Steve’s Plan For Toronto
In the spirit of cooperation, I will help any other candidate who holds similar beliefs or goals, especially other candidates who want to help save Ontario Place West island.
Improve Education
Upgrade our education system using my experience at MIT and Stanford, and my experience co-founding companies like InteraXon. I’ll combine MIT’s innovation with Stanford / silicon-valley business sense, to improve education from kindergarten to post-doctorate.
Free Education
Make all university education tuition-free (zero-cost tuition). Education is a human right, and benefits everyone, not just the educated. I’ll create innovation in the technology-sector to facilitate funding by industry so the $0 tuition effort will come at zero additional taxpayer expense.
Ontario Place
Turn Ontario Place into a university plus research lab and lake access (heated changerooms, small-scale saunas and hot tubs for warmup before and after icewater swims in the lake) without the removal of any trees and without destroying the existing Ontario Science Centre or the existing beach. Enforce 100k/tree fine for any trees removed from Ontario Place West island.
Water Capital
Recognize Toronto as the freshwater capital of the world, by creating the Hydraulikos (Ontario Water Centre) at Ontario Place to solve Toronto’s water problems (access to clean water, problems with flooding, sewage, etc.) through UOP (University of/at Ontario Place). Declare access to fresh clean water in downtown Toronto a human right, and ensure that downtown Toronto’s only beach is preserved and made accessible. Make Great Lakes research and education a priority at UOP (University of/at Ontario Place
Fuses (or breakers) in government
As a professor of electrical engineering, I know the importance of limiting power. Unlimited power is dangerous, so we always use fuses or circuit breakers to limit power. I’ll apply this principle to government, such that government power is cut off when too much of it is used. “Power… corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” – Lord Acton 1887.
TO as Water Capital
Recognize Toronto as the freshwater capital of the world, by creating the Hydraulikos (Ontario Water Centre) at Ontario Place to solve Toronto’s water problems (access to clean water, problems with flooding, sewage, etc.) through UOP (University of/at Ontario Place). Declare access to fresh clean water in downtown Toronto a human right, and ensure that downtown Toronto’s only beach is preserved and made accessible. Make Great Lakes research and education a priority at UOP (University of/at Ontario Place
Cut Taxes
Reduce taxes and improve services by cutting costs. First on the price chopping block will be closed-source software and software licensing costs. By using free open-source computer programs in government, we’ll improve computer literacy, make things run more efficiently, save money, and boost jobs in Canada, Ontario, and Toronto. Rather than paying Microsoft license fees, we’ll create jobs for local computer engineers to adapt open-source alternatives to government needs.
Save taxpayers money by adopting open-source software over big tech
Embrace Crypto
Accept and embrace cryptocurrencies in municipal government. You’ll be able to pay your taxes in bitcoin, litecoin, dogecoin, or Monero.
Open-Source Policy
Standards-based computing: platform-free computing. Software-free computing… computing as a service.
Software Tax
Introduce a software tax that funds and incentivizes software-free computing (eg. GNU Linux)
Open Data