Here are my responses to the questionnaire from the Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW). CFUW QUESTIONS FOR MAYORAL CANDIDATES WAGES AND EMPLOYMENT What role does the city play in encouraging companies offering well-paid, sustainable employment to locate here? What should the city continue to do and what should be changed? Jason Blokhuis: When a city’s tax base grows and aggregate property values rise, higher tax revenues are generated without adjusting the mill rate. In other words, the amount of money that individuals pay increases as the taxable value of their properties increases. Rising property values may be partly attributable to improvements made by owners, but for the most part, property values increase due to economic and population growth within the community. That is how speculators make money, simply by holding land. Some economists refer to these and other forms of capital appreciation as ‘community-generated wealth’ and hold that it is completely legitimate to tax this ‘unearned increment’ for community purposes. In Guelph, our tax rates have risen and municipal debt levels have increased even though our tax base and aggregate property values have risen dramatically. I attribute this to unduly large expenditures on our administrative structure, outside consultants, legal fees, interest, unnecessary subsidies for developers and unnecessary capital projects. I believe we can reduce the cost of our administrative structure by imposing a moratorium on the routine hiring of outside consultants, making fewer costly errors, paying down our debt, and avoiding unnecessary subsidies and capital projects. The City will then have more money to devote to the public services that contribute to our quality of life and our property values – services such as snow removal, street and sidewalk maintenance, parks and recreational facilities, affordable housing and public transit. A more efficient administrative structure and enhanced public services would make Guelph a more attractive place for small- and medium-sized businesses, which are the greatest sources of stable employment and quality jobs. ‘Box store’ developments, on the other hand, offer very few such jobs, and lower tax revenues per square foot than higher-density residential developments and small-scale commercial and industrial developments. Do you believe that the City has an obligation to ensure that the people it employs make a living wage? Jason Blokhuis: Yes, I do. It is important not to confuse the concept of a ‘living wage’ with the concept of a ‘fair wage’. Living wage policies are intended to help prevent lower skilled workers from falling into poverty, while fair wage policies are intended to help ensure that contractors pay their workers the prevailing union rates of pay, whether their workers are unionized or not. According to the Ontario Federation of Labour, while there is some variation across the province, fair wage schedules are usually within 10% of the going union rate for all work classifications, including clerical work (Schenk, 2001). According to the Ontario Federation of Labour, “a significant number of non-construction classifications, particularly those wherein women constitute a majority” still remain outside the scope of fair wage policies (Schenk, 2001). So it would seem there is still more work to be done to ensure living wages for all city workers. The living wage for Guelph Wellington has been calculated at $15.95 per hour by the Guelph & Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination (Ellery & Muruvi, 2013). What about services outsourced to contractors to do work on behalf of the City? Jason Blokhuis: I am opposed to privatization and to private-public partnerships (PPPs). I am strongly in favour of keeping public services public, so I would reject outsourcing, particularly for public services like garbage collection and waste management, water and wastewater services, and transit. ‘Outsourcing’ of these services is basically privatization by another name, producing profits for a handful of shareholders living elsewhere at the expense of local service users and workers. Private companies are not obliged to provide living wages for their workers, so I am opposed to the kind of unrestricted outsourcing that is now commonplace in municipal and other public corporations (food services and janitorial services within public facilities, for example). Where these services have already been outsourced, living wage guarantees should be required when new contracts are tendered and awarded. Are you aware of municipalities that are implementing living wage programs? What are you thoughts on such programs? Jason Blokhuis: According to the Ontario Federation of Labour, fair wage policies have been place for many years in Toronto, Hamilton, London, Windsor, and Kingston (Schenk, 2001). According to the Guelph and Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination, “[a]bout 125 municipalities in the US have adopted living wage policies to allow their public sector workers to receive wages to lift them out of poverty” (Cabal Garces, 2011). I am strongly in favour of both fair wages for unionized workers and tradespeople and living wages for lower skilled workers. TAXES How do you propose to limit tax increases? Jason Blokhuis: In a city with a growing tax base and rising aggregate property values, tax revenues rise even when tax rates remain constant. This is largely attributable to economic growth and population growth. As I indicated above, I believe we can reduce the cost of our administrative structure by imposing a moratorium on the routine hiring of outside consultants, making fewer costly errors, paying down our debt, and avoiding unnecessary subsidies and capital projects. The City will then have more money to devote to the public services that contribute to our quality of life and our property values, snow removal, street and sidewalk maintenance, parks and recreational facilities, affordable housing and public transit without raising tax rates. How will you protect low-income people from increases in user fees and/or service reductions? Jason Blokhuis: A just society is one in which the greatest benefits redound to the least advantaged, in part because social support for the least advantaged tends to benefit everyone. The best way to guard against user fee increases and service reductions is to keep public services public. I am opposed to privatization and to so-called private-public partnerships (PPPs), which I regard as little more than privatization schemes by another name. Privatization creates a handful of millionaires (who typically live elsewhere) whose profits are generated at the expense of local workers (through increasing workloads and decreasing wages) and service users (though increasing user fees and decreasing service levels). PUBLIC TRANSIT What can the City of Guelph do to encourage greater use of mass transit and discourage the use of private vehicles? Jason Blokhuis: As I noted above, integrating Grand River Transit and Guelph Transit services would encourage greater use of public transit between Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and Guelph and give everyone, not just low-income people, more options in terms of housing and employment. We need to put more resources into Guelph Transit, so that reliable and affordable transit services are available for everyone. The present administration seems to have prioritized the needs of university students at the expense of others. At the mayoral candidates’ debate at the University of Guelph last week, the incumbent assured university students that she had been looking out for their interests by ending the transit lockout prior to the start of classes in September, ignoring the interests of other transit users (who for over two weeks had to rely on taxis to get to work, medical appointments, and worship services) and transit workers (who had been without a contract for a year and were locked out for having requested washroom facilities and wage parity with their counterparts at GRT). The transit system in Guelph has been reformed at considerable cost, mostly based on reports by outside consultants. But these reforms have not yielded better outcomes. I have proposed forming a transit committee made up primarily of drivers and riders, who know better than any consultant from Toronto what the issues are. I was a student for thirteen years, so I have used mass transit extensively in municipalities around the world. In Rochester, New York, where I did my doctoral work, the RGRTA adopted a new hub and spoke route system with dozens of short routes radiating out from the centre of the city, which is roughly the same geographic size as Guelph. The RGRTA eliminated transfers. Transfer validity disputes are a major source of delay and threats of violence for bus drivers. Instead, the RGRTA implemented a flat-rate fare of $1 per ride. So if you needed to take one bus to get to work, it cost $1. If you needed to transfer at the hub to another bus, that bus would cost you another $1. In short order, ridership rates increased, fare avoidance rates decreased, and service levels improved. I am not saying this is the answer for Guelph. But it might be. There are many concrete examples out there if there we have the political will to explore them. What can the City do to encourage greater coordination of transit between neighbouring municipalities? Jason Blokhuis: I have repeatedly called for the integration of services between Guelph Transit and Grand River Transit along the same lines as Burlington Transit (BT) and the Hamilton Street Railway (HSR). Even though they live in separate municipalities, residents of Burlington can take a BT bus to downtown Hamilton and continue from there on a single transfer. Residents of Hamilton can take an HSR bus to downtown Burlington and continue from there on a single transfer. Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and Guelph together constitute a single economy. Thirty thousand car trips are made each weekday between Kitchener and Guelph on Highway 7. Greyhound service is limited and unreliable. It costs me about $25 a day to commute by car and about $18 a day to commute by Greyhound. Integrated public transit could reduce this to under $10 a day and provide more people in both municipalities with more options in terms of housing and employment. There have been repeated calls for Highway 7 to be widened or replaced to accommodate commuter traffic and commercial trucking at considerable environmental and financial cost. When you build for more cars, you will get more cars. I believe that if our public transit systems were integrated, we may no longer need to widen or replace Highway 7. FOOD SECURITY What progress has been made in achieving the goals of the Charter? In particular, what has/should the City do to restrict access to unhealthy food in City-managed facilities? Does/should the City have a policy on using local food at City-run events and facilities? Do you support a policy to use fair trade products at City facilities? Jason Blokhuis: I strongly believe the City of Guelph should buy local products, hire local talent, and use local food at City-run events and facilities. In late 2011, the City of Guelph endorsed the Food Charter developed by the Guelph-Wellington Food Round Table (GWFRT), pursuant to the UN Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights. The City has also sought secure Fair Trade status. I fully support both these initiatives. Moreover, I believe local governments should actively oppose initiatives like the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which would prevent us from implementing ‘buy local’ policies in the future. AFFORDABLE HOUSING What steps is the City of Guelph currently taking to increase the availability of affordable housing? Are there other initiatives that can be put in place to encourage developers to build affordable housing, particularly affordable rental units? How can these affordable units be best integrated into the community? Jason Blokhuis: Jane Londerville (2014) of the Wellington Guelph Housing Committee has recommended that the City consider a. making an annual budget allocation to an affordable housing fund; b. reducing fees and development charges for non-profit housing developers; c. adding a social housing component to development charges; d. offering incentives such as additional density permission for developers who include affordable housing units in their plans; and e. mandating affordable housing in large scale developments. I would support the implementation of all five of these recommendations, but with a cautionary note on the fourth. We need more affordable housing units, but we want to avoid creating pockets of concentrated poverty. So we need to work with developers to ensure affordable housing units are widely available, and we need to work closely with local charities and social service providers to establish more community service hubs like the Shelldale Centre. References Cabal Garces, M. (2011, June). ‘Living Wage: An Introduction,’ Guelph Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination. Online at gwpoverty.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Living-Wage-June-2011.pdf. Londerville, J. (2014, Sept. 30). ‘Affordable housing should be a municipal election issue in Guelph,’ Guelph Mercury, p. A7. Online at guelphmercury/opinion-story/4886940-affordable-housing-should-be-a-municipal-election-issue-in-guelph/ Schenk, C. (2001). ‘From Poverty Wages to a Living Wage,’ Toronto: Ontario Federation of Labour. Online at socialjustice.org/uploads/.../FromPovertyWagestoaLivingWage.pdf. Ellery, R. & Muruvi, W. (2013, October). ‘A Living Wage for Guelph and Wellington.’ Online at gwpoverty.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Living-Wage-Report-FINAL2.pdf.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 22:05:04 +0000
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