City services are crucial to supporting residents. First and foremost they need to be kept public. The privatization of half our garbage collection is now not saving us anything, and if tonnage goes up, might cost us more. It is a neoliberal myth that the private sector is more efficient. We must find ways to provide more services, from childcare to senior care and everything in between.
Bylaw Enforcement
The vast majority of law-breaking in Toronto is not criminal, it is bylaws. And despite infractions being widespread and easy to find, we do very little enforcement. A small army of bylaw officers were paid to remove people from park benches and playgrounds during COVID, but it seems they cannot be used to actually earn revenue and ticket the real offences that make the city a more frustrating and unlivable place.
Why are bylaws pretty much exclusively enforced on a complaints basis, why can the city not be proactive about it? Not only would it fill city coffers, it would start changing the negative behaviours that drag our city’s livability down and eventually it would lead to a culture change. It would appear that politicians may not want to preside over enforcing what many residents might perceive as too many restrictions, but environmentally destructive behaviour has to be remedied somehow.
We need a bylaw app for the city, to inform people of the bylaws (similar to how Waste Wizard informs people of waste disposal) and to record bylaw infractions. The app would connect to a person’s camera and upload pictures or videos of bylaw infractions straight to the city, with both geo and time stamps. This evidence is not likely usable by bylaw enforcement to issue a ticket, but it would let bylaw enforcement know when and where infractions are happening and in what volume so they know if a problem is getting big enough that it needs attention.
I spoke about enforcing idling laws in my section on climate change, and enforcing proper waste disposal in my section on waste, but there are many other bylaws in serious need of regular enforcement, like illegally off-leash dogs, littering, illegal signs that make sidewalks inaccessible, and many more.
Connect TO
COVID restrictions proved just how crucial a service like internet access is in modern times. And Canadians have some of the highest telecom charges in the world, it is simply unaffordable to many. We need public internet access in EVERY home, it should be considered a utility no different than water or power, and ConnectTO was the answer.
It is shameful the mayor’s executive committee voted down ConnectTO, but not surprising considering our mayor is the former CEO of Rogers. Tory may have recused himself, but it is part and parcel of neoliberal ideology that the public sector not compete with nor provide any service that the private sector can profit from.
A clear example of why we need a public telecom provider is the Big Three telecom companies refusing to use our existing infrastructure to provide service on the TTC. How many more people would take public transit if they knew they would have cellphone or internet while they rode the subway?
Policing
There is no point in history that policing in Toronto has not been rife with problems, in particular discrimination, and the problems and discrimination do not really change that much. Much of the problem comes from police culture, and officers’ fear of reprisal for speaking out against a fellow officer.
Policing is one of the main forms of systemic racism. Black, Indigenous, and other racialized groups are targeted far more than Whites, and more force is used against them. It took a protest at 55 Division to get the police to look into a racist assault in the Dentonia Park area. This is a multi-faceted and longstanding historical issue with no easy solution, but the least we can do is ensure the issue stays in the spotlight and receives the attention it deserves.
The LGBTQ2S+ community has also had its share of police discrimination. The classic example was the bath house raids of the 80s, but we also have modern examples, like the lack of effort by police to stop a serial killer targeting gay men.
Some of the massive TPS budget could be defunded , starting with the mounted unit. I wrote about the issue in a blog post a few years ago and even started a petition. Mounted police are an obsolete anachronism, they serve no purpose other than pageantry or intimidation, are dangerous forced labour for the horses, and are costly.
Policing needs some serious reform and a culture change. Part of the problem also stems from how may TPS officers are not residents of Toronto, so they take no ownership of the city, it is not their home, just the place where they deal with criminals all day.
Access to City Staff
When I first started engaging city staff 12 years ago I found them quite accessible and open. I don’t know if it’s a change in internal policy, or a change in councillor attitude, but now I find them almost impossible to engage outside of public consultations.
I understand budgets are strained and staff have too much on their plate, but when residents cannot get answers from staff it is not just frustrating, it is disheartening. People start to give up on being civically engaged and their complaints about the city not caring start to seem valid. Councillors strained by double-sized wards can only filter so much back to residents, city staff need to be accessible.
Our city has grown faster than our bureaucracy, and I know city staff are dedicated to their jobs and residents, but they are under too much strain. We must expand departments to include staff whose sole job it is to engage residents and answer their questions, staff who are expert in their department but serve no other purpose than engaging residents.