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Toronto Council expenses soar

In recession, spent more in last 3 months of 2008 than other 9

http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2009/03/18/8789391-sun.html

Councillor Rob Ford says he's "appalled" and "embarrassed" by the spending habits of his colleagues with taxpayers' money.

Records posted on the city's website show councillors claimed $1.6 million in expenses from their taxpayer-funded office budgets.

They include private French lessons, public speaking coaching, video cameras, Christmas party catering, a GPS unit for a car, and a $9.48 bottle of Advil bought by Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone, who joked the job gives him headaches.
 
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Spending Spree At City Hall

Wednesday March 18, 2009
CityNews.ca Staff

It appears that many councillors at City Hall went on a spending spree in the last three months of 2008 - and they did it on your dime.

Councillor Rob Ford alleges that many of his co-workers spent more in that quarter than they did in the first nine months of the year, just as the rest of Toronto (and the world) was coping with a crumbling economy.

Ford is well-known for his penny-pinching ways. In February, he argued against a property tax hike, saying that if council trimmed its budgets, the move would be unnecessary.

"I think it's completely unnecessary," Ford outlined at the time. "Let's start off with just a few small-ticket items as council would call it.

"We have a free buffet of food at every meeting. It's costing taxpayers $100,000 a year.

"We pay someone to water plants in councillors' offices - $80,000.

Trips for councillors and the mayor last year was $250,000.

We give out free cigarettes and free alcohol to the homeless. That costs $50,000 a year.

There's free gas for councillors, $50,000 a year.

Free taxis are $20,000 a year."

In March, he said other councillors worry that if they don't spend all their allocated funds, their budget will be reduced next year.



- I was astonished upon reading that the City gives free cigarettes and booze to the homeless. I am always reading up on current social issues and this is the first I have ever heard of this. I personally do not see the benefit of this action by the city. My schooling background comes with a major in Criminology and other social studies. I am a strong believer and supporter in such programs such as the DTES safe injection site in Vancouver but yet I cannot get my head around this one. I hope their reasoning is not for theft purposes as most high risk neigbourhoods have uniformed police officers on duty in Beer Stores and the LCBO. If someone would like to give some clarification on the issue then I am all ears and open to ideas. Thanks.
 
We give out free cigarettes and free alcohol to the homeless. That costs $50,000 a year.
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lol, were a pathetic bunch in this city.

with these programs no wonder why people will not get off the street.
 
Gross exaggeration or not, in my opinion any amount of money allocated to this would be ridiculous! Especially when the effects of drinking and smoking leave such a hefty pricetag on the healthcare system.
 
An alcoholic not getting any alcohol could kill them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_withdrawal

You can't run a treatment program without providing 'alcohol to the homeless.'

It's a similar deal with the cigarettes - if you have to provide cigarettes to a meth addict to get them into counseling, that's probably a fair trade.

It's easy to dismiss all expenses as wasteful. It's much harder to actually try to DO SOMETHING for this city.
 
Someone I know works at one of the alcohol programs in another city. They give the people alcohol on a fixed schedule IIRC. the purpose is harm reduction and avoiding binge drinking, and also to keep these people in a controlled environment rather than drinking out on the streets. They offer food, housing, counselling, social and health services.

I used to disagree with it ideologically, and think it was counter-intuitive, but the alternative for a lot of these people would be drinking themselves to death with alternatives like listerine or other substances, or perhaps running into other problems through irresponsible abuse of alcohol.
 
waterloowarrior said:
Someone I know works at one of the alcohol programs in another city. They give the people alcohol on a fixed schedule IIRC. the purpose is harm reduction and avoiding binge drinking, and also to keep these people in a controlled environment rather than drinking out on the streets. They offer food, housing, counselling, social and health services.

I used to disagree with it ideologically, and think it was counter-intuitive, but the alternative for a lot of these people would be drinking themselves to death with alternatives like listerine or other substances, or perhaps running into other problems through irresponsible abuse of alcohol.
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I've heard this argument before ...

As an outsider (like the majority of people with respect to this subject) I think it's all too easy to jump the gun and reach the conclusion that it makes no sense and is silly.
 
That is one major problem with cities like Toronto today.

They now have to provide every last social service out there these days.

What happened to all of those groups and charities and the province who use to take care of things like this??

Back in the Days where the cities main job was actually focusing on transit, roads and such.

Like I heard were spending over 15-20K per homeless person. It seem a great waste really.
 
lordmandeep said:
That is one major problem with cities like Toronto today.

They now have to provide every last social service out there these days.

What happened to all of those groups and charities and the province who use to take care of things like this??

Back in the Days where the cities main job was actually focusing on transit, roads and such.

Like I heard were spending over 15-20K per homeless person. It seem a great waste really.
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Until Harris showed up, the province did indeed pay for most of the social programs.

You're mentioning how charities and churches used to do all this stuff - that was big last in the Depression, though Sally Ann is still around. Since then the government took over the Sisters of Charity and all that - where relief was provided with a side order of proselytizing. The Scott Mission was founded as a mission to convert Spadina Avenue Jews to Christianity.

Back in the day? Are you as old as Gandolf?
 
It's also worth noting that a great number of those living in poverty are "invisible" -- there's more to the problem than just those asking for change near off-ramps or standing outside the Salvation Army.

But, yeah, in an ideal world the province would be funding this. Poverty is a shared issue. It's unfair to leave cities with the bill.
 
As GraphicMatt has pointed out, alcohol withdrawal can be fatal. 50K or dead bodies in the streets? (I'm kinda simplifying it here, I know)

If you want to be a hard-ass and are crass enough, you could perhaps be convinced that it's a street beautification programme.

It's not like they give them Belmonts and Tanqueray.


On a more serious note: the poverty is a tragedy. I talk to a lot of the homeless people in central and west-central Toronto and the prevalence of mental illness is just staggering. Then there's the sob stories that are seriously sob stories.....such a tragedy.
 
In Ottawa there was a pilot program to give alcohol to street people who are alcoholics so that they would not resort to drinking Lysol or Listerine. I'm not sure if this is similar to the Toronto program.
 
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