Shuttering libraries. Selling the Zoo. Here’s what Brad Bradford’s Core Services Review really means - Toronto Star

Gord Perks, Janet Davis and Joe Mihevc were around for the last review under Rob Ford. They ask: Why is Bradford pointing to it as a model to emulate?

Then Mayor Rob Ford speaks to the media in his office during a break in the last core service review.

Gord Perks (Parkdale—High Park), Janet Davis (Beaches—East York), and Joe Mihevc (St. Paul’s) served on Toronto City Council in the 2010-2014 term.

Mayoral candidate Brad Bradford has staked his campaign on repeating the core services review that former Mayor Rob Ford did in 2011. What that first review gave us was a menu of deep cuts to the services we all rely on — and huge public opposition.

It is possible that Bradford simply does not know what that process entailed. More likely, he just hopes no one remembers. But, we do remember. We lived through it as City Councillors, and we know what a disaster it was.

We won re-election the same year Rob Ford became mayor. He promised hundreds of millions in effortless savings without any cuts to services. Within a few short months, the reckless nature of that promise became clear.

In 2011, outside consultants from KPMG were given multi-million dollar contracts to find “waste.” Instead, they proposed sweeping cuts that would devastate the City: library closures, police layoffs, reduced street sweeping, closing long-term care homes, and scrapping all new affordable housing development.

It meant eliminating child care subsidies for 2,000 families[2]. Cutting 685 schools out of the school food program.[3] Cuts to snow clearing that would “increase the risk of slip and fall claims.” Seniors relying on community supports? “Their only option would be to go into long-term care prematurely.”

Across the City, people rightly expressed alarm. At a 22-hour-long committee meeting, hundreds of concerned citizens spoke out against big cuts to City services. The process was described as “a circus.” In the end, the people of Toronto won. City councillors, bolstered by people across the city, fought back against the slash-and-burn cuts.

It turns out people love and rely on their public services. They’re willing to fight for them. A lesson all mayoral candidates should heed.

Then — just as now — there were critics who claimed that there were easy painless savings to be found. Then — just as now — those critics refused to acknowledge that the City builds in an annual review of what it does and what it spends. Regular, systematic processes are in place to find efficiencies in the $19 billion City operating budget.

Is it perfect? No. Should we pay outside consultants to tell us to close libraries? Also no.

This year’s budget had a whopping $788 million in efficiencies, without cuts to frontline City services that people rely on.

All of this raises the question: why would Brad Bradford proudly point to this disaster as a model to emulate? It’s hard not to see it as an attempt to hide a plan for cuts: to library hours, to student nutrition, to child care, to affordable housing.

Bradford has spent much of this campaign refusing to say how he would pay for anything. This is not surprising. Those who seek to make cuts are rarely forthcoming about their actual agenda because they know people don’t like closures, fee hikes and cancelled services.

We’ve learned the hard way that when a candidate promises pain-free solutions, we must demand the details.

So Councillor Bradford, what do you plan to cut?

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Gord Perks (Parkdale—High Park), Janet Davis (Beaches—East York), and Joe Mihevc (St. Paul’s) served on Toronto City Council in the 2010-2014 term.

Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details