1 of 6 24/11/2003 6:56 PM

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1 1 of 6 24/11/2003 6:56 PM

2 2 of 6 24/11/2003 6:56 PM Urban waste What's happening to Canada's cities? Reporter: Joan Leishman Producer: Jay Bertagnolli Editor: Sheldon Beldick Aired: July 10, 2002 The municipal strike in Toronto means garbage is piling up, pools are closed and parks in the city have become neighbourhood dumps. Although the striking workers may soon be legislated back to work, the strike and the garbage is only a symptom of a bigger problem that threatens to affect more than just Toronto. It's about money where big cities get it and how they spend it. "Parks are open but that's called the common dumping ground... and I'm not taking these kids to a smelly, stinky place so they can look at garbage." WATCH Joan Leishman's report (Runs 11:46) WATCH THE NATIONAL 10:00 PM LOCAL TIME on the CBC network 9:00-10:00 PM ET on CBC Newsworld INDEPTH The city is sweltering. The kids are hot. As the biggest municipal strike ever in Canada grinds into day 15, Liz Rudbal is running out of patience and ideas for how to keep her kids cool and how to keep them busy. "There's nothing in the city of Toronto for Liz Rudbal kids to get to, to play in the water on hot days and I don't think that's very fair at all," she says. "Parks are open, yes, but that's called the common dumping ground for people to put their garbage and I'm not taking these kids to a smelly, stinky place so they can look at garbage. It's not fair to them." Rudbal struggles to make these holidays fun for her three boys and the children she baby-sits. Some days she has as many as nine kids. These days they're hard to entertain. All the city's pools are closed, city-run day cares and camps are shut down, soccer and baseball teams are out all the things that help mothers stay sane in the summer. Even if the province legislates the strikers back to work, it could be several days before they're on the job. And then there's the garbage. Two million people have been without pick-up. Some have just been heaving it into a park. This illegal dumping is pinning neighbours against each other. Click for a photo gallery of the More than 20,000 members of CUPE are on garbage piling up in Toronto strike. It's the bitterest labour dispute many can remember, so bitter the unions say they may defy back-to-work legislation. And this may be the kind Garbage strike survival guide VIEWPOINT Your Turn: Send your comments about this report Letters: What municipal services should be open to privatization? STORIES Toronto back-to-work deal falls apart, parties fail to agree July 10, 2002: Provincial government prepares to end Toronto strike July 9, 2002: Ontario will legislate end to Toronto strike July 8, 2002: Toronto workers rally as garbage

3 3 of 6 24/11/2003 6:56 PM of labour strike that's brewing in many cities across the country. talks stall "It's all about profits in private sector. Health inspection, water treatment plants, building inspection, food services everything is up for grabs in this city." Anne Dembinski heads CUPE local 79 inside workers who run some of the city's most critical services, services that the strikers fear are going to be privatized, contracted out to cheaper non-union workers. Ann Dambinski "It's all about profits in private sector," she says. "And we're talking about anything from health inspection, water treatment plants, building inspection, food services everything is up for grabs in this city." "I think what we want to do is look at all of the services we provide to see whether we're delivering them in the most cost effective manner," says Case Ootes, Toronto's deputy mayor. "That doesn't necessarily mean contracting out but it does mean that we have Case Ootes the leverage of contracting out and make sure that there is a competitive situation that we compare ourselves to the private sector and how the private sector delivers the services and the cost of those services." In other words, the right to contract out just as the city does now with things like road repairs, snow removal and some garbage pick-up. To do that, the city is trying to take back some job security provisions it agreed to in the last contract. Case Ootes: "This is the 21st century. Nobody has job security." CBC's Joan Leishman: "You gave them job security. Your government gave them job security in the last contract." Ootes: "Well, you know, and we can talk about that as well. Three years ago we were in the middle of amalgamation and we had six unions to pull together and it was a very difficult situation and we were trying to deal with amalgamation of, or harmonization of bylaws, harmonization of wages and a whole host of issues that had to be dealt with that, that was their reality at that time." CBC: "So it was a mistake and you're trying to turn back the clock?" July 5, 2002: Medical officer of health orders garbage cleanup July 4, 2002: Toronto strike keeps growing July 1, 2002: Union says Toronto garbage strike 'could be over quickly' June 30, 2002: Toronto worries trash will hurt tourism June 29, 2002: Garbage strike trashes Canada Day in Toronto June 27, 2002: Toronto fears garbage mountain as outside workers strike June 25, 2002: Strike deadline set in Toronto civic workers dispute RELATED City Limits: Controlling urban sprawl in North America

4 4 of 6 24/11/2003 6:56 PM Ootes: "It's something that in hindsight shouldn't have been granted." It was granted by Toronto mayor Mel Lastman. He agreed to some job security because he was heading into an election and didn't want a messy strike on his hands like the one he has now. Lastman has been very subdued lately. His Mel Lastman signature shoot-from-the-lip style all but absent in these last two explosive weeks. That doesn't surprise Don Wanagas, who covers Toronto municipal affairs for The National Post. "The mayor has got a very limited sort of attention span on what goes on in the city. He's very good at making a deal in the 11th hour but his major forte basically is salesmanship and gamesmanship and that's the kind of attitude that he has," says Wanagas. "He doesn't want to spend a whole Don Wanagas lot of time dealing with it unless it's something that's going to be a good photo opportunity. There haven't been a lot of good photo opportunities around here lately with garbage in the street." A man adds to one of the many garbage piles popping up in Toronto Lastman became mayor when Toronto amalgamated into a mega city in Toronto, with its population of 600,000, joined with five surrounding cities creating a mega city of 2.5 million people. It was the Ontario government that pushed for amalgamation, predicting it would be more efficient and save money. So far, those things haven't happened. "When the legislation was brought in in 1997, there was very little provision made in that new law that gave the city the opportunity to settle some of the harmonization issues which are inherent when you take six cities and amalgamate them into one," says Wanagas. "That's where the source of these problems began. It created a lot of basic process problems at the municipal level in addition to the financial problems it created by downloading and making the city take responsibility for a lot of services it never had to provide prior to 1998." "I think we're learning that bigger isn't always better." David Hulchanski, a professor of urban planning at the University of Toronto, warned against amalgamation. He says Toronto and other Canadian cities have been swept up with what he calls the corporate cult of efficiency that bigger is better. "We had a number of perfectly well functioning

5 5 of 6 24/11/2003 6:56 PM smaller cities; what needed to be fixed was the cooperation among them, which wasn't fixed. Instead, it was just all thrown together," says Hulchanski. "I think we're learning that bigger isn't always better, bigger is not always more efficient and that's one thing that has happened here." David Hulchanski Despite the enormous wealth generated in Toronto, the city is broke. The last auditor general's report cites that over the past three years, amalgamation has cost the city $140 million. This is something other amalgamated cities like Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa and Winnipeg have taken short note of since they're facing the same cash crunch as Toronto. "Eighty per cent of Canadians live in cities, so the local is important," says Hulchanski. "Yet in Canada, the local has no tax base, no resources." Hulchanski says the federal government has turned its back on Canadian cities. "Their contributions to the provinces have dramatically declined over the last 15 years, starting with Brian Mulroney and accelerating," he says. "The transfers from the federal government to the provinces have dramatically dropped. What do some provinces, really all provinces do? Pass it on down lower." As the money dried up, the Ontario provincial government kicked more and more services down to Toronto. "The province used to pick up the lion's share of the Toronto Transit Commission's budget in terms of operations and capital and that's gone," says Wanagas. "These are all things that the city's had to pick up in a big way over the last few years." Picking up all the services downloaded by the province cost the city more than $200 million last year alone. In the past, having to bear that kind of deficit has made Mayor Mel Lastman mad and set him off on the attack against former Ontario Premier Mike Harris. Mel Lastman (Feb. 2001): "There is no way that Harris is going to run this city. Everything he's touched has turned to crap, whether it's teachers, whether it's nurses or what the hell it is. He's not going to do that to Toronto." Despite the incredible burden Toronto has had to pick up, Mayor Lastman embraced the contagious ideology voters seem to love no new taxes. But at the same time he promised the city would run just like before. "All the GST, the PST, the gasoline taxes, income taxes,

6 6 of 6 24/11/2003 6:56 PM corporate taxes all flow to the provincial and federal governments." Not surprisingly, something had to give. This strike marks a very visible ripping at the seams. It may also turn up the heat on talks to work out a new deal between cities, the provinces and Ottawa. "All the GST, the PST, the gasoline taxes, income taxes, corporate taxes all flow to the provincial and federal governments and those taxes are mostly generated in the major cities across Canada," says Case Ootes. "Unless you keep the cities healthy, you're going to see a deterioration of the revenues flowing to the federal and provincial governments." "We're at that stage where we can tell you about Canadian cities in decay, when the United States, decades before us, were in that stage and they let them decay and about the riots and the strife and still there's the hatred and division between different people, regionally and within cities," says Hulchanski. "Will that happen here?" This strike's been toughest on people like Liz Rudbal, people with low incomes who rely heavily on city services. But it has hit everyone in Toronto and it's forced a sort of collective examination of how this city works. The strike is also being seen as a warning shot to other urban centres that are starving for money and in danger of wasting away. Home About the National Our Hosts and Reporters Transcripts Contact Us