Details

It is one of the great under-reported scandals of our time – the strike by developers who have planning approval to build desperately needed houses and apartments but choose not to. 

Instead they sit on their hands waiting for the value of their land to appreciate.

It is happening all over Ontario. 

And here in Newmarket. The owner of the land behind the LCBO at 39 Davis Drive was given planning approval in 2009 for a 20 storey condo with 280 units and nothing has happened. (Photo right) 

29 years and still waiting

A more grotesque example lies just around the corner at 22 George Street – owned by the same developer, Peter Czapka’s TRICAP. (Photo below right)

Here planning approval was given for a 12 storey 115 unit condo in 1993 and the land is still vacant. It is used to store construction materials.

For years I have been making the case for sunset clauses on planning approvals. If shovels aren't in the ground within, say, three or five years than planning approval is revoked.

The developer goes back to square one.

Use it or lose it

The Liberal platform for the election on 2 June tells us: 

“There are an estimated 250,000 new homes approved for construction that have not yet been built. We can’t let land ready for new homes sit empty.”

They promise to introduce a “use it or lose it” tax on developers sitting on land ready for development.

The NDP, too, knows there's an issue to address. But what about the Progressive Conservatives?

Wrong solution

At the tail end of his first term, Doug Ford set up a Housing Affordability Task Force which reported in February 2022. It acknowledges there is a problem (of developers on strike) but comes up with the wrong solution. It recommends that “infrastructure allocations” (for sewage and wastewater) should be withdrawn if construction hasn’t started within three years.

Newmarket already does this. And it hasn't made a blind bit of difference. 

Every year the Town asks developers with planning approvals under their belt if they plan to start work in the next twelve months. If they say no their so-called servicing allocation is withdrawn and made available to another project which is ready to roll.

Recommendation dropped

Some of the Housing Task Force recommendations made it into Bill 109 that was rushed through from start to finish in two weeks – even before the public consultation period had ended. 

But recommendation 43 on the withdrawal of the infrastructure allocations from developers on strike (see below) didn’t even make it into the Bill. Clearly, Ford doesn’t want to upset developers like TRICAP who land bank - and who give money to the PCs.

TRICAP supports the Progressive Conservatives

TRICAP makes political contributions but only to the Progressive Conservatives. The Elections Ontario website shows a splurge in 2016, after which the private company takes a breather. And then in February this year, Jennifer Czapka, TRICAP’s Vice President, donates a modest $1,000 to the PCs. Just to show willing. 

Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives take money from developers who won’t build the houses that Newmarket-Aurora needs.

No point asking Dawn Gallagher Murphy if she has a view on this. 

We’d have more chance of getting an answer from the maple tree in my garden.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Details

The slaughter in Texas of 19 children earlier today by a deranged 18 year-old man should be the catalyst for tight new gun control laws in the United States.

But we all know it won’t happen.

Even after Sandy Hook and the horror of the unspeakable murders of innocent children in an elementary school in Texas, the gun lobby still calls the shots.

But that is the dysfunctional United States. Where mass murder is now the weekly reality and politicians, for whatever reason, choose not to respond.

Here in Canada we can make different choices. There is no 2nd Amendment excuse to do nothing.

Doug Ford and our former MPP Christine Elliott are against banning handguns. 

Steven Del Duca has pledged a Liberal Government would ban handguns within a year of taking office. 

But what does Dawn Gallagher Murphy think? Does she have a view? I have no idea.

Someone should ask her.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Updated on 25 May 2022: From the Toronto Star: Gunman kills 19 children and two adults.

Update on 31 May 2022: from the UK's Guardian newspaper: Trudeau announces "handgun freeze"

Details

Above: From this week's Era Newspaper.

Deficits and Debt

For as long as anyone can remember former Newmarket-Aurora MPP, Christine Elliott, has made a very big deal about Provincial deficits and debt. They've featured in countless speeches.

In her winter newsletter in 2019 (see below) she said the new Ford Government was addressing the fiscal challenges they inherited from the Liberals – notably the $15B debt (sic).

(In fact, she meant the annual deficit which is a mere fraction of the Provincial debt which has accumulated over decades. A deficit occurs when the Province spends more than it gets in revenues.)

$19.8 billion 

The deficit for 2022/23 is expected to be $19.8 billion but it could be as much as $23.2 billion or a more modest $15 billion depending on what happens to the economy. 

Spending on programs (eg health, education, children and social services, justice and so on) is expected to rise from $169 billion (including Covid 19 time limited funding of $19.1 billion) in 2020/21 to $188.1 billion in 2024/5.

Interest on debt is forecast to rise from $12.3 billion in 2020/21 to $14.9 billion in 2024/5.

Going for Broke

Ford has thrown all the old Conservative shibboleths overboard. He loves to be loved and he is going for broke. 

Buck-a-beer now wants to spend more on everything.

Not just on Covid.

Gallagher Murphy will get it done!

Christine Elliott’s office manager and PC candidate for Newmarket-Aurora, Dawn Gallagher Murphy, is straining at the leash to spend.

But how does this square with the long-held views of her former employer, friend and mentor, Christine Elliott?

Has Dawn asked Christine if deficits matter anymore?

Anathema

On 27 October 2008 Elliott told the Legislative Assembly: 

“deficit financing is anathema to Conservatives”

because running a deficit

“means that we are paying more and more in interest payments” 

By 2011 Elliott was complaining that the Liberals had racked up a

debt of over $17,000 each for every man, woman and child in Ontario. That’s serious. It’s something we need to get a hold of. 

Ontario is broke

She said:

“There’s no money to spend. Ontario’s broke right now. We need to get this under control, and it’s not likely that it’s going to happen under this government.”

The Ford/Elliott Government has increased the net debt for every man, woman and child in Ontario to $25,334 in 2020/21 rising to $28,334 in 2022/23.

I am left wondering if Dawn Gallagher Murphy has a view.

Probably not.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Postscript: Should we believe Ford’s forecasts?

Ford’s Budget shows house prices rose 54% in the two years from February 2020 to February 2022. The same budget predicts house prices will rise 9.5% this year. 

Details

The latest clutch of polls tells us the lightweight PC candidate for Newmarket-Aurora, Dawn Gallagher Murphy, is likely to be our next MPP. 

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. 

She brazenly tells us she and her team have knocked on 20,000 doors – a porky if I’ve ever heard one – but can’t find the time to show her face at any of the candidates’ debates. 

Instead the office manager invents diary clashes which keep her away from important election debates – organised by the two local Chambers of Commerce no less. 

She refuses to tell the local press how she came to be the Official PC candidate, claiming it is an internal matter. 

Never apologise

She is never going to apologise for any of this. 

She has learned from her friend and mentor, Christine Elliott, who told the Legislative Assembly in 2008

“… my basic training as a lawyer has conditioned me that this is not a good thing to do (apologise). As lawyers, we are trained to protect our clients, to act in their best interests and not to have them say or do anything that might jeopardize their position.” 

This applies to Gallagher Murphy in spades.

Stick with platitudes. Stay on message.

And say nothing original or controversial or remotely interesting and you are home and dry.

Why do people put up with this?

As I tap this out I have in front of me an old lapel badge from a long-forgotten political campaign. 

"If you're not outraged you're not paying attention."

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Note: There are no polls specific to Newmarket-Aurora. The predictions for individual ridings are extrapolations from province-wide and region-wide data. 

 

 

Details

All over the Province PC candidates have been boycotting election debates. 

Personally, I think this is an absolute disgrace and candidates like office manager Dawn Gallagher Murphy should be spit-roasted by the local media.

The humiliation could start tonight at the Newmarket Chamber of Commerce debate when an empty chair should be placed on the stage, perhaps with a carboard cut-out of Dawn Gallagher Murphy placed on top. I think the photo from her Facebook page (right) would fit the bill nicely.

Instead of debating the issues with the other candidates, she posts toe-curling juvenile Tweets telling us she was up at the crack of dawn this morning to have “great conversations with commuters” and getting “to engage with them one-on-one”.

Why does she insult our intelligence in this way?

Why can’t she have great conversations with the other candidates in Newmarket-Aurora?

And what about these one-on-ones with commuters? What did she talk about? The deficit? 

Empty Chair

I recall Lois Brown was a no-show at the candidates’ debate at the Old Town Hall back in the 2019 Federal Election. Fat lot of good it did her when she subsequently lost to the bland, low-energy Tony Van Bynen.

Impishly, the organisers had left an empty chair for Lois and, an hour into the event, the NDP candidate, Yvonne Kelly, gets a laugh when she points to the chair and asks the moderator:

“Is it OK if I put my purse here.” 

“I guess Lois isn’t coming.”

Tonight’s election debate, jointly organised by the Newmarket Chamber of Commerce with Newmarket Today and the Era, takes place from 6:30 to 9 p.m. May 19 at the New Roads Performing Arts Centre (former Newmarket theatre), 505 Pickering Cres. (at Newmarket High School, near Mulock and College Manor drives).

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Update on 20 May 2022 from Newmarket Today: candidates are cordial

Update on 21 May 2022: The Editorial of the Toronto Star: Ontario's Progressive Conservatives are ducking local debates. It's a disservice to democracy.

 

 

 

  • You are here:  
  • Home