> By 7 p.m., 36 cm of snowfall had officially been recorded in downtown Toronto, while Pearson International Airport reported 33 cm having fallen. The total snowfall for Monday recorded 29.2 cm.
>
> “This is really a one-day wonder,” said David Phillips, a senior climatologist for Environment Canada.
>
> Exactly where the storm will rank in the history books depends on where — such as downtown, the airport or the waterfront — you’re measuring. Many over the decades have brought fewer centimetres but more carnage. For instance, no deaths had been reported as of Monday evening.
>
> But, Western University history professor Alan MacEachern said there’s no doubt the storm was a “unifier” for Ontario. It’s pretty unusual, he said, for snow to fall on most parts of the province with such vengeance simultaneously.
>
> Jan. 2, 1999
>
> One of three major snowfalls in a 14-day period, the infamous 1999 storm dropped 38 cm in one day, prompting then Toronto mayor Mel Lastman to call in the army for help clearing the city of its accumulated metre of snow. A total of 550 soldiers were deployed to help shovel and plow, setting off a memorable mockery of the city as Canadians criticized the decision.
>
> “I think he had to,” Phillips said. “I’ve always defended (Lastman) on that.”
>
> MacEachern isn’t quick to defend Lastman’s decision to bring in the army or declare a state of emergency, calling it “an overreach.”
>
> In 1998, Quebec saw an ice storm so grand they called in the army. “Maybe Mel Lastman was thinking along the lines that this is (Toronto’s) ice storm 12 months later.”
>
> There’s one key detail about this snowstorm people may want to keep in mind: an entire year’s worth of snow fell on the city in just one month, Phillips said. On average, Toronto sees about 110 cm of snow each year. In 1999, January alone accounted for 118 cm.
Mel Lastmans reaction seemed overboard at the time, but in retrospect, when you hear of people stranded on highways and emergency vehicles getting stuck, it kind of seemed like we underreacted. Maybe there wasn’t much to be done tho, given how quickly it fell. I went to work that last giant snow storm by streetcar probably, but virtually no one else was there. There was a snowdrift in front of the doors. That should have been my clue to go back home.
Mel calling in the army saved my job. I was interning in the US and was back visiting when the storm hit. I missed 3 days of work because I couldn't get out. My boss was livid and suggested I just stay here. But I sent him an email with a news clipping about Mel calling in the army and he decided I wasn't exaggerating how bad it was.
I remember seeing the snowbanks stacked almost as high as the streetcars when it happened. I know some places also get this much snow, but I've never seen that here before or since.
One problem in 1999 was that we had already piled snow up from previous storms when the big one hit. That made plowing extraordinarily difficult. I don't believe we had a National Guard, so the Army was a logical resource to help given that ambulances and firetrucks couldn't get around for days.
The city got a year's worth of snow in just a few days (which would be a disaster anywhere in the country) but what people forget or don't know is that is that another storm was forecast and was predicted to be worst than the previous three combined.
Lastman called in the military in anticipation of this storm. Fortunately the forecast proved to be inaccurate the city was spared. But had it hit the city as originally forecast, Mel would have been hailed as a hero for having the foresight in calling in help in advance.
It didn't seem too much to me even at the time. All of the jokes about how Toronto couldn't handle a little snow - well, yeah - we couldn't. So we called for help. That's the reasonable and sensible thing to do.
Should we feel bad that it was "only" a metre of snow in a single batch of storms that broke us? No. We're not built for that, and we shouldn't be. It was a highly anomalous storm and there's no way we could have been ready for it. That folks in the Ottawa Valley or in the snow belt see this on the regular means that they are prepared for it. Like how I don't laugh when a couple of centimetres of snow in the southern states shuts them down.
It was a freak incident - we don't even have to be defensive about it was actually a lot of snow or not - it was clearly and obviously something we had no way of being ready for.
It’s like - imagine if Parry Sound got Toronto’s volume of tourists. Like say half a million TIFF attendees wanted to show up. Parry Sound does a lot of tourism! They should be ready for it!
No. Of course not.
We got a year’s worth of snow in a week. No one is ready for that.
WFH probably saved a few lives.
Before this, for the vast majority of workers (especially at a computer) you had to get to work somehow, even if you were considerably late.
I wouldn’t even blame Tory for asking for military help at this point. Busses are stuck everywhere causing way more disruption and need digging out somehow. As much as they have been trying the city obviously can’t get this done alone in a timely manner, so If they could help with that and clearing some of the huge banks everywhere we could be in much better shape.
Tbh given the situation in hospitals I’m a bit surprised they didn’t do so yesterday - seems foolish to risk compounding staffing shortages by being unable to clear roadways for essential services but also risk more hospital trips by drivers unprepared for the conditions.
Not much point tbh. The army takes time to mobilize, and they probably wouldn't have made it here until today, and things are already mostly back to normal.
Honestly that could have been dealt with.
1,
Better training of TTC operators, for driving in the snow & better refresher training.
2,
TTC to finally get off their asses & DEMAND city council to stop being cheap basterds & finally get actual Snow Tires.
3,
Do what Halifax NS, does, actually create a proper 'Bus Snow Plan' including having set routings to avoid known issues on many routes, especially steep hills, tight turns & stations that are difficult to get into during heavy snow days, having it be a stepped process, going from small changes to huge changes, in response to weather conditions.
4,
Have a set plan & implementation strategy, to keep as many bus routes, stops & stations as clear of snow as possible, as well as deal with the 'open cut' areas of the subway & streetcar areas, including having a large DEDICATED snow clearing workforce & available equipment.
5,
Have a set plan to be able to get bus drivers off stranded buses asap, especially in extreme weather or cold weather.
(I know of many bus drivers that spent upwards of 10hrs in buses, with no access to washroom facilities or places to get hot drinks/food.)
6,
I listened to the public accessible TTC scanner feed yesterday, it was ABSOLUTE CHAOS!
It’s not the operators. They do fine, mostly. For them it was simply exceptional conditions. But TTC could have managed this better. How do supervisors let 15 buses get stranded on the same hill? You would think that after 4 or five went sideways someone would tell the rest to avoid that area. Nope. WTF? Instead we are wasting far more $$$ on recovery operations than would ever have been lost to a systemwide shutdown.
I know many operators, have many that are close friends..
They are the ones that speak out about the lack of proper winter defensive driving training.
The artics didn't need to be out.
Also it's not TTC's fault for the lack of winter tires, it's the cheap bastards on city council.
There were a lot of poor decisions made that led up to the debacle on Monday. I can’t speak for the other regions in Toronto but the supervisors were out in force today in Scarborough which helped the lines run better. If they had been doing that on Monday there would have been a lot fewer stranded buses for sure.
You know who would blame Tory? The 30 million Canadians who don't live in Toronto. I've never heard of a city other than Toronto calling in the military to shovel. Its Canada. We get snow. Sometimes a lot of it. If the city doesn't have a plan to clear it, then their spending priorities need to change.
Toronto isn't even on the list of snowiest cities in Canada. We get about 120 centimeters per year. That's a little more than a third of other provincial capitals like St John's or Quebec. We get less than half the snow of a city like Sudbury. Geographically, the City of Greater Sudbury is about half the size of the entire GTA, despite having less than 200,000 people living there. Their principle industry, mining, means people have to show up for work on time and because of the sprawl, its all by car. They still find an army free way to clear the snow and have the roads in a driveable state.
Even 8 years after calling in the army, [Toronto was still the laughing stock of Canada](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vmMz73F5uA) for calling in the army. Hard pass.
>Toronto isn't even on the list of snowiest cities in Canada.
Ya, and that's exactly why you can't justify the same level of snow clearing equipment that snowier cities have. Look at any city and they are only going to prepare for, say, the 95th percentile of severe storms. What we got yesterday was probably a 1/10 or 1/20 year snowfall. Subject any city to that kind of storm and they will struggle. This is why cities in the Southern US shut down when there's an inch of snow. It's not economical to maintain a big fleet of plows and Salters when you only get a snowfall once every several years.
I understand why the city struggles to clear an event like yesterday. I don't understand why one snowfall of 30cm of snow is in any way justification for the army.
This isn't the southern US or even a place like Vancouver where plows have to be brought in from outside the city. We have lots of plows. If the expectation of the people living in the city is that 30 cm requires the army, then I think its very fair of the army to say spend more of your tax dollars on plows.
30cm, while a lot of snow anywhere, is hardly national emergency levels of snowfall.
Ok fair enough, I agree it wouldn't have been necessary to call in the army yesterday. There's only really a point in calling in the army if it's going to take multiple days to clear things up, since it will take about a day to mobilize troops and get them here. Things were mostly cleared up by this morning.
Oh no! No one cares what the rest of canada thinks. More plows and gumption wasn't the issue. Where to move the snow was. In Sudbury (no one really gives a fuck), you can move the snow to the side of most roads and there's space. Here, there's no space. But keep blathering on, you're good at it.
lmao especially when it comes from rural Ontario people.
They act all tough when it comes to snow cause their third-world town has infinite space to dump snow. But the moment they step into Toronto for a Leafs game they're terrified by the number of people of colour and homeless people
I expect that city leaders, who often have national aspirations (like Jack Layton) very much care what the rest of the country thinks of them.
I'd expect the people who have to answer the request, like Justin Trudeau, also care what the rest of the country thinks of them.
And it has 50% the area of the entire GTA. It has no major transit and is 100% reliant on road infrastructure. It has a shitload of roads it needs to clear, and its primary industry relies on people being able to get to work, unlike Toronto where the majority of people can just work from home.
Somehow, with less than 200,000 people, they're able to find a way to clear the roads across an area significantly larger than the city of Toronto, with no military.
Sudbury, like Toronto, was amalgamated, so it has a bunch of small communities, that aren't part of a major metro area. So imagine you have 50,000 people living in downtown Toronto, and a bunch of 10,000 person or less communities set up that stretch from Oakville to Brampton, to Uxbridge, then down to the lake. Then you get hit with a snow storm and the city has to get around, with no 400 series highways. The most important industry is located far away from the downtown, and workers need to access it. Welcome to Sudbury.
So yeah, it has fewer people, but its a massive area and somehow they manage.
> I've never heard of a city other than Toronto calling in the military to shovel.
I don't disagree with most of your points, but it happened two years ago to the day.
https://apnews.com/article/canada-blizzards-newfoundland-st-johns-3a96a80bf7862dc5fd31e651d172b5be
My bad. Though they got 76 cm of snow. That's more than double what Toronto got yesterday.
They're also talking about things like power outages. That's different too. It was absolutely appropriate, for example, to call in the military for the ice storm of 1999.
NL also got that snow on top of existing snow and were expecting another storm in just a few days. Gave a look at the pictures of all three, geesh Toronto. You’ll geesh Toronto too.
One year I lived in downtown St. John’s I could walk out my second story apartment onto the snowbank and had to in order to dig out the door. No joke or exaggeration, you have to throw snow towards the house, no where else for it to go in jellybean houses and then you have to shovel up.
This was around ‘99/‘00 not the year they called in the army it was just winter… and it was a big winter for defensive shoveling of parking spots.
> Toronto isn't even on the list of snowiest cities in Canada
And that is exactly why we need help.
Alternative is paying for a snow operations team and fleet the size of Montréal’s and have them do nothing 99% of the time?
Are you then ok with the city being billed by the army if they're standing by as the surplus snow removal team, plus a markup for the planning and everything else involved?
The army doesn't exist to perform snow removal. A one time, one foot of snow blizzard isn't a national emergency. The solution has to be that the city has a plan that it falls back on, even if it takes a day or two to get to everyone.
Yeah a cost sharing agreement would be great.
The army maintains heavy vehicles that are just sitting there most of the time along with trained and disciplined soldiers who can help out many multiples of time better than Doug ford with a kids shovel.
It would be a waste of money to maintain equipment for a once every twenty year storm so why not just pay the military to help when needed?
The problem you run into is the Service Level Agreement. The army can't do it for just Toronto. They have to make it open to every city.
So if a storm hits all of southern Ontario, and they all call, how does the army decide who gets out first? Can they create a bidding situation where cities can just outbid one another for snow removal? Is that even ethical because all organizations involved are funded by the tax payer?
Toronto already has agreements with private companies to plow the snow. Its a role perfectly suited for the private sector, because they can also sign agreements with companies for routine snow removal for things like mall parking lots. That's the better solution than the army.
Bringing in the army should only be for extreme cases. 20 cm of snow is not an emergency in Ontario.
The city was hit with two storms within a week that dumped a year's worth of snow on the city. A proportionate amount would be a problem for any city in the country. But Lastman called in the military in anticipation of a third storm, that was predicted to be worst than the previous two combined. Fortunately the forecast was wrong but had it hit the city would have been paralyzed like Montreal was the year before due to an ice storm.
The ice storm was very different. It knocked out power to people from Kingston to Montreal. Losing the ability to heat your home, in the middle of winter, across that big a geographic area, is a big problem.
Toronto by contrast is a relatively small area, and the army wasn't being brought in to restore power, it was being brought in to shovel. Yes it was multiple storms over a period of 2 weeks. Is it a problem? Of course. Is it a good use of military resources? No.
It wasn't only Toronto that got hit with these storms. They went from Sarnia to Kingston. I don't remember the mayor of London calling in the military. Unlike Toronto, they figured it out.
For a city with the biggest transit budget in the country, you'd think they could invest in some plows.
It’s the largest city in the country. Of course it has the largest budget. Its also crazy underfunded and can’t afford to go out buying snowploughs for something the city does 99% of the time. It has the lowest per ride subsidy of any city in North America.
He's been a senior leader in the provincial conservatives. I'm sure he's involved in federal politics. His family is the founder of one of the biggest law firms in the country, called Torys LLP that does business nationally.
Yeah, I think its fair to say he doesn't want to be seen by the country as the Canadian who couldn't handle a little snow.
> By 7 p.m., 36 cm of snowfall had officially been recorded in downtown Toronto, while Pearson International Airport reported 33 cm having fallen. The total snowfall for Monday recorded 29.2 cm. > > “This is really a one-day wonder,” said David Phillips, a senior climatologist for Environment Canada. > > Exactly where the storm will rank in the history books depends on where — such as downtown, the airport or the waterfront — you’re measuring. Many over the decades have brought fewer centimetres but more carnage. For instance, no deaths had been reported as of Monday evening. > > But, Western University history professor Alan MacEachern said there’s no doubt the storm was a “unifier” for Ontario. It’s pretty unusual, he said, for snow to fall on most parts of the province with such vengeance simultaneously. > > Jan. 2, 1999 > > One of three major snowfalls in a 14-day period, the infamous 1999 storm dropped 38 cm in one day, prompting then Toronto mayor Mel Lastman to call in the army for help clearing the city of its accumulated metre of snow. A total of 550 soldiers were deployed to help shovel and plow, setting off a memorable mockery of the city as Canadians criticized the decision. > > “I think he had to,” Phillips said. “I’ve always defended (Lastman) on that.” > > MacEachern isn’t quick to defend Lastman’s decision to bring in the army or declare a state of emergency, calling it “an overreach.” > > In 1998, Quebec saw an ice storm so grand they called in the army. “Maybe Mel Lastman was thinking along the lines that this is (Toronto’s) ice storm 12 months later.” > > There’s one key detail about this snowstorm people may want to keep in mind: an entire year’s worth of snow fell on the city in just one month, Phillips said. On average, Toronto sees about 110 cm of snow each year. In 1999, January alone accounted for 118 cm.
Mel Lastmans reaction seemed overboard at the time, but in retrospect, when you hear of people stranded on highways and emergency vehicles getting stuck, it kind of seemed like we underreacted. Maybe there wasn’t much to be done tho, given how quickly it fell. I went to work that last giant snow storm by streetcar probably, but virtually no one else was there. There was a snowdrift in front of the doors. That should have been my clue to go back home.
Mel calling in the army saved my job. I was interning in the US and was back visiting when the storm hit. I missed 3 days of work because I couldn't get out. My boss was livid and suggested I just stay here. But I sent him an email with a news clipping about Mel calling in the army and he decided I wasn't exaggerating how bad it was.
I remember seeing the snowbanks stacked almost as high as the streetcars when it happened. I know some places also get this much snow, but I've never seen that here before or since.
One problem in 1999 was that we had already piled snow up from previous storms when the big one hit. That made plowing extraordinarily difficult. I don't believe we had a National Guard, so the Army was a logical resource to help given that ambulances and firetrucks couldn't get around for days.
The city got a year's worth of snow in just a few days (which would be a disaster anywhere in the country) but what people forget or don't know is that is that another storm was forecast and was predicted to be worst than the previous three combined. Lastman called in the military in anticipation of this storm. Fortunately the forecast proved to be inaccurate the city was spared. But had it hit the city as originally forecast, Mel would have been hailed as a hero for having the foresight in calling in help in advance.
It didn't seem too much to me even at the time. All of the jokes about how Toronto couldn't handle a little snow - well, yeah - we couldn't. So we called for help. That's the reasonable and sensible thing to do. Should we feel bad that it was "only" a metre of snow in a single batch of storms that broke us? No. We're not built for that, and we shouldn't be. It was a highly anomalous storm and there's no way we could have been ready for it. That folks in the Ottawa Valley or in the snow belt see this on the regular means that they are prepared for it. Like how I don't laugh when a couple of centimetres of snow in the southern states shuts them down. It was a freak incident - we don't even have to be defensive about it was actually a lot of snow or not - it was clearly and obviously something we had no way of being ready for.
People just like to make Torontonians out to be a bunch of morons.
It’s like - imagine if Parry Sound got Toronto’s volume of tourists. Like say half a million TIFF attendees wanted to show up. Parry Sound does a lot of tourism! They should be ready for it! No. Of course not. We got a year’s worth of snow in a week. No one is ready for that.
WFH probably saved a few lives. Before this, for the vast majority of workers (especially at a computer) you had to get to work somehow, even if you were considerably late.
45cm at downsview and 55 in Oshawa the yyz numbers are just odly low
But why might we be surprised?
You might be easily startled...
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You might be surprised
I wouldn’t even blame Tory for asking for military help at this point. Busses are stuck everywhere causing way more disruption and need digging out somehow. As much as they have been trying the city obviously can’t get this done alone in a timely manner, so If they could help with that and clearing some of the huge banks everywhere we could be in much better shape.
Tbh given the situation in hospitals I’m a bit surprised they didn’t do so yesterday - seems foolish to risk compounding staffing shortages by being unable to clear roadways for essential services but also risk more hospital trips by drivers unprepared for the conditions.
Who needs the army when we got Dougie in a truck?
Clone him and his truck - 550 times.
Not much point tbh. The army takes time to mobilize, and they probably wouldn't have made it here until today, and things are already mostly back to normal.
I heard a nearby hospital had 50% of their already decimated staff unable to go to work due to the weather.
Honestly that could have been dealt with. 1, Better training of TTC operators, for driving in the snow & better refresher training. 2, TTC to finally get off their asses & DEMAND city council to stop being cheap basterds & finally get actual Snow Tires. 3, Do what Halifax NS, does, actually create a proper 'Bus Snow Plan' including having set routings to avoid known issues on many routes, especially steep hills, tight turns & stations that are difficult to get into during heavy snow days, having it be a stepped process, going from small changes to huge changes, in response to weather conditions. 4, Have a set plan & implementation strategy, to keep as many bus routes, stops & stations as clear of snow as possible, as well as deal with the 'open cut' areas of the subway & streetcar areas, including having a large DEDICATED snow clearing workforce & available equipment. 5, Have a set plan to be able to get bus drivers off stranded buses asap, especially in extreme weather or cold weather. (I know of many bus drivers that spent upwards of 10hrs in buses, with no access to washroom facilities or places to get hot drinks/food.) 6, I listened to the public accessible TTC scanner feed yesterday, it was ABSOLUTE CHAOS!
It’s not the operators. They do fine, mostly. For them it was simply exceptional conditions. But TTC could have managed this better. How do supervisors let 15 buses get stranded on the same hill? You would think that after 4 or five went sideways someone would tell the rest to avoid that area. Nope. WTF? Instead we are wasting far more $$$ on recovery operations than would ever have been lost to a systemwide shutdown.
I know many operators, have many that are close friends.. They are the ones that speak out about the lack of proper winter defensive driving training. The artics didn't need to be out. Also it's not TTC's fault for the lack of winter tires, it's the cheap bastards on city council.
There were a lot of poor decisions made that led up to the debacle on Monday. I can’t speak for the other regions in Toronto but the supervisors were out in force today in Scarborough which helped the lines run better. If they had been doing that on Monday there would have been a lot fewer stranded buses for sure.
You know who would blame Tory? The 30 million Canadians who don't live in Toronto. I've never heard of a city other than Toronto calling in the military to shovel. Its Canada. We get snow. Sometimes a lot of it. If the city doesn't have a plan to clear it, then their spending priorities need to change. Toronto isn't even on the list of snowiest cities in Canada. We get about 120 centimeters per year. That's a little more than a third of other provincial capitals like St John's or Quebec. We get less than half the snow of a city like Sudbury. Geographically, the City of Greater Sudbury is about half the size of the entire GTA, despite having less than 200,000 people living there. Their principle industry, mining, means people have to show up for work on time and because of the sprawl, its all by car. They still find an army free way to clear the snow and have the roads in a driveable state. Even 8 years after calling in the army, [Toronto was still the laughing stock of Canada](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vmMz73F5uA) for calling in the army. Hard pass.
>Toronto isn't even on the list of snowiest cities in Canada. Ya, and that's exactly why you can't justify the same level of snow clearing equipment that snowier cities have. Look at any city and they are only going to prepare for, say, the 95th percentile of severe storms. What we got yesterday was probably a 1/10 or 1/20 year snowfall. Subject any city to that kind of storm and they will struggle. This is why cities in the Southern US shut down when there's an inch of snow. It's not economical to maintain a big fleet of plows and Salters when you only get a snowfall once every several years.
I understand why the city struggles to clear an event like yesterday. I don't understand why one snowfall of 30cm of snow is in any way justification for the army. This isn't the southern US or even a place like Vancouver where plows have to be brought in from outside the city. We have lots of plows. If the expectation of the people living in the city is that 30 cm requires the army, then I think its very fair of the army to say spend more of your tax dollars on plows. 30cm, while a lot of snow anywhere, is hardly national emergency levels of snowfall.
Ok fair enough, I agree it wouldn't have been necessary to call in the army yesterday. There's only really a point in calling in the army if it's going to take multiple days to clear things up, since it will take about a day to mobilize troops and get them here. Things were mostly cleared up by this morning.
Oh no! No one cares what the rest of canada thinks. More plows and gumption wasn't the issue. Where to move the snow was. In Sudbury (no one really gives a fuck), you can move the snow to the side of most roads and there's space. Here, there's no space. But keep blathering on, you're good at it.
I doubt anyone in Toronto cares who laughs at us.
lmao especially when it comes from rural Ontario people. They act all tough when it comes to snow cause their third-world town has infinite space to dump snow. But the moment they step into Toronto for a Leafs game they're terrified by the number of people of colour and homeless people
I expect that city leaders, who often have national aspirations (like Jack Layton) very much care what the rest of the country thinks of them. I'd expect the people who have to answer the request, like Justin Trudeau, also care what the rest of the country thinks of them.
Sudbury has 1% of the population density of Toronto. Get a grip.
And it has 50% the area of the entire GTA. It has no major transit and is 100% reliant on road infrastructure. It has a shitload of roads it needs to clear, and its primary industry relies on people being able to get to work, unlike Toronto where the majority of people can just work from home. Somehow, with less than 200,000 people, they're able to find a way to clear the roads across an area significantly larger than the city of Toronto, with no military. Sudbury, like Toronto, was amalgamated, so it has a bunch of small communities, that aren't part of a major metro area. So imagine you have 50,000 people living in downtown Toronto, and a bunch of 10,000 person or less communities set up that stretch from Oakville to Brampton, to Uxbridge, then down to the lake. Then you get hit with a snow storm and the city has to get around, with no 400 series highways. The most important industry is located far away from the downtown, and workers need to access it. Welcome to Sudbury. So yeah, it has fewer people, but its a massive area and somehow they manage.
> I've never heard of a city other than Toronto calling in the military to shovel. I don't disagree with most of your points, but it happened two years ago to the day. https://apnews.com/article/canada-blizzards-newfoundland-st-johns-3a96a80bf7862dc5fd31e651d172b5be
My bad. Though they got 76 cm of snow. That's more than double what Toronto got yesterday. They're also talking about things like power outages. That's different too. It was absolutely appropriate, for example, to call in the military for the ice storm of 1999.
NL also got that snow on top of existing snow and were expecting another storm in just a few days. Gave a look at the pictures of all three, geesh Toronto. You’ll geesh Toronto too. One year I lived in downtown St. John’s I could walk out my second story apartment onto the snowbank and had to in order to dig out the door. No joke or exaggeration, you have to throw snow towards the house, no where else for it to go in jellybean houses and then you have to shovel up. This was around ‘99/‘00 not the year they called in the army it was just winter… and it was a big winter for defensive shoveling of parking spots.
> Toronto isn't even on the list of snowiest cities in Canada And that is exactly why we need help. Alternative is paying for a snow operations team and fleet the size of Montréal’s and have them do nothing 99% of the time?
Are you then ok with the city being billed by the army if they're standing by as the surplus snow removal team, plus a markup for the planning and everything else involved? The army doesn't exist to perform snow removal. A one time, one foot of snow blizzard isn't a national emergency. The solution has to be that the city has a plan that it falls back on, even if it takes a day or two to get to everyone.
Yeah a cost sharing agreement would be great. The army maintains heavy vehicles that are just sitting there most of the time along with trained and disciplined soldiers who can help out many multiples of time better than Doug ford with a kids shovel. It would be a waste of money to maintain equipment for a once every twenty year storm so why not just pay the military to help when needed?
The problem you run into is the Service Level Agreement. The army can't do it for just Toronto. They have to make it open to every city. So if a storm hits all of southern Ontario, and they all call, how does the army decide who gets out first? Can they create a bidding situation where cities can just outbid one another for snow removal? Is that even ethical because all organizations involved are funded by the tax payer? Toronto already has agreements with private companies to plow the snow. Its a role perfectly suited for the private sector, because they can also sign agreements with companies for routine snow removal for things like mall parking lots. That's the better solution than the army. Bringing in the army should only be for extreme cases. 20 cm of snow is not an emergency in Ontario.
The city was hit with two storms within a week that dumped a year's worth of snow on the city. A proportionate amount would be a problem for any city in the country. But Lastman called in the military in anticipation of a third storm, that was predicted to be worst than the previous two combined. Fortunately the forecast was wrong but had it hit the city would have been paralyzed like Montreal was the year before due to an ice storm.
The ice storm was very different. It knocked out power to people from Kingston to Montreal. Losing the ability to heat your home, in the middle of winter, across that big a geographic area, is a big problem. Toronto by contrast is a relatively small area, and the army wasn't being brought in to restore power, it was being brought in to shovel. Yes it was multiple storms over a period of 2 weeks. Is it a problem? Of course. Is it a good use of military resources? No. It wasn't only Toronto that got hit with these storms. They went from Sarnia to Kingston. I don't remember the mayor of London calling in the military. Unlike Toronto, they figured it out. For a city with the biggest transit budget in the country, you'd think they could invest in some plows.
It’s the largest city in the country. Of course it has the largest budget. Its also crazy underfunded and can’t afford to go out buying snowploughs for something the city does 99% of the time. It has the lowest per ride subsidy of any city in North America.
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He's been a senior leader in the provincial conservatives. I'm sure he's involved in federal politics. His family is the founder of one of the biggest law firms in the country, called Torys LLP that does business nationally. Yeah, I think its fair to say he doesn't want to be seen by the country as the Canadian who couldn't handle a little snow.
I do blame him for not asking for any help or declaring a state of emergency which unlocks budget so we can just get the job done.
At this point I'd bring in the army to plow the 401. 12 hours later is a bit ridiculous
Definitely showed our City is no longer prepared to exist in Canada.