City councillor Joe Mihevc commissioned a legal report last week stating that Rob Ford does not have the authority to cancel Transit City without the approval of city council. This report unearthed a wave of criticism for Ford’s plans to cancel street level LRT lines in favour of underground subways. Though the mayor has always had his fair share of critics, they seem to have found a new momentum after the commissioned report, released January 30.
Over the following weekend, a group of 120 leading academics, civic leaders and transportation planners signed an open letter to council urging them to put a stop to the mayor’s transit plans. By the morning of February 6, TTC chair Karen Stintz submitted to the city clerk a petition signed by 24 members of council, asking for a special council meeting on February 8 to evaluate Ford’s underground subway plans.
The wheels may be in motion to get Transit City back on the table, but if all it took was having a lawyer outline fairly basic municipal rules, why did council wait a year to play that card? Mihevc could have done this in December 2010 when Ford first announced his plans, but at that time the mayor was still riding high from his big election win, and the report might not have had the same impact.
Because of the delay in standing up to the mayor, an improved transit system for this city is yet another year further away. Toronto’s weak-mayor, strong-council system means that when it comes to making major decisions, the mayor is only 1 of 44 votes and relies on the votes of a majority of councillors to pass anything through council. But between gravy trains and threats to library and other community services, council has had its hands full. Plus, with 14 rookie councillors at City Hall, it’s not surprising that it took some time for everyone to find their footing.
“To come on strong the way the mayor did made it hard,” says Mihevc. Though the legal decision wasn’t saying anything particularly new, Mihevc believes it was necessary to get the ball rolling. There was a bit of a kerfuffle when Mihevc wouldn’t reveal how the legal opinion had been paid for, and Ford-ally councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong threatened to take Mihevc to the integrity commissioner. Mihevc later assuaged critics by admitting that he personally footed the entire $4,000 legal bill for the report.
It’s also no coincidence that council is acting on this just as Ford’s popularity is dropping. When Ford’s budget didn’t pass last month, the climate in council shifted. At that point, says Mihevc, it made sense to commission the legal decision. “It just seemed like this was the right time to bring things to a head. There was a change in the political culture that took the course of 2011.”
“If there’s anyone to be blamed for the year’s delay in transit development, it’s Mayor Ford,” says Eric Miller, Director of University of Toronto’s Cities Centre and one of the authors of the open letter sent out over the weekend. “He’s the one who threw a monkey wrench into it. If it’s taken a year to rectify it, it’s very unfortunate but I wouldn’t blame council for that.”
The allegedly sidelined and bullied council aside, the press and the general public also understood the limits of the mayor’s power. Back in December of 2010, then Ontario transport minister Kathleen Wynne said a number of times that the province would work with the city to develop subways instead of street level LRT, but only if council signed off on it. “These are not unilateral decisions to be made. And that’s why council needs to weigh in,” said Wynne in an interview on December 1, 2010. It was a top news story for over a week.
Ford’s approach has lost him the support of a lot of councillors, including Karen Stintz, who he himself appointed to the position of TTC chair. And as for the future of Transit City, the special council meeting this afternoon should shed some light on our next direction.
