It’s that time of year again: clean house, declutter, clear the decks. For Toronto, that means wading through quite a bit of muck.
Newly installed mayor John Tory may not be known for vision or passion, but he does have a solid record as a corporate administrator. And true to his roots, it seems that Tory is using his first few months in office to focus on restoring some basic order to city streets. That means cleaning up the mess created on several fronts by four years under the regime of former mayor Rob Ford.
To wit: Tory, who campaigned on getting the city moving, is using the most basic of tools to get started. Declaring a veritable war on vehicles illegally parked on main thoroughfares, a small army of tow trucks now descends on the city at rush hour, rounding up malefactors and sending them off to the pound. Basic, but effective.
Other essentials Tory is fast-tracking include getting more of the homeless off the street and into shelters. He is also trying to reverse the callous and short-sighted Ford-era cuts to bus services imposed on a city where rapid transit is grossly inadequate and buses – particularly in lower-income neighbourhoods – are vital.
Tory is even paying attention to appearances and the comfort of pedestrians – a policy that most major cities now acknowledge reduces crime, among other benefits – by proposing to double the city’s budget for planting trees. It’s not exciting stuff, but it’s a lot of bang for the public buck in a major metropolitan area chronically starved of adequate funding.
Then there’s the Toronto District School Board (TDSB). A gargantuan, profoundly troubled organization where outstanding merit and grave incompetence exist side by side at virtually every level, the TDSB seems to lack both the will and the ways to reward one and eliminate the other.
After questions were raised in the media about the conduct and contracts of the TDSB’s most senior overseers last year, leading to abrupt resignations, shouting matches and even allegations of physical violence during office altercations, the province finally stepped in at the end of 2014. A scathing preliminary report released last month found a “culture of fear” at Canada’s largest school board, one that serves the country’s most diverse population of students. Among other recommendations, the report proposed breaking up the board.
Even that fine old Ontario institution, The Beer Store, has to clean up its act. Long controlled by a consortium of the largest brewers in the province – Labatt, Molson and Sleeman (now based in Belgium, the U.S. and Japan) – the scores of smaller, Ontario-based brewers that have proliferated over the past several decades want a say in how their products are sold.
According to a recent poll, the vast majority of Ontarians agree that democracy should come to this little corner of the monopoly board. In the wake of several lawsuits challenging the current arrangement, the province is reviewing the status of The Beer Store.
So, pass the craft beer, get on the bus and sign up for a night course at your local high school. Finally, a modicum of real common sense seems to be coming to town.
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