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Category: Chairman’s Desk

Toronto needs a bold vision to tackle its traffic woes. Who will step up?

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Anyone reading this who attempted to drive downtown this weekend will understand why I’m once again writing about traffic.

Our city is in a prolonged congestion nightmare compounded by construction disruptions affecting University Avenue, Queen Street and other major thoroughfares as well as terminally delayed projects, like the Eglinton LRT. This weekend, the pandemonium was exacerbated by more major road closures for the waterfront marathon.

Yet even without special events such as Sunday’s race, our roads are so routinely bogged down the situation has become untenable.

Toronto is the third most congested in North America. Last year, the average driver spent 118 hours stuck in traffic, an increase of 60 per cent from the previous year.

It’s a bleak prospect contemplating what this year’s figures will reveal.

After years of being fed false hope, based on myopia, and misguided faith that there exists a perfect policy, along with convenient promises of easy fixes, all Torontonians have to show for it are failed, reckless investments in paper-bound solutions. And, as traffic has increased, so too have the missed opportunities to clear the intellectual congestion standing in the way of real progress.

What we need is action. We need a real long-term plan to change the way our city moves based on long-term objectives. We need to change the way we use our roads by scrapping our current way of designing commuting networks to create better transit for where people actually go.

But creating that change means decision-makers simply must forget about the short term political price they might pay and get on with actual, real, honest to goodness long-term strategy and planning.

Transit dominated as an issue alongside housing through the mayoral campaign. So, now that Mayor Olivia Chow has settled into her tenure, this is my plea to her and the entire council: use your mandate to effect lasting change on a city that must adapt to survive.

With limited time at council, I understand Chow hasn’t had an opportunity to assemble the grand vision that’s required, but as the daily chaotic congestion reveals — we can’t wait. Too many of us have arrived at appointments late, missed our children’s dance recitals, or had to leave before the last inning, for too long.

Let’s not have any illusions: this will be exceedingly painful. Like an infection left untreated, the problem will worsen before it gets better. It will require precise and decisive intervention that, above all, prioritizes those long-term objectives.

Facing a multi-billion-dollar shortfall, Chow has shown a promising willingness to make tough but farsighted moves. Council voted to cap licenses for ride-hailing vehicles at 52,000 as they examine how the industry impacts local transit and workers.

The freeze will likely face legal challenges from the industry. Both Uber and Lyft have warned it will worsen downtown traffic with more people driving their cars amid more construction and also raised the issues of safety and higher prices.

Despite this, it will put more people back on Toronto’s struggling transit system —complementary to other moves Chow has made to increase service and staffing on the TTC. More importantly, it contributes to a broader, and braver, attempt to transform how our transit works — making it suitable and sustainable for the future.

But we need much, much more. If we are going to go through the pain of turning the city upside down, let’s build it back right.

That will require license to act creatively, dare I say radically. But if it’s done, it would be defining for Chow’s legacy, who will have to work between three levels of government and use all her political experience to fight off critics.

Starting now — we need a plan that shows the mayor is prepared to continue usurping the status quo to build something that not only improves convenience, but creates real civic purpose and pride.

To save our most precious relationship, Canada must start pulling its weight

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A boat, all alone, in the middle of the ocean.

That’s how conservative thinker Sean Speer recently characterized Canada’s place in the world in an episode of “The Hub Dialogues” podcast. He’s not wrong. Aligned against us we have Russia, a long-term adversary; China, who views us as a major irritant; and now, of course, India.

And given India is currently the belle of the geopolitical ball, the timing couldn’t be worse as we watch nations — not the least of which are our closest allies — tripping over themselves to request a dance.

Whatever happened to the notion of Canada as the quintessential middle power, characterized by many friends and few enemies?

Good question. Now, many think things for our little raft are about to get worse — so much so, we might just sink.

So, what’s the threat? A Trump victory in 2024, of course. On this front, we shouldn’t have any illusions. Provided Justin Trudeau is still in power, we would have a U.S. president who is not only openly hostile toward our prime minister, but eager, for domestic political reasons, to dive back into his tariff tool box and put Canadian jobs in harm’s way.

The great irony and corresponding pain of this possibility is that it would come at a moment when Canada is more dependent on the U.S. than ever before. Because the truth, in this multi-polar landscape, is that Canada can only move but one way: toward our southern neighbour.

There’s just one problem: our friends no longer have open arms.

For all the sentimental rhetoric that often accompanies them, international friendships, fundamentally, are built on economic and security guarantees — on hard power. And when U.S. policymakers, on either side of their political aisle, look at us they see a country with both of these pockets turned inside out.

Make no mistake, the question of how we turn this position around is of existential importance for our national future. So what can be done?

Back when Trudeau was first elected in 2015, there was a mission in Liberal politics to diversify our trade relationships. There was a genuine, well-founded belief that Canada was too dependent on our relationship with the U.S. Moreover, it was thought the new prime minister’s star appeal on the international stage could be used to forge lucrative relationships.

Fast forward to today and this strategy has manifestly imploded. We’re back at the American doorstep, hat in hand, tail between legs. Ensuring we’re let in and even welcomed as old friends, requires us to do two things.

The first is being clear-eyed about the challenges facing our friendship regardless of who is president. A Biden victory might make things easier but his re-election does not magically guarantee Canadian prosperity. After all, this is the president who, on Day 1 of his presidency, killed the Keystone XL pipeline.

Second, is to understand we need a wholesale reset of the relationship based not in banal slogans of historic friendship but in substantive offerings. Here, there are numerous holes to plug — the most urgent of which is security. To build American trust and respect, we simply must correct the systemic underfunding of our military, not cut $1 billion of the annual National Defence budget as the federal Liberals now plan to do.

Freeloading is simply no longer acceptable. This is for another column but our energy riches actually give us a strong hand to play in selling the U.S. on a North American security and energy-sufficiency partnership.

Camus wrote, “if a man who places hope in the human condition is a fool, then he who gives up hope in the face of circumstance is a coward.” Easy to say. Harder to do. To neither be fools and believe that Americans will never restore Trump, nor cowards and panic if they do.

The path forward, under any circumstances, starts by recognizing our ship is now tied closer to our American allies than ever before, and understanding that the least we can do is to start pulling our weight.

Poilievre’s momentum is a result of strong leadership, not sinister ideology

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If you asked those delegates in attendance, last weekend’s Conservative Party convention in Quebec City felt like a unifying — some would say crowning — moment for a party that has often struggled with unity.

Ask some other observers, and the event was a typical right-wing carnival defined by anti-woke vitriol and socially conservative undercurrents.

Much of the opposition and media chatter coming out of the convention has revolved around the resolutions the delegates passed, some touching on controversial matters such as trans issues, leading Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s critics to surmise that his “common sense” agenda is really a smokescreen for more sinister right-wing ideologies.

Yet Poilievre’s behaviour and comments at the convention, as well as his response to these motions, paint a different picture. When asked to comment, Poilievre replied he isn’t bound to implement any convention resolutions but merely take them under consideration.

And his rousing leader’s speech revealed far more about his priorities and what messages he thinks will win.

Tellingly, it didn’t mention woke, or trans — not even once.

And why would he? With the CPC enjoying its largest polling lead over the Liberals in a long time, this convention cemented the feeling that Poilievre has built a big tent movement by addressing the cost-of-living crisis middle- and working-class Canadians face everyday.

And if you wonder about the effectiveness of all of this, you need look no further than the reaction of the governing party. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, cried the Liberals. Poilievre’s “common sense” message is nothing more than a warmed-over version of Mike Harris’ “common sense revolution,” they warned.

Really? That’s all they’ve got? A reference to a government led by former premier Mike Harris? A successful, transformative two-term government from almost 30 years ago?

But while Poilievre and Harris differ greatly in many respects, coming out of last weekend I see many similarities, between Poilievre and Harris but not those voiced by the critics.

Just as Harris ousted a government that had grown out of touch with its electorate by promising to cut taxes, make sense of the welfare system and end unfair hiring quotas, so too is Poilievre leading a serious movement by taking a back-to-basics approach. Poilievre’s speech was all about improving lives for all Canadians including newcomers, lowering taxes, food prices, energy, and trade.

This leads to the second, somewhat subtle, similarity I see emerging: Poilievre’s acute sense of how far certain issues can be pushed and when best to push them.

Poilievre’s ability to acknowledge and respect the views of others, but not fully mire himself in the polarizing topics and intolerant debates of the so-called “culture war” is surely a result of his experience seeing other Conservative leaders knocked aside by such issues.

Poilievre is demonstrating an understanding that true leadership means sticking to what matters most to everyday Canadians.

As his speech demonstrated, he is clear-eyed about what that is. And it’s not the messy debates Liberals would love to drag him into. As the reaction and enthusiasm of Conservative members showed, despite the resolutions they overwhelmingly passed, they are just fine with the direction Poilievre is leading the party because for the first time in a long time, they have a real shot at both a majority government and the leader to deliver it.

Down the road, Poilievre will have to define more clearly what he truly believes to be “common sense” on the sticky topics and social issues clearly important to large parts of his base.

Still, for now, all he needs to do is reiterate that his economic plan centred on tackling the housing and affordability crisis towers over the tired policies of this tired government.

Funny, it seems that common sense may just equal electoral success after all.

All roads lead to this country’s dire need for affordable housing

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It was as cold and brazen an act of violence as there is. To call it a heartbreaking and unspeakable tragedy is to descend into cliché and begin to normalize what happened.

The only appropriate response cannot be words but must be, for us as a city, to wake the hell up.

Early this summer, Karolina Huebner-Makurat, while walking in broad daylight, was murdered by a stray bullet from an exchange of gunfire after a fight between three men on Queen Street East near Carlaw Avenue.

This tragedy played out steps from the South Riverdale Community Health Centre. An employee of the centre was subsequently charged in connection with the shooting.

For many residents of this city, this tragedy was a clear sign that something was fundamentally wrong. And they are right. For people across Canada who live in close proximity to these sites, this event was part of an alarming pattern putting their children in harm’s way and their safety at risk, a pattern they’ve been sounding the alarm for years about to absolutely no avail.

Enough. It’s time for us to listen.

To be clear, supervised consumption sites save lives. They are integral to reducing the spread of infectious diseases. They provide users a safe space. They lower rates of death due to overdoses. And in a caring and compassionate society such as ours, they provide a crucial link to those among us that are not only neglected but forgotten.

But none of this means we can’t have a reasonable debate about how these sites operate, what fail-safes must be in place and, most importantly, where they belong.

When the fentanyl crisis first emerged in Canada, I wrote that stigma kills. I underlined that the absence of public sympathy for, and negative judgement of, fentanyl users bore a haunting resemblance to the atmosphere of fear, paranoia and callous neglect that characterized the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. An atmosphere that carries deadly consequences.

Today, that stigma persists. And it undoubtedly applies to all those caught in the grip of a wider drug epidemic that has swept across our country.

But stigma cuts many different ways. Yes, we’ve seen dangerous beliefs that stigmatize drug users. But so too have we seen concerning attempts to stigmatize and stifle rational debate.

In this conversation, we must acknowledge that absolutely legitimate concerns raised by parents about needles strewn across sidewalks and open drug use near where their children play have been dismissed as mere expressions of privilege and blanketed by accusations of prejudice. Not only is this simply wrong, it is profoundly unhelpful in forming durable solutions to these problems that keep people safe.

The strongest proponents of supervised consumption sites love to emphasize that truly “community-centric” approaches are required to address this issue. I agree. But there can be no such thing if the voices of some community members are summarily dismissed.

And here is where the debate needs to go. At their best, these sites serve as points of referral to other aspects of the health-care system — a new front door — that help put users on the road to recovery. As Dr. Ahmed Bayoumi, a physician at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, recently pointed out, they connect people with social and health services, along with stable employment and housing.

Ah, there it is again: housing. Almost unanimously, experts tell us drug users can’t recover without a stable roof over their heads.

So yes: all roads lead to Rome, and in this case, to this country’s dire need for affordable housing. A need our governments aren’t even coming close to meeting. Anyone who denies this is wilfully ignorant about the wide-scale, complex, nature of this problem. And, when it comes to trying to help and protect those living with drug addiction across this country, anything less than concrete action to address this need can only be described in one way: running in circles.

The Liberals tied immigration to housing: they need to prove it can work

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The revamped Liberal cabinet retreats to Prince Edward Island this week while their party languishes in polling and the Conservatives surge. Underestimate Trudeau at your peril, perhaps, but something seems to have become particularly challenging.

While it is difficult to put your finger on just what that something is, it has become clear that much of that something is Canada’s housing crisis.

Apart from the PM himself, perhaps no one feels the heat on the way to Charlottetown more than Sean Fraser, the new housing minister. Fraser got this job because the Liberals have embarked on a strategy to tie immigration (Fraser previously led this portfolio) inexorably to housing, supposedly using newly arrived skilled labour to build the houses we desperately need.

All well and good, but it doesn’t seem Canadians are having any of it. The problem is, most Canadians aren’t convinced this works — and with house prices swelling, interest rates rising, and immigration continuing exponentially, I fear by combining these issues so closely the Liberals risk sparking a major backlash against their record-setting immigration plans.

Fraser has outlined his answer to the conundrum: add more supply through incentives to local governments and increase immigration rates to, in part, provide the labour required for this.

The new housing minister tackles this after the prime minister bluntly argued, “housing isn’t a primary federal responsibility.” On cleanup duty, Fraser later stated the federal government should be more active in developing and enacting housing policy, as it once was.

This, of course, is the right approach. Nevertheless, Fraser’s major challenge will be convincing Canadians that high immigration levels are good when many can’t afford homes.

This week, videos of Canadians tearily lamenting the cost of living went viral. The narrative that, after eight years in office, this government has left many — the very ones they promised to fight for — behind is beginning to set like cement.

Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has taken the government to task on housing with brutal effectiveness. He has managed to own this rhetorical stance while still supporting immigration — making the disconnect between the Liberal’s immigration policy and inaction on housing even harder to ignore.

Under Fraser’s oversight, immigration increased exponentially but integration remained plagued with accreditation issues and failed to correspond with housing supply: the national housing strategy has only resulted in just over 100,000 homes. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation determined 5.8 million more are needed over the next decade. In 2022, our population grew by over a million.

The Bank of Canada also acknowledged recently that immigration drives up housing demand. As the problem becomes more acute, this is where people will focus — not on the “mirage of economic prosperity” immigration otherwise contributes to.

The Liberals, if they are to have any hope of winning the next election, must convince Canadians immigration is in their near-term interests and that it will result in more houses being built. That’s a tall order when voters are being priced out of even the remotest dream of owning a home. It’s a disconnect that also dissuades immigrants from wanting to come here in the first place.

By failing to acknowledge this and rectify the integration issues in our immigration system so newcomers can positively contribute to the housing supply, the Liberals risk allowing the social cohesion they so value to fray. And when that starts, the uniquely Canadian support for significant levels of immigration will fray with it.

That would be a terrible shame. No one needs a lecture on the fundamental role immigration has played in our past and the crucial role it will play in our future — much less that it is simply right.

What isn’t right is an approach to this issue driven by complacency and inaction rather than by a fundamental commitment — not just to policy statements but to actually building new homes.