Friday’s headlines

9 comments

1. Is DiManno seriously suggesting that companies should be able to spraypaint their ads on any public property without paying a dime? And that the city’s opposition to such behaviour is based solely on the greed of politicians?

   Amazing… that has got to be one of the stupidest editorials I’ve ever read in my life.

2. Once again Spacing ignores pets concerns in the city. Every media outlet did stories on the arrests at The Tornto Humane Society, yet not a peep here. Must be ant-animal people here who think wildlife in the city and nature has no place in concrete cities.

   By the way, College of Veterinarians say 60% of Ontarians own a pet. Plus there is a pet overpopulation problem that is affecting the quality of life in the city.

   Spacing, except no space for animals or nature.

3. Snap! You found us out Ken!! Check out the cover of our upcoming anti-animal issue:

   

4. Will you be writing about the terrible abandoned and feral cat population in TO? I refer you to the CAT CITY documentary done by Justine Pimlott and aired on Global TV in mid October Facebook page at:
   http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=108340139712

   You still don’t explain why such a hot news story as the THS arrests is entirely ignored by Spacing…

5. Ken, it’s been covered on every media outlet all over the city since last night, the story is out there. If somebody missed it, they’d miss us mentioning it too. We don’t cover every police bust in the city, even if there is some kind of public space angle we could attach to it. There is no conspiracy, though judging by the tone of your comments, this won’t satisfy you.

6. I’m a fan of our coyotes.

7. “Unprecedented construction in City Budget”

   Interesting that this should be here a day after Jonathan does a piece on loop holes in the lobbyist registry.

   $24 Billion in spending over 10 years creating 300,000 jobs is certainly an impressive number. I have gone throught all the Capital Budgets of the City and its’ ABC’s and found another pretty impressive number. Next year there will be tendered $1.2 Billion in public construction projects with Building Trade union labour only restrictions. This equates to a monopoly over 15,000 private sector jobs for the Mayor’s supporters in the Building Trades and discrimination against the majority of the regions construction workforce. This equates to $1.2 Billion in work for private sector unionized constructors who will get to bid work where their major competition is disqualified because they don’t have a union or have the wrong union. You gotta know this is going to drive up prices big time especially when there is so much infrastructure spending in the whole region and a shortage of qualified contractors to do the work.

   Referring to Jonathon’s piece there are two things really smelly about this whole set up.

   One is that only a year ago, when reporting on the cost implications of this Building Trade only restricted tendering, Staff came up with a number of only $200 Million a year or $2 Billion over 10 years when it is actually $12 Billion. Somehow they missed by $10 Billion? I asked the Budget Committee serveral weeks ago to verify my research but they weren’t interested and that too seemed strange.

   The second strange angle is that the Representatives of the Building Trades who lobby for their labour monopoly and for the private sector interest of their affiliated contractors have free run of City Hall. Certainly seems strange to me that the private sector parties who have the most to gain over the single biggest purchasing category in all the Capital Budgets do not have to Register as Lobbyists when we are talking about $Billions.

   I hope you guys at Spacing are going to get Jonathan to jump right on this loop hole issue. We are talking really big money here and really big issues about governance.

   You can get more information at openshop.ca under News and Information, City of Toronto Deputations.

8. Hey Dave,

   Only one year ago, the feds were saying that there was no recession and that Canada’s economy was an unstoppable juggernaut that didn’t need any silly government stimulus spending.
   I suspect that no small portion of the those unexplained new billions are due to federal infrastructure stimulus funding and the matching contributions that Toronto is required to throw in.
   And the recent winning of the Pan Am Games has moved other spending up too.

   When you project $12 billion over the next decade, are you just multiplying $1.2 billion this year by 10 years? With projects moved up, the next year or two is going to have higher than expected capital spending, while the far side of the decade will probably have lower than originally expected.

9. John,
   The Dollar numbers have not gone up a simple 50 to 100% but 600%. And too many obvious things were simply ignored in the Staff report. Go to the Toronto Water 10 year capital plan from 2 years ago and you will see that there is over $200 Million a year for the next 10 years being spent on Water and Waste Water plant upgrades and expansions that are tendered under the restrictions. Toronto Housing has been spending $ 100 Million a year in State of Good rapair projects for the last 5 years and are upping that to $130 Milion a year because the Housing has been deteriorating faster than repairs are done. Both these mayor multi year Capital Plans are exclude from the Staff Report.
   If you go back to the list of projects on the Toronto Infrastructure submitted to the Feds,you will find that the vast majority are Road and Sewer and Watermain jobs that I have completely excluded from the $1.2 Billion in restricted projects because they are not covered by the Building Trade union restrictions that cover “Buildings and Structures in the ICI Sector.”
   Any projects being moved up are included in the City Budget release that calls for $24 Billion over 10 years that I have used in researching the numbers.
   Surely the bigger issue is more than just the increase but that something is fishy when so much money and so many jobs are in the hands of a private sector industry who’s agents have free run of City Hall without registering and Lobbyists.