Reading the headlines from the last few days, you might be forgiven for thinking that the biggest problem facing Toronto is the wild expenses racked up by city councillors. Stories of illicit cab rides, big BlackBerry roaming bills and rented chipmunk suits have crowded out every other issue.
It is silly in any year to make such a fuss over this sort of piffle in a city with a $9-billion budget. In a key election year like this, it is downright reckless. With so many big issues on the line, from transit to joblessness to the integration of immigrants, chipmunk suits and 10-buck cabs are so much wasted ink.
This sort of hoo-ha breaks out every year when City Hall releases councillors' expense reports. The papers troll through the invoices looking for doozies. This time they leaped on the fact that TTC chair Adam Giambrone spent about $60 a week on cabs - hardly a scandalous amount for a busy councillor who dodges from meeting to meeting all over town.
That he may have charged the city for $10 cab ride to visit his prospective lover hardly qualifies as Watergate. Nor does the BlackBerry tab that Mayor David Miller racked up on trips out of the country to represent Canada's biggest city to the world. But the topper in this flood of faux scandals was Adrian Heaps and the chipmunk suit.
Mr. Heaps thought he was doing a good thing when he rented three animal costumes for a community skating event in his Scarborough ward last year. Poor Mr. Heaps. He failed to realize he was doing a bad thing. A very, very bad thing. Such a bad thing that he would find his face splashed on the front page of a leading daily under a Haiti-sized headline that read: Councillor expensed chipmunk costume.
The breathless article revealed that he rented the chipmunk, penguin and dog costumes at - oh, dear - "taxpayers' expense." Three students wore the outfits at the event to tempt kids to come out and learn to skate. The cost: $439.50.
A stern editorial reminded the Mr. Heaps that while Scarborough families may have loved the event, "taxpayers of the city don't love paying for it." From the tone of the whole thing, you would have thought that Mr. Heaps had dipped into the widows' fund to pay for a trip to Vegas. Instead, he was using his $53,000 office budget just as it was intended: to do nice and useful things for his constituents.
City Hall may have big money worries, but not because councillors are squandering public money on expenses. To the contrary, the city's expense regime is one of the tightest around.
Councillors have to report all their expenses, invoice by invoice, and have them posted online for scrutiny. They are prohibited from taking money from developers or other companies to pay for community events, which is one reason why Mr. Heaps has to pay for chipmunk suits from his office budget. Those budgets are being cut by 5 per cent this year as the city tries to hold the line on costs.
Some critics say that councillors perpetuate themselves in office by handing out office-budget money to community groups. But a lot of the money goes to food banks or girls' hockey teams or local choirs, not exactly the sort to bus in voters to re-elect a councillor on election day. Much of the rest goes for newsletters, constituency offices and other ways that councillors keep in touch with the folks.
TTC deputy chair Joe Mihevc says he is proud of the fact that he spends most of his office budget and always ranks among the top 10 spenders among 44 city councillors. It means he's doing his job. The councillors who should be getting the heat are the ones (hello, Rob Ford) who don't spend their office budgets. What, exactly, are they doing?
Yet critics like Mr. Ford insist on making Everests out of molehills. Remember Adam Vaughan's $281 office espresso machine? Sandra Bussin's $205 Easter-parade bunny suit? This year, budget chief Shelley Carroll got a mention for the $309.75 she spent for a reptile show in her ward that entertained hundreds of kids. Should we feed her to the python for her sins?
Etobicoke's Mr. Ford has fashioned a career out of chiding his fellow councillors over their supposed extravagance. If, as rumoured, he announces a run for mayor this week, councillor expenses could become a big issue in the election campaign.
They shouldn't be. The city has bigger chipmunks to fry.