Dear members of the Civic Appointments Committee,
TTCriders is a membership-based organization of transit users in Toronto. As you consider which candidates to select to be interviewed and later appointed to the Toronto Transit Commission Board, we encourage you to consider two relevant pieces of context.
First, consider the Toronto Ombudsman’s findings from September, 2012 about the Civic Appointments Process. The Ombudsman was prompted to investigate by complaints about the lack of diversity among successful candidates, and recommended that the City of Toronto develop, properly fund, and staff engagement strategies “in order to attract and recruit applicants from diverse communities.” [1]
Second, consider that Toronto City Council will soon evaluate whether to diversify civic appointees to the TTC Board. In May 2023, Council voted to defer a motion [2] that recommended public appointees to the TTC Board represent all four community council areas of Toronto, be regular users of the TTC, and include at least one member who identifies as a person with a disability.
To date, civic appointees to the TTC Board have not reflected all three of these basic criteria. Given that this Council seeks to invest in restoring TTC service, growing ridership, and moving forward with transit priority measures such as RapidTO, it stands to reason that a new TTC Board member should share these goals and be more representative of the TTC’s ridership as a whole.
TTCriders encourages the Civic Appointments committee to interview and ultimately appoint a TTC Board member who expresses an interest in realizing an accessible, frequent, affordable, and dignified public transit system that connects all Toronto neighbourhoods. Critically, this individual should ride the TTC on a regular basis and have an understanding of transit service across Toronto, especially the bus network.
Toronto is at a critical inflection point in its history. Over the past decades, our once enviable transit system has seen service deteriorate with a growing state of good repair backlog. These two trends threaten to undo the freedom that transit offers to the residents of this city and critically derail our climate goals. Now is the time to appoint a member who will work to implement an expansive vision for what transit can be for Toronto.
We look forward to working with whomever is selected.
Sincerely,
TTCriders
The Civic Appointment Committees report for consideration March 4, 2024 [3] notes that public members should meet the following qualifications:
“Public members of the board shall have directorship and executive-level experience and collectively represent a range of skills, knowledge, and experience with one or more large organizations in the following areas:
- strategic business management, including transformative change management
- financial management, accounting, law, and engineering
- customer service or marketing management
- management or planning with a rail or public transit organization
- formulation and/or management of public-private partnerships
- capital project/construction management or capital procurement/supply chain
management
- operations and information technology
- labour relations/industrial safety management
- professional knowledge and working experience of urban sustainability,
intersectionality, and inclusive governance
- understanding and/or experience with TTC operations.”
Sources
[1] https://www.ombudsmantoronto.ca/investigative-report/an-investigation-into-the-administration-of-public-appointments-policy/
[2] https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2023/mm/bgrd/backgroundfile-236368.pdf
[3] https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2024/ca/bgrd/backgroundfile-243221.pdf