ep 24 audio

Hamilton transit workers are planning to strike due to low wages. This is part of a larger issue of cities facing financial problems after the pandemic. The lack of coordination between the federal, provincial, and municipal governments is making the situation worse. Property taxation is regressive and needs to be addressed. The strike will further impact cities' ridership and recovery. welcome to the bill kelly podcast critical discussions in critical times here's your host bill kelly and this is the bill kelly podcast, critical discussions in our critical times i'm your host bill kelly uh... the headline is a headline that's probably going to appear in cities right across the province of ontario over the next little while, this one is in hamilton uh... where hamilton transit workers are planning to strike on thursday according to the union, they're taking a strike vote and like ninety nine point nine percent of the workers decided yeah we're going out uh... they want more money, go figure, you know after uh... going through covid and the restrictions that were going on many unions are holding out for situations like this, i mean the same thing's happening in the auto industry these days uh... but it's it's it's problematic as it is uh... right now when it talks about transit uh... to my mind actually it's part of a bigger picture and it comes down to of course what else in politics, money or lack thereof uh... cities have been strapped, they were warned after covid that there's no more money coming from the feds or the province after all those assistance programs that were out some time ago and uh... you know about the concerns in the city of toronto these days, the city of ottawa is saying the same sort of thing uh... burlington just beside hamilton uh... is talking about a huge tax increase, as a matter of fact in hamilton the initial numbers for the twenty twenty four tax season, they're talking about something like thirteen or fourteen percent increase, now god help us, i don't think it's going to be that high in hamilton but i think it indicates that the problems that cities are facing these days and uh... it looks as if the old bailout, well the feds and the province will come through for us at the last minute i'm not so sure if the capillary is coming i want to ask our guest about that, so pleased to welcome back to the program john best john best is the publisher of the bay observer uh... covering municipal politics, provincial politics especially here in southern ontario for many many years now, john great to have you with us today, thanks so much for being on the podcast it's great to be back with you bill is the possible transit strike a symptom of a greater problem here well i think it is uh... we're seeing it in the private sector bill where uh... the automobile uh... strikes that just took place and and the kind of raises that those people are getting uh... they're in excess of five percent a year and this is uh... really a throwback to years and years and years where uh... employment was tight and uh... employers could get away with not increasing people's salaries and then uh... we've gone through a relative boom period uh... you know in the last five or six years all of a sudden there's demand for all these products and and profits are up and uh... it's sort of a cows coming home situation after probably a decade of of wage restraint including even to some extent at the uh... uh... public sector level where uh... you know we had uh... doug ford putting in a uh... measure that uh... capped uh... public sector raises of one percent i think most people would argue they could save that but uh... you know there's just been a general uh... freeze on salary increases for at least a decade and suddenly uh... everybody's demanding more and uh... they're probably going to get it uh... initially as you and i have discussed over the last couple of years uh... the immediate impact was well yeah they had their salaries frozen so it's payback time you know we we want more money just because you wouldn't let us get more money by the way they seem to have the courts on their side now but the greater problem that i don't know that any politicians saw coming uh... was this beast of inflation uh... and cost of living i mean the the double headed monster that's out there where these guys aren't just saying hey we want more money because we think we deserve it they want more money because they they need to survive you know the price of groceries the cost of their mortgage if they had to get their mortgage renewed over the last year uh... there's sticker shock on that too so i i can see their point and the immediate uh... reaction from some people especially in politics is to simply be dismissive of it and say look it's not going to happen but i can see their point at the same time i mean they're looking at the same problems you and i are trying to make ends meet and that's not just a cliche these days it's a reality for a lot of people well it is and i think the big one that you mentioned two of them certainly the food inflation but the big one is that it's hanging over everybody's head is when these mortgage renewals start coming along uh... they're gonna add literally thousands to the monthly uh... housing housing bill and that uh... that's pretty frightening so i think uh... you know you're you're seeing that and uh... in the case of hamilton where our bus uh... workers will be walking out in two days if uh... nothing happens they're simply saying three and a half percent doesn't cut it we need at least five and they point to you know some some moves that the city made that were uh... in retrospect uh... a bit questionable giving you know much larger raises to their non-union people so uh... it's uh... and and a bus strike in hamilton couldn't come at the worst time or or really any city in ontario because they they've all been through the uh... pandemic they've all lost ridership significantly they're just starting to get their ridership back to uh... proper levels and now if there's an extended strike uh... we're going to see another dip and god knows how long it'll take to get the riders back and again you're right i mean this is probably shining a spotlight on a problem that's existed for quite some time here about the cooperation or lack thereof uh... between the three levels of government and uh... you know we've we've done comparators you've written about it uh... for a long time john about uh... you know other countries other g seven nations for instance and how they deal with some of these problems uh... and and canada just doesn't seem to catch on or they don't want to i guess i mean even the united states has gone through some rather small c conservative governments over the last twenty five thirty years uh... with the bushes and bush junior and reagan et cetera uh... they still have maintained uh... a pool of money for things like municipal reform how roads highways transit things of this nature and it's it's always being fed in other words if there's no sunset clause there it's a fun that exists for american cities to be able to tap into for worthwhile projects so it's always going to be there may be not as much as they want but you know devote to be quiet walk and get his uh... an opportunity just as new york city does here uh... finally after people continue to scream about this our federal government i will finally say okay here's a big pot of money and they make a big announcement with a vote of three or four ministers you know that the song and dance that they do but there's a sunset clause to it's going to be like over two years and invariably once we see the breakdown throughout a montreal and vancouver get most of the money anyway uh... so we're not really solving anything here that they're creating a headline but they're not making the problem go away what's incredible bill is to see the siloing between uh... levels of government that still exists uh... you know we're here it is uh... twenty twenty three and uh... they're still operating almost as if they don't know each other exists the immigration minister yesterday uh... speaking about the immigration quotas that he's uh... projecting for the next two or three years he said hey we're we're gonna finally take into account housing and uh... job availability and i looked at that and i thought you mean you've been doing it all up until now with these numbers and and haven't been taking in the capacity of provinces and cities to absorb these people and uh... you know i'm speaking as somebody that that says that immigration is absolutely vital uh... to a country with a low birth rate like we have you can't just say we're going to set the you know the product of feds at the quota and the promises all that's great uh... where we're going to put them and you know it's just incredible that there is a better coordination uh... at a time when you when you like to think that were more sophisticated perhaps than we were twenty or thirty years ago but uh... that's just one tiny example but what it's doing is putting municipalities uh... in a rather precarious position and and uh... i get it i know the response i'm going to get from from MPs and MPPs when they listen to this podcast like oh we've got our own financial problems and crises and i guess they do certainly they do but there's the old thing about you know you're at the bottom all the shit falls on you and that seems to be what's going on in the municipalities these days you know the feds can say no and put their money where they want and the province can do the same sort of thing uh... the municipalities don't have very many options at this stage uh... you know the only way and i know we're getting into the realm of of taxation and property taxation is the most regressive form of taxation because it's not based on your ability to pay it's based on where you live you know what kind of a building you're living in uh... and that's problematic but nobody's talked about changing that so we're stuck with this system we are and uh... you know again the lack of coordination like we're at a time now where uh... people are really struggling bill uh... there's uh... in hamilton we're facing this fourteen percent increase now whether uh... it will end up being that or not uh... it's likely not but on the other hand uh... our mayor in hamilton is saying that she's definitely going to be dipping into reserves as part of the solution so that implies uh... no cuts in spending uh... just we'll find the money another way which is uh... a short-term argument there's just a cross purposes all three levels of government are totally across purposes uh... now the only unity i see between uh... the three levels is that both the ford government and the federal government seem to have come to the conclusion that the housing crisis is largely the fault of cities so they've stripped away all the planning powers that cities have now and said you you were the problem the reason we don't have these houses bill it's it's uh... your planning departments your nimbyism and there's a bit of truth to that because a local politician you served as a local counselor and you know that it's very hard to resist those local pressures if your community is up in arms against a high rise or something it's tough but having said that uh... you know i don't think the cities are completely responsible for the housing crisis i suspect the biggest problem right now with housing is is simply the fact that interest rates have uh... damn near tripled uh... since uh... before the pandemic and and people that had condo projects on the go there they're kind of hanging back now because uh... they're they're either going back to the people who signed up for those condos and asking for more money and it sounds like some of them are are doing that but then we've got other circumstances in toronto where people are walking away from three hundred thousand dollar deposits so i i think there's a terrible housing crisis coming once some of these mortgages come up for renewal and uh... i don't think uh... having the feds in the province blaming it on slow moving planning departments is going to cut up with the public no and and i saw that firsthand when i was on council a number of years ago of course uh... where we're one one resident could hold up a whole project for over a year uh... simply because they didn't like it you know i did i don't want a high-rise across the road from the evidence it's been planned there for the last ten years yeah but i don't want it when did you move in there three years ago we already knew that was going to be there yeah but i don't want it and you could go to your local counselor who would vote against it and get his buddies on council to vote against it it would go to the tribunal uh... and and there'd be an appeal a yada yada yada and sometimes you could placate that one individual by saying how about we put a gate on your back fence oh yeah okay i'm good with that but how much time is wasted how many hundreds of thousands of dollars were wasted so i i get it yes there were some people uh... that were holding up the process and yes there are some people on city council that would rather hold up a project for hundreds of thousands of dollars for the sake of getting a lawn sign on their property for the next election and that's gotta be a problem but do you blow up the whole system because of that no you don't and and and certainly uh... you know we are seeing uh... a slow uh... beginning of uh... you know some widespread housing development uh... you know just driving through this city uh... the number of towers uh... that's popping up thing i worry about with some of them is is that they're in neighborhoods some of these towers are going up in neighborhoods that quite frankly uh... you're asking people to spend six seven hundred thousand dollars on a condo and these neighborhoods are some of them are kind of seedy to be honest and i'm thinking what's going to be the cost once these buildings are up there's going to be a demand for streetscaping uh... you know uh... people aren't going to want to be on uh... in a in a neighborhood where they're spending this kind of money and you know for a condo paying you know maybe four thousand a year in taxes and uh... being in a neighborhood that's uh... kind of gritty so uh... you know we're building fast but the the overall environment surrounding some of these buildings uh... is going to have to be taken into account and i think that's going to fall almost entirely on city councils yet once again uh... you know the burden is on them uh... and you know i think everybody watching this podcast today and whatever city or community they're in can think of yeah i don't want to live on mass street you know it's at night you know the crime rates like or the perceived crime rates sometimes which can be just as bad as the reality uh... so what's that mean better lighting better streetscaping that's going to cost money better policing want to get into that debate again defund the police you don't hear that very much anymore by the way uh... because people understand that there's a reality here uh... that's the way in which police actually are operating and deployed is one thing uh... but you need that kind of protection in cities so you know again that's all done on the municipal level you made an interesting point years ago when you were on the radio show with me about pressures for city councillors uh... to say okay you've got to reduce that number and maybe that whole discussion started back around nineteen ninety five with uh... mike harris in the common sense revolution when he dumped all that crap on the municipalities the cost of of social services and things he said all you have to do is like find five percent savings it's a small oh and people said yeah why sure they should be able to do that but that means staff because ninety percent of a municipal budget is staff paying uh... the people that fix the roads paying police paying paying fire if you want to slash those budgets that means you're letting people go which has an impact on service levels doesn't it well it does unless uh... i've often said this about uh... governmental level uh... you know and and i i get the argument that you know governments probably can't run like businesses uh... it seems that uh... government it's always increasing it's never there's never uh... any attempt at cost-cutting now maybe it's a function of the demands the public make for services but in hamilton uh... it just spirals uh... you know this uh... current council has not only hit not counting the fourteen percent that we're contemplating uh... has already hit the city with the biggest tax increase since uh... twenty two thousand probably uh... massive staffing increases year uh... you know in in one year they've added over two hundred and fifty staff so uh... you know uh... there there doesn't seem to be i don't think in the municipal level at least there there is any sort of intellectual uh... capability of reducing costs uh... it just seems like you know they're they're going to be advertising right now for a new city manager for hamilton my guess is there isn't one of them that they could tell council how to save money or would be listened to if they did and we've seen that circumstance in the past too uh... so you've got this conundrum right now and it's exacerbated by the fact that uh... if you do get a brave council if i could use that adjective in that context uh... that says okay we're going to slash the public works budget okay we're going to millions of dollars we're going to try to keep those costs down so you can get lower taxes i guarantee you uh... with god as my witness the minute that happens somebody's going to call the council and say i thought you were going to do my street this year no well you wanted the tax decrease you called me fifteen times about reducing your taxes uh... and now you want me to bring that same you can't have both you can't have your cake and eat it too if they want lower prices and lower taxes and just about every rate payer does they've got to understand that it's going to have an impact on the service level maybe the snow plow is not going to come around as fast as they want it to uh... maybe the garbage is only going to get picked up every two weeks i mean those are options right now that don't seem to be palatable to anybody uh... but what else can they do well we have another issue uh... where uh... uh... the ford government in ontario has uh... reduced uh... development fees on certain kinds of buildings in the cities when they when they put that through they said that the cities would quote unquote be made whole it's a year or more later uh... and uh... i sent a note over to the housing ministry two weeks ago and said when are we going to learn more about methodology uh... that will make these cities whole because they're all budgeting right now as if they're going to lose tens of millions of dollars which is uh... you know you have to budget as if it's not there yeah and uh... so they're they're doing the prudent thing but if they're going to be made whole when are we going to find out surely the provincial government realizes that every municipality in ontario is planning their budgets now and this would be a good time to know uh... if there is money coming in and there should be because it was promised uh... why uh... you know how are we going to get it what method is it going to come our way in uh... we're hearing nothing on that so you've got these pressures some of them beyond our control some of them globally driven market driven uh... interest rates were told are going to come down in twenty twenty four i don't know how much you hear varying stories on that and that's going to have an impact on mortgage rates uh... could have an impact on housing prices a number of things like that so that may or may not happen uh... but the concern here as you say is the fact that nobody seems to have uh... the intestinal fortitude shall we say to make some of the tough calls on some of these other issues uh... and as a result we're looking at as you say enormous tax increases in just about every city here in ontario right now uh... and given the fact that that's really politically driven as opposed to market driven is is uh... is the new normal now just going to be higher property taxes for everybody i mean you know everybody who runs for office says i'm going to lower your taxes but that's not happening it's not going to happen anytime soon especially now when we're looking at seven eight ten twelve percent increases in property taxes it's it's not fear-mongering to suggest that you're going to drive some people out of their homes well and i i think the other thing is uh... municipalities need to stay in their lane uh... we have a city council in hamilton right now that thinks it's their job to solve the uh... environmental crisis and they're spending uh... not a lot but if you add it all up they're spending millions and millions of dollars on e-bikes and and various measures and uh... what i would say is we have a federal government that's that's got a carbon tax uh... that is not very popular but it might be more popular if they simply make a municipality like hamilton whole on on even their environmental measures uh... you know we keep getting told that there's more money coming back from the carbon tax than going out but uh... i certainly haven't seen it and i think uh... you know maybe some of these local initiatives should be funded out of that and i don't see that frankly well and i think what we're getting is a reality check here too i mean when these programs were instituted and implemented by an awful lot of municipalities i think a lot of people uh... environmental groups certainly but even some of the elected officials were kind of giving themselves a pat on the back and see we have the courage and the vision this is what's going to make it a better planet we're not going to do this anymore we're going to recycle this we're going to repurpose this then all of a sudden we're starting to get over the last year or two stories about how much it costs to recycle you know what the process is you know by the way that's not reducing the carbon footprint at all when you do that uh... that it could actually be making it worse now wait a second here in other words did we get sold a bill of goods here i think there's a lot of skepticism and it's well founded well if you're talking about recycling the other problem is that the market for some of these recycled goods has disappeared so uh... that's a problem and uh... in hamilton uh... we have a situation where we we have a landfill uh... but any attempt to find any other way of disposing like uh... you know like europe they still incinerate most of their garbage we don't do it and uh... so we have no option except to uh... a never-ending filling up of landfills it's uh... you know and and i think people have reduced their overall uh... recyclable footprint i think people have done a pretty good job of of trying to make it work but you know uh... imagine the market for paper if you think about what's happened to the newspaper industry where the recycling market for paper i wonder what's happened to that these days i just i i i to a little part of me i have this little pang of of of uh... i guess regret for an awful lot of the people that got elected to city council during the last municipal elections and i mean province wide because there were a lot of problems and they came up and said we're going to make things different you know we're going to get rid of those old people on council that have been there for twenty five thirty years we're going to bring new fresh ideas and we're going to make this a better city and i i got to think at this point john as as they're you know about halfway through this term they're thinking what the hell did i get into and nobody saw this coming nobody and uh... now it's up to them to fix it and i i don't know that they've got the tools or even the ideas to do it no and uh... it's a period of major transition because uh... we don't have the leadership at the staff level right now that's all in flux so uh... it's kind of an uncertain time right now and i can tell you there's uh... there's all kinds of political unrest starting to uh... bubble around uh... the city in various in various parts of the city so uh... we're you know i think they're feeling they're next to a certain degree well we look ahead to twenty twenty four now it's a little bit early to start making predictions uh... but i think there's an argument to be made that there's a potential powder keg here happening within the municipalities we already know what's going on federally and provincially we could be thrown into an election uh... federally because of what's going on with the carbon tax and a couple of other issues uh... who knows what's going to happen with the Ford administration and the RCMP investigation and and some of the things that have gone on there but municipally uh... you know that's where the the rubber hits the road and uh... it's going to be a fascinating year a very challenging year and uh... we'll be talking about it of course on the podcast john always a pleasure thank you so much for this today stay well well that's it for this edition of the bill kelly podcast thanks for listening and thanks for subscribing to as always we welcome your comments and suggestions you can reach us on youtube, facebook, twitter or x as you call it, instagram or email at this is bill kelly at gmail dot com till next time this is bill kelly, take care, talk again soon this podcast was brought to you by rebecca wizens and her team at wizens law rebecca wizens is a twenty time winner of the hamilton readers choice awards for their exceptional client care and legal practice specializing in personal injury, car accidents, accidental falls and wilson estates now if you or a loved one have been seriously injured or if you want to make sure that your family is taken care of for the future with the will and powers of attorney call rebecca wizens nine oh five five two two eleven oh two for a free consultation when life happens you can rely on rebecca wizens and wizens law and trust me, rebecca is my wife, i don't know what i'd do without her that's wizens law nine oh five five two two eleven oh two for a free consultation subscribe to my sub stack for timely news updates and commentary straight to your inbox let's keep the conversation going, i'd love to hear your thoughts on today's episode let me know what you think we should be talking about next by contacting me through my website at www.billkelly.co thanks for tuning in this is bill kelly, till next time