Monday’s Headlines

5 comments

1. I apologize for the delay with today’s Headlines. Headlines will return to their regular publication schedule tomorrow morning.

2. Anyone else find it ‘funny’ that the library cuts being talked about are downtown?

   Not very strategic if the library board is trying to stop Ford from going through with it.

3. I see the moving of the goalposts has started already with Rob Ford.

   No one should forget his absolute vow during the election: “No cuts”.

   No cuts is pretty easy to understand.

   But closing the Urban Affairs library is, of course, a cut. It may not affect you if you live in Etobicoke and are not interested in urban issues, but if you live in a downtown condo it means that picking up a library book is now out of walking distance. That’s a cut. (As is, btw, having to wait 6 months for a popular book because of reduced title purchases instead of 3 months).

   But look at the mayor’s spokeswoman’s comment: “the mayor has been very clear – he doesn’t want to see any major service cuts”.

   Suddenly, an easy to understand “No Cuts” has become “no major service cuts”. What is or isn’t a cut is easy to understand. But what is a “major” cut is a debating point.

   And so it begins, as the reality of simple arithmetic hits home.

4. Here’s an anecdote about the bag tax. I moved away from Toronto a decade ago. When I was visiting my brother in 2008, I waited for him with his dog outside a supermarket on Bayview south of Eglinton. As I stood there for ten minutes, I was stunned by the number of people that were carrying reusable bags, or often no bags at all, as they came out of the store. If you bought only a couple items, you just carried them to the car – I saw a family come out and each kid was carrying a box of crackers or carton of juice in their hands! Out of all the shoppers, I think I saw maybe two using store plastic bags – and this was a wealthy area. I’ve never seen 5 cents change behaviour so radically before.

   Back in New York, I routinely take a dozen reusable canvas bags with me to my local Target, not because they give me a 5 cent credit but because I can’t possibly use all of the plastic bags that I otherwise accumulate. Yes, I line trash cans with them, but I just can’t use them all. In New York everything is automatically double-bagged too (since the bags go on long trips on foot or subway), making it worse. But I am always the only one in the store with reusable bags, and this is in a very low income neighbourhood.

   So clearly there is a difference between making someone pay 5 cents vs giving them a 5 cent credit. It changes behaviour. Miller got that, and Toronto was a leading city in the fight against too many plastic bags cluttering the trees, streets and drains. Ford gets it too in that he can’t stand paying five cents, but he does not get the rationale. Whether the retailer keeps the five cents or gives it to charity or a green nonprofit — is irrelevant. He can only see what is in front of his nose — a five cent fee, or a license plate tax, or a slow streetcar. The man is incapable of understanding that everything in life is elastic and that behaviour change, and not fee collection, is the ultimate goal.

   Like streetcars, a bag tax is one of those good ideas that works and will eventually get adopted by all successful urbanized places. Ford can try to eliminate it for now, but it will be back. DC has a tax, NYC and Chicago will get around to it sooner or later, and LA has banned plastic bags completely:

   http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/taxing-plastic-bags-from-pennies-here-to-millions-there/

   http://www.businessinsider.com/los-angeles-county-just-banned-plastic-bags-levied-tax-on-paper-2010-11

5. With these pointless budget cuts and dismantling of sound policies like the bag tax, I fear we may be on our way towards bleak provincialism.