
Toronto’s Google-linked smart city draws opposition over privacy, costs - petethomas
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/quayside-torontos-google-linked-smart-city-draws-opposition-over-privacy-costs/2019/05/05/e0785500-6d12-11e9-bbe7-1c798fb80536_story.html
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tomComb
As far as I can tell the opposition is driven by Blackberry who want to
exclude foreign ocmpanies so they can bid for the contract without any
competition.

Proof? One of the BB founders got the front page of the Globe (Canada's
national paper) to decry Google and conclude that only Canadian companies
should be allowed to bid, without ever disclosing that BB was working on a
competing product. The BB product was announced a couple of months later.

I think it was one of the most dishonest things I've ever seen in the Globe
(which is otherwise a pretty good paper).

Imagine how BB could roast Canadian taxpayers if they could exclude foreign
companies!

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username444
As a Canadian living within walking distance of the project, this is the first
I've heard of blackberry's involvement. There are some people in tech that are
excited about the project, but the vast majority of locals are extremely
cynical of Google's intentions and skeptical of their long term commitment.
The entire city team was fired not long ago for... Not quite incompetence, but
close enough.

The fact is Toronto doesn't need this sort of project to begin with. There's
more construction going on here than anywhere in North America and developers
are fighting to build more, while prices continue to climb anyways.

~~~
tomComb
You've probably noticed that the cynicism is reinforced by a concerted
campaign of eg. op-eds, but if you want hard evidence, here's the front page
piece I was talking about:

[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-sidewalk-
tor...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-sidewalk-toronto-is-
not-a-smart-city/)

A lot of favours must have been called in for them to get the Globe to
prostitute themselves like that. I've been reading the Globe since I was old
enough to read and I've never seen them do anything as dishonest as that.

Everything company is after profit and will behave accordingly. If there are
issues with long-term commitment of Google, or any other concerns, then it
must be addressed in the contract.

The city must absolutely drive a hard bargain, but if we start the whole thing
with inuendo, dishonest media campaigns, calls to misplaced patriotism, then
they must be interested in some sort of sweet heart deal without competition.

