The Big Maple - Repatriate the Dominion & est. the Canton/Province of Toronto

Please excuse the perilous impertinence (and length) of these platform suggestions.

I realise that municipal is municipal and provincial and federal are separate jurisdictions (in the minds of insiders and law professors), but to me and many regular voters - everything connects .... I pay for gov't services, both directly and indirectly and I expect the folks providing the services to "do their jobs" and to "do it right the first time" (allowing of course for human frailty).

In my view, Jean & Carol Canuck "know" something is "wrong" with the politicians and public service systems that deliver government services ..... but they just cannot put their finger on what it is?

It's the right time, unified-Toronto is the right place and you Mr Ford, have the right message to/&/ about most of the incumbents (in all three orders of gov't) - stop waste ... stop lying ... stop spending money stupidly to buy votes (& stop spending public money selfishly - especially on yourself)

If I may offer some ideas for campaigning perhaps for this time, but more likely for la prochaine



Kim Campbell was famously misquoted by a reporter when she attempted to say something like "During the election campaign ... discussing a complete overhaul of Canada's social, economic and political policies in all their complexities ... simply cannot be practically accomplished in just 47 days"

True indeed. However .... we have seven months. And then 4 years.


A-E items in Progress

Item A)
-Re-Utilize School sites by rebuilding school ( Air Cond & Internet-ready)
plus build hi-rise atop the school with:
-2 floors of medical dental etc clinic & professional services - condo commercial
-2-5 floors of seniors rentals registered as condo (but held by the condo corp or owned by City) and but rented to these folks
-Low rent - geared to income rental suites equivalent to 2-5 floors but scattered throughout building again units registered as condo (as above city or Condo corp hold title) and rented out
-5-10 floors of 3 bedroom 2 bath, 2bedroom 2 bath condos for sale

Item B)
Flush out Public service deadwood (and discover under-utilized) workers by giving 1/8 of staff, 3 months off with pay over next 8 quarters
-start with A's. the Z's or by random lottery - give 1/2 day notice to clear out for vacation, leave City property at desk and to return ONLY 3 times for fixed period to answer q's over next 3 weeks
Promote person 2 below to job -- have new person simply use permanent employees bus. card and write by hand the new name & add "acting" to existing bus card


ItemC)
School Board Employees on Pogey in summer
Public School Board ADMINISTRATION has 10 month employees and 12 month.
In the summer the 10 month'ers go on Unemployment Insurance after standard 2 week wait - ridiculous!

Item D)
Toronto - "the Big Maple" an awareness and edification program for all Torontonians
-a pride & ownership campaign and permanent attitude of possession/proprietorship, protect and preserve = real conservation of what we have in TO
-we need not feel inferior to any world city - we are the economic-financial-social and entertainment capital of Canada (and soon-to-be centre of political innovation too)
-Roads & Highways - Texas has a "Drive Decent" set of unwritten rules (not laws) on how to co-operate with other drivers on lonely roads and town streets
-"Walk with the awareness of a Driver" - crosswalks - don't dawdle when walking across when cars are turning thru your "right of way" - take a couple of quick-steps & wave
-No headsets/ipod/walkman or phone calls or texting while crossing public street - safety
-Set community standards for "spitting" "urinating" etc "I'm glad you're living in the Big Maple now, but... if I may suggest ...we don't encourage spitting on the street here"

Item E)
Reducing from 44 to 22 Councillors
- although this "Saving Waste & Money" proposition will work well this election, perhaps in the long run doubling the constituents will increase the time commitment required to service those needs by councillors - to avoid letting more citizen's needs/wants falling thru the cracks- how about:
-yes reducing the # of Wards to the Fed/Prov full boundaries
-letting the #1 vote getter be Councillor and having the #2 vote-getter (biggest rival) be Deputy Councillor (or some such name)
-split council into 2
-44 all the talents + Mayor - Committee of the whole - 1 mem /one vote
-22 #1 vote-getters form a Privy Council/Board of Directors/Senate of Senior advisors to the Mayor
-this Privy Council/Board would not sit on any committee (no pet peeves or pet projects to coddle/fight) and would pre-view & vet the budget and bills after the bill came from committee and before a bill went to committee of the whole??
-many details to still ponder
Aside ....Voting in this 1 & 2 style election could also be in "single, transferable" ballot style - voter picks 1st 2nd 3rd etc choice and tabulation does a reverse knock-out of non-winners and assigns their vote to 2nd choice an don and on - I'm not sure if any Cdn jurisdiction has the software hardware in place for this we need not contemplate it until it is available




TORONTO the city-state (of some description within Canada)

Idea #1 - Since many folks say it's too difficult to believe Toronto could be re-formed as a New Province .... how about Toronto as an Economic-Ecological (Eco-Eco) "Canton" within Ontario?

As discussed - GreenBelt Plan and Places to Grow already have set the boundaries, the GTA Transit Plan and others show how "the concept" of integration of Toronto urban, suburban and exurban services IS superior to the tri-quad-regional approach.

Recall that the current provinces' geographic territory (except PEI, NS, NB and the island part of NFLD) was "cut out of" another existing one

BUT if it's not thought feasible to do even this a) as a platform b) perhaps w/o a Constitutional Amendment (I have an opinion on this too) lets not dwell on the 'impossible-for-now'.

Instead let's focus on the REAL benefit of being a Province .... the Income Tax.
Toronto's Federal Personal Income Tax (FPIT) is collected via payrolls and then re-distributed to every province and then together with that local Province's Personal Income Tax (PPIT) it's distributed to municipalities, hospitals, public & separate schools, universities (aka MUSH), ten zillion agencies and to people too.

I think it's handled too much - providing much public service employment perhaps - but, as each level takes its cut for administration and if no true economies of scale are created in the 'centralizing enroute to decentralizing', then the buying power of the original tax dollar is diminished.

If we hold to the principle of subsidiarity which I simplistically define as "the gov't that provides the service should tax the beneficiary constituents for that service", then, Unified Toronto should be collecting the PIT that ends up in the city coffers after travelling so far under the current set-up.

Idea #2
Have Torontonians donate an amount equal to their ConFederal and Provincial Personal Income tax to Environmental Land Preservation (or something like that) and when they get their 100% tax credit refund they can give it to the Unified Toronto directly.

Idea #3- Nation-ify Healthcare - take it off the Provincial and ConFederal budgets (like the Can Pension Plan) and re-upload the deemed-for-healthcare provincial tax points to Ottawa and let Ottawa dedicate the amount of revenue FOR necessary healthcare provision "off the top" to the independent fund.

BUT ... since we cannot do that within this election or its mandate perhaps we can address "who/what owns the hospitals, their lands and built-improvements" and who/what office/jurisdiction holds the ultimate control over their Boards' of Director operational mandates.

Idea #4 - Unify the School Boards
If Quebec (by Bilateral Constitutional Amendment can modify Section 93 in 1997 - see new Section 93A and Footnote 51) to change thier provincial school system to French-&-English-based from the 1867 format of Roman Catholic-&-Dissentient Schools (Protestant)-based, then surely an informed and willing public in Ontario can modify the provincial format to suit the "local environment" too - perhaps split into schools following the Bible & the Judeo-Christian ethic and those who choose not to fear/love/believe God.

BUT ... since we cannot do this within this election or its mandate, perhaps we can address "who/what owns the schools, their lands and built-improvements" and who/what office/jurisdiction holds the ultimate control over their Boards' operational mandates.

Idea #5
These two enormous government industries/departments are populated and controlled by monopoly-public-service-unions and the accompanying division-of-labour mentality.

Teaching & Medical jobs are no longer Profess -ional Callings, they are Union Jobs - protected Guild jobs with superb working conditions, rates of pay, benefits and vacations.

The only way to fight this feather-bedding and favouritism "Fire" is "with Fire" - their own fire ...

Background to "Fire" to Fight that "Fire"
If the Schools are owned "by the Crown" and the Boards' Authority is granted by the Crown ... then we need a "deemed disposition" (income tax term - denoting a change of use, ownership or status of a possibly taxable object) of the Crown.

The government is accountable ONLY to the Crown, takes oaths to be true to the Crown, the laws and judgements are proclaimed in the name of the Crown, all the non-Crown Land real property is freehold-grants from the Crown (& still subject to the ultimate ownership rights of the Crown) .... but ...who/what IS the Crown in Canada? & therefore to who/what is the government responsible/accountable? In short who/what "owns" the Dominion?

Yep. The hereditary holder of the Office of Monarch (since 1982 -as an individual -totally unbeholding to "the advise and/or consent" of Her/His UK Privy Council).

Further- the "all-encompassing everything" that the Monarch IS in Canada .... has been delegated to the Governor General .... everything that is save 1) the right to change the mandate of GG as set out in the 1947 Letters Patent and 2) the Monarch's right to Disallow any Canadian Confederal Bill/Law within 2 years of receiving it!! BNA 1867-s 56

NB the GG is Commander in Chief in and over Canada (military in addition to civil) - do you recall either of our CBC-cuties' decisions after being advise on entering/continuing the Afghanistan fiasco?

Enough already ... so what? d'ya wanna get rid of the Monarchy?

No, precisely the opposite. The Monarch and 'Her/His Office of Crown in Canada' ARE legally 'the boss' of Canada ... but no one is occupying the Office, wielding the power, demanding the accountability, demanding ministerial responsibility when something goes wrong ie nobody is holding the government's official/constitutional feet to the fire ..... and so .... the inmates (or their puppeteers) are running the asylum .... for their own benefit .... and then bribing enough voters (with their own money) at election time to keep in control.

Epiphany - a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.

IMHO all that's required is simply a change of understanding and attitude within the mind and heart of every voting Canadian (no BNA amendment necessary - no new letterhead even) that: the term "Crown in Canada" no longer means "dear, sweet HRH Elizabeth II and the Stewards of Her Assets, Treasury and Laws in Canada/Province" ..... but now means the "resident, taxpaying, citizens of Canada/Province and the Stewards of those citizen-resident-taxpayers' Assets, Treasury and Laws".

The role of the Citizen-Crown would be "to be informed, to encourage and to warn" PLUS to approve any measure proposed by "their" government

Intellectually, placing the Citizen in "active" possession of the "now-inactive" Monarch-in-person's constitutional place.

Fire to Fight abuse-ridden, selfish, divide&rule mentality of these Education & Healthcare Public Service-Monopoly-Union workers and leaders:
1) Sell the right to operate the assets and public income of the schools system to the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement system.

2) Sell the right to operate the assets and public income of the Healthcare & Hospital system to the Ontario Teacher's Pension Fund.

Let these to monstrously huge pools of (taxpayer-paid) money run these systems to gain a net-return-on-investment that will satisfy their funds' retirement objectives - any surplus over-and-above that return gets returned from whence it came, and shortfall ... eats into the payouts of some other monopoly-public service-union workers pension.