, nursing homes, parks and daycare centres. In any case, the Air Rail Link has already been given crippling competition by Transit City planning and no longer has any viable business case with SNC-Lavalin, so really should be abandoned as expensive and unnecessary, unless turned over to GO Transit and to use coupling/decoupling with its Georgetown services in the northwest part of the City.

In addition, Metrolinx has moved up the completion date of the ARL link to 2013 from 2014. This is cause for alarm as it indicates that they will use cost cutting measures which do not consider us- the affected communities- and means we must move quickly to contest the present, poorly planned design of the Air Rail Link.

A quote from 'The Big Move' by Metrolinx published in 2007: "We can protect and enhance our environment by helping to conserve energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and alleviate air pollution." As the market is approaching peak oil prices and availability, including speculation by some analysts that peak oil has already been hit but cannot be confirmed until about 5 years after the fact, diesel engines should be replaced by electric to conserve energy as electric trains use 1/4-to-1/3 the energy of diesel trains, and can use any source for electrical generation, with no air emissions into the corridor proper and surrounding vicinity.

There are many best case scenarios for the construction and use of inner city electric trains available through international consultation. Metrolinx is spending $5 million on the study of the electrification of the entire system, even though simultaneously refusing to release another GO electrification study completed just last year. Why is Metrolinx not consulting with internationally trained transit experts on the most streamlined and efficient systems and planning to develop this corridor's infrastructure to utilize electricity only? Metrolinx claims that as it stands, unless these principles of sustainable development, infrastructure improvement, and social urban planning policies are applied, the GSSE/ARL/Milton/Newmarket expansions do not fulfill any aspect of Metrolinx's own enviromental mandate. SNC-Lavalin is using electric trains for the Air Rail Link for the Vancouver Olympic games- surely, it can use electric trains in Toronto for the same purpose if this ARL is realized.

A special thank you to Karl Junkin from TRAC for fact checking, technical input, and help with editing this entry.

Reference: Article from ‘The Star’: On the wrong track, but still time to change trains, http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/644565

by André Sorensen, Associate Professor, Department of Geography,

University of Toronto Posted on Jun 03, 2009 04:30 am

Over 400 Diesel Trains a day will run beside 76 Schools

2009-05-28T18:24:00.000-07:00

In the Environmental Assessment as performed by Metrolinx, 'receptors', which are residences and families, along the corridor are viewed as less important than 'sensitive receptors', which are schools, daycare centers, and nursing homes. A family residence can also house young children and the elderly, so should be considered a 'sensitive receptor' as well, but this is an implicit admission that the projections of the toxicity of the environmental pollution will be very high as emitted by this diesel train corridor. The density of the population is 300 000 in 300 metres from the edge of this corridor, including a minimum of 30 000 school children, and 76 schools, daycare centers, nursing homes and parks. The second draft of the Metrolinx Environmental Assessment says that air quality is so bad in Toronto that a 15% increase in our air pollution is negligible as contributed by this diesel corridor - tell that to those who will wipe soot off their windowsills daily, and wonder how much of this has ended up in their lungs.

It is known that exposure to fine particulate matter in diesel emissions stunt the growth of young lungs so that they never reach full capacity, so electrifying the diesel train system in 15 years time to electric is not fast enough, as proposed by Metrolinx- these students will be a generation of young adults with impaired lung capacity. An environmental expert has gone on record to say that he would not live within 250m of this corridor as it increases all types of illness by 18% as the particulate matter is absorbed through the lungs into the blood stream to become heavy metals as an additional load for the kidneys to bear, and accumulate as bodily toxins permanently.

In my neighbourhood, the Newmarket and Georgetown corridors run directly beside the West Toronto Collegiate's running track. And I mean directly- the Newmarket corridor is beside the fence of the field, and the Georgetown is 75 meters from the Newmarket. So, as students have gym class, they will breathe the diesel emissions of both the Georgetown and Newmarket corridors, as well as the Air Rail Link, of up to 464 train trips daily, rushing by their playing field.

Tell me then- why is the federal and provincial government voluntarily, under the moniker of Metrolinx, with full, readily available environmental knowledge regarding diesel emissions, choosing to endanger the health of school children? And, as the City Council has a mandate to decrease greenhouse emissions by 80% by 2050, why is the federal and provincial government working deliberately against the municipal government's mandate? Why is the City Council not moving more quickly to actively protect Toronto residents and school children through *more* than strongly worded municipal bylaws? Why does the City Council view this as outside their jurisdiction when it will undercut the positive effects of their greening policies?

Will Metrolinx, by extension the the federal and provincial government, pay the difference in what our houses can sell for after this corridor is built as opposed to what they were worth before it was built? The immediate area around the rail corridor will quite possibly become a ghost town in parts of the west end as people choose to sell their houses and move away from the noise and the smell. Will MPAC, if the municipal government does not protect the interests of homeowners, give me a reduction on my rising property taxes as my property and quality of life are devalued? Will Metrolinx be willing to pay the additional burden of my own, and many others, rising health costs and sick days due to my proximity to the corridor, to OHIP?

And why is this diesel corridor being built in the first place when electric train engineering standards and specifications are readily available for electric trains and used throughout major cities in the world? New York's electric train system was successfully built in 1908, why is the GTA one hundred years behind?

There must be a reason why this irrational project is being pounded through the GTA, and I will discuss it on my next post.

For more information about this GSSE, please go to the Clean Train Coalition Site at http://www.cleantrain.ca and the Weston Community Coalition Site at http://westoncommunitycoalition.ca/

Industrial Corridor or Residential Neighbourhood?

2009-05-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

I just learned that the Environmental Assessment process was deliberately shortened from one and a half to three years down to four months by the federal government to enable this massive Metrolinx expansion to be pushed through quickly so that those along the corridor do not have time to fight its expansion, or its overriding plan to use diesel trains.

According to the Environmental Assessment as posted by Metrolinx, 65 000 households, or 300 000 people will be affected by the expansion of this rail corridor, which is defined by those living 300m from the tracks. As a result, the area directly beside that corridor was termed 'industrial' and not worthy of preservation. However, if we extend that distance to 1km, 112 000 households and 1.2 million people will be negatively affected. Is this corridor still considered an industrial corridor with these updated numbers of people in houses, schools, parks, and nursing homes, and how was it considered 'industrial' with the original estimate of 300 000 people affected?

A proper Environmental Assessment needs to ask this question: how do environmental scientists determine how far particulate matter spreads from 400+ diesel trains a day realistically? Computer projections, as used by Metrolinx, do not support natural events such as wind currents, smog and precipitation, and certainly not how pollution spreads in actual time and space.

I teach new media and interaction design to my students, and one of my favourite quotes was from the original German movement of Greenpeace - 'What is in the air today, ends up in our cornflakes tomorrow'.

To prove this quote, I showed them this lecture by Bill Moggridge, founder of IDEO, which demonstrates how an interactive globe, designed by Shinichi Takemura, works to visualize data. This globe, called 'Tangible Earth', was created to be one ten millionth the scale of the earth, and shows how pollution spreads in realtime data. As you watch this globe, you can see pollution spreading by wind currents from continent to continent as it is actually happening- from Russia over to North America over to the North Pole.

So, if we consider that the diesel emissions from these trains can travel up to 30 km according to statistics from the World Health Organization, which is a conservative estimate, shouldn't we all be supporting electric trains in Ontario? This pollution will not just be in my backyard, but the entire Greater Toronto Area if this diesel corridor is installed...why not make this corridor electric, with no emissions?

Video Reference:
Bill Moggridge at PICNIC08: Design as a Collaborative Process, link to http://vimeo.com/2814939 go to 17:05 for the demonstration of 'Tangible Earth'.

My Little House and 'NIMBYism'

2009-05-21T07:51:00.000-07:00

So interesting to see the word 'NIMBYism' ('Not in my Backyardism') come into play in the political arena, thrown at protesters as if it explains anything and everything. If I do not protect my backyard, who will? As I sit by my window and work in West Toronto, I hear the horns of trains, the pounding of the West Toronto Diamond piledrivers, and the overhead, converging flight of airplanes- all present sources of pollution, and harbingers of more pollution yet to come.

I wonder each morning as I wake up- if this massive diesel rail expansion comes to pass- how much will I hear of the traffic between 5:30 am and 12:30 am daily as the 400+ trains go through this corridor near my little house? How much soot will I have on my windowsill? Why will I have to breathe particulate matter for the rest of my life? And why am I, a citizen who is so careful with every, single environmental decision I make, have to eat the diesel dust of commuters from the 905? And why am I paying taxes to the federal and provincial governments for transit which will pollute my backyard and my home for the rest of my life?

NIMBYism is a term that should be valid only if you do not reply to the issue with an alternate solution- and the obvious solution, used internationally, is electric trains. This is why I am fighting with facts for the electrification of the Georgetown, Union-Pearson Rail Link and Newmarket corridors- this dust will be in my backyard, and in my home, and in my life forever, and there is a solution that is not even being considered by the present provincial and federal governments. And where, oh where, are the Toronto city councillors who spend an inordinate amount of time discussing road narrowing and speed bumps to 'green' the City of Toronto, when I need them to protect my rights as a resident and taxpayer?

Democracy and Metrolinx? No way.

2009-05-16T08:38:00.000-07:00

Fair Political Representation without Corporate Conflict of Interest, and Primary Health Prevention:

Canada is a democracy. As it is a democracy, residents of Toronto should have City Councillors as representatives on the Board of Directors of Metrolinx who express our grave concerns about this rail expansion in our neighbourhoods. Mayor Miller, who has worked so hard to implement greening measures in the City of Toronto, and Councillor Giambrone, the chair of the TTC, have been removed as our last representatives from Metrolinx' Board of Directors. Therefore, the residents of Toronto no longer have any representation for this project on Metrolinx at all.

By replacing Toronto's representatives entirely with Board of Directors on Metrolinx who actively represent the industrial, corporate interests of the rail expansion, these new Board of Directors have a direct conflict of interest with an unbiased Environmental Assessment and the democratic rights of the residents of Toronto to protect our quality of life and health. They will vote in favour of infrastructure implementation as their corporate interest.

Moreover, as primary prevention in the healthcare community becomes internationally accepted as the norm to prevent the creation of carcinogens at the source (in this case, diesel emissions), thereby future medical treatment, the federal and provincial governments are in direct conflict with their role as advocates for a healthy society. Will the federal and provincial government be prepared to carry the costs of medical treatments for the respiratory ailments that they have incurred in this rail corridor through these self-generated diesel emissions? Is it not contradictory that this corridor will put at risk children in parks and schools, hospitals nearby the tracks, and the elderly in nursing homes- all institutions that the government funds? Why would the federal and provincial government choose to undercut their support of federally and provincial institutions and faciliities by choosing to pollute the environment around the facilities that they have built and funded? This is an even greater conflict of interest of public interest with corporate investment, and indicates that the federal and provincial government no longer represents or protects its citizens.

Diesel Trains are so Yesterday: An Open Letter regarding the Metrolinx Corridor Expansion

2009-05-11T11:30:00.000-07:00

This is the first letter I sent to the Prime Minister, City Councillors, the MPs, and the MPPs, hence the tone. I was just starting to put all the facts together, and was horrified:

I am a Toronto resident who is very concerned about the expansion of the Georgetown corridor (including the Union-Pearson Rail Link) and Newmarket corridors using diesel trains. The construction on this project begins in 2010, and the Environmental Assessment process has been shortened to four months to be completed on July 30th.

This rail expansion should use electric trains to ensure that significant environmental concerns are resolved, and the expansion of this service does not merely shift the cause of pollution from highways to rail corridors. These rail corridors run beside schools, nursing homes, playgrounds and through residential neighbourhoods. The rights of the citizens who use these services, and live in these areas, should be considered as a major part of the Environmental Assessment process.

Also, the $875 million cost of this project is carried by taxpayers, and should be supported by those who will be affected most as the construction from the expansion disrupts neighbourhoods for years at a time. If the rail expansion is electric, the neighbourhoods will be more likely to support this massive project. The neighbourhoods will have difficulty dealing with the second disruption of their lives, if indeed, the rail corridor is to be electrified in 15 years as promised. Historically, it is rare that major public works are upgraded years after their construction, so this corridor should be built properly the first time as electric.

My specific concerns are as follows:

The hours of operation are cited as 5:30 am to 12:30 am each day. Due to these long hours, it is beholden to Metrolinx, and by extension the Government of Ontario and the Government of Canada, to ensure that these trains are quiet, efficient, and non-polluting, as these hours of business extend far beyond noise restrictions for normal business hours.

The data from the Environmental Assessment of the Georgetown and Newmarket corridors, and the Union-Pearson Rail Link, should be merged and considered as one study as these two corridors, and the rail link, are contained within the very small, area of study entitled 'The Davenport Diamond' by Metrolinx. The Environmental Assessment should consider the proximity of these corridors south of Dundas, and include both lines of the rail expansion and UPRL as part of the overall environmental impact concurrently. Metrolinx has said that they will consider these Environmental Assessments separately, although these corridors are in the same neighbourhood. This does not seem to lead to conclusive data.

Diesel trains create significant CO2, NOx and SO2 and particulate matter emissions. Neighbourhoods are willing to accept the increased traffic (at a projected 300 - 500 trains a day) for the common good, but are legitimately concerned on the effect of this air and noise pollution on their health, welfare, and businesses.

The Metrolinx report states the diesel emissions will affect only 500m from its origin, but as the City of Toronto, and the GTA has become more dense in population, this is affects a very large area and population. The Metrolinx report has not updated its data on the population affected by the expansion to be up-to-date.

Urban planners and transportation analysts also know that traffic expands given the avenues available to it, and that the increased traffic on the rail corridor, airports and highways, will impact the quality of air in Ontario for generations to come. As a result, it should be imperative to construct an electric train now to attempt to offset the carbon emissions of the rail corridor component of this transportation expansion. There will be more than enough adverse environmental affects with the increasing airport and highway traffic in the future of the GTA.

Most countries in the world are developing completely electrified rail systems- including India and the United States- and Canada, as a wealthy nation, should be one of them. Why are we considering a technology which is far behind the TTC street car- an electric train which is already in successfully used throughout the City of Toronto? This rail corridor should set an environmental precedent for transit initiatives to come, as the Lakeshore GO train will be electrified in the near future, and so that these corridors are consistent with the American rail system.

Why is Metrolinx, and by extension the provincial and federal government, not performing international 'best practice' case studies of inner city and suburban transit initiatives to try to mitigate the environmental repercussions of this rail expansion on the GTA? There is nothing 'sustainable' about diesel trains, as cited in the Metrolinx report- just retrograde.

TransitCity, as projected by the City Council of Toronto, has proposed a GO train as the fixed link to Pearson Airport- why are SNC-Lavalin's 140 a day, two engine, refurbished 1950s diesel engines considered as a viable, environmentally sound alternative to the LRT as proposed by the City Council to be provided by the GTA, SNC-Lavalin's proposal was written in the 1990s, and is no longer valid as a solution to this rail link by targeting a limited market for the business class.

It is very important that the projected ridership on this rail corridor is studied in detail, and at this time, for its actual market need, and monitored as it is implemented, so that there is not empty space and excess capacity on these trains. The rail corridor should be also monitored and assessed frequently as it is used, so that its implementation and use are consistent with its environmental and social 'Return on Investment'. This rail corridor should not create more air and noise pollution from its traffic than it offsets.

In conclusion, as global warming continues as the most pressing concern internationally, it imperative that every major infrastructure project is considered with great intelligence, foresight and environmental analysis. This project is of the magnitude of the Big Dig in Boston, which wreaked havoc on Boston for years. Therefore, it is better that more planning and analysis is applied to these infrastructure plans before the project is built, as the cost of this project environmentally will be carried by the generations who live in Ontario for decades to come.

Ultimately, if this rail expansion is made electric, there will be even more jobs created for Ontario workers, and opportunities created for companies, as part of the greening research and development initiatives internationally. This advanced technology and intellectual property can then be exported to become a positive part of our legacy and international corporate reputation.