Good luck to #OntarioRenters as the #DougFord administration:

- Strips "Security of Tenure" (the right to live in the same rented house as long as you're paying rent)

- Enables corporate landlords to evict tenants based on “market conditions, personal needs or business strategies" (yup, now "business strategy" will be an acceptable reason for a forced eviction or rent increase)

- Eliminates #RentControl / Rent Increase Caps (from 2026 onward)

This will result in:

- More homelessness
- More encampments
- More instability
- People dying on the streets

Speak with your friends and neighbours about this! It's only repeated casual conversations that people will hear about this and take actions!

There's a reason they released this plan on a Friday, so that it will get minimal media coverage while still 'informing' the public, hide the announcement in plain sight!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/proposal-rent-control-removal-ontario-9.6952992

#Ontario #ONPoli #CDNPoli #CanPoli #CanPolitics #TOPoli #TOCouncil

Twenty Seven BILLION dollars wasted on a toy train that would not address #Toronto's transit needs in the 1990's, let alone its transit needs today and tomorrow.

https://www.blogto.com/city/2025/10/ontario-line-subway-stations/

#ONPoli #TOPoli #TOCouncil

On today's Executive Committee agenda: a double whammy of devastating cuts to housing & shelter funding from provincial and federal governments https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2025.EX26.13

(Elsewhere: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawans-race-against-the-clock-to-house-asylum-seekers-ahead-of-federal-hotel-deadline-1.7644956?cmp=rss)

Agenda: https://secure.toronto.ca/council/#/committees/2468/25778
Livestream: https://youtube.com/live/RC57MK8G6f4

#TOcouncil #TOpoli #housing

Given the bike lanes precedent, shouldn't be too hard to challenge this on constitutional safety and security of the person grounds.

There is so much data out there that speed enforcement cameras work to reduce speeds and make the roads safer for vulnerable road users.

Particularly galling is the fact that SEC's are only allowed in school zones in #Ontario, so the victims of this announcement are literally children.

But, children don't vote or 'donate' to #DougFord, so who cares about them!

Finally, SEC's (in Canada) are NOT a "cash grab". There are precisely ZERO municipalities that rely on speeding fines for their general revenue. This constrasts with the #US where many municipalities use speeding fines as a major source of revenue.

https://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/doug-ford-expected-to-announce-a-ban-on-speed-cameras-today/article_70534b0c-ea8b-4817-9353-d9a9399a8216.html

#ONPoli #RoadSafety #BikeLane #SpeedCamera #Urbanism #TOPoli #TOCouncil

The #DougFord #OntarioPlace #Scandal is getting worse and worse.

From ever more rocky finances to Doug's "Stress Test" where Therme had to prove it was worth 1/4 of the value of their proposal - yup, one quarter, a $100mil stress test on a $400mil project - every week we learn more about how the #ThermeGroup got the red carpet treatment from Doug's #Ontario #Conservatives.

https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/financial-records-shed-new-light-on-the-ontario-place-spa-firm-s-net-worth-raising/article_3238f826-0f75-451b-a55c-ba0e63008b02.html

#TOPoli #TOCouncil #Toronto #ONPoli #Corruption #OntarioPlace4All

@christyceeck.bsky.social

Wow, that kind of a response to a media inquiry means a nerve has been touched.

Also, the use of the past-tense in the second paragraph, is that a tell?

#TOPoli #TOCouncil #Toronto #ONPoli #Ontario #OntarioPlace #OntarioPlaceScam #OntarioPlaceScandal #OntarioPlace4All

#Toronto was a pioneer of recycling, something that #DougFord has long derided as unnecessary (what're landfills for?).

When his brother was mayor he privatized part of the garbage and recycling collection, a move both costly and resulting in worse service.

Then, as Premier, he's continuing the idiocy by privatizing the entire institution of recycling, a move which has already proven to be inefficient and corrupt.

As the privatization of recycling continues we'll see diversion rates drop precipitously as the private firms encourage more unsorted collection - which they'll find harder to sort - and will continue to have no incentive to encourage reuse - disposable packaging can be leveraged by marketing after all!

What's needed is a well organized public system, similar to what's done in Nordic countries where sorting is easy & reuse encouraged.

What we'll get is more garbage thanks to #Conservative Doug Ford.

https://www.thestar.com/business/torontos-blue-box-program-will-be-privatized-in-less-than-six-months-heres-whats-going/article_b6801dd6-7eb4-4b65-885e-1f249cac1ce6.html

Paywall Free: https://archive.ph/OHHCS

#TOPoli #TOCouncil #ONPoli

Here's the item: https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2025.MM32.21

https://mastodon.social/@GraphicMatt/114911324700604457

#TOcouncil #TOpoli

Now going through members' motions. Holyday is miffed that councillors are adding new motions. Look, man, how would you like it if people voted not to waive referral on your routine motion to release Section 37 fu—wait, I don't think your ward has any S37 developments, heyoooooo

(I promise this is a sick burn if you know about Toronto urban planning)

#TOcouncil #TOpoli

Now, voting.

• Bradford's motion removing recommendation to re-zone the Third Street shelter (IT'S NOT EVEN HIS WARD. IT'S MORLEY'S) fails 5-20.
• Cllr Cheng's motion adding numerous stipulations to North York shelter site (including parking and "to, as a part of the site plan process, consider locating the main entrance to the building so that it is not visible from Sheppard Avenue West") carries by show of hands.
• Holyday's motion to revamp shelter site selection process fails 7-18.
• Recommendations 1 & 2 (68 Sheppard West site) carry 23-2
• Recommendation 3 (1615 Dufferin) carries 23-2
• Recommendation 4 (Eglinton West, Caledonia) carries 23-2
• Recommendation 5 (2535 Gerrard) carries 20-5
• Recommendation 6 (66 Third Street) carries 21-4
• Recommendation 7 (1220-1222 Wilson Ave) carries 19-6.
• Recs 8 & 9 (technical things, closure of part of road for Third St. site) carry 21-4.
• Rec 10, for more consultations (Nunziata: "This should be unanimous, because it's all we talked about today…I want a recorded vote, because that was my motion") carries unanimously.
• And the entire item as amended carries 22-3 (Bradford, Holyday, Pasternak against).

Great! One item down, uhhh…82 items to go.

#TOcouncil #TOpoli

"Most people in Toronto are just a couple of paycheques away from losing your house," Cllr Perks, the last speaker, says. "…Saying a shelter brings problems to a neighbourhood is like saying a doctor makes people sick…The people who live in shelters in my ward are every bit as much my constituents as the people who live next to me."

#TOcouncil #TOpoli

Cllr Bravo mentions Lorenzo Berardinetti (whom Cllr Carroll was obliquely referring to before), former city councillor and MPP, who opposed a shelter in Scarborough and years later wound up homeless. He now publicly regrets his decision, she says.

#TOcouncil #TOpoli

Cllr Malik recounting how residents literally brought their children to consultations (which Cllr Bradford, raising concerns about "not enough consultation", was at, she notes) to "what about the children" her in person.

#TOcouncil #TOpoli

Back to the shelter item. Cllr Carroll is bringing up the concepts of dog-whistles and poison pills (both of which some suburban councillors are employing to try to keep shelters out of their wards).

Lee Atwater famously described dog-whistles:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “N—, n—, n—.” By 1968 you can’t say “n—”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N—, n—.”

#TOcouncil #TOpoli

We're back! City Clerk John Elvidge is getting the Association of Municipal Managers, Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario (AMCTO) Prestige Award: https://www.amcto.com/about/awards/prestige-award

#TOcouncil #TOpoli

Anyway, gtg coffee and so on, hopefully back before lunch.

#TOcouncil #TOpoli

Fondly remembering a consultation many years ago for a temporary shelter in #parkdale. Planners are often nervous because of angry backlash from residents opposed to shelters. In this case Perks warned the planner that locals were going to be like, harm reduction practices had BETTER be permitted in this shelter, can people bring pets, why so few spaces, why is it only temporary…

#TOcouncil #TOpoli

Here's a quick janky LibreOffice Calc visualization. I could improve this if I were not using LibreOffice Calc. Can do something better later if people want. Anyway, the point is: there are constantly people being turned away and there is a need for emergency shelter space.

#TOcouncil #TOpoli

The shelter item: https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2025.PH23.3
Staff report, including links to the shelter designs, etc. (PDF): https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2025/ph/bgrd/backgroundfile-257007.pdf

The 6 new sites have already been approved, gone through public consultations, etc.; they just need to be re-zoned.

Creating the shelters is part of the broader HSCIS (Homelessness Services Capital Infrastructure Strategy) to replace the temporary shelter hotels opened during the first years of COVID and to add more permanent spaces to the perennially at-capacity shelter system, which turns away people every night—~100/night, now; hundreds a couple years ago.
Stats: https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/research-reports/housing-and-homelessness-research-and-reports/shelter-system-requests-for-referrals/
Data set: https://open.toronto.ca/dataset/central-intake-calls/

#TOcouncil #TOpoli

Stay classy, Pasternak https://mastodon.social/@GraphicMatt/114908563958335821

#TOcouncil #TOpoli