🔭 PLATFORM VIEW: Olivia Chow’s plan to “fix CaféTO”

🔗 LINK: oliviachow.ca/olivia_ch…

🔧 DOABLE? Yes.

💰 COSTED? Not quite.

✨ OVERALL: ⭐️⭐️½ (2.5 out of five)

Despite being the clear frontrunner and favourite to win next week, it’s been a while since I looked at an Olivia Chow policy proposal.

There’s a simple reason for that: she has not released a lot of policy proposals lately. I’ve had little to review.

Her campaign has posted just three news announcements in June. Two of them are about endorsements, not policy. The latest — posted June 15 — is at least a kind of a policy announcement, so worth looking at.

Chow promises to “improve the CaféTO program so that more businesses are encouraged to apply and we can enjoy more patios.”

The program clearly needs improvement. This year’s roll-out saw fewer applications than past years after changes were made to the process, and then a rash of delayed/denied pemits.

A fix is needed, but Chow’s plan is frustratingly vague. Her first action item is to, “Ensure that businesses and BIAs are receiving prompt and full information so they can plan ahead and hire staff.” Good! But how?

The second action item further emphasizes the vagueness of it all: “Provide financial supports or relief to businesses and ensure the fees are fair,” Chow says. There’s a good case for doing this. But how will these financial supports be funded? What sort of fees will she deem fair? None of it is spelled out.

The third item is the most detailed, spelling out a plan to “Assign responsibility of the program to one city division, establish a team to execute the program and coordinate across other divisions, and ensure there is a focus on providing good service for business owners” as well as “[setting] a goal of maximizing the number of patios by making the application system transparent, easy, quick, with fewer barriers and an approach that encourages approvals.”

Again, it would be nice to see some kind of costing attached to this. Presumably the City will need more staff dedicated to the program, and those staff will want to get paid.

But it is at least somewhat heartening that several of the specifics of Chow’s plan are the same as recommendations in a motion for a year-end report on the CaféTO program moved by Councillor Paula Fletcher at last week’s meeting of Toronto City Council. The synergy suggests that Chow is in a strong position to start working with City Council to make immediate and positive progress, should she prevail on Monday. That’s not nothing.

PLATFORM VIEW is a daily(ish) feature by City Hall Watcher on Substack Notes. Got a request for a candidate policy proposal I should review? Let me know.