Mayor calls Toronto's snow-removal efforts 'unacceptable'

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Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow says she’s frustrated with the pace of snow removal in the city, calling it “unacceptable” that some streets and sidewalks still remain unplowed following the recent Feb. 15 snowstorm.

“This current state of removal operations, particularly the sidewalks, is just totally unacceptable,” said Chow at a Tuesday press conference outside the Mon Sheong Home for The Aged where sidewalks were still covered with snow.

Chow said that last week, she was told repeatedly by transportation department manager Barbara Gray that that 100% of the sidewalks had been plowed.

“I was told that this morning. I was told that last week, on Friday,” she said. “Well, I’m sorry, it is not true. As I travel across the city, and as I look at all the calls that my office has been receiving, the logs, and as I’ve been talking to other councillors, it is obvious that the sidewalks are not 100% cleared … There will be consequences.”

Gray, meanwhile, told a Tuesday afternoon press conference that “our team and the contracted crews have plowed every sidewalk in this city since the beginning of the storm. I’ve said that they were plowed. I didn’t say that they were cleared. There’s a lot of issues about how the snow moves around. And, I understand, people are frustrated. They don’t think it’s completed and so the best thing we can do is continue to get at it.”

Chow said she wants the city to review the seven-year snow removal contract signed in 2021 — insisting it lacks accountability — with an eye to renegotiating or even breaking the agreement.

She also called for a review of Toronto’s winter maintenance operations and raised the possibly of buying  heavier snow-removal  equipment.

“We need to act quickly,” said Chow. “On Thursday, Friday, the temperature is going to drop. And what I’m concerned about is icy sidewalks — that is dangerous. People will get very hurt. And we’ve seen that happen before.”

Chow was joined by City Councillor Paul Ainslie, chair of the government committee, who said there were a “raft of issues” when the snow removal contract was signed in 2021.

“From not getting the snow cleared properly because we wouldn’t have the right sized vehicles. If we had the proper vehicles at all, we were going to have trouble hiring people, we were going to have trouble training them properly and getting the job done,” said Ainslie, who voted against the contract.

“Here we are almost a week and a half after the last snow storm and I still have to look behind me at a sidewalk in front of a seniors’ home, for example, that’s not plowed. Things have to change.”

Gray said that so far, city crews have removed 114,000 tonnes of snow — more than 10,400 dump truck loads — after two storms dumped 53 centimetres of the white stuff on Toronto during a 10-day period.

“This is a tremendous amount of snow that’s been picked up over six days amounting to an average of 1,700 loads a day and more than 19,000 tonnes of snow removed each day,” said Gray.

“As the weather warms up and the snow begins to melt, we have crews out inspecting the catch basins to address local area flooding. There’s an expectation for this work to be done as soon as possible and we couldn’t agree more. I’m aware of the request that the mayor has made of the city manager and the auditor general. We will most certainly work closely with (them) as they conduct their review.”

Gray said she still has “confidence in the contractors that are hired,” for snow clearing.