Communication, consultation key planks of Thomson mayoralty campaign.
Mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson during an editorial board meeting with Toronto Community News editors on Monday. (July 12, 2010)
Staff photo/DAN PEARCE
Public consultation would take place early and often as large swathes of Toronto were pre-zoned to accommodate a massive subway construction blitz, led by a city hall with the doors open so wide that even normally-confidential bids for city business would be accessible to the general public.
Such was the vision that magazine publisher and mayoralty candidate Sarah Thomson discussed during a meeting with the Toronto Community News' editorial board on Monday, July 12.
"I want to bring the communities back in, bring the businesses back in to city hall," Thomson said.
"We want to create a collaborative network so that business and community can work together to build a city that the people would want... At city hall we need to enable people and bring fresh ideas. The doors have been locked for far too long."
Thomson repeated the point - that the city needs to draw both the public and business into its operations - throughout the hour-long meeting that comes just four months before election day. Thomson, who has no political experience, entered the race earlier this year touting her success as an upstart publisher and early accomplishments managing and restructuring independent gas stations as qualification for the job of mayor of Toronto.
She said that her qualifications made her a better fit for mayor than councillor.
"Because of the leadership skills I had I decided it would be better to run for mayor than council," she said. "Because if I got a mayor that didn't have the skills I had for leadership, I could undermine that person and I wouldn't want to do that to someone."
She said she would take many of the lessons she's learned - particularly, incorporating an inclusive management style to run a fiscally-conservative, socially-liberal city.
Thomson said she believed it was possible to dramatically reduce the cost of government at the same time as the city embarked on huge infrastructure investment by creating a more open government.
She maintained that she would replace the light-rail driven Transit City expansion plan with an ambitious subway expansion plan - partially financed with a $5 congestion toll.
When it was suggested that her estimates for completing the subway network were very low compared to the costs the TTC are actually paying to build the new subway to York University, she said the TTC ought to have shopped around for a better price.
"I don't think that they have the open door policy," said Thomson. "I don't think they got the best bids in or talked to enough developers."
Ultimately, Thomson said, the city needs to use an "open door" policy in all areas - from providing the public with microscopically-detailed budget documents to opening up the city's tendering process so that any request for proposals be stripped of confidentiality.
"We have businesses here in Toronto that compete," she explained. "So if I'm buying a pen - I can go to 20 different people that can provide me with pens. I should be able to get the best price, the best services. But those businesses that could be selling to us have trouble getting to the city. They don't know what the city is payingâ?¦ So let's open it up. Let's make it much easier for businesses to get in and give someone this pen at a reduced cost."
She said that in private business, she didn't follow normal public procurement policies and it helped her.
"I find I get the best service and the best rate," she said. "I say this is the price I'm getting, and share it with other bidders. I believe the more open it is - the better off Toronto will be in the end."
Thomson said she would do the same with labour - looking at contracting out services that she said weren't core safety services. And that would include many of the social services that the city currently provides, to non-profit organizations.
During the meeting, Thomson zeroed in on shelter housing services, which she said should be taken away from the city's housing agency and entirely given to non-profit sector.
“I couch surfed when I was 15,” she said. "I also stayed in shelters - one that was city run and one that wasn't. The difference was amazing. I think that Toronto Community Housing Corporation needs to be broken up. They are a landlord and we are giving them all the social responsibilities. Let's get them cleaned up and get the non-profits to be in there and caring."
Thomson also said she wanted to see the public involved in planning and engineering projects such as subway expansion very early in the process.
"We need to listen to communities," she said.
"We have to ask, what do you want for your communities? We have communities where they don't play baseball at all there yet our planners gave them a baseball diamond. That's dysfunction. Before planners do anything they have to go to the people."
When asked how she would implement her ambitious subway plan quickly, given an imperative for public consultation, Thomson maintained that she would be able to engage communities and bring them onside.
"It's the way you put it to the community," she said. "Most of them, you talk to them and say this has been decided and we have a fight. We say instead, you need transit out here - how do you want us to do it? You come to us and tell us how you want to do it. When you have to face the community, it's too lateâ?¦
"People aren't stupid. The reality is that if you get into city hall and are working here for 20 years, you've got this they-don't-know-what-they're-talking-about attitude. And that's got to go," she said.
"I find that when I am canvassing there are really bright ideas out there that can't make it through the walls of city hall."