Olivia Chow and Banning Handguns

Mayoral candidate Olivia Chow reiterated her support for a federal ban on handguns on Monday.  Rival John Tory called the proposal an "empty gesture."

I'm hesitant to weigh in on stories like this, lest my position be viewed as or skewed as an endorsement (I've not committed to any mayoral candidate, yet), but feel compelled to say something in this instance.

I happen to sit on the Lawrence Heights Inter-Organizational Network (LHION) Safety Sub-Committee as a friend of the community.  My family used to live nearby and my wife used to teach at a school there.  We've been to countless birthday parties, community barbeques and school events in Lawrence Heights.  It's the closest place I have in Toronto to a community of my own.

There are a ton of talented, dedicated and entrepreneurial people in Lawrence Heights.  These people don't get much attention, nor do their projects.  What does get attention, always, are crimes, particularly gun crimes and homicides.

Whether I have right to or not, I feel very protective of my friends in Lawrence Heights.  I hate to see them judged on negatives alone, while the value and community generated every day by its residents gets neglected.  By the same token, when anyone sticks their neck out on behalf of that community, I hate to see them targeted by cheap politics, too.

Abshir Hassan happened to be shot when Rob Ford was returning to Toronto's political scene.  As always, he sucked up all oxygen, driving all attention - including that of other mayoral candidates - to his antics.  This bothered me, as it seemed like poking at Ford was taking precedence to the human tragedy and repercussions facing Lawrence Heights. 

So, I issued a tweet challenging mayoral candidates to show as much concern for this community as they did for Rob Ford.

Team Chow answered.  They were the only ones that did.  Through Jennifer Hollett and now, through the amazingly dedicated and empathetic Bori Csillag, Team Chow has remained committed to the community, seeking details of the funeral and vigil as well as asking how people were doing at today's Safety Sub-Committee meeting.

Perhaps John Tory thinks this is an empty gesture, too, but at least Team Chow made it.  Sitting back and waiting for others to come to you isn't leadership.  Griping after the fact is even worse.

This is not to say Tory's heart is in the wrong place - I sincerely think he does want to help - but he has yet to demonstrate any facility for understanding the structural problems and offering realistic structural solutions, either.

Which brings us back to Chow.

I think that her position of banning handguns is consistent with the position she has always taken on this issue, but I also think it's the wrong place to dedicate energy or attention.

At today's Safety Sub-Committee meeting, banning handguns wasn't raised once; not by residents, not by city staff and not by police.  This is for good reason - it's not a structural solution.  Banning handguns won't eliminate access to handguns; even if you could wave a wand and vanish handguns from the earth, those using them now would pick up a knife and the violence would just get messier.

Besides, owning a handgun doesn't automatically mean you're going to use it on a person; there are people on Chow's team who own handguns and have never used it on a person, ever.

Where solutions were discussed by all concerned, the talk was of providing positive alternatives to crime - mentorship for youth, parenting advice for their folks, sustainable, opportunity-creating jobs and entrepreneurship.  The question wasn't "how can we stop a negative from happening" and instead was "how can we encourage positives to happen?"

There's something all politicians can learn from this wisdom - if they take the time to listen to people from communities like Lawrence Heights.

I wrote a long email to one of the officers present which raises many points I've raised elsewhere on this blog - that the solution has to be community-led, but that there are countless partners willing to help out.  Heck, the actual programs and ideas necessary already exist - someone just needs to properly fund, organize and coordinate them. 

The problem is that nobody has that as their job description.  Turf wars, a lack of transition strategies, poor management and insufficient training, among other things, lead to a perpetuation of the cycle that could and should be broken.  Private sector partners that want to fund one-off projects, whatever their noble intentions, aren't helping to take the lead out of the pipe, either.

 

It's these structural issues that absolutely most be addressed if we're to solve violent crime, poverty and youth employment in this City.

 

While banning handguns isn't the answer, at least Team Chow has made an effort.  It's a good start, something everyone can build on.

 

Instead of casting stones, I would encourage each and every mayoral candidate to also make the effort to engage, to listen and to learn that Team Chow has set in the wake of this shooting.

 

After all, when we throw those stones, it's folk like Abshir Hassan  whose lives get cut short by the falling shards.

I've no interest in cutting anyone, nor standing by while others get cut. 

We've bled enough already.

Rob Ford and Lawrence Heights

"This was a very brazen, cowardly act in a community that has made great strides in the past few years to bring a sense of calm and safety to the area," Crone said of Lawrence Heights, a neighbourhood that has seen more than its fair share of gun violence in the past.

 

 

One dead, Toronto's 23rd murder this year, with two other lives still hanging in the balance.  A recovering community that has legitimately been doing a great deal to take ownership and strengthen their community, rocked by gun violence once again.

 

This happened in a community in Toronto, a stone's throw from the incredibly busy intersection of Lawrence and the Allen. 

 

Yet what's everyone talking about today?

 

Rob Ford and his rehab shenanigans.

 

Toronto's Mayor has broken the law, broken public trust, been abusive to staff, competitors and even people he was in rehab with.  He's a walking disaster, a parody of what's worst about politics, a circus side-show in a city facing a whole host of serious, structural issues, among which is postal-code stigma, poverty and related, crime and gun violence.

 

We love him for it.  We are addicted to Rob Ford.  Like true addicts, we are so focused on our next Ford fix that we ignore the destruction he leaves behind as much as we tune out the issues that mayors should be drawing attention to.

 

It's not just the general public that's rushing for their Ford fix, seeking spin-off celebrity.  The big-name mayoral candidates are quick to rush out press releases commenting on the latest Ford gaffes, like it somehow matters what they have to say about Ford's antics.

 

Where, pray tell, are statements from Oliva Chow or John Tory or Karen Stintz on the murder of Abshir Hassan?  Where is the empathy for a devastated community, the resolve to work with community leaders to solve the issues that lead to crimes like this?

 

Crickets.

 

Whether they know it's happened at all or whether their political staffers have told them there's no votes in Lawrence Heights, so don't bother, or the risk of speaking out outweighs the gains for some reason, I don't know.  What I do know is that this silence is exactly why communities like Lawrence Heights have good reason to be skeptical about the commitment their government has for their well-being.

 

Maybe they should take up golf, or maybe they should en-masse become crack-addicts that make homophobic slurs in public places.  That seems to be what it takes to get people's attention in this City.

 

For anyone who does care - one mayoral candidate who's expressed interest in sitting down with youth in Lawrence Heights and talking about community engagement is Morgan Baskin.  Hopefully, that happens. 

 

At the same time there are young leaders in Lawrence Heights itself working hard to develop leadership programs, entrepreneurship centres and the like - places that seek to empower residents to be masters of their own fate rather than passive recipients of programs.  These folk are reaching out to whoever can help them achieve their goals - including organizations like My SoJo.

 

There is so much potential in Lawrence Heights, as there is in "priority neighbourhoods" throughout the City.  With a bit if empowering help and peer support, there's no limit to what they can achieve.

 

But we live in a world where voices like these are expected to come all the way to decision-makers while buffoons like Rob Ford get international coverage for what they're doing wrong.  Even the criminals get off easy, so long as they can hide in Rob Ford's shadow.

 

It's a screwy, irrational, self-destructive paradigm we live in, folks. 

 

And it ain't going to change on its own.

 

Until we start saying no to the sideshow, roll up our sleeves and start leading from the front, we will continue to be stuck with leadership that focuses on sizzle more than steak.

 

It's a show we've been before, and it wasn't funny the first time.  It's time to change the channel, folks.

 

Political Kung Fu in #topoli

There's an election on in Toronto - a legendary battle between legendary campaign teams whose spinning skills are the stuff of legend.

At least, that seems to be how the campaign teams feel.  For the average bear on the street, they don't know and don't care.  Chow, Tory, whoever - they're all the same, except Rob Ford.  Ford is the outlier, Dean Moriarty made Mayor - people are transfixed by the car-wreck that is his mayoralty and his life.  His appeal is that he puts the FU into politics, sticking it to the system and the rules in ways many, many citizens wish they could.

Citizens are increasingly apathetic about politics and democracy as a whole - they don't believe in the former and don't believe the latter really exists any more, but don't feel as if there's anything they can do about it.

Like a Kung Fu epic, there are tough-talking warriors fighting with media acrobatics on a hill, occasionally touching down like tornadoes to wreak havoc on the lives and communities of the villagers.  When the credits role, it doesn't really matter if Superman has flattened Metropolis - he's the hero, because he won, and that's what matters.

That's the big secret - political operatives who style themselves as partisan James Bonds don't really connect what they do with the failing of democracy.  They associate themselves, their candidate and/or their cause as holy; they need to win, because only they can save us from the other guy, or from ourselves.

It may good for one's ego, this epic framing of partisan demi-gods battling for the hearts and minds of the mere mortals, but it's not true.

First - a mayoralty race is not epic, nor legendary.  Especially in a city like Toronto with a weak-mayor system; our mayor, whoever it is, may get to set the agenda, but they only have one vote.  This has been Rob Ford's greatest challenge - by acting as a parody of tough political leaders and with a staff that's acted as a parody of manipulative political staff, Ford has been his own worst enemy when it comes to implementing his agenda.

Second - Mayoralty isn't about tough leaders with massively comprehensive plans that can be foisted on equally-elected Councilors.    Toronto's Mayor is supposed to be cheer leader for the city, conduit for ideas and morale officer in times of difficulty.  The Mayor isn't supposed to be a demi-god; they're supposed to be a reflection of us.

This is why Rob Ford continues to appeal to many people in Toronto, especially on the margins of society; they don't feel that City Hall reflects them, understands them or even cares about their issues.  The System, be it the police, service providers or even transit doesn't have their interests at heart, but sees them as a virus that plagues the city and needs to be managed down.

Nobody likes to feel like part of the problem.  People want to be part of the solution, always.

This is why I'm not backing any of the big names on the Mayoralty ballot - I don't believe in their approach, I'm disenfranchised with the politics-as-usual games being played by their teams an have yet to feel that any one of them has real empathy for the people of this City.

They're in competition with each other for power, which is a far cry from being advocates for bringing power to the people.

 

We don't want to be witness to destructive battles between egos - we want to be co-designers of our shared future.  We want to build Toronto together.

 

I don't want a Mayor who seems themselves as the light and the way - I want a leader who understands the value of dialogue, facilitation and building consensus.

Show me leadership that inspires, motivates and reminds us that only we, as a community, can make Toronto better, and you'll have both my vote and my support. 

I know many, many others who feel the same way.

 

Open Data Solutions for Toronto's Transit Mess

John Tory blasted the "lack of thought or planning" by city officials and said the situation on major roads is a "world-class mess" while Karen Stinz called it proof that transportation planning is in a "state of disarray."  Olivia Chow wrote on Twitter: "My traffic plan says you can't shut a street (Lakeshore) if used to avoid one (Gardiner) under construction."

Toronto transit is a bit of a mess, but it's a problem that stretches beyond infrastructure.  When everyone is traveling the same arteries at the same time of day, each impatient to get where they're going and intolerant of delays, problems happen.

We can blame Public Works and Infrastructure for shoddy repair plans; we can blame aggressive drivers for clogging up intersections by racing lights; we can blame pedestrians, politicians or whoever else we want for the general congestion of our roads, but that doesn't help matters.

Instead of focusing on blame, let's look for solutions - which, in turn, present opportunity for entrepreneurs.

Players involved in our transit nightmare include:

- commuters

- planners

- business owners (who set work hours and, as such, standardized commute times)

- politicians

- business owners and residents (who dislike construction that impedes traffic to their venues/homes)

- construction firms (eager to make coin doing the work)

- police and Emergency Services (direct traffic, deal with accidents, etc)

- Metrolinx and the TTC - planning side, comms side, front-line workers, etc.

- Taxi drivers.  Oh, those taxi drivers.

- Bicyclists and the organizations that represent them

- Tourist/conference authorities in town

- the airports

- Municipal governments of bedroom communities

- anyone else?

There are lots more than this.  If you want a thorough assessment of who's impacted and who needs to be part of the solution conversation, go talk to Bianca Wylie at Swerhun - she's a world leader at this stuff. (She's on twitter - @biancawylie)

The two main, unavoidable factors here are 1) people need to get where they're going and 2) the roads have to be up to par for transit to happen.

Do the people need to get where they're going at the same time?  Do they need to get where they're going all the time?  What role can staggered working hours, work-from-home schedules, etc. play in reducing gridlock and related lost productivity?

There are big, structural challenges in here that, if politicians were to bring to stakeholders in different sectors, creative, shared solutions could be developed for.  

But let's get real - that's not going to happen any time soon.  People are way too focused on their own, micro problems to pay attention to how their behaviours play into the macro problems we all share.

Which brings us to Transit and Open Data.

If you're not familiar with RocketMan, it's worth checking out - an App for your phone that tracks public transit via Open Data provided by the city.  Instead of waiting for a bus that may or may not be on time, you can check your App and see where it's at in relatively real time, saving you from standing around needlessly.

Think about this for a second - free, public data made available resulted in an innovative solution that helps the public but also made an entrepreneur money.

How cool is that?

Back to transit construction.

It's a given that construction is going to happen - there's now way around it.  It's also a given that this construction is going to impede transit flows.  

But what if you had an App that mapped out construction zones for you and helped navigate around it? 

If we had real-time congestion metrics (recorded by cameras at busy intersections, for instance) you could feed that data into the App too.  Someone commuting from Etobicoke to downtown Toronto would be able to check their App, see where construction was happening that day and determine a couple of alternative routes to get where they're going and figure out (roughly) the time required.

In an ideal world, you'd get scenarios where an employee could tell their boss the commute time looks to be a dismal 3 hours of lost productivity; the boss would then say "work from home today so you don't lose productive hours" and then any direct communication could be done virtually.  And, you'd have one less body on the road.

It's all doable.  With the App side, if there was an entrepreneurial App designer out there they could get started on this immediately.  Talk to Keith McDonald at the City of Toronto's Open Data team (@COTkeith on Twitter) or check out Make Web Not War (@WebNotWar on Twitter) to find open data sets that could help you with planning.  They may even be able to offer you advice.

The key point to all this is that we don't need to be so reliant on politicians to come up with one-size-fits-all plans on our behalf; we have the tools we need to make positive change happen ourselves.  We just need the will and support to get moving.

And we all want to keep moving, don't we?

On Youth Employment, Chow is Half-Way There

Her Tuesday plan said she will "approach our city's business community" to ask them to "match the city's efforts."  Chow said her proposed interactions with business would be different than Tory's because they are attached to a "very specific proposal" while his are not.  Tory's campaign suggested Chow is proposing the same thing he did.

Let's skip past the candidate fun and games, because there's a real challenge here with tangible solutions that are pretty awesome.

Here are the facts:

- Particularly in the work culture we have now, employers want low-risk, low-commitment and cheap hires.  Only a few firms are getting ahead of the curve and recognizing that "spend money to earn money" applies equally to investing in your workforce

- What are the training opportunities that exist for youth out there?  We can talk about a specific trade - construction, for instance, or programming - but we're moving back towards a top-heavy, laissez-faire market where would-be employees are expected to do all the sales and convince the employers of their value (on the golf course, as an example).

- Customers, for their part, are looking for more than products - they want experiences.  They want to engage with firms, products and services where they get to be a bit of the process and can tell that the teams love what they do and feel empowered to take ownership of their work.

- Canada's corporate culture is largely stuck in a 20th Century, Industrial Economy mentality; they don't get the dynamism, interactivity and post-transactional relationships that are defining modern HR practices and economic opportunity.

- One-off employment opportunities for youth, especially marginalized youth, isn't translating into full-time offers; too often it's companies taking the matched, cheaper labour costs for a short-term project then moving on, which doesn't help youth at all

That's all the bad news.  The good news is that the tide is turning.  

- There's a move towards Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) not just as a branding exercise, but a means to add value to a companies work, empower employees and develop in-kind partnerships

- User Generated Content (UGC) is a growing thing - corporations, political parties and a growing host of organizations are making users part of their solution and part of their team, with engaged staff serving as the interface - this is what the whole Open Data and Open Government building a city that thinks like the web thing is about

- Many organizations, such as Make Web Not War, are looking at doing CSR through in-kind donations of time and expertise rather than just donating cash.  It's a bit of the teach an individual to fish mentality 

- instead of a lump-sum grant, dedicate staff hours to do organizational, communications and other activity while teaching the tricks of those trades to members of the team being supported

- youth with great ambition but less access to specialized skills training or traditional job opportunities are trying to strike out on their own through entrepreneurial efforts - what they lack, more than anything else, is the refined skills to excel at and sell what they do

So, with all that in mind, here's something for Team Chow to consider:

Don't just hire youth for government infrastructure projects; match those contracts with entrepreneurship/life skills training opportunities.  Find partners (maybe Swerhun, Exhibit Change, Canadian Training Institute - build up some vendors of record) you can put on retainers that get funded by successful applicants to go in and provide life-skills, communications, etc. training for hired youth.

A company landing a city contract will have access to a cheaper pool of youth labour, but those youth are going to walk away with more than just a line on their CV; they'll be spending some of their time in class, at events or in the field learning and applying the value-add skills that will really help them succeed in the future.

Start wiring these engaged, empowered youth into social movements like SoJo, Girl Geeks TO and Open Data TO, you're actively shaping the next generation of community leaders, and they will remember you for it.

There's a market for this; there's precedent for this; there's a need for this.

Chow's half-way there, it seems; just imagine how much further she could go if she committed to bringing Toronto's youth along with her.

You're Damned Right, Olivia!

It is long past time we had a mayor who respected the dignity of everyone in our city.

Absolutely.  I couldn't agree with Olivia Chow more.

Petty, confrontational politics has been the norm for too long.  I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty frustrated with political operatives referring to each other as "dumb" and investing in cheap stunts to belittle or even mock their opponents.

I'd expected better from John Tory, but he seems to be allowing his team to walk him away from some of the values he has been discussing.  Same, I have to say, holds true of Chow herself.  She's been going out of her way to poke opponents in the eye for the sake of bringing them down.

Real leaders don't need to put others down.  They have the strength, perseverance and communication skills to raise everyone up.

Chow hasn't done that yet, but it sounds like she's committing to doing so from here on in.  Her wording in the statement quoted above gives me hope she can.  If she can truly walk that walk, people like me might be interested.

But we'll see, won't we?

This Isn't Leadership

Toronto's had enough politics of division of late. 

I would hope someone who aspires to lead a City can do better than mount a petty attack.  I seriously hope we don't see more of this kind of thing in the future; I know she has some better angels at her shoulder.

The Divine Right of Politicians

Toronto Liberals are facing a major dilemma over whether or not to support Olivia Chow, the popular and controversial NDP MP, in her campaign for mayor.

I find this whole exercise fascinating.

Political people, many of whom make a living setting agendas and pushing narratives through advocacy/Government Relations work, are always getting their knickers in a bunch over which candidate to support for leader.

They should know better.  In fact, they do know better.  Look at where Rob Ford is at right now - he's Mayor, but has been sidelined by Council.  He's only got one vote - it's not the fact that he's Mayor, but his ability to build coalitions around issues that could set him above.  

The Prime Minister is just that - first among equals.  If it weren't for the tough, Machiavellian manipulations of the back-office teams PMs or Premiers put in place, that primacy would actually function the way it was intended to, with agendas needing the confidence of individual Members of the House to gain traction.

We have a reality where the inner court of leaders are to an increasing degree reinforcing the notion that The Leader Is Always Right - the buck stops with them, yet when something goes wrong it's always someone else who goes under the bus.

Sadly, we've got some leaders that have actually started taking this sycophanthy to heart; Stephen Harper truly believe he can do no wrong.  Rob Ford actually believes he's the best Mayor since Salvor Hardin.  These sorts of leaders are increasingly demanding unquestioning loyalty and falling in to the Imperial Trap:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality... We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

When you feel holding office means that you are the only legitimate voice, the only rightful decision maker, we have a problem. 

The backroom operators who look to play King maker don't really believe that any one leader is the infallible, though that's the image they will try to present when they pick their horse.  Often for them, it's the ability to pull the strings of an unquestioned leader that motivates them.  

These sorts of mandarins are insisting that the leader is right in all things, that loyalty is owed by the Party faithful to the leader without question and that, as the leader is of such importance, it would be selfish of volunteers to expect any of their time.  One does not expect God to appear before them, nor question the divine plan; one's role is to pay, pray and spread the word without question.

In the mix may be a desire to have a leader who shares their vision, but frankly, if more attention was spent educating voters on the issues and working to engage people to a higher degree, it would matter less who was in charge; the people would know what they want and be able to contextualize it.  They'd also be capable of justifying their demands through evidence-based arguments and feel confident in bringing their voice forward.

Which, after all, is how our democracy is supposed to work.

Instead we have increasingly powerful leaders supported by increasingly manipulative power-brokers creating niche-solutions for core constituencies while the majority of Canadians increasingly wash their hands of the whole affair.  Loyalty has ceased to be for the cause, has migrated through The Party and is now being walled up inside the PMO or the Party Office.

Politics isn't supposed to be about beating the opposition; it's supposed to be about winning the support of the people.

It's time our leaders - all of them - start being a bit more cautious about the tailors they surround themselves with and a bit more critical of their own opinions and the choices they make.  Through social media and citizen journalism, the veil of secrecy they used to wrap themselves in is becoming transparent and the people don't like what they see.

Open Government couldn't be coming at a better time.