M II A II R II K
Senior Member
Politicians to stay on TTC board
March 1, 2010
By JONATHAN JENKINS
Read More: http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/03/01/13073451.html
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Paul Ainslie wants the politicians off the bus. The Scarborough East councillor lost a bid yesterday to have city councillors replaced on the Toronto Transit Commission by appointed citizens but said that won’t stop him from pushing the idea as an election issue. “That’s the only place left to debate it,†Ainslie said Monday.
“The TTC needs to be de-politicized. We need people with some business expertise, engineers, independent people who can run the TTC properly. “It’s definitely something that has to change.â€
Ainslie’s idea may have some traction in the campaign, as two frontrunners in the mayoral race, George Smitherman and Rocco Rossi, have made similar calls. But it didn’t fly at council’s executive committee, which deferred the matter indefinitely — sending it to he deepest of procedural black holes.
“It’s disgusting,†Ainslie said. “It’s politicians looking after politicians. We talk about a structural deficit here at City Hall and changing things and the executive committee once again just voted for the status quo.â€
But veteran Councillor Howard Moscoe, a former TTC chairman, said it was laughable to believe “Mrs. Romana would hang up her apron†and step onto the TTC board, arguing instead that citizen appointees would just be friends of politicians with no accountability to the public.
“It goes fundamentally against the democratic process,†Moscoe said. “If you want people to govern, you elect them to govern, and we throw them out if we don’t like what they do.
“We have experts on the TTC. We hire them. We pay them a lot of money to run the TTC.â€
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March 1, 2010
By JONATHAN JENKINS
Read More: http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/03/01/13073451.html
##########################################################################
Paul Ainslie wants the politicians off the bus. The Scarborough East councillor lost a bid yesterday to have city councillors replaced on the Toronto Transit Commission by appointed citizens but said that won’t stop him from pushing the idea as an election issue. “That’s the only place left to debate it,†Ainslie said Monday.
“The TTC needs to be de-politicized. We need people with some business expertise, engineers, independent people who can run the TTC properly. “It’s definitely something that has to change.â€
Ainslie’s idea may have some traction in the campaign, as two frontrunners in the mayoral race, George Smitherman and Rocco Rossi, have made similar calls. But it didn’t fly at council’s executive committee, which deferred the matter indefinitely — sending it to he deepest of procedural black holes.
“It’s disgusting,†Ainslie said. “It’s politicians looking after politicians. We talk about a structural deficit here at City Hall and changing things and the executive committee once again just voted for the status quo.â€
But veteran Councillor Howard Moscoe, a former TTC chairman, said it was laughable to believe “Mrs. Romana would hang up her apron†and step onto the TTC board, arguing instead that citizen appointees would just be friends of politicians with no accountability to the public.
“It goes fundamentally against the democratic process,†Moscoe said. “If you want people to govern, you elect them to govern, and we throw them out if we don’t like what they do.
“We have experts on the TTC. We hire them. We pay them a lot of money to run the TTC.â€
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