What happened to Rob Ford the slasher?
Contrary to the expectation of many, including no doubt most people who voted for Rob Ford, the city will actually employ more people in the first year of Ford’s administration. After all the claims about waste at city hall and lambasting of those officials who’d allowed Toronto’s work force to balloon under David Miller, Matt Gurney and Jonathan Goldsbie ask how will Ford’s hiring of even more workers sit with the citizens?
GOLDSBIE: City press releases conclude with a paragraph of boilerplate, offering basic background information on the City of Toronto and its leadership. As of January 5th, the text was modified to reflect Mayor Rob Ford’s particular priorities, including the self-cannibalistic pledge that “Toronto’s government is dedicated to … reducing the size and cost of government.” It’s therefore amusingly ironic that this year’s city budgets involve a net increase of 48 jobs, rather than the mass shrinkage Ford repeatedly promised during the campaign. But I’m not terribly fond of mocking him for breaking a vow that was poorly thought out in the first place; while I enjoy watching reality smash apart his dishonest rhetoric, I also believe in positive reinforcement. Capital projects such as making TTC stations accessible necessarily require hiring new people to get the job done. On the one hand, good for him for (in this narrow case) not placing ideology ahead of progress. On the other hand, wouldn’t you say that’s a rather low bar for governance?
GURNEY: I’d grant that that’s a low bar for governance, but wouldn’t grant that Ford is only reaching that unenviable target. As to the crux of the issue, while some of Ford’s all-anger/no-brains supporters might be outraged, I believe that most Ford supporters — and voters who didn’t vote for him but conceivably might — won’t be too freaked out by what is essentially a rounding error in the city’s workforce. I think the Ford team has been pretty clear that 2011 was going to be a year where not a whole lot changed while the new government got a handle on the nitty gritty details of the city’s operations. I entirely agree with something Chris Selley (who couldn’t join us today) recently said in a column: Bring in outsider auditors, get a handle on every department and agency, and go from there. That might mean that 2012 is indeed a year of painful cuts, or if a full audit dragged on, Ford might content himself with largely holding the line until ready to make big sweeping moves on staffing levels. What did catch my eye as was Doug Holyday’s comments that, having now taken office, they’re going to have to reconsider which of their promises they can follow through on. That’s pragmatic to a degree and in a sense refreshing to hear, but I was a bit unnerved to see how quickly they seemed to be backing away from major job cuts. Having an election promise arrive later than expected, that’s something the voters need to be grown up about. But a Reduce The Size Of Government Campaign can’t go back on a promise to slash the government without warranting some backlash.
GOLDSBIE: The paradox of Ford is that he ran both a Reduce The Size Of Government Campaign and a Make People Happy Campaign and didn’t quite understand that there might be a contradiction there. While some people (yourself included) are of the belief that small government is an ideal in itself, I do like to think that’s a minority opinion and that most people understand that government of a certain stature is fundamental to the quality of life we enjoy and would like to build upon. But regardless of who’s in charge, 2012 was always going to be an especially difficult budget, with the bills for a number of capital projects coming due. The solution hinted at by Councillor Doug Ford (who functions as both the de facto mayor and the de facto budget chief) seems to be the privatization of whatever assets can be legally jettisoned … but even setting aside the debate around whether that is wise or desirable, there is no reason to think that it would be anything less than extremely difficult to achieve. And that, even if achieved, it would result in any substantial savings. Every once in a while, Rob and Doug will open their mouths, and I am unnervingly reminded that they don’t understand their populist grandstanding is exactly that. Government is an infinitely more complex organism than newspapers or talk radio portray it to be, and it is resistant to easy answers. I can only hope that as the Fords gradually come to appreciate that fact, their response is not a vicious one.
GURNEY: Ford can kill two birds with one stone, since making government smaller makes his supporters happy. Nothing paradoxical about that. Further, I dispute that the “stature” of a government must be directly linked to the size of its workforce and budgets, rather than its accomplishments (or that a constantly “built upon” government will translate into improving lives for us all). The problem in Toronto has been the perception —whether accurate or not is open to debate — that despite the fact that the government and its costs to the taxpayer kept going up and up, the quality of life you speak of was not increasing accordingly, but was in fact declining. That’s where the anti-government anger comes from. People are, I think, fundamentally reconciled to paying for services or for government institutions, whether we’re talking libraries in a specific city or the nation’s armed forces. But they need to be convinced that their dollars are providing something, and it’s hard to do that while constantly asking for more without offering more in return. But I do generally agree with you that Ford, having promised both a smaller government and no reduction in services, is going to have to go with one or the other (and I suspect I know which option we’d both choose). As we’ve discussed earlier, I think you and I are in broad agreement that due to his personality, he’ll probably find that damned hard to do. Those around him in the circle of power? Less so.
GOLDSBIE: Asking for more without offering more in return? Like increasing user fees while cutting bus routes and closing a library?
GURNEY: I can only imagine the horror Ford feels at the prospect of having to make up the few dozen votes that might cost him … but probably won’t.
Published City Hall City of Toronto Financial Post
