On Gary Webster

I am sickened and disgusted and terrified by the firing of Gary Webster, and I am so absolutely livid that this is being done in my name.

In addition to being an insult to Mr. Webster, the TTC, the people of Toronto, and basic good sense, this disgraceful behaviour is a slap in the face of the hundreds of thousands of Torontonians who came here specifically to flee this kind of corruption.

On top of that, this raises the very important question of what kind of person would be willing to replace him under these working conditions? When the previous incumbent was fired for refusing to falsify a business case, do we have any chance of getting a competent or ethical replacement?

I sincerely hope Mr. Webster wins millions and millions of dollars that the city can't afford in a massive wrongful dismissal suit. Even if he doesn't need the money, I hope he wins on principle.

If I were a lawyer, I would be volunteering to represent him pro bono.

If I owned a business, I'd be wracking my brains to figure out how to hire him for more than he made at the TTC.

Things They Should Invent: consulting firm staffed entirely by former senior civil servants driven out of their jobs for doing their jobs. (Gary Webster, Linda Keen, Richard Colvin, Munir Sheikh, etc.)

I've never donated money to a political campaign. I dislike the fact that you cannot donate anonymously. More than once I've googled someone and their political donations have come up on the first page of results, and I don't like the idea of a prospective employer or client or someone else with whom my relationship would be purely professional and apolitical having access to that information.

But my visceral reaction here, for the first time in my life, was that I want to donate as much money as possible to whomever has the best chance of beating out the people responsible for firing Mr. Webster in the next election.

In the meantime, there's a petition to get them removed from the TTC Board.