Critics say mayor John Tory "blinked" and "saved his hide" at council today when he changed his position on what to do about garbage collection in Scarborough.
Tory had been pushing to move forward with collecting bids from private companies to see if the city could save money by privatizing the service in the east end.
Instead, he moved a motion to refer the issue back to staff for further study, with no timeline on how long that will take. Tory said council needs more information.
Councillors voted in favour of referral 40-4. Councillors Crawford, Ford, Holyday and Robinson voted against sending the issue back to staff.
Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti says mayor was just trying to save his own hide & not lose a vote by referring the garbage debate back to staff pic.twitter.com/f7OqA8jNQJ
— NEWSTALK1010 (@NEWSTALK1010) January 31, 2017
"It's a win on our terms," says union president Eddie Mariconda. "These discussions should be happening at the bargaining table."
Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti accuses Tory of delaying the issue because he would lose the vote on moving forward with privatization.
"Instead of losing yet another item this week," Mammoliti says, referring to the premier's rejection of road tolls, "The mayor chose to refer and saved his hide to a large degree. This would have been his second failure this week and in fact I would argue it probably is now with the referral."
Scarborough councillor Jim Karygiannis, who supports the union, says Tory "blinked" because the numbers were on the side of the union.
"This allows the union to negotiate, to present even better working conditions for them and to present better service for us," Karygiannis says.
But councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker says everyone wins by finding a compromise.
"My sense is the mayor's actually won a victory today," he says. "He's going to be able to walk in to any election with his head held high, saying as the mayor I promised to find efficiencies and cost-savings, and nobody... can deny he's done that."
Mayor Tory, meanwhile, says the referral was about doing the right thing and seeking consensus among councillors.
"In this unending search for people having political wins and losses, what's lost sight of is the public interest," Tory says.
Union calls the garbage vote to keep studying privatization instead of moving forward "a win" pic.twitter.com/9Zf1uL7OU4
— NEWSTALK1010 (@NEWSTALK1010) January 31, 2017