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“I don’t even know what it feels like to make a decision that’s life or death, so the last thing I want to do is criticize and handcuff someone who has to make that decision,” he said.
Coun. Jo-Anne Gignac said when the pandemic first arrived, there was genuine concern that running the buses would risk lives and so the mayor made an “impactful decision.
“I’m sorry, we may not have agreed 100 per cent for various reasons on the suspension of transit,” she told fellow councillors. “But if someone asks my opinion as the elected official of Ward 6, I’d say it was the right decision and it was exercised in the right way.”
This issue arose from the city’s transit advisory committee which recommended that transit be declared an essential service — effectively as a way to keep the service running in the event of an emergency. Ward 3 Coun. Rino Bortolin said Monday that the move was a response to the actions of the mayor.
“Thousands of people were left stranded because of this decision,” he said, describing how many regular users of the system had no way to get to their jobs — in essential grocery stores, for example — or run their essential errands.
Dilkens made the call to shut down transit on a Wednesday and it didn’t happen until Monday, so he had the time to consult the entire council, Bortolin said.
“Ten of us were cut out of this decision,” he said of the shutdown that lasted a month. He described how when a news release was issued, the shutdown was only mentioned near the bottom with the shutdown of playgrounds meriting the headline.
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