The Executive Committee of Toronto City Council will consider whether to ask the provincial government to designate the TTC an essential service on May 5. However, a decision from the committee isn’t expected until it receives a report from City staff in September.
The decision is a result of a procedural ruling by Speaker Sandra Bussin that determined Councillor Cesar Palacio’s essential service motion following the 2006 wild cat TTC strike was identical to the one he attempted to move at today’s council meeting. The 2006 motion was referred to the Executive Committee where the members of that committee did what’s known as “note and file.” Since the committee decided to note and file, the motion, according to the Speaker’s ruling, is still being considered by the Executive and council cannot consider an item that is already before a committee without a vote that requires a two-thirds majority to pass.
In order to pacify Councillor Palacio, Mayor David Miller circulated a memo in which he promised to ask the Executive Committee, which he chairs, to bring Councillor Palacio’s 2006 motion back for debate. The memo was enough to dissuade Councillor Palacio from seeking the vote that requires two-thirds to put the issue before council immediately. However, Councillor Frances Nunziata moved the motion anyways, which forced the Mayor to vote to send the issue to committee, which had been portrayed as sweeping the issue under the rug in today’s Toronto Star and National Post. The Nunziata motion to consider making TTC an essential service at today’s meeting failed 13-28.
Note and file technically means that a committee will continue to look into the matter and discuss it again when the committee feels action is appropriate. But in reality, note and file is akin to burying an unwanted motion in the legislative graveyard. To my knowledge, this will be the first time a motion that the Executive decided to note and file has been brought back by the committee for consideration.
For those who are procedure buffs, Councillor David Shiner rose on a point of order to state that he believed the ruling of the Speaker on Palacio’s motion was incorrect and only a simple majority (50%+1) was required for council to consider Councillor Palacio’s 2006 motion. According to Councillor Shiner, who was referring to council’s procedural by-law, if a committee has not taken action on an item that it decided to note and file within one year (or after a general election), council has the authority to lift it from the committee’s jurisdiction with a simple majority. Councillor Shiner didn’t seek to overturn the Speaker’s ruling, his point was more to suggest that the note and file designation in the new procedural by-law, which came into force after the last municipal election, is being abused and sticky items from earlier in this term of council may start coming back to council floor.
Photograph by St-Even.
4 comments
I don’t know if he’s technically right, but as a matter of principle I have to agree with Councillor Shiner. I don’t think it’s a trivial point, either.
If “note and file” is a graveyard from which few motions are ever resurrected, it’s only fair to make it easy to reintroduce those items after a year has passed or council has changed. Otherwise, a few years or a decade from now, everything the least bit controversial will require a 2/3rds majority because all such issues will be sitting in the executive’s “note and file” vault.
Put a vote on this site.
I would vote for make it essential.
Re: Title of this story – Mayor to revive “essential service” motion…
Seems to me that given what has actually transpired, the word “revive” hardly seems appropriate…unless it’s placed in quotation marks… I’m angry that the union executive called a strike on Friday night. But even more angry that we have a mayor who talks about how essential the TTC is but has refused to formally declare this an essential service and has no qualms about asking for back to work legislation when legal strike action is initiated. Miller’s usual double speak…and as usual, he’s using all the new Council rules to prolong the charade.
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