Urban Defender

Changing the development process from the industry side: Small Steps – Bold Steps

2005-06-17T14:35:00.000-04:00

Formalizing the ad hoc success stories that do exist may require new personnel and skill sets. By engaging consultants who understand community dynamics through direct experience and participation, who posses facilitation and outreach skills and who are not seen as potential adversaries (as developers’ lawyers all too often are) developers might initiate a consultation and outreach processes that would more successfully engage local communities, stakeholders and local decision-makers.

Utilizing the toolkit perhaps more frequently used by municipalities or NGOs might serve not only to build bridges, but also strengthen public understanding of the benefits of intensification done well. Developers might also stand to reap some gains from non-traditional research inputs—from “listening” to the positive desires of communities—inputs that might positively inform decisions relating to built form, marketing approaches, etc.

Methods such as facilitated advance opportunities to discuss and review projects (or potential projects), modified focus group style workshops, modified survey techniques, and local events, are more likely to be produce desired outcomes than traditional community meetings or one-on-one meetings with non-vetted community “leaders.”

As well, by sponsoring, or engaging consultants to organize, non-standard forms of ongoing outreach (marketing), such as walking tours (of previous projects with architect), speaking sessions (at market-appropriate venues), workshops (on approaches to successful intensification), social events (with buyers, prospective buyers, stakeholders), developers could contribute to building an enhanced knowledge base and a positive perception among stakeholders, opinion leaders, as well as exiting and potential buyers, benefiting their firm in particular and the industry as a whole. The development firm that takes this approach and wins with it may well be seen as an industry leader.

More Advice: Addressing the Developer Perception Challenge

2005-06-16T13:53:00.000-04:00

The development industry, while made up of many disparate people, is by and large made up of people who not only care about making a living and providing value for investors and customers, but people who believe in City building and are inherently optimistic about the future.

In recent years, before any of the justly celebrated arts building projects got off the ground, developers largely, but not exclusively, focused in the central core of Toronto were already leading the beginnings of an “architectural renaissance” and proving that this was also something that “sold.”

Leading architects, heritage experts, planners and urban designers work with the development industry. And yet among the politically active middle class in many established neighbourhoods there remains a vocal opposition to or suspicion of the development industry. One can put this down to prejudice and the already noted NIMBY-AMNE syndrome or one can seek to address it—to see it as an opportunity for an important industry to seek a PR victory and a grassroots victory by providing more opportunities for public education, engagement and consultation. Through its practice, its approach to consultation and the opportunities it provides for value-added experiences that it is more than industry but also a valued and integral part of the City’s socio-economic-cultural fabric.

Advice to Developers in addressing the NIMBY challenge

2005-06-15T16:53:00.000-04:00

One of the problems that developers face when seeking to engage a community is the voluntary nature of ratepayer or neighbourhood groups when they exist, and the general level of disorganization in cases where they do not but where there may be significant voices that can have an impact on the successful realization of a development project.

When there are ratepayer or neighbourhood groups these are generally all volunteer organizations, which may or may not be incorporated, and no matter how broad based they may be they usually cannot be said to represent the whole community. As well there are often overlapping interest groups, and there may be rival ratepayer groups, and “people of influence” who may have unequal access to the Ward Councillor or possess special expertise.

The complexity of navigating these waters can seem like a costly waste of time, especially if previously experiences have caused a developer to feel that there is no one to make a deal with. And in a sense such a thought has some accuracy. If, for instance, the leader/representative of a given neighbourhood organization or condominium, etc., wants to shake hands on something, it often may be something for which they have insufficient mandate. Hence their support may not hold out through an elongated process or if the Councillor is in opposition to the project or if it comes to an OMB hearing.

Navigating these complexities can be made safer and more cost-effective by understanding the function and nature of ratepayer and neighbourhood groups, by doing due diligence in regard to any undertakings they or their representatives may make.

It is also critical that residents, business leaders and stakeholders beyond the communities “usual suspects” be consulted or made aware of a given project, as allies and supporters for regeneration and development may be found in recent arrivals, local business taxpayers, and in the generally interested but unaligned segments of a given community.

Knowing the community and its politics, understanding the way the local community groups interact and how they make decisions, along with providing opportunities for stakeholders (who may well include prospective buyers or renters, heritage experts, design experts, local community agency staff, et al), can only strengthen the position and positive reception of a developer.

Although this will entail some real costs, and some time, it is reasonable to assume that a modest investment in upfront outreach and consultation will have the potential to save money in downstream legal costs and project delays.

A moment of opportunity in Toronto's Urban Planning Process

2005-06-14T22:51:00.000-04:00

The City of Toronto has just launched, in June 2005, a consultation process with its citizenry on changing the development application process. City Planning staff are recommending a voluntary pre-application, review, and consultation process for projects requiring an Official Plan amendment or re-zoning application.

They are currently seeking input from citizens in a series of Town Hall meetings and workshops across the City. This presents an opportunity to developers to show leadership by seeking to comply, where it makes sense, in advance of the fact. It also provides a sense of where such leadership could make itself felt. Public education and outreach work successfully in many industries.

To-date the development industry has most often relied on the municipalities, elected officials or academic or professional associations to provide this service. Where resident and business leaders and their constituencies have an enhanced knowledge base of the development industry, the options intensification presents for City building, such as economic growth, neighbourhood development and enhanced environmental outcomes, it should be possible to move the discourse away from NIMBY shibboleths.

In seeking to address, to the extent that a given projects economics permit, hot button issues such as height or density, too often issues of urban design, architectural excellence, heritage preservation or interpretation, and spin off community benefits are given shorter shrift. When this happens no one benefits. Intensification is only going to increase and development pressure on available land will accelerate, despite the prospect of building in such areas as the West Don Lands, East Bayfront, and eventually the Port Lands.

There are already many more economically obvious sites along major arterials, “parking lot” sites, and scattered brownfields across the City. In each case there will likely be sets of NIMBY and AMNE arguments against the very sort of development that can make a reasonable rate of return for developers, accomplish the City’s needs to provide new housing, and revitalize neighbourhoods.

By seeking to take a proactive lead in providing opportunities for public education, engagement and advance consultation with the public at large and appropriate stakeholders, the development industry can set a new standard of good corporate citizenship and more importantly build a greater support base, and ultimately reduce the instances where OMB appeals are required.

Another consideration for considering a more consistent and proactive consultative approach is the impending City of Toronto act, which includes the real possibility that Toronto may be given broad new powers in respect to planning, including the possibility of a partial exemption from the jurisdiction of the OMB. It is likely that the City’s move to discus a new pre-application review process is emboldened by the sense that the rules of the game are about to change.

The “NIMBY – Developer” Challenge

2005-06-13T22:51:00.000-04:00

The challenge for developers and local communities in Toronto has been well documented over the past few years. The sense of there being an irrevocable conflict between neighbourhoods and the development industry has heightened as the City’s continuing growth, the relative absence of greenfield development sites, the recent Greenbelt legislation at the Provincial level, and both the need for and direction to pursue (in the City’s contested but “ideologically” directional Official Plan) intensification, combine to create the proverbial “Perfect Storm.” As the Toronto Star recently noted: “If there is one thing people don’t like more than sprawl it’s intensification.”

In many cases Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) or perhaps more precisely After Me No One (AMNE), attitudes on the part of individual residents or ratepayer and neighbourhood groups square off against the all too frequent caricature of the uncaring, greedy developer. This reductionism masks important realities and arguably causes energy and resources to be misallocated. Developers and the development industry form a cornerstone of Toronto’s economic well being: and certainly developers should enjoy a right to conduct their business in a sustainable manner.

In many cases developers represent one of the key forward thinking and optimistic elements of our dynamic and growing City; and the alternative to urban intensification is sprawl or stasis. Residents and business owners, especially in well-established urban neighbourhoods, can feel legitimate concern about the impact of a given development or re-development in what they perceive as “their neighbourhood.” Some of this is may be expressions of classic NIMBY or AMNE phenomena but in many cases concerns about urban design, height, massing, use and public amenities are not only legitimate but can provide a resource for developers seeking to effectively build on, as well as within, a given neighborhood’s characteristics and qualities.

Yet while positive examples do exist, these generally serve to reinforce the “NIMBY vs. Developer” rule. One can blame the adversarial culture of the tribunal based appeal system we have under the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), the lack of clear direction from City Council, the limited resources of the City Planning staff, unenlightened residents or a zealous development industry. However, assigning blame will not calm the “Storm,” nor address the fact that resources are used up in an adversarial process that often does not provide a win for anyone.

There are the exceptional examples that indicate that local communities and developers have much to gain from constructive engagement and dialogue. One example, is the ongoing restoration and redevelopment of The Distillery District, where open lines of communication between the Developers/Site Owners and the local residents has lead to positive agreements and support for the introduction of well-designed, tall apartment buildings in the context of a valued and significant heritage site: both the needs of the residents and the developers were addressed in this dialogue.

Too often the already noted caricatures and prejudices block such positive dialogue. This can of course add costs, in one obvious example: appeals to the OMB do not come cheap for anyone. As well the there are the perhaps the harder to quantify costs of delayed development, less incentive to pursue architectural excellence, and provide leading edge urban living environments to the “forgotten constituency:” those waiting to buy or rent a new home in an urban neighbourhood.

Creating a democratic wireless community

2005-06-09T06:01:00.000-04:00

A new grassroots initiative in Toronto has just recently launched wireless toronto. Inspired by the Montréal group Ile Sans Fil this group seeks to provide free WiFi hotspots in public or publicly accessible spaces all over Toronto. No advertising and no cost to users are the key points to their program. Modest access and set up costs are born by the hosts and the labour and maintenance are taken care of by the wireless toronto.

The group also has a commitment to fostering community by providing community information pages and through its own volunteer organization and community outreach practice.

What is both ironic and encouraging is that though this idea was born in the Queen Street West, Spadina, Kensington Market zone of urban bohemia, some of the first host sponsor sites are on the suburban fringes.

While chains like the Second Cup chain themselves to the big bad boys of telecom and cable to provide expensive WiFi access at their shops, and the City of Toronto is going through its ponderous preparation of a Request For Proposal for a six month (and it appears private sector) trial of WiFi access at Nathan Phillips Square, this loose gang of social innovators and community minded techies is making free WiFi access a reality on volunteer sweat, will and imagination.

Links:

Mayor pushes for tax share to ease funding gap

2005-06-08T19:35:00.000-04:00

City's budget gap tabbed at $1.1B
Economic group's study says city's situation unsustainable

Toronto Star

Well Mayor Miller should be congratulated once again on commissioning a study, done by the Conference Board of Canada, that lays out just how bad things are for the City that underwrites the Province of Ontario, and gives a significant helping hand to Canada but cannot finance its own infrastructure, schools, housing and transit. But is pitching for a cut of the sales tax, the income tax or asking for uploading (giving the Province back our bills for housing and welfare, for example) the answer? Miller states in the Toronto Star article that he does not want to add to the tax burden of his citizens, just reorganize the way the pie is shared. And that is not necessarily a bad thing at all but if there are real costs that are going unmet and there are, is a slice (that is by the way no where on offer) of the sales or income tax pie going to meet it?

At the very least Toronto needs to change the argument and expand the range of ideas for fairly generating revenue, including reason debt financing for infrastructure programs. And as observed here before is a tax committed to the City that its own politicians are not directly responsible for a good idea? So if we are to get a slice of the sales tax or the income tax would it not be better for if it was a Toronto tax controlled by Toronto’s elected officials?

And why are we afraid of road tolls! By themselves they will not solve the fiscal mess but a small and dedicated road toll for transit would be a good idea to implement as soon as the (when is it coming exactly) the new City of Toronto Act permits it. Why not chare drives $2.00 every time they take the Gardiner Expressway or the Don Valley Parkway? At least a rush hour for a start. There would be creaming and predictions of doom but people will pay and the City will reap the rewards.

And as far as funding the City’s needs let’s task our leaders and the Mayor with coming up with ways to get a fair deal and accountable deal for Toronto that matches revenue generation with real costs and gives the political level responsible for those costs both the power to levy the revenues and the ensures they are accountable for it. So yes if the Province sees the wisdom (and there is wisdom in it) of giving Toronto a piece of the sales tax and the income tax, let’s make sure the City Council has the wherewithal and responsibility to set the rate for their portion of such a tax.

And as far as uploading costs back to the Province, do we really want to give up power for decision-making on some files, which would be the price of such a move, or do we accept that downloading had some upsides (such as local control of public housing that permitted the Regent Park Revitalization to move forward) as long as it is (at long last) accompanied by the appropriate power to raise the revenues need to support the programs that are now in the City’s domain.

Stupid angry white men Chapter . . . .

2005-06-07T09:37:00.000-04:00

London MP Pat O'Brien left the Liberals yesterday to sit as an Independent in the House of Commons, warning he will use "every opportunity" to defeat same-sex marriage legislation

London Free Press

Stupid angry white men Chapter . . . . Does Pat O’ Brien -- this month’s homophobia poster boy -- not get it?! Harper’s opposition to equal marriage has not gotten him any significant traction, what can it do for a know nothing backbencher?

Guess Pat kinda does get it a bit because even he cannot bring himself to cross the floor to the Conservatives.

Still he feels comfortable sitting as an independent (not planning on running again Pat?) and threatening to KILL THE BUDGET in order to stop the possibility that all of UD’s friends (and your sister and your brother and your neighbour down the street with those really nice window treatments) can marry and enjoy full citizenship in this country.

And presumably he seems not to care, just like I-will-honour-their- commitments-Harper (can you believe him? Huh?), that he is threatening to jeopardize (déjà vu all over again) millions of dollars that even cites like London Ontario stand to benefit from, let alone big bad Toronto, self-satisfied Vancouver, and Montréal (a City one assumes an MP like Mr. O’Brian may not be able to find on a map).

He must be stopped. Hell promise him a Senate seat, post him to Burkina Faso, with his sensitivity to others experiences and his social imagination I am sure he would be a great ambassador. Just marginalize him, bring him on side, and let’s hope this little shit is run out of office. Send the money to our cities now!

Saving Nathan Philips Square - Part 2

2005-06-05T00:58:00.000-04:00

Well UD has already declared here a “hands off the Square” approach and given this bias it was refreshing to learn from Saturday’s (June 4) creative workshop, that most did not want to tear down the elevated walkways, or turn hard-edged modernist urban space (and a classic one at that) into another bloody lawn. We have to find a way to screen people for pseudo-Edenic suburban fantasies and then send them to reeducation seminars (well no not really BUT . . .). Most of those at the June 4^th session seemed committed to preserving the Square’s key elements and in the context of preservation would consider enhancing them.

Gestures such as extending the reflecting pool/skating rink to a size more in line with the original design intent (or from what we can garner of this from such things as the original model), and extending the elevated walkways—for example, considering moving the southern walkway closer to the edge of Queen Street and making that patch of unloved grass an integral part of what is understood to be the Square, and seriously thinking of changing its ground plane texture from lawn to hard surface.

Support for making the Peace Garden vanish or move (a compelling idea was to transform, without affecting the current view from the Square, the now unused upper deck into an expanded “Peace Garden and get a green roof in the bargain.

The good news so far is that the City is consulting widely as it prepares to an issue an RFP for an international design competition and for more information on this process go to http://www.toronto.ca/npsquarecompetition/index.htm.

Still there is something troubling behind the notion that the Square ought to be fixed when as previously noted here, it mostly and immediately needs maintenance. Still UD feels somewhat reassured that the City’s intent and its process are well intended and may produce something that both maintains and enhances one of our great civic spaces.

Town Hall sessions to hear ideas for strengthening community engagement and participation Toronto and East York District

2005-06-03T23:33:00.000-04:00

Well we hate tall buildings. We hate "let's make a deal planning!" What the hell do we like? Nothing that changes.

Seriously UD salutes Toronto City Council for launching a community consultation on the planning process after all citizen engagement is critical to address Toronto's urban re/development.

But just a friendly note: Public meetings held on Friday evenings, particularly in the late Spring or Summer are counterintuitive to say the least. So while it is encouraging that the City is taking steps to address this, the timing of the Toronto and East York District session appears to contradict the very purpose for which one supposes it was intended: maximizing citizen involvement.

And the Citizen’s gathered where by and large white, middle or upper middle class and middle aged. Now of course democracy is about who shows up but the slapdash nature of the way the Town Hall Sessions have been organized and the timing (two held on Friday nights) caters to participation by the 1% of the 1%.

Being charitable it is a start.

But the fact that the "big move" is a propsoed voluntary pre-application review and consultation process is albeit a positive but limited gesture. Moreover it will only apply to Official Plan amendments and re-zonnings, what goes to the City's Committee of Adjustment (which can include applciations to signifcantly increase a proposed building's density or height) will be left out. Of course we do not have a current one for the post amalgamation City, as it is currently being appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board and therefore is in abeyance.

We need time to process this and comment more, soon. However, what is really needed is a dialogue with all the players at the table: resident group representatives, interested citizens, architects and independent planners, developers, and NGO and community agency representatives. We do not really move forward if gung ho developers talk among themselves (in different forums) or if NIMBY ratepayers talk among themselves (sadly too true of the Town Hall meetings), and if many other voices and interests are left out altogether.

For more information go to http://www.toronto.ca/planning/process.htm

Doors Open 2

2005-05-31T10:22:00.000-04:00

Also on this past weekend UD had the chance to see the Roundhouse in the aptly named Roundhouse Park, which besides containing Steam Whistle Brewing Company also contains what will, if the long-suffering and dedicated efforts of volunteer activists with the Toronto Railway Historical Association have anything to say abut it (and they do), become a proper and fitting museum of railway history in Toronto.

On Sunday past the Doors Open festivities at the site included a live steam train (powered by coal) running around the grounds just south what we used to know as the Sky Dome but now (thanks Ted), just when we were getting used to its passé monumentalism, must call the Rogers Centre. The large doors of the Roundhouse were flung open to reveal old locomotives, a 1930s Streetcar, and other treasures waiting to be fully restored and put into an accessible and curatorialy engaging context.

If Vancouver can renovate its old downtown roundhouse (and it did this some years ago now) as a valued community arts and recreation centre, with an old locomotive in situ et al, surely Toronto can pull of an urban railway museum!

Doors Open 1

2005-05-30T09:04:00.000-04:00

It was nice to see Union Station in its gentle state of disrepair and borderline decay this past Doors Open Weekend. Why because despite all the hand wringing, the yelling and screaming, the accusations of scandal and the musings of the aging Yoda of old fashioned “reform” (yes Mr. Sewell), the City has actually got a plan that is going to work: that is restore the station to its former glory and add lots of new public transportation space (a new GO Concourse for example) and new commercial space al.

And this is going to be done yes by a dreaded P3 but one that will save Toronto’s beleaguered property tax payers $150 million in costs that Union Pearson Group will have to fork over on the gamble (and UD wishes them well) that they will make money out of it over an admittedly long term lease. And they probably will but at this point there is no viable alternative whatever one might feel about Public Private Partnerships in general.

This P3-type deal, which of course sees Union Station stay in public hands, despite its highly problematic origins that did give some encouragement to conspiracy theorists and ranters everywhere, has actually come out, at almost the end of the beginning, with something good, workable and necessary. Indeed a rare victory for the City in the current climate where the municipal fiscal imbalance seems to all-too-often mean that "nothing can get done."

For more information go to

Hands Off Nathan Phillips Square

2005-05-25T07:25:00.000-04:00

To look at modernism's gifts as if they were some latent Trojan Horse come to unload their pernicious inadequacies is a lame and woebegone response. Nathan Philips Square, as Globe and Mail columnist John Barber recently pointed out, is not a wasteland in need of remediation: “City Hall wants to know what Torontonians would do to ‘revitalize’ Nathan Phillips Square, the iconic heart of their city. What a mistake!”

Still with an open, if one-sided, mind Urban Defender will surreptitiously attend the creative workshop on June 4^th to lend a word or two to the process that contends that it is a public space that is broke and in need of fixing.

But why can we not address its raised walkways and long forsaken outdoor deck that the twin curved towers that rise through it and still resist the need to cleanse and refashion this modern Toronto UR-space? Is it all about liability insurance and fears of some hooligans jumping off the edge in a show of ego-driven freak show glory?

Let’s get with John Barber's admonition and find ways to make it work and not tear it down. The problem is what we have done to it (The bloody Peace Garden) and what we have not (maintenance!).

Chicago visits Toronto

2005-05-24T23:01:00.000-04:00

Well Mayor Daley is in Toronto to share and care with Mayor Miller. In some way it strikes Torontonians as a good visit, of course one is often loved more abroad, as the Chicago Sun Times reports not all in his home city view Mayor Daley with such approbation. As suggestions of favoritism track closely to the Mayor of Chicago one wonders if this troubles Miller whose campaign logo was the broom with which he was to sweep Toronto clean of suggestions of corruption and strong hints of insider privilege. Not that Mayor Miller has not delivered at all, just perhaps more slowly than his biggest fans would have liked, after all he has reengineered the City’s administration and let some of the former Commissioners go, with grace if not expediency.

Of course here we know what we find sexy about Chicago, it’s bigger, it has a better waterfront (corruption or not Daley and City Council got that done), and it has more songs written and sung about it. Seriously though, there maybe something in learning from Daley as Toronto, assuming current growth projections (which is of course a dark art in itself), is likely to surpass greater Chicago in population in the next ten to fifteen years.

When would be social democrats join hands across the lakes there may be something in the knowledge transfer that will matter. Let’s hope so or the cost to Chicago and Toronto taxpayers will be for naught.

What next?

2005-05-23T23:39:00.000-04:00

Living in the city is often a question of what next? Looking forward. The next night out. The new play. The development down the street in what used to be a parking lot. The impossibility of doing it all, seeing it all, knowing it all. Intoxication of riches. Abundance.

Fireworks yes but don't light the candles quite yet: the Money isn’t here & Toronto is still a creature of the Province.

2005-05-21T16:05:00.000-04:00

While the Victoria Day weekend – The Queen’s Birthday – is traditionally celebrated in Ontario by fireworks and this weekend in Toronto will see huge displays of pyrotechnics every night, it may be too early for a companion celebration for the recent 2^nd Reading passage of the Federal Budget bills. So here at least we are keeping the cake in the freezer and the candles in the cupboard

It is certain that the sentiment that moved Toronto Mayor David Miller , as reported at cbc.ca on Friday, to say that Chuck Cadman should be given the keys to the City was right and good. After all Mr. Cadman in a refreshing display of populist integrity befitting his Reform roots did vote to save the day for the Martin-Layton budget that promises more millions for City of Toronto, and cities across the country, for housing, transit, child care et al.

And Belinda Stronach surely deserves a Metropass for her convenience when she comes down into the City from her perch in the Newmarket-Aurora Electoral District.

Far more significantly, as reporters on both CTV Newsnet and CBC Newsworld noted immediately after Thursday's budget vote, it was Jack Layton and the NDP’s budget deal that made the down-to-wire vote even possible.

Predictably, today such august journals as the Ottawa Citizen are reporting the bleating of the boys in red suspenders to the effect that the Layton-Martin budget will imperil Canada’s fiscal position. This will of course only reinforce Harper’s determination to prove he is right and the rest of us are wrong, and as the Toronto Star notes in its Saturday edition the budget is far from passed. But we can still be glad that momentum seems to moving in favour of funding the needs of our cities again, even if the money is still far from being in the bank.

Just as recent news about the Province of Ontario’s progress toward delivering a new City of Toronto Act, to give Toronto broad new powers (really powers that most progressive municipal jurisdictions in North America already have), is a not a whole loaf. Though the process aims high by seeking to provide:

. . . Toronto with governmental powers with respect to city purposes as well as natural person powers would give city council significantly more flexibility than it now has to (i) legislate, (ii) raise revenue, and (iii) organize itself to provide local services and good government.

Staff Progress Report - Joint Ontario – City of Toronto Task Force to Review the City of Toronto Act, 1997 and other Private (Special) Legislation, May 2005

One among the issues is that while new Act would look to providing Toronto with the means to raise revenues, it has been widely reported that Premier McGuinty is not willing to consider allowing Toronto a share of Provincial Sales Tax or Income Tax – the supposed Holy Grail for the City.

While it is almost tedious in the extreme to keep repeating the basic truth, as so many have done like the Mayor, the Toronto City Summit Alliance, the Board of Trade, and the United Way, that the City of Toronto needs to have a stable revenue base that expands as the economy grows and is sufficient to meet its responsibilities. It is by no means clear that we want to let our political representatives off the hook for being directly responsible for the taxes they raise in our name.

So while it is too soon to celebrate anything, it may not be such a bad thing that the Province is reluctant to hand over a slice of its income tax or sales tax. Rather what it may wish to consider is vacating room in the sales and income tax and permitting Toronto to not only occupy that room but be responsible for the determining the tax rate. Otherwise to ensure fairness and equity (which we can surely assume is their goal) the Province will have to take back some of the things that were provided as downloading gifts to Toronto when it was amalgamated in 1997.

Just because municipal politicians may be nervous in the extreme about being seen as implementers of a new tax, or having responsibility for part of an existing tax, does not mean we should abandon the principle of that our elected representatives should be accountable for the taxes they levy, and the revenue they control, so we may all enjoy a reasonably equitable and vibrant version of civilization.

Rabble Says: The best budget in 30 Years?

2005-05-20T15:54:00.000-04:00

While UD is not sure it the claim made by Andrew Jackson, National Director of Social and Economic Policy for the Canadian Labour Congress and reported in Rabble is correct and that this Federal Budget is The Best Budget in the past 30 years but UD can certainly defend it and cheer it along. In particular its measures that will see an additional $1.6 billion for affordable housing and the one-cent increase over the next two years of the proposed gas tax share for cities (via the provinces) are most welcome.

But as is noted in the same Rabble article, and it is worth quoting it at length:

“Stable and predictable public funding is key to the long-term success of all policy goals, and this budget doesn't provide that,” said John Anderson, Vice-President of Strategic Partnerships for the Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD).

Mr. Anderson is right. Cities like Toronto in particular are still struggling along from one budget disaster to another, being forced to play budget tricks and considering selling assets to pay for operating expenses when we all know that you should not be buying your groceries on credit.

But of course budgets are not the be all and end all of legislation and action, even if they are absolutely critical in defining what we will and will not do together.

What is required is a new set of arrangements (just shy of a constitutional amendment recognizing cities as third order of government which is, as any student of the Constitution Act knows, not worth wasting energy on) linking the federal spending power to communities and the non-profit sector in a framework that will address social, economic and environmental needs at the level of neighbourhoods, where we all actually live, play and work.

Of course when local services are being shut down and our cities are ramping up property taxes and delivering fewer services, it is hard to focus on grand arrangements. We are well served by those, such as the Canadian Council on Social Development, that do but the engagement has to be greater to make it work.

The whole discourse of the New Deal for Cities has been too elite to-date and involving people at the community level in meaningful policy development while a daunting task is certainly one that needs more work and energy devoted to it.

THANK GOD FOR THAT!

2005-05-19T18:30:00.000-04:00

The government does not fall!

Thanks to Chuck Cadman for being precisely a stand up guy on the right side of populism.

And thanks oh merciful lord, even though we know that it is wrong to enjoy the suffering of others, for the pleasure of seeing Harper's little smirk tighten up and shrink. Belinda was right from the inside, justifying what we have long known on the outside, Stephen does not get cities and he does not get Canada outside wild rose country (and that is even overstated).

Thanks to Jack Layton for not jumping on the punish the Liberals bandwagon and working mightily to see something positive come out of this Parliament.

Out At Toronto The Good

2005-05-18T13:27:00.000-04:00

The good and the hip and the heritage bohemians were out in force at the Toronto the Good party last night at The Distillery District. Hosted by ERA Architects, it was part of Toronto’s Festival of Architecture and Design month, and it served as a fundraiser for Spacing magazine and the murmur project.

UD walked over to the Distillery District, across the edge of Brownfield dereliction that will soon be the new community in the West Don Lands. Once in the Distillery precinct (that was virtually empty of souls except those heading for the Toronto the Good party) it was a quick walk over to the Fermenting Room and into the warm embrace of free food (fabulous mussels but one could have done with out the noodles in the box) and free wine that tasted better with every glass.

ERA displayed a great deal of generosity and is to be praised for supporting two really interesting initiatives: Spacing magazine and murmur.

Two of our favourite things: Toronto Architecture & Urban Design Awards 2005

2005-05-17T14:43:00.000-04:00

The City of Toronto has recognized two wonderful things for excellence in Architecture & Urban Design:

The Ontario College of Art Design's Sharp Centre, by Will Alsop, that marvellous pencil box or tabletop that floats above the 1950's block that housed the art school for so many years (resembling a bargain basement psychiatric institute more that anything else).

Award of Excellence – Building in Context Sharp Centre for Design

The West Don Lands Precinct Pan, which has already been discussed here, and is a really good piece of work mapping the way out of Brownfield stagnation to vibrant community.

Award of Excellence – Visions and Master Plans West Don Lands Precinct Plan

All that can be said today is YEA!

The heart of the city?

2005-05-14T00:00:00.000-04:00

The heart of the city is where you are. It is your neighbourhood, you, your neighbours, the park down the street that may or may not be in the best state of repair. It is that dog barking too loud (why don't they put in inside at night?) and the neighbours kids pressing every button on the elevator again, and that new store (Miguel opened it didn't he?), and knowing that 10,000 years ago the hunters walked these paths down to the lake or followed them upriver to find deer. And it can be too the new chain coffee shop, the place where San's grandmother fell, and where there used to be a sign saying no Jews or Dogs on the beach, and where the sign was torn down and forever made impossible to put up again. It is also the place where after all the long journey underground, Thornton & Lucy, free at last, bought title to some land that is now a school.

The heart of the City is where we meet to confront and engage each other, past, present and becoming, a subtle and outrageous mix of scale, style and speech.

10 Questions - How do you know its urban?

2005-05-13T11:40:00.000-04:00

Caveat: There are many answers and there is much great writing on urban issues, politics, cultures etc; more than anyone person is ever likely to read let alone fully integrate in to his/her thinking. So when approaching the vast resource of urban studies it can be helpful to have some filtering questions, here is a try at some with no claims to originality or merit:

How do we know we are in an urban place?

An independent bookstore?

Not Starbucks?

A pedestrian plurality?

Seeing a man walking down the street in drag is unremarkable?

Public space sans advertising?

Jane Jacob’s jumble old/new?

Multi-hued complexions noted but not noticed?

If there is an "authenticity" factor?

Is it time that must be represented; can we say we are in an urban place if there is no physical record of time having passed?

Is late 20th century "New Urbanism" simply a crude gesture of commodity fetishism: sprawl with a human face?

OR does the building of compact, pedestrian-friendly suburbs extend the urban outward?

Paris or New York?

In North America, without tall buildings do we know where we are?

In greening the urban space are we simply layering decorative artificiality on to a more honest, integral and human-madeness?
Public Transit: is this an essential ingredient in defining the urban?
A sharp edge or a gradual transition?

Which better says “Here is the City and there is the other?”

Without accident and surprise can there be anything remotely urban about a place that one is in?
Is there a way to end the argument about market forces and simply accept that cities require design and governance to permit them to have creative anarchy within defined boundaries?
Is it an urban life without participatory democracy?

No election: Call your MP and tell her or him to get on with governing

2005-05-11T17:50:00.000-04:00

UD was happy to host friends from the Nation's Capital who came down to Toronto for an extended weekend and for a taste of urban civilization. While our lunch time talk ran from New Zealand's general acceptance of Proportional Representation (PR) after a shaky start to New Labour’s slightly less solid grip on power, a sense frigid ennui engulfed us as the talk turned to Parliament and the likely toppling of the Federal government.

A lack of concern was hardly the cause of the languor that followed our chilli and organic greens.

It was and remains like some minor case of food poisoning, the pain that comes from thinking that tax point transfers and tax cuts will somehow build affordable housing and transit lines in cities like Ottawa and Toronto. Or that a destabilized federation will help the Canadian economy (Harper appears to think the Bloq is about grievance politics and not ethno-cultural pur laine nationalism) and the cities that drive our economy.

UD does worry that the Harperistas and the Bloqueurs (for Québec everything and for ROC rien du tout) will succeed in mischief now or in a real vote on non-confidence at the time and day of the Prime Minister’s choosing: May 19th.

Of course maybe Toronto should declare independence if Harper wins (and become more than just a province as some suggest, see: http://www.provinceoftoronto.ca/) and declare the game up and move on!

Perhaps more realistically my dear Liberal friends should consider voting NDP this time and letting Jack Layton have a chance to run a minority government! At least Jack knows cities and has fought to push the progressive (and desperate) side of the Liberal party to accept the obvious (when voters want a real right wing party they will vote for one and the Liberals have more to lose than gain from governing from the right).

Ok UD and friends were and are pissed off and that translated for a day into numbness and hence ennui but once back at work UD's indignation has happily come back.

So what is to be done? No election. Pass the budget and let’s start re-invigorating our cities.

Call your MP and tell her or him to get on with governing. Harper and Duceppe can try to divide the country just as well after the budget is implemented.

Good Urban Initiatives In & Out of Town, Tony Blair, update on the West Don Lands

2005-05-06T12:43:00.000-04:00

URBAN DEFENDER ATTEDED AN URBAN ISSUES CONFERENCE (THE POLICY WONK PERSONA IS OUTED) SO THE BLOG SUFFERED A BIT. LOOK FOR SOME NOTES ON FOOD, MARKETS AND SCHOOLS SOON.

IN THE MEANTIME SOME LINKS to some Good Urban Initiatives here and abroad:

Toronto:

The Stop Community Food Centre strives to increase access to healthy food in a manner that maintains dignity, builds community and challenges inequality.

At FoodShare we work on food issues "from field to table" - meaning that we focus on the entire system that puts food on our tables: from the growing, processing and distribution of food to its purchasing, cooking and consumption.

St. Christopher House Income Security Program: St. Chris has worked with the community to address inadequate income at many levels.

USA:

Project of Public Spaces is a non-profit organization dedicated to creating and sustaining public places that build communities

Sustainable Communities Network: Linking citizens to resources and to one another to create healthy, vital and sustainable communities

UK:

Sustainable Energy Action: A not for profit company and environmental charity, working with businesses, local authorities, householders and communities to create a sustainable future for London through practical and sustainable solutions to the capital’s environmental challenges.

And Tony Blair:

Well UD's Montréal correspondent was desperately seeking to see Mr. Blair crushed--Galloway all the way--as were some of UD's friends and family across the Anglophone and Francophone world.

UD would have preferred a Labour technical majority or narrow minority because despite Blair's foul kissing partnership with that great enemy of urban and urbane cultures, Emperor Bush (look for his forthcoming Urban Revitalization in Iraq Made Simple), UD could never celebrate a Tory victory anywhere.

The urban agenda of the Blair (& Brown) government, which had its accomplishments (most notably the strides in raising millions of UK children out of poverty), will get a more of positive push from the Liberal Democrats and its own “Old Left.”

Of course the Lib-Dems have had the luxury, like Canada's NDP of saying all the right things without having to actually deliver them, as a national government. But Labour having to listen just a trifle to the Lib-Dems will be positive (especially on urban issues) but it might well have been more salutary if another 20 seats had shifted from Red to Yellow.

As it is some clever commentators argue persuasively that the old Labour left may have more sway than Mr. Kennedy in the new Parliament; and pace the guides at The Guardian, some think Mr. Brown will be PM within something between a fortnight and two years.

West Don Lands Update:

From the Toronto Star:

The renewal of Toronto's West Don Lands — a centrepiece in the makeover of the city's waterfront — will be underway this fall, waterfront mastermind Robert Fung has promised a council committee.

A brief and grateful nod to the West Don Lands Committee

2005-05-03T06:54:00.000-04:00

There has been a significant amount of GOOD URBAN NEWS & PORTENTS coming out of the weekend, and here are just two:

But with both the stories there is still a lot more hurry up and wait then full steam ahead, with one notable exception:

The West Don Lands, industrial Brownfield adjacent to Toronto’s Old Town neighbourhoods of Corktown, The Distillery District, and St. Lawrence, has its precinct plan going to City Council for approval this month, after a well regarded expert and public consultation process led by the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation (TWRC).

The West Don Lands, as reported in mainstream local media, such as The Toronto Star, have been allocated money to proceed with the next steps, such as flood protetion, that will permit redevelopment to start.

The story of the West Don Lands has had many twists and turns over the past 15 years but one critical thing that has moved this matter forward in the past 8 years is the West Don Lands Committee (WDLC) a coalition of neighbourhood and business organizations and environmental groups that has worked steadfastly to keep the revitalization of the West Don Lands on the agenda, ever since they organized the November 1999 Obstacles and Opportunities public forum and workshop to create a vision of the area that came up from the community. Cynthia Wilkey has chaired the organization since 2000 and has been herself a force for positive change through her work with the WDLC, the Corktown Residents & Business Association (a WDLC founding member) and the Board of South East Downtown Economic Redevelopment Initiative (SEDERI) (of which the WDLC is itself a member).

As Ms. Wilkey has noted about the TWRC's approach to the West Don Lands:

"As promised, TWRC brought the community together with a top-notch design team and produced an outstanding precinct plan in record time,” said Cindy Wilkey, chair of the West Don Lands Committee, a group that represents thirteen local neighbourhood, environmental and business organizations. “This is exactly the kind of leadership that we need to make waterfront revitalization a success.”

The WDLC's work is a demonstration of just how critical it is for local communities to define their agenda and then come up with a practical vision of how to achive it.

The fact that the final Precinct Plan embodies so much of the community vision articulated in November 1999, is a tribute to participants who came together five and a half years ago, the ongoing lobbying, outreach and community leadership of the WDLC and its members, and to the wisdom of the TWRC for building on and enhancing the original community vision.

Urban Defender salutes the West Don Lands Committee for all its accomplishments!

Friday: hope and complaint at the weekend

2005-04-29T06:40:00.000-04:00

Now that there is more evidence that the Conservatives may be peaking (see CTV News Poll Report), oh merciful heavens, one can contemplate the weekend with some equanimity but not too much because – life being what it is – problems abound. And that is just the fun part.

Perhaps the Federal budget will arrive with more money for housing and new money for transit but in the meantime the City of Toronto still has not taken a necessary strategic leap. One that is required no matter the dispensation it may have from the Province of Ontario, in the form of the much anticipated new City of Toronto Act (coming in Fall 2005?) and the pennies from the juiced up (thank you Mr. Layton and Mr. Martin) gas taxes from the Feds, and the expected announcement today that (at long last) the Federal and Ontario governments will announce a $600 million affordable housing program, and the hoped for Child Care accord that the Toronto Star reports will be announced once the Federal Budget is passed (Stephen Harper are you really thinking of wining votes in the Greater Toronto Area??) .

All this good news and maybe good stuff coming and it’s almost the weekend and why are we cranky? Out of many reasons here a few:

Let’s see Toronto’s transit fares went up and service, despite rumours of a ridership growth strategy, continues to flatline. When will our esteemed Mayor realize that we need road tolls that are dedicated to transit? And a policy readjustment that realizes that transit is not a commuter service but a 24/7 necessity to get people in and around the City and their neighbourhoods.

The waterfront redevelopment process led by the under funded and under empowered Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation (TWRC) is producing marginal facts on the ground and its consultation process seems to have ground to a halt, one hears nothing but complaints about the last instance of Portlands consultation. (This last is particularly sad coming on the heels of the well thought out and well delivered West Don Lands and East Bayfront Precinct Planning consultations.) But of course the main problem is the continuing lack of attention, leadership and COORDINATION from the 3 levels (that is probably at least 1 too many) of government involved.

And while we await the reigniting of housing funding, many of Toronto’s Federally regulated (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation – CMHC) co-operative housing apartments (Co-ops) are facing the prospect of not being able to continue to support their low income members [see http://www.fixtheglitchfast.ca/]. While there has been good news on this front the issue is still verging on a crisis for some Co-ops.

And our City Council will debate a motion in May to severely restrict a basic grassroots means of freedom of expression: postering.* Yes some call it visual pollution and complain of mess, as evidenced by a recent column in the May issue of downtown paper The Bulletin which rants on about the evil that is postering. Amazingly a significant number of City Councillors seem to share this anti-democratic leaning, forgetting that democracy is inherently messy and that access to the media, even the local media, is something that many cannot easily afford.

And that strategic leap the City of Toronto needs to take, such as grasping the nettle of road tolls and making it a beautiful idea, seems to be stillborn. Why are our civic leaders not more focussed on what we can and ought to do (hello deadbeats like Giorgio Mammoliti and Rob Ford)!

For instance why are we not planning and implementing programs to ensure that we can build a kilometre of subway tunnel and three kilometres of streetcar/light rail surface track every year.

Why are we not empowering City staff to move forward on affordable housing creation even using the very small amounts of money available right now?

And what about synchronizing bureaucratic efforts on the waterfront?!

Mayor Miller is arguably still the right person for the job but more could be done with the bully pulpit he has and many more of our Councillors could profitably focus on big picture thinking rather than NIMBY-placating Ward-healing.

As it is the onset of the weekend we can stop here for now. There will soon be time enough to name more of the guilty, praise the virtuous, focus on things that work, and things that ought to be.

***********************************************************************************

* The Toronto Public Space Committee is leading the charge against the forces of darkness on the postering issue.

65% in the Greater Toronto Area Do Not Support Conservatives

2005-04-28T11:22:00.000-04:00

Reading Jeff Gray’s report of the recent ENVIRONICS RESEARCH GROUP poll results in The Globe and Mail today, one was struck by the headline: “Toronto-area Liberal support down 10 percentage points.”

Of course it is certainly a true observation one can draw from the results but what struck Urban Defender was that 65% of respondents indicated that they did not support the Conservatives.

Now it must be noted that this is a 7 point drop (in a poll with 3.3% margin of error) compared to the 72% in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) who voted for anybody but the Conservatives in the 2004 election but given the relentlessly negative and disappointing news from Gomery and the spin put on that news by certain media outlets, such as that bastion of truth and disinterested reporting known as the National Post, this is quite a respectable result.

As Gray’s article makes clear the suburban “905” ridings are richer ground for the forces of darkness* but even then the Liberals hold up well under the circumstances. And the polling also gives some extra heft to the points made by JIM COYLE in today’s Toronto Star that the Martin-Layton deal harkens back, for Ontario voters, to the Peterson-Rae Accord of 1985-87.

But it particular the results highlight the distinct state of the City of Toronto where, after relentless media barking from the right, the flood of allegations of wrongdoing and incompetence from Gomery and the performance, supposedly stellar, of wonder boy Harper, the Conservatives still can’t get elected. Yes it may be that the odd riding in the former Scarborough and Etobicoke boroughs might, just might go Conservative but so far this amounts to nothing more than brave talk from spinners and fundraisers that has yet to be tested in an election. From this vantage point Toronto looks as RED-ORANGE as always suggesting that the Martin-Layton deal reflects the local urban political culture and the local urban agenda.

To anyone who thinks that the City of Toronto and the GTA would benefit from Conservative-Bloq cohabitation and an unnecessary Conservative-Bloq election, all Urban Defender can say is imagine a creature cloned form the body parts of MIKE HARRIS-PRESTON MANNING-BRIAN MULRONEY-LUCIEN BOUCHARD running the show. Remember too that by comparison to Harper, and the Reformistas he hides on the backbenches, Mulroney was a “progressive.”

Duceppe despite his charming Maoist past, and Harper despite his, now, embarrassing birth in the GTA, are the inheritors of the *forces of darkness: that neo-con+ethnic-nationalist horror show we so recently escaped from.

Congratulations to Mr. Layton and the Prime Minister for doing the correct thing. And take heart, for now, from the polls that show at least in this urban patch that a majority of voters do not want the forces of darkness to scuff the floor of the Prime Minister's Office with the soles of their shiny shoes.

Click on the link for detailed poll results as reported in the: THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Where is Edmonton? Can we get there by candlelight?

2005-04-27T12:30:00.000-04:00

Urban Defender's "team" of highly trained media scouts read columnist Royson James' piece in today’s Toronto Star about the Mayor of Edmonton, Stephen Mandel's visit to Toronto. The report seemed to suggest, perhaps unitentionally, that the Mayor had a hint of the provincial proconsul making his obeisance to the noble estate of our fine metropolis, combined with a more sonorous message that we should all consider a move west to his golden city on the tundra, flush with tar sands dollars.

That is all well and good but one hopes he is going on to Ottawa to talk to our federal parliamentarians. Perhaps in particualr he can talk to the Conservatives who threaten to join an unholy alliance with the supposedly social democratic Bloq (oh there is that little problem about them being separatists too but that surely is another post) to bring down our supposedly scandal plagued Liberal governors.

If he is a mayor that cares about an Urban Agenda, then he should be pressing our esteemed leader of the Loyal Opposition, the incorruptible Mr. Harper, to lay the hell off until the current federal budget passes, or His Honour Mr. Mandel and his colleagues across the country are not going to be seeing Federal Gas Tax Dollars, Daycare Money, or Infrastructure and Housing money.

What they will get with Mr. Harper is Tax Points sent to the provinces and depending on the ideological persuasion of their provincial government they may or may not get a nickel for city building. One supposes that some in Edmonton and Calgary may feel that the petrodollars will insulate them as China buys up Alberta (sorry USA), and that more power to the provinces is a fine program for fixing the urban infrastructure gap that the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) has done such a good job of documenting.

And was it not the FCM, of which one believes Edmonton, is member, that has been campaigning to get our federal government back at the table in urban affairs? Well yes and just when, belatedly maybe, the Liberal administration under Paul Martin has put forward a budget that gets the federal government back into the urban game, a move that has received last-minute (at least as of this minute) support from our all-too-flamboyant social democratic standard-bearer Jack Layton, we might lose it all thanks to the unholy alliance.

So one hopes that the Mayors from the home province of Stephen (build a firewall around Alberta) Harper might get on the phone and let him know that at least one or two people in the land of the tar sands might want some federal support for their cities because god knows he won’t listen to any other urban leaders because he has not demonstrated any understanding of the urban file and he sure as hell is not looking for votes in urban centres (think gay marriage, think a complete lack of feeling for the intricate network of culture, exchange, infrastructure, and social supports required to underwrite the economic growth of a city).

And barring a conversion on the road to Ottawa we can safely assume that if Mr. Harper gets hold of the levers of power, as more esteemed writers than Urban Defender have suggested, in the short run we will have stasis (if he is in a minority) and in the longer term (if he ekes out a majority) the Federal Government will be stripped of its ability to act for the good of the country and its cities.

A nightmare: the power is out in Toronto, the roads are choked, gas is at $3 a litre, and a small band of us wander into wilderness of the "conservative" lands, candles in hand, hoping to reach the promised tar sands land, glowing in glory behind its toxic firewall. A demain.

Holy Father: My tolerance is not your your tolerance

2005-04-22T20:15:00.000-04:00

Urban Defender imagines a citizen of Toronto, in the first rush of Spring, sitting (OUTSIDE - at last) at a patio table, Latte Machiato in hand, glancing at the headline of an article about Pope Benedict the 16th, and begining to tell UD their thoughts:

I was thinking today of that old problem: to be committed to tolerance entails being equally committed to opposing intolerance. So while I congratulate Pope Benedict XVI on his new gig I cannot help but think that it is not the scourge of moral relativism that he should be concerned about but the scourge of bigotry. Any urban and urbane citizen who seeks to love her neighbour as she would love herself could no more imagine that gay marriage whether it be in Ontario, Massachusetts or Spain could upend the moral fabric of society than she could imaging going through a day without access to fabulous coffee.

And moral relativism has got nothing to do with it. In fact "liberals" who support such things as the right to equal marriage do so, I would argue, out of a fundamental commitment to a set of values that enshrine equality (whether the values are considered made or received from a "higher power") and respect.

So like so many of the new Pope's unwilling adversaries, it is not my commitment to fashionable relativism that keeps me from any communion with him and his doctrine but it is precisely my belief in what is right and good and in keeping with the sayings of Jesus that separates me from the Pope's would be Counter-Reformation- The Sequel.

RECEIVED FROM A FRIEND RE: Prime Minister Paul Martin's Open Letter to Liberals

2005-04-14T16:13:00.000-04:00

Urban Defender has recevived this reply to Paul Martin's Open Letter to Liberals, from a friend and liked it enough to post it here, even though it is far too capital "L" libral for UD. UD will from time to time post material received from friends and the like minded, and of course there are the comments!

I count myself among those Canadians, small "l" liberals, capital "L" liberals, progressives, small "s" social democrats, members all of the open and inclusive group that believes this country has great things ahead of it, that the world indeed could use more Canada. We could use more Canada in Canada! But we will only succeed in achieving great things, here and abroad, if we hold to a united, independent and progressive path. Just such a path that we were headed on under the mandate of the current Parliament.

It is shameful and dispiriting that allegations of wrongdoing and corruption have been heard and sadly with echoes of some credibility. That such allegations could give sustenance to arguments that favour separation on the one hand and a return to discredited neo-conservatism on the other is even more appalling. However, I would urge all who hold to progressive values, who believe that Canada, and its national government, has a role to play in fostering a better society, to not damn the whole enterprise because of the actions of a few. Yes the guilty must pay. And there is much more to do to build on the Liberal campaign contribution reforms (something that has been forgotten in the current scandal-mania) and the openness of government to ensure that behaviours that have been alleged in the Gomery Inquiry, are unlikely to be repeated. Yet all of this is not more important than supporting Charter rights, implementing the first phase of a national child care program, turning the tide on funding for cities, maintaining a growing and healthy economy, and ensuring that Canada is a united and independent force for justice, peace and expanding prosperity in the world.

Any "Liberal" or "liberal" or "progressive" Canadian who believes that we should turn Parliament over to the Conservative Party or the Bloq Quebecois because of their anger or shame should ask themselves who else now but Paul Martin can keep this country on course? Do we trust Mr. Harper or M. Duceppe to lead a united and progressive government? Can Mr. Layton bring together an inclusive national alternative? The questions answers themselves all with a resounding no. Should the achievements of the past year be cast aside? No.

The Liberal Party of Canada has pursued the progressive centre to some purpose bringing together those who believe the private sector is a key engine of wealth creation with those who believe that a just society is something to constantly work for, and in so doing has bridged linguistic, ethno-cultural and religious solitudes.

The mandate to build a progressive, independent and united Canada has not been withdrawn. But it must be continue to be earned. I trust that the Prime Minister will work harder than ever to ensure we continue to seek the just society that those of us who are Trudeau's children have always sought.