Toronto backtracks on return-to-office plans for city employees as Omicron spreads its wings
The Canadian Press Published Friday, February 5, 2018 5:29AM EST Last Updated Friday, February 5, 2018 9:59AM EST
TORONTO — For months, the city has been scrambling in an attempt to get back into normal after a political scandal rocked the council and ended a two-year council majority that included many progressives.
Almost a year after the scandal was announced, Toronto now says there are no such plans for any returning city employees, which include the mayor and most of the other 13 members of council, at least the way the city is talking.
That’s a big departure from the position council embraced during the scandal, when councillors voted to return all the city staff it had lost to the outside for their final two years — $100 million worth. But the last two years have been mostly silent.
Councillor Karen Stintz, who has been among the most vocal advocates for returning all the employees, said Thursday council has listened to the needs of Toronto, but did not want to be drawn into the divisive debate over the scandals.
“The majority of people wanted the scandal to go away, but the reality is it went away without some kind of reckoning. We’re still left with the consequences,” Stintz told the Star.
“It’s the city that’s going to have to live with the decisions that were made and deal with the consequences. That’s the challenge.”
Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon, who represents Ward 34 North, said Thursday’s announcement is a “very good move,” but for now there is only silence about the future, which she hoped would lead to a discussion about what is next.
“There are a lot of questions that need to be asked,” she said.
In December, city staff presented council with a plan to return the full complement of 13 employees they lost to Omicron Technologies for the 2017-18 fiscal year, which ended March 31.
The city’s previous policy was to return each of the 13 employees, but Omicron wanted a more defined formula to do that.
The staff proposal said each of the 13 employees would be paid a total of $40,000 for their services, which would be paid for out of the council’s annual
