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GraphicMatt said:
But "doing nothing" inevitably means taxes must increase, doesn't it? Unless society decides it's cool with raising poverty levels (esp. among seniors) and old bridges falling down.
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No, it doesn't. The city has ongoing budget for all those things and inflation is very tame for the foreseeable future. I highly doubt under Rob Ford you will see new money for them, but "doing nothing" almost means he wouldn't be able to cut existing budget.

And I suspect Rob Ford is perfectly cool with raising poverty levels. He would tell them, "Do you have a job, sir? I'll give you a newspaper to find a job, like everyone else has to do between 9 and 5." :)
 
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Torontovibe said:
First of all, nothing stays the same. Cities are always changing and even if Ford doesn't change a thing, the city will still grow and change. If traffic is not dealt with, if public transit is left to fester and new services are not designed to serve the growing population, life in this city could nosedive. Our public transit system cannot bear larger crowds without new subways or LRTs. So even though policies might stay the same, the condition of the city wont. We already have the worst traffic in North America! (and you want inaction?)

Another thing is debt. Rob Ford won't raise the tax burden? He claims he will cut all kinds of revenue streams for the city. His cuts to the "Gravy Train" might not add up to much. Now let's say after Ford keeps all his promises, things just don't add up. (we all know he is not good on facts & figures) If it's true, what I have read on here, that legally, the city cannot run up a deficit, then what else can Ford do but raise taxes, if we end up short on cash? (and blame someone else for giving him the wrong figures) It's very possible that if Ford miscalculates, that he will be forced to raise taxes.

Mind you, I am not an expert at finance, so it's just a theory. :) Do I have a valid point?
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I really don't think Ford will raise taxes. That's just not Ford. He is like a child, he will never let go his reputation as the penny pincher. He will simple stop hiring and fire everybody that he could fire. The service may deteriorate, but that's the point.

As I said, we know where Rob Ford stands. George Smitherman might be able to come up with elaborate excuses to raise taxes, Rob Ford is not that sophisticated. Yes, I think he is lying when he promised the subway. Let's face it, Rob Ford wants everybody to drive, he only did it to discredit streetcars. However, I don't think he is lying when he is talking about taxes. He is genuine as angry as those who are voting for him. Rob Ford has been fighting taxes and perks for over 10 years, there's no reason to think he will change now. It's the other things I am worried about. I fully expect transit city will be gone if he is elected, which would be a shame. And you are right, I suspect the condition of the city will deteriorate, the question is where. Sherborne Common abandoned? I don't give a damn. I'd rather have natural grasses there than a man made water feature besides a vast lake. Road not being maintained, that would be bad.
 
EnviroTO said:
You are forgetting the city's assets. If he sells Toronto Hydro, other city properties, new street cars, a small park to two, reduces maintenance, etc. that will give him money to run an artificially balanced budget.
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I doubt he will sell Toronto Hydro. He is not Rossi. Other city properties (those that does not generate income) and street cars are fair game. I am not sure who is going to buy a small park, but if there's a buyer then why not? And maintenance will be reduced for sure. What's artificial with that? That's part of running a balanced budget. Reduce non-performing assets and keep the performing ones. Companies do that all the time. Non-performing employees will be let go too. The kicker is non paying customers will be written off. Let's see who are the non-paying customers of the city? :)
 
Torontovibe said:
You can't say 1 billion was wasted on EHealth. Some of the money might not have been well spent but EHealth itself, is a pretty important thing, which I found out recently when I had a health scare. The doctor, in emergency, asked me important questions that I could not answer. (I wasn't planning a trip to hospital) Within minutes, he had the information, thanks to EHealth. It even had the new medication I was taking but could not remember the name of. That is very important information in emergencies. I really didn't know the implications of EHealth, until the doctor told me how important it was, that day.

Contrast that to just a few years ago when I had a very serious operation and it took over 2 weeks for my doctor to get my health info.

Let's say you are hit by a car, in serious condition and unconscious. The doctor can now search to see what past health issues you had, if you have any allergies to medication or what medication you are taking, that could conflict with other medications. One day EHealth could save your life. That is not a waste of a billion dollars. It obviously could have been done for a lower cost but it still would have been pretty expensive, as all medical files had to be put online. Can you imagine how labour intensive that is? It costs serious money.

It's funny, you never hear anybody talking about how important EHealth is, you only hear the criticism.
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Computers are funny machines. They are not intuitive and creative. You ask a computer "Is there a gas station close by?", it will happily tell you the closest gas station even if it's already closed. You ask it "Can you pass the salt?", it will say "I have that capacity" and then do nothing.

However, computers are very good with data. And thanks to private companies, we already got many mature databases and several of them are free. If ehealth is only about patient data management, then I can code it up in a month. It's that simple.

Yes, data input will be very labour intensive, but you don't need $300/hour consultant to do that. You probably don't want to hire me to do it either. If each patient costs more than $1, you need to find better contractors. If you hide the names and then send them to India or China, I think it will cost much less than that. And if you just scan the damn things in, it will be even cheaper. (I actually suspect that's exactly what they did). You can go ask your doctor and see whether he has to read your file rather than just search it.

I think ehealth is very important, I just don't think it should cost more than 100 million dollars. And that's being very generous. (Don't tell me other provinces spent more, that's no excuse).

Now, I understand George Smitherman probably don't know computers and he might be lied to and over charged. This kind of the thing happens. However, $1 billion? That's ridiculous. It's like you went to buy a Corolla and the sales team said this wonderful self propelling machine is going to cost $1 million and you just handed them the cash.

And then he didn't take any responsibility. He didn't stand up for his colleague. He let another person taking the fall for him. Is that a man with integrity would do?
 
EnviroTO said:
If he sells Toronto Hydro, other city properties, new street cars, a small park to two, reduces maintenance, etc. that will give him money to run an artificially balanced budget.
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How does selling capital assets to fund operating expenses for 2-3 years balance the budget? The tax hike after the capital money has been burned will be huge.

I'm not even sure how selling the $1-billion of streetcars will save money. They'll likely have to take a big hit on them; and the province will likely want a refund of the $333 million or so that they contributed, if they simply get sold without being used. So assume they can only recover 2/3 of the cost, they cash they received would be about $333 million. But at the same time, we'll need 800 buses to replace them - that's $400 million right there (or more if Ford keeps his promise about them being Green), and another $400 million for 4 new bus garages (assuming there has been no inflation since the last one was built).

Seems to me that selling the streetcars would put us down by $0.5 billion.
 
There seems to be an assumption here that if Rob Ford got in he'd be able to do all these things. It's not as if we're voting for the President of Toronto here or that Ford can act unilaterally.
 
We shouldn't overstate or understate the powers Ford would have as mayor - while he certainly wouldn't be able to do anything he wanted, he would have enough power to do some damage.

Take streetcars, for example. It's unlikely he'd ever have the votes in council to remove downtown streetcar routes. He could, however, put an anti-streetcar councillor in the TTC chair position who could cut maintenance and service back on these routes. Give it a few years of intolerable service and public support will turn against streetcars.
 
The more I think about it, the more it seems like he will not have any power whatsoever.

He has no vision, no leadership abilities, would never build any concensus, and no real platform to build upon. He has no real allies on council and is unlikely to gain a lot. Giorgio Mammoliti may have endorsed Ford but Ford has already endorsed a different candidate in Mammoliti's ward. Even his somewhat-allies (Holyday, Minnan-wong) are being very cautious about being associated with him. I seriously doubt he'll have enough hardcore support to even populate his executive comittee.

He could ask TTC to study removing streetcars. The study would either recommend keeping them, or it would disappear into that never-never land deadend TTC studies go to.

He could cut funding, but it would affect suburban routes as well the rest of council is aware that service cuts are political suicide. It would never pass.

I was looking through the most recent Our Toronto which features a picture of David Miller making an announcement at the TBM factory when they purchased the Eglinton tunnelling machines. It really struck home: Rob Ford would never do anything like that, Rob Ford has no vision whatsoever, whether you like transit city or not, you would never ever see him making that sort of announcement for a massive city-changing project. Same thing with the new Sherbourne Commons Park. You'd never see Rob Ford at that sort of ribbon-cutting.

My own hope right now is that the Fordites will either take a win for granted and not bother voting, or will have a last-minute "do I really want to vote for this guy" moment at the polling station.
 
^^ Ford has said he would do little to no travel as Mayor. Forget about Toronto being a worldwide leader on any front.
 
King of Kensington said:
There seems to be an assumption here that if Rob Ford got in he'd be able to do all these things. It's not as if we're voting for the President of Toronto here or that Ford can act unilaterally.
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By himself he can't do it but he is getting together a coalition to promote and get, elected like-minded councilors. Take that, with the mood of Toronto right now, and it might not be good news. Also, the councilors will want to sit on boards and since Ford will choose them, a lot more might be influenced by his power.
 
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Global Toronto is advertising they will have results of a new poll tomorrow.
 
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