Thunder Bay's Exciting New Lottery

 

In its ongoing efforts to be innovative and trend setting, the City of Thunder Bay has inaugurated an exciting new lottery – Lotto Nightmare Pipe Dream.   The price of admission is simply being a property owner in the City of Thunder Bay and there is an annual top up fee known as a property tax.  To win?  You have to have a copper pipe leak either in your home plumbing or – if you are a really big winner – in the city water feed line to your property. The prize?  Well, the prizes range from 0$ - not winning - to up to minus $30,000 dollars or more depending on how big a winner you are.  The odds of claiming a prize are unknown but you can win from anywhere in the city though apparently the odds go up if you are lucky enough to live in the Northwood or Red River Wards.

 

Needless to say, the epidemic of leaky pipes in Thunder Bay in the wake of the introduction of sodium hydroxide to mitigate lead in the water has become the lottery from hell. Despite what might be considered to be the comforting biblical allusion of having a Mayor and 12 Councillors gathered in perpetual Monday evening supper time council meetings presiding over our welfare, they continue to remain silent on the issue with no prospect of the good news of salvation in sight.  Yet, based on the Facebook membership numbers in the Thunder Bay Leaky Pipe Club as well as numerous local media stories, nearly 1500 households have been affected.  The demonstration this week by affected residents is evidence of the growing problem.  And, the numbers will likely grow given that it is quite probable that all pipes in the city have probably had decades of life removed from them by the introduction of sodium hydroxide.  So, even homes in newer subdivisions can probably expect to see cases in years to come.

 

The Mayor and Council are refusing to make any public comment.  They are not even saying if they are studying the issue or collecting data or have hired a water/environmental consulting firm to advise them on the issue.  Simply saying absolutely nothing – which is what the Mayor did at his virtual town hall this week - because of potential legal issues is outrageous given that these are our elected representatives.  There needs to be accountability here – not just by the City of Thunder Bay- but also by the province which has mandated municipalities to take action on lead corrosion but oddly enough has not provided for a uniform approach to the problem.  However, the province  has been reported as stating other cities use sodium hydroxide with no pinhole leak issues suggesting they are washing their hands of the matter.  However, at least one of the cities mentioned by the province in the news report– Ottawa – does not seem to use sodium hydroxide but phosphates as its lead corrosion approach.

 

So, It turns out other cities have also had a lead problem – Toronto and Hamilton for example – but both dealt with it by introducing phosphates into the water supply.  In Toronto’s case phosphate was introduced in 2014 and was even endorsed by Toronto Public Health – to my knowledge there was no endorsement by public health officials in Thunder Bay for adding sodium hydroxide. If there was, I would like to see it.  Hamilton approved the use of orthophosphate in 2015.  Phospates apparently have a long history of use in the UK and along with Toronto and Hamilton, Sudbury and Winnipeg also use it also for lead corrosion control purposes. 

 

Where does this leave us?  In Thunder Bay, there are always more questions than answers and the silence of the mayor and council does not help us out at all. Why did Thunder Bay opt for sodium hydroxide rather than phosphates in treating its water for lead corrosion? Was it a cost issue – that is, we opted for a cheaper chemical?  Was it a water composition issue based on the chemical nature of our existing water supply given that it comes from Lake Superior that necessitated using sodium hydroxide rather than phosphates?  Is adding phosphate a solution to our water issues given that there is at least one example of a community in North America – Folsum, California of Folsum Prison Blues fame - adding it to their water to stop pinhole leaks. We need answers and sooner rather than later. Thunder Bay’s new lottery is not all it is cracked up to be.

 

 

Thinking Big in Thunder Bay

 

Thunder Bay City’s Council’s agenda for September 14^th based on the available documentation has quite a few items that one imagines will have cost implications for Thunder Bay though the full documentation as of Saturday morning seems a bit light on the City website.  The usual tomes of several hundred pages seem to be absent but perhaps they will be posted later.  Nevertheless, from the very brief documents available, some of the issues:  Traffic Signal Review, Boulevard Lake Cleanup & Dredging, Police Facility Needs Assessment Update, Solid Waste Management Strategy Update, Homemakers Program, and a Transit Service Update.  There is even an eye on the future employment of our municipal councillors with a report on Municipal election readiness for 2022.  However, the issue that will probably chew up the most time is this:

 

Permanent Thunder Bay Word Sign

Memorandum from Councillor S. Ch'ng dated August 18, 2020 containing a motion recommending the design and installation of a Permanent “Thunder Bay” Word Sign at the waterfront.

(Pages 74 – 75)

With respect to the memorandum from Councillor S. Ch’ng dated August 18, 2020, we recommend the design and installation of a Permanent “Thunder Bay” Word Sign at the waterfront;

AND THAT up to $100,000 of funding be approved through the City’s unallocated Municipal Accommodation Tax funds for the design and installation of the Permanent “Thunder Bay” Word Sign;

AND THAT any necessary by-laws be presented to City Council for ratification.

 

The Northwood councillor wants to design and build a sign, similar to ones seen in cities around the world, including Toronto. This has already received some local media attention and of course many comments and a TBNewswatch poll that suggests the idea is almost as popular as going ahead full bore with the Turf Facility was.  

 

Predictably, there has been a focus on the cost which at $100,000 has struck many as excessive but then our councillors will likely consider it a bargain given that replacing a similar sign in Toronto in front of their city hall with permanent new letters will cost $760,000.  At $100,000, Thunder Bay’s sign will only cost $10,000 per letter while Toronto’s will come in at $108,571.43 per letter.  Needless to say, our more mathematically inclined councillors will fall over themselves with long speeches on how much more efficient we are and the alphabetical value of money.

 

However, Thunder Bay likes to think big. Indeed, for $760,000, never mind a small piddly Toronto style sign – with that kind of money one could create a giant white letter Hollywood type sign on top of the Sleeping Giant in our harbour! Or perhaps, we could have a Mount Rushmore type set of carvings of all the members of our current City Council preserved forever in a pose of distant thoughtful gazes with a giant inscription below stating: “They came, they saw, they spent!”  Truly, this will be another opportunity for all of us to think big and achieve Toronto style ambition at Thunder Bay prices.

 

If members of council are inclined towards frugality, I would suggest that the letters of the proposed Thunder Bay Sign be made from the creative intertwining of all the surplus copper piping and water connection lines that seems to dot the lawns in so many of our neighborhoods these days.  Not only would this be very artistic and creative, but cost-effective and also an example of wise environmental stewardship as it involves a major effort at recycling.  Advertising is all about messages and this would send the message that in Thunder Bay, we recycle more than ideas.

 

Why Understanding Crime Numbers Is Important for Public Policy

The meetings currently underway in Thunder Bay for police service boards and chiefs is focusing on challenges facing the north and in particular those dealing with guns, drugs and gangs.  In particular, the lack of funding for addressing what is perceived to be escalating crime is a major grievance given that the federal government has transferred money to the Ontario government to fight gangs, drugs and gun related activity but to date the province has apparently only chosen to assist Toronto and Ottawa.  Jeff McGuire, executive director of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, is in Thunder Bay for the meetings and stated: “I think the government had the right intentions, there were serious guns and gangs issues going on at that moment in Toronto and GTA area. Members of OACP were quick to point out it’s not just a GTA challenge.”

What is interesting when looking at this issue is taking a look at the violent crime statistics.  Figure 1 plots total violent crimes from 1998 to 2018 for Thunder Bay, Toronto and Ottawa.   If a provincial government politician handing out money to fight growing violent crime is deciding on where need was most urgent based on Figure 1, they would automatically judge that need was greatest in Toronto.   Toronto not only has the most violent crime incidents of the three cities but also what seems visually to be a rapidly escalating problem since 2015 - which by the way was preceded by a long decline.  Indeed, after a period of decline, all three cities have seen an increase in total violent crime largely related to increased gang and drug activity, but Toronto has the most violent crimes, followed by Ottawa and then Thunder Bay.

 

However, making the decision only based on total volume misses the point that crime is not only about total scale but also intensity relative to the size of local populations. Toronto and the GTA does indeed have the most violent crime, but it also accounts for almost half of Ontario’s population.  What is also relevant is crime per person or per capita which adjusts for total population size.

 

Figure 2 plots the number of violent crimes per 100,000 population and here the difference is startling.  While all three cities have seen an increase in violent crimes per capita over the last three years, Thunder Bay’s rate is practically double that of either Ottawa or Toronto.  Its policing numbers and resources per capita are definitely not double those of either city.  Some help is obviously needed.

The provincial government does need to address the local policing situation though as has been noted, more money alone will not solve the problem.  We need to understand why it is that after years of decline, violent crime in all three cities is now trending upwards.  As was noted by Jeff McGuire, there are other issues to be addressed including mental health, poverty and firearm access. Nevertheless, a good start would be understanding the distinction between totals and per capita amounts and making it part of any decision making process that allocates new resources.

Renting in Northern Ontario-You Are Richer Than You Think

When it comes to housing markets, what gets the most attention is the affordability of single detached homes particularly in large urban centres like Toronto and Vancouver.  However, the high price of housing has boiled over into rental markets and it turns out that more Canadians are now renting than ever before.  Over half of the new households formed since 2011 are apparently renting and the greater demand is being reflected in higher rents.

So, what are rents like in the five major northern Ontario cities? Figures 1 and 2 plot the monthly rent for one and two-bedroom apartments in major northern Ontario cities from 1992 to 2017 using data from Statistics Canada.  In 1992, rent for a one-bedroom was the highest in North Bay at $510 monthly and lowest in Timmins at $451 while for a two-bedroom it was highest in Thunder Bay at $620 and lowest in Timmins at $565.  By 2017, monthly rent for a one-bedroom was highest in Sudbury at $848 followed by Thunder Bay at $779. For a two-bedroom in 2017 Sudbury was the highest at $1058 followed again by Thunder Bay at $957.

 

 

Over the period 1992 to 2017, the annual average growth rate in rents for a one-bedroom was 2.4 percent in Sudbury, 1.9 percent in Thunder Bay, 1.6 percent in North Bay, 1.8 percent in the Sault and 2.2 percent in Timmins.  Over the same period, for two-bedroom apartments, the average growth rate was 2.4 percent in Sudbury, 1.8 percent in Thunder Bay, 1.9 percent in North Bay, 1.9 percent in the Sault and 2.1 percent in Timmins. Indeed, these increases are pretty close to the inflation rate as measured by the CPI.

The results are informative – rents have gone up in all northern Ontario cities - but the pace of increase picked up after 2004.  The average annual growth rate for one-bedroom apartments in these five cities was 2 percent from 1992 to 2004 and 3 percent from 2004 to 2017. For Greater Sudbury, rent growth was especially pronounced from 2004 to 2017 with an annual average growth rate of 3.5 percent for both one and two-bedrooms.   Thunder Bay in comparison saw average annual growth of 2.5 percent for one-bedrooms and 2.6 percent for two-bedrooms.   However, this period saw Sudbury with a mining boom whereas Thunder Bay experienced the forest sector crisis.

The higher growth rates in rent since 2004 coincide with the run-up in housing prices over the same period.  Even with rent controls, as new tenants come into a rental unit, there is the opportunity to raise the rent to reflect market conditions and the market is getting tighter. As all first year economics students can tell you, the long-term impact of rent control policies is to reduce the stock of units below what they would have been.  As a result, with rising demand, rents have climbed.

However, rents in Thunder Bay and Sudbury are still quite a bit lower than Toronto based on the numbers here.  In 2017, a one-bedroom in Toronto rents out at $1194 – 41 percent more than Sudbury and 53 percent more than Thunder Bay.  A two-bedroom in Toronto in 2017 rents out at $1403 – 33 percent more than Sudbury and 47 percent more than Thunder Bay.  According to the Winter 2018 Conference Board CMA reports, in 2017, household income per capita in Toronto $47,548 compared to $48,742 in Greater Sudbury and $47,287 in Thunder Bay.  Given that average incomes in Toronto are not really that much higher than either Thunder Bay or Sudbury it stands to reason that after paying your rent you will  have a lot more disposable income left over in Thunder Bay and Sudbury relative to Toronto. This really should be getting greater play in the economic marketing of these two cities.