Category: Chairman’s Desk

For the most part, our governments are not doing much.

To her credit, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has been on this issue for some time and has made dealing with this nightmare, priority one since day one.

But civil society — that’s all of us — has to do its part.

University Health Network (UHN) is working to do just that.

With a path-making program, UHN is partnering with the United Way and City of Toronto to build a new four-storey building on hospital grounds. (Disclosure: I am a trustee of University Health Network.)

Each with its own bathroom, kitchen, and bed, these apartments will provide a permanent home for people who currently have no where to go. A place that isn’t conceived and operated as a housing initiative or a charitable cause but founded on the importance of health care.

Think of it this way. These places will have two front doors: one to the person’s new home and one to all the resources of our health care system. And that’s the crucial part.

It was after seeing so many homeless people walk out of the hospital and despairingly right back in again that Dr. Andrew Boozary decided there had to be a better way.

With generous support from the Gattuso Institute, Boozary led the development of this program which plans to scale and spread its creative approach to help others tackle our homeless epidemic.

This is as exciting as it is sensible. Medically, it drastically increases the chances of positive health and well being. Socially, it improves not only the lives of those previously homeless but the livability of our communities. And finally, economically, it is far less costly to provide housing for people than have them stay in hospitals.

And so, this holiday season, let’s commit ourselves to two things: First, let’s make an extra effort to respond compassionately to those living among us who are homeless. Second, let’s commit ourselves to addressing this issue with the urgency it deserves. And let’s do so in creative ways which harness all the resources of our community to deal with the structural problems our sisters and brother on the street currently face.

America not only has to lead its allies in this time of global uncertainty, it also has to work urgently to protect the deep exposure it has in both the Middle East and Ukraine. These duties appeared to count for nothing when compared to personal political ambitions of those who jostled to replace Kevin McCarthy.

As Johnson takes the gavel, he must, of course, work first to avoid a shutdown, which would paralyze their whole political system. But that is literally the first step. More existentially, he must lead the Republican political class in a serious self-examination of its most recent embarrassing and irresponsible episode. Good luck.

The American ideal is built on prioritizing national interest over partisanship. And, more importantly for its allies around the world, an understanding that America’s edge over its adversaries is its potential to unite disparate nations under shared values and mutual interests. But that is only realized if the world sees America’s democracy as functioning and capable.

Once the party of Abraham Lincoln, who preserved the Union and signed the Emancipation Proclamation; Theodore Roosevelt, who championed progressivism and asserted America’s global role; and Dwight D. Eisenhower, who delicately balanced strength with diplomacy during the Cold War; the GOP seems to have irreparably lost its way.

What happens next in American politics may well come to define the future of the global competition between democracy and autocracy. Trump, under whose presidency the U.S. brokered unprecedented diplomatic accords in the Middle East, knows this but continues his harmful puppeteering regardless. As Biden looks to lead through the tumult, his opponent will clearly try anything to scupper him, rather than do what is right. It might be the greatest test for American democracy, and its ability to inspire unity across the free world, we have seen in a generation.

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.

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.

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.