Toronto starts shutting down community centres on Mondays next week, but, apparently, city councillors should not concern themselves with the thousands of citizens left without swimming, cultural and recreational programs. Y'know, seniors, kids, "baby mothers," poor folk.
That issue is not "within the jurisdiction of community councils," the mayor's spokesperson says, failing to explain how city councillors sitting on a community council have no jurisdiction over a matter of grave concern to citizens who use the local centre.
In fact, councillors to this point have been denied a chance to vote on the cuts announced by city manager Shirley Hoy last month. Mayor David Miller said Hoy is the appropriate one to make that decision, not council.
His minions have been taking unusual steps to prevent elected politicians from debating the issue – before the cuts are implemented. Last Friday, one such effort of exclusion exploded into more name-calling at a committee meeting.
Last week, the mayor's executive committee met for the first time since the service cuts were announced. Hoy's actions weren't even discussed, though citizens had started to protest the cutbacks.
1 comment:
I can't disagree, really. But I have to ask, isn't it always the poor folk who gets the short end of the deal?
It isn't just right or left, they all do it. Maybe the ndp does it less, perhaps, but hey when Harper got in, he reversed the tax cut only on low income earners, essentially 'raising their taxes', but the gst cut which wowed voters, only affected those with vast amounts of spending money. So it seems somewhat common to most parties.
Also recall when Harris was in, a big focus was on cutting welfare and bringing in workfare etc etc, which caused a lot of good people major problems, just to deal with a minority of 'leeches', when really it represented a very small part of the provincial budget. And McGuinty with all his 'for the common man' persona still never improved that either.
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