Spiders of Toronto: #2017bestnine

So there’s a thing going around Instagram where you post a collage of your top nine photos from 2017, ranked by likes. Here’s mine:

As determined by 2017bestnine.

Maybe not surprisingly, there wasn’t much overlap with what I considered my best photos! I couldn’t quite narrow them down to nine, but here they are, in chronological order. Continue reading Spiders of Toronto: #2017bestnine

Spiders of the Western Waterfront

If you follow my Instagram you’ll see that I spend most of my spider-watching time on the western waterfront. There’s an abundance of diverse spider habitats all along the Martin Goodman Trail, but there are several parks that are worth dedicated visits. Here’s a tour…

Continue reading Spiders of the Western Waterfront

Five years ago yesterday…

…I walked into Toronto City Hall for the first time ever. I’d lived in Toronto since 2003, but I had very little interest in city politics—I was too busy first being a student, and later being poor. Then word started going around about proposed sweeping budget cuts. I was worried about how it would affect Parkdale, the neighbourhood I’d moved to in 2009 and grown to love. The mayor had said he would sit at City Hall and listen all night, if need be, to people’s concerns. How often do you get a promise that the mayor will listen to you, personally?

So, off I went. It was magical. You can read my account here. (Or the Star’s. Or Torontoist‘s liveblog. Or watch Matt Elliott’s hand-picked highlights.) I got thrown out near the end, when I yelled “Shut the fuck up” at Cllr Mammoliti. (I was horribly ashamed at the time. I cried about letting down all the councillors who had behaved with such dignity and composure all night. Later, I would learn that this was a normal response to Mammoliti and I was just saying what everyone else was thinking.)

I was hooked, and I kept going back. Normally cautious about privacy, I unlocked my Twitter account so I could livetweet and talk to strangers. I started reading reports and writing blog posts. I became part of a cadre of amateur City Council watchers who followed City Hall for fun—and later, as a calling, as many became writers, editors, political staff, and activists. Many of the people from the 2011 all-night meeting became familiar faces, friends, colleagues, and even chosen family.

I remember the morning I showed up to a Budget Committee meeting and realized that being motivated to show up to Budget Committee meetings in the morning was a rare gift. I remember that night in the pub I started crying because I realized politics could be a genuine career and a ticket out of poverty. I remember when people started buying me beer. I remember the first time I knocked on a door for a Council candidate and asked a complete stranger to vote for them. (It was fucking terrifying, and I’ve done it countless times since.)

It’s been a wonderful five years. I’m intensely grateful for it, and uncertain but optimistic about what the future will bring. Thanks to everyone for reading and being a part of this journey. I will totally hit you up to fund my publication/campaign in the future.

Blessed in the city: charity, justice, and the budget

Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. (Deuteronomy 28:3)

It is curious that God’s revelation tells us that the fullness of humanity and of history is realized in a city. We need to look at our cities with a contemplative gaze, a gaze of faith which sees God dwelling in their homes, in their streets and squares…In cities, as opposed to the countryside, the religious dimension of life is expressed by different lifestyles, daily rhythms linked to places and people. In their daily lives people must often struggle for survival and this struggle contains within it a profound understanding of life which often includes a deep religious sense.

…On the one hand, there are people who have the means needed to develop their personal and family lives, but there are also many “non-citizens”, “half citizens” and “urban remnants”. Cities create a sort of permanent ambivalence because, while they offer their residents countless possibilities, they also present many people with any number of obstacles to the full development of their lives. This contrast causes painful suffering. (Evangelii Gaudium, paras. 71-75)

If there is any meaning we can take away from the big Budget Committee meeting falling smack dab in the middle of Hanukkah this year, it’s that, after a certain point, doing more with less requires a genuine miracle. As we Torontonians have been reminded, there is simply not enough money to go around. We must choose what to keep and what to cut. Partly this is an exercise for pencil-pushers and infographic designers. But it is also a call to us to articulate a broad, long-term vision of what a city should be and of city-dwellers’ obligations to each other.

Over the past few years of following the budget process, I’ve watched two divergent visions struggle for supremacy. At heart each embodies a different value: Charity vs. Justice. For me it is difficult to disentangle these words from their religious roots — and I think it’s unwise to do so, because the lens of religion permits us to see the true relationship between them. Which I’ll get to. But now: budgeting!

There are some whose goal is to cut spending and shrink government. This is a short-term sort of plan that favours paying off loans instead of making investments, and demands flatlined budgets, which are essentially cuts. For a city department to achieve 0% increases when prices gradually inflate requires putting off projects and new hires, lowering service standards, raising user fees, and falling behind on the least urgent matters, in the hopes that there will be an influx of purified oil cash before the crisis point. Unless there is a change of administration, the cash is never coming, and the system exists in a long drawn-out state of crisis: overcrowded, aging transit; a lengthening waitlist for increasingly dilapidated affordable housing; parents struggling to find daycare.

As government shrinks, it effectively “downloads” social services to non-profit enterprises (churches, charities, food banks) and individuals (couchsurfing because you can’t afford rent, getting a neighbour or relative to watch the kids, asking friends or family for money and personal favours). Rather than being supported through taxes, these “services” are reliant upon grants and fundraising. This is Charity — a fundamentally individualistic, precarious, pity-based model where the privileged benefactor donates to a deserving recipient (whether a person or an organization) out of the goodness of their heart.

In opposition stands a vision of growth and abundance. This is advocated by those councillors who often argue that in one of the richest countries in the world, no one should have to go hungry or homeless. Instead of relying on “means tests” to efficiently portion out access to city services — school breakfasts, recreation programs, childcare — to the most needy, we could work towards a system where these are accessible to everyone. The City is uniquely positioned to take on big goals like these, having excellent financial standing (which makes it cheap to borrow money) and a large tax base.

This approach necessitates selling people on the long-term benefits of investing in social programs and infrastructure rather than short-term savings (“you’ll save $60 a year”). Long-term savings are less tangible, but much greater: the value of an education at a library or in a rec centre; the damage that doesn’t happen when our water infrastructure can cope with floods; people being able to go to work or school because they have daycare taken care of; the shelters we don’t have to open because more people have adequate housing.

The first step is recognizing that widespread inequality is injustice — not just an accumulation of individual moral failings or bad choices. Justice means that we give up our right to determine who “deserves” basic human needs. Justice calls on everyone to pitch in as neighbours helping neighbours. This is not a virtue; it is an obligation, and it must be unconditional.

You can do both justice and charity, obviously — but many people do charity and think that, because they’ve chipped in, there is nothing further they have to do. The ultimate goal of justice, on the other hand, is to render charity unnecessary.

Charity is often associated with religion: tithing, food drives for Christmas, the Salvation Army and all that. This irritates the fuck out of me because justice, as I’ve described it, is also a religious activity, born thousands of years before anyone could even conceptualize “secularism” or became an “activist”. It just happens to be hidden in the really boring parts of the Bible and the Talmud that nobody reads! Look how all these rabbis interpreted these verses about farming to talk about how your income/property doesn’t really belong to you — part of it belongs to the poor, and if you withhold it (or only distribute it preferentially, or make it difficult for them to get) you are basically stealing what is rightfully theirs. (This is echoed by the early Church Father John Chrysostom, who Pope Francis quotes in his recent Evangelii Gaudium: “Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs.”)

In the Jewish tradition tzedakah is the word for both charity and justice, and Maimonides’ account of the eight levels of tzedakah makes clear that the highest forms of charity are justice. The very best kind of tzedakah is preventing someone from becoming poor in the first place, finding them a job, or becoming their business partner. Next is “to give to the poor without knowing to whom one gives, and without the recipient knowing from who he received”. And so on; you can read the link yourself. He works off the same principle as the other sages: the dignity of the recipient is paramount.

What does tzedakah look like in our city today? At its lowest level it is a cold, hungry, desperate person asking people coming out of the Tim Horton’s for change, and people giving them money just to get rid of them. Slightly above that is a school breakfast program coordinator pleading for funding at a Budget Committee meeting and Doug Ford cutting them a personal cheque. Above that would be situations where certain facilities or services are marked out as “for poor people” or require a “means test” to access — the Welcome Policy, TCHC, Priority Centres. Above that I would say is a city that can provide basic needs for everyone, and where receiving city services is not obvious nor shameful. That would be only the first step to a city that prevents poverty before it starts, and it’s such a lofty demand that any further steps are in the realm of science fiction, not policy.

If charity and justice are ultimately two ends of an ascending scale, why stop halfway, acting on only the individual and not the societal level? And if we really ought to work towards a society that prioritizes not just the physical well-being but the dignity of the most marginalized, why insist on ways that maintain the gap between the haves and the have-nots? That might get you tax credits and personal satisfaction, but it’s no way to build a city.

Isaiah said it best:

No, this is the fast I desire:
[…] To let the oppressed go free;
To break off every yoke.

It is to share your bread with the hungry,
And to take the wretched poor into your home;
When you see the naked, to clothe him,
And not to ignore your own kin.

[…] [Then] the Lord will guide you always;
He will slake your thirst in parched places
And give strength to your bones.
You shall be like a watered garden,
Like a spring whose waters do not fail.

Men from your midst shall rebuild ancient ruins,
You shall restore foundations laid long ago.
And you shall be called
“Repairer of fallen walls,
Restorer of lanes for habitation.”

This passage expresses my approach to the budget, and city politics as a whole, in a nutshell: true city-building starts from the bottom up.

Growing up, budgeting, and other stuff

After I got out of my holiday depressive slump I managed to get off my ass and accomplish a few things. I resolved to be more conciliatory and politic, and even made it a few days before ranting about white-centric feminism or something. I cancelled my Rogers internet so I can switch to the cheaper ISP TekSavvy. I cleared my inbox. I made a doctor’s appointment. And—biggest of all—I applied for a credit card!

The thing about being broke, you see, is that you make terrible financial decisions. I could barely afford to buy things with my debit card, so why would I take on debt I certainly couldn’t pay off?

But a credit card opens the door to so many other things. I can buy stuff cheaper online. I could get a drawing tablet, for instance, that would let me do illustrations on commission and earn money on the side. I can buy cheap glasses. I can replace my ailing netbook. I can get a smartphone!—The smartphone was really what convinced me. Because right now I’m on a prepaid plan, and you can only get a good deal on a smartphone if you are on pay-after, which requires a credit check. And you can’t have credit, good or bad, if you don’t have a credit card.

I won’t be able to pay off the entire balance at once, but I can definitely do minimum monthly payments. And that’s an acceptable cost to take on, because I need to maintain a level of healthy debt in order to live like a Real Adult.

And yes, this is a metaphor for the budget and why we shouldn’t be afraid to borrow money, because this city could be so much more awesome if we were willing to invest in big things, rather than tightening our belts and scrimping and saving and settling for the cheap bread at No Frills. Have you ever had that bread? It’s dry and flavourless and unsatisfying and only $1.97. You can only go so many years on that bread before you put your foot down and say I want more. I deserve more. I’m going to get out of this miserable pit, somehow.—wait, where was I? Oh yeah. So I was talking about the budget, but also about my current situation. Increasingly I feel disconnected from the #TOpoli crowd. It’s hard to express how viscerally worried I am. I wish I could talk intellectually about debt ceilings and GTA property tax rates, but I’m afraid…

No, of course it’s not the end of the world. That’s the problem. These things aren’t often drastic or dramatic. We’ll just accept a little more anxiety, a few more aggravations. “The people want change“—for those at the bottom, the currents pass us by, there’s no change at all. When things are precarious you can’t afford to take chances. There’s less margin for error. Every resource you have—a spot on the waitlist, med samples from the doctor, someone who can stay home to watch your kid, an all-night bus route—you’re counting on, and if one doesn’t come through, it throws everything into disarray. And it occupies your thoughts constantly and you just want to explain to people what it’s like and we can’t wait another moment for housing/daycare/transit…

But, in reality, you need to be able to do both at once. You still have to talk politics the way the men, the journalists, talk politics. Be smart the way they want you to be smart, and witty, but not at their expense, and they’ll listen to you, and take your advice on those things you know about. It’s cynical, but you can’t afford to insist on having the conversation on your own terms. You can’t pour your heart out so you let it drip a little all the time into everything you do. That’s the idea, anyway.

The “mushy middle” sets at last

Yesterday, while cops and protesters clashed outside City Hall, a quietly dramatic battle was taking place inside. In the face of sweeping budget cuts, the “moderate” councillors joined forces with resident pinkos like Carroll, Davis, and Vaughan and tabled motions reversing the mayor’s most controversial proposals. It started with Josh Colle, a heretofore silent rookie whose key role up till now was being mistaken for Josh Matlow.

Unsure Fry meme: Not sure if Josh Colle...or Josh Matlow

Shortly before the lunch break he put forward an omnibus motion that would save many of the services to be cut, including daycare subsidies, CPIP grants, and community centre youth programs. It was an audacious move that sent Ford allies into a tizzy. Speaker Frances Nunziata was acting like a crabby schoolteacher who’s lost control of her class. Deputy mayor Doug Holyday accused Colle of cutting a deal with his “special interest pals”. Giorgio “The Thumb” Mammoliti desperately attempted to paint Colle’s motion as some kind of salvo in the downtown vs. suburbs wars in a blustering tirade reminiscent of Brady’s closing speech from Inherit the Wind. It became pretty obvious why it was Colle who presented this; he responded to attacks from Ford allies with unusual determination and composure, refusing to be bullied into rhetorical traps.

Josh Colle introduces his motion
Josh Matlow Colle. Photo by Rene Johnston of the Star.

And then, one councillor after another began moving to reverse budget cuts not covered in Colle’s motion. Berardinetti (whose stance on daycare has not been particularly women-friendly) moved to save the Immigrant Women’s Health Centre. Crawford, to keep three shelters open. Cho, to preserve library services. And so on. (Matt Elliott has a wonderful breakdown.) The usual lefty suspects were, for the most part, lying low; most of the councillors were moderates—not always Ford-friendly, but not vocal opponents, either. A few who supported Colle’s motion or tabled their own were reliable Ford allies.

Cllr Gloria Lindsay Luby beams as she gives a thumbs-up, countering Mammoliti's surly thumbs-down.
Mammoliti’s thumb seems to have lost its power. By Steve Russell for the Star.

Side note: Ford’s inner circle (Rob Ford himself, as usual, didn’t participate in debate) badgered everyone (or tried to), as expected, but I thought their treatment of Ana Bailao was inexcusably patronizing. They saw a young, not really aggressive woman rookie and used all the old rich white dude pull they could muster to try to cow her into submission. I hope she wasn’t intimidated, and that she goes into the next meeting more prepared.

As protesters massed in Nathan Phillips Square, police presence ramped up and City Hall was put on lockdown—no one going in, no one going out. Security already wasn’t letting anyone into council chambers, partly because it was very full, partly to prevent any protesters from sneaking in, unfurling banners, and raising a ruckus (which happened a couple times over the course of the day). Tweets flew back and forth. We had only a vague idea about what was happening outside—arrests? tear gas? fights?—and most of the people outside were equally in the dark about what was going on in the council meeting. Tension drew to a peak as Nunziata, to councillors’ very vocal dismay, announced a short recess before the vote—presumably so the mayor’s cadre had time to get councillors alone and whip up enough votes.

And, in the end, Ford lost. Big time. Doucette’s and Bailao’s motions (for the High Park Zoo and fire services, respectively) were ruled out of order and a motion to defer contracting out janitors didn’t carry—but everything else went through, to immense jubilation from the gallery. Ford’s budget was swiftly, decisively defanged.

What I learned?

Common human decency sometimes wins the day. It may take a little (okay, a lot) of backroom machination, is all.

Ninety-one years ago today

This afternoon I went to see Dave Meslin’s Fourth Wall exhibit, a gallery of ideas on improving civic engagement in Toronto, drawn from other cities around the world and our own history.

One of the most fantastic historical tidbits comes from the no-longer-extant Bureau of Municipal Research, a non-partisan organization that researched and produced reports about various city issues. This little pamphlet is from 1921. Mez has scans (page 1, page 2), but I wanted to transcribe it for accessibility’s sake.

Effective Citizen Co-Operation
What Is Everybody’s Business Should Be Each Body’s Business


Issued by the
Bureau of Municipal Research
189 1/2 Church Street, Toronto.
Telephone: Main 3620


Bulletin No. 84, January 7, 1921


Will 1921 Be A New Year In Civic Administration

OR

Will It Be the Same Old Year With a New Number?

Would the adoption of some of the following New Year’s Resolutions Make for More Effective Civic Administration?


For a Member of Council or Board of Education

  1. I will not speak on any subject unless I know something about it, and I will learn something about any subject on which I should speak.
  2. When I have said all I have to say of value on any subject I will stop talking.
  3. I will always confine myself to the subject on which I am speaking, and will not resort to personalities, no matter what the provocation, nor talk to the gallery, nor conceal my real sentiments in order to retain votes.
  4. I will keep my mind on the work in hand rather than keep my ear to the ground for tremors of dissatisfaction from interested quarters.
  5. I will vote on every measure that comes before the Council or Board, if necessary requesting the postponement of the vote until any required information may be obtained. I will not retire to the members’ room on the approach of a vote which I should like to avoid for personal or political reasons.
  6. In all my statements to constituents and colleagues, my yea shall be yea, and my nay, nay.
  7. I will treat the funds of the city as trust funds, and shall not suffer any of them to be appropriated, without vigorous protest, for objects not in the general public interest, no matter what the effect on my political fortunes may be.
  8. In dealing with the annual estimates, I will consider the best interests of the city as a whole, and will not resort to log-rolling, overt or tacit, and I will consider carefully the recommendations and statements of the official financial advisers of the city.
  9. Except in cases where the public interest requires it, I will protest against the conduct of any public business in private, either through the holding of private meetings or surreptitious meetings of cliques or factions to decide upon a course of action to be taken in public.
  10. I will speak and vote this year at the risk of it being my last year in Council or on the Board.
  11. I will not vote to upset the recommendations of any department head until such department head has been given every opportunity to defend his recommendation and, in my judgment, has failed to do so satisfactorily. Neither will I consent to any action being taken on matters requiring technical advice until such advice has been requested and obtained from the departments concerned.

For a Citizen

  1. During 1921 I will occasionally drop a note of commendation, commiseration or condemnation to my representatives in Council or on the Board of Education.
  2. I will not regard the interests of my ward above the interests of my city, and will not bring pressure on aldermen or trustees to secure special treatment for my ward or locality which would not be a benefit to the city as a whole.
  3. I will not ask Council to suspend by-laws for my personal advantage when it would involve a disadvantage to the city as a whole, nor will I support others in asking for such special treatment.
  4. In determining my actions as a citizen, I will obtain all the information possible, and then make up my own mind without outside dictation, on the ground that I shall be one of those who suffer in case of a mistake.
  5. I will study the estimates of the city as they pass through the various stages of amendment and adoption.
  6. I will try to do as much thinking about civic expenditures to which I contribute as about my private expenditures for services not paid for through the tax rate.
  7. I will not condone the brow-beating or contemptuous treatment of civic officials, while trying to protect the city’s interests, by any of my elected representatives, even if I may think such officials are mistaken.
  8. I will allow the results of my observations to affect my course when the times for nomination and election come around at the close of the year.
  9. I will be a citizen during 1921, not a parasite or mollusk, or piece of blotting paper.

Do you think the current City Council has been living up to these New Year’s resolutions? Would they agree to be bound by them in 2012? And how well are we doing at the whole mollusk thing?

City as mental condition

The worst thing about Beijing is that you can never trust the judicial system. Without trust, you cannot identify anything; it’s like a sandstorm. You don’t see yourself as part of the city—there are no places that you relate to, that you love to go. No corner, no area touched by a certain kind of light. You have no memory of any material, texture, shape. Everything is constantly changing, according to somebody else’s will, somebody else’s power.

To properly design Beijing, you’d have to let the city have space for different interests, so that people can coexist, so that there is a full body to society. A city is a place that can offer maximum freedom. Otherwise it’s incomplete.

[…] This city is not about other people or buildings or streets but about your mental structure. If we remember what Kafka writes about his Castle, we get a sense of it. Cities really are mental conditions. Beijing is a nightmare. A constant nightmare.

—Post-detention, artist Ai Weiwei reflects on Beijing. Read the whole thing.