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Opinions & Issues:
 

   Nearly all citizens feel that the Toronto Megacity is not a shining example of public participation. Look at the current debate over Toronto's Garbage Plan. It only takes place at the last minute in council and the public has zero input.

  The way our system is evolving all issues will be dealt with in that fashion in the future.

   Yesterday Toronto council decided to continue the fight to obtain a City Charter from the provincial government. City staff will prepare an education campaign and a consultation process aimed at building public support for a Charter. The Charter would be a special piece of provincial legislation that would give the city more authority.

    Council supports the Charter idea because it is safe and sexy. Earlier the call was for a Province of Toronto, which sounded dangerous. John Sewell and Jane Jacobs charged in with the Charter idea and saved the day for nervous councillors.

   The truth is that the Charter is neither safe nor sexy. It does nothing to empower citizens or improve grass roots participation. All it does is transfer power from Queen's Park to the Mayor's Office. Once Mel Lastman has that power he will do foolish things like sell off Toronto Hydro.

   Mike Harris and the province must approve a Charter and that means it will not happen. Harris must also okay the alternate plan - A Province of Toronto - for it to get off the ground. Any merits or flaws of a Province of Toronto remain hidden behind the fact that it is logistically impossible.

   So if you've followed me this far, you now understand that the city will spend a good deal of money fighting for a Charter that it will not obtain.

   Municipal Affairs Minister Tony Clement is the provincial bully working to shape Toronto Democracy. He has cut council to 44 members for this election. And he will cut it to 22 for the next election. Clement has killed referenda at the municipal level with a new bill.

   Clement is shaping the system, and under it Toronto gets controlled by a power elite of City Staff, the Media, the Police Services Board and Union, Big Business, the Mayor, his lobbyists and friends. Through the striking committee the mayor controls a small group of elite councillors that are in turn influenced by lobbyists and supporters. The entry level for the public is at Community Councils where potholes and stop signs are debated.

   In other words, the public is not included at all but a level of fake Community Council democracy is created to make them think that they are. That is why we have a system where deals like the Adams Mine are pushed through in unstoppable fashion by lobbyists and business. Citizens can't even get into the system except through picket signs and shouting and screaming.

   It is not really democracy at all. The grassroots is not the driving force of the city and it is going to get worse.

   With expectations of the Olympics being held here and the Provincial Tory vision of democracy the system will again change as Council is reduced to 22 members. The man who forced Toronto into a Megacity, Al Leach, has been put in as head of the Police Services Board. The destiny planned for us by Harris and our Toronto Elite is a city completely controlled by a Council that is more like a board of directors. Working with business, big media, backroom boys and lobbyists they will ensure that Olympic Development takes place and that valuable tax dollars are not wasted on things like citizens and social programs. The right-wing Police Services Board under Al Leach is to oversee the transformation of Toronto into a pre-Olympic Police State. Jail cells will solve problems like homelessness.

   This will impress the IOC but we still won't get the Olympics and Toronto will continue into a totally undemocratic future.

   Right now the forces around Lastman include the wealthy and the right wing. People like Tom Long are involved in creating a mayoral machine that will insure that all future Toronto Elections will be a one candidate race. Only the candidate of the Elite Machine will be able to run and win in the Megacity. Their power will be entrenched. Citizens and genuine democracy will be purposely left out.

   I did work studying Megacity democracy for a citizens group and have some recommendations to counter this system.

   First - for citizen involvement I support Council Candidate Wendy Forest's idea of building a community action centre. Only I would build one in every ward and demand city funding. The action centres would include all citizens who want to participate and would work to take real action on community issues.

   The next step would be a Citizens' Assembly. A quarterly assembly would be held and would include citizens from action centres, community groups, residents associations and all others who wanted to participate. The mayor and Council would be expected to attend. The city would be expected to fund the assembly.

   At these meetings council would take its direction from the grass roots and perhaps a mechanism could be included where the public could vote out Mayors and councillors who failed to do their job.

   Such a system would be possible. It would improve democracy. It wouldn't be expensive. It would hand power back to the citizens. Harris could not prohibit it and he wouldn't have any say in it. It would also create a new forum where grassroots candidates could launch Mayoral Bids.

   Of course the larger problem is that we have no champions of ideas that will work. Instead we are going to be stuck with this failed push for a Charter. Since money will be available for it you can expect to see all sorts of people signing on to it.

   The Charter won't happen -- so get ready for Al Leach's Police State, the One Big Mayor, Media/Propagandist/Lobbyist control and the Rule of the Elite.

   Forever.

By Gary Morton, 2000
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Seniors' Report, Toronto - 19 Sept, 2000
   The report "A City for All Ages: Fact or Fiction? The Effects  of Government Policy Decisions on Toronto Seniors' Quality of  Life" is being released today in Toronto.  It will be available at http://www.utoronto.ca/seniors.
   All three levels of government are failing Toronto seniors in everything from basic health care to recreation programs.The report recommends re-establishing a national housing program and rent controls, ensuring adequate funding for health care, and appointing federal and provincial ministers who focus on seniors' issues. It also calls for eliminating seniors' annual fees for medication and user fees for recreation activities.
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Articles below on School Issues - Megacity Election

Ontario High School Students Protest- Oct.1.2000
Teachers, Harris/Ecker and School Boards Rocked by Student Protests
   High School students across Ontario have been walking out of school to protest education cuts, lack of sports and extracurricular activities. Some have seized playgrounds that are about to be demolished.

1.   Students at Jarvis Collegiate Institute walked out of class last week to protest the lack of extracurricular activities. Jarvis has no basketball teams, chess clubs, dances or trips and they must share resources such as textbooks. Students say they are fed up with provincial cuts to education and how they are affecting already overworked teachers.

2.   At Brock High School in Cannington students faced suspensions after walking out. Some returned after attending a forum with local trustee Nancy Loraine.

3.    In Aurora 200 pupils of Dr. G.W. Williams Secondary School left their classroom to protest the elimination of extracurricular activities. They marched to the York Region District School Board demanding the return of after-school sports and clubs.
   Many of them feel teachers are using students as bargaining tools in their fight with the province over legislation making extracurricular activities a mandatory part of the job.

4.   In Toronto a fiasco engineered by Mike Harris and the Board of Education saw playgrounds demolished across the city. In place of the play equipment the trustees are putting in garbage cans postered with advertisements. Last weeks students at Inglenook Community High School had enough of this silliness and occupied their playground to halt its demolition.

5.   In Durham the board suspended about 200 students after they protested. Students are being forced to agree to conditions that remove their right to protest as guaranteed under the charter of rights - suspensions are lifted on the condition that the students not participate in any more walkouts.
   The walkout began with students at Henry Street High School. Student Katie Rushton says students made protest flyers on the issue of Durham region's lack of after school activities/programs. The flyers were handed out to the students at Henry Street, Anderson, Auston, Sinclair etc. . . . and a group session was held to talk about the walkout.
   After teachers threatened suspensions students put together a petition. 250 students at Henry Street signed it. Later they walked out, police were called and students still in class were ordered to stay inside. Joined by the principal the protesters walked to the Durham Board and joined students from Sinclair, Anderson and Auston.
   Signs said We Want Our Sports, Honk For Sports, etc. At present Henry Street's football team won't be competing against other football teams. Students feel many teachers are lazy and could be working to provide sports.
   Katie says Henry Street students plan to protest every Friday at Sinclair until they get sports. The Board is working to make this difficult, giving student organizer (Munroe) a five day suspension that they may up to 20 days. Other students that protested have three-day suspensions.
   Teachers are informing students of the "proper" way to protest. (And maybe how to be ineffective, as the sort of weak protests offered by teachers and trustees accomplish nothing)

   Student leaders currently say they are giving Janet Ecker (MPP of Pickering) one week and if there are no results, they will walk out again.
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Background - Who is to blame here?

   I would say that everyone but the students is to blame. Students are caught in the middle of a war between various forces of petty tyranny. Teachers and unions do use students as bargaining chips. Trustees and board officials often display a degree of pettiness and incompetence that is unequaled - like in Toronto where they will vote through all sorts of nutty stuff while refusing to listen to parents and students.

   The largest root of the problem is the Harris Government.  If Pierre Trudeau was trying to build the Just Society, Mike Harris has been working feverishly to build the Unjust Society.

   This is especially evident in education. Harris has taken a system that barely balanced the forces of parents, teachers, students, unions, trustees and government and thrown it into chaos. Harris' cuts (made at a time of surplus) close schools, kill sports, arts, special education and other programs.

   Some of Harris' meddling with the school system more properly belongs in a totalitarian nation. Harris and Ecker are real tyrants and not just petty.

   The Tory Education Accountability Act stops union reps from setting foot on school property. Education Minister Janet Ecker now has the power to change board-approved curriculums. She can assign passing or failing grades to any student dependant upon the amount of resistance the student has made to school-board or ministry policies and regulations. She can expel students for any reason at all, and suspend teachers for any reason at all. Any decision made by Ecker cannot be challenged or reviewed by a court. Boards are not allowed to protect their employees. The Minister may, at any time, incur the costs of the provincial level of education operation upon any school board, and the Minister may direct any school/board funds away from the schools to anywhere the Minister deems appropriate, and such funds may not be reviewed or traced.

   In a nutshell, Mike Harris' education policies are nuts. But that doesn't give teachers and board officials an excuse to jump in and victimize students even more.

   If Harris, trustees and teachers ever come to their senses, high school kids will get their activities back and younger children will have playgrounds.

   But don't count on it. Politicians like to talk about sports and the Olympics, and then they make sure that kids can't play in any game.

   Students should exercise their right to protest, and show the courage that their elders do not have. If every kid in Ontario walked out, they would have to do something.

By Gary Morton
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Corporate Ads to Replace Razed Toronto Playgrounds - Sept.22.2000
   They have millions and millions to build a new School Board HQ. They have no funds for running, swimming, music, art, adult education, etc. And they especially have no money to replace the 27.5 million dollars worth in school playgrounds they are tearing out.
   Why is the Toronto School Board doing this to us? Are school playgrounds unsafe as they say? Well now the answer appears to be no. Children's play is to be replaced with more profitable corporate advertising. Ads targeting schoolchildren are to be put into the empty playgrounds.
   The pilot project has been endorsed by the Toronto District School Board's Business Opportunities Office. Advertising will be pasted on the sides of new garbage bins OMG Media is currently installing. The school board refuses to reveal details of the deal and defends the program as an opportunity to clean up littered schoolyards and promote recycling.
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Poor Left Out in Council Plans to Replace Razed Playgrounds - Sept.20.2000
   A new plan by Toronto City Council to help parents, schools, and neighbourhoods replace torn-down playgrounds is unfair to children in less well-off neighbourhoods. Playground equipment in over 170 schools was torn out by the Board of Education because it was deemed to be unsafe.
   The city will match the funds that parent councils can raise. Parents in well-off neighbourhoods can raise more money than parents in poorer areas, so the new equipment they can afford will be superior.
   There is also more devastating news coming as the Board of Education meets today. Plans are to cut $15-million or so out of local schools by eliminating 800 lunch-room supervisors, psychologists, social workers, music teachers and others.
   $300-million annually is taken out of the Toronto system by Mike Harris. Inner-city funding has been reduced from $180-million annually to $49-million and 52.5 million more must be cut city-wide to satisfy Harris' funding formula. 30 more schools are to be closed, librarians wil be fired, swimming pools will be drained and special-education programs cut.
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   As part of his plan to destroy education in Toronto Mike Harris amalgamated the school boards into one huge board. In this scheme, the Tories now funnel billions of education dollars out of Toronto every year. The newly elected trustees make so little the job is hardly worth it. But a number of trustees were elected and they have made some big mistakes.
   At first they tried to fight the Harris cuts, then School Board head Gail Nyberg gave in and began to put them through. Acting like Harris, trustees began to ignore public input. 400 residents stormed the board trying to save adult education. And instead of listening to them, trustees went into a back room and voted away adult education programs, leaving the most vulnerable in society (those without a high school education) without hope.
   Currently we see Mayor Lastman along with Mike Harris and federal MPs across the water at the Olympics. While they boast of the great Olympic City Toronto will be, our high school sports teams are shutting down. The reason is user fees. For example - a team that paid $5,000 in user fees to use a gym regularly now finds those costs at about $55,000. They can't afford it, so there is no team. Incumbent trustees are doing little about this other than talking about arranging easier payment plans.
   If Mel Lastman and Mike Harris and the Prime Minister want to help sports in Toronto, why don't they cough up the cash so our kids can play? And why don't they eliminate the user fees for good?
   Recently Toronto's School Board decided to raze playgrounds across the city. To replace all of this equipment will cost us 27.5 million dollars. How did this happen? Well - it started when the province's Ministry of Community and Social Services under John Baird okayed new safety standards for equipment at day-care centres.  Day care is connected with schools and Baird didn't bother to oversee the matter. His failure set a deal in motion that everyone failed to stop.
   Experts and insurance people called for the razing of unsafe playgrounds, the school board went ahead without further study or consultation. Other experts involved in the standards only spoke out after the playgrounds were razed, saying it wasn't necessary. The provincial Ministry of Education didn't stop it and the Ministry of Community and Social Services didn't stop it. The School Board in its arrogance disallowed community hearings and consultations that would have brought the facts out.
   So here we have government by experts and bully politicians at its worst, and we now know how much it can cost when the community is not allowed to scrutinize the actions of government.
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Law Union says - Charge Police Chief and Police Union, and Investigate Mayor Lastman - Aug.31.2000
   The Law Union of Ontario says Police Chief Julian Fantino and Craig Bromell, head of the Toronto Police Association should be charged under the Police Services Act for their recent political activities. The lawyers' group also wants and Mayor Mel Lastman investigated in regards to a meeting he held with the police union and the police chief on the subject of the upcoming election. It is thought that Lastman asked the police to endorse his slate of candidates for council.
   Paul Copeland and Bob Kellermann told a City Hall press conference that both the Chief of the Toronto Police Service and Craig Bromell, president of the officers union, have contravened provincial law.
   The group will be raising its concerns today at a meeting of Toronto Police Services Board. At issue is the union's promise to endorse candidates favourable to police in the Nov. 13 civic election and a speech given by Chief Fantino to the Ontario Progressive Conservative's policy conference in Hamilton last February.
   "Unfortunately, Mr. Fantino has ambitions as a politician and he's mixing roles and he's playing the politician and he's appearing at the Tory conventions and so on at the same time as he's supposed to be a neutral enforcer of the law. That's dangerous," Mr. Kellermann said.
   The Law Union representatives are demanding that the Toronto Police Services Board instruct Police Chief Julian Fantino to kill police union plans to back select politicians in November's municipal election.
   "The (Police Services) Act is very clear: Police are not allowed to endorse candidates," said Law Union spokesman Paul Copeland, calling on Fantino to "do his job."
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City Pushing for Rent Freeze - Aug.30.2000
   City council's Tenant Defence Subcommittee wants all council to ask the provincial government for a rent freeze in Toronto until the Tenant Protection Act is amended or replaced.
   "This act has had two years to prove that it has been nothing but a scourge for affordable housing,'' said Councillor Michael Walker, chair of the subcommittee. "Seniors on fixed incomes, young people just starting out and people with low incomes just can't afford these unfair rent increases and evictions.''
   Since 1997, Toronto tenants on average pay $1,000 per year more on rent, Walker said. "The act is effectively eviction over time.'' He calls his motion a litmus test going into municipal elections, showing which councillors support our tenants.
See also - Fight for a Rent Freeze - Toronto Tenants take to the Streets
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Who Needs Community Councils? (Summer.2000)

   Groups like Citizens for Local Democracy have pushed strongly for community councils, and today the Toronto Star chides Mel Lastman for not pushing hard enough for eight of these CCs.

   City council has decided that there will be four of these community councils and not the eight some people wanted, which is a reduction from the current six.

   The community council idea came from Tory Al Leach back when Mike Harris forced the six cities of Toronto into a megacity. The public just wasn't buying a megacity, so Leach looked to New York and came up with the spin that community councils would preserve local democracy.

   The leadership, but not the members, of Citizens for Local Democracy, bought into the CC idea. Author Jane Jacobs entered at that point to charge that New York CCs were useless, the biggest problem being that citizens composing them blocked access to councilors. So in the end Toronto got community councils made up of councilors - a reshuffling of the chairs so to speak.

   The real truth on community councils is that they don't aid local democracy at all. These weak bodies with citizens arguing about potholes and stop signs just create an illusion of citizen involvement. They aren't power to the people in any way. And if anything proves that point it is the Toronto Star's support of them. Let's not forget that the Star is the mega-everything champion, and would not support anything that genuinely empowers citizens.

   Even four community councils are four too many. A body like a Citizens Assembly, that would involve the public in the larger issues and in media, would be far better.
See my flyer on the assembly idea at
http://www.interlog.com/~cjazz/assembly.htm
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Public Policing Nightmare as Red Necks take all  Police Services Board Spots - July.2000
(Appointment of Harris Bully points to ugly times ahead)
    Mike Harris' former minister of bullying and forced megacities, Al Leach, is to replace lobbyist Jeff Lyons on the on the Police Services Board in August.
   Leach rides in trumpeting Tory support of choppers for coppers, an attack on Olivia Chow and wild support for Police Chief Julian Fantino. To make it an all red neck Board, the city's striking committee is going to appoint Councillor Gordon Chong as Chow's replacement.
   Police Services Board chairman, Norm Gardner is a thrilled by this new situation.
   Also thrilled would be any old Nazis still alive and the many proponents of a Police State. I still have a report on my web site from the old megacity fight called Al Leach's Police State Megacity Meeting - where he stacked a public meeting with an army of police to thwart public protest.
   This points to a very dangerous future in Toronto, and massive government sanctioned police harassment. The split between citizens groups and this board is going to be best described as open hostility.
   It's a nightmare, plain and simple.
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Toronto Squeegee Youth Program extended - July.2000
    A successful program that helps get squeegee kids into counselling, training and education has been extended another year.
   The Squeegee Working Youth Mobilization (SWYM) initiative passed through the community services committee yesterday by a unanimous vote.
   Brad Duguid, the committee chairman, said that's because the program has proved so successful.122 squeegee kids who have graduated from the SWYM program since last July are now  leading productive lives.
   The federal government contributed a $400,000 grant from Human Resources Development Canada to start the 10-week courses and City Hall is currently in negotiations with Ottawa to secure additional funding for next year.
   Olivia Chow, a Downtown councillor and the city's advocate for youth issues, said giving squeegee kids opportunities with a program designed especially for them has proved cheaper than allowing the youths to drift aimlessly toward more nefarious pursuits. Given that it costs between $60,000 and $100,000 to keep one person in jail for a year, spending $250,000 to help scores of teens at risk is as financially prudent as it is socially responsible.
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Mayor Mel's Moral Majority - July.2000
Subtitled - The Police State Summer

   There has been a lot of media speculation on Alliance leader Stockwell Day and his brand of social conservatism. Day is modeled on the US moral majority and he likes to debate ugly issues like abortion and capital punishment. In economic areas Day types drop the social aspect to support the rape of the nation by plain old wealthy folks and giant corporations.

   At the level of municipal politics in Toronto, the media portrays Mayor Lastman and his alliance of right and left councilors as moderates. There are many of us who disagree with that picture but it is hard to get the message across. The best way to put it is that Lastman and friends have created a new sort of Moral Majority that gets kind coverage from corporate media.

   The new moralists think crime is everywhere when it is going down all of the time in Toronto. They spend millions on Community Action Policing even though nearly all citizens groups that aim for police accountability say that Target Policing has proved to be little more than harassment of the poor on the streets. This year the Mayor and the media are heaping praise on Target Policing, and they don't even bother to mention that a lot of us oppose it. Our views don't even count anymore. Mayor Lastman trumpets a call for federal and provincial money so squads of police can hassle us all year. Of course there's also the Harris Safe Streets Act, a discriminatory Ontario-wide law that works only to jail squeegee kids and panhandlers in the core of Toronto. It is a law the new Moral Majority wanted, even though they are always talking about helping the poor.

   Tenants also get the bad end of the moral stick, as even lefties like Councilor Pam McConnell make no bones about seeing to it that rooming houses are closed in downtown Toronto this summer. Of course this is to help poor tenants get free of such unsafe buildings. It is not to help wealthy residents' associations that want to get rid of tenants. Pam knows that it is much safer to be living on the streets.

   Councilors like Kyle Rae and David Miller, also lefties, have been accused of similar intolerant actions - Miller in regard to tenants and Rae in regards to the poor. Then there is the way council treats youth, with the new ban on Raves. Here our moralists know that it is too dangerous to dance. Kids will be safe and drug free if they are forced to stay home.

   Our new Moral Majority and its Media just love anything that's big. Like the Olympics and monster-sized waterfront development plans. To listen to them is to believe that politics isn't even about people anymore. It's about a celebrity mayor and councilors standing up in the clouds on skyscraper pedestals. Some of them talking about a safe city for tourists and reaching down to try and squeeze more of the needy into shelters that are already full. There are even days when councilors like George Mammoliti come right down to the gritty streets, to pass bylaws prohibiting cats from roaming and to capture any such pesky critters found on the loose. This is people politics at its best, isn't it?

   The new Moral Majority doesn't like ugly things like political protest. They just wish the police would beat and jail those horrible rioters. And the media has picked up the truncheon, too, as they now gather information on protesters for the cops. Corporate health is their real agenda. They no longer care about freedom of the press or freedom of the people. They couldn't work fast enough to hand police all the photographic evidence they could find to aid in charging the June 15th anti poverty protesters with petty offenses. And why shouldn't they aid the police? All of the good people support this sort of thing, don't they? It isn't really a witch hunt. It is just an honest attempt to run those ungrateful hooligans out of town, so the clean tourists won't have to see them when the Olympics come to town.

   So now we live in Moral Mel's Megacity. We can't dance, run with the cats, protest or trust the media. Only tourists are truly free on the streets. And Mel will tell you honestly. This isn't a police state. It's just good clean fun.
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Democracy without Representation - July.2000

   In this megacity election we vote for 44 councilors instead of 57 as Ontario Premier Mike Harris has again restructured local government without consulting the people.

   This is all on the argument that we need fewer politicians. Which is a bogus argument because Harris presents no democratic alternative to elected representatives. He's not interested citizen forums or assemblies or anything that empowers people.

   We should keep in mind that someone always governs, and if government isn't through the will of the people it isn't democracy. What we now have in Toronto and Ontario is Democracy without Representation. In this revolutionary Harris world a political party outspends the opposition by millions and millions, and wins with a minority of the popular vote. It then acts as an elected dictator over the provincial level of government, and over the municipal level.

   In Toronto this new Harris downsizing is costing us $500,000 in renovations money added to the $6.9-million cost of retrofitting of City Hall for Harris' Megacity. Creating Megacity was supposed to save money, and it didn't. We now have a massive and growing city debt.

   What makes it worse is that elected councilors simply do not have the will to fight Mike Harris. This time around citizens should demand that candidates fight for this city.

   All Harris' reduction of councilors has given us is the bill for an enlarged podium for the mayor. And he thinks we should be grateful.
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We need a Public Forum and not a Probe into the June.15th Poverty Protest Riot
Mayor and Council Duck the Issue - July.2000

   I don't find it at all surprising that a coalition of union and community groups has called for a probe into police use of force at the June 15th anti-poverty rally. The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty doesn't support the probe idea, and that isn't a surprise either. They focus on poverty issues and a probe by the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services probably would not in any way help the poor. The Toronto Sun also opposes a probe, but their reason appears to be that their editorial board wants to act as judge and jury on the issue. Lastly, it isn't a surprise that council and the mayor want to duck the issue. Mainly because of the election, but also because they don't want to face up to the thorny issues of target policing and government initiated poverty in the streets.

   My personal feeling is that a probe by a commission working under the province's attorney general could only miss the target. I was at the protest and it seemed clear to me that the police military-style attack on protesters was preplanned. At the first sign of provocation they were to move in hard. The Harris government must have left orders for the grounds to be cleared by force. So why have a commission send a report to them that will only blame somebody else - like the Toronto Police or OCAP?

   I don't expect community groups not to call for a probe. I'm just skeptical. I also think that just about everybody is guilty. The homeless and other protesters including myself are guilty of losing our tempers and attempting to fight back against the horrible Harris Government. The police are guilty of getting out of control in a way that nearly led to deaths instead of calming the situation. City council and the rest of the politicians are guilty of looking for an easy way out by blaming OCAP, and generally trying to duck the root causes of the violence. Harris and his government are guilty of creating a political climate that forces people into poverty and violence.

   In that sense perhaps a public forum on the issue would be better. There was some debate on the Internet after the so-called riot. One police officer going under the alias of BigCityCopper sent messages to a number of protesters. His tack was to describe the arrested protesters with vile language, and to express the joy he felt when he heard that one of the arrested men may have been sodomized in jail.

   In any forum on the issue, BigCityCopper should get up there with Julian Fantino and explain just why such violence and degradation turns him on. Some of the protesters and homeless could tell the public why they feel so angry. And perhaps the mayor and councilors could explain just why they seem to have no feelings at all, while the Tories talk about their love for protester-trampling horses.

   It would be a beginning, and it could lead to public awareness of the issues, which would be of more value than a big stack of commission probe reports.

By Gary Morton
related info - Showdown at Queen's Park - Toronto, June 15 2000
Poverty Protesters Battle Police as Mike Harris Refuses to Address Poverty Issues
- read a complete report
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Toronto Police Services Board Should be Directly Elected - June.2000
   Recent news articles point to the danger police union bully Craig Bromell poses after Olivia Chow's exit. The truth is that the problem lies in the lack of democratic structure in the board.
   The Police Services Board starts out stacked with three Harris appointees. Mel Lastman is on it by virtue of being mayor. Then we have a lobbiest, Lyons. And of course there is Councilor Gardner. And one lonely citizen representative.
   Another Councilor wants to replace Chow and look liberal by smoking some weed at the meetings.
   In Votes only the Citizen Rep and Chow dared to oppose the majority on some issues.
   The system of appointees should be dumped altogether. Why is Harris (through appointees) running Toronto policing? The Board should be composed of elected councilors only. Or else be created by direct election from the people. The mayor should not be on the Board at all.
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Children's programs slashed by Council Budget Committee - Apr.06.00 - The Mayor and Council have spent more than half a billion for police this year. Extra millions of it being for target policing against the poor. They have lots of cash for Olympic dreams. But they have very little for citizens, city workers and now children.
   In fact, they want us to pay the costs of Amalgamation.
   There's no money left in the pot for city workers who haven't had a raise in years. Small programs to aid parents and teens are being chopped. Then there are the new user fees for city programs. To make it worse the city's budget committee has now gutted the promised children's program.
   The plan that envisioned spending up to $12 million is being chopped to 2 million. And the committee took advantage of the fact that citizens groups were locked out by a city strike.
   The final word on the budget comes in a council meeting in late April.
   Before he joined the race to lead the amalgamated City of Toronto in 1997, Mayor Mel Lastman proposed a $20-per-household tax to fight child poverty. How many promises will he break this time around?
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From Harrisville to Melville - May.13.2000
(A report on the Province of Toronto or City State idea)

     Al McPherson of the Province of Toronto group phoned me this morning with an update to upload to his web page, which I post on my site at
http://www.interlog.com/~cjazz/prov-t.htm

     Al says that City Council has put off debate on the Province of Toronto referendum question until June. Toronto City Council will be taking deputations on the issue on Thursday May 25th. As it goes now the Province of Toronto people want a referendum question on the Megacity 2000 ballot asking citizens if they want to split from Ontario to form a Province of Toronto. The debate has expanded to some degree as some people want the question to be whether Toronto should be a City State. Mayor Mel Lastman is back on his elite committee route and instead of a referendum he wants to appoint people to two elite I Luv Toronto Committees. Councilor Kris Korwin Kuzinski has also come into the fray saying he wants council to create a citizens committee to push the city's interests.

     Former East York Mayor Michael Prue is holding a Public Meeting on the topics June 14 at 7.30 p.m. in committee room 3 at Toronto City Hall.

     Where I fit or don't fit into the debate is in regards to a Citizens Assembly. I have bombarded City Council and the media over the past year and half with posts on the issue. Basically I argue that citizens have been shut out of government. In the Toronto Megacity we could begin to restore democracy by creating a city forum to involve all citizens in debate. That would be through a state funded Citizens Assembly that would hold public meetings on city issues either monthly or quarterly.
See http://www.interlog.com/~cjazz/assembly.htm

     It appears to me that in this current democracy-based power struggle, Mike Harris has power and is misusing it. Last week he attacked Toronto again, and he proved that life does go on in misery. After forced amalgamation the citizens of Toronto not only get to live under the iron boots of Mike Harris, and his municipal affairs minister Tony Clement. We also get to be verbally abused by them.

     Yesterday local mayors jumped into the issue, calling for a Greater Toronto charter to strengthen the region's control over its future. And if one thing is certain it is that Tony Clement will not strengthen control at the municipal level or in any way improve the archaic model we have for funding cities. A model that downloads social programs but not the revenue means to pay for them.

     If anything makes this saga more interesting it that everyone at the local level is pulling in one direction, while Harris pulls in another. Yesterday Tony Clement said that the Ontario government would forbid the City of Toronto from holding a referendum on pursuing greater civic powers. He told the National Post that his new democracy bill would give Queen's Park veto power over what municipalities can put to a plebiscite. The Conservative government would prohibit Toronto from putting a question on the ballot asking voters if they want city-state status for their municipality.

     Clement's stand means the argument will continue to fester, and Mike Harris and Mel Lastman will continue their feud. Citizens will remain mere spectators as these various forces struggle for power. But we can be sure that Queen's Park intends to keep wearing the iron boots. While Mel plans on using local discontent and the City State and Province of TO movements to win some iron boots of his own.

     It is the citizens of Toronto that get cheated in all of this. They amalgamated our cities and left us without any real mechanism for citizen participation in government. Community Councils that were supposed to include citizens in government ended up composed of councilors, and they don't really exist at all any more.

     Citizens aren't the only spectators in this as Ottawa is also playing its role as a do-nothing spectator. From Toronto, Ottawa looks like place where they sit and watch, and it is only when the seeds of separation have taken firm root that they consider taking action.

     I have a problem with the whole thing. I believe that the status quo and Harris' iron boots are unacceptable. Yet with a Province of Toronto or a City State we could just be handing power over to new dictators. We could go from Harrisville to Melville and still be left out of the political equation.

     The discontent is really rooted in the fact that citizens can't participate in local government in Toronto. If no one is supporting my idea of a Citizens' Assembly it is because it makes too much sense.

     Another reason it lacks support is because it is just too easy to do. It's too easy to involve people in government. It lacks the immense hurdles of a Province of Toronto or a City State. It also lacks the bizarre ideological components contained in Harris' municipal vision.

     Right now the Province of Toronto people are talking about a long legal challenge against Clement, should he prohibit a referendum.

     If City Council created a Citizens Assembly there wouldn't be any prohibition of it by the province. Even provincial politicians would be expected to address it.
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Gary Morton
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Battle of the Bachelorettes
The Future of Low-cost Housing in Parkdale
from the Parkdale Tenant

The battle over rooming houses and bachelorette buildings (low-rise buildings mostly made up of small affordable one room apts.,) has been going on for over 22 years and will continue for many years to come.

It's a story about trying to prevent the creation of any new affordable housing and reducing the amount that already exists to force the poor out of Parkdale. You may think that this doesn't apply to you, but in the end this affects all housing in Parkdale, directly or indirectly.

It was all spearheaded by city councillor Chris Korwin-Kuczynski over 22 years ago, and supported the past two years by lawyer and now councillor David Miller.

These buildings house seniors, recent immigrants, the working poor and the disabled, but city reports paint these buildings as housing only ex-psychiatric patients.

The city has used every dirty trick in the book. The city said they held a public meeting where the community supported their proposal, but the public were never informed of that meeting.

By order of Toronto City Council, a "Citizen's Parkdale Housing Committee" has been set up, but Korwin-Kucynski and Miller decided that tenants only deserve 4 of the 11 seats, even though tenants represent 92.8% of South Parkdale. The head of the Business Improvement Association who gets government grants and contracts gets 1 seat, homeowners 2, government-funded agencies get 2, and landlords 2. This whole process is so corrupt the City has reserved one of the tenant seats for the superintendents who the city knowingly has been allowing to represent tenants for the past year-and-a-half! And the city councillors have the nerve to call the group THEY created a "community initiative" and a "citizen's group"! In the past year, the City has broken its own rules. Neither have they cared about tenant concerns that any tenant on this group who is forced to sit with landlords, as under the City's previous group, may be under threat from their landlords to support what the landlords want.

The councillors only want to use this fake community group to sweep under the rug the issue of the South Parkdale-specific bylaws of 1978 and 1986 that forbids the creation of new housing under 65 square metres (26.5 x 26.5 feet,) preventing the creation of affordable housing.

The City has even allocated $250,000 for a city Parkdale Pilot Work Group to review the existing bachelorettes to see if they will be shutting them down. Another $90,000 was allocated to a east-end agency, part of which is for them to try to relocate any tenants the City may evict.

The people of Toronto need programs to create and improve affordable housing, not committees and grants to get rid of what little affordable housing there is. The City has already shut down one building on the false claim that it was unsafe, when their court order clearly stated that it was only for zoning reasons - that the units were too small under these ridiculous bylaws. If a building were really to be unsafe, the city has the legal right to fix it up and charge the landlord, instead of shutting it down.

These bylaws Korwin-Kuczynski and Miller are continuing to support are clearly meant to discriminate against poor people.
 

Toronto Olympic Dream goes up in Back Room Smoke - Apr.07.00

   Mel Lastman and Mike Harris are trying to pretend that nothing has changed, but the truth is that Toronto's hopes for the 2008 Olympics have been killed.

   Ontario's Olympic commissioner resigned last Thursday, saying the government is trying to piggyback private development of Toronto's waterfront on its Olympic bid via a backdoor deal that could end up costing taxpayers billions. Morley Kells also quit as chairman of the province's Waterfront Development Agency.

   Kells said it didn't take long to figure out that there was another level of negotiation going on. With staff surrounding Premier Mike Harris trying to reward developers instead of focusing on winning the 2008 Olympic Games, Kells' ability to secure the financial guarantees required by the International Olympic Committee was undermined.

   Mel Lastman has been accused of governing Toronto via crisis management and this time it is simply too late to fix things. To save the Olympic Bid he had to stop the backroom stuff early on. By now the IOC knows that Olympic Commissioner Kells resigned because people wouldn't obey the rules, and the IOC will be certain that the big players in Toronto can't be trusted to follow through. They will look to Beijing.

   We've lost the Olympics because of the new disrespect for the democratic process that the Tories have fostered. And a look at the system as it is now shows us why the big shots wanted to bypass Kells.

   Ontario democracy has been castrated. Mike Harris and a handful of advisors and consultants (people like Leslie Noble and Guy Giorno) run Ontario like a dictatorship. If you can get in the back door to them, you can get what you want. Governments get re-elected through changing the rules and spending huge sums on advertising. Once an election is won Mike Harris avoids question period and the legislature, mainly because his party passed legislation that renders the opposition parties toothless and the legislature irrelevant. His cabinet pushes through rafts of Orwellian bills and ignores public input, opposition and proper democratic procedure. Power is handed over to unaccountable boards and commissions that serve to lessen or eliminate the rights of citizens.

   It's easy to see that power brokers and politicians with Waterfront and Olympic dreams got upset when their grand plans were subjected to Kells' sober review. Kells even dared to question the idea of building on polluted soil, and he suggested we use current facilities like Ontario Place.

    Frustrated with Kells, the people who want to super build, at the public's expense, went to Harris and his advisors. And of course anything can be done with Harris' key people sold on the dream.  Orwellian bills can be passed if needed, crushing powers can be created for SuperBuild Corp, which is now controlling the deal. And of course public money will flow like a waterfall while the government simply ignores powerless citizens and opposition parities.

   So the happy ending is that we are going to be taken to the cleaners by Lastman, Harris and Developers. But we won't get the Olympics. They are long gone.
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June 13 Committee Statement on Current Incidents of Police Harassment and Repression
June 13 Committee <june13committee@hotmail.com> August 3, 2000

The June 13 Committee was formed in 1999 after a series of police raids on a gay bar, the Bijou, led to charges being laid against 19 men. We played a major role in the community response that led to those charges being dropped. Unfortunately, that incident has been followed by repeated further instances of police pressure, harassment, and repression against the queer and other communities in Toronto. In recent months there has been an intensification of police harassment and repression.

Harassment of the Queer Community

The Barn, a gay bar which had been the venue for TNTMEN’s monthly Naked Dance for about two years, was visited by police who threatened the Barn’s owner with charges if the dances continued. An arrangement negotiated by TNTMEN with Superintendent Maher of 52 Division, whereby the dances could continue, was reneged on by the police. The Naked Dance has now been stopped. A charge laid in the course of this harassment is still outstanding.

The Toolbox, a gay bar which had been the venue for another naked men’s event for many years, was visited recently by police, who ordered the owner to tell his customers to get dressed, and warned him that future naked events would result in charges being laid.

The June 13 Committee strongly protests against this harassment of the queer community. We call upon the community to resist attempts by the police to place unnecessary restrictions upon our sexual expression, particularly those based on antique laws that bear no relation to current society, and which are enforced in a capricious, unfair manner. We demand that such harassment cease, and that any charges laid be dropped.

Repression of OCAP

On June 15, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) demonstrated at Queen’s Park demanding to speak directly to the Ontario Legislature about the urgent issues affecting poor people in this Province. Rather than acting as peacekeepers, the police seemed to be seeking an excuse to attack the demonstrators. The attack was massive and violent. Horses were repeatedly used to clear the Park, and demonstrators were followed for long distances by police who harassed and attacked them.

…/2

June 13 Committee Statement             -2-

The June 15 demo also led to an illegitimate interference by the Police Association in the political process, when they organized a campaign to force Councillor Olivia Chow off the Police Services Board (PSB). This was done in response to some mild criticisms she made of police violence at the demo. The Police Association, controlled by Craig Bromell, went so far as to place petitions in every police station, demanding Chow’s resignation, and threatened to charge her under the Police Act with interference in police operations. Chow soon resigned from the PSB.

Following the demo, the police inspired a vicious media attack on OCAP, focussing on its leadership. They forced the media to hand over photos of the demo to scan them for possible offenses (some media outlets are challenging this in court). They arrested and laid serious charges against the leaders of OCAP. They sought and won harsh bail conditions against those charged (these too are being challenged in court as unconstitutional). They then enforced those conditions rigidly, laying a further charge against an OCAP member.

The June 13 Committee was one of many organizations that supported the June 15 demonstration. Our support was based on one of our main principles: that we in the queer community have always been a marginalized group, and that we must therefore offer support to - and seek support from -- other marginalized communities. We reject any approach which aims to benefit our community by means of a “special deal” that is not available to other communities. We know that current successes can easily be reversed - as the ascent of Stockwell Day shows - unless we build strong cooperation among the groups who have everything to lose from an increase of harassment and repression.

We strongly protest the brutal police repression that occurred on June 15, and the vindictive, often unconstitutional manner in which the police are now attempting to crush OCAP by criminalizing its leaders and disrupting its normal activities. We are deeply concerned by the level of police violence that day, and the message it sends that dissent will not be tolerated in Toronto. We demand a full investigation of police tactics during and after the event. We demand that unconstitutional actions be stopped and those responsible punished. We demand that politically motivated charges against OCAP and others be withdrawn.

We are deeply concerned by the continued involvement of the Police Association in the political process.  This organization has shown itself to be contemptuous of the democratic process and even of normal police discipline. We have seen that its members are too intimidated to come forward in defense of the democratic process it is their sworn duty to uphold. We demand that the Police Association be prevented from further engaging in the political process, in line with current such prohibitions on political involvement by Crown Attorneys and judges.

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June 13 Committee Statement             -3-

We call upon City Council to appoint people to the Police Services Board who are prepared to impose democratic accountability on the Police. The current Board has lost much of its credibility by constantly deferring to the wishes of the Police and their Association, even to the extent of joining in the insubordinate and improper campaign to force Councillor Chow off the Board.

Harassment and Over-Regulation of Raves and Other Celebrations

In recent months the police, led by Chief Fantino, have engaged in a campaign aimed at ending raves and similar celebrations in Toronto. Inflammatory rhetoric and red herrings have been prominently featured in what amounts to a scare campaign aimed at a public that had little direct knowledge of these events.

On August 1, the I Dance Rally drew over 20,000 people to Nathan Phillips Square in a mighty demonstration of the capacity of young people in Toronto to organize a peaceful celebration of freedom and community.

The June 13 Committee supports the rave community in its resistance to police overregulation and false statements by the Police Chief and other public figures. Members of J13C, acting as individuals, have played a prominent role in organizing that resistance. We applaud City Council’s decision to remove the ban on raves on city owned property, and we call upon the police to implement fair guidelines on the Paid Duty Officer requirement at raves, as adopted by Council in 1999 after consultation with the Toronto Dance Safety Committee.

Police Harassment in the Black Community

Police harassment of the black community in Toronto is nothing new. Recent incidents in St. James Town, where Ms. Murphy Browne was attacked by police after witnessing and protesting police violence against black youths, have led to community protests.

The June 13 Committee strongly protests police harassment of the black community. We support the community response currently under way in St. James Town. We believe that these incidents stem from the Community Action Policing (CAP) strategy that allows the police to profile and target specific groups, particularly marginalized groups like queers, homeless people, black people, street youth, and others. We demand that CAP be scrapped immediately.

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June 13 Committee Statement             -4-

Conclusion - Call For Mutual Support and Common Action

The June 13 Committee is well aware that there are powerful forces behind the current incidents of police harassment and repression. We know that it will take more than issuing statements and making demands to bring any real changes.

We know that the queer community cannot do this alone, and that we cannot benefit by any “special deals” that divide us from others in the city. We have already expressed our grave reservations about the “police liaison process” which has been limping along in our community. These recent events have made it clear that any liaison will occur in a climate of harassment relieved only by meaningless publicity stunts.

The June 13 Committee calls upon all those who are the targets of police harassment and repression, and all those concerned about the growth of police power in Toronto, to join together in to share resources and develop common strategies. Now is the time to improve cooperation and mutual support among our diverse communities.

For further information respond by e-mail to this address or call (416) 925-9872 ext 3950.

Michael Giglio Secretary for the Committee
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