TTC honcho Gary Webster will probably be fired today, in yet another special meeting
Some time after 2 p.m. today, TTC chief general manager Gary Webster, who’s been in the transit business for about three decades, will probably be sacked in a special meeting of the city’s transit commissioners. The mayor’s office has been gunning for Webster since at least last summer, when news broke that the seasoned transit chief wasn’t sufficiently receptive to Rob Ford’s plans for the Sheppard subway. Now it looks like Webster’s recent defence of “numbers” and “facts” at Karen Stintz’s special council showdown meeting two weeks back was the final straw.
Tuesday’s snap meeting to debate Mr. Webster’s fate comes two weeks after he outlined the virtues of light rail lines over subways, which Mayor Rob Ford champions, during a special council debate.
At the meeting, councillors rejected subways, choosing to follow Ms. Stintz’s plan to build above-ground light rail on Finch Avenue West and at the east end of the Eglinton Crosstown line and to consider options for Sheppard Avenue.
Even before that debate, however, members of the mayor’s team had openly questioned transit leadership, with his brother Councillor Doug Ford saying “the TTC needs a complete enema.”
Of course, providing honest answers to councillors’ questions is pretty much what the city hires people like Webster to do—as long as they go on to follow the instructions of their political masters. At this point, it’s anyone’s guess as to what Ford’s overarching strategy might be. Over at the Toronto Star, Christopher Hume argues that the contrast between Ford’s “petulance” and Webster, “whose integrity and intelligence are above reproach,” couldn’t be starker. We already know that numbers on population growth simply don’t support the case for Ford’s Sheppard subway (we know this from that report that Ford received and subsequently repressed). Perhaps a less rebellious TTC would be willing to overlook such concerns (indeed, Royson James enumerates in the Star just what responsibilities would be demanded of a good TTC lackey). Or perhaps Ford just doesn’t tolerate dissent.
• Toronto transit chair to commissioners: What’s next? [Globe and Mail]
• Mayor Rob Ford making a mess of the TTC [Toronto Star]
• Royson James: Ford looking for a TTC lackey [Toronto Star]
The fact of the matter is this guy sucks at his job. He can’t manage anything, and the TTC is a mess because of his terrible mismanagement. He lets his ideologies interfere with what’s best for the city. I am not a Ford supporter, but this guy should have been fired LONG ago.
Anyone who doesn’t respect the office of the mayor should move to Norway.
At the very least we must PURGE the government of all these non-right-wing influences. The Government is a Business, and it’s not here to help you anymore. It’s here to make a profit.
Being a political leader is like being a parent. The children can’t contradict you – even if they are technically right, they have to know their place. Government employees, like children, are best seen (at Toronto Sun photo-ops) and not heard. Gary Webster spoke out of turn and made Daddy look foolish for pushing a plan that is, lets face it, unrealistic. But since realism isn’t important to voters, Webster should have just kept his mouth shut and welcomed the huge infusion of tax dollars it will take to build an underground LRT. He didn’t – and now the poor taxpayers are on the hook for his huge severance package.
It will be great once the TTC is stacked with likeminded conservatives, eager to do whatever Rob Ford tells them to do.
We will finally get the TTC we deserve.
This whole ordeal seems so juvinile… We’re essentially dealing with a group of uneducated, pigheaded council members who’s capabilities of rational, logical, and innovative thinking are as limited as the amount of profitable public services they’re able to produce.
Their blatant disregard for civilized conduct and ability to follow due course highlights their obvious limitations. If this is how he municipal government is choosing to conduct their business I don’t see much more than another Mel Lastman era in the works. I still can’t believe we paid to fill in the Eglinton line 10 years ago.