Tory growing impatient with council’s case of the slows

Mayor John Tory appeared frustrated with the grinding nature of municipal government on Tuesday, as the former businessman confronted a hallmark of Toronto city hall: the propensity to engage in lengthy debates about incremental developments.

The chief magistrate decried opposition to bundling a request for a report on TTC procurement options with the bigger issue of approving additional funds for the Spadina subway project. Some councillors thought the items should be debated separately. Mr. Tory, clearly, thought that a waste of time.

“What goes on around here, when you put a request forward for a report asking for consideration of options, what you get is a prediction that the sky will soon fall and that the sun won’t come up in the morning and it’s the end of things as we know it, simply because someone is asking for consideration of options,” he said. “It’s incredible.”

Mr. Tory wished there could have been an agreement as “business-like people” to ensure the request for a report sailed through, but he lamented that “every minute possible would be taken” by councillors repeating themselves and having a debate now that should actually occur later.

Councillor Joe Mihevc said bundling the motions raised flags, but in the end the mayor’s pleas were heeded by council.

Several hours later, it voted in favour of increasing the budget for the problemplagued Spadina subway extension to Vaughan by $150 million. Of that, $90 million will be covered by the city, with the remainder falling to York Region. Under this new plan, the $2.78-billion subway will open by the end of 2017.

The vote gives a final green light to TTC chief executive Andy Byford’s “reset” plan, which strips the TTC of project management control and hands it to a third-party firm through a sole-source contract. That firm, according to the TTC union, is Bechtel Corp., a multinational construction company the TTC had retained to evaluate the project, and which concluded a management change is required to finish the subway by 2017.