Peterborough residents concerned with Mayor Daryll Bennett’s threatened cuts to transit and use of consulting firms to conduct publication consultation may be closely observing a storm brewing in Toronto over a budget that will drastically reduce services, including many non-rush hour transit routes.
Victoria Barnett feels lucky to speak on behalf of a network that has been growing ever since Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s inauguration.
The snack trucks on Dundas Street are ready for their first customers, only a few people are skating on the rink, civil servants cross the square carrying briefcases, I’m between punctual and fashionably late as I arrive to interview Barnett at Nathan Phillips Square. The air is conspicuously spring like. I spin around then look up and notice Barnett surveying the square from the ceremonial ramp that leads to the podium roof of Toronto City Hall.
I’m caught off guard by the calm passion of Barnett’s unhurried words: “Stop The Cuts is a network of 11 autonomous organizing groups of people getting together in their communities, who often have never met before, but are forming relationships over their anger and what-the-fuck is up with Rob Ford”.
According to Barnett, the groups that range in size between 15 and 60 people “work on the things that affect them most in their communities. The neighbourhood committees are autonomous of the network, but report back to the network. Their different actions don’t have to be approved because they focus on things in their communities that affect them – the cuts specific to their area.”
Barnett states the goal that drives Rob Ford’s proposed budget is a “clear mandate – to make respect for the taxpayers the core value at City Hall”. Yet there is a contradiction to the austerity measures—they are not necessary. City staff project a year end operating surplus estimated at $145 million or higher.
On January 2, Stop the Cuts staged a successful intervention of the Mayor’s New Year’s Levee by unfurling one banner and releasing another with helium balloons.
Ford, who two weeks before being elected, assured voters “services will not be cut, guaranteed”, commissioned eight KPMG reports to locate savings in city spending. KPMG received the largest portion of $3 million spent by the city on private consulting firms.
City Councillor, Adam Vaughn, claims the savings identified by the mayor will close shelters, childcare centres, pools, youth outreach programs, library hours, arenas, community centres, arts funding, and reduce “hundreds of community service programs” by 10%. The cuts will be augmented by a 10-15 cent TTC fare increase, new recreation user fees, and increased childcare costs.
Ford is also proposing to outsource the city’s garbage collection services, Vaughn writes “while garbage and recycling collection rates for homeowners will stay the same as last year, charities and not-for profit groups will now have to pay for collection.”
Ford legitimizes the proposed budget by arguing the process has so far “included more public consultation” than ever before with “eight public meetings hearing from over 1,200 people”. ‘Public consultation’ frames policy questions and defines issues to incorporate yet simultaneously disenfranchise dissenting voices. “You are going to now ask me for alternatives—these are our alternatives” said Barnett in a December 7th deputation to Toronto Council. Barnett explained “this is what we need to do for ourselves as people of the city”.
