{"id":9446,"date":"2010-02-11T09:30:40","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T14:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=9446"},"modified":"2010-02-11T11:04:09","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T16:04:09","slug":"john-lorinc-the-token-stops-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/02\/11\/john-lorinc-the-token-stops-here\/","title":{"rendered":"JOHN LORINC: The token stops here"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2583\/3956770748_494fe6f918_o.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"499\" height=\"378\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/images\/feature-graphics\/feature-lorinc.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"85\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If Mayor David Miller was a premier or prime minister contending with a cabinet minister in political freefall, he&#8217;d have only one option: fire the person, fast.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, leaders like Dalton McGuinty and Jean Chretien have swung the ax for lesser transgressions than Adam Giambrone&#8217;s. Stephen Harper waited a bit, but demoted Lisa Raitt for her arrogance and mishandling of the isotope crisis.<\/p>\n<p>So Miller &#8212; who&#8217;s been in Ottawa and wasn&#8217;t commenting on yesterday&#8217;s events &#8212; 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 &#8212; someone who can dial down the volume on the runaway public relations disaster that is the Toronto Transit Commission. He&#8217;s got to be a tough guy, for once.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve never understood Miller&#8217;s patronage of Giambrone, which has endured despite the councillor&#8217;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&#8217;s customer service woes.<\/p>\n<p>All that&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>And Miller desperately needs to make this move. Eight years ago, he entered the mayoral race promising to be a &#8220;mayor for transit.&#8221; Since then, Miller has persuaded both the federal and provincial governments to invest billions in the city&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;s other problems.<\/p>\n<p>After Giambrone&#8217;s announcement yesterday, his predecessor Howard Moscoe told reporters that the TTC has &#8220;no more or fewer problems than it did a year ago.&#8221; Wrong answer. Transit in Toronto now has a grave perception problem.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why Miller must come right out and say, &#8216;The token stops here.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><em>photo by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/spacing\/3956770748\/\">Rannie Turingan<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If Mayor David Miller was a premier or prime minister contending with a cabinet minister in political freefall, he&#8217;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&#8217;s. Stephen Harper waited a bit, but demoted Lisa Raitt for<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/02\/11\/john-lorinc-the-token-stops-here\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;JOHN LORINC: The token stops here&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8],"tags":[629,14380,976,408,3216,425,330,14378,12521,1030,14381,426,14379,346,2306,1500,14382,2092,1187,19,1577],"class_list":["post-9446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-transit","tag-adam-giambrone","tag-cabinet-minister","tag-chair","tag-councillor","tag-dalton-mcguinty","tag-david-miller","tag-howard-moscoe","tag-if-mayor","tag-jean-chretien","tag-john-lorinc","tag-lisa-raitt","tag-mayor","tag-mayor-for-transit","tag-ottawa","tag-premier","tag-prime-minister","tag-runaway-public-relations-disaster","tag-stephen-harper","tag-steve-munro","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-transit-commission"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>JOHN LORINC: The token stops here - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/02\/11\/john-lorinc-the-token-stops-here\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"JOHN LORINC: The token stops here - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If Mayor David Miller was a premier or prime minister contending with a cabinet minister in political freefall, he&#8217;d have only one option: fire the person, fast. 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