Reforming Thunder Bay City Council: The Journey Begins

 

It appears that Thunder Bay City Council has finally decided to get serious about looking at its size and composition with the move to appoint a six-member citizen committee that will lead a review process over the next year that might actually result in changes in time for the 2026 municipal election.  The committee will have a far-reaching mandate to explore the size of council, their status as full or part-time membership as well as the structure of the current at-large and ward hybrid model that has governed Thunder Bay municipal politics since the 1980s.  When Thunder Bay was created it 1970, it began with a mayor and 12 councillors elected evenly across four wards which was revised to seven wards in 1976 and then took its current form of seven ward and five at large councillors in 1985.

 

This is coming about nearly three years after a previous council began to explore the issue and which ultimately generated this post which concluded: “it would be better if more of an effort was made to commission an independent arm’s length panel to review the situation and present options to council.”  Well, a committee has finally been appointed by City Council and is made up of six members.  The committee is chaired by former councillor Rebecca Johnson and vice-chaired by another former councillor Cody Fraser as well as citizens Riley Burton, Wayne Bahlieda, Heather McLeod and Carlos Santander-Maturana. 

 

The committee will conduct a two-phase consultation with the public.  The first phase includes a survey to ascertain how the public engages and interacts with City Council and examining if they have a desire to see changes to the composition of council. Phase two will include discussion and consultation with the public on potential options that could result in changes to council composition and/or the ward boundaries.  The committee will then take all of this information and “provide a report to City council with recommended changes to the composition of council or the ward system next year”.

 

The wording on the City of Thunder Bay website seems to imply that there will be changes and the chair of the committee in a TBTNewswatch story seemed to say that she believed that this time there were going to be changes made.  Indeed, phase two already says it is about options for change even before phase one has ascertained a desire for change  This is somewhat disconcerting because it suggests that someone or somebody somewhere has already decided that changes will be made, and the only real question is what those changes might be.  When put alongside a less than transparent process for committee member selection that were apparently “carefully chosen” and a survey that requires registration, one begins to wonder if the result is already a foregone conclusion.  Of course, one should be charitable on an issue that has reared its head up numerous times over the years and has only finally resulted in a serious attempt to examine it.  Given the length of time it has taken to get to this point, I suppose one should simply be grateful a committee has been struck even if the process seems akin to foxes guarding the hen house.

 

It is fair to ask what possibly an economist could contribute to a debate on municipal governance?  However, barring the reality that economists are municipal citizens too, it remains that economists are fully capable of examining the costs and benefits of institutional arrangements and their evolution as well as public finance aspects.  It is not an incursion into new territory to be staked out but rather an extension of what many institutional economists and economic historians already do.   In the case of the size, structure, composition and representativeness of the current institutional arrangement, there needs to be a framework for the decision making as well as an examination of what issues need to be addressed with the change.

 

A change in the current arrangements of municipal council represents an institutional change or innovation and such changes should be made if the perceived net benefits of the new arrangement exceed the net benefits of the previous one plus the costs of transitioning to a new arrangement – both social and economic costs.  It requires in the end an analysis of the current system and its benefits and costs not just economically but in terms of effectiveness in democratic representation and decision making as well as community spirit and engagement. 

 

What is not functioning under the current arrangement?  What could be improved?  What are the advantages of the current system of seven ward and five at-large representatives plus a mayor and what are its drawbacks?  In other words, what exactly are we trying to fix or improve.  What is driving the need to make changes to city council?  For example, simply being unable to get a consensus on building a new turf facility is not a reason to change the decision-making mechanism. Similarly, rancorous meetings are also not a reason to reform city council if the debate results in things getting done or poor decisions avoided.

 

Much of the debate in the past has focused on issues like ward councillors being too focused on their wards and not seeing the “bigger picture” when it comes to city issues.  Other times, there have been concerns that at-large councillors by not being tied to a ward and its needs were somehow shirking their duties by picking and choosing what they wanted to focus on.  Indeed, Thunder Bay politics at the municipal level has occasionally seemed like council consisted of a mayor, five mayors in waiting and seven dwarf councillors left to do a lot of the heavy lifting on local issues.  On the other hand, one could also argue that having five at large councillors allowed for citizens to go beyond their immediate ward councillor when lobbying if they felt they had not had their issue addressed.

 

And the hybrid system itself with two types of councillors is rather unique – why is it that Thunder Bay cannot have either a system of all ward councillors or all at large councillors?  What was the original purpose of going to a hybrid model and have those reasons shifted?  Then, there is the issue of the total number of councillors given the population size as on a per capita basis Thunder Bay probably has more councillors than many other cities in Ontario.  Burlington, for example, with a population nearly double that of Thunder Bay, has six ward councillors plus a mayor.  Kingston, on the other hand, which is one and a half times Thunder Bay’s population, has a mayor representing “the city as a whole” and twelve district councillors.

 

Perhaps fewer councillors but all full-time rather than the current part-time might make for better decision making.  However, that would likely mean a higher stipend and part of the argument for reducing the size of council is a belief that somehow there are going to be cost savings.  If you are indeed looking at cost savings in municipal government, reducing the number and salaries of councillors is merely symbolic as the real savings lie elsewhere. On the other hand, one can argue that being a councillor is about community service and the money should not matter.

 

Would having all councillors as ward councillors make the council too parochial as each seeks only to look after neighborhood concerns?  Or will having all at-large councillors undermine the position of mayor as all councillors can claim to have a city-wide mandate from the electorate?  Indeed, if all the councillors are at large, why elect a separate mayor at all?  Make the mayor the at-large councillor with the most votes.  Or, if we move to an all-at-large approach, will only high-profile individuals and financially better off individuals being able to run for council given that ward races can favour ward residents with close neighborhood ties while city wide campaigns are more expensive to mount? 

 

And all of this of course is intertwined with the issue about whether we need to or should redesign our ward system given the current imbalances in population across wards as populations in the city have shifted.  Should we go to eight or ten numbered as opposed to named wards with approximately equivalent populations, as well as a mayor?  Should the councillors be all at-large or all ward based or some new type of hybrid?  What should the borders of the new wards be?  Will changing the number of wards and councillors as well as redesigning borders lead to better democratic accountability?  More citizen involvement? And on top of all of this – do we want a first past the post system electing our councillors?  Ranked or weighted ballots – especially for at-large candidates?

 

 

 

As mentioned before, all of this is really not new territory for an economist.  Institutions and their quality are fundamental to successfully functioning economies.  Has Thunder Bay been hurt economically by its current municipal institutions? Indeed, one could in a moment of introspection go further and ask if amalgamation was responsible for the economic slowdown after 1970 given a monopoly one-city government replaced what were a set of competitive municipalities.  There can be a lot at stake here as change for the sake of change without understanding the reasons for change as well as the long-term ramifications can leave us worse off.  Borrowing from the words of our outgoing City Manager, if you “don’t know what you don’t know”, then how can you know that what you are doing is the best decision possible?  The committee indeed has its work cut out for it and one hopes that they are independently minded enough to be able to know what questions to ask, when to ask them and more importantly, when to suggest to do something and when to do nothing.

Your Next Thunder Bay City Council …According to TBNewswatch Polling

 

With the candidacy window closed as of August 19^th, the race for the October 24^th municipal election is now on and there is no shortage of candidates in Thunder Bay.  Every Ward has a race and the At-Large race has the usual bounty of candidates.  There are five candidates for Mayor, 24 for the At-Large race, three in Current River, two in McIntyre, four in McKellar, six in Neebing, five in Northwood, six in Red River and four in Westfort – a total of 59 candidates.  That pretty much matches the last time despite the lamentations of woe early on that there were no candidates.

 

The more interesting question in light of such a magnificent display of civic interest and spirit is who is going to win in each of the races.  TBNewswatch provides a valuable public service with its polls on various issues and it has over the period August 20 to 27 run polls for each of the races. Of course, this is not an unbiased random sampling procedure and one suspects the technologically savvy can affect the results but if these polls are accurate, this is what your next council may look like (percentage of votes cast in brackets)

 

Mayor                                      Ken Boschoff  (51.90 %)

At-Large Councillors                Mark Bentz (15.96%)

                                                Shane Judge (13.22%)

                                                Stephen Margarit (11.64%)

                                                Shelby Ch’ng (11.06%)

                                                Kasey Etreni (8.86%)

Red River                                 Martin Rukavina (28.83%)

McIntyre                                  Albert Aiello (50.16%)

Westfort                                 Kristen Oliver (49.27%)

Northwood                             Dominic Pasqualino (50.16%)

McKellar                                  Brian Hamilton (43.42%)

Current River                          Andrew Foulds (60.61%)

Neebing                                  Shaun Kennedy (39.22%)

 

Some of these wards appear to have closer races based on the TBNewswatch poll – namely Red River where Jason Veltri (24.45%)  is a close second, McIntyre where Brent Boyko is a very close (49.84%) second and McKellar where Lori Paras is close (39.95%).   This is not a scientific poll and even if it was, the only poll that counts is of course the one on election day.  Still, if these trends are on the mark, there may be substantial turnover on city council.  Change and new viewpoints can be very positive and many of these front runners are relatively known quantities while others are relative unknowns depending on what social circles you move in.

 

 It is worth googling these candidates and checking out their self-provided bios which provide an eclectic mix of entertaining and informative reading.  Some are quite informative and impressive, listing a series of career and community accomplishments. Some mention family relationships or their deep community connections to Thunder Bay. Some mention what they want to accomplish with an explicitness that may lose them as many votes as they may win, and some are vague to the point of not really saying anything at all by providing an endless string of platitudes.  The other thing worth noting is if one were to plot the candidates who seem to be leading the “poll” on a left/right or progressivist/passivist continuum, Thunder Bay is probably about to elect a council that is even less concerned about taxpayers and tax rates than the previous one. On the other hand, they may surprise us all with their fiscal astuteness.  Still, on voting day, choices must be made and if they turn out to be good ones, so much the better.

 

The next council inherits a lot of issues: crime and policing, social issues and homelessness and addiction, crumbling infrastructure, expensive lawsuits mainly linked to water and of course the still flat economy which has been masked by the generous amounts of government money that has flowed into Thunder Bay on both a private and public level.  New councillors will come in with pet projects and agendas but will quickly find that they must deal with resource constraints, a bureaucracy which generally has more information than they do and their own vested interests, and issues that will pop in from out of the blue.  New councillors will need to be quick learners, multi-talented, adaptable, patient and open to criticism both warranted and unwarranted and take it all in with a smile.  However, they will probably be spared from feeling like having to do windows on a skyscraper while perched on a precarious and narrow wooden seat. 

 

Requiem for City Council

 

Thunder Bay City Council this week began to move into its “lame duck” period - which officially starts August 8^th - with its decision to hold off on advancing the Turf Facility project and essentially kicking it down the road to the next city council which will be elected in October.  While they still might revisit the project before the 8^th, it is unlikely and signals acceptance that this legacy project will not be the current council’s legacy.  Of course, key to the problem is the cost of the project and the lack of external funding which has made the project controversial in part because early on Council rejected a private plan for a bubble type project. And the failure to attract federal funding which instead has gone to the Art Gallery project and a new Science north Facility suggests there will not be any federal funding soon making the project reliant on municipal borrowing.

 

As to whether the next council will support another go at a municipal Turf Facility is a good question given there is going to likely be a major change in its composition given that several incumbents including the current mayor have decided not to seek re-election.  What seemed to be a dearth of candidates earlier on is now dissipating as there are quite a few candidates starting to declare.  There are now four candidates for mayor and nine candidates for the five At Large seats.  There are two candidates each in Red River, Westfort, and McKellar Wards and four in Northwood.  Current River is likely on the road towards acclamation as only the Incumbent has declared to date. Neebing Ward has three candidates.  Only McIntyre still has no declared candidates but that will likely change.  So, with the filing deadline being August 19^th, sufficient choice is on its way.

 

The more interesting question is why some of the incumbents have decided not to run – at least four so far and maybe more given that some still have not declared.  Part of the issue may be fatigue given the length of time many of these incumbents have served in local politics especially when combined with the events of the last four years.  Thunder Bay has been beset with numerous controversial issues – poverty crime, the opioid crisis, racism and of course the entire police department which essentially has come under external direction and scrutiny.  There is also the dismal state of road infrastructure and sinkholes popping up where they should not be.  All these issues have had to be dealt with during an unprecedented pandemic which along with the disruption also complicated the conduct of council business.  This conjunction of events would have taxed the stamina and patience of anyone.  Of course, add to this the presence of several class action lawsuits all dealing with municipal water issues including the leaky pipe fiasco and one can see the possibility of a lot of trouble coming down the pipeline over the next couple years on a wide range of issues – not least of which will be the police service.

 

And the kicker was of course that the current council signed off on pay increases of up to 12 percent for senior staff  - something that is definitely going to eat into the popularity of some of the more vocal incumbents. That this salary increase came on the heels of the announcement of a record budget surplus of 10.9 million dollars for 2021 did not help and neither did pronouncements by at least one incumbent that future tax increases should be kept in line with the rate of inflation -which incidentally is at about 8 percent.  And interestingly enough, the projection for 2022 is now that after years of surplus, there is a 5.3 million dollar deficit being forecast for 2022.  Who could have foreseen such a thing especially in the wake of the salary adjustment for staff?

 

And so, there is likely going to be quite a bit of turnover on Thunder Bay City Council this time around – perhaps a generational change – after which you can expect the same faces to remain in place for a decade or so as that is the nature of municipal politics.  Retiring incumbents already worn down by the pandemic have decided that they have run out of the political capital needed to easily gain re-election.  New candidates with political aspirations have decided now is the time to strike. Hope springs eternal in fresh candidates that with their skill set they will be able to make a difference in a role which is a difficult and thankless task.  The old city council is dead.  Long live city council.  Once again, the drama begins. 

 

 

 

Dealing with Homelessness

 

Among the growing problems of affordability in cities across Canada including Thunder Bay, is the specific issue of homelessness.  The latest point-in-time survey by the District of the Thunder Bay Social Services Administration Board that was published in January of 2022 of 221 participants documented that 43 percent used emergency shelters.  Indeed, the Board estimates that there are closer to 700 people experiencing homelessness in the 103,000-square-kilometre district of about 146,000 people and about 70 percent of them identify as Indigenous.  Finding solutions to this complicated set of issues is an on-going process and into it has stepped the City of Thunder Bay.

 

Thunder Bay City Council has decided to move ahead on a recommendation to establish a $1 million fund to support local capital projects addressing poverty and homelessness in Thunder Bay.  The fund is not intended as a stand-alone source of financing and is expected to leverage additional support from the federal and provincial government as well as other funders that could include private sector sources, philanthropic organizations as well as First Nations organizations.  The projects are designed to be in the area of transitional or affordable housing and grant applications will be reviewed by a committee of senior city staff.   The idea, initially proposed by Councillor Bentz, is innovative and perhaps one of the first in Canada and comes in the wake of the 2022 federal budget which has committed more funds for homelessness as well as a commitment to the redesign of federal housing strategies.

 

This program represents a start to fixing problems in a community that has received its share of bad press in the national media lately when it comes top homelessness, poverty and racism.  City council approved the recommendation though there was one dissenting vote from Mayor Mauro.  Mayor Mauro argued that such a fund would replace federal dollars and that the City is going to pour resources into projects that would have occurred with federal funding anyway. The Mayor is technically correct that funding to end homelessness is likely going to flow in greater amounts from the federal government anyway.  Moreover, the housing crisis is a federal and provincial responsibility to solve even if its effects are felt largely at the local level.  However, that does not mean a municipality should sit back and wait for someone else to start solving the problem.

 

At the same time, providing the municipal resources represents a way to kick start some aspects of the process in a cooperative manner given that the funds are expected from federal and provincial governments as well as other partners.  In some respects, it represents an action in tune with basic principles of subsidiarity in fiscal federalism by signalling change from the grassroots.  Rather than replace federal dollars, the Community Partnership Fund Thunder Bay is creating may actually attract more funding and give the option to the other levels of government, as well as private agencies, First Nations Organizations and philanthropy groups of an opportunity to accompany their verbal pronouncements with more effective actions.  And besides, the political optics for Thunder Bay with this fund are positive even if the marginal impact is ultimately small.  Change requires first steps to be taken and that is what this is.

 

Thunder Bay City Council has done some boneheaded things in the past but this is not one of them.

 

 

 

IT's Back....Again! The Turf Facility Project

 

Like a zombie that keeps coming back to life, the multi-use indoor turf facility project is back on the agenda at Thunder Bay City Council this evening as a report is received on the eight outside proposals that were commissioned.  And in an apparently blatant disregard for transparency, the details of the discussion will not be shared with the public.  However, the decision has been further complicated by a new application for federal funding on which the City awaits an answer with the funding apparently tied to building a facility that conforms to green and inclusive community building conditions.  This of course raises the question as to what the actual price tag for such a facility will ultimately really be.

 

This application is for approximately $22 million dollars and that is expected to cover about half of the costs so we are looking for a total price tag of about $44 million of which half would supposedly come from federal funding.  And yet, the question is whether the costs of the new building will now change substantially given that it must conform to the requirements of the federal funding program.  City council rejected the proposal to build the facility when it was $39 million so getting it for substantially less in terms of City dollars may be attractive to those on council who like to pay lip service to the Zeller's Rule - the lowest price is the law. 

 

At the same time, the application process for the new funds is competitive and Fort William First Nation has also asked for $25 million from the fund to build a long-term care home.  As elastic as the federal budget constraint seems to be these days one suspects it is unlikely Thunder Bay’s cabinet representative is going to be able to swing both projects.  After all, Minister Hajdu’s star seems on the wane given what some might interpret as a demotion from Health. 

 

The minister was not even able to use her clout to secure a return to international flight status for Thunder Bay’s airport for the coming winter getaway travel season meaning no return to direct flights to places like Cuba and the Dominican Republic in January and February.  And as Indigenous Services Minister, it would be awkward to say the least to have funding for the turf facility approved in her hometown while the needs of indigenous long-term care are neglected. 

 

So, Thunder Bay seems to be about to embark on another divisive and argumentative round of talks over a project that many in the community are now opposed to in the wake of numerous other city issues with good odds that nothing is going to happen.  Even if a project is approved, often it does not happen as those waiting for the transitional housing project on Junot Avenue have discovered. 

 

Still, the fact that this project still resurfaces and has its proponents begs the question of why so many members of council are so devoted to seeing it go ahead and staking so much political capital on the project considering the other problems this city faces.  There is a lot going on here. There are homeless encampments in the city, there are homeless people wandering the streets of major thoroughfares at peak traffic times soliciting funds at intersections, there are hundreds showing up for meals at the local soup kitchens.  Homes are still having their front lawns dug up in the wake of the sodium hydroxide leaky pipes fiasco that has affected thousands of homeowners.  And tax rates having been rising over the last few years well in excess of the amounts necessary to fund City services.

 

With so much on its plate and an election coming soon, who benefits from continuing this discussion?  Good question.

 

 

Reforming Thunder Bay City Council

 

This evening’s Thunder Bay city council meeting is going to feature yet another scintillating debate on the size and composition of City Council.  This is another one of those Thunder Bay issues that has gone on for decades and rears its head usually as a vehicle for individual councilors to garner media attention and sell themselves as either reform minded or committed to safeguarding taxpayer dollars. In the end, the talk is as circular as the yet to be fully opened new roundabout at the intersection of Redwood and Edward.

 

 In this current iteration, councilor Peng You has put forward a notice of motion to reverse a decision made nearly a year ago to start work in 2023 reviewing municipal representation and council composition with an aim for a new system – if accepted - to be implemented for the 2026 municipal election.  If this decision is reversed by a two-thirds majority of council, then council would also be asked to consider a potential plebiscite question on the 2022 municipal ballot.  What exactly that question should be would no doubt then consume hours of debate.

 

To start, one suspects the motion will fall flat quickly. Most councilors are quite happy with the status quo of 12 councilors plus a mayor with 7 ward councilors and 5 at-large councilors.  After all, it has gotten them where they currently sit, and a smaller council will mean more competition for the remaining spots.  However, even a defeat of Councillor You’s motion will be useful to him as he will then be able to complain that his desire to save taxpayers money by advocating for a council of 8 at-large councilors plus one mayor has been thwarted by spendthrifts resistant to change – a useful mantra when one has plans for running for higher office.

 

The problem is that changing the system of municipal representation in Thunder Bay – an institutional compromise devised nearly 50 years ago to balance the north-south population division of the city – needs to be done thoughtfully. It is true that there are more councilors per capita in Thunder Bay than is the case in quite a few other cities.  At the same time, that is what happens when you devise a hybrid model of representation to combine ward specific interests with at large viewpoints designed to represent the whole.  Simply reducing the number of councilors is not going to save a meaningful sum of money – the total cost of all the councilors in terms of their stipends and expenses is currently well under one million dollars on an operating budget close to $200 million – under one half of one percent. Indeed, one can even make the case that they should use the meager savings from reducing the size of council to pay the remainder more to attract a better quality of candidate – which in the end really would not save any money on representation though it might lead to better civic decision making in the long run.

 

And then there is the issue of representation.  Should we have only at-large councilors who could all end up being from more affluent parts of the city as can sometimes be the case?  If we go to a smaller council, can we ensure that it will make better decisions or will the reduction in representation simply reduce the number of viewpoints. And then there is the fundamental issue of at-large or ward representation.  If we go totally to ward representation, what will the boundaries of a new ward system be?  Can we design some north-south ward boundaries given the geographic population distribution which still resembles that of 50 years ago? 

 

The case decades ago for at-large councilors was that in the wake of amalgamation and the Fort William-Port Arthur split, having purely ward representation would lead to parochial decision making and deadlock.  However, fifty years after amalgamation, is that division still as important in how municipal politicians approach issues? Surely, ward councilors can be just as capable as at-large councilors of taking the entire city’s interests into mind.  And then, it remains that much of what the city does is local service provision and ward councilors are the best located as the focal points of concerns in specific neighborhoods rather than at-large politicians using their councilor positions to prepare for higher office.

 

In the end, the councilors should leave the issue as it was decided a year ago and let the city clerk’s office review the boundaries of wards and provide options for composition of City Council.  Better yet, given that city administration ultimately has an interest in the design of any council, it would be better if more of an effort was  made to commission an independent arm’s length panel to review the situation and present options to council.  Whatever happens, one can rest assured that there is not going to be any radical changes in the size and composition of council decided by council and city administration as it is akin to asking predatory foxes to provide policy on the hen house. Any radical institutional change will occur as it did prior to amalgamation in 1970 – by provincial fiat or decree. Quite frankly, I don’t think the province is interested this time around.

 

 

The Zaniness Continues at Thunder Bay City Council

 

Canada’s longest running combination of basic income for politicians experiment and situation comedy continues with the weekly meetings of Thunder Bay City Council as they wrap up their budget reviews and deal with their usual business at hand.  For those of us of a certain vintage, the online meetings do look like a continually shifting combination of the Brady Bunch intro and Hollywood Squares and during the long meetings one can draw some amusement from deciding which councillor or administrator is playing the role of Paul Lynde, or perhaps Gladys, Marcia or Peter. 

 

Nevertheless, even the councillors themselves seem to be increasingly exasperated by the meetings with last week seeing one councillor complain out loud about accomplishing nothing after several hours of debate on the presence of hockey nets at city skating surfaces produced no solution.  Several weeks ago, the chair of the budget committee’s facial expression was priceless as one councillor for whatever reason went on a bit of a rant that the city budget was so complicated that it made him dizzy.  It would appear that fiscal vertigo is one of the job hazards of being a Thunder Bay City Councillor.

 

And last week’s meeting also dealt with the free transit fare proposal and produced a suggestion that given the cost of implementing a completely free fare system, that perhaps there should be one free day a month.  One is surprised that the more progressive minded members of council did not use this opportune juncture to  borrow from the collective wisdom of our current Prime Minister and recently departed Governor General to state that we all experience reality differently and that transit patrons should simply decide when boarding the bus if they thought it was a fare free day.  In the end, Council simply decided to freeze transit fares saving riders $68,000 as it would appear that the $115,000 cost of one free day a month was better spent on a new Thunder Bay waterfront sign.

 

There are of course more serious issues to be discussed but councillors in Thunder Bay prefer spending time on these digressions to avoid the more serious business at hand.  To use yet another colorful marine metaphor, it would appear they are simply a school of freshwater smelts who rather than swim upstream to perform their reproductive duty as nature and need mandate, prefer to linger in the shallows, dally around the shore and even go in the opposite direction by joining the flow downstream.   In the end, they do not accomplish what they should and all they manage is entangling themselves on hockey nets and other debris. 

 

Among the more serious issues are two in particular.  First, there is the matter of the 2021 budget which after several review meetings has done little to further reduce the levy.  Apparently, the few hundred thousand dollars in savings that have been generated by the ponderous line by line review is seen as sufficient given that the starting levy increase came in at about two percent.  Suggestions of making more substantial reductions were rejected by most councillors and the Mayor, because they have apparently already made so many and they have been keeping levy rate increases after assessment growth at an average of 2.39 percent since 2012. 

The selective mathematical analysis leaves out the point that the total levy increase since 2012 has actually averaged just over 3 percent annually.  Moreover, one wonders how they can continually say they have made reductions when the total tax levy continues to grow faster than the rates of population growth and inflation combined.  It remains that the councillors have yet to seriously deal with the spending and staffing reform necessary to reduce the tax levy to more sustainable levels.  As stated previously on Northern Economist, given that nearly 60-70 percent of the municipal tax levy is spending on wages, salaries and benefits, there needs to be a policy of reducing the staffing footprint via attrition with reallocation to priority services and functions. 

 

The hard work of making more lasting structural changes in spending, given that Thunder Bay spends substantially more than other municipalities particularly on protection services and administration, is too much for our councillors to handle.  Instead, as shown in last week’s meetings, the councillors prefer the parry, thrust, dodge, spin approach to policy debate with several councillors shedding crocodile tears for the taxpayer’s burden and then calling for tax reform at the federal and provincial level to reduce the reliance of municipalities on property taxation.  No doubt, they will next send a delegation to Belgium requesting Pfizer speed up vaccine deliveries to Thunder Bay because the High Council of the Lakehead has decreed it.  Of course, there is a certain irony in the fact that external powers often respond to our City councillors and administration with the same casual indifference that Thunder Bay ratepayers have come to know.

 

And speaking of casual indifference when responding to constituents, secondly, there is the perpetually pesky matter of the pinhole leaks in the wake of the addition of sodium hydroxide to the water supply.  Thunder Bay City Council and Administration have delivered their reply in court.  In response to the lawsuit filed by St. Joseph’s Care Group (SJCG), they simply deny any responsibility for the problem.  Indeed, their position is summarized by:

 

·       the city reasonably and in good faith exercised its power resulting from policy decisions concerning the management, maintenance and modification of the water system

·       the city denies that its acts or submissions caused or contributed to the presence of pinhole leaks in copper water pipes

·       the city lawfully carried on its responsibilities for the general benefit of the community at large

·       the city at no time made non-natural use of its water supply or infrastructure

 

None of this is surprising as the City has basically denied any responsibility all along, nor has it offered any assistance given the hardship thousands of homeowners and institutions have suffered in Thunder Bay.  Indeed, the real problem with the pinhole leaks issue is not only whether they followed an approved process but also the City’s reaction of doing absolutely nothing to assist property owners once the problems became apparent. 

 

What is more surprising is the assertion that: “The plaintiff knew that its pipes were old and beyond their reasonable life expectancy, yet they took no steps to replace them, nor did they install water leak detection systems.” What they are essentially saying is that if your house in Thunder Bay is more than 30-40 years old, you should go probably go out and replace all of your piping as preventive maintenance.  The building codes in Thunder Bay are so high quality that houses have a forty-year expiry date.  That should be an interesting addition to Thunder Bay’s marketing as a destination for prospective businesses and immigrant seeking to come and set up shop in Thunder Bay.

 

Moreover, while the SJCG is represented by Cheadles LLP of Thunder Bay, the city has used the tax dollars of the affected parties to hire the Toronto Law Firm of Theall Group thereby ensuring the leakage of water pipes is being supported by the leakage of spending power out of the local economy.  But then, the hiring of Toronto law firms to deal with local residents whether it is litigation or labour bargaining has become a feature of publicly funded institutions in Thunder Bay.  No doubt, councillors will assuage their consciences by intoning the importance of shopping local in Thunder Bay and asking for the rest of us to support local business as we select companies to replace our copper pipes.  If that does not stimulate the economy, then having your housing stock expire every forty-years should do the trick in generating new housing construction projects for a non-growing and aging population.

 

The zaniness continues and we are all paying for it.

 

 

Thunder Bay City Council's Increasingly Out of Touch Vision for Thunder Bay

 

If history teaches us anything, it is that periods of pandemic are ultimately associated with eras of great economic and social change and disruption.  One only has to go back to the Black Death or The Spanish Flu to see the effects on labour markets and societal attitudes and ultimately all aspects of life.   Much like the wake of 9/11 which saw enhanced security measures entrenched forever, once the pandemic has subsided, there will not be a full return to the world we had before.

 

This era will be no different and in Thunder Bay all of these changes coincide with an increasing sense of disquiet many residents feel with respect to the direction the City has been taking.  Along with continuing high rates of crime, racism and mental illness, the lineups at food banks have been increasing and there seems to be a return to a wild west frontier mentality with the increasing number of people being stopped by police for driving under the influence. 

 

Moreover, there seems to be  an increasing sense of detachment from the public by the Mayor, City Councillors and Administrators whose recent decisions with respect to major capital projects such as the proposed Turf facility and new police facilities, the silence on the epidemic of home plumbing issues linked to City water, and a preoccupation with what seem to be superficial issues like tourism signs and future sporting events, all seem to conflict with what appear to be more pressing issues.  The discussion of rising taxes when other cities such as Kitchener or Edmonton have decided to keep their increases closer to zero provides another disconnect with residents.

 

The City is in the midst of major program reviews and yet City Councillors seem to shelve much of the advice provided while continually talking about the cost savings they have generated.  They are also being presented with a new master plan on regional paramedic services whose text underlines the ominous future of a city with stagnant population growth and yet ever rising needs for the services of paramedics due to aging as well as a population more prone to a variety of social ills.  With the 2021 budget coming, one is left with the impression that ultimately, the Mayor and Councillors are gearing up for another major tax hike to meet all of these needs given their unwillingness to prioritize.

 

So, the question is what kind of vision is driving the approach of successive City Councils and the Administrators and the policy apparatus in Thunder Bay?  One would venture that Thunder Bay City Council suffers from an increasingly stale 50-year old vision of what Thunder Bay needs.  That vision could be summarized as follows:  Thunder Bay is a regional center and strategically located full-service high-tech urban oasis set in a pristine natural wonderland with a wonderful quality of life on crucial east-west trade and transport routes whose full potential is unrealized.  Indeed, the entire City’s potential is unrealized and what Thunder Bay needs is continual infrastructure investment to attract people and effective communication of our potential to convey the message of how wonderful we are.  While Thunder Bay may have social problems, they are not any worse than other places and have been blown out of proportion by the national media. City residents need to have a positive attitude, stay the course on this strategy, and we need to invest in the public services and infrastructure to make it all happen.

 

This is in essence what has been driving policy in Thunder Bay since amalgamation.  Lost in this vision of the future is the fact that since 1970, the City has stayed static in population, its industrial mainstays have largely disappeared, and its grain transportation role fallen to a shadow of its former glory.   The fact that people often move to communities because of job opportunities seems lost on Thunder Bay’s governing elites.  Anyone pointing out the fact that the City has become a welfare dependency given that over 30 percent of employment is now public sector or tied to government grants is a “Negative Nellie.”  While there indeed has been some job creation in the knowledge economy and the health and education sectors that have helped provide a market for some entrepreneurs, it remains that this has been largely a rear-guard maintenance action that has had difficulty keeping pace with the employment losses.

 

Key to this vision is the level of municipal spending, employment and infrastructure investment designed to keep the economy going via construction projects.   This spending is financed by government grants and by tax increases levied increasingly on the residential tax base given the departure of the industrial mainstays who provided the base for the past development of a very generous level of municipal spending.  Tax increases are justified by “a build it and they will come philosophy” even though after fifty years we have built a lot and population is still the same.  When the point on practically zero population growth is mentioned, the response is to mention that we have large numbers of temporary residents whether they be students or visitors from outlying First Nations who need services.  However, we do not seem to have numbers documenting this aside from the numbers City Councillors and Administrators like to throw out - numbers like “20,000 or 30,000 more” during meetings without good empirical evidence.  Most importantly, there is the unanswered question as to why municipal ratepayers should even be providing these additional population services out of a local property tax base?  Where are the provincial or federal governments in all of this?

 

When the high level of taxation is mentioned, the response is that yes, the tax rate is higher here but our cost of living is so much lower so it is “okay” to have local residents pay more on their property taxes to provide services comparable to other places.  From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.  However, by cost of living, City Councillors generally mean that we have lower average property prices without realizing that the reason we have lower property prices is because of the lack of population growth and the fact that higher tax rates have been capitalized into lower property values.  Indeed, property prices are as high as they are in Thunder Bay because of fairly effective supply management on new home building and low interest rates.  Then there is also the need to differentiate between costs and ability to pay for those costs.

 

Take for example a comparison between Toronto and Thunder Bay.  An average property in Toronto now sells for about one million dollars whereas an average property in Thunder Bay is closer to 300,000.  Given the average 2020 property tax rates of 0.599 in Toronto and 1.563 in Thunder Bay, the property taxes paid on an "average" property would be $4,689 in Thunder Bay and $5,990 in Toronto – 28 percent higher in Toronto.  The problem is that the basis of comparison should be similarly priced properties or similar properties (eg. a three bedroom bungalow in both locations) in which case the Thunder Bay home often pays substantially more.  If you have a $500,000 property in Thunder Bay – which many people now do – you are paying as much in property taxes as a property worth three times that in Toronto. 

 

And then there is the ability to pay for those taxes which is financed out of current income.   According to the NUMBEO cost of living comparison website, in Thunder Bay, the average monthly salary after taxes is $2,783 while in Toronto it is $4,214 – 51 percent higher in Toronto.  Aside from rent and commuting costs, the cost of living for just about everything else is not that much lower in Thunder Bay compared to Toronto. 

 

So, we have an expensive vision of local and regional municipal government spending based on an economic base that no longer exists.  That vision is justified by a “build it and they will come philosophy” which after 50 years, has yet to yield results.  When the Mayor and Council are criticized – and assuming they choose to respond and do not just ignore you or disparage you as a crackpot - they respond with dubious arguments about how our cost of living and property values are lower thereby resulting in lower taxes meaning they can be raised more because they are a bargain compared to Toronto.  Of course, if the cost of living here was truly lower resulting in a surplus for local residents in excess of what they need, why we might not want to keep money in our own pockets rather than simply hand it over to the local municipal-industrial-construction complex is a question that Thunder Bay politicians do not want to answer. 

We are now in a time of great change and Thunder Bay will need to adapt as well as deal with the legacy of its past decisions. And yet, the old inflexible vision goes on, and so unfortunately does the sense of alienation felt by many local residents.  Thunder Bay needs a new vision and one that is sustainable given the current tax base.

 

 

Dealing with the Real Issues at Thunder Bay City Council

 

Thunder Bay City Council has a packed agenda this week but among all the items there is not one mention of the crucial issue now affecting close to 3000 residents in the city – the issue of the continued plague of leaky pipes and resulting damage to homes and businesses.  Compounding all that has been happening on this front,  is that there are increasing reports of heavier chlorine smells in city tap water.  There is no point in asking your City Councillor why that is as they have probably been advised by the City’s lawyers not to talk about anything related to water.  So, as usual we are left having to surmise what is going on and my educated guess is that there have been so many line breaks and repairs in the city water system that they have upped the disinfecting of the water to prevent potential contaminants from getting in to the water.  We are fortunate that Thunder Bay's Mayor and council is not responsible for information updates on the local COVID-19 situation given their stoic reticence on issues affecting public health and welfare.

 

However, the City does not want to talk about water so we will have to focus on other issues in their hefty agenda this week.  Among the pressing issues on the Monday evening agenda are: waterfront trail development, an update on protective shields for transit drivers, and advocacy for a federal basic income program. Of these, having the City advocate for a federal basic income program is the one where Thunder Bay City Councillors have the most expertise.  After all, Thunder Bay has been running a basic income program for the members of Thunder Bay City Council since 1970 and we are still evaluating the value for money of the program given the annual spending on a mayor and twelve councilors. So I suspect that several hours will be devoted to discussing basic income and there will be many eloquent words on the need to alleviate suffering and hardship that is not related to the provision of basic municipal water and sewer infrastructure.

 

The more interesting item later this week will be the discussion of responses to the Grant Thorton Program Review that will be provided to council by City Administration.  Unfortunately, given that Superior North EMS and the TB Fire Rescue are undergoing their own separate strategic planning processes, they are not included in the report which seems paradoxical given that it is a systematic review of the entire city’s operations.  One could ask either the Mayor or the councilors about this but they have probably been advised by their lawyers not to respond. 

 

The responses from administration have been divided into implement, further review and no further action.  The most interesting items in this report are the further review because they contain some of the most contentious and larger ticket cost items and include: discontinuing private child care, moving city run Pioneer Ridge to an alternative model of care, the sale or closure of the Jumbo Gardens Community Centre, Vale Community Centre and Boulevard Lake Beach, “service adjustments” (which one suspects is adminspeak for reductions) for Chippewa Park and the Canada Games Complex, the closure of both remaining city owned golf courses and finally, water and sewer operations.   

 

The last item in particular is understandable as still under review as there has probably been advice from lawyers to the city of Thunder Bay not to deal with any water and sewer issues publicly.  Indeed, one suspects the Mayor and Council would probably be most  happy if their lawyers would advise them not to discuss or answer any questions at all about anything in the program review.

 

The meetings tonight and later this week will feature a lot of talk and posturing but in the end little of substance will transpire in the public sessions.