With less than two months before November’s municipal election, Toronto Mayor Miller pulled a rabbit out of hat this week with an announcement that the city’s garbage disposal problem has been solved for the next 30 years. It was a stunning development by an administration that has fallen far short of the expectations Torontonians had when Miller was elected mayor in 2003. The mayor who promised to sweep city hall clean, and revitalize the city, has failed in almost all respects. Social services and law and order issues remain high amongst voters’ interests while the city’s infrastructure crumbles, its transportation network grinds closer to a halt and the city is a few days away from a grumpy US border guard turning back the trucks and causing the city to buried under a pile of its own refuse. Until, in an instant, the garbage problem is solved.
Hold on to your ballots folks. This story is far from over. Dissect the details of the announcement. It’s a a tentative deal to close in 90 days - well after the election and when the mayor hopes to be secure in his job for another term. The costs are secret. The business case is secret. And if the city’s record is relevant, Toronto’s experience in turning agreements in principle into contracts is dismal. For example, numerous tentative deals to renovate Union Station have all collapsed under the influence of bickering councillors, the mayor and city staff. Similar problems have plagued redevelopment throughout the city. The pattern is that that city, in the end, gives up on the proposed agreement and sinks further into the holes it digs for itself.
Aside from the lack of accomplishments, an absence of integrity has been the distinguishing characteristic of Mayor Miller’s administration. The primary issue last election was the corruption and horrific waste of money for the purchase of computers and software leading up to Y2K. The mayor promised to clean-up city hall but, instead, has become a defender of untended agreements. He thinks it is perfectly OK, even admirable, to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on new subway cars without calling for competitive bids. He says he wants to protect jobs in Ontario but it’s more likely he wants to safeguard the support he gets from the unions whose members will build those subway cars. The same can be said about the TTC chairman and mayor’s ally, Howard Moscoe.
I have no way of knowing whether city staff will be able to finalise an agreement with the company selling it the landfill site which will hold 8 to 30 years - depending on what source you listen to - of Toronto’s garbage. Maybe this time they will be motivated to get it right and the secret business case, if and when it is revealed, will be convincing. Based on history, I expect either an expensive boondoggle or that the whole deal will collapse. Either way - Miller is on his way to becoming known in the history of the city as the Mayor of all the garbage.
Hold on to your ballots folks. This story is far from over. Dissect the details of the announcement. It’s a a tentative deal to close in 90 days - well after the election and when the mayor hopes to be secure in his job for another term. The costs are secret. The business case is secret. And if the city’s record is relevant, Toronto’s experience in turning agreements in principle into contracts is dismal. For example, numerous tentative deals to renovate Union Station have all collapsed under the influence of bickering councillors, the mayor and city staff. Similar problems have plagued redevelopment throughout the city. The pattern is that that city, in the end, gives up on the proposed agreement and sinks further into the holes it digs for itself.
Aside from the lack of accomplishments, an absence of integrity has been the distinguishing characteristic of Mayor Miller’s administration. The primary issue last election was the corruption and horrific waste of money for the purchase of computers and software leading up to Y2K. The mayor promised to clean-up city hall but, instead, has become a defender of untended agreements. He thinks it is perfectly OK, even admirable, to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on new subway cars without calling for competitive bids. He says he wants to protect jobs in Ontario but it’s more likely he wants to safeguard the support he gets from the unions whose members will build those subway cars. The same can be said about the TTC chairman and mayor’s ally, Howard Moscoe.
I have no way of knowing whether city staff will be able to finalise an agreement with the company selling it the landfill site which will hold 8 to 30 years - depending on what source you listen to - of Toronto’s garbage. Maybe this time they will be motivated to get it right and the secret business case, if and when it is revealed, will be convincing. Based on history, I expect either an expensive boondoggle or that the whole deal will collapse. Either way - Miller is on his way to becoming known in the history of the city as the Mayor of all the garbage.
