A post G20 reflection published in The Mark
“We need a public inquiry into the Toronto G20, and we need to find ways to make future forums more democratic and participatory.”
June 24th, 2010
G20 eve
There has been much consternation and alarm about the G20 this June 25 – 27 in Toronto. Including among many, this recent Torontoist tweet citing Mayor Miller: “The institution of the federal government doesn’t understand Toronto”? http://bit.ly/dlJCcm .” An email went around today from a co-tenant at the Centre for Social Innovation seeking ideas for witty protest, insightful intervention, and related “culture jamming.”
It is to weep short splurts of sarcastic saline solution. Who is listening? To whom? And do some among the array of protesters grasp that this very Canadian initiative–the G20–is about breaking the hold of “the West” and/or “the North” on “world” discourse? We have an ideological smorgasbord of leaders, some like Lulo who have helped raise millions out of poverty, and not some rigid falanx of the “Washington Consensus.” Certainly, much is pomp without much circumstance. It is too expensive (we’d like an audit Prime Minister). However, face-to-face still matters and this let’s leaders from every continent eyeball each other and try to lever some key agenda items into the floating consensus of world governance, such as it is.
Civil protest is of course a central, necessary part of any breathing democracy, any even remotely functioning state. Black Bloc play-time and its requisite smashed windows, not so much. Culture Jamming: for or against or to reveal what precisely? Oh I know I’d get a list but I’m “begging” for detail, research, insight and some sense of comment or action that rises above the bleating of spoiled children of the West, that transcends obvious left (or right) cliche.
If one wishes to “make change happen” then it’s a multi-terrain game. It may be peaceful protest, it may be satire, it may be cultural intervention it is also the hard work of electoral politics, of coalition building across representative communities. It is about engaging, what many protesters might dismiss as oppose to celebrate, the broad middle class. Connecting the middle class to those who are not progressing or being helped to rise out of poverty and powerlessness. It’s about unifying and connecting with an open mind, humility for the other, and a grasp of “real data” to back up and inform the questions (more than “issues”) one poses.
If one takes this broad, multi-terrain, well-informed, open-minded approach, then that would be something the leaders of the G20 and large segments of their electors and citizens, would “hear.” And what better place to have heard insightful contrapuntal opinion and questions than in Toronto?
September 27th, 2009
Mayor Miller 1
Thank you. Public life is a rough gig. You took it on and no one can gainsay that.
But sir you have too often grabbed a PR defeat from what ought to have been a policy victory. You too often promised too much and delivered explanations instead of the elegant solution. I support transit expansion. I support green roofs. I support using the powers of the City of Toronto Act (thank you Premier McGuinty) to creatively benefit the city. So we should have little argument. Still if the new taxing powers were indeed necessary you ought to have gone from ward to ward to make the case. You ought to have worked with developers to sell the green roof program (yes photo ops and sector-friendly announcements do matter).
And where are the things we could do but have not done: our own appeals board for Committee of Adjustment matters (one less round of OMB appeals). Where is our push for inclusive zoning, tax increment financing et al to engage the private sector comprehensively in city-building. Vancouver has created schools, parks, and cultural facilities on its downtown waterfront through the application of clear and consistent rules and incentives. Of course the planning act is different here, and yes the lament of the OMB, but indeed much more could be done.
Union Station is finally getting it’s re-do. But 6 years. Six years went by as marble crumbled.
If things on the Waterfront are indeed moving (and they are) they could have used a focused consistent nudging that it seems you have not provided; instead there has been micro-management and duplication of effort that has too often slowed things down.
Green bins that are filled with toxic mysteries that cannot make good compost; a problem one things could have been solved with attention to the file and an unequivocal directive to staff to fix it.
Yes TEDCO has been replaced by Invest Toronto and Build Toronto but surely that was a first-term item.
I’ll be more charitable in another post. But in thinking ahead to the 2010 contest I’d say to all contenders remember that buses need to run on time, the potholes need to be fixed, the parks need to be safe, and the fountains need to work. We need innovative programs and policies. We need transit expansion However, it must be built on a solid, sustainable plan that rolls out measurable achievements in every year. We need to have a mayor who commits to equal opportunity for all but also one who will be strategically deft and tactically flexible.
We need to be once again the City That Works and be a City That Shines.
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