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rfmcdonaldGary Webster, general manager of the Toronto Transit Commissioner, is set to be purged from his position--at an estimated cost to the city of a half-million dollars--for having testified before City Council that light rail, not subways, would make the best investment in the city's transit future.
Two Toronto Star articles provide useful commentary. The first reports on TTC chair Karen Stintz' reaction.
The second, a more extended consideration, is by Christopher Hume, who observes that if you want an efficient transit system, getting rid of its managers whenever the facts they communicate offend you is a pretty vulgar way to go about it.
Myself, I hope only that Webster will not be purged. If he is, I expect protracted instability. Will Ford's opponents proceed by getting involved in staffing and management themselves?
Two Toronto Star articles provide useful commentary. The first reports on TTC chair Karen Stintz' reaction.
Although she doesn’t believe he deserves to be fired, TTC chair Karen Stintz says she’ll abide by the transit board’s decision if it axes TTC chief general manager Gary Webster at a special meeting Tuesday.
Stintz told reporters she won’t push for another special city council meeting to reinstate Webster or have her Toronto Transit Commission rivals removed from the TTC board.
But, speaking to reporters at City Hall, she warned that the stability of the TTC is at risk if Webster is removed.
“Over the last 16 months, we’ve done a lot of really good work at the TTC to improve our customer service, to improve our operational efficiency, to get our budget under control. At this time, it’s not clear to me why we would have a leadership change when all of those initiatives are just starting to get implemented.
Stintz said council is responsible for the decisions the city made to overturn Mayor Rob Ford’s plan to build underground transit and that Webster rendered his best professional opinion.
“Council could have chosen to accept or not accept his professional opinion. Council chose; to accept his professional opinion. I don’t’ know why my colleagues have called this meeting for today. I have to wait and see what it is that they’re hoping to achieve and why now,” she said of the meeting that was called by Ford loyalists Cesar Palacio, Frank Di Giorgio, Norm Kelly, Denzil Minnan-Wong and Vince Crisanti.
The second, a more extended consideration, is by Christopher Hume, who observes that if you want an efficient transit system, getting rid of its managers whenever the facts they communicate offend you is a pretty vulgar way to go about it.
In this mayor, Toronto has a man who knows little about basic principles and respects them less. His treatment of Webster, and the threats against other senior TTC managers, shows a contempt that goes well beyond anything seen before at City Hall.
Recent comments by the mayor’s brother, Doug, about the TTC being in need of an “enema” were revealing of a mindset that stands out in its utter coarseness.
By now, pretty well anyone who knows anything about transit has made it clear that burying the LRT on Eglinton Ave. east of Laird Dr. is bad policy. Unnecessary, inappropriate and wasteful to the tune of $2 billion, an underground LRT only makes sense from the point of view of a driver consumed by road rage. Even then, Eglinton East isn’t where drivers are most likely to find themselves overtaken by anger.
But even if putting light rail below grade were justifiable, Ford’s actions demonstrate a degree of disrespect that raises the question of his ability to lead. Governance itself doesn’t care about outcomes; only how they are reached. That’s why process matters, especially in a democracy, which by its nature, is divided and fractious.
Claiming to speak for some mythical man in the street, those he meets at Tim Hortons and McDonald’s, Ford first declared city council “irrelevant,” and now wants to emasculate the bureaucracy.
How ironic that Ford’s petulance should be directed at a person, Gary Webster, whose integrity and intelligence are above reproach. The contrast between the two men couldn’t be starker.
That Ford can still find five members of council willing to do his bidding, no matter how transparently shabby it may be, also speaks volumes about the sorry state of Toronto politics. The members of this odious quintet — TTC commissioners Norm Kelly, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Frank Di Giorgio, Cesar Palacio and Vincent Crisanti — shame all Torontonians, including the mayor.
The message to City Hall management, and indirectly to the rest of us, is that it’s Ford’s way or the highway. There’s no room for discussion, compromise or consensus. Indeed, Ford and his TTC heavies have even gone so far as to suppress reports that don’t back up their demands.
Nobody voted for Rob Ford because he’s the smartest man in town, but his failure to understand that truth — facts and figures — plays a role in decision-making is deeply concerning.
Myself, I hope only that Webster will not be purged. If he is, I expect protracted instability. Will Ford's opponents proceed by getting involved in staffing and management themselves?
