Here at Toronto City Council for the budget meeting!
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Okay, we're recessing till 2:00. Back then!
OH WAIT there's an anti-poverty rally outside City Hall
2 media
Side note: still crushed by the loss of Café on the Square, the unofficial City Hall canteen https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/toronto-city-hall-s-caf-shutters-after-more-than-25-years-serving-politicians-public-servants/article_d43de4dd-b3da-4e81-a1b7-5cf80525e0f6.html Particularly Norm!
Oh sick, there are samosas at the rally
Visited my happy place (the stationery section of Muji)
Back at City Council, where Speaker Nunziata threatens to pass a motion to accept the budget "as is" unless they meet quorum.
"You learn more on Budget Committee than any other committee," says Cllr Pasternak, recalling his four-year "sentence" on the committee.
Like others, he sounds a warning bell about dipping into the reserves, citing extreme flooding and COVID as events Toronto could only cope with because of deep reserves.
Pasternak now describing "hateful mobs" "harassing" people on Bathurst, people fleeing from "unstable" people on the subways, violent attacks on Jewish institutions, etc., the usual. He also mentions the uptick in reported assaults on LGBT people, which I would take more seriously if this wasn't coming from the guy who reliably tries to defund Pride if there is even a whiff of pro-Palestinian participation.
Cllr Bravo is concerned about the delay Pasternak is asking for on the building of a shelter in his ward. She notes that keeping people in a hotel, which might involve extending a lease, is very expensive; that inflation could lead to increase in capital costs.
"My concern is being fair to local residents," says Pasternak, who does not consider homeless people "residents". He mentions that many are Italian speakers and says more time is needed to reach out to them. My dude how do you not have Italian speakers in your office
Carroll gets Pasternak to say "I don't think we should be putting a shelter beside a daycare." Ah, there we are
Oh hey, Cllr Shan gives a nod to the people rallying outside. "For one of the wealthiest cities in the world, we cannot be the child poverty capital of Canada," he says, mentioning one of the points one of the speakers mentioned.
Totally superficial observation: I really like Cllr Kandavel's sunny goldenrod-leaning-mustard-yellow sweater. It is a colour I am afraid to try to pull off myself though
Cllr Cheng laments having to advocate for social & cultural investments for North York every year. Me (having watched tired community organizers beg for funding for student nutrition programs for the past 15 years): staring blankly in to the distance get used to it
"Go talk to people in the neighbourhoods. Ask them what they think about taking away police officers," says Cllr Colle.
me (from Parkdale): ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY
"I'm not going to speak very long on this…" Cllr Perruzza begins. FACT CHECK NEEDED, I bet he goes into full Perruzza Rant Mode at minute 3
Perruzza does not go into full rant mode, but he does go over time and has to be cut off by Nunziata.
He is the kind of councillor who will probably vote with your motion, but who you absolutely do not want speaking in favour of it
Cllr Bradford now doing advance-campaign-speech thing. Just to remind everyone, he got 1.28% of the vote last election (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Toronto_mayoral_by-election#Total).
He says the city has never drawn so much on the reserves before. "I call this budget financial malpractice, mortgaging the city's future to make an election-year budget look better on paper."
Cllr Colle starts heckling him. "Brad, what about the police budget?" Cllr Carroll, a couple rows ahead of him, turns around and mouths a "don't do it Mike, he's not worth it"-type message.
