My first taste of political activism came in 1996, during the first term of the Conservative government of Mike Harris. If you remember them, they took over in 1995 when the Province of Ontario was running a ten-billion dollar per year deficit. In 2003, when Mike Harris' successor Ernie Eves (pictured left ) got turfed from office--after 37 secondary teacher strikes, 14 primary teacher strikes, 3 provincial employee strikes, a half dozen environmental disasters (Walkerton, a couple of tire fires and, if I recall correctly, a plague of aphids)--the deficit stood at about seven billion per year.
Those were dark times indeed.
I was just a young Lib back then, more interested in Art and Literature than fooling around in the political arena. But during late 1995 and 1996, the Harris government reached a decision to amalgamate the various municipalities that made up Metro Toronto into one huge "Megacity". A number of fairly effective grass-roots groups had sprung up around town to protest the plan, in particular Citizens for Local Democracy (C4LD), which was led by ex-Toronto mayor John Sewell. Sitting around my computer one night in '96, feeling pissed off at the government but not knowing how to channel my frustration, I found the C4LD website, and was galvinized into action.
Now, in 1996 the American elections were in full swing just to the South of us. Clinton was taking on old Bob Dole. This was the first election in which the Internet played a central role. For example, a couple of Dole campaign staffers (a man and wife team) were caught posting messages and nude pictures to a "swingers group" on Usenet. These were forced to resign from the campaign, and Dole spent a couple of days being severely embarrassed.
And so I got thinking. My job at the time involved alot of working with search engines and doing research via the Internet. It occurred to me that a lot of Harris' new MPPs were from small towns outside of Toronto where there were (at the time) no functioning ISPs. Given the standard learning curve for new Internet users, I figured that a lot of these guys had probably spent their first six months in office downloading porn and masturbating over their computers.
(Nothing against small towns; I am talking about an experience that was almost universal for men of that era. The vast waves of middle-age white males that migrated onto the Net in the mid-90s did so for the free Filth. Guys who had never owned a PC before, who could barely type with two fingers, bought one at around this time, in search the great on-line Pornucopia. In fact, for most men of the time, the first "bad" experience on-line was when they accidentally set a picture of a naked blonde chick getting whipped by a gorilla as their background image. I knew one guy did that the first day he owned his computer. He unplugged it in panic, and left it turned it off for a week while he figured out what the procedure for resetting your background was. He told his wife the new PC had caught "a virus", and she had to leave the machine turned off or she might catch it too.
Actually, things have changed radically since then. Kids today know so much more about computers, and they get at the porn so early that by the time they're 12 or 13 its all passe to them. But in case this is still useful knowledge, here's how you remove a dirty picture from your desktop.
Go to Control Panel on your Start Menu, and open it. Go to display, and open it. Go to Desktop and look for the files given as possible background files. Change that file to something you can show the kids without them thinking dad's a pervert)
So anyway, I had this image in my mind of a couple hundred Tory's (fifty, puffy, male and white) lounging around Queen's Park with their dicks in their hands. And I thought: maybe one of these guys is a real sick fucker, but has never had a chance to express it before. Maybe this hypothetical Tory wants to bang midgets, for example, and maybe he's using his government Internet account to arrange rendevous with midgets all around the city.
And I thought: its up to me to expose this guy and help bring down the government, just like whoever caught those two campaign workers screwed things up for Bob Dole.
So, I systematically began harvesting names and emails from campaign, party, and government websites, and began running them those search engines, SpyKing, and other online surveillance tools. It took me the better part of the week, and I came up with exactly one "hit".
It turned out that one of Mike Harris' 905 area code back-benchers, who shall remain nameless (because I forget his name) had been posting messages to a Usenet group devoted to Hair Restoratives. In particular, he had been asking about how Xaonal--how effective it was, what the side effects were. Bingo! I'd found an MPP with a dirty little secret! He was going bald! Not quite what I had been looking for, but what the hell.
I surfed to the Government of Ontario website to confirm my suspicions. There was a bio with picture posted for every Tory MPP, and sure enough, my boy had a little recession of his own going on up top.
I was energized now. I sent my research off to their C4LD leadership council (MPPs picture included), and fired off the same information to reporters at all the local dailies.
But here is the funny thing. Nothing really came of it. There were no stories in the Globe, and nothing even in the TO Sun. I can only assume that these papers harbored a pro-Tory bias, or that losing your hair is no longer the scandal it once was.
In any case, that was my first taste of political activism. I've been raising hell ever since.
From the Big City, BigCityLib saying goodbye for now.
7 comments:
Thanks anonymous. Consider them smited!
Hip and thigh!
BigCityLoser,
This is one shitty litle blog. It looks like it was put together by a retarded five year old.
What a vivid description of computer novices going through the learning curve on the internet. I am sure that this could only come from someone who actually went through those very same experiences.
And now that I know what you and your blog are really about, I think I'll avoid this one like the plague.
So long PERVERT!
Yeah, Harris and the deficits. Seems you forgot the intermittent years when Harris/Eves balanced the budget, and had a surplus.
Or that this was done on the backs of a greatly increased debt burden, after the close to $70 Billion that Bob Rae added in his five glorious years at the helm.
Anyways, only in a year with SARS, Mad Cow, and the Great Blackout did we go back into recession (and the "impartial" auditor pegged it at $5.6 Billion, not $7B).
McGuinty could have and should have already balanced the budget, but instead he's doing what all Liberals do best. The people of Ontario can sense this, and will judge accordingly.
But during late 1995 and 1996, the Harper government reached a decision to
Man, Harper's in your head, eh?! Too funny.
You really can't trust anybody. Look at this group that says they represent all tenants but have been screwing them for decades.
Whoa, did I find some interesting stuff on the Federation of Metro Toronto Tenants Associations page.
Look what I found on their FMTA sells out tenants article
This is a story about how in 1986, the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations demanded from the Ontario Liberal government of David Peterson that they must chose 9 people to represent all tenants in Ontario, and how those tenant representatives sold us all out to the Liberals.
Two of those tenant representatives are now the lead "tenant stakeholders" the Dalton McGuinty government is talking with, Dan McIntyre, head of the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations, and Kathy Laird, Legal Director of the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario. We hope to get the complete list soon, and how many of them went to work for the government shortly after selling out the tenants of Ontario.
The Chair of that Committee, Leslie Robinson is who is quoted extensively in this article was put in charge of picking the Board of Directors and setting up the structure of the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, and Kathy Laird as Legal Director.
The results of the Residential Rent Regulation Act of 1986 that they supported, were the largest rent increases in Ontario history, with many buildings recieving one year rent increases of 20%, with some reaching 30 and 40% in a single year.
Rent Reform's Elusive Accord
Tenant reps are endorsing the Liberals' new rent review law but the associations they hail from want nothng to do with it.
Now, December 11-17, 1986
by Jane Story
A year ago, housing minister Alvin Curling, formed an advisory committe made up of nine landlord and nine tenant representatives. After months of negotiations, an agreement was reached by both sides and the committee's recommendations were incorporated into a new version of the Residential Rent Regulation act, now Bill 51, passed by the legislature yesterday (Wednesday).
It's obvious that such consensus is political manna for a party that hopes to woo both financially powerful owners and vote-heavy renters. Curling calls it an "historic agreement." But Curling's political gain may be at the tenant movement's expense. It looks like the historic divide between landlord and tenant has shifted bearings for the moment into a rift between tenant organizations which have denounced the bill and some tenant organizers who have given their support.
Bill 51 replaces rent review legislation that limits landlords to annual rent hikes of 4 per cent. The previous legislation had long been considered unsatisfactory, both by tenants — because so many buildings were exempted — and by landlords and the construction industry who say the impairment of profit crushed the incentive to build new rental housing in a market that is increasingly desperate for it.
The most obvious change in the new legislation is the replacement of the flat 4 per cent ceiling with a complex formula that takes each landlord's costs into consideration. Curling calls it "the most responsive, constructive and sensitive system of rent review in North America." But Bill 51 is so complex that no one can confidently predict its exact impact. What is certain is that it will have a far reaching effect on all the basic housing issues — inclucing new building construction, the retention of existing rental housing, building maintenance and rental costs.
Not surprisingly, part of the battle centers around differing interpretations of the hypothetical impact of the new regulations. But the debate also touches on the deeper problem of devising strategy in a new political context. After 42 years of Tory closed-door politics, the new minority government's markedly consultative approach has raised new issues for grassroots organizing efforts. The current political scene makes concessions possible which were all but unattainable in the past, though it's clear that the Liberals will never stray too far from the business interests to which they are committed. The tenant movement is being forced to confront just where to draw the line between compromise and cooptation.
To both the Tories and the NDP, the minister pitched his bill as a landlord-tenant truce, and he warned the opposition against any changes that would disturb the delicate balance of interest that has been struck.
The NDP was unconvinced. Housing critic David Reville, the Riverdale MPP, proposed 60 amendments to the legislation and refutes the government's claim that a settlement between landlords and tenants has been reached.
Never consulted
"Basically, the people on the rent review advisory committee were appointed by the government. It is an agreement between nine tenant representatives and nine landlord representatives, but there is a bit of fast footwork in the terms of the description of these people as representatives," he says.
This sentiment is echoed by Bart Poesiat, a staffer at Parkdale Community Legal Clinic — long a leader in the area of tenant rights — though the chairperson of Curling's committee is Mary Hogan, who was the director of the Parkdale Community Legal Clinic when she agreed to sign on.
"The Parkdale Tenants' Association ws never consulted and never knew anything about the committee or even that the committee was being formed," says Poesiat.
"When the bill first came out, the Parkdale Tenants' Association called a meeting and a lot of tenants came out and a lot of questions were asked. It was obvious that the bill was taking money out of the pockets of tenants and transferring it into the pockets of landlords with the hope that they would then start building new housing."
It is certainly the government's contention that Bill 51 will "set the stage for a rebirth of investor interest in rental housing." But even Leslie Robinson, who sat on the tenants' side of the advisory committee, undercuts these expectations. If any new rental housing is created, she sees it happeing at the high end of the market, unaffordable for many tenants.
So why did Robinson, a respected tenant advocate and coordinator of the Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations for 12 years, agree to collaborate?
Robinson maintains that along with all the other tenant representatives, she was nominated by the federation, although it was understood that she would not be representing the federation or binding it to any accord.
The federation has since been very critical of the legislation and last month rallied tenants to protest its ascent. In a brief submitted to the legislative committee debating the bill, the federation contended that the new rent reforms will not end "the gouging that forces tenants to subsidize speculators" and will ultimately "make the rich richer and the poor poorer."
Robinson defends her position on the advisory committee, which she still holds.
"The report that I signed was a recommendation based on what I thought we could get out of the Liberals, not what I want to see ultimately. I can't say this is the best policy in the world or even that this is a fairly good policy, but given what the Liberal government was intending to do, this is what I think is the best we could get.
"I believed, and I still do, that we got more reforms and a better housing policy by participating in the process and signing the report than we would have got if we had pursued lobbying."
Included in Robinson's inventory of achievements is a commitment from the minister to build 3,000 non-profit housing units, a recommendation for security of tenure for roomers and boards, and Bill 11, passed last summer. Robinson argues that Bill 11, which prevents the demolition of existing housng or its conversion to high-priced condominiusm, would never have gone through if tenant reps on the advisory committee had not made support for Bill 51 conditional on the passing of Bill 11.
Robinson estimates that more than 10,000 units were saved in metro. Her critic scoff. They see Bill 11, effetive for only two years, as a weak law, already assured by the Liberal-NDP accord, and not worth the tradeoff.
Tenant groups are particularly opposed to the government's calculated rent guideline, a complex formula equalling 2 per cent plus two-thirds of a typical landlord's operating costs, which on average will increase rents by 5.2 per cent next year. Rents could go much higher since no ceiling has been put on increases.
More reforms
This arrangement is supposed to ensure good maintenance and tenant protection during periods of high inflation. But the metro tenants federation is skeptical. "Once all the weighing and averaging is over," the federation says, "the formula boils down to a very simple and unfair conclusion: pay the landlord for his cost increases and then pay 2 per cent of your rent more each year."
Robinson also sees the regulation as a concession to landlords that was necessary even though it weakens the bill from the tenant point of view.
"It was a concession to landlords who were saying, `If you want us to improve the maintenance, we have to increase our operating costs.' So we gave them the money but we didn't make any requirement for them to improve the maintenance. I expect some responsible landlords will improve their maintenance but irresponsible landlords will put that money in their pockets.
Bill's cost
"One per cent is to cover capital expenses and financial cost increases that the landlord would have endured rather than going to rent review. The extra one per cent is more profit for landlord. In my mind, it is the cost of Bill 11."
"In the last three or four years, I was hearing more tenants complain to me about the lack of supply and poor maintenance and the loss of housing through demolition than I was hearing tenants tell me the rent review guidelines are too high. I don't hear very many tenants say, `I can't pay an extra one per cent.' I hear a lot of people say, `I have no where to go and my buidlng is being torn down.'"
However, there are concerns with even modest rent increase because of the decline in the relative income of tenants. The federation points out that in 1983, tenants' incomes were more than 22 per cent lower than in 1971. According to Statistics Canada, almost one-fifth of tenants are already paying 40 per cent or more of their incomes in rent, while nearly one-third pay more than 30 per cent. The NDP estimates that tenants will have to fork up an extra $1.4 billion in rent over the next five years as a result of the new guidelines.
Another bone of contention for tenant groups is the new rent registry. "The problem with the rent registry is that it starts now," says Poesiat. "What we've always argued is that it should register rents going back to 1976, when rent review came into place. (Under the bill) if a tenant does prove that his rents are illegal and, say he has been paying rents for five years, he can only collect the excesd rents he has been paying since August 1985. This is like pardoning the landlord for committing crimes. It's an amnesty for landlords.
Landlord pardon
The advisory committee also recommended that registered rents be deemed legal if a landlord, who has not previously gone to rent review for an increase, can prove that if he had, the legal rent would now be close to what he is charging. This, too, amounts to a pardon, the committee admits.
The amnesty was a major demand of the landlords, says Robinson. "In deciding to give in to that demand, it seems that in making a tradeoff what we were talking about were lump sums of money on a fairly random basis. It's all dealing in the past, it's not going to bring rents down."
Extending rent control to properties built since 1975 is providing universal protection for tenants, the government claims. But critics don't consider this the case, since the registry exempts rooming and boarding housing, ostensibly because of administrative difficulties.
But the most controversial aspect of the new law is one which allows landlords an additional 2 per cent increase if their rates of return are less than 10 per cent or if the rent charged is deemed chronically depressed — more than 20 per cent below the going rate.
Robinson does not feel accountable for this provision, as it is the one aspect of the new law which the advisory committee did not recommend. The tenant representatives recognize that this provision to raise the lowest rent to market levels will erode affordable housing, particularly in Parkdale. Landlords did not recommend this provision either. They wanted more.
Though these disadvantaged landlords may prove difficult to distinguish, their tenants are more easily identified. A study commissioned by the advisory committee showed that over 40 per cent of tenants being charged depressed rents are paying 25 per cent or more of their incomes in rent. One quarter of these tenants are either retired or out of work. Critics predict hardship relief for landlords will mean economic eviction for tenants.
A scathing review of Bill 51 was prepared by the Tenant Umbrella Group, a committee of legal workers and lawyers which was formed to represent their clients at the hearings of the now defunct Thom Commission, the Conservative inquiry into rent review reforms."
The umbrella group challenges the Liberals' definition of chronically depressed rents, and questions the premise that market rents are desirable. They argue that fixing the price of accommodation at market levels assumes that market forces are in place — which they are not, as the present low vacancy rates indicate. They fear increase will bring affordable rents up to currenly illegal levels.
Scathing review
The relief clause also allows landlords to immediately raise their rents to the market rate if the unit becomes vacant or the tenant agrees to the increase. Reville foresees huge possibilities for coercion here.
"I see landlords forcing tenants to sign these agreements or getting them out just so they can fast track their units." Reville tried to have this section deleted.
Another consideration for the economic well-being of the landlrods is the clause to cover financial loss. The bill's critics say loss is incurred when properties are turned over for a fast buck — like the 1982 Cadillac Fairview deal. After that scam, a cap of 5 per cent spread over five years was put on claims for financial loss. Critics are concerned the erosion of this protection detected in Bill 51 will encourage speculation and building flips.
Robinson feels tenants should not have to pay for a landlord's financial losses, and says the tenant reps on the committee tried in vain to wipe out this provision.
One mistake
"We kept the 5 per cent but we didn't keep the five-year basis. In my mind, this is the one mistake we made and I think it will encourage the sale of more buildings. If there is one thing I wish the legislation would change, it is that."
Landlords have their reservations too about Bill 51, but say its is a step towards eliminating rent controls altogether.
Meanwhile, the advisory committee continues to meet, although at least three tenant representatives have since resigned from the tenant organizations they were initially affiliated with.
"By the time I quit (the federation)," says Robinson, "I was feeling I just couldn't keep wearing two hats. I realized what the differnece was. If you are an advisor to the minister, that's one thing and if you're representing tenants and saying, `This is the position tenants take,' that's another thing. I couldn't keep publicly clear what hat I was wearing."
"The question is, how is there going to be an assurance that the assigned representatives actually represent tenants. I think we represented them. I don't think we were representing any other interests, but if the advisory committee is going to continue, we have to make sure that there be more work done connecting the committee to tenant groups."
It may not be too late. The advisory committee could set about reforming the Landlord and Tenant Act next.
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