{"id":21402,"date":"2011-07-18T11:04:52","date_gmt":"2011-07-18T15:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=21402"},"modified":"2011-07-18T11:07:29","modified_gmt":"2011-07-18T15:07:29","slug":"lorinc-waiting-for-plan-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/07\/18\/lorinc-waiting-for-plan-b\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: Waiting for Plan B"},"content":{"rendered":"

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At the risk of inviting abuse on the comment string, I found myself wondering last week whether Jarvis Street is the hill on which the left wants to die.<\/p>\n

For the record, I strongly disagreed with the Ford camp\u2019s bid to erase the Jarvis bike lanes, although I also revisited my irritation at the fact that David Miller\u2019s council took such a long time to implement the City\u2019s cycling strategy.<\/p>\n

Bottom line: Jarvis does represent a symbolic win for the brothers Ford, an election promise kept for the car war camp. In the long run, however, it may also prove to be a pyrrhic victory (look it up). Symbolic politics, as Miller knew well, cuts in both directions, and Jarvis may become a rallying cry for 2014.<\/p>\n

But right now, Jarvis is not the main course, and council\u2019s left would do well to move on, and quickly.<\/p>\n

Whether by accident or design, the lengthy council fight over Jarvis played right into the Fords\u2019 hands because it drew so much attention away from the KPMG core service review reports, which the city manager\u2019s office has opted to release in installment form over the course of two weeks. (It\u2019s like a made-for-TV mini-series, except you already know the story ends badly.)<\/p>\n

So far, we know KPMG didn\u2019t find much waste. Some services are delivered slightly above the mandated standard. Cutting certain expenditures, the consultants said in conspicuously neutral tones, entails risk. Other functions (daycare, the environment) may not be within the mandate of a municipal government.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the question lurking around the margins of KPMG\u2019s reports isn\u2019t, \u201cWhere\u2019s the gravy?\u201d The true question is, \u201cShould the City of Toronto be doing things like providing subsidized daycare?\u201d<\/p>\n

The debate isn\u2019t just about accounting; it\u2019s also about ideology. But we knew that already.<\/p>\n

While much of the media coverage of the core service review so far has focused on the options KPMG has put forward, there\u2019s been absolutely no hint yet as to what city manager Joe Pennachetti intends to propose to the brothers in terms of a menu of cuts and service reductions, as well as the associated savings.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m guessing his office has already roughed out its recommendations, but there are political niceties to consider, so the reports must still grind through the standing committees before Pennachetti and the mayor\u2019s office get to the big reveal.<\/p>\n

As a result, we have an interesting little pause in the proceedings, one that presents the left with two potential courses of action.<\/p>\n

The easier one is to adopt a reactive, opposition party\u2013style approach. Either the mayor\u2019s office or Pennachetti will cough up a list of recommended cuts, whereupon the left will go into attack mode, warning darkly of the mean, uncaring city Ford is preparing to foist onto Torontonians.<\/p>\n

The more difficult course is for the left to capitalize on the interregnum and draw up an austerity plan that does not aim to maim. As the members of Karen Stintz\u2019s Responsible Government Group attempted during Miller\u2019s second term, the left can pitch its alternative to the mushy middle instead of simply lobbing grenades.<\/p>\n

As Jack Layton would advise: proposition, not opposition.<\/p>\n

One could argue the Fords will make their political choices and face the consequences in 2014. But certain cuts implied by the KPMG reports (and we haven\u2019t even seen the ones geared at the TTC, public health, or the library board) are so extreme that they point towards a radical shift in the role of local government.<\/p>\n

Some centrists may already be feeling uneasy about the implied changes. But as long as there\u2019s no fiscally credible and politically plausible Plan B out there for them to consider, they\u2019ll be easy marks for the Fords\u2019 whips.<\/p>\n

By the way, if a Plan B hinges on an unspecified Provincial bail-out, it automatically fails the smell test. The story of the Ford administration is all about competence, so it now falls to his critics to show voters that they could lead the city within the context of the current fiscal vice-grip.<\/p>\n

Photo by Padraic<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the risk of inviting abuse on the comment string, I found myself wondering last week whether Jarvis Street is the hill on which the left wants to die. For the record, I strongly disagreed with the Ford camp\u2019s bid to erase the Jarvis bike lanes, although I also revisited my irritation at the factContinue reading “LORINC: Waiting for Plan B”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17993,6435,425,13458,1174,16543,734,5765,1969,4686,426,808,19],"class_list":["post-21402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-car-war-camp","tag-city-manager","tag-david-miller","tag-david-millers-council","tag-ford","tag-ford-administration","tag-jack-layton","tag-joe-pennachetti","tag-karen-stintz","tag-kpmg","tag-mayor","tag-media-coverage","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLORINC: Waiting for Plan B - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/07\/18\/lorinc-waiting-for-plan-b\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORINC: Waiting for Plan B - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At the risk of inviting abuse on the comment string, I found myself wondering last week whether Jarvis Street is the hill on which the left wants to die. 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