My Second Time Speaking at Toronto City Hall

This is a followup to my previous post, My First Time Speaking at Toronto City Hall (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

My name is Khasir and I run Technologists for Democracy (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (TfD), a grassroots advocacy organization with the mission of keeping tech accountable here in Canada. I’m a machine learning engineer by trade. Many of us volunteers work in or adjacent to tech – the technical perspective helps to inform our advocacy.

In early December, Adam (my colleague and TfD co-conspirator) and I went to depute at Toronto City Hall. It was a followup item to the Magna International case (Si apre in una nuova finestra) that we’ve been involved with at TfD. I ended up leaving confused and disappointed. Cycle TO (Si apre in una nuova finestra) left with a bittersweet victory. Nearly everyone left feeling invalidated.

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Thanks to Civic Dashboard and City Hall Watcher (Si apre in una nuova finestra), we found out that December’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (IEC) would be discussing the responses from various Privacy Commissioners on Magna’s self-driving vehicle pilot. We’d been waiting for this since September, when the report was originally supposed to have come out.

Adam wanted to depute (i.e., speak) at City Hall on the item. I thought it would be a good idea to say thanks to councillors in person, and Adam would also bring up that Waymo and Serve Robotics would be coming to the city. He took a day off to depute. Thankfully I work as a contractor part-time, so I could move things around and attend.

On December 4, we went to City Hall in the morning. Instead of being hosted in a committee room, this time it was at the larger Council Chamber, because of the sheer number of deputants who signed up to speak.

December 4 was also the same day we sent our open letter to Cineplex Digital Media (Si apre in una nuova finestra) about their ads doing facial detection at Union Station Bus Terminal, so it was quite an exciting morning.

Once the meeting started at 9:30, I was surprised to find out that the blue bin program would no longer be run by the city, and instead outsourced to private companies (Si apre in una nuova finestra), and that this was forced upon the city by the province.

We then got into the meat of the day's meeting: the TransformTO Net Zero Strategy (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and Electricity and Toronto’s Climate Commitments (Si apre in una nuova finestra). Over 60 people signed up to depute for either or both items. Councillors elected to combine the two agenda items in the hope of speeding up the process, and slated the cycling item for 1:30 PM. We'd find out soon enough that this was extremely optimistic.

In between deputations, I got a call from Emma at TorontoToday (Si apre in una nuova finestra) about our open letter. They wanted to write a story on Tech for Democracy!

By the time we reached the lunch break at 12:30, we were only about halfway through all the deputants for the energy-related items. Adam and I returned at 2:00. We settled back in, and the deputations faded into the background as I read my copy of Enshittification.

Approaching 5:00 PM, after what felt like hundreds of speeches, the energy items finally carried and we could move onto other items. Councillor Fletcher, the Chair of the IEC, decided to shift items around, mentioning the risk of losing quorum in less than an hour. I assumed that meant items would instead be discussed tomorrow.

We finally got to our item, Correspondence Update on the Automated Vehicle Pilot Program (Si apre in una nuova finestra). I didn't fully understand what was happening in the moment. Councillor Fletcher mentioned something about asking if the speakers were here today, but also deferring and maybe coming back to it if we had time after the bike lane item, because the bike lane item had to be approved ahead of some sort of deadline later in December or it would be held in limbo.

Councillors voted to defer our item. It’d be discussed at the next IEC meeting on February 25. I was crestfallen. Adam took it in stride, saying it was good to understand firsthand why the deputation process is broken.

The Committee moved onto the bike lane item. Michael Longfield, Executive Director of Cycle Toronto, went first and simply said “we support the staff recommendations” in what was possibly the shortest deputation ever (Si apre in una nuova finestra). He then went around the room, trying to tell the dozens of people who spent the whole day waiting for their three minutes of fame to keep their speeches to a minimum. Most other speakers followed suit but some didn't get the memo, still speaking the full three minutes.

Adam and I left, since I figured we wouldn't get the chance to speak. I had been invited to play some Pathfinder that evening and planned to get there on time.

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Civic Dashboard is a great tool. It enables people like me and communities like Technologists for Democracy to become more aware of the goings-on in Toronto. But really, it’s a stop-gap for what the city really needs: better interfaces between the city and the public it serves. Not just better websites, but better processes and ways to interact with civic services.

Imagine hundreds of people signing up to depute on something as mundane as building a sidewalk on a side street in Don Valley East (Si apre in una nuova finestra). There are simply not enough hours in a day to listen to everyone. If meetings stop being productive by repeatedly having people speak for hours on every item, something will give and change will happen. 

Imagine being able to participate in what’s happening at the city at a meaningful level that doesn’t involve taking a day off just to speak for three minutes. Democracy has come to mean voting in elections and then sitting back for four years, because it’s too hard to do otherwise. But it doesn’t have to be this way!

The city already knows what it needs to do (Si apre in una nuova finestra) to begin improving the deputation process. For example, having dedicated staff to welcome deputants and prepare for presentations, or allowing for alternate ways of giving feedback on motions that don’t involve speaking in-person or online. 

This is the system we have: gather people to speak your mind, and councillors are forced to listen. This is democracy. But democracy can be much better. Imagine if the city looked to improve the user experience of its services in the way that tech companies do. Why not improve the democratic user experience?

In the meantime, wish us luck as Adam and I have elected to depute virtually for the upcoming IEC meeting on February 25.