It’s hard to know what word is more popular these days, ‘citizen’, or ‘engagement’.  Put the two together, and you have the making of a blog post/city initiative/drinking club/ or website.  Now don’t get me wrong, that sounds like a cynical opening, but I am all for citizen engagement.  Create a list of engaged citizens in London, and I hope my name would be on it.  I read the blog posts, I go to the city events, I’ll be at the Mo for pints and politics, and I comment on websites.  However, there’s a sorrow deep within me because I already know what we’ll do wrong, and I’m not sure there’s much I can do about it.

A look through London’s great blogs will show you that most of what we are talking about in terms of citizen engagement is reaching out to the disengaged.  Brian Gibson hits home for many of us regarding political cynicism: “I hope we all listen, and can help engage the cynical among us.  And defeat the cynic that resides inside us too.”  Jo-Anne Bishop highlights the irony of the declaration of London as the city of opportunity at a time of eroding citizen engagement.  Glen Pearson confronts skepticism, highlighting that it is up to us, the citizens, to show we have the maturity to co-lead our city along with Council.  Even I have championed a growing citizen movement that falls outside the established bounds of a special interest group.

And it’s working.  Look at the turnout for Rethink London, a sold out crowd of 1300 people suddenly interested in the official plan process.  But look a little closer, actually look around the room.  Yes, we got the Homeless Coalition, and the neighbourhood associations, and university/college student councils, and non-profit staff, and business association members out, we have revived flagging interest and brought out the cynical middle class.  But who isn’t there?  The poor.  Those fighting from paycheque to paycheque, those on endless waits for social housing, those who smell too odd, drink too much, and swear at the mayor when they see him because their child got apprehended by CAS, and goddamnit, they don’t know who else to blame.  These are the unengaged.

The unengaged.  Those who are never asked to be engaged.  Those who aren’t cynical, because they never cared to begin with.  Because no one has asked them to care.  Those for whom skepticism is far too soft a word, rather they are completely opposed to anything and anyone in the policy sphere, because the policies are their enemy.  The policies are why all they can afford is processed food, why potential employers can ask them to bring in a criminal reference check and find out about supposedly protected information of youth criminal records, why in spite of their flagrant mental and physical illnesses they can’t move from OW to ODSP, why the school kicked them out only slightly slower than their mother kicked them out.

The unengaged.  History, research, and experience tells us that those living in poverty will for the most part not engage unless we make a concerted effort to try.  It’s a hierarchy of needs, your lens is small and your time is precious when you are struggling to survive.  Therefore, our decisions for our community will continue to be made by those with access to the most resources.  We may be able to shift decisions from a more elite network of business owners and politicians to your average middle class, but that still excludes 1/5-1/6 of our citizens.  And although I can try to be a voice for the poor, I’m not the voice of the poor.

I work closely on a number of projects with Dr. Cheryl Forchuk, and much of her current work focuses on youth homelessness.  I was quoted in this news article talking about some of the root issues and key challenges of youth homelessness.  In the work that I do looking at policies and homelessness mostly with adults, the majority of them trace their life stories back to a tipping point, a time when things went downhill and since which they just haven’t been the same.  For many, this is the point at which they left school (willingly or not).

However, the end of school is often only one domino falling in a long line.  After the school domino falls, there are often others that come down, such as starting to use substances, which makes it harder for people to exit homelessness.  And, on the other side, the dominoes that knocked out school are often leaving home, precipitated by family conflict, precipitated by either poverty, abuse, mental illness, substance use of parents,  separation/divorce/marriage, or all of the above.  So, the lack of an education can doom a youth to poverty, but far before that was what is often a lifetime of family conflict in the (former) home.

This has significant implications for how we organize social services.  Getting into the home to help people, or surrounding people with supports through the school system, is very difficult.  It is actually far easier to create a drop-in for homeless youth than to try to prevent family conflict.  In terms of upstream versus downstream services, this appears to be one of the hardest.  However, if we could support children and youth we would be preventing substance use, mental illness, poverty and homelessness, and assisting with education and employment.  The big question is: How do we intervene?

The reality of the time is that government funds are tight.  Both federal and provincial governments are in the process of decreasing deficits, and our municipal government in London is chasing a campaign promise of a 0% tax increases.  Although much of this is done with the rhetoric of eliminating waste, or slimming the supposedly fat coffers of the bureaucracy, cuts do not go on for very long, or go very deep, until they are felt locally.  Martin Hayward, the City Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer recently released his recommendations for the draft 2013 London Budget.  This point stood out to me:

To translate, our Social and Community Support Services budget will save 8.9% due to changes to Ontario Works, but we are actually projecting to cut 12.4%, which equates to a true reduction of $1,100,000.  With the budget of this division primarily going towards the delivery of social assistance, one wonders what a one million dollar cut will mean?  And, like the cut to the affordable housing reserve fund (since reversed), will we go for 0% on the backs of the poorest in our community?

Reading through the full budget proposal tells the more important story of the foolishness of 0% tax increases, with the anticipated cut to Social and Community Support Services being one small symptom of a broader disease.  Mr. Hayward lays out very clearly in the proposal that even a 3.8% recommended increase will not come without cuts to municipal services.  It is clear when looking item-by-item, that holding departments at 0% will be tough enough, and increases are only a fraction of the delayed costs created by our first two years of 0%.

You don’t have to read very deep between the lines that a prolonged tax freeze is simply an exercise in kicking the can down the road, and that we would be best to pay a bit more now, than a whole lot later.

Last weekend I had a radio interview about social media and municipal politics.  I noted that social media was important in helping citizens stay informed municipally, as well as creating a venue for people to collaborate on engagement.  Particularly, I talked about the affordable housing reserve fund, and the fact that in a few short weeks we created the largest response to an issue that councilors serving a second term had ever seen.  However, I noted that in spite of the increased engagement, we had yet to have any influence on policy, to actually effect a vote.

This all changed on Tuesday night when Council voted to use $1M from the $4.6M surplus to boost the Affordable Housing Reserve Fund contribution back up to $2M.  In the same meeting they approved that the 2013 contribution be set at $2M.  This motion was actually introduced by Councillor Henderson, who had originally voted to cut out the money, but stated that this was all that the citizens in his ward had been talking about since the budget.  This means that we have been heard, and because of this, $1M is going back into providing places to live for the most vulnerable in our community.

I would suggest that any charitable giving that you do this year will pale in comparison to what you have achieved with this $1,000,000.  What do we get for one million?  In the City’s current RFP they are providing $55,000 per unit, which means that we have created 18 new homes for 18 individuals or families per year.  When else will you have the opportunity to end homeless for 18 individuals or families each year?  This is an amazing achievement, and I congratulate you all on this!

Many citizens of London rely on the hard work and dedication of local bloggers and journalists to keep apprised with the goings-on at City Hall.  People like Phil McLeod, Sean Meyer, and Gina Barber (pictured at left) put in the hours of attending committee and council meetings, and then summarize key points.  Although we may read the agendas, the minutes come out quite late, and don’t capture well the discussion.

In this post by Gina, she discusses the planning decisions around the property at Southdale and Whiteoaks roads, and how a request to change from ‘Auto Oriented Commercial Corridor’, to ‘Neighbourhood Commercial Node’ actually became a request to change to either/or.  Most notable in her post is the comment by Mayor Fontana that although this might not be due process, “the average person can’t understand what we’re talking about” so there is no need to worry.

In my mind, and to the minds of others, this is not good enough.  Therefore, we have submitted the following to Council:

—————————————————————–

April 4, 2012

Jerry Bunn, City Clerk’s Office

cc/ Cathy Saunders, John Fleming

To City Council,

This letter is in regards to item 23 of the March 26^th Planning and Environment Committee meeting, the application regarding properties located at Southdale and Whiteoaks roads.

We appreciate that 20 days notice was provided in regards to the amendment to the official plan from ‘Auto Oriented Commercial Corridor’, to ‘Neighbourhood Commercial Node’.  However, what has actually been proposed by the committee for the amendment is not consistent with what was circulated.  Therefore, a vote to approve this amendment at the April 10^th City Council meeting would not represent due notice to the public.

As per the requirements of the Planning Act s. 17(15), we request that proper notice be given on the revised amendment prior to a vote on the matter.

Thank you,

Abe Oudshoorn, Michael McAlpine, Brian Gibson, Nick Soave, Sandy Levin, Kevin Labonte, Sean Quigley

For my third and final post on the Drummond Report, I will focus on the second area that I am most connected with, post-secondary education.  I will then move on to analyzing the provincial and federal budgets.

The same principle in my opening blog applies, that we need to look at education being scaled to people’s ability to pay, rather than giving rebates to everyone (I forgot to mention the tax-free savings account before, which is another good example of a regressive program).  The Ontario Tuition Grant is obviously the example of this most on people’s minds, and has a cut-off set so high that many people who could afford to pay, are getting a rebate.  We need to continue to move away from government as give of gifts to all, to the government targeting people in low-income to try to level the field.

Drummond points out an important reality in the university sector, that research is really the prime currency.  This is leading universities to create large internal research funds, rather than relying on faculty to be solely supported by external funds.  This is often done to support ‘weaker’ researchers, and is due to the fact that all faculty must be researchers as well as teachers.  Drummond suggests allowing flexible work-loads so that those who are good at teaching can just teach, and those who are good at research can just do research.  This way universities can save money from internal research funding and keep costs down.

The second important problem Drummond highlights is the proliferation and duplication of programs.  It is in the best interests of universities to offer every possible program for every possible student so that they can attract the most students, and the best students.  This is blurring out into colleges as well, who are increasing their degree granting programs or partnerships.  This leads to more levels of administration as each department and program has a director, or chair, or manager.  Instead, what we need to be open to is university specialization.  Having fewer departments or programs at each university site would mean that students might have to travel further abroad to find the program they want, but would save millions in terms of administrative costs.  Similarly, colleges should absolutely not take on granting of degrees that are offered in universities in the same city.

Lastly, is the sticky issue of salaries and benefits.  Everyone wants their salary to increase at least at the rate of inflation.  However, like the physicians who have asked to be taxed more, professors have been doing well and could survive a freeze or a decrease in pension contributions.  The university essentially pays 3-1 for my pension contributions, which is great, but honestly, isn’t entirely necessary as we also earn above average.  If there is anyone who should take a hit in the budget, it is high-income earners, so that more can be done for those in poverty.

When a riot in your hometown hits BBC news, it’s probably time to blog about it.  For my international friends who haven’t heard, there was a St Patrick’s Day riot in London, Ontario in a neighbourhood made up predominantly of student housing.

I wanted to comment briefly on potential police response and preventing further occurrences.  From the G20 protests, the Vancouver hockey riots, and this weekend’s St Patrick’s Day riot, it is clear that once these kind of events are in motion, police are ill-equipped, and likely ill-advised, to intervene.  However, after the events are over, public ire often turns towards police forces with demands that they should have stopped it.

Well, we tried that during the G20, don’t you remember?  You likely remember smashed windows and burning cop cars, but remember how at the end of the first day they went into the park and did mass arrests of peaceful protesters?  Do you remember the kettles on the second day that caught up people out for dinner, and the TVO journalist Steve Paikin?  This is what a heavy police presence and preventative arrests looks like, and it sure looks ugly.  This was the largest mass arrest in Canadian history, the vast majority of whom were released without charges.  Do you remember the cages?  The cold?  The indignity?

And then of course there is the cost.  Yes, we could use a massive police presence, go heavy on the arrests, and kettle people in, as ugly as it is; but freedom and human rights issues aside, do we really want to pay for this?  Each major potential party we’re going to pay overtime for 100′s of SWAT officers?  This would quickly make $100,000 of property damage look like peanuts.  And, with police budgets taking an ever increasing portion of the City budget, what services will we cut to make this happen?

So, I conclude that the heavy police response is not the route any of us really want to go.  In the search for quick and easy solutions it is tempting, but hopefully we can be more thoughtful than the easy and expensive.  Other bloggers have begun to offer insight into possible solutions that focus instead on community-building; this is where we need to go.