Council's not back for 45 minutes but I went through the baggage check and metal detector just to use the top secret spotlessly clean unisex washroom on the second floor. there were no spare outlets at the library so now i'm recharging at the unaccredited media gallery (a bench against a wall next to an outlet) and just hoping no one hassles me

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some random guy: where is the seating area to watch—

me, in head: City Council? Oh, they're not back till 3:30 but when they are, just go to the elevators over there a—

guy: —the match

me: oh. i don't know anything about that

there's only one spectator sport i care about and it's MUNICIPAL POLITICS

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the thing about Canada playing Switzerland is that it's not immediately obvious which team people are dressed up for

#fifa2026

A slight procedural hitch: most of Council is still on the way back from PC Pinizzotto's funeral in Etobicoke, and are all appearing virtually while apparently riding the bus back. Deputy speaker Fletcher informs the audience (the large crowd of LiUNA union members here for some item or other) that unfortunately, the bells will ring until the meeting resumes.

She at last decides to recess the meeting until everyone gets back.

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damn i can't believe how excited everyone is to watch city council

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(I really wanted to turn some of the red shirts blue but it's very fiddly with nothing but the ThinkPad nubbin)

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In the interim Mayor Chow has arrived and apologized to the LiUNA members.

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The BELLS have resumed. I should have been looking up what item the union is here for but I am fighting the urge to nap.

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Perhaps of interest to fedi given all the Europeans and Brits talking about heat right now: Toronto inching its way towards a maximum indoor temperature bylaw. We have standards for how warm a building must be in the winter, but not how cool it must be kept in the summer.

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Right, now back to speeches on the Development Charge Reduction Program $1.5 billion thing.

Perks is speaking about what he calls "the Great Download" (Toronto, and also Canadian municipalities in general, taking on increasing responsibilities for transit, social housing, etc.) He praises Chow, Conforti for "reversing" the trend (but falls short of pointing out that this is a one-time thing and doesn't address the unsustainable situation).

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Now Holyday has several motions. Great. 🙄

(Look, I'm not getting paid enough to be nice to Holyday. I am not in fact being paid for this at all. If anyone sent me any money, I would spend it on stationery and keep being mean to Holyday.)

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In addition to what @GraphicMatt says (https://mastodon.social/@GraphicMatt/116807104328769219), I also think Holyday is a bit put out that the $1.5 billion does not go directly into the pockets of developers. Like, he wants it to be a dollar-for-dollar rebate.

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Nunziata thinks Council should be grovelling at the governments' feet to thank them for the money and get on with it instead of debating.

Carroll agrees heartily and says she isn't going to tell a cautionary tale about "what if the economy recovers" [and all of this, presumably, was for nothing]. "I have a different cautionary tale, the one where we mistakenly adopt Cllr Holyday's motions." BURN!

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Carroll finishes by calling Holyday's motions "quite frankly goofy".

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Cllr Alejandra Bravo points out that if the federal and provincial governments hadn't walked away from building and funding social housing, we wouldn't have the homelessness crisis we do today.

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"When I was a young staffer around this Council chamber and we had a thing called Section 37…" Cllr Morley reminisces. Ah, Section 37, I knew ye well

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typical city councillor: "finally, we can shower developers with money in exchange for all the good they have done our city. in fact we're not giving them ENOUGH money"

me: "you're lucky you developers aren't getting the guillotine"

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And it's Cllr Colle with a pointless and cantankerous motion!!!

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(He is aggrieved about land sitting vacant and people don't build on it and you can't make them hurry up.)

"You can pass all the legislation in the world, you can't get people to pay $600,000 for a shoebox," he says.

He also points out that residents in development meetings will be mad at everything no matter what you do (a complaint of Cllr Cheng's).

All this is quite true and relatable but unfortunately I fail to see how it is important to bring up right now in regard to this specific item, let's get you to bed Zeyde, etc.

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Cllr Chow says she will have a motion recognizing union workers (but first, her speech). I choose to believe she didn't plan this ahead of time and this is just to make it up to the LiUNA members for making them wait so long and missing the soccer game.

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Chow eventually segues into a speech about the dangers of construction work (doing all the building of developments we've all been talking about), and how many workers are poorly protected and poorly supervised. The LIUNA members clap and are told off by Nunziata (bingo). The next time, they appropriately wave their hands, with varying interpretations of "wave".

Oh no, Holyday has Questions. Good thing he's not here in the council chamber or he might get booed.

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(Chow's motion would have the City Manager negotiate Voluntary Recognition Agreements with industrial-commercial-instututional construction unions for residential development.)

Holyday is like, but won't less housing be bulit?

Chow's like, I don't know how that'll affect it, we already have the Fair Wage Policy ("and I know you've never supported it," she adds in an aside). See, everyone likes being mean to Holyday!

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Cllr Burnside is like, so you're saying non-unionized workers suck?! Does the Crosstown suck?!

Chow: I don't know if those workers were unionized, that was a Metrolinx project??

He wants to know if the motion can include all unions. Chow is like, no that is not a friendly amendment.

Alt text'd

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Holyday says Chow's motion is out of order as it has nothing to do with the agreement. Speaker Nunziata is like, well, I think it's in order. Holyday CHALLENGES THE CHAIR! (Insert idk some anime battle fight music.)

Council now votes on whether to uphold the chair 22-4. Nunziata jokes ("jokes"?), "Now I know who my friends are." Everyone laughs. Burnside: "Come on Speaker, that's ridiculous."

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Now Cheng is the next to be like, are you saying other unions suck??? They don't deserve recognition?? I'm just asking questions!!!

Chow (who will have worked out this whole thing with the exact unions involved and is not inclined to rewrite it on the fly) is annoyed and is like, well, this is about building homes, if you know other unions doing this stuff you want to add, go ahead and suggest an amendment.

Holyday has another point of order. Nunziata (not recognizing his voice): "Perruzza has a point of order?"

Cllr Perruzza, speaking about himself in the third person: "Perruzza does not have a point of order. Perruzza wants to vote."

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"I hear these voices and I don't know who they're coming from," complains Nunziata. Admittedly, Cllr Holyday's mic is not of the best quality. Okay, now we're voting.

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Ah, finally the motions are up on the item page.

• Holyday's motion 1 fails, 2-24.
• Holyday's motion 1b fails, 7-19.
• Holyday's motion 1c fails, 5-21.
• Holyday's motion 1d carries 20-6? Uh, OK.
• Colle's motion on time limit for approved yet not commenced developments carries 19-6. Perks complains, "Every property in Toronto is zoned for 4 storeys!" (Does that mean they're "vacant"?) Colle is like, you know what I mean! Perks is like, there's no "use it or lose it" rule. They are still bickering even after vote is done.
• Chow's motion re: unions carries 22-4.
• Perks and Colle are still arguing.
• Parts 1-3 of the item carry unanimously. The rest (the actual money bits) carries 25-1 (no guesses who's against).

"Now you can wave your hands," Nunziata advises the union members.

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There is a ten-minute break while, I guess, press scrums and the LiUNA members leaving (note: it was LIUNA in the motion, I have mostly written it LiUNA, but taking a closer look at their vests it is "LiUNA!183"), which is not enough time to dash down for a cup of tea or anything, especially now that I would have to go through the metal detector again. Now straight through till 8:30 PM.

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(Re: what @GraphicMatt says about procedure, Nunziata probably should have put some more thought into that…but, as it turn out, she really is just one of those councillors who generally goes along with what the mayor wants, regardless of who the mayor is. Like I thought she had a conservative bias but it turns out that's because the previous mayors were conservative.)

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Back to business. Cllr Carroll answers Nunziata with her mouth full ("I found some chips in my desk, they've been there for years").

Cllr Malik's motion on whatever it is isn't ready yet. Carroll wanders to the back row of seating to offer a chip to Perks. "They're still edible! It says June 2, 2026!"

Perks, Matlow, and lobbyist Kim Wright are incredulous. "It's after June 2!"

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On to RAIN BARRELS. They are about to pass it with a show of hands when Holyday wants to speak. I groan.

He thinks that because they're so heavily subsidized, and they were taken so fast, the City should "improve upon the program" by charging more for them.

All I have to say is that this year I got my building's rain barrel fixed up and in working order again, and it has been pretty fun. Free water, what's not to like?

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Cllr Matlow held an item about the Dangerous Dog Tribunal. He recalls that by now there was supposed to be a report on improved enforcement of leash laws. Municipal Licensing & Standards is sheepish. "We just…didn't find an opportunity. We are always able to provide any data as requested."

Matlow, politely (paraphrased): Excuse me but what the fuck?

MLS: uhhhhh we'll do it next term.

Matlow: …okay fine I guess

Note: Did You Know? The Open Data Portal contains a log of Council-requested reports and progress thereon!

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Cllr Crisanti is asking a bunch of questions about dog bylaws which are already answered by this T-shirt could be answered by reading the report or just, like, the City website

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Matlow: "When Council decides that there's a priority that it is requesting staff to attend to, on behalf o the people of Toronto, it's not up to staff to decide whether or not it is a priority to be acted on. It's not how the system works, in a representative democracy. If it's something they don't want to act on, that's not good enough.

if the volume of work is overwhelming…it would be far better for them to just come and say that… (para.) There should be some tracker on reports and where they're supposed to be."

Me (wildly gesticulating and barely suppressing my cries) THERE IS!!!

He can't hear me, he has his AirPods in he has his back to me and also nobody looks at me ever

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Cllr Bravo credits Cllr Fletcher's "dogged" leadership (I groan) for making progress enforcing dog safety bylaws.

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"What are some of the new AI features in this 311 intake remodelling?" asks Cllr Myers.

Staff: "The first phase will be a simple chatbot—"

I am about to up and fucking leave when, to my surprise, I actually get Matlow's attention and tell him about the Report Request Log, and he is very nice when I cannot actually bring myself to say I am doing fine.

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Oh boy, if I were a councillor I would have SO MANY FUCKING QUESTIONS about this chatbot. Like: exactly what model are you going to use? Is it using RAG or what? What giant American company are you paying for this? How does it use/augment traditional search results? Would it be cheaper to just fucking reorganize your fucking website so people can find stuff, which they complain they can't?

Meanwhile Cheng is like, starry-eyed, could AI eventually triage 311 requests directly??? GIRL—

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Apparently they're not that far along yet, they're in the R&D stage, so there should be at least one more report on it. Will there be more answers? Probably not, but at least there is time for us to educate City Council about the matter so they ask the right questions.

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Carroll mentions humans "teach[ing] the language model"/"training the bot", staff: "1700 hours in customer engagement"…

Aside from the technical stuff, I think the most crucial question to ask is, when the bot gets something wrong, which it absolutely fucking will, who is responsible?

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Some city councillors are more tech-savvy than others, some quite tech-savvy, but I seriously doubt any of them know enough about LLMs and "AI" to be properly critical about this. Like at best they've seen a headline about the environmental costs of datacentres or whatever. (Prove me wrong, Council!) No shade to them, they don't really have time to learn this shit. That is why all of us have to reach out to them.

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