Rob Ford’s boast of Toronto’s booming economy is on shaky ground: report

Toronto, in the midst of what must be the most drawn-out mayoral campaign in Canada, pits notorious incumbent Rob Ford against rivals from both the left and right determined to unseat the crack-smoking chief magistrate.

Ford's continued base of support hinges mainly on two things; his hands-on approach solving individual ratepayers' problems, plus his claim the city's prospering thanks to his focus on cutting taxes and service costs.

But new research is questioning how real that prosperity is.

Toronto's business leaders were treated to a cold shower of data Monday that indicated the city's worker productivity actually shrank between 2000 and 2010, the only North American city out of 12 sampled to experience serious negative growth in that period (Montreal's was essentially flat).

Admittedly, Ford didn't become mayor until the end of 2010, but he was a city councillor in the decade covered by the report prepared by the Toronto Region Board of Trade and the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity. He has claimed he battled the municipal "gravy train" in those years.

Overall, Toronto ranked 10th out of 12 jurisdictions in productivity when measured against peer regions, says the report, entitled Toward a Toronto Region Economic Strategy.

It outlines the city's important influence in the national economy in everything from financial services to production of pharmaceuticals, accounting for 20 per cent of Canada's gross domestic product.

However, the report found productivity per worker shrank by six per cent in the decade 2000-2010.

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The report appears to contradict Ford's campaign position that the city is booming under his watch, with a bustling construction sector, lots of tourists and low unemployment, the Globe and Mail observed.

“Far be it from me to contradict data at which Mayor Ford is pointing," institute chairman and report co-author Roger Martin told the Globe. "There are cranes. I can see lots of cranes from my office window, and unemployment has done reasonably well by North American standards.

“But to me the real measure of the might of an economy . . . has to do with, are its people producing a lot of value-added or a little value-added?”

The report includes a chart that shows Toronto last, behind Montreal, Atlanta and Vancouver, in growth of real gross domestic product per worker. San Francisco leads, followed by several other American cities. Calgary is sixth, roughly equal to Boston and Seattle.

“This is a disgrace chart as far as I am concerned,” Martin told the board of trade in a speech Monday, according to the Toronto Star. “If anyone needs motivation to say ‘Toronto needs to do something,’ this is the chart.”

Wages in Toronto have risen somewhat but overall economic prosperity has declined, he said.

“We’re considerably poorer than we would be, as an economy,” Martin said. “We have fewer tax dollars of revenue and fewer dollars in the pockets of Torontonians compared to . . . Seattle, Chicago, Boston.”

While the data may be from the last decade, it remains accurate today, he added. Nothing has changed to arrest the decline since Ford has been mayor.

Among the factors influencing the city's position are low investment in transportation infrastructure, creating traffic problems and wasted time, and an education system not geared to producing graduates with needed skills, Martin told the Globe.

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How much of the blame can be laid on Ford's shoulders is debatable. But board of trade president Carol Wilding suggested the region's politicians need to step up.

“But I don’t think we have yet from leadership, from governments at a mayoral level or even at the provincial level enough action that looks at the Toronto region,” she said, according to the Star.

As for Ford's claim that he's saved taxpayers a billion dollars, that's already been challenged. Globe columnist Marcus Gee noted last November you only get to that figure if you include cancellation of a vehicle-registration tax, which saved $200 million since 2010.

Meanwhile, the city boosted user fees for some city services and Ford projected that contracting out garbage collection would save $78 million, but that's over the life of a seven-year contract, Gee pointed out.

“We’re booming – this city has never been in better shape,” Ford boasted last fall. “The city has over 180 cranes in the sky now.”

That may be true, but the foundations of whatever prosperity Toronto enjoys could be shaky unless steps are taken to boost its competitiveness, the strategy report suggests.