It’s wasn’t everyone in the room’s most favourite activist tactic, but a roomful of community types met Thursday afternoon under the crystal chandeliers at 519 Church to strategize around a lobbying effort designed to checkmate Fordist cuts to community services.
Hosted by Social Planning Toronto, this gathering of 80 focused almost exclusively on a list of ten “priority” councillors they’ve identified as “not firmly entrenched on either side of the political spectrum” and who might be persuaded to vote to preserve community grants and services.
It may be a limited mission (many in the room are experienced organizers and no doubt consider teaparties with mushy middle councillors a bit lightweight) but it’s a smart one.
The tyranny of numbers means essentially this: 23 votes ensures the city continues to fund a range of services represented by Social Planning Toronto. Specifically this entails S1 billion to non-profit services (homeless shelters, rec services, social housing, enviro programs, etc) and $43 mil to the Community Partnership Investment Program (for stuff like youth drop-ins, seniors rec, HIV education, community development, etc). (More on the services review here.)
“You’re the advance guard,” Social Planning exec director John Campey told the meeting, as he explained the essence of the Commitment to Community project. Social Planning is calling on residents to perform ten “acts of community” – calling, or writing elected officials, joining deputations and attending meetings, etc – all to ensure the caring city message is carried far and wide.
“We want to move beyond being upset and find the power we do have – and use it,” said Jonah Schein, formerly of the Stop Community Food Centre and now the provincial NDP candidate in Davenport.
The key to influencing the centre block, explained group facilitator Mike Balkwill, is identifying “secondary targets”- those orgs and individuals who aren’t allies but vulnerable enough to pressure from the anti-cuts movement that they might sway a wavering councillor in the right direction.
“Councillors won’t be influenced by the facts,” Balkwill said, but they may be by the individuals and groups they seek to keep in their orbit.
Then it was time for the “buzz” groups sitting at tables (I sat beside streetnurse, Cathy Crowe and gender/ police accountability activist Anna Willats) to start on the tactical nitty-gritty: analyzing the political landscape of each “priority” ward, identifying secondary targets (parent groups, BIA’s, ethnic orgs, faith groups, residents associations, neighboring councillors) and scripting dialogue for visits to the ideological oscillators.
Of course, one doesn’t know if all the big ten (Frank Di Giorgio, Josh Colle, Ana Bailao, Josh Matlow, John Filion, Mary Margeret McMahon, Michelle Berardinetti, Gary Crawford, Chin Lee, Raymond Cho) are capable of withstanding the fierce Fordist pressure to come – but the stakes are just too high not to declare button-holing essential political action.
