Toronto's Ombudsman Fiona Crean has given city hall a lot of good advice since she was brought in on former mayor David Miller's watch. Through the investigation of thousands of complaints, Crean has found, and corrected, fault in everything from the way the city metes out bylaw enforcement to the way it handles sewer repair.
This week, Crean brought a broader recommendation to Toronto City Council, or rather to the provincial government via city council. The City of Toronto, she said, needs a Public Service Act.
It seems innocuous to the point of being a bit dull and maybe even redundant: a piece of legislation that tells Toronto civil servants what their roles and responsibilities are to the people of Toronto.
Ah, but context is everything.
The recommendation comes after a year in which TTC officials made major policy direction changes at the word of the newly elected mayor; when officials worked on new plans for the eastern waterfront at the behest of that mayor's brother.
It comes, according to Crean, at a time when senior city staff are feeling uncertain as to how to behave when a powerful politician asks them for help. Is their job on the line if they don't acquiesce? Probably not. But as long as that seed of doubt exists, so does the potential for professional compromise.
Legislation is a heavy-handed approach. Although the roles of federal and provincial civil servants are defined in legislation, no other Canadian municipality has its civil service's roles delineated in law.
But Toronto might do well with something so unequivocal. Right now there are radically different views of reality at war on the floor of council. City staff have found themselves caught up in it, and there are members of council who feel there is nothing wrong with that.
In defending Mayor Rob Ford's unilateral cancellation of Transit City, Scarborough Councillor Norm Kelly suggested it was normal and right for a mayor to speak with staff, make his feelings known and allow staff to make up their own minds as to how to proceed. What Kelly was describing was a demand, delivered with plausible deniability. Anyone with an ounce of self-preservation and a couple of ounces of brain would understand what such a request means, and would acquiesce to it.
Under those circumstances, the only protection is the law. And the law should be clear: that staff are accountable to the public, and the only measure of public accountability that we have is the full, duly elected council.
Fiona Crean gives good advice, and this advice is no exception.