The Fight for Public Transit: TTC Riders

[Jessa]: 00:00:01

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

[Jessa]: 00:00:07

to the audience?

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:00:09

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:00:14

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:00:21

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:00:26

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:00:30

fix

[Jessa]: 00:00:33

Thanks Jamie. Herman, what about you?

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:00:36

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:00:42

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:00:49

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:00:52

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:00:59

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:01:06

is an absolutely essential component of challenging climate change and

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:01:11

also dealing with livable cities, livable country.

[Jessa]: 00:01:18

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

[Jessa]: 00:01:24

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

[Jessa]: 00:01:29

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

[Jessa]: 00:01:35

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

[Jessa]: 00:01:40

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:01:50

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:01:54

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:02:00

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:02:07

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:02:11

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:02:16

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:02:22

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:02:27

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

[Jessa]: 00:02:33

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

[Jessa]: 00:02:37

climate change.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:02:38

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:02:44

and family.

[Jessa]: 00:02:47

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

[Jessa]: 00:02:51

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

[Jessa]: 00:02:55

particularly?

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:02:56

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:03:01

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:03:05

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:03:08

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:03:13

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:03:20

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:03:24

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:03:32

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:03:41

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:03:45

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:03:50

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:03:56

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:04:01

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:04:05

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:04:09

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:04:16

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:04:20

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:04:26

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:04:31

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:04:35

there.

[Jessa]: 00:04:36

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:04:39

We

[Jessa]: 00:04:39

electrical

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:04:39

were.

[Jessa]: 00:04:39

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

[Jessa]: 00:04:44

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

[Jessa]: 00:04:48

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

[Jessa]: 00:04:53

say the demodification, sorry,

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:04:57

T-commer.

[Jessa]: 00:04:57

you say the decommodification

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:04:58

Yes.

[Jessa]: 00:04:59

of transit.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:05:00

Yeah.

[Jessa]: 00:05:01

I hear free transit. I know you were part of

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:05:03

Yeah.

[Jessa]: 00:05:03

the free transit movement or are.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:05:05

Yeah.

[Jessa]: 00:05:05

Is that incorporated into TTC riders?

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:05:08

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:05:12

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:05:19

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:05:23

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:05:29

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:05:34

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:05:41

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:05:45

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:05:50

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:05:55

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:06:02

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:06:06

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:06:11

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:06:15

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:06:20

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:06:24

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:06:30

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:06:33

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:06:37

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:06:41

you agree, Jamie? Sort

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:06:43

Yeah,

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:06:43

of, yeah,

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:06:43

I think so.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:06:44

yeah, yeah.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:06:45

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:06:50

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:06:56

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:07:03

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:07:07

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:07:12

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:07:16

just something for the poorest people. Although poorest people absolutely

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:07:21

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:07:26

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:07:32

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:07:38

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:07:42

of the economic ladder.

[Jessa]: 00:07:46

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

[Jessa]: 00:07:51

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

[Jessa]: 00:07:56

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

[Jessa]: 00:08:03

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

[Jessa]: 00:08:09

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

[Jessa]: 00:08:14

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

[Jessa]: 00:08:20

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

[Jessa]: 00:08:25

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

[Jessa]: 00:08:31

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

[Jessa]: 00:08:37

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

[Jessa]: 00:08:42

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

[Jessa]: 00:08:47

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

[Jessa]: 00:08:54

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

[Jessa]: 00:09:00

parts? What's your secret?

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:09:05

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:09:08

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:09:15

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:09:20

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:09:25

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:09:31

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:09:36

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:09:40

it.

[Jessa]: 00:09:41

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

[Jessa]: 00:09:46

of lean on sometimes?

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:09:48

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:09:54

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:09:59

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:10:04

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:10:07

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:10:14

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:10:18

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:10:28

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:10:33

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:10:40

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:10:44

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:10:51

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:10:55

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:11:00

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:11:11

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:11:15

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:11:22

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:11:26

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:11:30

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:11:33

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:11:37

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:11:41

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:11:45

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:11:50

that's pretty special.

[Jessa]: 00:11:52

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:11:55

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:12:01

Eh.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:12:01

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:12:06

lifting. It's incredible.

[Jessa]: 00:12:10

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

[Jessa]: 00:12:15

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

[Jessa]: 00:12:20

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

[Jessa]: 00:12:26

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

[Jessa]: 00:12:33

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

[Jessa]: 00:12:39

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

[Jessa]: 00:12:45

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

[Jessa]: 00:12:50

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

[Jessa]: 00:12:55

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

[Jessa]: 00:13:00

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

[Jessa]: 00:13:04

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

[Jessa]: 00:13:10

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

[Jessa]: 00:13:13

this.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:13:15

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:13:21

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:13:26

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:13:32

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:13:37

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:13:44

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:13:48

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:13:53

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:13:59

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:14:03

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

[Jessa]: 00:14:07

good it's

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:14:07

Yeah.

[Jessa]: 00:14:08

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

[Jessa]: 00:14:14

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

[Jessa]: 00:14:19

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

[Jessa]: 00:14:24

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

[Jessa]: 00:14:29

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

[Jessa]: 00:14:35

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

[Jessa]: 00:14:44

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

[Jessa]: 00:14:49

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

[Jessa]: 00:14:56

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

[Jessa]: 00:15:02

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

[Jessa]: 00:15:08

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

[Jessa]: 00:15:14

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:15:22

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:15:28

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:15:34

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:15:38

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:15:44

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:15:48

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:15:52

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:15:58

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:16:02

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

[Jessa]: 00:16:09

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:16:12

I was unfortunately not part of

[Jessa]: 00:16:14

Okay.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:16:15

that,

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:16:16

I was. Ha ha.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:16:19

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:16:23

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

[Jessa]: 00:16:27

course

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:16:28

that

[Jessa]: 00:16:28

they did.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:16:29

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:16:34

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:16:39

so far.

[Jessa]: 00:16:41

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

[Jessa]: 00:16:44

and

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:16:45

This is...

[Jessa]: 00:16:46

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

[Jessa]: 00:16:51

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

[Jessa]: 00:16:57

can you legally

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:16:59

Well,

[Jessa]: 00:16:59

allowed

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:17:00

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:17:05

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:17:08

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:17:14

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:17:18

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:17:23

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:17:30

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:17:38

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:17:43

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:17:48

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:17:51

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:17:56

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:18:00

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:18:06

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:18:11

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:18:15

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:18:19

international companies to build battery plants, right, instead of

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:18:23

using 13 billion dollars to rebuild the public transit infrastructure

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:18:27

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:18:32

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:18:37

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:18:41

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:18:44

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:18:48

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:18:53

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:18:57

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:19:01

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:19:04

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:19:09

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:19:15

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:19:20

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:19:26

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:19:31

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:19:36

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:19:40

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:19:50

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:19:53

critical.

[Jessa]: 00:19:57

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

[Jessa]: 00:20:04

Just cause, you know,

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:05

Yes,

[Jessa]: 00:20:05

Jamie

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:05

you want to

[Jessa]: 00:20:05

got

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:06

hear about

[Jessa]: 00:20:06

a real

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:06

it?

[Jessa]: 00:20:06

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

[Jessa]: 00:20:10

do you folks

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:10

I was

[Jessa]: 00:20:10

pull

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:10

there.

[Jessa]: 00:20:10

that

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:10

Well,

[Jessa]: 00:20:10

off?

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:11

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:16

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:21

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:23

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:29

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:34

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:38

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:43

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:48

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:52

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:57

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:20:59

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:05

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:13

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:20

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:24

to

[Jessa]: 00:21:25

Because people

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:25

the head

[Jessa]: 00:21:25

are packed

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:26

That's it.

[Jessa]: 00:21:26

into subways?

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:27

Yes,

[Jessa]: 00:21:27

Okay,

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:28

the probably

[Jessa]: 00:21:28

okay.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:29

in buses in particular. So

[Jessa]: 00:21:30

Yeah.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:30

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:35

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:40

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:44

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:48

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:51

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:21:58

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:22:01

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:22:06

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:22:11

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:22:17

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:22:21

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:22:26

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:22:29

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:22:35

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

[Jessa]: 00:22:41

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

[Jessa]: 00:22:45

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

[Jessa]: 00:22:51

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

[Jessa]: 00:22:57

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

[Jessa]: 00:23:02

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

[Jessa]: 00:23:08

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

[Jessa]: 00:23:14

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

[Jessa]: 00:23:18

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

[Jessa]: 00:23:25

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

[Jessa]: 00:23:34

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

[Jessa]: 00:23:40

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

[Jessa]: 00:23:48

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

[Jessa]: 00:23:53

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

[Jessa]: 00:23:59

take that one?

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:24:01

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:24:08

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:24:14

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:24:20

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:24:25

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:24:30

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:24:37

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:24:43

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:24:48

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:24:52

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:24:56

Yeah.

[Jessa]: 00:24:58

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

[Jessa]: 00:25:03

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

[Jessa]: 00:25:08

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

[Jessa]: 00:25:12

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

[Jessa]: 00:25:18

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

[Jessa]: 00:25:22

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

[Jessa]: 00:25:31

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

[Jessa]: 00:25:36

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

[Jessa]: 00:25:42

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

[Jessa]: 00:25:47

the public.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:25:49

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:25:55

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:26:01

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:26:05

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

[Jessa]: 00:26:08

Here, here.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:26:08

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:26:11

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:26:19

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:26:23

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:26:27

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:26:32

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:26:37

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:26:46

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:26:51

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:26:57

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:27:03

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:27:06

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:27:11

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:27:16

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:27:20

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:27:24

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:27:28

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:27:32

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:27:36

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:27:41

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:27:44

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:27:48

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:27:52

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:27:58

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:28:02

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:28:06

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:28:12

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:28:16

more skeptical about the politicians also realize that we want them

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:28:20

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:28:24

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:28:28

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:28:32

got some results because that balance, that contradiction is always

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:28:35

gonna be there. So.

[Jessa]: 00:28:38

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

[Jessa]: 00:28:44

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

[Jessa]: 00:28:51

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

[Jessa]: 00:28:59

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

[Jessa]: 00:29:06

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

[Jessa]: 00:29:10

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

[Jessa]: 00:29:16

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

[Jessa]: 00:29:23

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

[Jessa]: 00:29:28

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

[Jessa]: 00:29:31

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

[Jessa]: 00:29:37

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

[Jessa]: 00:29:46

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

[Jessa]: 00:29:52

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:30:01

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:30:06

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:30:13

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:30:17

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:30:20

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:30:26

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:30:30

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:30:37

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:30:41

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:30:46

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:30:50

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:30:54

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:30:59

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:31:04

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:31:11

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:31:16

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:31:20

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:31:25

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:31:30

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:31:34

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:31:39

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:31:44

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:31:47

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:31:54

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:31:59

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:32:03

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:32:09

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:32:13

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:32:19

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:32:26

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:32:34

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:32:38

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:32:42

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:32:47

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:32:53

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:32:58

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:33:01

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:33:05

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:33:11

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:33:16

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:33:21

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

[Jessa]: 00:33:27

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

[Jessa]: 00:33:31

to kind of getting this work done?

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:33:36

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:33:43

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:33:49

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:33:59

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:34:06

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

[Jessa]: 00:34:12

funding

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:34:12

even rapid.

[Jessa]: 00:34:13

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:34:17

Funding for transit.

[Jessa]: 00:34:19

Okay, yeah.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:34:20

Yeah, like so with RapidTO,

[Jessa]: 00:34:21

Probably both.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:34:22

probably both, yeah.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:34:23

Good questions, you always ask.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:34:27

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:34:32

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:34:37

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:34:40

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:34:45

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:34:49

spent on improving public transit.

[Jessa]: 00:34:53

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

[Jessa]: 00:35:00

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

[Jessa]: 00:35:04

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

[Jessa]: 00:35:11

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

[Jessa]: 00:35:16

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

[Jessa]: 00:35:19

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

[Jessa]: 00:35:25

they think they can get away with that?

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:35:28

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:35:36

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:35:42

don't do things,

[Jessa]: 00:35:42

good.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:35:42

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:35:46

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:35:50

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:35:58

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:36:05

it's... Sorry Herman,

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:07

They're

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:36:07

go

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:07

saying,

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:36:07

ahead.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:08

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:13

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:18

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:22

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:27

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:33

funded by developers.

[Jessa]: 00:36:36

Yes.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:36

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

[Jessa]: 00:36:38

Almost

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:38

by

[Jessa]: 00:36:38

all

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:38

the,

[Jessa]: 00:36:38

of them.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:40

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:45

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:50

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:36:56

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:37:04

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:37:07

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:37:13

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:37:17

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

[Jessa]: 00:37:19

those two.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:37:21

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:37:25

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:37:30

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:37:34

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:37:40

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:37:45

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:37:48

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:37:51

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:37:55

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:38:00

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:38:05

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:38:11

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:38:15

all this kind of stuff.

[Jessa]: 00:38:16

Yeah, life.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:38:16

So I think that you...

[Jessa]: 00:38:18

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

[Jessa]: 00:38:24

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

[Jessa]: 00:38:28

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

[Jessa]: 00:38:33

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

[Jessa]: 00:38:38

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

[Jessa]: 00:38:41

on a school board level. And

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:38:44

A lot

[Jessa]: 00:38:44

yeah.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:38:44

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:38:48

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:38:53

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:38:56

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:39:01

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:39:09

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:39:14

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:39:18

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:39:24

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:39:28

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:39:32

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:39:37

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:39:40

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:39:44

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:39:49

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:39:54

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:39:59

constraints that TTC Writers works under. You know?

[Jessa]: 00:40:05

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

[Jessa]: 00:40:11

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

[Jessa]: 00:40:18

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

[Jessa]: 00:40:27

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

[Jessa]: 00:40:33

this very important race? Jamie.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:40:38

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:40:44

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:40:54

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:41:00

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:41:06

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:41:13

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:41:19

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:41:26

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:41:30

that TTC riders has been advocating for.

[Jessa]: 00:41:34

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:41:39

Oh

[Jessa]: 00:41:39

like

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:41:39

yeah.

[Jessa]: 00:41:39

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

[Jessa]: 00:41:46

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

[Jessa]: 00:41:52

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

[Jessa]: 00:41:57

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

[Jessa]: 00:42:02

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

[Jessa]: 00:42:08

not done a great job funding you so far.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:42:11

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:42:18

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:42:23

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:42:27

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:42:32

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:42:36

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:42:40

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:42:44

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:42:50

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:42:55

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:42:58

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:43:04

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

[Jessa]: 00:43:11

as a revenue tool, right?

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:43:13

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:43:18

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:43:22

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:43:28

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:43:32

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:43:37

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:43:44

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:43:48

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:43:51

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:43:55

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:43:58

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:44:03

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:44:07

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

[Jessa]: 00:44:13

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

[Jessa]: 00:44:19

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

[Jessa]: 00:44:26

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

[Jessa]: 00:44:31

about?

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:44:37

Yes.

[Jessa]: 00:44:38

You guys are tight lips. It must be good

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:44:43

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

[Jessa]: 00:44:45

Okay

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:44:47

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:44:52

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:44:58

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:45:02

which

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:45:07

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:45:11

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:45:17

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:45:20

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:45:24

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:45:29

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:45:34

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:45:38

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:45:42

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:45:46

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:45:50

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:45:54

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:46:00

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:46:10

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:46:14

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:46:17

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:46:20

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:46:26

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:46:31

is the critical part about that.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:46:36

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:46:41

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:46:47

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:46:49

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:46:55

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:46:59

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:47:04

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:47:09

And that pushes the politicians to make change.

[Jessa]: 00:47:14

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

[Jessa]: 00:47:17

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

[Jessa]: 00:47:21

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:47:24

Hehehe

[Jessa]: 00:47:25

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

[Jessa]: 00:47:28

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

[Jessa]: 00:47:34

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

[Jessa]: 00:47:39

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

[Jessa]: 00:47:43

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

[Jessa]: 00:47:50

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

[Jessa]: 00:47:55

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

[Jessa]: 00:48:01

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:48:05

Yeah,

[Jessa]: 00:48:05

your Friday

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:48:05

my pleasure.

[Jessa]: 00:48:06

night.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:48:07

Thank you for

[Jessa]: 00:48:07

Thank

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:48:07

having

[Jessa]: 00:48:07

you.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:48:07

us on.

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:48:09

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:48:12

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:48:16

Thanks a lot.

[Jessa]: 00:48:17

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

[Jessa]: 00:48:20

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

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:48:24

It's nice to be in a huge dream,

[Jessa]: 00:48:25

Oh,

[Herman Rosenfeld]: 00:48:25

yeah, but it's good.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:48:26

Oh yes,

[Jessa]: 00:48:26

sorry.

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:48:26

it was nice meeting you as well.

[Jessa]: 00:48:28

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

[Jamie Kauri]: 00:48:29

Yeah.

[Jessa]: 00:48:29

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

[Jessa]: 00:48:34

It'll take like two.