The People's Summit:
Shaping Our Civic Future
Overview
of Recommendations
Sustainable
Cities, Sustaining Public Services
- The current funding
arrangements – tied to property tax base and specifically, residential
property tax base – have to be addressed forcefully by a concerned
community. The key issue for cities is financial autonomy. There needs to be
a fair share of access to resources that goes beyond property tax, with
access to a share of income and other growth taxes.
- The use of the
concept of “efficient
services” should include the consideration of quality
in the provision of services: quality of services provided; accountability;
and the quality of the jobs.
- The agenda for
affordable housing has to be as inclusive as possible for renters, homeless,
owners, etc. Affordable housing must be supported within communities that
have a strong base of municipal services like child care, recreation
programs, and libraries working in conjunction with non-profit community
agencies with adequate and stable core funding.
- Structures and
processes for the design and delivery of all social infrastructure must
actively engage communities and their residents in planning and
decision-making, with the delivery done best through public service.
- Low wage jobs
resulting from contracting out and privatization contribute to inequity in
the City in that those whose work is targeted are often minority group
members; women and youth.
Vibrant,
Healthy and Liveable City
- Poverty and housing
issues are critical issues in city. We
want new affordable housing and preservation of existing housing, with
property standards enforcement to ensure safe housing.
- In order to improve
Air Quality we need to substantially increase transit funding and reduce car
usage by increasing access to transit and cycling.
- We need to reclaim
public spaces i.e. community recreation centres, schools, parks, with
neighbourhood management of these public spaces.
- We want city
investment in building community capacity . Restore the Healthy Cities
office
Toronto
for All Generations
- All planning
decisions made for this city should assess the impact for all generations
and their varying abilities – from the young in strollers through to
seniors and people with disabilities.
- Planning and policy making should be done with all generations represented at the table. We urge the city to make sure they do that and to encourage community groups to do the same.
Toronto
– the Democracy?
- Technical electoral
issues need to be open, transparent and updated.
Voter’s list must be updated regularly - we cannot deny citizens
the right to vote. The process to donate money has to be clean and
transparent as well – everyone needs access to the democratic process.
- The whole process
of democracy must reflect the diversity of all our communities. The public
agenda and power structure (both political and bureaucratic) must reflect
and be representative of that diversity.
- We do have models
of participation/consultation but they don’t seem to make an impact on the
decision makers, e.g. water utility, Island Airport. The City has to listen
to residents in the consultation processes and should engage residents in
civic issues through public education.
An Equitable
Toronto
- City must develop
an equity lens – an analytical tool – to ensure that structures,
programs and policies that come out of the process are reflective of the
community.
- There must be the
fullest engagement of civil society in democratic process, including all
residents whether “citizen” or not.
- We must harness the economic might, the economic power,
of the City of Toronto itself to the equity agenda both in terms of what it
can accomplish internally as an employer (employment equity) and as a
contractor. We should place a contractual conditionality for anyone that the
City works with, contracts with, and contracts services or supplies from
should make similar commitments to equity and employment equity.
- The City should be
a role model, in terms of employment equity and contract compliance, for the
broader public sector, private sector, etc.
- The City should act
immediately to implement all recommendations from the Ornstein report, and
should commission a new (updated) report based on the 2000 census data.
A
Unified Toronto
- The process of
bringing together representatives from all different sectors, such as this
summit, should be an ongoing process so that every element of every sector
are continually engaged in a dialogue about the kind of city we want.
- Common goals or
projects need to be developed based on the principle of reinvestment in our
neighbourhoods and our city.
- We need to demand
accountability from every one of our elected leaders.
For
complete notes please contact TorontoCAN at
or
416-598-4521 ext 301.
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