politics
What’s On City Council’s Agenda: October, 2011
In which we highlight key items from the month’s city council meeting. You can also watch it live.
City council is meeting today (October 24) and tomorrow (October 25)—you can watch it live. Here are a few items from this month’s agenda that have been in the news, or should have been.
City council will weigh whether or not to:
Contract out garbage collection west of Yonge Street
After months of pontificating on the benefits of privatizing garbage collection, Rob Ford is finally on the verge of getting his wish. GFL Environmental East Corporation was the lowest bidder on a contract which, if approved by council, will see the company handling waste pickup west of Yonge Street for at least seven years, starting in August. City staff expect the move to save Toronto something like $11 million per year, which is good news, if true. More good news: if anything goes wrong with this, Rob Ford’s competitors in the 2014 municipal election can (and likely will) blame him for it. We can’t lose.
Deny EMS workers the right to strike
If this member motion by Councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby (Ward 4, Etobicoke Centre) gets the two-thirds vote it needs in order to make the floor, council will decide whether or not to ask the province to designate Emergency Medical Services (i.e. ambulances and stuff) an “essential service.” This would make it illegal for EMS workers to strike. At the moment, even if they do strike, they’re still required to go to work but at 75 per cent of normal staffing levels.
If this member motion by Councillor Gord Perks (Ward 14, Parkdale-High Park) gets its two-thirds vote, council will have an opportunity to officially “endorse the peaceful protests of the Occupy Toronto movement.” Or refuse to do so.
Let McDonalds ignore some parts of the City’s signage bylaw
McDonald’s wants to put new signage up at locations throughout Toronto, but the signs violate certain aspects of a City bylaw designed to regulate visual clutter in the public realm. City council will decide whether or not to grant McDonald’s an exception to that bylaw.
Apparently sharks don’t enjoy having their fins ripped off so people can eat them in soup? Council will decide whether or not to ban the fins in Toronto.
Look into licensing household movers
It’s hard to argue with an unscrupulous household mover who has all your stuff inside his truck. Council will decide whether to have staff look into the possibility of licensing movers in Toronto. Doing so would require some help from the province.
Ask Waterfront Toronto to be more forthcoming with its financials
One of Doug Ford’s big points of contention with Waterfront Toronto, while he was still trying to intervene in its plans for the Lower Don Lands, was the fact that the corporation is allegedly not forthcoming enough with its finances. (Waterfront Toronto posts its financial statements to its website, but okay, whatever.) Council will decide whether to ask Waterfront Toronto to keep detailed financials relating to all its projects on file with the Waterfront Toronto Secretariat, so people can inspect them.
Hear Rob Ford’s excuse for blowing a deadline
At May’s meeting, when city council decided to eliminate certain citizen advisory bodies, they also requested that the mayor report on the possibility of saving or reinstating some of them. The report was due in July, and the mayor’s office still hasn’t produced it. This administrative inquiry by Councillor Sarah Doucette (Ward 13, Parkdale-High Park) seeks a reason for the delay.