Selling off assets a bad bargain for city

Toronto's control over its own future gets compromised every time it sells off an asset into private hands, says Christopher Hume.


Thestar.com
March 1, 2015
By Christopher Hume


From Mayor John Tory on down, Torontonians nod approvingly whenever the suggestion is made to sell public assets to pay for public debt.

At first glance this makes sense, especially to those who want government finances run like those of the mythical hard-working Canadian family - one envelope for cash in, a second for cash out - that never spends more than it makes.

Despite the fact that this is delusional - personal debt in Canada has never been so high - it is the starting point for any number of political pronouncements and the reason so many seem based on fantasy.

But now the public sector isn’t just open for business, it’s up for sale. Faced with growing deficits and shrinking taxes - taxes are bad, bad, bad - governments are seeing what they have might fetch a buck. Ontario is mulling unloading that perennial cash cow, the LCBO, to raise revenues that would help in the short run, then cost ever more.

The Toronto and District School Board is drawing up a list of buildings it can sell to cover its fiscal shortfall.

The CBC is considering selling the Broadcast Centre, its massive facility just north of the CN Tower, to make up for the massive cuts instituted by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Toronto sidewalks have been rented to advertisers through a trumped up street-furniture program that delivers little more than constant commercials.

Subway stations as well as the sides of TTC rolling stock - buses, streetcars and subway - are now available to the highest bidder. A couple of years ago, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation turned Union Station into a temporary likeness of a gambling casino.

Speaking of OLG, isn’t it also being considered for privatization?

Toronto even has an agency, Build Toronto, whose task is to find buyers for various city-owned properties. It lost money last year, of course, even though the local real-estate market is among the hottest in the world.

Ironically, perhaps, we could well come to thank Build Toronto one day for its incompetence; instead of selling land, the city should be buying it.

The City of Helsinki, for example, buys as much land within its boundaries as it can. And it has for decades. Today, two-thirds of Finnish capital is under public ownership. The main advantage is the control this gives the city over its own destiny. If, for instance, Helsinki wanted more mid-rise condos with family-sized units as does Toronto it can make that happen.

The best examples of how Toronto can benefit from public ownership are the waterfront and Regent Park. In both cases, the private developers are constructing whole new neighbourhoods according to plans drawn up the city to suit public need.

Done intelligently, both sectors can come out ahead. One need look no farther than the West Don Lands or East Bayfront to see how much public ownership can enhance large revitalization projects such as these.

The impulse to sell is an extension of the resource mentality that still dominates so much economic and political thinking in Canada. We’re more accustomed to hewing wood, drawing water and extracting bitumen than the value-adding processes that transform raw materials into finished products.

In the same way, policy-makers view urban centres as another such “resource.” The cities’ value lies in the stuff that can be hived off and sold as is. Thus an under-enrolled school becomes a building that can fetch a price, not a part of the public realm to be redeployed.

For all its allure, privatization reduces options and raises costs. Think of Highway 407, which began as an expressway and after being leased in 1998, became a luxury.