Month: April 2019

April 16: On this melancholy morning in the aftermath of the fire at Notre Dame, I am thinking of my visit to Paris in 2017. I stayed in Hotel Des Carmes not far from the Sorbonne. When I arrived I was given an upgrade to a room on the top floor. After what seemed like a 15 minute elevator ride to the 5th floor, imagine my pleasant surprise to discover a view of le Pantheon, la Tour Eiffel, and, of course, Notre Dame from a small balcony carved into the mansard roof. It was a bit surreal and I spent quite a while propped on a chair squeezed onto the balcony reminding myself that it was real.

One evening I went down to Notre Dame after the crowds of tourists had dissipated to see a video on the construction of the cathedral. There was a relatively small audience and it felt a bit like a private screening for invited guests. The video was thoughtful and thorough. It gave me new insight to the structure of the church itself, and the many things it has witnessed over the centuries as it stood in the centre of Paris. As I left, there was a sweet half-moon peeking over the rooftops and I thought of my Dad and how much he would have enjoyed being in France – being at Notre Dame.

I’ve visited Notre Dame many times and it has always evoked a strong emotional response. I know that I am not alone and, whether or not you have been fortunate enough to have visited her, I am sure that most were shocked and horrified to see her in flames yesterday evening. The sense of loss was overwhelming and heartbreaking. It was, as one observer noted, not unlike the 9/11 attacks in New York: at once tragic, symbolic and historic. There was another half-moon last night and it reminded me that while some things persist through the centuries, they can be affected by the events of history and change. They are not immutable.

Thankfully, there was no loss of life during the blaze and current reports suggest that many of the religious and cultural artifacts have escaped (if not untouched) at least in a state that will allow them to be restored. President Macron has vowed to rebuild within 5 years. Sadly, I fear it may take much longer – decades, perhaps – and that leaves me wondering whether I will ever again be able to sit inside Notre Dame to contemplate all that she has seen, and all that she means to us.

April 3: I recently attended the screening of a documentary that focused on the transition of Venice from a living, vibrant city to a tourist destination and investment vehicle for the wealthy and privileged.  The commentator for the evening was Shawn Micallef, urban affairs columnist at The Toronto Star and author of Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto. During the evening, he said that calling Toronto a “world-class city” sounded sad and faintly desperate.

I shared that feeling for many years as I watched the city gradually slide into mediocrity and decay. Where once the city was known for its’ innovative governance, advanced planning and sound infrastructure, I now see a lack of vision, timid public policy and crumbling public assets. What is truly alarming is that many, if not most residents see this decline too, but there seems to be little or no political will to improve the situation.

A significant portion of citizens is largely ignored and disenfranchised by our politicians who are, for the most part, privileged and indebted to corporate interests. Property owners are protected at a cost to those who rent: while private equity generates the construction of condominium developments at a furious rate, public housing deteriorates and more than 98,000 households are waiting for affordable homes (Q3 2018). City-funded free programs become fee-based and only affordable for families with discretionary income. Improvements to public transit, which are well-known and desperately needed, remain a faint hope years from realization. Our roads, which spent many weeks under banks of snow and ice which the City was unable or unwilling to clear, continue to crumble into minefields of potholes and shards of lose pavement. Public parks and recreation facilities are tattered and deteriorating from lack of maintenance.

The thing is: If you are from that portion our population that has a good job, lives in a good neighbourhood, goes to the right club and sends your kids to the right schools, I suspect that you really don’t care all that much about the plight of those who are not so fortunate. The roads may be a bit rough, but at least you’re not on the subway. And our Mayor and Council will look after you by keeping increases to your property taxes to the rate of inflation. My Father always taught me that if you are not beating the rate of inflation, you are not making any money. You are merely breaking even. If the City is not increasing its revenue through greater taxes (or perhaps the faint hope of larger grants from senior governments), how will it ever deal with the exponentially-growing expense of making our city a great place to live ? It seems like Council is balancing the budget by selling the furniture to pay the mortgage on the house.

We are at a fork in the road. We need a Mayor with a vision for the future of our city, and a vision of what it will take to make it truly great once more. We need a financial plan to take us there. And we need the courage to make it politically palatable for all of that to happen. Sadly, I see none of that in our current Mayor and Council. And ultimately the City is “a creature of the Province” – it can’t make many decisions without the Province agreeing. We saw how well that works when Council decided to toll the expressways and the previous Liberal government refused to allow that to happen. Now that the Conservatives are in power, the provincial government has become malevolent, vindictive and prone to spontaneous ill-informed decisions. There’s little hope anything will improve for the next 3 years.

As food for thought, I offer the following article from John Lorinc who says many of these things much better than I.

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LORINC: How to reframe Toronto’s 2020 budget debate