In both Calgary and Toronto, citizens voted for change last fall. In Calgary, civic activist and business professor Naheed Nenshi took office, while in Toronto businessman Rob Ford was swept into the mayor’s chair. Two men, two cities, two philosophies of government.
To get a sense of how the mayors are managing their municipal future, Canadian Government Executive asked them to answer four questions.
Cities today face multiple big-ticket challenges, such as transit, the environment, increasing need for social services. Many of these challenges involve money, yet taxpayers are saying that they are fed up: how do you balance these competing pressures?
Naheed Nenshi: To say that “taxpayers are fed up” is, I think, a misreading and oversimplification of the case. In Calgary, as in other cities, taxpayers are certainly fed up with what they see as waste: the issue is not the overall level of taxation, but that taxpayers have lost the connection between the taxes they pay, on one hand, and the services they receive on the other.
We need to repair that link between taxes and services, and that starts with an authentic, transparent commitment to efficiency, fiscal discipline and reducing waste.
The next step is meaningful tax reform that ensures that cities have predictable sources of funding beyond the (regressive, inefficient) property tax in order to deliver the services that Canadians need every hour of every day.
The other key to success here is to involve citizens in these trade-offs. When citizens are invited into the conversation as fellow problem-solvers, as fellow decision makers, they rise to the challenge and help us come up with innovative ways to help meet their priorities.
In Calgary, we have begun a new process of participatory budgeting – helping citizens engage, using the same information that their City Council has. We’re in early days, but so far so good: people have great ideas and have moved beyond grinding their own axes into working for the good of the city as a whole.
Rob Ford: Since I was first elected over 10 years ago to City Council, I have always been mindful of how taxpayers’ dollars are being spent. Too often the city government simply raised taxes and increased spending without any attempt to reduce waste. I campaigned on a commitment to respect taxpayers’ money while maintaining the level of services residents of Toronto expect.
Since taking office, my administration has been focused on four key priorities: improving customer service, reducing the size and cost of government, transparency and accountability, and building a “transportation city” which will see subways as the backbone of rapid transit in Toronto.
With this focus in mind, we eliminated the $60 car registration tax, reduced office budgets and refused a pay increase – resulting in millions of dollars saved. I am also proud to say that when our team brought forward the 2011 budget, it passed at Council with no property tax increase, no major service cuts; the budget was balanced and not much larger than the 2010 budget.
We also took some extraordinary measures to advance the entire budget process to deliver a final 2011 budget by the end of February. That’s almost two months earlier than normal for Toronto. The importance of this opportunity is huge. Normally, the city spends money for up to four months without a budget – without a plan – every year. That means taxpayers can’t influence spending for almost half the year. No successful business operates this way. The city shouldn’t either. It’s irresponsible. By finalizing this year’s budget in February, we were able to begin next year’s budget process in March – and will complete the 2012 no later than January.
To do this, I agreed not to push hard in 2011 to fix the “structural deficit” in our budget – something that the previous administration created and allowed to grow every year. Their standard practice was to “paper over” this deficit each year with unexpected surpluses and handouts from the province. I agreed to allocate last year’s surplus to close the gap for one more year. This will give us time in 2011 to identify permanent efficiencies and savings to fix the budget’s structural gaps once and for all. It also means we will no longer hide the 2012 gap behind a one-time surplus or a provincial handout.
Urban thinker Richard Florida has said that cities need “talent, technology and tolerance” if they are to be economically prosperous. How do you build those qualities in your city?
Nenshi: I have had the privilege to know Richard Florida and his work for many years, since we were working on Building Up at the same time he was publishing The Rise of the Creative Class. Indeed, colleagues from Canada25 and I were part of the Creative 100 that Florida summoned to Memphis for a conference on how to make cities better.
We have some areas in common. In Building Up, we wrote about the three D’s of a great city: density, diversity, and discovery. These are a bit broader that Florida’s T’s, which focus mainly on people, but we are all in pursuit of the same goal of a resilient local economy and vibrant social development.
For Calgary, this means that we need to embrace an economic development philosophy that jobs don’t attract people, but that people attract jobs. We need to create an environment of a vibrant exciting urbanity: investments in arts and culture, sports and recreation, great public spaces and even public transit are not only good in and of themselves, but they are smart economic development.
There are practical ways to do this: we need an urban growth model that curbs sprawl, that allows for sensitive intensification of existing neighbourhoods, that makes it easier for the market to create more complete communities in the suburbs. We also need to make sure that we are investing in infrastructure, not only roads and bridges, but also important community infrastructure like firehalls, libraries and rec centres.
Ford: Toronto already has “talent, technology and tolerance.” In fact it was recently reported that 30 percent of Canada’s information, communications and technology industry is based in the Toronto region. But we can’t rest on our laurels. Our commercial taxes are too high and more people cannot afford to live or work here. We need to improve our customer service, eliminate red tape and create a business environment where the private sector is able to lead the way to create jobs.
Business owners, regardless of the size of their companies, know how to grow their businesses. By and large, they want government to simply stay out of their way. When businesses do interact with the city, they should receive outstanding customer service from city employees. There is also too much red-tape for businesses to deal with. Governments must minimize the burden placed on business owners – everything must be fair, equitable and predictable.
It has been argued that there are fundamental issues around prosperity and the future of Canada that require the federal and provincial governments to work more closely with municipalities. What would you like to see in terms of municipal support from other levels of government?
Nenshi: Municipalities in Canada face an infrastructure deficit of at least $125 billion. In Calgary alone, that deficit is at least $6 billion, including new construction and maintenance of firehalls, libraries, rec centres, roads, interchange
