How the new council stands on Ford's main policy aims
Ford faces stiff fight on council - thestar.com
The Toronto Star managed to survey 32 of the 44 new councillors on some of Ford's main issues.
It seems Ford will face stiff opposition against cutting parade funding, cutting the size of city council, and eliminating the fair-wage policy.
The new councillors are more evenly divided on the issues of making the TTC an essential service and on contracting out garbage collection.
My views on these issues:
Parade funding - This is an investment as big parades like the Gay Pride march and Caribana bring a substantial amount of money into the city. Keep investing.
Fair Wage Policy - "contractors doing business with the city must pay roughly the same wage as city employees doing comparable work." Krystyn Wong-Tam: "The fair wage policy was created to raise the employment standards and
the city should be a ‘model employer.' If we start to remove policies
and laws that were created to protect workers, what's next? Pay equity?” Keep the policy.
Cutting council down to only 22 councillors - Get real. With the size of this city, cutting council would mean less representation for the people, community issues would take a hit as the councillors would have bigger work-loads and be forced to only look at larger city-wide issues, and spending would increase (hiring more staff for each councillor to deal with the increased work/calls - so, the city would end up paying more in wages, not less). Cutting the council size would be a very bad idea.
Making the TTC an essential service - sounds nice, but it would cost us more in the long run. Think a jump in the fare and tax increases to cover the increase in wages. People generally don't like big fare or tax increases, so no to this.
Contracting out garbage collection - currently the garbage collection is a combination of public and private. Would it cost the same or less to contract it all out, and would the service remain the same (and not get worse)? These are the main questions to get answers to before considering this.
The Toronto Star managed to survey 32 of the 44 new councillors on some of Ford's main issues.
It seems Ford will face stiff opposition against cutting parade funding, cutting the size of city council, and eliminating the fair-wage policy.
The new councillors are more evenly divided on the issues of making the TTC an essential service and on contracting out garbage collection.
My views on these issues:
Parade funding - This is an investment as big parades like the Gay Pride march and Caribana bring a substantial amount of money into the city. Keep investing.
Fair Wage Policy - "contractors doing business with the city must pay roughly the same wage as city employees doing comparable work." Krystyn Wong-Tam: "The fair wage policy was created to raise the employment standards and
the city should be a ‘model employer.' If we start to remove policies
and laws that were created to protect workers, what's next? Pay equity?” Keep the policy.
Cutting council down to only 22 councillors - Get real. With the size of this city, cutting council would mean less representation for the people, community issues would take a hit as the councillors would have bigger work-loads and be forced to only look at larger city-wide issues, and spending would increase (hiring more staff for each councillor to deal with the increased work/calls - so, the city would end up paying more in wages, not less). Cutting the council size would be a very bad idea.
Making the TTC an essential service - sounds nice, but it would cost us more in the long run. Think a jump in the fare and tax increases to cover the increase in wages. People generally don't like big fare or tax increases, so no to this.
Contracting out garbage collection - currently the garbage collection is a combination of public and private. Would it cost the same or less to contract it all out, and would the service remain the same (and not get worse)? These are the main questions to get answers to before considering this.
1 comment:
I'd be up for the TTC being ruled an essential service if it meant they finally got proper funding. But I suspect it wouldn't actually work out that way.
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