If Mayor David Miller was a premier or prime minister contending with a cabinet minister in political freefall, he’d have only one option: fire the person, fast.
Indeed, leaders like Dalton McGuinty and Jean Chretien have swung the ax for lesser transgressions than Adam Giambrone’s. Stephen Harper waited a bit, but demoted Lisa Raitt for her arrogance and mishandling of the isotope crisis.
So Miller — who’s been in Ottawa and wasn’t commenting on yesterday’s events — should make an appointment with the City Hall press corps before the end of the week and openly declare that he is replacing Adam Giambrone with a steady hand — someone who can dial down the volume on the runaway public relations disaster that is the Toronto Transit Commission. He’s got to be a tough guy, for once.
I’ve never understood Miller’s patronage of Giambrone, which has endured despite the councillor’s ham-fisted approach to ward business, his bizarre television show, his lack of enthusiasm for council work, and his nakedly opportunistic attempts to address the TTC’s customer service woes.
All that’s over. Only by replacing Giambrone can Miller now assure Torontonians that he is taking charge of the transit file for the remainder of his tenure.
And Miller desperately needs to make this move. Eight years ago, he entered the mayoral race promising to be a “mayor for transit.” Since then, Miller has persuaded both the federal and provincial governments to invest billions in the city’s transit system. But on the eve of this election, those achievements may be eclipsed, or even undone, by the chaos of the past month.
As my colleague Steve Munro wrote yesterday, Giambrone can no longer serve as the chair. Obviously, he is far too discredited, and his presence will only inflame public opinion in the midst of this customer service war. The blue ribbon panel he appointed will be reporting within weeks, and its recommendations demand a swift and concerted response from a credible leader, not a laughing stock.
Nor should the mayor and his allies under-estimate the importance of that response. The service question, for many riders and voters, has become an election-year proxy for the TTC’s other problems.
After Giambrone’s announcement yesterday, his predecessor Howard Moscoe told reporters that the TTC has “no more or fewer problems than it did a year ago.” Wrong answer. Transit in Toronto now has a grave perception problem.
That’s why Miller must come right out and say, ‘The token stops here.’
photo by Rannie Turingan
35 comments
I’m reluctant for Giambrone simply to step down because of events in his personal life, especially because I think he’s been a very effective TTC chair. Sure the media’s done a good job of blaming him for all the TTC’s woes, but those problems long predate his tenureship. That said, considering Miller only has a number of months left as Mayor, he could use this opportunity to replace Giambrone on the premise that he wants to leave a lasting transit legacy. Sure he can claim Transit City as a major achievement, but fixing the TTC’s day to day problems would be great too. Is there any precendent for the Mayor being the TTC Chair?
This is the same puritanism that Steve Munro was calling for yesterday and frankly it reads like kicking a man when he’s down. I also think “ham-fisted approach to ward business [and] … lack of enthusiasm for council work” are cheap shots with little basis in reality. No doubt samg et al. will be along shortly to twist the knife a little more and call for yet another pound of flesh.
If Giambrone had been caught embezzling funds, or abusing his power to get people hired/fired, or handing out rich consulting contracts to his friends, then yes, he would be unfit to serve as a commissioner or councillor. The fact that he’s sometimes a jerk in his personal life? If that were a reasonable criterion, I think City Hall, not to mention many newsrooms would be ghost towns.
I think Mike Smith’s column in NOW today says it better than I can, so I’ll leave it at that.
I agree with both Steve and John regarding the resignation of Adam Giambrone. This debacle will only help the axe wielding Rossi who has transit in his sight. If, worse case scenario, we end up with a Mayor who does not support transit, then we need a commissioner who is strong and focused, not distracted by rebuilding a reputation nor weakened by a lack of support or capability.
I think Miller’s passing the torch is a flaw that’s apparent in many NDP circles, which put a strong emphasis on seniority and rigid loyalty. When Olivia Chow resigned her seat Trinity Spadina after she won the federal seat, her heir apparent was Helen Kennedy who lost to the much better campaign of Adam Vaughn. Vaughn has not been well received by the inner Miller circle despite having many similar beliefs.
Giambrone was loyal to Miller to a fault because he saw the most of him in the younger man.
Absolutely perfectly said.
Yep. The TTC needs a leader who can ask Torontonians to “Ride the Rocket” again without eliciting giggles. And a leader who won’t take a 2 week vacation at a time when the relations between the TTC’s riders, operators, and management are at an all time low.
Whether you think lying to a teenager for sex has bearing on the public integrity of a politician is is irrelevant. Giambrone can’t do the job anymore.
This bloodlust for Giambrone’s head is very strange. On the one hand, the nature of the scandal would likely have cost him my vote (I was otherwise a tepid supporter). It isn’t the fact of an affair, but the lack of maturity and judgment in trying to maintain an affair through a very public mayoralty campaign which would put at considerable risk his agenda and the interests of his supporters.
However, let us be very clear: at the end of the day, the guy was caught lying trying to get laid. All kinds of people (not just politicians!) say one thing in private and another in private. There are much worse lies that actually have an impact on public policy. To begin, any candidate for mayor who says Toronto’s structural deficit can be addressed through a little belt tightening, selling assets or outsourcing is lying in a much more fundamental manner, and in a way that actually impacts the lives of Torontonians.
But to think that Giambrone hasn’t already paid his pound of flesh (contrast, for instance, with a certain front-runner who has a $1B spending scandal as his legacy) for a lie that impacts on us in no way whatsoever is, well, bizarre.
@Paul
You think that him being a jerk in his personal life has no bearing on him being a jerk in politics? He’s showed a huge part of his character and many of us believe he’s been showing it in his political career for awhile now.
Unfortunately, it’s not about what’s fair to Giambrone, it’s about what’s essential for the TTC. If there wasn’t a full-fledged “customer service” crisis underway, there’d be time for him to recover and reassert himself as TTC Chair, and no need for him to step aside.
But the TTC is in immediate need of clear, credible, strong leadership, and the chaos of the last week will prevent Giambrone from providing that no matter how hard he may try.
Let’s just say that the personal lives of some other spacing favourites would certainly not hold up to the same level of scrutiny and leave it at that.
Re: Lorinc’s comment “I’ve never understood Miller’s patronage of Giambrone, which has endured despite the councillor’s ham-fisted approach to ward business, his bizarre television show, his lack of enthusiasm for council work, and his nakedly opportunistic attempts to address the TTC’s customer service woes.”
Couldn’t agree more with this sentiment. Wished it had been voiced a lot earlier. Maybe if it had, we’d actually have a credible left of centre candidate in this mayoral race.
Paul> No personal lives are perfect Left and Right – the rub here is over the last month his personal was made political intentionally. Don’t do that and Canada/Toronto generally doesn’t bother with it. There are much bigger scandals on the left and right that could likely be unearthed (municipal up to feds), but those folks have not mixed pvt and public, so it’s left pvt.
Unfortunately, it’s not about what’s fair to Giambrone, it’s about what’s essential for the TTC.
Although this is true, what the TTC needs – and what is the fundamental source of its ills, is better funding from senior levels of government. We can talk all we want about having fare collectors staying awake, and drivers being nicer, but the core root to the TTC malaise is that it is structurally underfunded.
Firing Adam Giambrone won’t change that.
But firing Adam Giambrone will certainly deflect attention from this issue. By serving him up as the scapegoat for all that ails the TTC, we pretend that this is solely a problem of leadership that can be corrected by changing chairs. And the feds (hostile to Toronto and transit) and the province (tepid in its support) are let off the hook for a problem that is their fault.
Here is what Miller is going to do. Mayor Miller is going to resign (can you blame him after the upcoming budget?). He is going to make Joe Pantalone the Mayor. Joe is going to ask for Adam’s resignation. He might even take on the role of TTC chair himself, attempting to use any success as a selling point for his mayoralty campaign.
Shawn, that’s not fair either — in fact I find your assertion laughable. It was the media that first made a big deal over Adam’s private life with the “he’s gay / he’s not gay” thing. Having your partner on stage with you during your mayoral campaign launch is hardly some extravagant political machination.
George Smitherman’s early publicity arguably made a much bigger deal of his private life with the conspicuous mentions of his marriage, condo decorations, etc. I didn’t see anyone at the time suggesting that was inappropriate behaviour.
If the comments from the Dundas West folks are any guide, what’s important for the TTC is not as important as what the Chair’s constituents want. All the more reason for an independent TTC chair, even if the rest of the commissioners are councillors.
“ham-fisted approach to ward business [and] … lack of enthusiasm for council work 
Absolutely correct. Mr. Giambrone bungled many situations in his ward as councillor and has unecessarily alienated many of his constituents and even former supporters in several areas of the ward. (Perhaps you need to be a constituent who follows closely how non-responsive he is to ward concerns.)
As to his lack of enthusiasm for council work – he misses many committee meetings, is only seen briefly on the council floor when there is a Miller-interest vote or there is a lack of quorum. When he is there, you can clearly see him twittering and ignoring debate. Look up some tweets and you’ll see he is busy insulting other councillors or chatting up his youth sector fans. If your issue as a constituent doesn’t involve the TTC, or maybe cycling, he ignores you or tells your that is not ‘his area’.
I hope Adam has a nice long vacation and we don’t hear from him until at least Christmas.
Davenport deserves better.
Ken Wood
Resident and Candidate for Ward 18 City Councillor
Shawn – how exactly did Giambrone mix his private life with his public? Because he supposedly told his girlfriend about the fare hike? That hasn’t been proven. Because his partner appeared on stage with him at his campaign launch? Every politican does that. It seems we’re holding Giambrone to a much higher standard.
Dan> Hindsight being what it is, seems after Now’s story earlier this year and responses to it (not entirely Giambrone’s doing) led to this.
To be clear – much rather have the pvt lives of right/left/centre people i like/dislike off the table. Observing the whole thing (and trying to say without the usual Canadian smugness) it felt like the Kenneth Starr/Clinton/Edwards et al U.S. style feeding sex frenzy, and it made me uncomfortable about where Cdn politics might head.
It’s funny how who people sleep with is somehow a reason to axe them. Seeing as how 50% of males and 26% of females had extramarital sex at least once during their lifetime, I don’t see how anyone can be so up in arms about him being with multiple women.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Giambrone announces at or before the next TTC meeting (next Wed, I think) that he’s stepping down as Chair, stating the ‘interests of the TTC’ as the reason…to refocus attention on the TTC itself instead of him, etc.
McKingford, I wouldn’t see Giambrone stepping down as making him into a scapegoat for the TTC’s woes, though you could be right that other people would.
But look at it the other way: he’s had several years to make the case that the TTC is underfunded, and not had much luck with that. His very public troubles aren’t likely to help him be more effective on that front.
With him or without him, I fear there’s little hope of progress on TTC funding until after the election. Plus, it’s a pretty tough climate for asking either the province or the feds for money.
It’s a complete non-sequitur… but John, how is your last name pronounced?
I’ve always read it John ‘Law-rink’. On Metro-Morning you’ve been introduced as John ‘Lawrence’.
I have to assume that’s right, since you’ve been on the radio morning multiple times and would have corrected a producer. But then… what’s the deal with the (English) unconventional spelling? What ethnicity does it come from?
Just curious,
R.
(And, for what it’s worth, yes Giambrone should resign from the post. Justified or not, the scandal is simply too odd to let him keep doing a credible job, on what has become a symbolically important issue.)
Why can’t any Toronto politician make the TTC’s state stick on the true cause: the province? That you can’t get that message to Toronto voters, when the facts are so clear cut about the poor funding, means you’re incompetent, no matter the number or the gender of the people you’ve sleep with, or even their age (and 19 is old enough to be legal, and vindictive).
Geronimo,
Yes, I agree that the Liberals haven’t re-instated Bill Davis-era transit funding policies (75% of capital, 50% of the operating deficit). But to be fair, they have invested a lot in transit in this city, not least the Transit City lines, gas tax, etc. As the mayor often points out, the third leg in the stool is Ottawa and while the Harper Tories did leave in place Paul Martin’s gas tax and pony up $$ for specific TTC projects, there is still no national transit strategy, which makes us regrettably unique among Western countries.
JL
I’m sorry, but regardless of Mayor Miller’s recent statement that Councilor Giambrone’s personal life has no bearing on how he handles his role as TTC Chairperson, I feel differently.
The Councillor leaked information that was not yet privy to the public, to a minor no less, and that to me indicates his total lack of integrity. He then compounds that mistake by lying to the Toronto Star (not that others haven’t made that same mistake) and then gets caught again.
I don’t think he should lose his seat on Council, that decision should be left to the voters in his constituency, but right now the TTC neads strong leadership and sadly, that’s not Adam.
Christopher, Ms. Lucas isn’t a minor. She was a fully-consenting adult right from her first involvement with AG.
I fully agree that AG behaved like a scumbag and dropping out of the race was the right decision from both an ethical and realpolitik perspective. By trotting out Ms. McQuarrie as a prop proving his raging heterosexuality, he was the one who first crossed the personal/political firewall, and for that The Star was acting on behalf of a legitimate public interest in going public with this whole mess. (Which, btw, Torontoist has cunningly suggested it be titled the “Giambroglio”).
But bringing this so-called “leak” into things is simply a red herring by those piling on. The fare hike didn’t become a fare hike until the TTC publicly voted on it, and it was common knowledge in transit-savvy circles that a staff recommendation to make a hike was in the pipeline. It isn’t remotely comparable to Maxime Bernier leaving NATO briefing docs at Julie Couillard’s.
Mayor Miller is incredibly loyal to his staff (he bootstrapped from his Councillor days for High Park ward) and (most of) his supporters.
After viewing on the local news the somewhat testy press conference in Ottawa in which Mayor Miller defended Adam’s stewardship of the TTC it was clear he was quite emotional about the subject losing his usual cool, calm demeanor as he said (about Adam) “He’s done a terrific job”.
In his first term Mayor Miller faced unrelentng criticism from the City Hall Press Corps who urged him to replace his Office of the Mayor staff with more experienced political pros, but the Mayor would hear none of it.
The issue only really died away with his resounding re-election victory in Nov 2006.
It will be interesting to see how the issue plays out in the next few days.
Those who know me well will know that “puritanical” is about the last adjective anyone could use to describe me or my attitude to others’ behaviour.
I am fascinated that the comments here appear to be entirely from men. In following other threads, in talking to personal friends, the reactions coming from women are vastly different. They hone in on the dishonesty — to however many partners he has (I don’t really care), to his own campaign team, to the media and to us, the voters. The idea that he would need a woman on his arm for political reasons is quite distasteful, a throwback to precisely the old, “family values” politics, where image matters more than substance, that he should be leaving behind.
His speech yesterday and the famous missing page said it all. Rather than returning to finish what he had started, he left it to is EA to actually state that he was withdrawing as a candidate.
To echo another comment above, if the TTC were in good shape, and the remaining term simply about steering the ship through calm waters, a caretaker job might be acceptable. We are not in calm waters.
I am very disappointed in David Miller’s characterization of many of his own initiatives, including Transit City, as being Adam’s work.
She wasn’t a minor. Giambrone would have bigger issues if she were. An age difference of over a decade may be icky, but 19 is definitely safe legal territory. Younger than that is grayer, under the law, as under 19 is not simply illegal to all adults. Common law does not work that way. However, over 19 and capable of her own decision making is legal, no matter what else she has made clear about her character in this debacle.
Obviously, a lot of people have a lot invested in this character… But it’s not his sexuality or his sexcapades that are at issue. It’s the fact that one can treat the women in his life with such apparent contempt. It’s the fact that he seems to have learned nothing from the Councillor Palacio text message incident and thinks that leaving a text trail will not come back to bite him. It’s about the fact that he seems to have no conpunction about lying when asked embarrassing questions by the reporter of a major daily. (And I’ll refrain from making any comment about his actual abilities as Chair.) The fact that anyone can continue to even suggest that he can function as a credible mayoral candidate or TTC chair speaks volumes about the poor judgement that a lot of people on this board have about this individual.
Bob Brent – the Mayor’s “resounding” 2006 victory has to be seen in the context of his inept opposition.
“… leaders like Dalton McGuinty and Jean Chretien have swung the ax for lesser transgressions than Adam Giambrone’s. Stephen Harper waited a bit, but demoted Lisa Raitt for her arrogance and mishandling of the isotope crisis.”
That doesn’t mean they were right to do so.
It’s been a bad spell for the TTC, so it might be a nice time to highlight something good that’s being tried. Timed transfers for the St. Clair line. It’s only a pilot program so far. I hope people hear about it.
http://www3.ttc.ca/Fares_and_passes/Fare_information/Transfers/Time_based_transfers.jsp
BTW, John, I like your columns and it would be nice to see your name listed under the BROWSE BY WRITER tab on the web site.
That “pilot” has been going on a while – shouldn’t TTC be able to decide whether the rest of us can get it by now?