July 14, 2003
Toronto Councillor Jane Pitfield, the vice chair of the Works Committee, has initiated a scheme to combat the garbage that is piling up in the city’s parks. A snitch line. The proposal goes before Toronto Council in July, and the one-year pilot project is due to start in September. According to Pitfield, garbage that is dumped in parks is "one of the most important issues in the city right now." It’s a good thing that she told us that, because many uninformed Toronto residents thought that such things as the economic downturn resulting from SARS, high taxes and user fees, and the expected outbreak of West Nile virus were the important issues. But Jane Pitfield is a city mother and she knows best.
Anyone who calls the snitch line (which will be 416-39CLEAN) will be rewarded with $100 if the tip leads to the conviction of an unlawful garbage dumper. The councillor has said that the cost of the program will be a mere $10,000. Considering the fact that this is about one third of the cost that the bicycle lane building, transit loving council spent on parking during the SARS crisis, this is a real bargain. Besides, council probably spends more than $10,000 for lunch on a good day. According to Pitfield, for every one $100 that the city will pay out, they will collect a $305 fine, so they will actually make money. Of course, the city will lose money as it usually does, but money is not the issue.
There is no doubt that illegally dumped garbage is a real problem for the city. And keeping the city free of garbage, is, much like fixing potholes, one of the few things that city council does that is actually a core service that local governments are elected to do. But snitch lines are not the way to do it. Encouraging residents of the city to spy and snitch on their neighbours smacks of totalitarianism. States like China, the former Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany have or had its citizens informing on one another--all for the good of the state. The state is all important and good citizens were encouraged to turn in their friends and their families all for the state’s well-being. Snitch lines are vastly different from the Crimestoppers program. Law abiding citizens in a democratic society have a duty to go to the police when they have information about a serious crime. Crimestoppers allows people, who because of fear or other reasons, wish to provide information concerning a crime to the police without having to disclose their identity. There is a trend towards snitch lines and if one is initiated for garbage in parks, it will only be a matter of time before Toronto residents are encouraged to turn friends and neighbours in for other city bylaw infractions such as the horrendous act of idling a car for more than three minutes. Perhaps we’ll be encouraged to inform on the lowlifes who park at expired parking meters. Where will it end?
According to Pitfield, it is positive to reward people (ie. snitches) because the City of Toronto has only 37 inspectors. In other words, residents are being bribed to enforce a law that the city is incapable of enforcing. Toronto Council seems to have money for every left wing special interest group that asks for it, but they can’t keep the parks free of garbage. If the free spending debt ridden council cannot keep the parks clean, the garbage should just be allowed to pile up until Torontonians can elect a council that can do something about it. When the old City of Toronto passed its non-smoking bylaw in the late 90s, it required those people in control of premises to enforce it. It’s not the responsibility of a restaurant owner to get into a confrontational situation with someone who’s breaking a bylaw. Citizens should not be encouraged to be police.
Pitfield has gloated about how the program will be advertised, starting in September, and about how it will be taught in the schools. School kids no doubt are responsible for a disproportionate amount of litter that we see in our streets and it should be mentioned in schools. But, now, for what will seem to be a lot of money to some of them, they will be encouraged to turn their parents in.
On a recent call-in program on CFRB, the host asked callers what jobs are the best for getting away with doing as little as possible. A large number of callers, many of them describing themselves as City of Toronto employees or ex-employees, said that they’re jobs were. Maybe we should have a snitch line to inform on city workers who are goofing off. How about that, Jane?