Have you been listening to the more than one hundred candidates who are competing for the most sought-after job in Canada, the Mayoralty of Toronto, to become the big cheese, and acquire the enormously powerful job centered upon the shaping of Canada’s economic engine in Ontario and beyond?

Perhaps 6 candidates have put in an effort to propose plans that could make life better in Toronto. We have the known, Olivia Chow whose advertisements say nothing, but express the leftist claptrap of “together we will change Toronto and possibly the world”, and who still benefits from her association with her late husband Layton. Then there is a journalist of renown whose centralist-right wing vision would bring Toronto’s budgets in line and under control, Anthony Furey by name, investigative politics through action. is his game.

After all the propaganda you have heard and read, did you notice that most of them offered present-day solutions to today’s problems, but there were no real plans for the future? Skyscrapers are still empty due to the pandemic, the city lacks funds to establish or motivate growth in most sectors. The cost of living and especially housing in Toronto is quite oppressive. Many citizens are leaving the financial chaos of Toronto and moving to much more commonsensical, livable communities throughout Ontario and Canada. Local politicians have lost the ability to see what they have before them, the potential gem of a city hopefully evolving into something greater than Mediocre Toronto.

I heard this expression a while back, from an architect of renown “Change the Space, Changes the Lived Experience”. Toronto the chaotic, Toronto the Mediocre, Toronto the overstudied but never accomplished needs to truly CHANGE.

Ideas:

1. Transform present-day condos and skyscrapers into livable apartments with shared services, while passing local laws stipulating that all new builds become multi-livable compartments that incorporate the three elements of life in the city: Livability-Nature-Privacy.

2. Expand all forms of transportation in the city towards provincial transit. Get onto a train in T.O. and then travel to Thunder Bay or Sudbury. Automobiles, whether gas or electric’ will always be less green than trains, which are greener and can carry more individuals/products. Trains like what is available in the EU, can connect Ontario and Canada better and less costly than cars.

3. The City needs to grow upward, not outward. Cost-effective, green energy-built Condos/ Apartments to rent or own. Build them with the ability to withstand future weather elements like twisters, hurricanes, earthquakes, and the such. Buildings that will last many decades. Spend the money on what is needed with thought to future needs and requirements. Think, and plan before carrying out a build.

4. The City must become the largest builder of such homes. By doing so, the City has the ability to create price and cost points and de-escalate the frenzied housing market by eliminating the undue influence of the Real Estate and Development Industry. Always think to the future, and not to the profiteering of those who own homes in Toronto today. These people are already millionaires +.

5. Create a legally separate department, away from the City’s political influence whose primary job will be… a. planning and building housing (as per Councils plans)
b. Maintenance, and building of City to Provinces Transit/Transportation(Partnership with Province).

6. City Councilors cannot legally stop or halt planned builds (as per#5). Undue influence causes chaos.

7. Annual audits by a separate independent audit authority will investigate the City budget, the counselor’s financial status, and all agencies within the city’s authority, looking for accomplished projects, problems, and corruption.

8. The City Police Force will be headed by not a police commissioner but a three-pronged legal-rational Triarchy consisting of an elected politician(member of the City Council), a Police Officer, and an elected private citizen. All are to be owing their position to no one, except the public that elected or appointed them. Political alliances among members or with City Council or other elements would be strictly forbidden. Total separation, total commitment to authority managing, training, and running the Police force. The City Council will establish a set plan of ground rules with the city’s imaging of what their Police Force is to be, how it is to be managed, and envisioned enacted.

9. Every effort will be made to finance the City’s Financial Coffers. Taxes will be set to rise with inflation rates, no longer set rates. If the population wants a less costly city, they will endeavor to keep costs lower. The City will need to be fully funded at all costs. Services are always offered at all costs. If you want to live in Toronto, you will need to pay for that privilege. Inflation increases due to the profiteering and greed of others, whether they be a person who owns a home in Toronto hoping to sell it for a massive profit, or a business that can charge for a product that is priced well over the prices charged elsewhere. The blame, for why Toronto is so unlivable financially must fall upon those who live in Toronto. They speculate, place higher costs upon products, and are willing to pay for very costly items. Inflationary insanity is the preview of the Torontonian Urbanite.

The Lake Front to the St. Lawrence Seaway should be protected, with fewer skyscrapers, and less congestive development. Once this territory is developed, it is gone for future generations. Planning well and thoughtfully is key! The Green Belt surrounding Greater Toronto is a provincial/local affair. Torontonians must admit to themselves that hundreds of thousands of others are coming to join them in T.O. annually. The population growth will place undue pressure on the city’s plans and financial status.
Provincial plans must encourage and if necessary force excess populations to move northward, away from the stressed urban centers towards smaller communities. Toronto will experience undue population pressures caused by the city’s natural economic pull, but also by its probable urban livability.

Torontonians should demand true and uniquely futuristic visions of what their city should and will become. An economically devastated Detroit is like an urban center or a financially flourishing city like what exists in Asia and the EU.

On voting day, say no to those candidates that promise much, plan little, and say nothing of consequence while claiming to be the answer to the city’s needs. Council members who served for a very long time, need to explain why they did not “CHANGE the City Space, thereby CHANGING YOUR LIVED EXPERIENCE”. Tigers cannot change their spots. Look to those with no political baggage, those not invested in set ideologies or political alliances. Vote The Average Torontonian and hopefully, You will win too.

Steven Kaszab
Bradford, Ontario
skaszab@yahoo.ca
9057752429