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Scene: Stop the Cuts Protest at KPMG Offices

By Mark Kay

20110721ocap1.jpg

20110721ocap2.jpg
Top photo sent in anonymously; bottom photo by Mark Kay.


WHERE: Outside the KPMG offices at Bay and Adelaide streets.
WHEN: 12:30–1 p.m.
WHAT: Stop the Cuts, prominently featuring OCAP participants, hit all the boxes in protest bingo today at the KPMG offices today. From playing Rage Against the Machine through speakers to a lone black balaclava anarchy flag–waver flipping off the skyscraper for photo ops. The crowd is more milling than marching in the heat, with little chanting or drama in evidence. KPMG was commissioned by the City of Toronto to produce a series of reports detailing potential budget savings. Those reports, currently being debated at City Hall, are widely seen as setting the stage for a long list of service cuts.


CORRECTION: July 21, 2011, 5:00 PM When first published, this post said that the protest was organized by OCAP. In fact, while the event’s MC was John Clarke of OCAP and many protesters identified as OCAP members, the protest was organized by Stop the Cuts.

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Comments

  • andrew97

    Can somebody please explain the progressive case against the audit? Because it seems to be, “Public services are free if we plug our ears and say 'la la la' when someone tries to tell us how much they cost”.

    Why can't we USE THE AUDIT AS AMMUNITION to defend public services that have low cost and provable public benefits (costs and benefits that are POINTED OUT in the audit)? 

    I mean, quite apart from the fact that OCAP is loony tunes.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=509288195 Pedram Navid

    OCAP protesting KPMG is like yelling at a teller when the bank took your money. They were commissioned to report on city services and that is what they did. You'd have to dig a little deeper (but not very much) to find out what drove the report in the first place.

  • http://piorkowski.ca qviri

    I'm not on board with protesting KPMG – it's a corporation, profit is their job, turning down the task would have benefited no one. The progressive case is not so much against the audit as with the Ford administration's handling of it and using it to their political purposes. Everything from crisis creation to ordering an expensive report that tells us few things we didn't know – Toronto has libraries! The use of libraries will drop if we close a couple! – to releasing a list of all possible cuts with media orchestration so that in the end the 'few' things cut will make it look like we got out easy is sketchy. We're talking about an administration that made a big deal out of saving $20k per councillor in budgets and repeatedly refers to revenue loss as “savings” – good luck using numbers or findings from the audit as ammunition against them. “That's simply not true” will be the level of the response.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=509203497 Patrick Clobo

    re: lazy reporting

    this action was organised by toronto stop the cuts. a broad coalition of groups and individuals fighting against cuts to public services and organising in neighbourhoods all across toronto. http://www.torontostopthecuts….

    sure ocap is in there, but labeling the entire thing ocap and trying to put it in a box is really shit reporting.

    the grid is brand new and they even did a way better job of covering this than torontoist: http://www.thegridto.com/city/…

    were you guys even there?

  • dsmithhfx

    KPMG's hands are dirty with Enron, dirty with toxic mortages, and dirty with illegal tax shelters. Google it. And now they're dirty with Rob Ford's vicious little shell game to stiff the people of this city after he lied to us that he was not going to cut any services, “guaranteed” (you can look that up, too.  gwan!).

    When KPMG pays ALL the taxes needed to run this city, then they can start telling us what they're going to cut.

    Or they can take their 30 pieces of silver, and GTF out of dodge.

  • TorontoistEditors

    Actually, two of our contributors were there. The only official notification of the protest we received was from OCAP; apparently we are not on Stop the Cuts' media distribution list, which we'll try to rectify immediately.

  • question

    This was 48 minutes ago – yet your headlines reads the same. Also on facebook - http://www.facebook.com/stopth…

  • question

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v… - Here this might help to explain why KPMG

  • TorontoistEditors

    Rest assured, we will certainly issue a correction if one is required.

    (One note for you: The Grid is not a new publication; they are the rebranded version of Eye Weekly, which published for 20 years before being renamed this spring.)

  • gravyless

    If? You have proven factually incorrect. Please see http://www.torontostopthecuts…. frontpage for more info.

    Factually incorrect and pithy: sounds about right for you guys.

  • TorontoistEditors

    Please reload your page – we've issued a correction.

  • http://twitter.com/mark_dowling Mark Dowling

    attitude like this is why there were 10000 people at the protest – oh wait there wasn't.

  • question

    Thank you.

  • istoronto

    This audit is a waste of taxpayer's money. Want to reduce the deficit over the next few years?  Tell council to reinstate the VRT. Tell them to stop pushing to get rid of the Land Transfer tax. It doesn't seem to be hurting the real-estate market. Tell the Ford brothers they can't have that NFL franchise they've been salivating over in their dreams. 

    If KPMG is recommending pay for service and privatization, did I miss the road tolls recommendation somwhere? Because that's about the only pay for use, revenue generation proposal, I'd support. I'm happy with a small property tax increase every year, for the city to continue to provide all of the services they currently provide at  levels or better.

  • TorontoProud

    Pride Toronto declares that the Director of Diversity for KPMG is the Grand Marshall of the Pride Parade this year.  Everyone claps and shouts about how great they are when it comes to diversity.  Three weeks later KPMG recommends eliminating the grants that fund the Pride Parade and the grants that fund 42 AIDS/HIV programs in the City. Clearly KPMG does not understand the value of diversity in our City.

  • cdnrailfan

    if you want to protest the purposed cuts, go rally at city hall not at the firm that was hired to look at the books…,,,

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bryan-Cook/507835870 Bryan Cook

    Sadly this is an example of talking without saying anything.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bryan-Cook/507835870 Bryan Cook

    The Grid isn't New it's the EYE with new paint.

  • nevilleross

    They are equally full of shit for even agreeing to do the report in the first place, and as was already said above:

    KPMG's hands are dirty with Enron, dirty with toxic mortgages, and dirty with illegal tax shelters. Google it. And now they're dirty with Rob Ford's vicious little shell game to stiff the people of this city after he lied to us that he was not going to cut any services, “guaranteed” (you can look that up, too. gwan!).When KPMG pays ALL the taxes needed to run this city, then they can start telling us what they're going to cut.Or they can take their 30 pieces of silver, and GTF out of dodge.

  • torontothegreat

    They are not full of shit. They are profit-driven.

    The hate for KPMG must have RoFo laughing at the public.

  • nevilleross

    Why should people care about what Fatty Ford thinks about the protest?

  • torontothegreat

    That's not what I'm saying. For some reason OCAP is shooting the messenger, which redirects the placement of blame. RoFo must be happy about this.