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The TTC’s Gary Webster is the straightest of straight arrows, a dedicated career public servant who sees his job as giving the best possible advice to city council and the mayor about Toronto’s transit needs. Now he is on the verge of being fired for doing just that.
Mr. Webster’s apparent crime is failing to be the Fords’ parrot and echo their transit refrain: “People want subways.” Instead of telling them what they want to hear, he told them what he, as a professional with 35 years of service at the TTC, thinks is right. So, off with his head.
It sends a terrible message to the senior civil servants who keep the city running. “We hire them to be competent, to give us the best advice,” councillor Joe Mihevc said in a broadcast interview on Friday, “and today the mayor, through this action, is saying ‘No, we don’t hire you to give the best advice. We hire you to follow what I think.’”
...The threat shows the mayor at his worst, as a closed-minded bully who views anyone who expresses a contrary view as some kind of traitor.
...Mr. Webster does not deserve that kind of treatment. A precise, gentlemanly fellow, he is always patient and unflappable at city council when councillors try to score points while questioning him. With Mr. Webster, there is no spin, just the facts.
What really angers the Fords is that the facts in this case are against them. Mr. Webster is merely the messenger.
...Successful governments can’t work this way. To make good decisions, they need good, impartial information, not yes men. But yes men, apparently, are all the Fords want.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/marcus-gee/fords-treatment-of-ttc-chief-sends-a-terrible-message/article2342981/
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