The TTC Board will hold a special meeting on Tuesday, April 2. The announced agenda includes only one report TTC Board Orientation, Education and Training Session which includes several topics:

a. Overview of the TTC, its Governance, Safety and Communications
b. Code of Conduct and Municipal Conflict of Interest Act
c. Being an Effective Director
d. Key TTC Strategies and Plans
e. Strategy Training Exercise

Although the agenda page advertises this as a public meeting and invites public deputations, the report states that it will be held in camera as permitted by the City of Toronto Act (S. 190.3.1). The report recommends that the “training materials” be publicly released after the session, although this could be amended. More importantly there will be no public record of the Board’s discussion.

The first three topics should be familiar to most of the Board as they have been in office for some time. Only three Councillor members changed with the arrival of Mayor Chow, and the existing Tory-era Citizen members are still in place except for one who resigned late in 2023. His replacement has not yet been appointed by Council. Training on how the TTC works should be an orientation session for new members, not a topic consuming a full Board meeting that could be spent on overall policy discussion.

Some years ago, the TTC Board attempted to arrange an agenda-free meeting to discuss general policy, but this was hijacked by management with a dog-and-pony show on their own accomplishments and the duties of the Board. This could be a repeat performance.

The time is long overdue for the Board to ask hard questions of management, of each other and of the City about the TTC’s future. We got a sense of what is possible at the recent Audit and Risk Management Committee meeting. Board members Saxe and Osborne grilled management who, frankly, were not fully prepared to answer questions about the Fare Inspection audit report. We have also seen an accumulation of issues regarding infrastructure maintenance and priorities that require informed debate and direction.

Probably the largest overall issue is budget, service and maintenance planning for 2025. In December 2023, the TTC Board wanted to establish a Budget Committee, but this has not yet happened. The motion was couched as a request to staff to report on the idea in Q2 2024 rather than as direction to “do it now”. By the time Q2 ends, it will be too late.

A Budget Committee must exist before the budget is locked down to allow a proper debate about options. For too many years, the budget has landed on the Board’s desk at the last minute with no scope for review of any but the most trivial parts.

As a matter of history, the TTC Budget Committee has not existed since January 10, 2019. Even then it had been moribund since November 2017 thanks to lack of interest by its members, a less than sterling example of good corporate governance.

The fundamental questions are what should the TTC be doing, and what can it do. Starting with the attitude that “we can’t afford it” is an abdication of the Board’s responsibility.

Toronto should know what might be possible and how much this will cost, and only then make decisions about what we choose to afford. The past decade plus of Ford/Tory tax policies precluded this approach, but with a new administration, it is time to seize control of the transit debate.

Here are questions I would ask were I on the TTC Board. This is not an exhaustive list, but then the “education and training” meeting is only scheduled for one day.

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