Here We Go Again

A couple of weeks ago the Environment Commissioner came out with his annual report on the province’s Action Plan to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions(www.eco.on.ca). It is clear from the analysis that the emission reduction targets that were set for 2014 and 2020 will not be met. Urban sprawl and private autos are the big culprits.

Thirty-one percent of all emissions are attributable to the transportation sector. Not only is that sector the biggest emitter but it is increasing the most relative to the other sectors identified (e.g. electricity/ heat generation and industry etc..)

The transportation sector has seen a huge increase in vehicle emissions from "light duty gasoline trucks" like SUV’s, vans and pickups – 123% since 1990.

The Commissioner thinks we have to seriously consider road pricing to address our frightful greenhouse gas problems. Road pricing would take into account the true cost of our transportation infrastructure and could reduce congestion and improve our environmental conditions. Properly implemented it would be an important reform towards a fairer tax system. But is road pricing on the political agenda today?

Take my town Burlington (Ontario). Their idea of pricing strategies runs about as deep as Sarah Palin’s grasp of foreign policy matters. It goes like this: If you don’t run buses then you save money. Using that logic today (Jan 1) Burlington is the only Lakeshore GTA community not running buses.

We are repeating ourselves in lamenting this lack of recognition of the damage that personal automobile use is doing to our environment. We won’t get into the equity issue as we’ve done that before (see archives 2/16/08.)

Any ideas?

HAPPINESS - IT MUST BE THE SEASON

They were spending like the proverbial drunken sailor on the good ship Burlington Monday past.

Sixty million loonies for the hospital.

More money – perhaps $9 million – for the former General Brock school property.

Pan Am commitments toward City Park near Waterdown which will, history tells us, be way over cost estimates as is the norm with multi-event games.

But like that sailor our self-professed parsimonious pols were in seventh heaven over their spending spree or so it appeared to this channel surfing blogger who had earlier succumbed to too many Christmas specials and Tiger updates.

Councillor D’Amelio patiently explained to observers and your obviously misinformed correspondent that the media has it wrong because the big projects almost always come in under budget.

That and the season undoubtedly account for all the happiness and comes as a great relief as I had worried that nobody knew where all the money to pay for these projects would be found.


PAN AM GAMES

Taking the Sherwood Park location off the table means the Games site is narrowed down to one option - which is really no option, isn’t it?

City Park’s development needs approval from the Niagara Escarpment Commission (NEC) who have designated the land for recreation uses and facilities.

The NEC Plan assumes that any development will have “minimal adverse effect on the environment” and “not exceed the carrying capacity of the site.”

So as I mentioned everyone was so happy with the site and excited about all the money to be spent on this and other projects. You’d have to be a real pessimist to imagine that approval for a stadium, two lit artificial turf fields, one additional field, and lots of bells and whistles adjacent to a Natural Environment area, an Area of Natural and Scientific Interest (ANSI) and 3,000 homes won’t be all wrapped up before the Seaway closes for the season.

Doing the Math

While the Pan Am Games numbers didn’t compute for this blogger another “math’ exercise I participated in did add up.

Well, not really.

On November 18th a mixed group of 14 Burlington residents and service providers did some math at a breakfast meeting held at Community Development Halton.
Toronto’s The Stop Community Food Centre and the Campaign to Put Food in the Budget created this web based budget tool to promote understanding of poverty issues. Do the Math poses a simple question:

Does a single person on social assistance receive enough income to live with health and dignity?

A survey allows you to determine what you would need to make ends meet and to compare your results to what a single person on social assistance receives each month.

How often does one need a haircut? Dental care might not be a priority. But can you find a job with bad teeth? Do I really need that large double, double at $1.72?

These are but a few of the questions/issues the group considered.

When they added it was determined that it would cost $1,742 a month for a single person to get by with a bachelor apartment in Burlington.

Compare that to the maximum amount of:

*$572 per month a single Ontario Works recipient gets.
or
*1,020 a single individual on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) would receive.

Or consider the fact that a full- time minimum wage earner would have only $1429 in before tax income.

One participant noted that the gap was “astronomical.” Another questioned the sense of social assistance policies if the rates established clearly aren’t doing any good.
Over 3,000 people around the province have signed the online petition or a postcard that calls for government to ‘do the math’ too, and overhaul the system that sets rates, as well as for an immediate increase of $100 as a first step to meet basic needs. About half of provincial Members of Parliament have been involved in this project to date.

At long last the provincial government is beginning a promised review of social assistance. Hopefully, changes are on the way.

PAN AM GAMES #1

City staff are recommending that a site at Highway #5 and Kerns Road known as
City Park be approved as the venue for the Pan Am Games soccer matches. Seven games in the preliminary round plus some contests in the Parapan Games following later in August 2015 would be held here.

We visited the site today.

The Community and Corporate Services Committee is considering the recommendation this Wednesday. Earlier this year it seemed like a good idea to have it at Sherwood Park in southeast Burlington. Then the neighbours got wind of the 1,500 permanent seat stadium and Councillors figured another location closer to where nobody lived – well nobody from Burlington anyway - would be a better idea.

There are issues. Here’s one:

The lands are under the jurisdiction of the Niagara Escarpment Commission (NEC). I’m thinking the NEC plan didn’t anticipate international games with three soccer fields, one a permanent stadium with an artificial surface with lighting would be locating here.

Not to worry says Burlington staff. Their timetable anticipates approval in principle from the NEC this month – an interesting trick as the Commission isn’t meeting in December. But approval is required before year end or we’re going to look like we didn’t think this one through real well..

I’m struggling with the budget. Does $30 million sound like a lot of taxpayer money when many in our community are struggling?

Why don't we want the poor to own anything?

Since the days of Mike Harris municipalities have been up against it having to deal with the so-called reform of the welfare system. Recently I read a report by John Stapleton, a well respected social policy expert. The report addresses one aspect of what social assistance applicants and recipients have to deal with.


The report that is called “Why don’t we want the poor to own anything? Our relentless social policy journey toward destitution for the 900,000 poorest people in Ontario.”

The title says a lot.

The report is about asset testing. I’m not sure whether many readers of this blog have direct experience with this cruel and foolish policy. Asset testing limits eligibility to welfare benefits when applicants have certain liquid assets above an established limit.

Asset testing used today is far more stringent than at any time since the post-war period.

Read Stapleton’s report at http://www.metcalffoundation.com/

Here is a Cole’s notes version.

*Most programs in Canada have abandoned asset testing.

* Seven per cent of Ontario’s population are subject to often stringent asset testing.

*Asset limits were dropped by a factor of five (single persons) and four (lone parent) by Mike Harris, a change which was in many ways had much more impact than the 21.6 per cent cuts to social assistance he put in place.

*The asset limit for lone parents in 1948 adjusted to inflation would be $10,900 today. In fact, the current asset limit is $1,550.

Since the McGuinty government came into power, many of the Harris implemented clampdowns have been relaxed or removed. And while the limits on assets have changed, the huge drops in asset limits “caused by linking asset accumulation to monthly rates have yet to be addressed.”

What to do

Stapleton wants to:

*Raise asset limits for social assistance and legal aid to $5,000 for singles and $10,000 for families with disabilities.

*Get in line with Alberta and Quebec by exempting portions or all of Tax Free Savings and RRSPs.

*Exempt, in the short term, all assets for the first six months of receipt of assistance.

*Eliminate the option to test subsidized housing under the Social Housing Reform Act.

Hopefully, decision makers will read this report.

What do you think?

YES YOU ARE GETTING OLDER DEAR

Back in the day when I was a Councillor I worried that if there were no seniors in town I’d become redundant.

After all the majority of concerns directed my way came from those in their sunset years.

That man who picks up the garbage is an hour late today.

Those teenagers are loitering in the mall again.

The dandelions are out of control on the north side of New Street.

I’ve got squirrels in my backyard and it is my neighbour’s fault.

Please take care of this?

Yes sir. Yes ma’am.

Local government is closest to the people and your concerns are mine, as they say. So I took care of it - mostly.

I’m older now, pushing sixty. Wiser, I’m not sure?

But now I’ve got my own problems - GARAGE SALES.

You ask what could be wrong with these down-to earth community events?
They’re neighbourly, promote recycling and help people make a few bucks.

But the guy across the street is having five or six a year. So is someone further down the block. Patrons, if that is what they are called, wake me and my true love up early on Saturday mornings; they block our driveway; and frankly just annoy me.

My neighbour, the guy who used to gripe about my son playing ball hockey in the street, is the focus of my ire. I’m sure you’ve got neighbours like this too.

After his last garage sale he took off faster than a pick pocket being chased by Donovan Bailey and came back soon – it couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes later - with stuff, garage sale stuff, that he is going to offer up to the public at his next sale and that will probably be next weekend.

There must be a by-law on this. And if there isn’t there should be.

I’m calling my Councillor. I mean he works for me, doesn’t he? And if he won’t do something about it I’ll write a by-law myself.

And if he doesn’t support it, well he better be getting some job counselling soon because he’ll be looking for work after the next election.

When is the next election anyway?

Learnings form the Other Municipalities - Edmonton #2

Editorial writers at the Edmonton Journal had their City of Champions shorts in a knot over public transit recently.

Seems that the creation of a new student transit pass has meant the system has "absorbed" five million more riders than expected.

This low blow to property taxpayers came about when college and university students took advantage of a annual pass that was offered at a bargain price.

The result was that student ridership averaged 40 trips per month instead of the anticipated 25. Clearly the pass price of $78.75 per year should be revisited.

But the Journal pontificators really jumped offside when they questioned the appropriateness of property taxes going to public transit. Then - a warning please move young children away from the screen - they used the S-Word (i.e., subsidy) while talking about public transit. No mention of the massive subsidies given to automobile users every day.

So Edmonton bureaucrats get the price right.

More people on public transit should be a good news story - especially in Alberta.