Quote:
Originally Posted by Zarley
Also, for those of you criticizing the Manning Centre, please take a look at their plan to collect and equitable share of property taxes from new suburbs. It's a very smart, non-paritsan, proposal for reforming municipal finance:
Higher property taxes for new suburbs urged by think-tank |
There are two "Manning Centres". The Manning Centre for Democracy (sic) consists of the Manning Foundation and the Manning School for Practical Politics. The Manning Foundation is a charity that pushes reasonable policies (such as the proposal you linked). The Manning School is completely partisan, as it is focussed on winning elections. Because the Manning School is largely funded by homebuilders, many of the candidates who have affiliated with it (the Manning School) will be developer-friendly even where policies such as the developer subsidy are directly opposed to the user-pay philosophy endorsed by the Manning Foundation.
If the Manning School candidates were following Manning Foundation ideology, they would be far less objectionable (and I say this as a liberal, Nenshi supporter). Instead they come out well-trained in the black art of campaigning, well connected, and well funded (as the people who fund the Manning School also give to their campaigns) but generally lacking in sound ideas for good governance.
As for Ward 11, Maxim is a guy who uses the fiscal conservative buzzwords yet contradicts this with his rail plans and sprawl-friendly views (that reflect his funding). Pincott is certainly flawed, but will be a reliable vote in controlling the cost of sprawl. It is ironic, but Pincott (like others on the "left") is more likely to endorse the policies that the Manning Foundation supports than Maxim and the "Manning Centre" candidates, because there really are two Manning Centres, with very different agendas.