Peddle to the polls

A proof is a proof

In grade school math, the common refrain from our teachers is that it isn’t enough to just write down the answer to a question. We have to show our work and provide our reasoning for how we got from 2+2 to 4. As the math we’re taught becomes more complicated, it becomes more and more important for us to show that we’re putting in the effort to follow the steps outlined by our teachers and not just look the answers up online, scribbling the numbers down without understanding how 2+2 becomes 4.

In high school or college or undergrad, when we write essays on any topic - from the colonial fur trade to llama herding practices in the Andes - we have to cite our sources. We have to show that we’ve done even a small amount of research on a topic, developing a baseline familiarity with it before making any claims that might be untrue, misdirected, or just plain weird. “In this essay, I will prove that the colonial fur trade was conducted entirely by llamas,” is a hard thesis statement to prove when you don’t have any supporting evidence from legitimate sources. I always tell my students they can start with popular media reports or online sources, but they always have to back up the claims in those reports or sources with evidence from academic journals, peer-reviewed books, or their own research.

In academia, when we’re publishing papers, we send them off to peer review to catch any mistakes, raise important questions, and make sure we’re backing up our findings. Even if it is something as simple as restating a claim we have spent a career studying, we have to provide some source to cover our bases and show the reading audience that we are capable of practicing what we preach.

Proof is important. Evidence is important. We have to show there’s purpose behind our actions.

Well, we do as regular people.

Proof and evidence and purpose are, unfortunately, not important to Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government.

Earlier this week, Ontario’s Minister of Transportation, Prabmeet Sarkaria, published an op-ed in the Toronto Star that took direct aim at bike lanes. Presented a little “policy teaser”, it begins with the line: “Toronto is stuck in traffic and bike lanes aren’t helping.”1

Sarkaria provides no evidence for this claim, or any of the other claims made in the op-ed.

Indeed, the only figure he provides in the entire piece is this: “the GTHA’s traffic problem has a real and measurable impact: $11 billion in lost productivity each year, plus dozens of hours for the average commuter spent away from family and loved ones, idling in traffic.”2

He then makes the claim that “taking away vehicle lanes to add bike lanes is only adding to those costs,” again without evidence.

The op-ed rambles along this angrily paved path for a while before capping off with this rage-inducingly insulting paragraph:

Except this policy is not evidence-based. The claims in the article are not evidence-based. Nothing about this is evidence-based.

Bike about it

Two days later, Sarkaria made the announcement official from a Bloor Street bar, the owners of which have been vocal in their opposition to new bike lanes out front their store. Sarkaria indicated that the governing party will move forward with legislation requiring municipalities get provincial sign-off for every bike lane they want to install that would remove lanes of car traffic. Making matters worse, he hinted that the province might step in an undo what municipalities have already done, possibly looking to remove bike lanes on four or five major streets in Toronto.4

On Thursday (just before I published this newsletter), Ford confirmed that every municipality in Ontario will need to retroactively justify bike lanes based on as-of-yet undefined criteria using 5 years worth of cycling and traffic data or the province will, somehow, remove them. In a blustery, evidence-less speech at the Empire Club, Ford said: “It isn’t enough to keep an eye on future bike lanes. We need to and will remove and replace existing bike lanes on primary roads that are bringing traffic in our cities to a standstill.”5 

Immediately after the announcement, David Shellnutt (The Biking Lawyer) told the Star, “Ontarians must see these bike lane attacks from what they are: a tool to distract us from the real problems pressing this province.”6

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO - who, for full disclosure, I’m working with on a number of projects right now), said that none of its members were consulted on this matter and that “Requiring provincial approval would be a significant overreach into municipal jurisdiction.”7

Ford has said this new requirement is in response to popular outrage over bike lanes. Calling the Bloor Street bike lanes “an absolute disaster,” the premier noted that there was “a petition just in Etobicoke for 50,000 people signing to get rid of these bike lanes.” No such petition exists, though there is one petition with around 13,000 signatories from across Ontario calling for a “re-evaluation” of the lanes.

Ford has said this new requirement will make sure there isn’t any impacting emergency vehicles getting where they need to go. Toronto’s EMS service has already said existing bike lanes pose no problem to emergency vehicles.

Ford and Sarkaria have said this new requirement will reduce congestion and speed up traffic. The City of Toronto’s own data on the Bloor Street bike lanes shows that rush hour travel times for cars have increased between 90 seconds and 2.8 minutes and that fall signalization changes will see travel times actually decrease below their pre-bike lane rates.8

So, to recap, Sarkaria presented no evidence when advancing this new policy. Ford and Sarkaria’s own claims about what this policy will do are contradicted by actual evidence. Municipalities say they don’t want this aggressive overreach by the province.

Why, then, is this happening? Well, as Matt Gurney noted for TVO, these are:

Maybe it’s because they’ve realized that Bonnie Crombie is just Doug Ford with worse branding and less charisma, but will likely pursue the same suburban voters the PCs have relied on for years.

Maybe it’s because Doug Ford needs a distraction from the sagas of Ontario Place and the 413 and the 401 tunnel and the Greenbelt scandal and the failing healthcare system and the crumbling schools and the flagrant cronyism when it comes to developers and shady construction firms/unions that seem to always be ready with donations and ideas for fun new policies.

Maybe it’s because he was always going to pursue these policies, having written of his councillor days in his rambling, simplistic manifesto in 2016:

Maybe it’s because he was his brother’s right-hand-man when it came to attacking cyclists while both served on Toronto’s council together, even though they would often “massage” the figures to make bike lanes sound worse than they were and would bully their way into getting council approval to spend more money removing cycling infrastructure than it cost to install it.11 And maybe it’s because all he ever really wanted was to be Mayor of Toronto and was so offended when the residents of that city rejected him that he’s spent years making their lives worse through invasive provincial meddling.

No matter his reasoning, life is about to become very, very unsafe for Ontarians who cycle.

Let’s sum this whole mess up with a handy little bullet-pointed list, shall we?

• Doug Ford, a long-time opponent of safe cycling infrastructure, is pandering to angry commuters by blaming cyclists for their lengthening commute times. To address this, he has instructed his Minister of Transportation, Prabmeet Sarkaria, to pursue legislation that will “upload” the final say over cycling infrastructure to Queen’s Park.

• This attack on the powers of municipalities further weakens local autonomy and creates a more expensive, more centralized, more bureaucratized process for local planners and councillors who want to invest in healthy alternatives to car use. None of the province’s municipalities were consulted on this and none of them want Queen’s Park meddling in their affairs.

• The criteria by which cycling infrastructure will be judged has not been announced, but, with Ford laser-focused on Bloor Street in Toronto (as well as Dundas Street (because it constitutes part of his personal commute), it is likely that the criteria will be backward engineered to prevent the continuation of those projects and the instillation of new projects of a similar nature.

• There is absolutely zero evidence to indicate that cycling infrastructure is having an outsized impact on commute times. Yet, the government will pursue this legislation while simultaneously removing any remaining environmental protections, allowing for more car-dependent sprawl development and creating conditions where roads will have no cycling infrastructure, but will continue to be jammed with single-occupant cars and trucks that will commute daily, for hours, from urban centres to suburban developments.

• Doug Ford is pursuing a policy that won’t work and either a) he knows that and is lying to Ontarians to buy their votes or b) is too stubborn and ill-equipped to be this province’s leader to understand facts. Either case should disqualify him from being this province’s first minister.

And the rest

The single strongest force in opposing these policies has been the Ontario Green Party. Ever since Sarkaria’s op-ed a few days ago, Mike Schreiner and Aislinn Clancy have been front-and-centre in the press, organizing the provincial Greens and calling out the complete lack of evidence behind these policies. In a September press release, Schreiner was quoted as saying: “There is literally no evidence that bike infrastructure makes traffic worse. What does make traffic worse is building communities where residents have no other option but to drive in order to get where they need to go.” They’ve since launched a campaign that allows Ontarians to email Ford directly to express their anger at the new policy, which you can check out here. It’s the Ontario Greens who have been quoted in the news stories about this policy with facts and evidence. It’s the Ontario Greens who have been championing smart, evidence-based policy. It’s the Ontario Greens who seem to take this issue seriously.

Hamilton Centre’s Independent MPP Sarah Jama also released a letter that her office sent to Sarkaria, protesting the decision and calling for “more bike lanes with better protections beyond paint on the road, pedestrian-only streets, more alternatives to driving for commuters, reducing speed limits, or stronger penalties for drivers who endanger the non-drivers with whom they are meant to share the road.” This is good advocacy and ties in well with local priorities and on-the-ground concerns in Hamilton Centre. It is only a shame that Sarkaria’s office will likely dismiss the letter by, once again, raising Jama’s past comments and her censure in the legislature.

The provincial Liberals have been mostly silent on this since the policy was announced. Back in September, when rumours about the changes began circulating, they released a press…comment? I don’t know, it’s small and vague and makes no reference to what they would do differently. It just slams Ford for caring about “booze, bike lanes and his buddies”. Given Crombie’s insistence that she’s totally different than Ford but will basically do the exact same things as him once in office, I’m sure they didn’t want to hold themselves to any promises around bike lanes.

The Ontario NDP has not commented on social media or through official channels since the policies were announced on Tuesday. This is, frankly, concerning. The official opposition has spent more energy informing Ontarians about which of their MPPs they’ve nominated for re-election than addressing this policy. Either they think this won’t be an issue going forward, or they’re lending their tacit approval to this policy, hoping it’ll allow them to make inroads in suburban ridings at the expense of urban voters.

We need to make some things absolutely crystal clear here.

Doug Ford’s policies aren’t just evidence-less nonsense; they’re designed to distract voters and push Ford’s personal vision for this province on everyone, whether they want it or not.

Doug Ford’s policies aren’t just overreach; they’re undemocratic and work to undermine confidence in our local institutions in flagrant violation of the will of the people.

Doug Ford’s policies aren’t just silly; they’ll actively cause harm to countless Ontarians, whether they’re the cyclists who will be harmed on our streets, the motorists who will continue to be stuck in endless lines of traffic, and the communities that will continue to be choked by smog or poisoned by emissions.

For all these reasons (and more), Doug Ford must be defeated in the next provincial election, which he will almost certainly call sometime next spring.

If the province’s two largest opposition parties can’t get their act together and offer the people of this province a compelling alternative beyond “Doug Ford bad” or “What if Doug Ford but less interesting?”, then we as Ontarians need to step up. We can either get involved in these parties and demand change from within or abandon them and side with the independents and the smaller parties that actually give a damn.

Politics is not just some game, as much as the kids in short pants who control the Ontario NDP and Ontario Liberals think it is. We can’t just give it our best shot and then help the host clean up the board and game pieces over a lovely drink after we’ve lost. For some people, politics is life and death. That just doesn’t seem to be sinking in for some folks.

Walk the clogged and angry streets of this province’s urban centres. Walk through the soon-to-be destroyed rural and protected parts of this province. Walk past any ghost bike memorial.

Maybe then the gravity of this situation will hit home.

State of the Sewer

Exciting news! A few days ago, the subscriber count on this humble little newsletter passed 500. It was really heartening to see that many folks signing up to get the newsletter in their inboxes each week.

In less exciting news, it promptly fell by a substantial number a short while later. I’ve always been confused as to why the subscriber count will drop four or five days after I publish, but I suppose that’s just one of life’s little mysteries.

I planned a little “fun fact” section in honour of earning 500 subscribers, but I guess now it’s just a “Happy 76th Edition” fun fact collection. Regardless, enjoy!

• The Most Read Edition of 2024 so far has been “Catching the bus to Conspiracytown” about the Mancinelli/“They’re bussing in the homeless!” issue from early September. That one has been viewed nearly 2,300 times. The next two are a tie at around 1,200 views: “8,494 days of amalgamated bliss” and “High Over Clearwater”, both from April of this year.

• The Most Opened Edition of 2024 (meaning most clicked on by subscribers) is “Shut up and drive” which had a 71% open rate.

• The Post That Earned The Most New Subscribers of 2024 was “Put the housing choice in the basket!”. That edition, from March, earned 23 new subscribers.

Thanks to everyone for sticking it out this long!

Trustee time

What time is it? Trustee time! Yes, it’s that fun and magical time when we take a look at some of the last directly elected members of agencies, boards, and commissions in Canada: school trustees!

Four for all

We’re 35 days out from the close of nominations in the by-election for Ward 4 Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) trustee. So far, interest in the race looks a little light, as there is only one candidate: 2014-2018 HWDSB trustee for Ward 3, Larry Pattison Jr.

Pattison and I first ran together in 2014 and I got to know him during the course of the campaign. In the time since he left office, though, he began posting some anti-“woke” adjacent stuff on social media.

Because of what I saw as a concerning ideological drift to the extreme right, I profiled his stances and aspects of his campaign in a lengthy Twitter thread when he registered to run against Ward 3 trustee Maria Felix Miller in 2022.

At the time, Pattison had been “endorsed” by a fringe far-right group called “Vote Against Woke”, which was also promoting the HWDSB candidacies of people like Larry Masters and Catherine Kronas - two figures who waged an all-out culture war in their campaigns, fixating on queer students and equity policies.

“Vote Against Woke” had overt ties to “Blueprint for Canada”, another far-right group that actively tried to get people to run for school board. Blueprint frames things in terms of an evil, outsider-led, dangerous “left wing perspectives” which aims to erode “professionalism, family bonds, cultural traditions, patriotism, artistic beauty, and excellence in all manner of human achievement.”12 This is in contrast to the “right-wing perspective”, which tries to encourage “the highest possible percentage of the population [to] use their natural skills and talents to lead happy, fulfilling, and meaningful lives,” though, of course, “the right accepts that some degree of inequality is unfortunately necessary for a healthy society to function…”13

The group’s messaging is subtly anti-Semitic and espouses a kind of social Darwinianism that feels icky to even read. “Natural skills”, eh? Care to elaborate on who might have certain skills, Charles Benedict Davenport?

Anyway, I speculated that Pattison may have earned their support by reposting things from far-right Twitter accounts like “WokeWatchCanada”, interacting with Shannon Boschy and Chanel Pfahl, two anti-trans extremists running for school board in Ottawa, and speaking out against “anti-racism” and “critical race theory” policies.

A few folks on social media backed up my thread with some reflections of their own on Pattison’s social media and in-person actions. Pattison’s ties to anti-“woke” groups were profiled by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network and, a week before election day, he told Spec/Hamilton Community News reporter Richard Leitner that he did not accept the endorsement from Vote Against Woke, though did say he “called on Education Minister Stephen Lecce to remove a requirement for boards to create anti-racism policies…[because]…he favours equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives that come ‘from a place of love and understanding and look at the individual rather than our labels’.”14

After my thread on his candidacy, Pattison blocked me on Twitter. In the time since, he has defended his position, stating that it was unfair to have “been categorized as far-right, simply because I followed or retweeted some data they shared,” as he did not see himself as on the far-right, but because “anti-woke wasn’t how I believed we were going to bridge divides.” Pattison has been open about his admiration for Irshad Manji, the writer and educator who opposes “cancellation” and, instead, encourages dialogue, albeit from a perspective of someone who only holds the “left” accountable for their actions. It’s a lot of “hug a conservative” without acknowledging why there might be differences.

Ultimately, we’ll have to wait and see what Pattison’s platform is this time around.

***

Since I’ve started writing about the upcoming trustee by-election, I’ve received more than a few messages asking if I would consider running for Ward 4 trustee.

While I’m incredibly flattered, now’s not the time and that’s not the seat for me. I do want to get involved at some point, but life is hectic and I’m a west Hamilton/downtown boy for now. That said, I can provide some thoughts on who should be the next Ward 4 HWDSB trustee.

The next trustee for Ward 4 should be:

• Someone who is a parent or who has deep connections to education - folks with children in school in the area, who recently graduated, or who have connection to education through teaching or administration or curriculum development have unique insights that should be shared. By the time he stepped down, Mulholland’s only connection to the board was through being a trustee. The residents of Ward 4 would be best served by having someone at the board table with an understanding of what goes on with the board and what can be improved.

• Someone who lives in the area - I’ve never been a fan of this city’s militant obsession with someone needing to be rooted to a ward like a tree, but I do think it is important to have some understanding of the place you’re running to represent. East Hamilton has a lot of diversity and many unique challenges that would be best addressed by someone who really, truly knows that part of the city.

• Someone new - Former trustees might want the seat, but Ward 4 deserves a fresh voice. They’ve had the same trustee since the 1970s, so now is time for someone with a unique perspective to join the board table.

• Someone who is willing to step away when the time is right - Ward 4 doesn’t need another decades-long trustee. That seat should go to someone who is willing to put in the work, strive to make the community better, and then step away after fostering new talent and giving it their all.

• Someone who can commit to protecting the rights and dignity of all students - There are a lot of weirdos out there trying to police who can access public services based on how they identify. Every trustee should work in support of policies that create as safe and as accepting an environment for every student, regardless of how they identify. We don’t need strange people in our community showing up to school board meetings ranting about imaginary medical procedures and how “they/them” pronouns are communism. And we certainly don’t need them at the board table.

Stay tuned for more developments with this exciting mid-term vote!

Benoit's ballsy motion

Niagara Catholic District School Board (NCDSB) trustee for St. Catharines Wards 2 to 6 and Niagara-on-the-Lake, Natalia Benoit, fresh off a six-month suspension for comparing the Pride flag to that of the Third Reich, is once again forging ahead with a new motion to ban the Pride flag next June.

Why? Well, she’s not speaking to reporters (likely because of the whole “gays are like the Nazis” thing from last year), she previously said she opposed flying the Pride flag because it runs contrary to her understanding of “Catholic teaching”.

When the other trustees of the NCDSB voted to sanction her, they also voted to “disassociate…from any actions or statements previously made by trustee Benoit.”15 Ouch.

While she had support from Campaign Life Coalition, the anti-choice, extreme right-wing Christian Nationalist outfit, she is being opposed this time by the NCDSB Director of Education, Camillo Cipriano, who told CBC Hamilton: “The New Testament has many stories of Christ himself reaching out to those who are marginalized…I will continue to fly it as long as it remains my decision.”16

The board chair, Danny Di Lorenzo, said that, while he understands the decision is “rooted in her faith”, it is a distraction from the other issues the board is facing.

I look forward to that motion failing. But Benoit earned 53.5% of the vote in 2022 - well ahead of her seat-mate and the third-place runner-up. Then again, only 32.4% of Catholic electors there bothered to vote, so maybe her antics will drive turnout up in 2026!

Roman (Catholic board) holiday

Early in 2024, the trustees of the Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board (BHNCDSBCDEFGHIJKLMNOP) faced a problem. Enrollment is steady and their finances were okay by school board standards, but they really needed a win. Something to shake off the dust and put them back on top!

So they took a look at their budget and moved some money around. Instead of sending a bunch of trustees to the Canadian Catholic Trustees Association conference, they reallocated funds to send four of the board’s six trustees on an all-expenses paid art acquisition trip to Bolzano – South Tyrol, the German-speaking Alpen region of Northern Italy bordering Austria and Switzerland.

There, you see, they would scour the countryside for the finest works of art that could be brought back to Brantford and Brant and Haldimand and Norfolk for prominent display in their schools and board administrative buildings.

To ensure the new St. Padre Pio Secondary School in Brantford would be the glittering “flagship” they all dreamt of, most of the board’s trustees needed to personally commission or supervise the acquisition of “life-sized, hand-painted wooden statues of St. Padre Pio and the Virgin Mary, a large crucifix, and sculptures depicting the 14 Stations of the Cross.”17 And they couldn’t leave the region without also buying a bust of Pope Francis for his eponymous school in Caledonia, as well as a few little religious tchotchkes for their board office in Brantford.

Board chair and Brantford trustee, Rick Petrella (currently serving his 10th or 11th term as chair), was indignant when questioned by the Brantford Expositor, saying “We looked at buying [a sculpture] off the shelf, but nothing stood out…There is no way the board would hand over a penny without seeing it in person. It’s a lot of money and we wanted to make sure we were getting value for the money.”18

All-in-all, they bought $100,000 worth of art and spent around $45,000 on the trip. Once the story broke from the Expositor, it gained momentum, making it to the Spec, the CBC, and the provincial legislature, where Education Minister Jill Dunlop said: “The [BHNCDSB] not only failed students and parents, but the community."19

Petrella said that the “optics and actions of this trip were not favourable” and the trustees have both committed to repaying the costs of the trip and direct more money toward school breakfast programs and teacher training.

You know what they say in Bolzano – South Tyrol: Die Kinder wollen Frühstück? Lasst sie Statuen fressen!

Cool facts for cool people

• Despite being green-lit as a candidate and organizing a re-election bid, Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas MP Filomena Tassi has announced she will not be seeking a fourth term in the next federal election. This comes as a surprise, considering her profile in the community and as one of Justin Trudeau’s ministers for the past few years. With the Tories running Erika Alexander, granddaughter of Lincoln Alexander, and the NDP’s Roberto Henriquez (who I worked for in the last federal election and is a really cool guy!), the race was going to be tight. Tassi’s announcement changes the calculus on the ground in HWAD. The Liberals will have to pull out a high-profile candidate to keep the riding, so keep an eye out for who throws their name in the hat in the west end.