Ford and Tory: A Bait and Switch
Ford and Tory: A Bait and Switch
Two major policy decisions stand to be completely obscured by Conservative Premier Doug Ford’s latest machinations at City Hall.
On Thursday, the Toronto Star's Robert Benzie published a proposal by Premier Ford to slash the number of City councillors in half, even while the the City election is already underway and the deadline for councillor candidate registration was less than 24 hours away.
Chaos ensued. All councillor candidates had their campaigns thrown into disarray. Large protests erupted at City Hall while fiery exchanges between the mayor and councillors made headlines.
Tory shouts at Layton as things get out of hand: "GET UP IF YOU HAVE THE BALLS TO DO IT AND SAY IT!"
— Jonathan Goldsbie (@goldsbie) July 27, 2018
Strangely, many of Tory’s executive did not vote to make the matter an emergency item, while it was revealed that the mayor already had some forewarning of the plans in discussions with the Premier.
While politicians, the media and most of the public focused on Ford’s attempt to gerrymander Toronto’s council, almost no attention was paid to two other decisions taken - both involving billions of dollars.
Cannabis Retail Privatized
At almost the exact same time as the Toronto Star release about City Council, Vice News released details of Ford’s plan to privatize Ontario’s cannabis sales.
While “the province will still oversee the wholesale distribution of the product and online sales", the Ontario’s LCBO (the state-owned alcohol retail monopoly) will now no longer have “exclusive rights over retail sales.”
The decision could affect billions of dollars of lost government revenues while other concerns are now developing over whether the Conservatives will allow total private retail or state-managed privatization that would give favour to specific companies.
Jack Lloyd, a prominent cannabis lawyer, is “concerned that the government will only license chains like Shoppers Drug Mart and Sobeys," according to Vice.
“There’s a chance that it just goes to big business whose operational demands mean that they can’t satisfy the market,” he told Vice.
While legalization of Cannabis is often portrayed in terms of government policy, the reality is that there are billions of dollars at stake in a new emerging international market. The legalization of cannabis in some US states is leading to a stampede of global investment by major corporations looking to strengthen global positions in agriculture production, distribution, retail and ancillary products like paraphernalia.
Indigenous communities trying to bolster their economies via cannabis production could also be heavily affected.
What’s happening behind the scenes right now in regards to agriculture, retail and distribution could make many people very rich. Well connected politicians and former police staffers like Joe Oliver and former police chief Julian Fantino, who strongly pushed for jailing people (predominantly black and indigenous people) for cannabis use and distribution are now attempting to get rich via legalization.
A Billion-Dollar City Giveaway
While the cannabis privatization scheme is mostly falling under the radar in comparison to the gerrymandering issues at the City, they’ve at least been covered in the press - notably CBC and Vice.
The same can’t be said for an attempt at council to give away billions to developers.
On the same day that Ford’s plans for cannabis and City council were leaked, City council had a vote that could have gifted anywhere from hundreds of millions to billions to developers - for no reason whatsoever it seems.
Despite the Ford/Tory antics of yesterday, this is what Torontonians should remember from last weeks Council meeting - an attempted $1/2B corporate giveaway of your money. https://t.co/XPqVmcWMkl
— Mike Layton (@m_layton) July 28, 2018
Hundreds of millions. https://t.co/ddBaEvnmvq
— Gord Perks (@gordperks) July 29, 2018
The vote, which would have given millions to a number of development projects, was part of an incentive program to encourage development.
The only problem is that according to City Staff reports, a number of the projects were going to be developed anyways, causing many observers to speculate that it was simply a brazen giveaway of public money to billionaire development corporations.
Shame on me? You voted, against Legal, Planning&EcDev staff recommendations, to give away $364M to Cadillac Fairview/Brookfield/Oxford/Menkes/QuadReal/bcIMC some of the biggest corporations in the country. I’d rather we put that $ in things we need like transit, housing https://t.co/cuGMVWnp0F
— Janet Davis (@Janet_Davis) July 27, 2018
The councillor who moved the motion (Michael Thompson) was just last month accused of having a too-cozy relationship with developers by Toronto's integrity commissioner.
The vote failed on a tie - with the Mayor voting in favour.
Councillor Michael Thompson’s motion to give millions in tax incentive grants to a bunch of developments, including some that would be built anyway, LOSES on a tie, 20-20. Wow. pic.twitter.com/M8Xqajw837
— Matt Elliott (@GraphicMatt) July 26, 2018
The giveaway of either billions or hundreds of millions in tax-payer money comes on the heels of a major health, housing and homelessness crisis in the City. Advocates have had to scrape and claw to get the City to allocate small amounts of money for shelters, safe-injection sites and affordable housing development.
Not a single major media outlet reported on the vote.