Welcome, Jamie and Herman. Starting with Jamie, can you both introduce yourselves

to the audience?

Yeah, hello, I'm Jamie. I'm a transit enthusiast and transit advocate with

TTC riders and I ride transit normally like four times a day, so I noticed

a lot of the issues that transit riders are facing and Yeah, especially like

reliability frequency and safety are all issues that TTC riders is hoping to

fix

Thanks Jamie. Herman, what about you?

Yeah, my name is Herman Rosenfeld. I'm a retired union staff person.

I used to work for the Canadian Auto Workers. I've been with TTC Riders since

they began, about 15 years ago, 10 years. It's hard to remember exactly

when. And I take public transit. Often when I travel across the city,

I often cycle and very rarely I drive. But yeah, and I think public transit

is an absolutely essential component of challenging climate change and

also dealing with livable cities, livable country.

Perfect. So one of my first questions right out the bat is, you know, why public

transit? There are a lot of causes that people get behind these days, right? There's

actual, you know, climate activism, you know, you name it. You know, there's all

sorts of areas you can get into. What made each of you decide you would put some

efforts towards securing public transit and improving public transit in Toronto?

So on a personal note, I'm just I'm a big transit enthusiast so it's something

I love and I want to see it be better But I also think that it's something

that affects so many people and it's much better for the environment than Driving

and is obviously like faster for long distances than walking or cycling

which are also great options but yeah, so I think it's something that should

be a service for everyone and when we cut back service or when we make affairs

inaccessible to people, those are big issues that we shouldn't be seeing.

And so yeah, I like to see it be better for everyone.

So you see it as a key to improving quality of life at the same time as fighting

climate change.

Yeah, exactly. And yeah, it helps all sorts of people get to jobs and friends

and family.

Perfect. Herman, why is this like one of your niches? I'm sure it's not all that

you do, you know, not implying that but you know, what makes your passion in transit

particularly?

Well, partly similar things that Jamie was saying, you know, which I share.

I started out with, I'm a socialist, I was involved in a number of

these different projects and one of them was around building a movement

for fair free transit. And the idea was transit should be like going to

the library, like Medicare should be, it should be a non-commodified right.

One of the components of... building a different kind of a society of like,

you know, like housing shouldn't be commodified either. But, and that, we started

this little group and Free Transit Toronto, and then I... one of the activists

who wanted to transform TTC Riders, which was mostly a paper organization

at the time, into an activist organization and membership, Jessica Bell,

and she asked me, would you like to help me do this? So I did. And

I think a lot of the reasons are similar. It's, I think particularly, it's

a central way of addressing climate change. And in particular, if you look

at the debates that are going on now about investments in personal

vehicles that are electrically driven, instead of all that investment there,

it should be in public transit. For jobs, for the structure of how we move

around, and for doing a, transforming the society to do that both in

terms of decommodifying components of our life and also in terms of

addressing the climate emergency because it isn't just something that's out

there.

We were talking about that the other day that, you know,

We

electrical

were.

vehicles are often pushed as a big solution, but that's a real kind of classist

approach. Even with the rebates that we used to have, most people can't afford an

electric vehicle, but the idea I guess is to make transit absolutely affordable. You

say the demodification, sorry,

T-commer.

you say the decommodification

Yes.

of transit.

Yeah.

I hear free transit. I know you were part of

Yeah.

the free transit movement or are.

Yeah.

Is that incorporated into TTC riders?

Well, the TTC riders would like to move in that direction. We've talked

about it. And the strategy we've looked at would be increasing the population

that doesn't have to pay for transit. We're a part of this movement

towards low income fares. But the bottom line for that was that people

on social assistance. who in fact organized, demanded that it be free

for them. And that would be one of the ways of cutting in the direction

of both lowering fares, but of increasing the amount of people, the

numbers of people that in the demographics, that would have free transit.

So eventually we would do that. There's always been this debate in, not

in TTC writers, but in... in the transit universe about how you pay for

transit, because you have to pay. And traditionally in Toronto, it's

a very conservative city in terms of its elite, or its political elite

in particular. And this whole, you see some of the people like Holliday

or Rob Ford and stuff, they come from that tradition, that, well, you should

pay for this. We're customers and all that kind of stuff. And we challenge

that. It's not that TTC writers raise that as an immediate demand because

it's something we're not going to win tomorrow, but something we work

towards. And though some of us are, you know, think about this more

than others, but fundamentally the organization moves in that direction. Would

you agree, Jamie? Sort

Yeah,

of, yeah,

I think so.

yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I think it's difficult to nest like the debates about how you're going

to pay for transit if no one's actually paying a fare. But I do think especially

for lower income people and people like who are younger and also like older and

unemployed, it is an extremely important thing to push for.

If you do that, you know, and it becomes, you know, then... it's easier

to argue this be for everybody. Because fundamentally, public transit isn't

just something for the poorest people. Although poorest people absolutely

depend upon transit for everything. But it's something that should

be the way we travel, the way cities are structured, and not just relegated

for the people who are at the lower end of the economic ladder. In fact,

we want to change that. you know, about people being at the lower end

of the economic ladder.

I hear that. Sorry, excuse me. You talked about demands, you know, free transit

is not one of your demands, but a vision, but you folks have a lot of demands and I don't

mean that as a criticism. What I am getting at is there's so many moving parts

when it comes to just Toronto's transit. You know, I have a list here. You know, you

have to keep track of the service cuts and their impact. You know, you got a mayor's

race that you have to analyze the budget to keep on top of and inform people of the

policing narrative that's going on in response to, you know, safety concerns,

fare hikes, you know, pushing back against that as well as moving towards, you

know, free, free transit. And then keeping folks accountable. We're talking about

like rapid T.O. and the Scarborough solutions and like reminding people that promises

aren't being made, you know, realizing that promises aren't being made. This is a

lot of information to keep on top of. It's a lot to keep your supporters on top of.

Like, how do you fight on so many fronts and how do you stay on top of so many moving

parts? What's your secret?

I think Herman can probably answer this better than me because he's been with

DDC writers a lot longer. But from what I've seen over the past year or so

is that we have a lot of dedicated people who are very passionate about the advocacy

and they stay on top of so many different topics. It's very impressive really.

And then there are, we work with other advocacy groups who have more niche focuses

that sort of intersect with some of our projects and so they're also able to

keep track on things. But yeah, I'm not sure if Herman has more to add about

it.

For Whom and Go's, do you want to shout out any of those organizations who do kind

of lean on sometimes?

Um, sorry, I gotta think about their names for a second. I know like, I think

Jane and Finch Action Against Poverty is one of them. We've worked with them

a lot for the safety report. And I know there are so many others, but I

can't remember their exact names right now. I'm so sorry.

No, look at the job centers, their community hubs. And I think Jamie basically

summarized it, except I would add one more thing, that we have an executive

director who isn't paid in a CEO's wages. And she is incredible in

terms of making sure that her name is Sheila Pisialen, that she keeps

up on all of this, and that plugs in. the sort of the clops of the clumps

of young people in some places, older people in different communities,

and actually as a spark plug for keeping this thing going. And there's

a young person that she has working with her, Monica's doing that stuff

now, and Holzer is other people, the person who's very active around

the... disability issues and there's people that work a lot around this.

And there's a whole sort of a new layer of younger people that I think

Jamie is part of that, that cohort sort of, that in different communities

that, but we were never, we were mostly downtown for a long time in

terms of advocating important issues and going and trying to organize people

to go to City Hall and all that sort of stuff. city council meetings,

those are important things, but we didn't have like a base in different

other, in other parts of the city. And that base is being built around,

you know, younger people from different communities who live in those

places. And a lot of them are really young, even high school kids. And

that's pretty special.

Is that you, Jamie? Are you in high school?

Yeah, grade 10, halfway through. And yeah, I completely agree with Herman.

Eh.

Sheila and Monica and a lot of other people at GTC riders do so much heavy

lifting. It's incredible.

I didn't mean to ask you this, but I wonder if you can lend some insight into

what I consider some a bit of a phenomenon. When I was in high school and in grade 10,

and that wasn't too long ago, but I'm probably older than you think, and I'm sure

I don't know, maybe Herman can relate as well. I don't remember being that politicized.

And I came from a very political family, so I was aware of politics. But the drive to

act. in this way. And the bravery to come on a podcast honestly was not something

I would have possessed at that age. But I'm seeing so much of it, especially on

the climate front. And I think like a lot of people can agree with that. What's

happening here? Like, what drives you and your friends? Like, how come you're not

hanging out at the mall and like parking lots and like what we used to waste our time

with? How are you motivated? Like, and I'm so happy that you are like Just maybe

you can help our audience who might be a little bit on the older scale understand

this.

Yeah, so I can't speak for everyone, but for me personally, like sort of what I

said earlier, I just want to see things improving. So specifically with

transit. And I'd like to do that now in ways I can help. And I think it also

just gives me better knowledge about the topics that I'm interested in. But

also transit, but more I think with climate activism. People are also just

like... really scared about the future. I'm not sure what my life or other

people's lives are going to look like in even 10 years because we're not doing

enough to solve the climate crisis. And so, yeah, if you don't act now, then yeah,

who knows what's going to happen later. But I assure you, there is definitely

still a lot of going to the mall and the parking lot.

good it's

Yeah.

deserved as part of being young there's no judgment errors thank you and yeah you don't

I know you're not answering for it everybody but I'm grateful that you use your

free time this way and because the reason we have this show is because not a lot

of not everybody does more and more people are but almost all of us recognize that

there's a problem we just don't know what to do about it and I'm glad you folks

are finding avenues or creating them. What is it about TTC writers though, that keeps

you engaged? You know, a lot of our audience does organizing, they want more young

people on board. They want growth like they see in other organizations. Like I see

a lot of committee work that goes on with your group. A lot of press releases that

are hitting the right marks. direct actions. What's your kind of favorite part

about TTC riders that they do that makes you want to put your time in there other

than your love for transit? Like about the actions or the structure.

I think from what I've seen there's sort of something for everyone to do. Like

for me recently I did like some graphic design work for an upcoming safety

report that we're doing. And so that was a way I could help without like

having the time to do like heavy research and like writing of a report. And

it was something I was already interested in beforehand. So and then if you

want to go like engage with the community. We have. a lot of those sorts of

activities too. So I think that's one way that we keep people engaged. And my

favorite thing so far that TTC Riders has done was painting like temporary

bus lanes on Dufferin because the city delayed that indefinitely. And

Tell us more. Did you do that? Were you part of that?

I was unfortunately not part of

Okay.

that,

I was. Ha ha.

but when I saw it the morning it happened, I was so amazed. I went over to

see it before it got, I believe the city removed it. And it just shows

course

that

they did.

you don't need to take years to make transit riders experience better. You

can do it so soon. Yeah, so that was probably my favorite thing they've done

so far.

love that you weren't even involved with it but it brought you a sense of joy right

and

This is...

it probably even people who weren't involved at all saw it and were inspired or

at least you know driven by it at some point Herman tell me a little bit more of that

can you legally

Well,

allowed

for me, the reason why the TTC riders is going is because of the issue.

And we're trying to take on those issues. That's the issue. Cause you

know, movements, they come and go, all of them, without an ongoing political,

uh, you know, uh, permanent political, uh, or larger political, uh, organization

of some kind. These movements, they come and they go, but transit is such

a central thing. And, uh, and also TTC riders. has links to the labor

movement and also to some of the longer term, like the Toronto Environmental

Alliance that have been around. But also the things that Jamie was

saying, these are the climate crisis is the kind of issue that's touching

a lot of younger people right now. When I was in high school, I wasn't

that politicized, but there was, I went to school in the 60s, okay, in

Newark, New Jersey, so it's different. But they had, it was mostly against

the Vietnam War and fighting against poverty. But, you know, this is a critical

front in the fight against public transit. You read the papers today.

you know, about how... the federal government is in the pre-infringement

are looking to how much money to give to these American companies and

international companies to build battery plants, right, instead of

using 13 billion dollars to rebuild the public transit infrastructure

in cities, which could mean the same amount of jobs. So those kinds of

things, I think, inspire us to do these things, the bigger things. And,

but you know, the movement is really doing all kinds of stuff now and

it has a lot to do with the stuff there's a lot of shit to do. A lot

of around transit, it's important. And, you know, for, you remember

every, every one Friday a month, there was a strike by students that

stopped by COVID, you know, but I think a lot of that energy is the kind

of energy that is getting some of the young people involved in something

like TTC riders. I've seen transit movements in some other cities and

they're often, since the transit, public transit is only for the poor

in say, I remember it was Edmonton and Regina. and stuff, or in Niagara.

In other words, it's not something that's seen as a class issue of working

people or something that's bigger because around the climate changes,

you need lots of people. So TTC writers has that attitude, and it's

good. So that's why I'm still involved, and I've been involved for

15 years or so. But it's not all I do, but I think it's absolutely central.

And also, once again, somebody like who actually is able to plug into groups

of young people, like high school students, and I think that's really

critical.

Sorry, can you tell us a little bit about the painting of the Lansan Dauphrine?

Just cause, you know,

Yes,

Jamie

you want to

got

hear about

a real

it?

kick out of it and I saw a look on your face. I do want to hear about it. How

do you folks

I was

pull

there.

that

Well,

off?

what it was is that the city, it keeps on saying there will be bus

lanes, but they won't pay for it. And they won't really get to do it.

So we figured, well, we're going to show them how to do it. And we're

going to do we got kids paint so it rub off easily with wash off. And

we went to near Dufferin Station and people sess it out to space. We

got there early. We sess out the space the night before and then early

in the morning the next day. We drove people there and materials, and

we just went out and painted it. And then we went back after, we went just

as if it never happened. So, and it got in the news and it excites,

that kind of thing is exciting. It's not, it's low risk. It's not something

that's confrontational. Well, there are places for confrontational

stuff. And it gets a message out. That's a lot of the kind of stuff in that

kind of vein that TTC Writers has done. Like this, I remember once we had

this, much more called the sardine cans, because there was soaps, the

packaging. So we all made up these pretend sardine cans. And we went

to

Because people

the head

are packed

That's it.

into subways?

Yes,

Okay,

the probably

okay.

in buses in particular. So

Yeah.

he went to the head of the TTC at the time and gave them an award as I

forget, you know, like as a sardine king, as with that kind of stuff.

And there's other analogs to that. So the kinds of things that people

have done. So I mean, you know, but around the even around the low income

fairs, we had these made this is before COVID. We'd have hundreds of

people go to TTC meetings, or executive board meetings, as That was before

the you know sort of people stopped coming out as people are starting to

do that again and we'd interrupt meetings and you know, basically make points

or Shout slogans or that sort of stuff, but also post questions like

we do it now, you know, like when you can Depute but in those days

that there was a very pointed questions and very deep struggles and people

like Doug Ford Who's now the prime premier used to say well used to

ask going to do to make efficiencies? You know, he's asked the same

stupid question about cuts. But anyway, so there's a lot of creative things.

And yes, that creating, painting that thing was pretty fun anyway.

Yeah, no, it's nice to hear those because it also speaks to what Jamie was talking about

there being a real range of activities for folks to partake in. You know, not everyone

is comfortable with going out and, you know, painting city roads. But, you know,

it takes a range of tactics, too, to get where you guys need to go. So it's nice

to hear that, because, again, you've got a really good comms strategy. from an outsider's

perspective anyway, going through the amount of times you folks get featured, not

just your direct actions, but your voices, right? Your perspectives, your questions

to the mayor and demands of the mayoral candidates. And that's sometimes not easy to

do from a grassroots perspective. And I imagine, or maybe I'll ask you, I won't surmise.

Who are you speaking to mostly when you do your work? Are you trying to speak to

politicians to make better choices? Or are you trying to mobilize the communities

around you to create that political pressure? I mean, maybe you're doing both,

but the bulk of your work, who do you think it's aimed at? Jamie, do you want to

take that one?

Um, yeah, I can try to. I think it is definitely both. Like, when we were sort

of planning the early stages of our safety report, which I was working on

a lot, there was a big question of whether we should write it for the politicians

and be very technical, or whether we should have a more simplified version towards

just the general public so that they can understand it and... understand also

how they can get involved to help. So yeah, I think it sort of depends on

the project and you need to mobilize the community to get change to happen. If no

one else is asking for the change, it's not going to happen. But you do also need

to force politicians to make the changes. Otherwise it's just not going

to happen either. They do go hand in hand and I think we do a bit of both.

Yeah.

Herman, like this is, that's a great answer from someone. And I hate to bring up

your age again, but I'm just in awe because Jamie, what you're gonna do with that

kind of knowledge to understand that there's different levers of pressure when you

want political change is like you're light years ahead of where most of us were,

you know, like a lot of us know to make noise, but you know, starting to learn

where to direct that noise and who's likely to aid in. you know, your mission, that's,

you know, sometimes that has to come with a lot of trial and error. So it hearing

that come from the both of you and just like, I'm already impressed with the organization

and just the knowledge base it seems to be building as well in its members and in

the public.

See, there's a mutual dependence about what Jamie was saying. You know, you

can't get politicians particularly in a nominally depoliticized, nominally, because

they don't have parties in Toronto. But even so, the political parties

aren't, there's very little difference between the liberals and the NDP

Here, here.

on the one hand, and certainly and the conservatives, there are differences.

But you... You want exactly what Jamie said. You build a mass base and

you presser these people to do some of the things you need them to do.

If you stop that pressure, they will not do anything. And whatever they

do, unfortunately, has to articulate with the needs of business, which

is a problem. Nobody's challenging the domination that business has in the province,

in the country, and the city, which is the biggest hub of the economy.

And so that relationship is always important. But for an organization

like ours, which also wants important short-term reforms and has them.

Like for example, the two hour time you can get off the subway and in

the bus and do things and not have to pay again. That's something that

TTC Riders was one of the leaders in pushing. And also this thing right

now about the busway, a dedicated busway, replacing the RT in Scarborough.

There are others, but these things, they require that you do both things,

that you build a base and that you pressure politicians. But for me,

the critical point is always the base and having an organization, which

is not just, you know, the difference between organizing and mobilizing

in the sense that a relatively small number, even though we have a lot more

people that mobilize other people and get. things done. That's where we're

at at this stage, but you want to have an organization eventually which

has a big, that's a big meeting, has big meetings, big mass space,

not just names on that you call up. and the people who call it, they're

an increasing number. And Jamie is an example of describing that. But

you want to be able to build in the communities a transit movement, which

isn't natural necessarily. You can't look at the last 40 years and say

there's been all these transit movements. It's something that we have to build.

And we are starting to build in a particular way. But those of us who are

more skeptical about the politicians also realize that we want them

to make certain kinds of decisions. Unless you study who they are, what

their perspectives are, how to pressure them, and that sort of thing,

then we'll be around getting people. We won't get any results. But we've

got some results because that balance, that contradiction is always

gonna be there. So.

I wanted to ask you a little bit about that struggle that you mentioned in having

a strong transit movement, especially in the past, when so many people rely on it,

but maybe not the right people. And you mentioned it earlier. There's quite a few

issues that typically resonate more with low income folks. than they do with workers,

even though we have plenty of workers that are low income, right? But I'm talking

mostly folks in legislated poverty that just don't get prioritized or just don't

gain the momentum that they need for change, you know, and that's typically because.

It's hard to build larger alliances around that that don't involve specifically

workers, worker issues, even though you've made the case that, you know, transit

isn't everybody issue. It's just not typically seen that way. Do you think that

plays into the difficulty in creating a larger mass transit movement? And if I'm

completely wrong, like where are your areas of resistance? You know, who's fighting

you on keeping transit public or moving towards a free transit scenario?

Well, there's a difference between vested interests. and wealthy interests

around things like public-private partnerships, about serving these, you know,

like these condo areas and that sort of stuff, how to build gentrification,

that kind of stuff. And also, there's a difference in terms of getting

people some confidence to be able to do things. Because people who are,

when I say working class issue, I don't just mean an employment issue

or in workplaces. Class strat, you know, exists in social reproduction

and housing and communities. And components of the working class who are

less organized because they don't have the economic power, right? They're

going to be weaker in a lot of ways, which means that the form of organization

needs to be powerful. And they need to be organized in ways that are

in articulated with with other workers who are indifferent, like, for

example, transit workers or workers who people have to get across town.

you know, who rely on transit. And also workers who drive, which is probably

one of the contradictions, you know. But you wanna be able to organize

all of those people. And the barriers are partly, you know, for the

elites, they don't want transit movements, or they want a transit movement

that fits in with their vision of where the city should be built. And

also the notion, the reality that amongst lower income communities, there's

less public transit. Right? Even that the buses are, you know, that services

being cut. There's, you know, like this whole LRT network that was

supposed to be built and paid for by the conference of the province,

Ford, next Rob Ford next. And so on, you know, like in communities with

food deserts. You know, with, you know, those kinds of things, there's

transit deserts as well. And that's why we find really hard to organize

people in places like parts of Scarborough, in parts of North York, and

all kinds of places in alliance with other people who are doing this. I mean,

this woman who was a housing activist, Pata Vanni was her name. She just,

she lost by 94 votes to one of the most conservative politicians in,

in part of Toronto. And we helped working with them. We're not a non,

we don't work for any particular political organization, but we're raising certain

issues that's pretty obvious to the kind of people we wanna do. So I mean,

the obstacles are from the people who don't want the kind of transit we

do. don't necessarily want to build and don't particularly care about

whether there's whether transit fares are low or not. And the other

obstacle is that people aren't used to being organized, particularly

people in communities that you know that have never organized around public

transit, around transit. It's not as if there's a 70 year old history

of these movements, there isn't. And this is part of what TTC Writers

is a part of a generation of building this kind of a movement. And it's

within different stratum of the working class that we're working with.

Jamie, what about you? What are the biggest barriers, even if they're personal,

to kind of getting this work done?

Um, yeah, so personally I'm very busy with school and sports and all that. So

I struggle to find time and I think advocacy is a very time demanding thing

to do. But more so on the larger scale, I think just finding ways to mobilize

and convince people of making these changes is very difficult. Funding is

something that I find, especially in government, is very iffy,

funding

even rapid.

for transit or funding for your organization like the work you do.

Funding for transit.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, like so with RapidTO,

Probably both.

probably both, yeah.

Good questions, you always ask.

But yeah, like with RapidTO, for example, I think the whole network was

supposed to be finished by now. And then they were like, okay, actually, maybe

we're not going to fund this. And there are so many more examples and it

just... It's a lot. It's not very much money. And like Herman's been saying

earlier too, with like EV rebates and stuff, that money could also just be better

spent on improving public transit.

Do you think, Jamie, this question's for you. Do you think folks rely on, when I

say folks, I mean the people in power that make promises and don't keep them. Do

you think they rely on people being too busy to pay attention or too busy to do

anything about it? A lot of your work seems to be holding people accountable to promises

they've already made. I mean, it's a lot of work getting a policy passed or advocating

for it. You get it passed and then they just... don't do it. So how do you think

they think they can get away with that?

Um, honestly, I'm not really sure. Uh, like, I'm not sure about the general

public and, like, the majority, but for transit advocates, we notice when politicians

don't do things,

good.

and we definitely try to keep them accountable. Uh, so I don't think it's

a very good strategy. In the short term, it can make them look good supporting

something, but in the long term, it definitely makes... them seem very untrustworthy

and just politicians who aren't very accountable for improving services. So

it's... Sorry Herman,

They're

go

saying,

ahead.

no, I'm going to say they're saying a lot now that the public mood is more

towards moving towards more activists, more progressive, at least in Toronto

for now. You know, and it's in line, I think, with what Jamie just said.

But, you know, these, most of the politicians who are not coming up from

the activist communities are business types, or they basically, they're

funded by developers.

Yes.

And we know what we're talking about. They're funded

Almost

by

all

the,

of them.

or by the financial capital, which basically makes huge decisions. And they're

intimately tied up with other kinds of capitalist elites. And they're

tied to political parties like the provincial conservatives, which are,

you know, like sort of have a handle on the main... groupings of capital

in our cities, in our city. And that's what these people serve. Even if

they want to be able to spend money on public transit, they're subservient

to other kinds of interests. And I don't mean just in a sneaky way in terms

of, that's how they look at the world.

those two.

I think it's mostly how they work at the world. because it's a lazy

populist analysis to say, oh, just because they're crooks or they're

bought off. There's reasons why they take money from them. They look at

the world a particular way. And that's what we need to challenge. You know,

the fact that people in workplaces don't have enough time to organize

themselves into unions, or the fact that people in community, working

people in communities have trouble being able to sit down and, you know,

analyze and what, how can I be proactive in these kinds of movements,

is conscious. This is, there's a, the ruling stratum of our society disorganizes

the potential of working-class people to be able to become, you know, you

know, proactive and... and all that kind of stuff. And that's part of

what we're fighting against, in ourselves and our families and everything,

all this kind of stuff.

Yeah, life.

So I think that you...

Yeah, in Ontario, it's particularly difficult now under Ford. There's just so many

fronts to be fighting on. So although you do have networks, you know, they've got

their hands full to a specific legislation that they've got to push back on. And, you

know, that might be related to transit, might not be. But and then, yeah, you look

to the person next to you and they're fighting a completely different battle, maybe

on a school board level. And

A lot

yeah.

of the funding for cities and public transit is based upon, used to be

50% of the operations that was funded by the provincial government. That

changed with Harris. And when the liberals got elected, they didn't

change it back. So, I mean, the cities are so much, it's interesting, are

so much of the tool of the more powerful province and, you know, look,

they transformed the city council. They had this powerful mayor, a whole

series of things. They have this thing where they can actually step in

and prevent, say, a non-market solution to housing by simply saying what they

call a ministerial order. We can build this. and they're not funding

public transit that way. So, I mean, it means that cities, doesn't mean

cities can't do anything. And a lot of our work is around the city. We

can, from what Jamie was saying, in terms of building, putting pressure

on, and we get things, we've won things that way. But you also have the

fact that, you know, the worst kind of elites are backed by the conservative,

you know, the Ontario conservative, PC's they call themselves, in Ontario. And

part of that means to change the provincial government That's part of the

constraints that TTC Writers works under. You know?

big, we've waded into politics pretty deeply at this point. So, you know, I've got

to ask about the Toronto mayoral race. I'm sure you folks have very specific demands

or questions, concerns that you have coming out of these campaigns. Um, are, is

TTC riders backing a candidate? What's their, how's, what's their approach here during

this very important race? Jamie.

Yeah, so as far as I'm aware, and Herman, please clarify for me, we're not

backing any candidates, but I think TTC writers certainly wants to see whoever

is elected be very supportive of funding transit, increasing service and

reversing the service cuts, and looking at non-confrontational... ways of solving

safety issues, so not just police, but finding ways to also fix the underlying

issues that are causing the safety concerns, but also having better support systems

on the system, like on the subway system, to fix safety concerns when they arise.

Yeah, I think those are the major points, and of course bus lanes and other issues

that TTC riders has been advocating for.

It's a little harder to get bus lanes, you know, debated on, right? They

Oh

like

yeah.

to talk about taxes and this law and order narrative is pretty heavy and it centers

pretty much on transit. Herman, you know, how are you feeling about this race?

You know, you talk about, Jamie talks about, you know, funding and wanting someone

who would adequately fund transit. You know, you guys spend $33 million a day

on police. Does that pretty much exclude any current counselors running? Because they've

not done a great job funding you so far.

We don't, Jamie basically summarized and Jamie was very active in a very,

very, the safety stuff that we've done around the way we responded to that,

that onslaught that came, you know, that ideological onslaught was, I

think, was very reasonable. And Jamie sort of summarized what we've been

seeing around it. But no, the law and order thing is not been the main

topic in the election. the right wing, some people have tried to make

it such, but it hasn't had the resonance that it had made a couple of

months ago, if you've noticed. And our issues are, what we did is, as Jamie

was saying, we basically had this scorecard, you know, a questionnaire.

We asked, I think there are 23 questions, and we interviewed some of

the candidates around critical issues that Jamie mentioned, including like,

you know, like this... commercial parking levies that would help to fund.

as a revenue tool, right?

as a revenue tool. We don't have huge revenue tools, you know, and also,

you know, some of them are talking about raising taxes on the wealthy.

And even property tax increases that would be progressive in the sense that

they would only affect, say, people with houses worth of $3 million

or more of that sort of stuff. But no, we can't take a position on

a particular candidate. But it's pretty obvious what those who articulate

what we're interested in and have our particular points of view. And

that's what we're doing. And we also have something we're gonna do around

it, around getting people to vote. Because part of the problem is that

a lot of the people who are affected by the issues that we're concerned

about don't necessarily get out and vote. Particularly, this is like

a by-election, although, and so this is part of what we're trying to

do in terms of getting people to understand this and come out, so.

Well, we'll link people to the scores on your report cards. They can see for themselves

where people were answering. Is there anything else that you want our audience to

know? You got anything else up your sleeve that we should know about, get excited

about?

Yes.

You guys are tight lips. It must be good

Well, it's not as if we have some kind of bomb to drop.

Okay

I think it covered a lot of things we're doing. And I guess one of the

issues that is really important is to replace the Scarborough RT, which a lot

of people didn't even know was gonna be closed down with a dedicated busway,

which

would replace this broken down technology. And it also would allow people

to walk, to bike, and it also would be dedicated as we possibly can

and it needs to be funded. It's like the stuff that Jamie was mentioning

that the colleges promise, you know, well, they'll build bus lanes or

they'll build a busway but they won't fund it. We want these things funded.

And yeah, maybe some of the money that's going into policing, increasing

policing, doesn't mean that, you know. police are necessarily bad, but increasing

the, you know, dealing with safety as a way of sort of militarizing the

subways isn't necessarily what we want. We can take that funding and

use it partly for resources that, you know, to deal with people who have

issues. But there's reasons why there's more of it because it has to do

with the cutstop been made and use it to fund things like public transit.

We basically don't want the austerity agenda our city council for years.

Remember when I talked about how Ford Ocean said, oh what about efficiencies?

It's all about cutting, you know. He's saying if you want, even now

he's saying you want more money for the province, you have to have proof

that you can efficiencies, which means cuts. So it's that kind of a thing

that we're hoping people talk more about during this election and transit

is the critical part about that.

Adding on to what Herman was saying at the beginning there, yeah, a lot

of people don't know about the changes happening to transit in Toronto, and

especially the Scarborough RT. A lot of people don't know that that's going

to be closing in November of this year. So if you have the time and are

interested, I would definitely recommend just going out and going to one of

our canvassing and flyering events. It educates people who use the line and that

helps them, but it also mobilizes more people to advocate for better transit.

And that pushes the politicians to make change.

Jamie, it's almost like you knew what my last question was going to be and I was

going to throw it to you. You know, what do you want from the audience? You know,

what would you ask of them? And you did it. So

Hehehe

I'm just going to thank you folks so much for taking the time to come on because

I, you know, I can hear that you're busy people, even just with TTC writers on

your plate. There's just so much work there to do. We will try to amplify your work

through the show. And again, we'll share as many links back to your work as we

can. Again, thank you for your advocacy and your work. Not everybody does this and

the show hopes to aim to bolster your ranks a bit, you know, maybe not directly with

your organization, but you know, we're all working towards that same kind of vision

of equity. So thank you, Jamie, and thank you, Herman. Enjoy

Yeah,

your Friday

my pleasure.

night.

Thank you for

Thank

having

you.

us on.

Yeah, thank you for doing this and thank you for persevering with this

considering that the one thing didn't work, but that's great. It's good.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you. I had audience members that said you better get them on and talk to them.

So I wasn't going to let them down. Take it easy, folks.

It's nice to be in a huge dream,

Oh,

yeah, but it's good.

Oh yes,

sorry.

it was nice meeting you as well.

Are you just too bad? Sorry. I'm going

Yeah.

to stop recording here, but just hang on two seconds because your file will upload.

It'll take like two.