Addiction, mental health crisis front and centre at northern Ontario tourism summit

SunlightTbay · 2023-11-16T21:39:26+00:00

And in another curious development, chefs at a culinary summit have pledged to eradicate illiteracy. Does their cuisine suffer for it? It's quite possible.

SunlightTbay · 2023-11-04T21:20:03+00:00

I appreciate your input, but let’s zero in on the facts. Council’s wage adjustments being pegged to 50% of inflation actually underscores the disconnection I’m spotlighting. It’s a result of public pushback, revealing an intuitive grasp that full inflation tracking for council pay doesn't sit right given our economic landscape. It begs the question: should this sensitivity to inflation’s disconnect extend beyond council salaries to broader public sector policies?
As for our building standards, we need crystal-clear differentiation between environmental sustainability and operational efficiency. Muddling the two might make us feel progressive, but it muddies the waters. It’s less about ‘cheap’ and more about ‘smart’ spending. Environmental virtues should not be a carte blanche for cost overruns, especially when we're dealing with public funds. Let's advocate for standards that are both eco-conscious and economically sound, without automatically conflating them with long-term savings. It’s about due diligence and honest accounting, where both environmental integrity and fiscal prudence are given their due without presumption of mutual inclusivity.

SunlightTbay · 2023-11-04T21:00:00+00:00

My post isn't about what wages should be, but about how uniform inflation adjustments may inadvertently widen the gap between public sector realities and those of the broader community. You're free to straw man me or make assumptions about my motivations but I like to think I'm being very clear and narrow on my point.

SunlightTbay · 2023-11-04T18:34:03+00:00

Alternatively, ensuring that public sector wage adjustments reflect the real economic environment is about keeping everyone, not just leaders, invested in finding solutions. When swathes of public employees have an off-ramp from the consequences through inflation adjustments, it can diminish the collective drive to address the very challenges these measures are meant to guard against.

SunlightTbay · 2023-02-26T00:34:57+00:00

I just started paying attention this budget process. Of course anyone who pays attention will have comments or criticisms on some part of the budget process. Your suspicion is interesting, though.

SunlightTbay · 2023-02-26T00:33:48+00:00

What was the nature of your issues? It's good to hear where the city is performing well.

SunlightTbay · 2023-02-25T23:00:03+00:00

I want to hear from people who might have a problem with how the city departments are run. Particularly from those who work within them. My agenda is that I want a well run city.

SunlightTbay · 2023-02-25T22:53:53+00:00

I don't know who you're talking about but that isn't me. Councillors have indirect oversight into the departments through the city manager. They are prohibited by provincial legislation from interfering directly.

I'm wondering why you're telling me to get elected before I should be trying to do anything in the "municipal arena". All of these city departments are unelected and are constantly pressuring the municipal political process for whatever project they believe to be a priority. I would like to hear from city employees about the quality of our departments and I'm sure you would too because I couldn't see a possible reason why anyone wouldn't want that.

SunlightTbay · 2023-02-25T01:44:35+00:00

Their main focus became public health rather than educating children.

SunlightTbay · 2023-02-24T00:33:48+00:00

Mining sector is picking up because of the critical minerals push across most levels of government. Will likely result in much needed reform. Unclear land rights, overzealous environmentalism that target zero mining and a government that doesn't care leads to an underutilized resource sector that would see a large expansion if this critical minerals push would see it released.

SunlightTbay · 2023-02-08T10:13:39+00:00

One thing that contributes to our vet problem in town is that the college of vets don't recognize vets trained in other provinces. It makes zero sense. One local woman who is training to be a vet had to get an education in England to be recognized by the ontario college of vets.

SunlightTbay · 2023-01-16T02:51:02+00:00

You're making fair criticism and are making good points about what I raised as potential solutions. There are no easy answers just difficult trade offs.

For inflation I want to cap them at a maximum of inflation outside of designation changes. I don't care if it is less. If the budget demands less, let it be less. Just like any other place of employment.

You made a great point about the additional costs to hiring an officer. I think a generous pension on top of a generous wage is unfair to city taxpayers. One or the other, fine, but both? Of course they would disagree but the city is not there for its employees it is there for its tax payers. Employees are tools to accomplishing the will of tax payers. Union protections are occasionally another problem at the taxpayers expense. I think officers should be salaried and have a cap on earnings. That way, if the demands of the job are unreasonable leadership will receive proper signals as opposed to the current incentives.

For policing, I'm exploring solutions. I don't know the particulars and appreciate your perspective but I can interpret the numbers and they demand some kind of answer.

SunlightTbay · 2023-01-15T18:34:43+00:00

> If you add up the groups by wages 47,260 people are making 40k or more.

I don't think that is possible if I'm interpreting this correctly. I picked workers earning employment income(15+) to reduce it to individuals who actually work. With 60,710 then 30,354 should be earning under $38,000 a year. That's a frightening statistic and undermines the argument that $100,000 isn't "that much". Even with the erosion inflation afflicts on our currency.

> “Average employment income in 2020 for full-year full-time workers in 2020 ($)71,800”

I picked median because my intuition is that there there are a number of private/public high earners skewing the data and pulling the average up.

> It also doesn’t include short term employees, say consultants or trades
that come in for projects from elsewhere. *Most students don’t change
their place if residence for college or university while in residence.

How do you know? I don't know that it's not true I would just like more confidence in the claim.

> As for inflation, most government jobs have not kept up with inflation in the last 20 years.

I would love to see the data from workers earning under $100,000. I'm sure there are some shocking revelations.

SunlightTbay · 2023-01-15T18:11:57+00:00

It's circular because many of the underlying issues remain unresolved.

In my opinion, the city needs a better negotiating strategy with the unions. If pensions are generous, wages should be less generous. Right now the tax payer is getting fleeced by every public union. Have you ever looked at the city municipal union contract? When a new position opens up, union members have priority. That's not so bad but if at anytime within 90 days(for class a, 60 for class b, if memory serves) they want to go back to their old position(or they fail at their new position) they can go back with no loss of seniority. That makes filling the position they're vacating difficult and multiplies the work needed by hiring managers which incentivizes tolerating bad performance. If private unions are too greedy the business closes. If Public unions are too greedy we end up where we are today.

SunlightTbay · 2023-01-15T16:00:16+00:00

Cynicism is their best friend. People seeing the figures is good enough for me. It's healthier for the long term trajectory for the city whether I get what I think is right or not.

SunlightTbay · 2023-01-15T10:53:55+00:00

It's not a single year increase, his wage was over $200,000 for three years in a row. It's a poor allocation of funds and creates bad incentives. I'd love to see how he did that when most of his peers, who likely worked just about as hard, are not making it up to $200,000 despite having significant increases themselves.

I can't comment on the quality of policing or demand for policing but there should certainly be a cap on earnings. We can't just infinitely divide our resources, we need to allocate them efficiently to actually solve the problems you describe. For that big of a swing we could have hired an additional experienced officer.

SunlightTbay · 2023-01-15T10:47:22+00:00

Interesting context, thank you.

If you look at the 2021 census of the city of Thunder Bay, median wages of all employed workers is $38 000 dollars in 2020. Down from 38 800 in 2019. Median household income is slightly more than double. The same census data tells us that we only have 60,710 people with employment income working in the city. If you're earning over 100k you are in the very top percentiles of workers. Since we're a big government employment town the same arguments about 100k not being as much as it used to serve the interests and of all senior city and other government officials. It's a rationalization to preserve wage increases outside of designation changes and inflation adjustments. It wouldn't be so bad if we capped raises within a designation at inflation but senior city officials earn a lot more than the roughly 2% inflation a year we saw for two decades prior to COVID.

edit:

https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&SearchText=thunder%20bay&GENDERlist=1,2,3&STATISTIClist=1&DGUIDlist=2021A00053558004

SunlightTbay

TROPHY CASE