Dear Politician: TTC Fare Hike Unaffordable

The TTC Commissioners are voting on a fare hike. You know it's a slam dunk because of the restriction put on token sales before the vote was even cast. Whatever tokens I have left and can find before the end of the year is pretty much what I'm going to have left to use. Budgeting will become a truly skilled art after this.

I wrote my Councillor, MPP, and MP about this issue. This is a provincial issue; it's a Canadian issue. Gridlock has dropped the productivity of Torontonians. Stress is higher here in the city than anywhere else in Canada. Yet the TTC Commissioners think that upping the fare way beyond inflation in the midst of a recession is a good idea. The province thinks that restoring operating subsidies is not needed. The Federal government likes all things American except how the Bush administration funded capital expansion of subways. And our City Council has rolled over and played dead in the face of such intransigence instead of digging their toes in and lobbying the higher levels of governement to give to Toronto when every other city in the world receives: proper subsidization and expansion. How can Toronto call itself green with a straight face when its public transit system is so inadequate and so expensive?

Excerpts from my letter:

I'm writing about the unaffordable TTC fare hike. Has anyone stopped to think that a 15% fare hike in a recession that's seen some deflation is so expensive that the population who requires the TTC the most can't afford it?

What is the point of having good service if you can't afford to ride it?

And good service today would've been considered bad service when I first started using the TTC back in the 1970s and 1980s.

The problem is that the province pulled out of subsidizing the TTC, both operating expenses and capital expansion, in the last decade. We're seeing the destructive fruits of that now. The Mike Harris government decimated subway building and created this learned-helplessness attitude that we cannot build subways in Toronto proper and can't expect the province or Federal government to fund our transit. Yet, at the same time, fares keep going up and up for the privilege of riding on a garbage-strewn, packed train, or un-air-conditioned streetcar, or a claustrophobic bus you can't get off once a stroller boards.

The other problem is that, unlike the George Bush administration in the US, the Federal government does not fund capital expansion in Toronto. How can the government talk about spending our way out of a recession without putting in a place reliable, annual funds for subway building? Every city on the planet continues to build subways, even cities with mature systems like London's do. Ours is only a skeleton still, barely serving the city.

It is unreal that all the levels of government expect Toronto to go green when only the users are, for the most part, funding the best way to reduce pollution in the city. It is unsustainable.

And for the working poor, the ones who don't have welfare funding their transportation, including people like me who can't work but have medical appointments to get to and have too much savings to qualify for ODSP, the LAST fare hike was too expensive. What do you expect people like me to do? Dip into the food budget and go to the food bank cause that's OK? Or perhaps you expect us to somehow find less expensive housing? Or maybe you figure we can walk instead? Tough if you can't walk though. Our only real option is to cadge lifts.

After the last hike, I was fortunate to be able to decrease my appointments, and for the ones left, I got a drive. Basically, you caused one person to move from public transit to a car, increasing air pollution. How many "me"s were there after the LAST hike? With this hike and with the egregious restriction on token sales -- I mean, I cannot believe the mean mindedness that made Council think that restricting token sales BEFORE the fare hike was even voted on was OK -- clearly you know this fare hike is unaffordable. Anyway, with this hike...I can no longer afford tokens. Congratulations on making life in the big city for the financially hard up even worse than before. I didn't think it was possible after all the hard-on-the-poor-and-ill changes Toronto has made in the last few years.

I'm writing to my MP and MPP because this is a Canadian issue. Toronto is the engine of Canada. We already know productivity is down because of gridlock, we already know Torontonians are more stressed than any other Canadian. You want us to become a healthy, vibrant economy? Then you need to stop stressing us and start funding affordable, comprehensive public transit and that includes building more subways IN the city, starting with the Queen line and the Downtown Relief Life AN subsidizing operating costs so that fares will go back down to affordable levels.

And by the way, how do you expect all the crowds for the Pan Am games to get around with a crushingly expensive TTC that has inadequate carrying capacity for just us who live here now? Given how long it's taken to extend the Spadina line north and given the attitude of we-can't-build-a-subway-in-Toronto-gasp, I can't see anything happening fast enough to accommodate the athletes and visitors. It's going to be a nightmare.

Instead of making this an either-fare-hike or service-cut issue, it's time to lobby the province loudly and persistently -- peskier than a mosquito -- to restore previous pre-Harris funding levels and the Federal government for capital expansion funds. Anything less is NOT serving the people of Toronto.

I supported the rider boycott. Given how apathetic Torontonians are and how they don't seem to scream until it's too late, the fact thousands joined the boycott is impressive. It's time you listened to us because eventually the golden goose dies.

Canada Drowns Its Scientists with Inadequate Support

Blue whales fascinated me when I was a kid. I thought: these giants can swallow me whole without blinking, but they're not at all interested in nibbling on humans. I always thought that because of their size, they only inhabited the open oceans, but today* (that is, 25 June 2005) in the Toronto Star I read that they have been sighted in the St. Lawrence River for years. The only thing is once they experience the St. Lawrence they don't come back. And they don't bring their kids either. Still, since they have been seen in Canadian waters, our government declared them an endangered species, which required them to develop a recovery plan. Since Canadians are known for their environmentalism and progressiveness, they accordingly funded one scientist $10,000 last year and $2,000 this year to find out what shooes the Blue Whales out of our waters.

Richard Sears raises real money on his own to figure out what spooks the whales (interesting that on his site, there are four flags, not one is Canadian). He doesn't believe that a high level of dioxins, becoming entangled in fishing nets, encountering ships and whizzing boats, oil spills, and noise from activities like geological exploration, are enough to deter them. But I don't know, if I encountered all that and then saw one of the tumourous belugas that live in the St. Lawrence, I'd turn fin and run.

Right next to the article on blue whales is one on cleaning up chemicals. Canadian researchers have invented three ways to clean up the tasteless and odorless trichloroethylene (TCE) and its cousins (degreasers and dry cleaning solvents that take hundreds of years to break down). This is a victory for Canada, her brainpower, her environmental activism, right?

The U.S. known for its neanderthal approach to the environment has set a maximum level of TCE in drinking water of 5 parts per million. Canada's standard is 50 parts per million. The U.S. has surveyed wells to find out how much TCE is out there and where. Canada has not. But to be fair, it is a provincial responsibility to protect our groundwater. The provinces have done no surveys either. Almost 20 years ago, the U.S. forced testing of potentially contaminated sites. Canada and the provinces don't want to be a big bully. Once these sites were catalogued, the U.S. pounced on these three Canadian inventions and have started cleaning up TCE. For example, nano-sized iron coated in water and corn oil break down the chemicals faster and cheaper, and then the oil coating feeds the bacteria that chow down on TCE and convert it to ethane, a harmless gas. They tested this at NASA.

Meanwhile, back at home, the main concern is cost. The cost to clean up, that is, not the cost of TCE on our health and economy. Here, our governments figure if they don't do the surveys, don't do the testing, don't support our scientists and their innovations, then we don't have a problem. Canadians do ostrich well.

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*It's amazing what you find when your finger hits the wrong key and the article you weren't looking for loads into the word processor. I wrote this back in 2005, when I was searching for answers, and forgot to post it. So it's here, now, only oh about 4 years late, but still relevant, especially as the Harper government continues this abysmal legacy by overseeing the sell-off of innovative, lucrative bits and pieces of Nortel to foreign buyers and ignoring climate change meetings.

Remembrance Day Thoughts

Nowrojee Jeejeebhoy, my Grandfather, originally uploaded by Points North.

I only ever knew one grandfather, my father's father: Nowrojee Jeejeebhoy. I first met him at age 1 or 2 when he and Grandma came to visit us in Bombay. Later I knew him as the quiet man who looked after me on weekends under the strict instructions and eagle eye of Grandma. When knowing people in their peaceful retired age, as I did them, it's hard to think of them as going through hardship, enduring terrible conditions, fear, and war. But Grandpa had.

In my book Lifeliner I wrote about Grandpa's pregnant wife (Grandma) and their first-born son (my father) fleeing Burma in a Dakota for India while he trekked out. But I didn't write about his trek, for I don't know much about it. He was a lawyer and an officer in the British Indian Army, what rank I don't know. When the Japanese forces invaded Burma taking property and killing people, his extended family fled however they could but being an army officer, he had to stay with his troops. I read awhile ago about the difficult trek out these men and refugees endured through jungle, insects, muck, and fear. Knowing him decades later, it seems impossible that such a man could have done such a thing. Yet there was a core of ruthlessness in him that I occasionally saw (and did not like) and a kind of strength in both grandparents that made me feel safe whenever I was with them.

On this Remembrance Day, I struggle to remember that both grandfathers went through the war, World War II, and that the one I knew not only survived an horrendous trek during which most died, but also lived long enough to see his family settled and thriving in Canada.

Pink Talks Autonomy. It's as Valid for ABI as for Employers

One of the worst things about closed head injury is you don't know you have it for months as you slowly spiral down into an incomprehensible state of incompetencies. What used to be as natural as breathing becomes as hard as lifting boulders. What used to be your talents are gone. What used to be your strengths are your weaknesses, and your weaknesses remain. You can no longer count on skills you've had for years or decades, and people around you start looking at you funny or worse send nasty thoughts guised as good intentions towards you.

Closed head injury ices this lovely cake by also taking away your motivation, that invisible thing that gets you up and doing stuff without prodding from another. You can't feel that it's gone; you just feel like a failure for not being able to do stuff you want to but can't and have no drive to even try. It doesn't really matter that this is typical. Many people will label you lazy or depressed anyway, a failure who's missing out on opportunities. Other people's opinions slowly sink into you, as they do for all of us, and soon it'll become your own opinion of yourself. You may not have started out depressed but between the confusing disappearance of your own competencies, your AWOL motivation, and others' poor opinion of you -- as if you suddenly want to screw up your life -- you soon develop situational depression. I actually didn't but then I was so desperate to get better I had no room for depression, no room, that is until I reached my goal.

Therapists talk about how goals are the key to recovery and stress management. For everyone, goals are important to having a sense of purpose. But for those with acquired brain injuries, including closed head injuries, they become crucial to keeping your mind off the hell of everyday and striving towards the hope of tomorrow.

Goals, motivation, competency: these three make people thrive. They are important when teaching primary school kids for lifelong learning or when creating a work environment that grows successful products. These three also give back life to those of us who've had it snatched away. I realised this recently when I was talking with a primary school teacher on Twitter about grades and better ways of goal setting. He referred me to a video of Dan Pink talking about the science of motivation. And as I watched it -- thinking how much it reflected the person I had been pre-injury -- I wondered how we could apply these same lessons to the us the brain injured.

Just as children have to struggle to learn, so do we. Just as kids have to struggle to find their intrinsic motivation, so do we have to regrow ours. Just as kids learn to master skills, to find their talents, to feel good from achieving competencies, so do we need to relearn old skills, find new talents, and feel self-confident again from once again achieving competencies. It really sucks to go through childhood again, the hard part of it too, as the brain injured often do, but perhaps we can learn better ways of doing it.

Although I was told that motivation loss was typical for closed head injury, I never really understood how I was supposed to get it back. I'm sure the therapy team talked to me about compensating strategies for that. I did learn how to use the computer and Palm to get me to do things (it helped I was such a geek for years before the injury). But regrowing motivation remains a conundrum as far as I know. From what I understand, the only real treatment is just waiting for the brain to heal itself. Given the slowness of brain healing, that might be a few decades. Peachy.

Apparently, "Children from 5-8 are very vulnerable to making rash, life-lasting decisions about whether 'learning' and 'school' is for them." Similarly, rehabilitation for acquired brain injury (ABI) is so exhausting and sometimes seems so futile, that one can make the rash, life-lasting decision to give up, which rather dooms one to sitting outside the knowledge economy, the information age. To make matters worse, ABI healing is lifelong; thus giving up is really bad. Yet it takes considerable motivation, external or internal, to keep going. A goal becomes even more important then, for it becomes an internal motivator. One may have no desire, no impetus to get up, yet a goal that's very important can provide that kick to try harder at rehab. But if the goal seems unattainable, then it becomes ineffective. What do you do then? How do you create motivation to do rehab for the sake of getting better?

There are so many questions, so many problems yet to solve in ABI rehabilitation, we need to seek answers everywhere, whether in seminars for employers like Pink's or research work being done in ALS or the latest in neuroscience or what we're finding works in children's education. A brain is a brain is a brain. To pigeonhole possible solutions as coming only from ABI research is to doom us to slow, neverending rehab that keeps us out of the information age.

Prime Minister Harper Isn't Interested in You

"On Tuesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he hadn't known about the trouble [Suaad Hagi Mohamud].

"When we became aware of the case last week," he said, "we asked our officials in various departments to give us some information."

Yesterday [Toronto MP Joe] Volpe said: "I can't believe the Prime Minister didn't know about this. If he didn't, he should have the heads of two of his senior ministers
on a platter." (John Goddard, The Toronto Star, 21 August 2009)

How could Prime Minister Stephen Harper not know of Suaad's very public plight?

"I watched the last several elections in the United States very closely. I tend to watch mainly American news because I don't like to watch Canadian news and hear what Allan (Gregg, a pollster and CBC pundit who was in the audience) and everybody else is saying about me, so my hobby is to watch politics elsewhere." [said Harper to a Toronto business audience 21 October 2009] (Tonda MacCharles, The Toronto Star, 23 October 2009)

Well, that would explain it.

"The Prime Minister doesn't watch himself on the news. That is why he tends to mainly watch American news." [said Dimitri Soudas, Harper's spokesman]

I hate to break it to our esteemed PM but he's not front and centre on every newscast, but he is the leader of Canada and needs to know -- must know -- what Canadians are thinking, doing, suffering. How can he possibly lead us when he relies on minions to tell him what the country is talking about? Minions always filter. When I was working in the provincial Ministry of Health, I noticed bureaucrats discussing how to manipulate the Minister with carefully vetted and filtered info so that she'd do what they wanted.

When Canada was talking about Suaad's terrible ordeal in Kenya, when the news was all over the TV, the newspapers, radio, the Prime Minister apparently remained ignorant because he doesn't like Canadian news. Apparently, Harper is so averse to seeing himself skewered on Canadian news that he much prefers watching American news and being interviewed on American TV. That means Harper not only doesn't keep an eye on the goings on in Canada, of our individual stories when we're in trouble, but also doesn't even want to talk to us. President Barack Obama may be a bit garrulous, but at least he takes his responsibility to Americans seriously enough that he both talks to them and listens to them. And he doesn't run up to Canada to do that.

And so while Harper was talking to Americans and listening to Americans, Suaad languished in Kenya just because he didn't want to see himself on the Canadian news.

Is Mohamed Mahjoub Really Starving Himself?

My father Dr. Khursheed N. Jeejeebhoy “retired” a few years ago; his last grant for research at the University of Toronto had run its course, and, after 40 years of filling in tedious grant applications, he felt it was time to say no more. Yet his expertise is still in demand, mostly around the world. I still am amused when thinking of the story of Canadian doctors heading down to the big hospitals in the US looking for expert help on TPN and receiving puzzled looks as the Americans said to them you have the TPN big guy in your own backyard, what’re you doing down here? Why the University of Toronto and every hospital in Toronto aren’t picking his brains and demanding he teach residents in TPN and nutrition is beyond me (one group of residents were even forbidden from going over to St Mike’s to learn from him), but it’s heartening to see the Toronto Star know who to turn to when looking for an answer to the question of how a terrorist on a hunger strike will fare. Is Mohamed Mahjoub technically starving himself as his doctor claims? Jeejeebhoy answers:

Starvation occurs when the body can no longer protect the brain and heart from malnutrition, he said.

Our body is designed so that other body parts, especially fat stores and the skeletal muscles, give themselves up to keep the brain and heart fed. The fat stores go first, Jeejeebhoy said, as your body converts these into carbohydrates to sustain life. Then the muscles are tapped as an energy source. (Joseph Hall, The Toronto Star, 16 October 2009)

To read the rest of his answer on Mahjoub’s hunger strike, check out the Second Opinion article in the GTA section.

George Smitherman, Not For Toronto

“I’ve got one of these incontinence products — albeit a new one, not the ones that tend to appear at committee — on my desk and I’m really giving this matter very serious contemplation,” [Ontario Health Minister] Smitherman told a group of wide-eyed reporters. (The Toronto Star, 27 Feb 2008)

So serious is he about the welfare of seniors, one of Ontario’s most outspoken cabinet ministers said today that he’s prepared to don an adult diaper — and use it — to satisfy himself that elderly residents of the province’s nursing homes are getting appropriate care...[he said] in response to critics who say the standard of care in Ontario nursing homes is so bad, residents are spending hours on end wallowing in soiled diapers. (The Toronto Star, 27 Feb 2008)

Because, you know, it's hard to imagine what it would be like to sit in a dirty diaper all day. Such is the man who wishes to become the Mayor of Toronto. And ever since the garbage strike, when he came out to sweep dirty streets side by side with fed-up Torontonians, it looked like George Smitherman might be a shoo-in to replace Mayor David Miller, who was quickly slipping out of favour and would soon declare his intention not to run. When Miller finally did make that announcement only a short time ago, Smitherman's mayoralty fortunes rose. While his closest competitor John Tory retired to an afternoon gig on talk radio to increase his profile, Smitherman continued to shine his political star next to his champion Premier Dalton McGuinty in the daily papers. His rise to Toronto leadership seemed to be all but certain.

And then came the other shoe.

October 2003: Liberals win the election and Smitherman is named as Minister of Health and Deputy Premier.

2004: Ministry's eHealth program Branch created to establish and maintain an eHealth strategy and oversee its delivery, including the development of EHR applications and databases (From 7 Oct 2009 AG Special Report on Ontario's Electronic Health Records Initiative)

November 2006: Deloitte consulting completes critical operational review of SSHA, commissioned by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and SSHA’s board of directors (From 7 Oct 2009 AG Special Report on Ontario's Electronic Health Records Initiative)

August 2007: Office of Auditor General of Ontario reviews SSHA’s efforts to address certain of Deloitte’s key recommendations and notes progress made in some areas while more work required in others (From 7 Oct 2009 AG Special Report on Ontario's Electronic Health Records Initiative)

August 2007: Auditor General’s review identifies lack of an overall government eHealth strategy and Ontario’s slow progress in overall Electronic Health Records achievements as continuing issues (From 7 Oct 2009 AG Special Report on Ontario's Electronic Health Records Initiative)

June 2008: SSHA strikes a client experience task force to improve services to and relationships with clients, which identifies SSHA’s poor understanding of its customers and poor performance issues as key problems (From 7 Oct 2009 AG Special Report on Ontario's Electronic Health Records Initiative)

19 June 2008: McGuinty, Smitherman's champion, moves Smitherman out of the increasingly explosive goings-on at the Ministry of Health into the safer energy and infrastructure portfolios.

Late summer 2008: AG advises Deputy Minister of Health of a value-for-money audit focusing on EHR (electronic health records). By this time a new Minister of Health, David Caplan, is esconced and Smitherman is safely out of the way. (From 7 Oct 2009 AG Special Report on Ontario's Electronic Health Records Initiative)

Smitherman led the Ministry of Health from 2003 to 2008, when concerns about poor understanding of clients came up, sort of like Smitherman's poor understanding of what wearing a dirty diaper is like, when concerns arose of Ontario's poor progress, when it became apparent that the government, in which Smitherman played a significant part, had no strategy when it came to eHealth, when the AG pointed out that poor performance continued despite earlier audits, meaning Smitherman pretty much ignored sound advice. It all came to a head this week when Auditor General Jim McCarter released a special report on eHealth and how $1 billion was thrown out the window, and Smitherman's timely replacement took the fall because that's what gentlemen do for rascals.

This is the kind of guy some Torontonians look forward to leading them. In a city plagued by financial problems, ones so big we now pay for garbage pickup that is half or one-quarter as frequent as it once was, we drive on more potholed roads, we have a messier city, we have bursting water mains, we have cat police peeking in windows in an attempt to scare up dollars, we have slapped more taxes on car owners and house buyers, we have an inadequate transit system that has not grown with the population and have no new subways on the offing while comparable cities keep on expanding their networks -- in a city up to its eyeballs in money trouble that has a multi-billion dollar budget, some want a man who has proven he cannot manage even $1 billion. Some want Smitherman.

In a city that needs to find its way again, that needs a leader who can think strategically to get both the province and Canada onside to actually put dollars back into transit, waterfront, and housing, some want a man who couldn't even wrap his mind around an electronic health records strategy that everyone was in favour of, never mind how it feels to wear a diaper. If he found that beyond his ken, how can he possibly manage a large, complex city, one that most have a hate-on for, like Toronto?

In a city that has a diverse population with suburbs married to the downtown unwillingly, we need a leader who can bring harmony in itself so as to prosper and nourish its most poor, most vulnerable, as well as regrow its middle class. Yet some want a man for Mayor who oversaw a Health Ministry program with such poor relations with its clients that the AG noted it, a man who has so little empathy for the most vulnerable of seniors that he could not immediately change nursing home diaper policy but had to try it on first.

George Smitherman does not deserve to lead Toronto. We do not need his piss-poor kind of empathy, strategic thinking, and money management skills. Even the Toronto Star which in its initial reports downplayed Smitherman's role, had to write about the possiblity Smitherman will bow out of the Mayoralty race. We once again face an opportunity to find the kind of person -- female or male -- who will bring harmony to the Council Chamber -- Smitherman's combative personality ain't it, fer sure -- so as to be able to bring empathy, prosperity, and pride back to Toronto. Hopefully, the eHealth scandal will bring Smitherman's history into Toronto consciousness and cause him to follow Miller, right out the Mayoralty race door.

Why Did Miller Announce Now That He's Not Running?

An English friend asked me if Mayor David Miller was generally liked or respected. As I answered him, I thought about why is Miller really resigning, not what I and others think about his decision not to run again.

Before the garbage strike, Miller seemed invincible, a third term inevitable. Torontonians do like to elect same old, same old -- give him another chance though he's screwed up royally was what I heard during the last election, so they did. This past summer, the city went on strike but it was the garbage workers striking that caught everyone's attention. They attacked people, caused long lineups, and all for a sick day bank that looked like paradise to everyone being hit by the recession. Miller said he was going to get rid of it. He didn't. He just instituted a short term disability plan for new employees; old employees got to keep their bank if they wanted to. The strike was almost 40 days. Windsor had a 3-month strike. Their city didn't look like a pig sty during or after it because their Mayor got garbage cleaned up every day -- Miller didn't as basically he didn't want to stand up in the union's face. Windsor got what it wanted; Toronto did not.

So Miller's numbers tanked. Worst any pollster has seen. And then this week, we learnt that the sick day bank was going to cost almost double what he said it would during the strike. That seemed to cement his low polling numbers. But I think he would've been re-elected.Torontonians are nothing but short on memory, long on not wanting change. He had 14 months to change minds, but some of his supporters were said to be leaving and two strong male contenders were going to enter the field.

So was it his family? I think family concerns played a small part in his decision not to run again; they are a good reason -- he said he made it back in 2006 but didn't tell anyone but himself -- but I don't think it was the primary reason. I think the revelations this week were the deciding factor.

And I also suspect he wants to make room for another contender, one we haven't heard about yet, one whom he'll consider his replacement. He doesn't want to pull a Mulroney (Prime Minister Brian Mulroney resigned so late in office that his replacement Kim Campbell had no time to establish a separate presence, was tarred with hate for him, and was handily defeated in the next election). He wants to give his successor a chance to win. That's my theory anyway!

Reaction to Mayor Miller's Resignation

It's impressive how people see what they want to see. Mayor David Miller's numbers tanked after the garbage strike. With the news this week that the sick day bank was going to cost $200 million more than what was bandied about during the strike, the perception that he not only screwed up in dealing with the union, but also lied to Torontonians, grew. As the pollster on the radio this morning said, Miller has to find a way out. And today he did. He announced that he will not be running in 2010 as Mayor but will continue to lead this city until the election 14 months down the road -- as people elected him to do, I might add.

I have vociferously objected to Miller's policies on garbage, making garbage day a nightmare for anyone with any kind of disability who has to deal with it on their own. I also see his garbage policies as whitewashing the fundamental problem of waste having grown astronomically in the past couple of decades and no amount of recycling is going to ameliorate that. I objected to him continuing the polluting dumping idea by buying a dump in rural Ontario and pissing off our neighbours, while continuing to nix creating electricity from our own waste. I objected to him imposing another land transfer tax on top of the provincial one, making it that much harder for young adults and new immigrants to stay in the city if they wanted to own a home. I thought he did a terrible job in advocating for Toronto at the provincial and federal levels. True, trying to get Toronto-hating former Harrisites in power in Ottawa was a tough task but I felt he soft-shoed it too much. And then he made the disastrous decision to apply for streetcar funding from the Feds' infrastructure fund instead of filling potholes and repairing bridges. I'm appalled at how dirty this city has become, literally, with litter all over, and politically with left treating the right as scum, not recognizing that they represent Torontonians too and thus should be respected and listened to as much as they demand for themselves. I think banning guns is a daft idea. They get smuggled in by the boatload so how is banning legitimately owned guns going to make a diff? Registering them at least helps the police follow the trail when they come across a stolen one, but banning them will not add any more safety. Far better to spend money and political power on getting to the root cause of the crime and hopelessness, which Miller during his speech claimed he did.

But crime has not gone up under his watch, as some claim. It's gone down. The homeless problem is as bad as ever but I don't think worse. Taxes have gone up but compared to 905 regions, it's a trickle. You think our tax hikes are bad -- try 8% or more. And corruption is the same as ever, though there's at least been no hint of scandal like the one that swept Miller into power. So anti-Miller people, get a grip. This is good news but we don't need to smear the guy with lies.

I'm pleased that we now have a chance to have a new Mayor. Miller's announcement will inject the city and next election with buzz. Hopefully, Torontonians will use their noggins this time round and elect someone who will grow our city without dumping on the most vulnerable in their zeal to be more green, more trendy, more right leaning, or whatever. In short, we need a Mayor -- and we need new Councillors -- who will enact policies that will include every single person living in this city and allow them to participate, not just the rich, healthy, with time on their hands folks.

Mayor David Miller Announces He Will not Run in 2010

I awoke this morning to the surreal rumours that Mayor David Miller will be resigning. It sounded like he was resigning today, which to me immediately begged the question of who will lead Toronto for the next year. Bill Carroll on CFRB said he'd have to as would be a lame duck leader if he won't seek re-election. I disagree. I feel that would free him up to govern without one eye on the campaign as Prime Minister Stephen Harper is always doing.

I turned on CFRB to listen to the announcment live just as Miller stepped up to the podium to applause. Miller will not be seeking a third term as Mayor of Toronto. He's confident in his vision of the city that he loves, but after re-election in 2006, he realised that both of his kids were born after he was first elected in 1994; the pressures on him as father and husband became immense after 2006. If he were to become Mayor in 2010, his daughter would be in university and his son in high school, and he'd have missed most of their lives. He made a private decision then and there in 2006 not to run. But intense media attention in last few months -- since the strike -- and meeting last week with his core campaign team from 2006 who were so enthusiastic and shared his broad inclusive vision for a better Toronto that he consulted with his family and decided he had to make this announcement today.

Miller said that he had accomplished what he'd set out to do -- if he ran again it would be about him and his electoral success not about the city he loves. Today, every major policy that was at the foundation of his campaign (in past elections) has been accomplished or is underway, he asserted in his speech to major applause. He said that Toronto has the most ambitious transit expansion plan in North America with 120 km of light rapid transit, with $10 billion committed. Under his leadership, the city has replaced virtually all of the TTC bus fleet and is in the midst of replacing streetcar and subway cars, thus creating jobs all over GTA and places like Thunder Bay. He says we are the leading environmental city in the world. (OK, that's a pretty low standard if we're leading.) The city has set up policies to create green jobs. Toronto is a safer place -- crime is down in almost every category, proving proactive policing works. At this point, Miller's voice broke as he said the city is now creating hope for underprivileged youth and recalled that he was the only son of a single mother and how important this initiative is to him.

He will not abandon his vision as a private citizen, he continued, and then went on to describe more of accomplishments under his Mayoralty. We've placed more than 2000 homeless in homes -- it's an UN-award winning program that's a model for other cities in the world. We've lowered business tax rates every year and addressed the imbalance in commercial taxes between 416 and 905 areas. In short, he said that the city has attracted new investment and created jobs for Torontonians. His policies have sparked a renaissance in development -- more tall buildings are under construction here than in all other Canadian cities combined. He was first elected to clean up Toronto and to make it more open (remember the computer scandal?). We're first to have a lobbyist registrar and an ethics commissioner. Second to have an ombud. Now we have a 311 (he just squeezed that in there as it's been live for mere days). Apparently, he has also worked to change the face of boards etc. in Toronto and is starting to change the face of city staff. Even police are looking more and more like the Torontonians they serve. We now have two black deputy police chiefs and the chair of police board is an immigrant from India (mind you, the Chair of the Police Board decades ago was a Chinese woman, so this is nothing new). The Toronto Community Housing Chair is the first tenant to grow up in TCH and to become its Chair, an African Canadian.

He thanked the Councillors who supported him and standing with him during difficult political decisions, like introducing two new taxes. He said we're moving in the right direction, but there's much more left to do in the next 14 months. For him, there's governing left to do during the next 14 months while others campaign.

The pundits may not like him staying on as Mayor, may call him a lame duck, but as a Torontonian, I don't feel like having some appointee leading my city; people elected him to serve till the 2010 election. And regardless of my personal feelings for the way he's governed Toronto, I'm glad he's staying committed to running Toronto till then.

He ended with thanking his family and their love and understanding during his political career. Livability, prosperity, and opportunity for all -- more alive, more relevant, more widely shared -- was and is his vision for Toronto. Toronto is a progressive city with progressive values, he emphasized. Safe, strong, green, and clean it is. He sees it in the way Torontonians are passionate for our city and in their -- our -- compassion and belief in one another. He will continue to work every day to keep building a city that's prosperous, livable for all.

"Toronto has never been better and our best days are yet to come." Mayor David Miller's final words.

Radio Magnates Need Their Own Shakeup

Radio is so personal. I grew up listening to CFRB because my mother was such a fan. A friend introduced me to 1050 CHUM when it played new music, not oldies or whatever pathetic thing the CTV conglomerate has reduced it to, as a prelude to destroying the iconic landmark CHUM building on Yonge, I'm sure. I then discovered Q107 when all the cool, hip people listened to it before it too degenerated into oldies or old rock or whatever. The thing about those stations was that they listened to their listenership. They took calls -- you could call in and make requests sometimes or just chat with the DJ. They were local -- you knew the sound was coming from familiar buildings in Toronto and they were speaking to Torontonians. They were live. That much was obvious, especially listening to Scruff Connors (am I dating myself or what?!). And they moved with the times, hiring female DJs for weekday duties.

But things have changed. A lot. Harsh economic times have always been with us, and so I don't buy the argument that the recession made them do it. We've experienced deep recessions and soaring interest rates before, and this recession here in Canada is pretty tame compared to previous ones. It may be global, but locally I've seen worse.

On the other hand, the Internet is relatively new. It has played havoc with the music industry and television, but it can play nice with radio. No longer does a listener need a short wave radio to catch shows playing on the other side of the planet. We can find a station on the Internet, click the live streaming button, and listen to how other people live, talk, think. But that goes out the window when the local station becomes less local, doesn't reflect the populace, is only live some of the time, ditches DJs for 24-hour music, and in short listens to the scrabbling and scratching sounds for money coming from the conglomerate owner. And, as far as I'm concerned, those sounds hide the fact that these owners don't have an effing clue how to run a radio station or how to attract listeners and keep them.

CFRB has just announced -- AGAIN -- a program shakeup, which is really just musical chairs in order to fit in a new guy John Tory and to get rid of Michael Coren and the one female host -- co-host of The Motts actually cause, you know, you can't trust a woman to run a show all on her own when people are listening. The program shakeup doesn't address the fact that CFRB programs its talk shows as if we still live in the 1970s. I remember eons ago when Q107 started putting female DJs on during the day; Dusky I think her name was who did the 9 am slot. While women's voices populate the air waves on FM, reflecting the fact that women comprise 52% of the population, like listening to like voices, make purchasing decisions, and are as susceptible to advertising as men, CFRB remains resolutely stuck in the misogynist age. The only 21st century move they made with this new program change was to hire Liza Fromer even though she's pregnant and then set it up so she can jump in every now and then on the new John Moore morning show from home. But she ain't even a co-host like Carol Mott was.

CHUM FM was decimated by the CTV buyout. I stopped listening. I can't even see Marilyn Dennis on TV anymore. CTV, I'm sure, used the recession as a reason to ditch her show-in-development. But geeze, who believes that? Did CTV go belly up in the 1990s recession? 1980s? No, they have a habit of not sticking with good daytime Canadian hosts. Of course, they didn't find many. But Dennis is a gem; viewers are still crying out at this loss. With it's all-things American focus, CTV couldn't care less. The stupid thing is their fixation on American TV above anything Canadian is costing them in the pocketbook. They are such US bootlickers that they sacrifice the one thing any media conglomerate must do -- make money -- to get their lick fix.

Meanwhile Astral Media -- those guys who look after Toronto's trash cans and TTC shelter ads -- has looked over at CTV's ways and thought, hey, great idea. So they've turned their FM station to a foreign brand with foreign programming. Every time I turn on 99.9, now Virgin Radio, I hear British voices or American programming. Gag. I want to hear local or national, but not foreign on my radio, thank you very much.

Rogers completely f'd up CISS 92.5 with its stupid JACK FM idea, but recently they've relaunched the station with a new format. I turned it on this morning at 9 am and discovered wake-up kind of music, not the American pap alternating with the offensive-to-the-ears music CTV brought to CHUM FM, and lo and behold a woman's voice spoke between songs. Best, they said they run 54 minutes commercial-free. So I'll give them a try. I've also been listening to PRIDE FM when need to get jazzed up to write. The DJs are a bit, uh, precious and I haven't heard a woman's voice yet, but they're definitely local and live.

As for AM talk-style radio, I'm back on the hunt. I've tried listening to CBC, but it's just not my style first thing, later maybe. Podcasts are hard to listen to when I'm still in the twilight zone and I need the radio alarm to wake me up. I tried to look for local radio apps for my iPod, but only CBC has a good one, and it's free. Sigh. Will I ever find radio bliss again?

My Experience with American Style Health Care in Canada

I've wanted to write about this topic for awhile, but first a lawsuit prohibited me and then I was just tired. But the current insanity over health care raging south of the border has got me going enough to finally share my experience with American style health care in Canada.

Under Ontario law, when you're injured in a car crash, your auto insurance company is supposed to cover your medical expenses under accident benefits. The Financial Services Commission of Ontario regulates what they cover. The insurer decides when. That sounds like government is dictating private health insurance for those injured in car crashes. But that's not the case. Every few years (as is happening now), insurance companies whine about how much injured people are costing them, and the government amends the Insurance Act to give them basically what they want. I was covered under the Act in force in 2000. It is quite different now; worse actually. And my coverage in 2000 was much worse than what I experienced in 1991 under the version of the Act in force then. But the basics are pretty much the same.

After I was injured, I saw my family doctor or GP under coverage of OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance). All I have to do to see my GP is call up, make an appointment, walk in to the office, show my OHIP card, wait, and then see him. I don't need no permission from no bean counter first. Because I'd been injured in a car crash, I had to file a claim with my car insurer and I had to do that quickly else I'd forfeit any coverage. I also had to fill in a form, and then later my GP had to fill in a disability certificate. OHIP doesn't cover form filling, so he sent a bill to the insurance company. So far no sweat, right, just some form filling. Canadian style health care was working; American style was a pain but got it done.

Now for treatment. First came physiotherapy. When OHIP covered physiotherapy, my GP simply had to refer my then-husband to the physiotherapist. At the physiotherapy clinic, he showed his OHIP card, and that was pretty much all the hoop jumping one had to do to get physiotherapy.

Under accident benefits, my GP had to refer me to physiotherapy. Then my physiotherapist had to fill in a treatment plan. Then I had to wait (like hell I did) to get permission from some little bean counter in the insurance office who had as much medical experience and knowledge as a cockroach before I was allowed to get physiotherapy. They of course took their sweet time. Me not waiting for them got them a bit pissed. But I was in pain; I knew if I waited my injury would become worse; and if I waited too long I would be in for a lifetime of chronic pain. Like hell I was going to subject myself to that just because some insurance company wanted to save themselves a few bucks.

The treatment plan not only specified the treatment and the why of it, but also how long it would take, in other words, some fortune telling. Some therapists feared the insurance companies and would only specify 4 weeks max, leading to endless filling in and waiting for permission. Other therapists filled them in according to my need. They all upped their fees for insurance clients because of the extra costs involved in filling in the forms and haggling with the insurance companies. Any therapist I saw had to fill in a treatment plan; that meant physiotherapists, acupuncturists, massage therapists, doctors for certain kinds of treatments, psychologists, basically anyone who treated me for injuries relating to the car crash. After much arguing, I think they said yes the first couple of months. After that the real fun started.

When they said their standard "no, you can't have that treatment," they would then send me either for a DAC (designated assessment centre) or IME (independent medical exam). The idea was that one's own GP was in it for the money and couldn't be trusted to direct your medical care in this area. I have no idea how my GP profited from my injuries. He does not get rich from seeing a chronically ill or injured person. But there you go. The bean counters know better. So off I trotted from April to December to about 15 of these things, every one of which cost the insurer hundreds to thousands of dollars, money that had absolutely nothing to do with my medical care. Some, to their surprise and mine, said I needed the treatments, and so they had to say yes to the treatment plans. Unfortunately, that only held until the plan expired and it was time to submit another one (I got to the point where I really wished some therapists would stop worrying about what the insurer would say, assume it would be no, then at least when it finally got turned to yes, I wouldn't have to go through the whole thing again a month later). Most IMEs and DACs said no. (My ex went ballistic at one, after several months of seeing how they fudged the exam results in order to say I was fine.) I persevered.

There are rights to appeal these expected nos under the law, but each step takes more and more time. I cannot remember how I did it, how I got the bean counters -- and there were several that first year as they left and were replaced -- to cough up the money for my treatments despite the usual IME hogwash, other than I had to employ lawyers and spend an awful lot of time on it. I remember at one point, they just stopped paying, I ran out of my own money to tide me over till they finally did pay, and I had to give up treatment for several months. By the time we came to an agreement, I was in agony. But they didn't care. You see, the insurer doesn't care if I get better or not, it doesn't select and pay its IMEs to say yes; they expect these doctors and assessment centres to play the game and find a reason to say no. As time went on, these reasons became more and more ridiculous, even defamatory. Instead of spending my energy and time on getting better, getting back to work, I was spending it on fighting these guys to get the help I needed. Although they claimed that they under accident benefits would work with me to get proper medical care, they in fact did the opposite. They did not even hire a case manager -- a person I would have greatly benefitted from medically and they financially -- to manage my increasingly complex case.

The starkest difference between American style and Canadian style health care came when I saw occupational therapists. The insurer sent an occupational therapist to my house to assess my needs. Total joke. She sat at my kitchen table transcribing my answers longhand to her questions, then said this is what the insurance company would give me and so that's what she'd recommend. She didn't watch me function, assess my work situation, or inspect anything from heights of bathroom sinks to the kind of mop I had as she should have done. In contrast, under OHIP, the occupational therapist observed me in action, conducted several tests, assessed my needs, and then made recommendations and carried out treatment accordingly.

But that's American style health care.

The insurance company is in it to make money, not to spend money on a claimant's health care if they can help it. And anyone who thinks differently has been too much into the weed.

The best commentary on these two approaches to health care came when my physiatrist was trying to decide which rehab centre to send me to. One was covered by OHIP but entailed a 4-month wait. The other would be covered by my insurer, I'd be seen right away, but then I'd have to deal with bean counters to get the insurance company to pay. He felt I didn't need that added stress, that waiting 4 months would be less harmful to my long- and short-term health than fighting bean counters on this most-important part of my medical care.

Going to OHIP-covered Toronto Rehabilitation Institute was the least stressful part of my overall treatment plan because I didn't have to deal with the insurance company and their IMEs, DACs, and constant slagging of me just so I could get some care.

Right now, I'm applying for case management under OHIP. I couldn't do that earlier because I was covered under private auto insurance who were required to pay for it. They refused to do so, and I was, quite frankly, fucked. I should have had this 9 years ago. I wonder if it's too late, and I wonder if the insurance company had worked with me -- instead of against me -- how much healthier I would be today.

While the Americans slowly melt down into a stew of insane rumours and fear-mongering, I am thankful for Canadian medicare. I am thankful I only have to show my OHIP card when going to see my doctor or specialist. I am thankful I don't need any bean counter's permission to see a specialist. I am thankful I don't have to waste my own time and time in the doctor's office filling in forms to get permission from some insurance company just to get some care. I am thankful I don't have to haggle for care. I am thankful that my GP, working with me, directs my care, not some profit-minded insurance company. I am thankful that when my heart goes wonky, I can go to the ER, show my OHIP card, and not worry at all about how I'm going to pay for this unplanned visit, not worry about what my insurance company will say; my only worry is my heart.

In the end, that is really the only thing I want to worry about when going to see my doctor: my health.