Council pushes back decision on privatizing garbage collection in Scarborough

By News Staff

Toronto city council voted Tuesday to refer a decision to contract out garbage collection in Scarborough back to city staff until it completes a report on the contentious plan.

Council voted 40-4 in favour of a referral.

In the meantime, garbage collection will remain public.

Last month, the public works committee voted in favour of privatizing garbage collection east of Yonge Street, sparking angry protests from city waste collectors who showed up at the meeting wearing shirts that said “Kicked to the Curb.”

Officials estimated that contracting out collection could result in the loss of 200 to 250 unionized jobs.

Mayor John Tory has long backed the push for privatization, but it was Tory who put forward the motion for a referral on Tuesday.

Outspoken Coun. Giorgio Mammoliti said Tory realized he couldn’t win the vote, so opted to delay it.

“What happened was the intent to privatize would have failed,” he said. “One minute (Tory) wants to privatize and the next minute he’s serving himself a poison pill with a referral …”

 

Scarborough-Agincourt Coun. Jim Karygiannis believes the extra time will help everyone. “This allows the union to negotiate, to present even better working conditions for them and to present better service for us.”

“He (Tory) blinked,” he added. “The numbers were on the side of the union.”

Garbage collection is already privatized west of Yonge, and Tory had promised to contract out garbage pickup east of Yonge if he got elected.

While a city report insists millions could be saved, several councillors have spoken out against the mayor, saying there are conflicting reports on whether or not the move would actually save money.

A three-year-old staff report – the latest to be made public – compared Etobicoke’s private garbage collection at $142 per household to the City’s unionized garbage collection in Scarborough at $126 per household.

Coun. Joe Cressy believes the referral was the right move.

“What city council did today was reinforce and restate that we believe in public service delivery … not only is it cost efficient but it’s good for waste diversion and ultimately and most importantly it’s about good decent jobs.”

Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong is in favour of privatization, but said the decision to wait was a prudent one.

“We should be getting the best price for the taxpayers and we didn’t’ decide to do that today because council didn’t have enough information …”

“Today what happened was the mayor said we need more info to make people more comfortable and that’s a satisfactory vote today.”

 

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