Toronto 311 to this caller: ‘You can’t always get what you want’

by John Laforet
posted on February 5th, 2010 at 21:38:23 pm

I was downtown tonight and came across a massive hole in the sidewalk by a sewer grate. Basically the sidewalk has been dug away creating a giant hole, that is large enough for a person to surely meet their end in. Clearly the hole was intentional, but marking this with a single pylon and leaving a giant, essentially unmarked hole in the sidewalk, couldn’t have been. No one’s judgement can be that bad.

So I decided something needed to be done to raise this to the attention to someone in a position to do something about it. I called Toronto’s 311 service in hopes that they might be able to help me figure out who to contact to make sure something was done tonight.

I have to say, service was quick. The phone literally rang once before it was answered. I started explaining the situation and the location but the potential seriousness of this issue hadn’t really hit the person on the other end. I was getting frustrated because it seems pretty clear to me that this is a problem. I was put on hold while the 311 representative got more information on how to handle this and what was playing?

And you can’t always get what you want, honey
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime, yeah,
You just might find you get what you need!

The 1969 Rolling Stone’s classic “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” (This link will take you to a YouTube recording of a live performance)

I couldn’t help but laugh.

For any organization this is embarrassing for your customer service line, for the City of Toronto it’s a little too honest. In my particular case, not only could I not get what I want, but what I think people need – the hole properly covered with something (like a plywood board? giant piece of metal?). We see this all the time in other parts of the City when folks are leaving open trenches and holes in roads and sidewalks.

The call ended with the 311 representative asking for my name and phone number, saying she would pass it along and if they needed any more information someone would call. There was no commitment to any action being taken, or even appreciation for the issue.

So I went back, with my camera to take pictures of said hole and here they are. If you get bored, call 311 (they are open 24/7) and ask them to send someone to cover the giant hole in the sidewalk at Yonge and Harbour on the southwest corner that could end really badly if they don’t.

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Of Course Wind Energy Lobbyist Rob Silver Supports Rossi’s Proposed Sale of Toronto Hydro

by John Laforet
posted on December 15th, 2009 at 01:47:08 am

In his latest piece “Why selling Toronto Hydro is a good idea” Rob Silver – a former McGuinty Senior Advisor turned energy lobbyist left out some details which are pertinent to why a guy in his particular trade would be so keen to see Toronto Hydro sold off.

Toronto Hydro owns an incompetent sister company called Toronto Hydro Energy Services that is proposing to build turbines in a part of Ontario where we all know they won’t work. Because the City of Toronto is the 100% shareholder in theory residents should be able to win this fight and keep this money making asset (this is why the City shouldn’t sell Toronto Hydro) from blowing $700 million bucks it doesn’t have on a project that doesn’t work.

Silvers however has made a good amount of money pushing a product that doesn’t work on former colleagues of his. Robert Silver (links are to his filings in the lobbyist registry) has represented the Canadian Wind Energy Association an industry lobby for the corporate welfare cases that make up the wind industry in Canada and fought so hard to have citizens rights taken away.

Joyce McLean – the Director of Strategic Services at Toronto Hydro Energy Services is the past chair of CanWEA. In fact the bottom of every email she sends shares that fact.

Toronto Hydro is a member of CanWEA (Robert Silver’s former client).

Silver has also represented the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association - an organization that founded the Green Energy Act Alliance and literally developed the framework to deprive citizens of their rights, strip municipalities of their planning controls and trample democracy to keep their financially not viable clients in business.

In fact his former boss Dalton McGuinty cited Scarborough Bluffs resident’s opposition to Toronto Hydro’s illegal application to install a wind testing device as the reason for introducing the bill Rob Silver’s clients (OSEA) wrote to take my rights and the rights of my neighbours away.

CanWEA is a member of OSEA as is the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, and the City of Toronto. The Toronto Atmospheric Fund is funding part of Toronto Hydro’s research and the City of Toronto is the 100% owner of Toronto Hydro.

Rob Silver has also represented Trillium Power – a wind farm developer with a pipe dream of putting a ridiculous amount of turbines in the east end of Lake Ontario. Trillium Power had previously been set back by the Ministry of Natural Resources ‘we-don’t-know-what-we’re-doing’ moratorium on offshore wind development in the Great Lakes. The end of that moratorium opened the door for Toronto Hydro to continue planning their project which has been under development since 2003 in some way or another.

Currently Silver is listed as the active lobbyist for Enbridge Inc. – which owns a wind farm in Ontario that is believed to be harming the health of local residents. In fact at a Liberal BBQ Silver’s former boss was hosting, that was being catered by Silver’s client Enbridge – I was threatened with arrest for organizing a protect to voice opposition to Silver’s other client (OSEA’s) Green Energy Act and it’s impact on our ability to oppose Toronto Hydro’s project that was being by the former Chair of another one of Silver’s former clients (CanWEA).

He also lobbies for the Renewable Energy Task Team which is co-chaired by Mike Crawley – President of Aim Power Gen, and the Liberal Party of Canada (Ontario). Silver also lobbies for Vestas - the Danish wind turbine manufacturer in addition to lobbying for other wind energy types which can be found here.

Silver’s employment and client list has him firmly onside with the folks who are breaking down the process, denying citizens their right to participate and using pressure and influence to prevent citizen opposition from derailing projects.

In this light Toronto Hydro’s proposal is the most vulnerable as it is still in theory subject to the democratic will of folks who are at least marginally accountable to their constituents.

If I was Robert Silver I would support selling Toronto Hydro too. But as the President of Wind Concerns Ontario, and a Ward 43 resident there is no way I could support any plan to sell Toronto Hydro so long as it has a dual mandate because such a sale would harm my community and this is something folks like Rob Silver must know.

That being said, based on Rocco Rossi’s performance today I wouldn’t expect Rossi knows what Toronto Hydro is up to. His issue knowledge appeared weak when he suggested amalgamation happened in 2000 (it was 1997) or that Councillors voted themselves a pay increase this year (they decided not to vote to cancel an increase they’d passed in 2006).

“The City’s billboard tax. Yet another tax we can’t afford” Who is this WE they speak of?

by John Laforet
posted on November 30th, 2009 at 10:30:50 am

When I saw a billboard that said “The City’s billboard tax. Yet another tax we can’t afford.” I laughed. Honestly I did. Who is this ‘we’ who can’t afford a billboard tax? I personally favour a billboard tax to a property tax increase, a user fee increase, transit fare increase, water rate increase, vehicle registration tax, garbage fee, land transfer tax – you name it- of the ways City Hall has found to extract more money from Torontonians over the last three years. This seems pretty tame and targeted in a way that it isn’t going to hurt the average Torontonian the same way many tax increases do.

Generally speaking billboards bother me. Especially illuminated ones. Anyone who is shining a light at a sign at night to light up their advertisement is wasting a whole lot of electricity and is consciously making the decision that having their advertisement viewable in the evening is more valuable than energy conservation – something I think most people recognize as being important and support.

It costs like $15 000 a month plus about $3 000 to have the ad produced and installed so we’re talking about an $18 000 investment here. If someone is spending $18 000 seeking a captive audience, I’m sure paying an additional tax isn’t going to price too many people out of the market.

Consider that a full page ad in the Globe and Mail would run the same advertiser $53 000 for a day.

Ladies and Gentlemen – little violins are in order for outdoor advertisers.

The industry lobbyist, the “Out of Home Marketing Association of Canada” is clearly the ‘WE’ we’re supposed to feel for. Sorry guys, but I wonder how out of touch you’d have to be to try and convince the 2.6 million folks who call Toronto home that a billboard tax aimed at folks that annoy us with their marketing materials is somehow something those individuals are going to have to pay and can’t afford.

The sign should read “The City’s billboard tax. Council’s first attempt to shift some tax burden off of residents” because that’s what’s happening here even if the industry doesn’t like it.

OK – so the argument I missed here and really the only possible impact anyone could claim will impact a real person is the potential that this industry will lose business, dry up or die. None of that is going to happen for as long as those billboards continue to be in high traffic spots, someone is going to pay the tax and advertise.

Regardless – let’s just say there was the potential for an adverse economic impact here… who would it affect?

If you visit the citybillboardtax.ca under contribution they don’t state how many people they employ, instead they talk about how much revenue the industry has generated for itself in Toronto last year (about $65 million) and how much revenue was generated for the City (about $36 million). They also talk about ads as being nice and part of the cultural fabric etc.

This $36 million dollars worth of revenue to the City is stable in that Astral media – the guys who bring you most of your ads on city property – so things like garbage cans, bus shelters etc signed a 20 year agreement with the City for the privilege of building our ’street furniture’ and in exchange the City has a guaranteed stream of revenue raised off of these assets. The tax won’t change that, and even the OMAC isn’t suggesting it will. I guess they’re trying to say because the City is leasing them space essentially for one member’s ads they are doing their part as an industry?

The bottom line is these guys don’t have an argument better than ‘but we don’t wanna’ and I get that. Who wants to pass a tax on to their customers – the difference here however is their customers are generally large entities that will pay the tax because it’s still a clear win for them.

They are also running a really crappy campaign based on none of the fundamentals of a winning campaign. Like their product, it is lame, one way communication with no measurable effect or ability to engage interested parties.

I personally support the City finding ways to generate revenue that don’t involve milking existing individual and residential taxpayers  and think ideas like the billboard tax are a far fairer approach from my perspective as a resident.