Preville on Politics

Toronto: A nice place to live, but I wouldn’t want to visit

Posted on May 15, 2008 by Philip Preville

Excuse me, are you a tourist? Yes? Okay, then: Hi! My name is Toronto, and welcome to my city! We’ve Been Expecting You!™ Do you like my new slogan? Really? Because it’s important to me that you are Somewhat Satisfied, Satisfied or Very Satisfied with your visit, and I will be asking you about that before you leave. Want to know something funny? The new slogan isn’t new at all! It’s actually a retread of an old ’70s jingle for a hotel chain. It went like this: “We’ll be ex-PECK-ting YOUUUUUUU!” Nice, eh? Anyway, here’s your welcome candle. Let me show you around. No! Really! I insist. I’ve shunted the kids into the backyard, just like Tourism Toronto CEO David Whitaker told me to do. Let’s go. Continue...

The Eglinton Avenue East death trap

Posted on May 14, 2008 by Philip Preville

When I interviewed Councillor Adrian Heaps, who heads the city’s cycling committee, for my column in the current issue of Toronto Life, I asked him if there was anywhere in the city where he thought bike lanes would not work. His answer: Eglinton East, where the cars move so fast at such high volumes that the street might as well be a highway. “I would not put them there right now,” he told me. This morning’s news (“2 dead, 8 hurt”) shows us why. Incidentally, that’s the second median-jumping multi-vehicle crash along that stretch in less than a month (the first didn’t result in any deaths, despite involving multiple cars).

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Privatizing the TTC—how could it be any worse than what we’ve got?

Posted on May 5, 2008 by Philip Preville

I’m gone for the rest of this week, and when I come back we’ll have a brand-spanking-new, totally redesigned—and renamed!—blog to launch in this space. But before I go, I need to point out two items. First, go peek at the very funny separated-at-birth photos of Toronto Mayor David Miller and London Mayor Boris Johnson over on Doug Bell’s blog, Spectator. Second, read Dr. Gridlock’s column in this morning’s Globe, in which he examines the possibility of privatizing part of the TTC, and in which he gets a key component of the logic backwards. Continue...

Toronto incomes are on the decline (or, The Friday Pessimist, Thursday edition)

Posted on May 1, 2008 by Philip Preville

Given that I’ve been harping on the state of the declining economy for nearly a year now, you’d think I’d be happy to have my prognostications repeatedly proven correct. At this point, however, it feels like piling on. Today’s Statscan Daily provides the latest census data on incomes. Dig a little deeper and you discover that Toronto incomes are on the decline—not a relative decline, but a real decline. I can’t find those numbers myself, but here’s a snippet from the e-mail notice I just received from Jack Layton: “The 2006 census data reveals a significant downward trend for Toronto families of 2.4 per cent despite a national increase in income of 3.7 per cent and a provincial increase of 1.4 per cent.” Continue...

The upside of being a have-not province

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Philip Preville

It appears Ontario may soon be on the receiving end of transfer payments. So says this report co-authored by TD chief economist Don Drummond (who seems to issue all the most controversial economic reports) and this screaming headline in the Star. This news, though unfortunate, does confer some benefits. As a have-not province, Ontarians can expect the rest of the country to stop quietly, seethingly resenting them. Henceforth, Ontarians will be made fun of out in the open, in an endearingly corn-pone kind of way. In other words, “Ontarie” jokes will now replace Newfie jokes.

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Get your TTC strike rebate now!

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Philip Preville

Attention all riders! The TTC is offering pass holders up to $9.50 as a refund for the two days of travel lost to the strike. The litany of remaining perpetual problems—poor service, overcrowding, et cetera—will continue to be charged at full price. That is all. Ding, dang, dong.

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Transit Riders of Toronto, Unite!

Posted on April 28, 2008 by Philip Preville

I found myself having an unexpected reaction to this past weekend’s transit strike: I was glad there was no sign of the TTC anywhere. No buses, no streetcars, no workers, no management. Over the course of the past four weeks, everything about the negotiations—the demands, the strike threats, the nail-biting, the coverage, the frequent Bob Kinnear appearances on CP24, the rare, pale and ghostly Gary Webster sightings—has left me hot under my white collar. Some commentators, most notably this one, felt that Friday night’s hasty job action represented the moment the TTC employees’ inner kettle finally hit the boiling point. It was the moment mine boiled dry. I was happy to have it all disappear for a couple of days. Continue...

Good news! Prices going up!

Posted on April 25, 2008 by Philip Preville

I had promised myself that, this week, I would put an end to what has become my ritual Friday Pessimist Blog Entry on the state of the economy. Good thing, too. Everyone else is jumping on the bandwagon this morning. For those of you with an interest in worst-case scenario survival, here’s a quick-read eye-popper explaining how, essentially, mortgage defaults in San Diego have caused havoc for the entire nation of Iceland.

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Why not let the kids redesign Leslieville?

Posted on April 23, 2008 by Philip Preville

The battle over big-box retail is heating up in the city’s east end. SmartCentres is planning a 650,000-square-foot retail development on Eastern Avenue near Leslie Street that may include a Wal-Mart. The city has vetoed the plan. The developer has appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board. Asked to declare a provincial interest in the matter, Queen’s Park declined. The matter goes before the OMB next month. We’ve seen this before. Continue...

The magic number for city labour negotiations: $240 million

Posted on April 22, 2008 by Philip Preville

The last time I ran into Bob Kinnear, head of the Amalgamated Transit Union, was last October at city hall, on the occasion of the council meeting to ratify the mayor’s new land-transfer tax. There were lots of union folks in the bleachers that day, including Brian Cochrane of the outside workers’ union and John Cartwright of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council. Now that the city has completed its bargaining with Kinnear and his TTC employees, it can look forward to negotiations with Cochrane and its other unions in the months ahead. One wonders if, after all is said and done, there will be any money left over from the new taxes for anything other than salaries.

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Author Bio Pic

Philip Preville

Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.


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