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Alleged 1980's hash dealer to run for leadership of Ontario PC party

praktik

praktik

TRIBE Member
We still dont have the full environmental cop on the beat we had before Harris devastated the MOE...

But its ok right? Who cares if people are poisoning the water supply its not like we haven't had any recent history that would cause us to worry about that kind of stuff, amirite?
 
wickedken

wickedken

TRIBE Member
It's so funny how short people's memories are. The *LIberal* federal governments' downloading of programs caused far more *damage* to Ontario than the Harris government both from a fiscal and a social perspective because it directly caused the constraining of resources. The *Liberal* provincial government has directly caused even more constraining of resources with a myriad of spending scandals and mis-managed projects, ministries and programs. But I know who a lot of people - even here - think is *evil*. And I'm willing to make bets who get's re-elected.

By the way, if you held office, who would NOT want only supporters around you... unless you want gamble that maybe they really are on your side after all after openly questioning your ability to hold said office.
 
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E

erika

TRIBE Member
the Liberals are not without fault (no government is) but they did not force amalgamation on Toronto: that one lies squarely with Harris.
 
wickedken

wickedken

TRIBE Member
True. I'm really ambivalent about the GTA. Overall I think it's better to be bigger. I'm glad at least one person understands that what we are all going through is so much removed from ideology and that retarded things can be done by anyone.
 
H

Ho||yw0oD

TRIBE Member
wickedken said:
True. I'm really ambivalent about the GTA. Overall I think it's better to be bigger. I'm glad at least one person understands that what we are all going through is so much removed from ideology and that retarded things can be done by anyone.
Click to expand...

But let's be real, this situation highlights the worst that can happen in developing a megacity. Suburbs pinned against urbanites. Suburban interests end up defining "Toronto" interests, but the core of the city is held hostage by the demands and unrelenting expectations of many who avoid the downtown (and midtown for that matter) like the plague.
 
el presidente Highsteppa

el presidente Highsteppa

TRIBE Member
How many of you are aware that Rob Ford saved us....

(wait for it........)


dr-evil-profile.jpg


ONE BILLION DOLLARS

Only one problem - he fucking lying.

Okay, two problems - he's also really shitty at math.

[The Grid]

Tue Jun 11, 2013
Politics
Rob Ford’s billion-dollar lie
BY: Edward Keenan

Despite refusing to acknowledge the crack scandal that won’t go away and overshadows everything he does, the mayor has been out campaigning for re-election, and it looks like the central plank in his 2014 platform will be a line of billion-dollar BS. That is, Mayor Rob Ford and his brother Doug have been proudly, repeatedly claiming that he’s “saved” taxpayers in Toronto $1 billion since he got elected. It’s a lie. A bald-faced, outright lie that he seems to think he can get away with by simply repeating it again and again. Here’s the truth: Torontonians are paying more today in taxes and fees than they were on the day Ford was elected. And the city is now spending more on programs and services than it was under David Miller. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of that, except that Ford is claiming the opposite.

So what about that billion-dollar boast? For weeks now, people have been scratching their heads trying to figure out how he came up with the number. Finally, this past weekend, he offered some math on his radio show—and relayed it on Twitter via his communications assistant Amin Massoudi—but his numbers do nothing to help make the case. Ford counts user-fee decreases as a savings, and then counts user-fee increases as a savings, too. He selectively tallies some labour deals for $89 million in savings, but doesn’t mention the $27-million-per-year cost of his banner raise to police officers nor the tens of million more that TTC workers will get as a direct result of his plan to make the TTC an essential service. He counts savings from office-expense budgets but doesn’t mention increased costs in other areas. In essence, he’s just pulled a bunch of unrelated and sometimes contrasting numbers from the budget and added them together to make $1 billion.

But the line items he cites and the ones he doesn’t cite are just noise. If we’re talking about cutting spending, the total budget is what matters, and that’s gone up. In 2010, when Ford was elected, the city’s gross operating budget was $9.214 billion. In 2013, it was $9.405 billion. The budget—the amount of taxpayer dollars being spent—has increased by $191 million.

If, instead, we wanted to talk about saving taxpayers money, we could look at tax and fee rates. The only number on Ford’s list that would actually be useful in a claim he’s “saved” taxpayers money is the $200 million over four years from ending the vehicle registration tax—that’s the only money that people could notice by looking at their bank account. Ford cut that fee, but since then he’s upped all kinds of others to more than make up the revenue: City finance staff estimated in 2012 that new and increased user fees implemented in Ford’s budgets would cost taxpayers more than $20 million a year. TTC fare hikes of five and 10 cents over two years cost taxpayers who take transit an additional $45 million dollars per year combined. So Rob Ford cut the fee for driving a car by about $50 million per year, then raised fees for parents using parks facilities and people riding subways, among other things, by $65 million a year. Total net cost to “the taxpayer”—since Ford insists there is only one—is $15 million per year. He also raised property taxes, which are about $179 million more in 2013 than they were in 2010.

I’ve already heard and read plenty of people parroting Rob Ford’s entirely fictional claim—just as they repeated his imaginary claims about a gravy train wasting billions of dollars last time around. It was hard to counter the waste rhetoric because it was so unspecific, but because he’s shown his math this time, we can see he’s failing at basic arithmetic.

To recap: The city’s surplus this year is smaller than Miller’s was in 2010. City spending has gone up about $200 million per year under Ford, and he’s increased the taxes and fees Torontonians pay to the city by about $200 million per year as well. We can debate whether taxes and spending could have or should have gone up more, and we can debate whether this is the best way to measure the city’s health. But there’s really no debate about one thing: Ford’s billion-dollar boast is a flat-out lie.


BUDGET SURPLUSES, BY YEAR



MAYOR MILLER

2006: $93.6 million

2007: $95 million

2008: $88 million

2009: $354.8 million

2010: $367 million



MAYOR FORD

2011: $292 million

2012: $248 million
Click to expand...

Rob Ford


I await BBJ's rote answer of "McGuinty", which has nothing to do with this.
 
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wickedken

wickedken

TRIBE Member
Ho||yw0oD said:
But let's be real, this situation highlights the worst that can happen in developing a megacity. Suburbs pinned against urbanites. Suburban interests end up defining "Toronto" interests, but the core of the city is held hostage by the demands and unrelenting expectations of many who avoid the downtown (and midtown for that matter) like the plague.
Click to expand...

Not disagreeing. Just a fact of living in a community. Coming from poli-sci background, I believe the root of the problem is the fact that cities have no constitutional standing being creations of the province. So it's a larger issue than Vaughan etc. And those guys, whomever they may be at whatever time, will have to pander to a variety of interests to benefit the party, regardless of how many ridings there are in the city that should in theory properly represent Toronto.
 
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P

Phat Buddha

TRIBE Member
The Watcher said:
Massive police raid launched in Toronto
Police launched massive predawn raid targeting guns and drugs Thursday, focusing on the Toronto neighbourhood that’s ground zero for the Rob Ford crack video scandal.
Click to expand...

Project Traveller, the code name for the investigation, has involved months of surveillance by officers from a task force put together to slow or stop the flow of guns into the GTA.

Caught up in the investigation, sources have told the Star, is the issue of the video in which Ford appears to be smoking crack cocaine.

Surveillance carried out by detectives has yielded information related to the alleged crack video, sources say.
 
C

coleridge

TRIBE Member
Rob Ford says he wasn't informed of the raid. If that's true that is pretty unprecedented by the police to not inform.

Rob then goes on to say the cable is out at his house so he knows nothing. Is this guy capable of ever telling the truth?
 
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Big Cheese

Big Cheese

TRIBE Member
doug said he's out for 2014, the provincial cons won't touch him

now word to big bird is that wiretaps they have during the investigation from project traveller have guys talking about the video, before the story broke with the star and gawker.

done like dinner.

best thing about this whole thing tho, got 40 some odd loaners guns off the street
 
alexd

alexd

Administrator
Staff member
If the police seize the iphone with the crack video on it in today's raids, will they suppress it I wonder....
 
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