[SD2]

Royson James, as expected, is having an Anti-Miller field day:



Squabbling sinks Expo bid

Nov. 3, 2006. 06:05 AM
ROYSON JAMES
CITY HALL COLUMNIST

Nov. 2, 2006 was a quintessential Toronto day — exposing our mayor as a toothless, ineffective leader and our city as a powerless wimp.

Mayor David Miller got slapped down on the Island airport. And the city's vision of bidding to host Expo 2015 was rendered dead in the water, abandoned by the Stephen Harper Conservatives and the Dalton McGuinty Liberals.

The World's Fair was to deliver more action on waterfront revitalization than any platform plank Miller's promised in this municipal election. Still, Miller yesterday seemed more upset about the Island airport setback than he did about the death of the bid that promised $5 billion in taxes and 215,000 jobs.

The doom and gloom is strangely familiar.

Shortly before noon, a federal report dismissed all beefs against the Island airport operation and the planned bridge and backed the $35 million settlement paid to airport planners after Miller led city council in 2003 to kill the proposed link from the Toronto mainland to the island.

Miller had said killing the bridge would cost nothing, then amended the liability to a toonie. So when airport operator Robert Deluce pocketed the bulk of the $35 million, Miller cried foul and suggested the Toronto Port Authority improperly paid off the airline promoter.

The independent report prepared for the federal government dismissed all complaints and grievances, leaving Miller to fume that it was not worth the paper it's written on.

Then, shortly after noon, the other kick in the groin. Toronto's hopes to host the World's Fair in 2015 died without even a bid, an embarrassment of international proportion.

Having bid and lost contests to host two Olympics and two World's Fairs since 1990, Toronto couldn't even get to the starting gate this time.

"It's one thing to get your ass kicked in a bid against other cities, but to not even get into the game? That's embarrassing," said one bitter bid organizer.

And our mayor, seeking re-election on a slogan of "Great City," was left flailing away yesterday, a pathetic figure of weakness, unable to convince his friends at Queen's Park to backstop the bid, and incapable of getting his Conservative enemies in the federal government to take a swipe at their Liberal political foes for setting up the port authority and overseeing the $35 million settlement.

Don't be confused.

If ever the stage was set for Miller to have his way on the Island airport, this was it.

He'd campaigned in 2003 on stopping the planned bridge to the airport (Most voters thought he meant he would also close the airport, but he'd only campaigned against airport expansion and the bridge would lead to expansion so it shouldn't go ahead, he argued).

The port authority, a federal agency in charge of the Island airport, just before the election, approved the bridge. Miller won the election, got city council to stop the bridge, the bridge backers sued — and the port authority negotiated a $35 million settlement.

Miller and airport opponents cried foul. They said the Liberals in Ottawa were propping up the airline by approving such a huge settlement.

Propitiously, the Liberals were ousted by the Harper government and supporters petitioned Harper to study the settlement, which he did and reported yesterday.

Island airport haters opined that the Harper Conservatives would slam the federal Liberals and the port authority and Toronto would rid itself of what the mayor considers "a rogue agency."

Well, Toronto couldn't even secure that. On almost all points of contention, Roger Tassé's report sides with the port authority.

That the mayor seemed more miffed at the setback on the waterfront than the Expo loss shouldn't surprise. How many times has Miller been seen drumming up support for the Expo bid?

The provincial Liberals — their hands covered with Toronto's blood on this file — yesterday claimed that Miller never made Expo a priority with them, even though they've repeatedly told the city and Expo bidders, in private, that they could not afford to be the sole financial backer of the bid.

It doesn't matter if that is spin or not. We know Expo — despite its promise of more than 200,000 jobs and six months of economic activity — wasn't near the top of the mayor's agenda. In the months and weeks leading to the deadline to submit the bid, nary a word of concern escaped his lips until a few reporters started digging around.

Can you imagine ex-Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau allowing his city's face to be rubbed in the dirt like Toronto's was in this Expo fiasco?

Miller's supporters will claim he was in there fighting away the night before the bid died. But where was he a month ago, two months ago, three months ago, when the province had clearly said it cannot afford to pick up the anticipated Expo deficit and the federal government insisted it would not, despite its $13 billion surplus?

Citizens know when mayors are excited and passionate about an event. They promote and prance and raise hell, ensuring they are heard. We don't have this here.

McGuinty? Apparently, he likes the Expo idea. Just not enough to support it with real cash. So, thanks for nothing, Mr. Premier.

And Stephen Harper and the feds? Well, you know how much they love Toronto. Nothing expected, nothing delivered.

We know. Cities are creatures of the province. A mayor has no real power — except as he can rally citizens behind a cause and make it politically uncomfortable for those who would harm his constituents. But you have to put up a real and effective fight, no?

A decade hence, when we are gripped in a recession and workers are pining for one of those Expo jobs and our governments are hurting for tax dollars, we might remember today.

A $4 billion Expo deal went off the rails and few seemed to care. Welcome to my world, Toronto the rudderless.



www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs...8793972154

 

[SD2]

Political finger pointing after failed Expo bid

Nov. 3, 2006. 01:00 AM
JIM BYERS
CITY HALL BUREAU

The morning had been largely positive. Telephone lines between Toronto, Queen's Park and Ottawa were burning. Offers and counter-offers were flying around cyberspace. The city had trimmed the proposed costs for a Toronto World's Fair in 2015, and the warring federal Tories and Ontario Liberals had seemingly sheathed their knives.

In Ottawa, a senior federal bureaucrat was practically standing in front of a fax machine, ready to push a button and send a letter to the Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) saying that Toronto, Ontario and Canada were a "go" for 2015. The bid was due in Paris at noon Eastern Standard Time, and at five minutes to 6 p.m. Paris time, a part of the day when any self-respecting Parisian would be sipping a glass of wine at the local bistro, a Toronto Star reporter called the BIE.

"We're all still here" waiting for the fax from Canada, said Federica Busa, an assistant to the secretary general of the BIE. "They told us to stay late."

The BIE was said to be praying for a Canadian bid for Expo 2015, hoping it would spur America's flagging interest in World's Fairs. It had bids in hand from Izmir, Turkey and from Milan, but it was Canada they were hankering for. Everything seemed to be in place for a Toronto win that would, perhaps, erase some of the sting from losing bids for the 1998 and 2000 Expos and from dropping the ball on the 1996 and 2008 Summer Olympics.

Instead, it all came apart. What looked like a sweet vibe at 9 a.m. was suddenly sour. By 11 a.m., the parties in the talks were finding excuses to take extended visits to the washroom. At 1:15 p.m., an hour and 15 minutes after the deadline, Mayor David Miller stepped in front of a microphone and said it was all over. A few hours later, the final Expo update from the city's 2015 bid group was sent out, the final words hanging over the bid like a grim epitaph: "Best of Luck to Izmir and Milan."

The mayor, perhaps thinking of future favours he'll no doubt be seeking, would only say it was unfortunate and that the current provincial-federal game of the Hatfields and the McCoys didn't help matters. But it didn't take long for fingers at Queen's Park to turn to the nation's capital and to city hall. Not surprisingly, the digits in Ottawa were pointing back at Queen's Park.

"The government was prepared to commit up to $600 million in support for the Expo and to support Toronto," Heritage Minister Bev Oda said in the House of Commons. "Toronto's bid for Expo is dead because the Ontario government would not do its part."

Provincial sources said they were "flabbergasted" that last-ditch talks between Ottawa and the city failed. Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara said he thought a deal had been reached in a conference call two days ago.

Sources Wednesday night said it was thought all three parties would agree to a deal to send the bid to Paris yesterday without firm financial details, and they'd hammer out a deal over the next few months. "We negotiated in good faith with all the financial issues on the table," said Sorbara. "I said there was no need to resolve this question today and that certainly from Ontario's perspective of its finance minister we would be willing to sit at the table and be involved in those good faith negotiations and I thought that's where we were going to land and a letter would be submitted on that basis."

"The federal government wanted `X' wording and the provincial government wanted `Y' wording, and we ran out of time," said an Expo source. "It was a pathetic display."

The source said one of the major problems was a lack of public spirit or a political champion to push the Expo agenda. Ottawa sent senior officials to meetings, he said, but didn't put its strongest ministers in charge. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty was relatively supportive, he explained, but some provincial cabinet members didn't like the bid and Tourism Minister Jim Bradley was reluctant to fight back. The mayor worked the phones in the final days but didn't come out strongly in favour of a bid that would have helped his labour constituency, he said. "He's more interested in spending his time with 30 protestors at the island airport."

A source at Queen's Park told the Star's Kerry Gillespie that Miller didn't call McGuinty directly on the bid until just a few days ago.

Toronto Councillor Brian Ashton said the fair would have cost $4.3 billion but would have created 215,000 jobs and brought in more than $5 billion in taxes. Ashton said the city had been operating under the assumption for months that the province would pick up a deficit projected at $700 million to $2.2 billion. The city whittled that down to $400 million over the last few days, he said, but it still wasn't enough.

The federal government said from day one it wouldn't help with a deficit, but did come up with $600 million for infrastructure improvements on the port lands, where the Expo was to be based. Ottawa said the province should pick up an Expo deficit, just as B.C. has agreed to pay for any deficit arising from the 2010 Winter Olympics.

"I'm crushed," said Ashton, who led failed Metro Toronto bids for the 1998 and 2000 World's Fairs. "We're personally disappointed that back in the early summer we weren't given an indication that the province saw a financial backstop as something they could not entertain alone. It wasn't until last night when we attempted to cobble together the three stakeholders into a financial backstopping of $400 million... that it fell apart."

Ashton said other provinces have no problem supporting big projects in their cities. "A lot of our needs and our demands just are not understood at Queen's Park and they're not met," he said. "A lot of the policies in Ontario are made on the rural porches and not in the major cities.

Miller said a World's Fair would have been "a terrific opportunity first of all to expedite revival of the port lands and secondly to put Toronto, Ontario and Canada on the world stage in a way that would've made us all proud."


www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs...&t=TS_Home

 

[SD2]

Hume's take:

City victim of dysfunction

Nov. 3, 2006. 01:00 AM

Long before it collapsed yesterday at the eleventh hour, Toronto's World's Fair bid had turned into an exhibition of why Canada doesn't work.

The unseemly squabbling between Ottawa and Queen's Park, both of whom made it clear they wanted nothing to do with the proposal, had most likely already eliminated Toronto from contention. But beyond that, the bickering revealed just how badly this country is run.

Canadian unity remains as much an issue as ever, though now the battles are between governments, not English and French.

The cities fight the provinces, which in turn are fighting the federal government, which is fighting back against both. The only thing that comes close to uniting the country is its deep and abiding hatred of Toronto. Even in Ontario, the dislike of Hogtown makes it next to impossible for the city to be treated fairly, let alone intelligently, by Queen's Park. (If Toronto gets something, then what about Thunder Bay, Timmins or Moosonee?)

Though some would argue that World's Fairs are a thing of the past, Canadian self-loathing has a bright future ahead.

Intergovernmental fighting now forms the substance of political dialogue in this country. Whether it's Newfoundland, Alberta or Ontario, literacy programs, resource revenues or the fiscal imbalance, Canada is a country at war with itself.

Though more embarrassing than usual, Toronto's 2015 World's Fair debacle rates as little more than just another skirmish in an ongoing struggle.

The losers are ultimately Canada, Canadians and Canada's cities, not just Toronto, which must rely on the so-called "senior" levels of government then get caught in the crossfire when the big boys clash.

Yet in the 21st century, when the rush to urban centres is unprecedented, still Canada carries on as if nothing has changed in the last few decades.

It's becoming increasingly obvious that the idea of Canada, as opposed to the reality, is strictly 19th century. The disproportionate powers of the national government, the outdated concept of the provinces and the lack of recognition of cities are symptomatic of a system of governance that disappoints regularly.

As has been repeatedly pointed out in recent years, cities here remain legislatively impotent and chronically under-funded. They are the great generators of wealth, culture and social cohesion, but they get a paltry 5 cents of every tax dollar.

By contrast, Ottawa get 55 cents. While the central government racks up enormous surpluses — $13 billion this year — our cities fall deeper and deeper into debt.

But where do these surpluses come from? Overwhelmingly from taxpayers who live and work in cities.

This impoverishment of and contempt for Canada's cities is indefensible, ignorant, destructive, and perhaps even fatal to the country, especially one that takes its continued prosperity for granted.

No one would claim that the failure of Toronto's World's Fair bid will push Canada over the edge. But that's hardly the point; what's so alarming is that it shows we have reached a level of dysfunction where any kind of concerted Canadian effort is impossible. It's every man, every government, for himself.

Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty may be smirking today but the loss is as much theirs as ours. This is what they have failed to grasp. It's not Toronto versus Ontario, Ontario versus Canada. We are all in this together.

Cutting off your city to spite your country is not just childish but ruinous. The Prime Minister's task, and the premier's, is to serve cities, to help them build adequate public transit, re-invest in their infrastructure, construct housing, and give them the tools they need to prosper. In short, their main task is to ensure Canadian cities achieve the greatness of which they are capable. As the cities go, so goes Canada. Left-wing, right-wing, Liberal, Conservative, New Democrat, it doesn't matter; there is no other way.

The pettiness of our leaders, the smallness of their vision, their lack of intelligence and understanding, the utter self-serving nature of their behaviour; these are the threats to Canada, not the loss of a World's Fair.


www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs...9483202845

 

[adma]

Y'know, there's a nice coincidence about the World's Fair bid collapsing simultaneous w/the opening of Borat

 

[tudararms]

"Making a statement just 24 hours before the deadline after being mute on the subject for months when discussions where taking place is not coming through..."

Not at all, this is the very definition of 'coming through'. Federal approval should simply have been a rubber stamp, awaited by Miller and Dalton. I agree that the feds probably knew there was little support for it here, so why not force the issue and leave the ball in the hands of the province?

"It's a political move to make it look like they care about Toronto and promise money only when they can be assured the project was dead."

Of course it is a political move. They don't care about Toronto and we already know that; but that is not the reason why Toronto lost Expo. As you said the project was 'already dead'. There has been a pervasive lack of interest in Toronto to begin with (just read back through this thread for starters), lukewarm support from the Mayer, and a complete lack of interest from the Premier. The fact is we shouldn't have expected much more from the feds than an 11th hour approval, but we should have expected much, much more from the Mayer and Queen's Park!

"...People seem so quick to blame the government(s) but why is it all their fault?"

You seem quick to let them off the hook. Expo was an opportunity to roll the dice and invest in our city, to generate and secure money from the governments , to create jobs and boost the economy, to encourage development and much-needed improvements to infrastructure, and to promote the city on an international scale. Aren't these things the responsibility of governments, all levels?

 

[SD2]

Not at all, this is the very definition of 'coming through'. Federal approval should simply have been a rubber stamp, awaited by Miller and Dalton. I agree that the feds probably knew there was little support for it here, so why not force the issue and leave the ball in the hands of the province?

I'd have to disagree. It's just a political move to place them in good stead in the mind of the voting public. Really "coming through" would've been pledging some real support long before the deadline.

Of course it is a political move. They don't care about Toronto and we already know that; but that is not the reason why Toronto lost Expo. As you said the project was 'already dead'. There has been a pervasive lack of interest in Toronto to begin with (just read back through this thread for starters), lukewarm support from the Mayer, and a complete lack of interest from the Premier. The fact is we shouldn't have expected much more from the feds than an 11th hour approval, but we should have expected much, much more from the Mayer and Queen's Park!

How can you say they 'came through' and then admit it was nothing more than a political move?

You seem quick to let them off the hook. Expo was an opportunity to roll the dice and invest in our city, to generate and secure money from the governments , to create jobs and boost the economy, to encourage development and much-needed improvements to infrastructure, and to promote the city on an international scale. Aren't these things the responsibility of governments, all levels?

I agree.

 

[building babel]

Most people I know just groan when the usual suspects ( the business community, or politicians ) trot out the usual grandiose schemes - expo, olympics - every few years. Then we get on with our lives. The genesis of all this glee club boosterism lies more with ego, vote-getting, or financial gain than with anything else, surely?

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

Agree with Babel on this one. Be careful what you wish for.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I think the disheartening thing about the whole Expo fiasco isn't so much so the issue of hosting the event or not, but how the interests of the city is being used as a political football between the Province and the Feds.

AoD

 

[maxy505]

^Yeah, it is completely shocking and unprecedented. (that is to say, I am also disheartened)

I would like to see the Federal government stay completely out of municipal affairs (expo, olympics, and especially transportation). The rest of the country should not have a veto on where and how we spend money within the province, nor should they have to pay for our follies. It just becomes that much harder to get an agreement with a third government at the table -- and then there's the issue of balancing projects evenly across the country.

It would be much simpler and fairer for the feds to give each province some per-capita "Mad Money" for us to invest or piss away as we please.

 

[andreapalladio]

Andy Barrie had whichever councillor was the booster in chief on this morning, and while he was whingeing about how this eliminates our chance of having "iconic buildings" and the "new Sydney Opera House" on the waterfront, I was chanting "Sunsphere! Sunsphere!" into the scrub brush.

 

[allabootmatt]

I hate to say it, but Hume is dead right: this is about more than Expo, but rather about the fact that, incredibly, one of these pathetic intergovernmental turf wars can derail a worthy project.

I don't want to overdramatize this, but I'm currently coming to a point in life at which, for various reasons, I can choose to return to Canada from expat life (US/UK), or stay abroad. BS like this Expo thing makes me much more reluctant to do so. It's just so incredibly amateur, and symbolic of problems in both Canadian society and politics that are much, much deeper than a World's Fair (or, for that matter, an underwater transit tunnel). Canada eats its young like no country I have ever seen.

 

[andreapalladio]

Ah, but was this a worthy project?

The purpose of the fair, other than "Hey, lets have a worlds fair!" was never really articulated. It may be that whichever government gets the blame should really get the credit for not agreeing to sink money into another Knoxville or New Orleans, or at best one of the non-event Worlds Fairs that have been held since then.

 

[MetroMan1000]

Word is coming from Italy that Milan has won by default as Izmir's bid has been rejected.

This was Toronto's for the picking. I'm going to be bitter about this forever.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

"Ah, but was this a worthy project?"

Well, now we're never gonna get a DRL, so...yeah, kind of.