A Message To Kyle Ray...

 

City Council

You are ultimately responsible..you are elected, and paid, to control the beauracracy, to act in the best interest of the citizens when by-laws are put forward, to ensure that city employees serve the citizens, etc.

Toronto - the city fun forgot: Granatstein

Rules, rules, enough with the darn rules on everything from skating to plastic bags

By Rob Granatstein, Editor

It became crystal clear the fun police and the nervous nellies had won when, last fall, the city demanded seniors get a permit to walk in the park.
But that’s just one sign of a city where it’s “rules gone wild.”
Where the regulations and legalese governing everything people in this city can do is actually choking off the fun and livability of Toronto.
Where police officers make OT whistling Dixie, and protecting a hole.
“There’s a culture of fear here,” Coun. Kyle Rae said of City Hall. “There’s no independent personal responsibility ... the lawyers who feed on the minutia of our lives have won.”
It’s bureaucrats who are proving their worth with every new bylaw, he said.
As a family, we’ve bashed our head up against Toronto’s wall of rules again and again.
Public skating at Don Mills Arena is a torturous experience, where you’re not allowed to watch the Zamboni from the players’ bench, you can’t take pictures of your kid taking his first steps on the ice, you can’t use any sort of learn-to-skate device.
But, at Victoria Village Arena, another city rink, it’s no problem.
Just last week my son and my father were denied entry to parent-tot skating at York Mills Arena because there weren’t enough minders for the number of skaters.
Let’s contrast that with life in Calgary, where we visit every year. We skate at the Olympic Oval, some of the best ice in Canada.
There, you can use learn-to-skate devices, you can even push your baby around in a stroller.
Pictures? Fire away!
And the Zamboni is cheered by the kids. This Christmas, Santa rode on the great ice resurfacing machine, waving to the tykes.
The list of rules at Toronto’s outdoor ice pads must have been drawn up by the law firm of Expand, Expound and Frustrate. Every word is worth extra. Every rule devised earns a bonus.
Early in the morning
In response, I take my son skating first thing in the morning, before anyone else, so we can actually have fun.
I guess we better give kudos to city staff for not locking the kids out of the rinks in off hours.
On the slopes, the rules in Toronto swamp Calgary, too. In Toronto, no boots on the ski hills/former garbage dump (I understand why — but it’s the bunny hill). In Calgary, at Canada Olympic Park, parents run down the hill alongside their giggling kids.
As the National Post’s Peter Kuitenbrouwer noted about the city’s ban on skating on frozen ponds, including Grenadier Pond at High Park, bureaucrats in Toronto leap ahead with rules before common sense has a chance to poke its head out.
And then there’s the rules on plastic bags. Mayoralty candidate Rocco Rossi turned it into a stand-up comedy shtick, where the city demands stores sell for 5¢ something that costs them less than a penny, “a product with the highest profit margin in the store ... while sharing in none of the proceeds” — and is prepared to spend millions to enforce it!
“Most companies usually find there’s gold in going green, but frankly, in this case, all Toronto taxpayers can see is red,” Rossi said.
He called the bag tax a symbol council is fiscally foolish.
I see it as rules crazy as well.
Meanwhile, the city does nothing to enforce its on-leash and off-leash areas in parks, leading to fury among residents whose kids are uncomfortable around dogs they don’t know.
Those are the rules.
Enough already.
It’s time for our city workers and city leaders to let it be.
We assume when we skate out on to a frozen pond there may be some risk. We know not to jump in front of a Zamboni.
We’ve been trained that plastic bags — an item recycled again and again by most — should be reduced.
So, take some of the chains off, already. Let us have fun.
rob.granatstein@sunmedia.ca