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Adam Giambrone On His Video, the 2010 Election, and What He’s Learned So Far

By Hamutal Dotan

Toronto is going to the polls on October 25, 2010. Over the course of the campaign we’ll be sitting down with as many of the candidates as we can, asking them to tell us in their own words why they are seeking public office and what they hope to accomplish if elected.

20100130giambrone1.jpg
Adam Giambrone speaking at an art show, September 2009.


Adam Giambrone (Ward 18, Davenport) is still determinedly playing coy about his intentions (though really he isn’t), but all signs point to him running for mayor. His campaign formally launches on Monday, and we sat down with him today for to talk about his track record and get a sneak peak at the priorities which might shape his campaign.


Torontoist: Let’s start with the most obvious question. Can you confirm that you’re running for mayor?
Giambrone: All I can confirm is that we’re going to have a party and will make an announcement on Monday.
You released a video yesterday. What messages were you hoping to convey with it?
I have a persona—and I think it’s true—of somebody who’s very serious. The Globe‘s called me a technocrat at times, the word ‘earnest’ has come up. I take my job as the chair of the TTC, as councillor representing fifty thousand in Davenport, very seriously, but on the other hand I think that once in a while you do have to have a bit of a sense of humour and step back and take a look at some other aspects of the race. One of those aspects is about how you communicate with Torontonians, how you engage more people.
There are policies, and those are very important: you want to have candidates who have thought through the challenges the city has and how they’re going to respond to those challenges, what their plans are, how they think they’re going to go about doing it—that’s all important. We’re going to have a lot of time to talk about issues over the next eight or nine months, and a lot of them a lot sooner than that, because people are going to want to hear real ideas, real solutions. And, also, it’s always interesting what a candidate identifies as the issues, not just the solutions, because that identification speaks to a value set and speaks to a way of thinking.
But one of the things we’ve heard in the city is that people want to be more engaged: they want to get more information, they want to interact with their city government in different ways. Over the last couple of years I’ve been beginning to communicate differently. We’ve always got the newsletters, emails—all of those things are pretty common. In the last couple of years I’ve tried to branch out in terms of the use of social media as a way of communicating differently. YouTube, while it isn’t new at all, offers a different vehicle to communicate an idea and get out there. I think government should do a better job of actually communicating with people. People want to have access to politicians, they want to interact; I do that on Facebook and Twitter today, and so communicating with YouTube is really just a natural extension.
As someone who’s currently a councillor and has been a councillor for a while what’s your sense of what Torontonians’ biggest concerns are? What are they going to be looking for in this campaign?
I think we’re hearing from a lot of Torontonians about a desire to see how the city’s positioned over the next five years. There’s a real sense that we have to take a big step to make sure that we’re [making] the investments in the city that are needed to prepare ourselves for everything from the Pan-Am to just being the city we want to be. I’ll have a lot more details to talk about on Monday, about what I have heard people talking about and where I think we need to go.

20100130giambrone2.jpg
Giambrone speaking at a Clean Train Coalition rally, September 2009.

What do you think have been the biggest successes and the biggest failures of David Miller’s administration?
This city has really changed over the last seven years, and I think a lot of the positives have been accentuated. Now this city as viewed as a leader internationally as a green city, it has the largest transit expansion in North America, the largest light rail expansion in the world, and people are beginning to notice.
Toronto is being put on the map for a lot of good reasons, and I think what you’re hearing from people is that they want to see those things continue, but they also want to see even more action. Torontonians have very high expectations of what they want to see. They are proud of their city and they want to see it do well; they want to see it take bold action for the future.
If anything, people have been critical about not going far enough. You hear this about this transit expansion. [People] say, “Well it’s great that you’re doing this—we need to do more, faster.” And it’s true when you talk about accomplishments in the arts or the equity agenda, you talk about investments in priority neighbourhoods, all very good things. What you hear consistently from a majority of Torontonians is…they want to see more of it. If anything, people have said “we just want more action, we want more investment, we want more improvement.”
One of the ways Torontonians outside your ward have come to know you is obviously in your capacity as chair of the TTC. There’s been, especially of late, a great deal of criticism of the TTC. What have been the biggest lessons you’ve learned in your time as chair?
I think the TTC has allowed me to show that I do know how to run a large organization. ([Although,] I’m not in charge of day-to-day operations at the TTC.)
The TTC has huge challenges: it is a massively underfunded organization that attempts to respond to Torontonians’ expectations around quality of service, reliability of service. The TTC is far from perfect, there is no question—there is nobody who knows that better than someone who has never owned a car in Toronto and has to get to meetings in Scarborough, in North York, in Etobicoke, all over… I see what the people in the city go through every day.
I think it goes back to the the fact that people want more, they want improvements. They see what’s happened, and they’re happy with it: when we’ve brought in expansion they were happy, when we changed how we use added technology [they were happy]. Of course, next week we launch the trip planner, that’ll be part of it. There’s more coming: next vehicle information by the summer, we’ve been working on that for a couple of years. You look at improvements in service: the largest service increase in the history of the TTC went in in 2008. There’s a lot of things, and people say “yeah, that’s great, but we want more.” And that’s fine. Torontonians need to push their civic leaders—they need to push the province and feds—to continue both expansion and improvements.
I think Torontonians will have varying degrees of opinions on the TTC; they’ll judge me partially on that… I believe in really strong investment in public transit—there has to be more. We are the most underfunded transit authority on this continent, I think, and it shows.
What do you think are the most important qualities that a mayor needs to possess?
I think a mayor has to have an ability to work with others, to listen, to get other people to work cooperatively together, because one person can’t do it all. This is a city of three million people, it’s got all the challenges we’ve talked about, and the mayor’s got to know when to get the right person in to do the job, and to be able to go out and ask for help and bring people in. They need to be able to build a pretty broad team.
It’s not like the federal or provincial governments where you’ve got a bureaucracy that reports directly to cabinet, basically, that has cabinet solidarity. This sort of municipal government is much more open, much more transparent, and so the mayor has to be able to be a much better communicator, and that’s talking about how you communicate with stakeholders, citizens, voters, all of that… You’ve got to have perspectives from all over. Scarborough’s a very different place than North York or Etobicoke or the downtown. Cabbagetown is different from the Annex.
I think that if the mayor is smart the mayor will listen to people, will get different perspectives, and then ultimately try to chart a course on some sort of consensus. At times the mayor is going to have to stand up strongly for what he or she believes in. You’ve got to know when it’s appropriate to stand up on principle—there are some things that are right and some things that are wrong—but a lot of things require that building of consensus and that’s how you get through Council. You have to respect that there are forty-four individual councillors, they are democratically elected by their constituents, they represent their different views, and it’s not an autocratic state.
Photos from Giambrone’s Facebook page.

Comments

  • http://undefined mark.

    Just about every other comment thread on Giambrone is full of dismissives of his mayoral possibilities. From what I gather, there seems to be two main reasons for this. One is that he’s “too young” at 31. The other is that the TTC sucks and he is the city councillor appointed “Chair.”
    I’m only tangentially knowledgeable about the role of the TTC Chair, but I have a sense that everything that’s wrong with the TTC is not the fault of the person acting as Chair, and I have a hunch that the person acting as Chair can’t solve all its problems. I don’t really believe that had there been someone else as Chair (be it Stintz or Minnan-Wong or someone like Saundercook) it would have been much better. It doesn’t seem like all these people who think Giambrone is responsible for the TTC sucking really know what the role of the Chair is, what powers it has, and where significant decisions (don’t) get made.
    I’m not pointing this out as some simple ‘defence’ of Giambrone – but I wonder if this hate-on for Giambrone is really an effective way to make the TTC better.
    I wonder why Giambrone (and Miller too), who’ve been dragged through the mud, haven’t done more to explain how the roles of Chair can or cannot affect TTC decisions, or how the TTC funding structures compare to other cities (though that is mentioned in this interview).

  • http://www.newmindspace.com Kevin Bracken

    Not that it makes a huge difference, but he’s actually 33 and will be 34 by the election.
    It is true, though – he is not in charge of the daily operations of the streetcars, buses and subways in Toronto. The TTC only meets once per month – the system itself runs every single day.

  • mikeyteeth

    I agree that these guys could speak up a little more in their own defense, but maybe they don’t want to look like finger-pointing pansies. As it stands they are in charge, they are the ones who are ultimately responsible and they are willing to take the lumps even if it isn’t really their fault. I think that’s admirable, even if it isn’t the smartest politcal move.
    The real shame is that too many voters (not to mention newspaper columnists) are more interested in blaming and complaining than getting to the root of the issues to make things better.

  • http://undefined mark.

    According to Wiki (for what that’s worth!) his was “born March 8, 1977.” I’m horrible at math, but I’d say he’ll turn 33 in March 2010. Anyway, Wiki also tells us that he was first elected in 2003, which seems to give him quite a few years experience as an elected official.

  • http://undefined Andrew

    The commission board of the TTC is a board of directors. While boards do not dictate the day-to-day operations of an corporation (managers do that), they are supposed to ensure that the managers are acting in the interests of the owners.
    In this case, I — as a resident, voter, and taxpayer of Toronto — am an owner of the TTC. As an owner, I am not satisfied with the state of the TTC, and I hold the board members responsible for the TTC’s failures. Why? Because they are my representatives, and so they are the only people I can hold responsible.
    Owners fire board members when things go wrong, because: (a) owners can’t fire or dictate to managers, and (b) systematic failures are indeed the board’s fault (at least in part), for failing to hold management accountable. Thus, the proper response to a voter annoyed by the TTC’s faults should be to fire all the politicians responsible, including Councillor Giambrone.
    If you’re not willing to hold your representatives responsible for the TTC’s problems, then why would you expect anything to ever change?

  • http://undefined mark.

    Andrew – I appreciate your sentiment that the Commision Board is made up of elected councillors and it is towards them who we direct our expectations and frustrations. Again, I don’t really know how the whole management structure works with the TTC. Looking at their website, they say “The TTC is owned and operated by the City of Toronto and is overseen by nine City Councillors who make up the Commission Board.” These nine members are, I believe, appointed by the mayor. The Chair (Giambrone) is not appointed, but rather the Chair and Vice Chair are elected by the members of the Commission. Part of the Commission’s mandate is “maintaining and operating the system” but I think Giambrone’s statement above is probably more accurate: “I’m not in charge of day-to-day operations at the TTC.” There isn’t any explanation of what the Chair’s role and responsibilities are, and I imagine the official job description is different than what actually happens.
    Then there’s Gary Webster who’s the “General Manager” of the TTC. I can’t for the life of me find out what the General Manager’s responsibilities are. I can only assume there a whole host of other management positions… and then the union with it’s own managers.
    I’ve never sat on a corporate board, but I have been on academic boards and committees. On these, the Chair’s responsibility was really to ensure that discussions stayed on topic, to move the discussion along so that that all items on the agenda were discussed, and acted as a ‘go to’ person if a committee member felt slighted. The Chair, in these cases, wasn’t really supposed to influence the discussion or push his/her own particular perspective on a topic.
    So unless someone can explain (or point me to some links) the responsibilities for the various positions, I don’t believe that Giambrone has nearly the power over the TTC as those who blame him for all its faults.

  • Darren

    You dont know what the GM is supposed to do because Moscoe and Giambrone have interfered with the role of GM.

  • Darren

    Yes, he is turning 33this year like me.
    Its not the age which is an issue, but his lack of experience. Is having an archeology background really that adequate for running a city or a transit system?
    Does Wiki mention him being a son of a US vietnam war draft dodger?

  • http://undefined mark.

    How have they interfered and was is the role of the GM (which they interfered with)?

  • http://undefined mark.

    Why do you think he lacks experience? He’s been a Toronto councillor for more than 6 years. He has much more than an “archaeology background,” and I’d much prefer someone with an academic background along with social and civic service over someone with “business experience.” I don’t believe gov’t is a business. (The history of how politics and economics have been intertwined is pretty interesting. I don’t mean the ideological ‘business took over gov’t,’ but rather how the economic/political relate to domestic/civic.)
    Maybe his dad is a draft dodger, but what does that have to do with anything?
    Your points so far, Darren, are exemplary of the dismissives I mentioned at the top of this thread. They’re are unsubstantiated. I’ve heard them before and they don’t convince me.

  • http://undefined Darren

    Ducharme left because Moscoe interefered with the CBA process, as the union wanted a politician on the other side. The guy before Ducharme left for similiar reason; Moscoe was there to steal the headlines but duck away when blame was being assigned. Adam does the same; there for the glory but not the blame
    Giambrone came extremely close to being involved in the last CBA inplace of Webster’s team
    The GM manages day-to-day items including issues that impact staffing. Politicians have no business in that.

  • http://undefined Darren

    If you dont think government is a business then there is no need to have this conversation. Businesses know when to expand and when to balance budgests…something Toronto and the TTC do not.
    Social services are important to society and everyone believes they are important. A candidate telling me he is for social services is like a candidate telling me he breathes air; they all believe in social services. A candidate with a “social and civic service” background means nothing to me. Lawyers and businessmen have backgrounds that can translate to being a better politician

  • http://undefined mark.

    What is CBA?
    You seem to be suggesting that the elected councillors on the Commission Board tried to (and did) influence the General Manger of the TTC. Maybe this is a terrible thing to do, but could you please explain?
    Is there anyone else besides Darren that could respond to my questions/provocations?

  • http://undefined mark.

    What a bizarre thing to say!

  • Darren

    “What is a CBA?”
    If someone answers me an acrynom, I’d find out what it means before disputing them
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ducharme
    “Ducharme initially had a better relationship with former TTC Chair Howard Moscoe and other politicians. However, after a wildcat strike staged by the Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 113, Ducharme found out that there were talks between Moscoe and ATU President Bob Kinnear that bypassed TTC management. Ducharme stated that these discussions undermined his authority to negotiate with the union. He also criticized Moscoe for making Bombardier the sole supplier of new subway cars for the TTC, arguing that the lack of competition in the bidding process would cost the city $100 million.”
    Yes its wikipedia, but its explained further in news article at the time.

  • http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto

    I lol’d.

  • http://undefined Darren

    Oh, and 17 months after the Wildcat strike Giambrone, who was by then the new Chair, went ahead and pushed through a deal with the ATU113 which let them off the hook for that wildcat strike. In return for an agreement on subway operator coverage the TTC dropped the issue and referred to it as “an incident” (literally the ATu113 will use this term and god forbid you call it a wildcat strike in front of a union rep). Meanwhile NYC jailed a union leader for the very same type of transit wildcat strike
    Salaries at the TTC have risen roughly 20% since Adam was first elected 8 years ago. He sat on the commission before being a chair, so he had an active role in all this.

  • rek

    Government isn’t a business.

  • http://undefined mark.

    Do you know what he means by CBA!? Canadian Bar Association? Canadian Businesss Association!? The only thing I can find with ‘CBA’ and ‘TTC’ are comments by Darren!
    Anyway, a funny disconnect here. On one side, the popular sentiment that the Chair is an elected official and should be be the one making the decisions. On the other side, annoyance that the elected councillor was involved!

  • Mark Ostler

    6 years ago. Giambrone was first elected in 2003.

  • http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto

    Mark, my guess is it’s cost-benefit analysis. Darren seems to be under the impression that the process occurs without value judgements, which is incorrect.
    To be clear, I wasn’t laughing at you; I was laughing at the fact that the first reply was from the one person you asked not to reply. Some people don’t know when to quit.

  • http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto

    As if that will shut him up.

  • http://undefined mark.

    ha! No, I knew you were giggling at him! I’m wondering if maybe he meant Collective Bargaining Agreement.

  • Darren

    Their involvemennt didnt lead to “annoyance” by us. Its the fact that good GMs left not because the chair made decisions but that Moscoe bypassed the GM to so something which is clearly the GM’s role. Giambrone was close to doing this as well in the CBA of 2008.
    CBA is the collective bargaining agreement. While the wildcat strike under Moscoe wasnt part of the CBA it was a labour issue that impacts the CBA.
    The whole labour issue which was being politicized under Moscoe then Giambrone is what riles voters as its a continuation of the same at city hall. Before I paid taxes I really didnt care about all this. Now I do and it sucks to know that my taxes are going up due to increased labour costs which came about by decisions being made by politicians rushing to interefere with a process that could have run its course through the proper method

  • Darren

    Paul, your guess was wrong. And in the adult world, people answer a question regardless if the person asking it is admiting to be doing so just for “provocation”. You should take a page from your own book Paul, and learn when to drop a subject

  • http://undefined Darren

    Paul, if you paid municipal taxes then you might end up wanting your city to be run more like a business.
    It sure should be run more like a business as it has costs and it provides services/products. It’s employees did not face the possibility of job cuts when the economy contracted unlike their peers in the private sector.

  • http://undefined Andrew

    Darren: Get a blog.
    Admins: What does a guy have to do to get banned around here? This guy is bumming me out.

  • http://undefined Darren

    Excuse me? The first person who posted a comment in this article asked why people do not approve of Giambrone’s record? I answered his question. Isnt that what an open forum should be?

  • http://undefined mark.

    I feel like I’m taking crazy pills! Darren castigating Paul for ‘not answering the question’ when that’s what I’ve been nicely trying to do (i.e. get Darren to explain what CBA is).
    Darren, until you begin to answer reasonable questions and stop making ridiculous and/or unsubstantiated claims I’m no longer wasting my time with you.

  • http://undefined Darren

    I answered your question and I poliely asked Paul to leave me alone. The last thing I would ask Paul is to answer any question of mine. He’s proven so far that he’ll answer my question on his own based on nothing else but what he perceives is my ideology contradicting his.

  • http://undefined Darren

    And..those are not unsubstanitated claims. Giambrone’s record is out there for everyone to see; and thats why he will not be elected Mayor

  • http://undefined mark.

    Anyone with a set of working eyeballs will see you did not answer my question but said I was ‘disputing’ you (?!). It wasn’t until – wait for it – Paul got on here that you finally answered me!
    Say what you will from now on, Darren, I’m no longer attempting to have a conversation with you. Now, F@$! off!!

  • http://undefined andrew

    Government is most definitely not a business. If you think it is, you have a poor and limited understanding of capitalism, and should limit your comments strictly to the TTC and its management.

  • http://undefined wchurchill100

    There are a lot more reasons than he is too young and he is chair of the TTC.
    Among the many other reasons:
    * he a career politician; people generally don’t like politicians, and particularily distrust those who haven’t accomplished anything before entering politics; he has never demonstrated that he has the financial smarts to manage a big budget, but has lived off the public purse for most of his adult life.
    * he has the biggest ego at City Hall
    * he wasn’t liked by his peers in school (he was viewed as a pretentious prick by most).
    * he is hated by staff at city hall (but he doesn’t realize it).
    * he has a very bad temper (best example was his infamous e-mail to fellow council Cesar Palacio
    Most people have no idea why so many in the left wing spectrum think highly of Giambrone.

  • http://undefined Darren

    I answered with the definition of a CBA when I were actually wanting to know and not joking when you asked me “what is a CBA”. In the meantime I explained the Ducharme/Moscoe incident, which would have answered your question about politicians bypassing civil servants. All this was because you asked why people disapprove of Giambrone’s record. I could expand further on that record; like bike rakes that hardly being used which were his recommendation and not that of TTC staff
    Pauls commnet had nothing to do with the answer I gave you

  • http://undefined Darren

    If anyone but Giambrone had sent that type of email as he did to Palacio, Bussin via orders from Miller would have made an issue of it at city hall. They would have had their name dragged through the mud there, then by the media. Giambrone got away with threatening another councillor, and NOTHING happened

  • http://undefined Darren

    Ok, we can agree to disagree. I dont view capitalism as something which is necessrily evil, as long as it runs with reason

  • rek

    Nice strawman there.

  • http://www.guesswork.ca Patrick Metzger

    “I think the TTC has allowed me to show that I do know how to run a large organization. ([Although,] I’m not in charge of day-to-day operations at the TTC.)”
    Csn someone explain precisely what it is that the TTC Chair does? Either Giambrone runs the TTC, in which case he needs to accept accountablility for its problems, or he doesn’t, and shouldn’t be claiming it as a selling point on his mayoral CV.

  • http://undefined mark.

    wchurchill100 – thanks for wading in here! Though the points you present are rather ‘personal,’ I suppose much of gov’t has become about personality. It’s kind of interesting how being a politician has become a bad thing (though not as weird as a politician accusing another politician of “playing politics”!). I mean, you’d think that people would want a politician with experience as a politician – someone who’d know the ins and outs of the system, have experience dealing with multiple perspectives, etc. (I’m not saying Giambrone does or doesn’t). It’s kinda bizarre how so many people want a politician with a business background, when running a business is about maximizing profits, creating a positive image of oneself or one’s company regardless of it’s relationship to the ‘truth’ or facts. And gov’t is not a profitable business, if it’s collecting taxes and providing services we couldn’t have if it were ‘each for his own’ – people would be outraged if gov’ts were making big money and the CEOs (i.e. political leaders) were rewarded with bonuses. That’s not to say that some of the services gov’t provides couldn’t be profitable. Many people invoke the analogy that when “times are tough” for an individual (the subject of capitalism) or a business, they cut back their expenses. But for gov’t, when “times are tough,” their raison d’etre is to increase expenses/spending (e.g. help people, provide welfare, employment insurance, other social services so kids don’t starve, etc.) … or the ‘stimulus packages’ even the most ‘right’ of gov’ts are implementing now. I’m on a political theory tangent here – sorry!
    Back to the topic! – I can see why many on the ‘left’ are a bit surprised that Giambrone has popularity. I suppose it has to do with the other candidates’ positions on things like transit, bike lanes, and ideological motivations for selling off public assets and, for some reason, wanting good public transit and reasonable infrastructure for bikes are seen as coming from the ‘left.’ When did it become right-wing to drive a car!? I think many of us are hoping/waiting for a candidate that doesn’t fall into the old ‘left/right’ paradigm.
    Some of the things I’d like to hear a mayoral candidate ‘promise’ or at least talk about (and I’m not too interested in ‘recipe based’ politics with the promises) are to increase cycling infrastructure, lobby the province to return to something like pre-Harris funding structures for the city/transit, encourage the walking initiatives already underway, increase public/neighbourhood participation in local governance, and adopt some ‘complete streets’ policies. I honestly don’t think ‘left’ and ‘right’ have much of anything to do with these issues. Having better infrastructure for biking, walking and public transit make our urban spaces more inviting for people – more inviting to be out and about and BUY things. Successful urban spaces means it’s better for business. Putting bike lanes off on ‘quiet side streets’ puts cyclists away from where stores are – it’s a terrible business decision. We even had a report last year that gave some data on “lost productivity” from being stuck in traffic gridlock – and why is it that people who drive are opposed to bike infrastructure? Don’t they realize that this would lead to less traffic congestion?

  • http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto

    I told a friend today that chairing the TTC is like volunteering to catch elephant piss in a Dixie cup, and he said it was apt.
    Abstractly, if by a heroic effort someone causes a situation to go from terrible to less terrible, should that person be held accountable for the continued non-awesomeness of that situation, or credited for the lessened terribleness? It’s a matter of perspective.
    I don’t know if that helps answer your question…

  • http://www.guesswork.ca Patrick Metzger

    “running a business is about… creating a positive image of oneself or one’s company regardless of it’s relationship to the ‘truth’ or facts.”
    Now there’s something you’ll never see a politician do.
    In fact, business and government have a great deal in common – both require effective use of resources and an organized planning process in order to achieve the goals of the enterprise, both need to balance revenues and expenses, and both are ultimately accountable to external stakeholders, whether those are shareholders, customers or taxpayers. As a result the skill sets gained in one type of organization should be highly useful in the other. The principal difference is that governments have a captive revenue stream from taxpayers, and hence less incentive to operate efficiently.

  • Darren

    We can this to the list of Gimabrone’s non accomplishments;
    http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/01/31/12688406.html
    “…the TTC has been attacking the environment by idling hundreds of buses day and night in cold weather at two yards. Idling buses are left to spew harmful diesel fumes because expensive Swedish technology installed nearly a decade ago has never worked properly.”
    “For years, TTC commissioners were told of the problems and did nothing”
    So why isnt Giambrone acting? Because this matter isnt as appealing as other items he personally pushed forward like running all day and all week bus service on empty routes and installing bike rakes which on buses which are hardly ever used.

  • http://undefined mark.

    Interesting! There is something about business that’s similar to gov’t – I suppose I’d agree with you if you started with ‘unfortunately’! But I think “the goals of the enterprise” are substantially different for business and gov’t. While there are similarities, the two are unlike, not like. For example, knowing how to write poetry would help you write a newspaper article, or knowing how to make coffee would help you make tea, or playing football will help you play hockey. These things will help the other, but there’s something else, something ‘extra,’ some je ne sais quoi.
    I think there’s a problem with conflating ‘customers’ and ‘taxpayers’ (i.e. citizens). Each have a different set of desires and expectations; one takes on a particular responsibility, the other takes on a different set of responsibilities – if at all.

  • Darren

    Unfortunatly “effective use of resources” is not the norm in our current municipa; government

  • http://www.guesswork.ca Patrick Metzger

    Mark – I’m not in a position to quantify “je ne sais quoi”, but I would still maintain there is more like than unlike between running a business and a government.
    To suggest that customers and taxpayers have different expectations is true – taxpayers expect to be screwed over by their government, while in most businesses customers can at least vote with their feet if they’re unhappy with the services being provided. Keep in mind also that no matter what you may hear during the election campaign, governments don’t provide subsidized housing and blankets for the homeless because they’re morally superior to corporations, they do it because that’s the business they’re in.