All About Toronto

Many of you have seen a significant amount of publicity on Toronto’s 2010 municipal election including the two televised mayoral debates on CP24. About 40% of voters are still undecided at this stage so we felt it would be worthwhile to look at this election from a different perspective.

Lets assume the main goal is to elect a mayor that will make Toronto one of the top 5 global cities given the existing budgetary constraints and debt. So  how do we go about electing the right mayor?

• Rob Ford
• George Smitherman
• Joe Pantalone
• Rocco Rossi
• Sarah Thomson
• Giorgio Mammoliti

We would need to look at Toronto’s global ranking based on universal set of performance indicators and evaluate how each candidate’s platform would improve Toronto’s ranking.

For the purpose of this exercise we have picked Global Power City Index (GPCI), which was complied by Mori Memorial Foundation in Tokyo Japan in 2009. This study evaluated the features and attractiveness of key cities around the world so it could be applied to Tokyo’s urban development strategies. The study used 63 indicators in 5 different categories. The actual rating was done by four different groups including Artists, Visitors, Researchers and Managers. We have listed the categories below with some example indicators under each one:

Economy

• Population
• GDP

Cultural Exchange

• Number of upscale hotels
• Trade value of audiovisual and related services
• Number of foreigners
• Number of guest rooms of luxury hotels
• Number of hotels

Livability

• Sewage
• Vulnerability

Ecology & Natural Environment

• Number of companies with ISO 14001 certification
• Percentage of recycling
• Percentage of renewable energy
• CO2 emissions

R&D, Cultural Interaction, Livability and Accessibility

The overall results ranked Toronto in the 15^th position. The areas where Toronto fell short on included Ecology & Natural Environment, Cultural Interaction and Research & Development.

Global Ranking of Toronto

In the same report they also investigated global corporate networks of world’s top 300 non-financial companies. You see  Toronto’s foot print is significantly smaller than many of the other large cities like Singapore, Mumbai, Sydney and Hong Kong. We can certainly do better given the diversity and population of this city but we need to pick the right mayor.

Toronto Rank Globally

Now, lets review each candidate’s platform and evaluate if we all the necessary information to elect the best candidate.

Global Top 300 non-financial companies in Toronto

Rob Ford

• Cutting government waste and excessive taxation
• Deep cuts in councillors’ discretionary office budgets
• Strong critic of the perks that are afforded to city politicians
• Making TTC an essential service
• Eliminating vehicle registration and land transfer taxes
• Cutting municipal council in half
• Vowed to cancel the City of Toronto’s Lawrence Heights revitalization plan
• Ford opposes the expansion of transit

George Smitherman

• $2 million cut from the mayor’s and councillor’s budgets
• Customer service approach to city services
• $15 million for “Recreational Renaissance” to address Toronto’s highest rate of urban diabetes in the world
• Creating signature parks to rival New York’s Central Park and adding 50 water fountains across the city
• Merging Toronto Fire Services with Emergency Medical Services
• Reining in overtime so funds could be redirected to hiring 50 more police officers
• Building wind farms on Lake Ontario
• Opposes tearing down Gardner Expressway
• To redirect the gas-tax-transfer money of $315 Million entirely to transit projects
• Building a new Sheppard West subway to extend the Bloor subway line to Sherway Gardens to fast-Tracking the extension of the Spadina subway to York university
• Considers putting up for tender garbage pick-up across Toronto, likewise the operation of some bus routes and the running of ski hills.
• Disagrees with selling Toronto Hydro

Joe Pantalone

• Establishing 6 green storefronts across the Toronto and adding four more later to educate communities on green technologies like geothermal energy and green roofs
• Proposes selling as a service Enwave deep late water cooling system to pay for the City’s debt
• Opposes outsourcing city services like garbage collection
• Support bike lanes
• Pledges to solidify and protect services. He will build Tansit City and partner with the private sector but will not privatize services

Rocco Rossi

http://roccorossi.com/get-involved/connect-on-social-media/

• Sell Toronto Hydro as part of his “transit city plus” to pay down the city’s debt and build new subways and buses. The plan would cost $4.5 Billion over 10 years
• Expand the role of private sector in expanding the transit system
• Strong support for subway versus street cars “we get real transit city and not street car city”
• Supports outsourcing municipal services
• Pledges to cut his salary by 10% freeze it for the full year-term if elected
• Strongly opposes the bike lanes on major streets
• Calls for transit expansion to be cancelled
• Pledges replacing TTC board with with private sector experts

Sarah Thomson

• Calls for privatizing the Toronto Public Library (TPL)
• Plans to open up city services to competitive bidding from the private sector
• Supports building subway lines instead of TTC’s planned streetcar based rapid transit
• $5 rush hour toll on the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) and Gardner Expressway to help pay for the rapid transit
• Calls for a major expansion of the subway system including the extension of both the Danforth and Sheppard lines to Scarbourgh Town Centre, a full east-west Eglington linthat goes from Kennedy to the airport and a new Downtown Relief Line going from Pape down to Union and then back to Dundas West.
• Plans to tackle the City’s state-of-good-repair backlog. Fixing the crumbling infrastructure from roads to water mains and bridges.
• Pledges to consolidate City assets and create a more efficient structure to achieve the highest and best use for all real estate holdings. Will assess each property to determine which ones can be sold.
• Plans to issue municipal bonds.
• Stops spending tax payers dollars on “make-work” projects like the tearing down of the Gardiner Expressway

Giorgio Mammoliti

• $1.3 billion project to ban cars from Gardner Expressway and confine motorists to a wider, eight-lane Lake Shore Blvd.
• Plans to create a floating casino near Ontario Place, municipal lottery and road tolls to pay for the above.
• Supports LRT
• Toronto island to become a home to a new convention centre, hotel and a transit link
• Pledges to focus on the city harbour front to attract tourists to the city
• Potentially reduce civil service size if needed to address Toronto’s money problem
• Considers outsourcing garbage collection
• Curfew for all youth to get gangs off the street
• Plans to create Red-light district in Toronto
• Reverse tax increases
• Proposes cuts that will target $40 Million in annual city grants to arts, cultural and community groups

Note:

• All candidates have signed a pledge to give faith-based groups a bigger role in municipal government
• Joe Pantalone, Rocco Rossi and Sarah Thomson vowed to call on McGuinty government to direct Metrolinx to electrify the Georgetown Corridor before expanding passenger rail Air Rail Link

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