Preville on Politics

Raise property taxes all you want…

Posted on February 6, 2008 by Philip Preville

…but don’t mess with hockey. I am at home recovering from the flu, so I missed yesterday’s storm at city hall—but even from my recovery bed I could hear disaster brewing. Tuesday morning’s news of a proposed 18 per cent fee hike for ice time at city rinks was the main topic on The Fan 590. I urge you to pause and digest that information: the all-sports talk radio station—normally devoted to hockey, basketball, football, soccer, fighting, lacrosse and on down to tiddlywinks—was doing a call-in show about municipal user fee policy, and the lines were lit up like the ACC Jumbotron.

Intending to post on the subject (convalescence be damned—hockey’s at stake here), yesterday morning I e-mailed a jolly chap in the city’s strategic communications department with a couple of questions. Normally he calls back right away; yesterday he responded promptly as always, but this time he perfunctorily passed my request on to an anonymous location called the Parks, Forestry and Recreation Media Hotline. For all I know, the PFR hotline is a phantom office created to throw reporters off the scent of this story, because I didn’t hear back from them all day, not even to acknowledge receipt of my e-mail. I’m not the only one waiting: apparently the department was supposed to issue a clarification yesterday afternoon but decided instead to leave the media twisting in the wind until today—never a good idea, because it just turns the focus of the story toward their own incompetence. I actually intended to say something substantial about the user fee policies, but the circus now has me thoroughly entertained, and I wouldn’t want to spoil such a big, silly, hot-air balloon of media spectacle by popping it with a lance of substance.

Comments

Neither the author nor Toronto Life necessarily agree with the comments posted below. Editors will not correct spelling or grammar. Toronto Life reserves the right to edit or delete comments entirely. Read our full policy


Author Bio Pic

Philip Preville

Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.


Preville on Politics RSS Feed