Quotes

“Those who continue to face unfair and unequal provision of city services”

Much is at stake for the future of accountability at the City of Toronto. A modern government cannot expect to retain the confidence of the people unless it is willing to hold itself accountable by submitting itself to the kind of scrutiny an independent ombudsman provides. While Council recognizes this in principle, insufficient finances increasingly contradict that support.

The residents of Toronto count on their municipal government to properly fund the office in order to meet our mandate effectively. That assumption remains unfulfilled, even though the money required is an investment in a strong system of accountability that produces savings and good governance.

I reluctantly have to warn Council and the public, again, that our ability to meet our statutory mandate defined by provincial legislation is undermined by a lack of funding. Toronto cannot have a legislated ombudsman who is “independent” and then have the office’s work indirectly controlled through budget allocation.

It could be said that the office is a victim of its own success. But that loses sight of who is important. The real victims of this funding shortfall are the residents who will not be able to get swift action on their complaints, those who continue to face unfair and unequal provision of city services.

—Ombudsman Fiona Crean in her 2014 annual report

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.