CANADA: Federal Election 2011 - Page 3 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Charlatan · 05-04-2011, 08:26 PM

Now that he has MPs elected in places like Toronto and Vancouver, will Harper continue to ignore the Urban centres?

Quote:

Hume: Note to city’s new Tories: Please give Harper a tour
By Christopher Hume Urban Issues, Architecture

Stephen Harper’s Canada does include cities, after all. He made that clear during his victory speech Monday night.

But his words revealed more about the state of Harper’s perception of cities than they did about the actual state of the nation’s cities.

“We will make our municipalities, regions and cities more equal,” he declared, flashing a rare grin. More equal than what he didn’t explain.

Then came the sentence that revealed so much. “We will pass comprehensive measures to reduce crime,” he pledged, “and make our streets and neighbourhoods safer.”

Safer than what he didn’t explain, either. But obviously, Harper has some catching up to do on the reality of life in Canadian cities. Yes, crime happens in urban centres, but the more important fact is that the numbers are down. Indeed, they have been dropping for years.

According to a recent Statistics Canada report, “Police-reported crime in Canada continues to decline. Both the volume and severity of police-reported crime fell in 2009, continuing the downward trend seen over the past decade.”

Those figures may not mesh with the Conservatives’ in-from-the-hinterland law-and-order agenda, but if you say something often enough, people start to believe it.

The Harperites have been fanning the flames of fear for years, finding enemies lurking on every corner. They have been threatening to crack down on criminals by increasing minimum jail terms, toughening parole requirements and, most famously, committing $2 billion to build more prisons.

Rather than celebrate the country’s declining crime rates — or even try to take credit for them — the Tories clearly decided their purposes are better served by ignoring the good news. Perhaps Harper’s logic was that if such a strategy worked in the U.S., it would work in Canada.

Of course, those who practise the politics of fear rely on a steady stream of villains to feed the outrage. What better place to look than downtown? Echoing the familiar refrains of North American anti-urban culture, Harper has joined the fight to keep our streets safe.

But if the Prime Minister takes time to listen to the newly elected members of his caucus who come from Canada’s big cities, he would discover that crime is well down the list of urban priorities. And after Monday’s vote, the Tories hold 29 of 44 seats in the GTA. The party also elected members in Vancouver as well as the usual Calgary and Edmonton, semi-cities both.

But in places such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, the big issues are transit, housing, chronic underfunding, lack of stable long-term revenues, decaying infrastructure … People do worry about crime, but Canada is not the U.S. Our cities aren’t Washington D.C., Detroit or New Orleans.

Still, the image of the city as dark, dangerous and diseased persists. It is built into the very structure of the country, ingrained in its institutional DNA and systems of governance. A body such as the Ontario Municipal Board, for instance, is based on the assumption that cities and the people who run them cannot be trusted.

This anti-urban prejudice has so permeated the political culture of Canada that Torontonians recently elected a mayor whose starting point is the same as Harper’s — namely, that the city is a problem that must be dealt with by government.

Though not known for his listening skills, Harper would be well advised to sit down with his urban colleagues to hear what they have to say about cities. They would remind him that far from being crime-ridden holes, Canadian cities routinely rank among the most liveable on Earth.

Mantus · 05-05-2011, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Now that he has MPs elected in places like Toronto and Vancouver, will Harper continue to ignore the Urban centres?

I hope not. Toronto's transit system is decades behind (a entire century if you count Paris). I don't think I've ever visited a major city that had worse public transit. It's road systems are due for expansion and upgrades too.

Leto · 05-05-2011, 07:07 PM

AND... I'm not sure there's a major city in the world that is doesn't have an integrated federal financial programme to support public transit.

Baraka_Guru · 05-05-2011, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Commuters in the Greater Toronto Area suffer through longer round trips than their counterparts in 18 other major centres, including notoriously congested Los Angeles, according to a new report commissioned by the Toronto Board of Trade.

The board’s second annual “scorecard on prosperity” concluded the average GTA commute lasts a punishing 80 minutes for drivers and public-transit riders alike, putting the region an “embarrassing” last place behind not only L.A., but also the gridlocked metropolises of New York, London and Montreal.

Toronto has worse gridlock than New York, Montreal, Berlin, London and L.A. | In Transit | torontolife.com

Ignoring this kind of problem in Canada's major cities will only bite the entire country in the ass in the long run.

Charlatan · 05-05-2011, 07:36 PM

Another interesting angle to all of this is the collapse of the immigrant vote for the Liberals. Not too long ago it was the Liberals that garnered the majority of the recent immigrant vote. They were seen as the party that had done the most of immigrants and it was the Conservatives that had the whiff of racism and/or anti-immigration about them.

The Conservatives chased down and won this influential segment of the voting public.

Thinking back to the garbage that used to spew from members of the Reform Party, this shift is astounding.

Martian · 05-05-2011, 07:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mantus

I hope not. Toronto's transit system is decades behind (a entire century if you count Paris). I don't think I've ever visited a major city that had worse public transit. It's road systems are due for expansion and upgrades too.

Funny story: one of my co-workers is Serbian, and according to him Belgrade has a better transit system than us. A quarter the per capita GDP, and they still beat us.

I guess it's not really that funny after all.

05-05-2011, 07:07 PM	#83 (permalink)
Leto Junkie Location: The Danforth	AND... I'm not sure there's a major city in the world that is doesn't have an integrated federal financial programme to support public transit. __________________ You said you didn't give a fuck about hockey And I never saw someone say that before You held my hand and we walked home the long way You were loosening my grip on Bobby Orr http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Leto_Atreides_I

05-05-2011, 07:36 PM	#85 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	Another interesting angle to all of this is the collapse of the immigrant vote for the Liberals. Not too long ago it was the Liberals that garnered the majority of the recent immigrant vote. They were seen as the party that had done the most of immigrants and it was the Conservatives that had the whiff of racism and/or anti-immigration about them. The Conservatives chased down and won this influential segment of the voting public. Thinking back to the garbage that used to spew from members of the Reform Party, this shift is astounding. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke