Sunrise – Perspective just over a week in

by John Laforet
posted on August 20th, 2008 at 17:59:52 pm

I’m not going to re-cap what happened, because it has been impossible to pick up a newspaper in Toronto since the propane explosion that rocked residents of a north Toronto community in the middle of the night and not read about it. Some of what has happened since the initial explosion is worth discussing.

Emergency services appear to have done an excellent job. The response from others left much to be desired.  There are three themes I will touch on; vacations, jurisdictional wrangling and as a sub-theme of the last legal liability.

Vacations:

The Mayor has been taking heat over the last week for his decision not to return home from vacation and manage the City during the response to the explosion. Although he came home today and began answering for his decision, the City’s message has come from Acting Deputy Mayor (and Budget Chief) Shelley Carroll. 

I’m not going to criticize him for going on vacation, because that would not be fair. He has a family with young children who are presumably returning to school after Labour Day, and is entitled to a break like everyone else. The timing is awkward though.

Augimari flew home from her vacation, has stayed and even gotten herself into some trouble, while still jet lagged. She has said sorry now for telling a constituent to ’shut up’ though. I’m not sure she deserved to be pounced on because the actions of this community organizer can be seen to be politically motived as she had been trying to say at the time. His planned meeting put her in an impossible scheduling conflict whereby he could then beat up on her for not attending. His community association taking the position not to amalgamate the meetings was irresponsible. She may have been right about everything she said until telling him to shut up, something likely in every-one’s vocabulary but a public relations no-no. Elected officials are expected to grin and bear it, even when constituents are being unreasonable.

Firefighter Bob Leek had also been on vacation at the time of the blast. He was a 25 year veteran of Toronto Fire Services and rushed into work to do what he could to help control the blaze. He died on the scene of the fire. Miller returned to his vacation before the funeral, and sent a letter at a time when his presence was needed to show gratitude and support to Mr. Leek’s family, Toronto Fire Services from the City of Toronto and it’s residents.

I’m sure in hindsight Miller will agree he should have stayed, politically however he will never be able to say it. He really did need to be at Mr. Leek’s funeral and leading the City’s response. Shelley Carroll is a capable Budget Chief and Councillor, but he was elected Mayor, not her. So deputizing her temporarily while he is away just seems wrong.

Jurisdictional Wrangling:

The blast demonstrated a huge jurisdictional mess. It was another example of how reforms made by the Provincial Government during the late 90’s have left a legacy of confusion. The TSSA regulates the propane industry. You’ve probably think you’ve never heard of them, but they also license elevators in Ontario among other things. It operates arms length from the Government and falls under Minister Takhar’s portfolio. The City is responsible for zoning for all land use within it’s boundary. What has become clear is the Minister does not know what is happening at TSSA, TSSA does not know what the City’s up to and the City is in the dark about the TSSA’s involvement with Sunrise Propane. Basically no one had been talking to anyone, and when there is no communication it is easy for organizations to get past regulations.

Miller is now looking at addressing the thousands of bi-laws that cover the former cities that were amalgamated. This is 2008, the forced merger happened in 1997. It seems to me that 11 years out the City not having uniform rules is ridiculous, particularly when they find time to debate all kinds of silly things.

Takhar has written to the TSSA and asked them to get information out to the City and emergency services faster about this particular case. While this is important it demonstrated that the TSSA and the Ministry
responsible for it’s actions clearly don’t share information all that frequently.

I think this also showed Torontonians how government’s fail to work together to our detriment, even in their component parts. It also shows us that sometimes our safety is only of concern after the fact, after
something truly horrendous happens and shocks residents of the City.

Who Pays for the Clean Up?

Finally and of most concern to many — the City taking over the clean up efforts of the community. Yes the City of Toronto has an interest in ensuring the community is cleaned up, but on who’s dime? Sunrise
must have had a pretty serious accident liability policy and by stepping in so soon the City may have put the taxpayer on the hook with no ability to re-claim this money from the insurance company. I
only hope the Legal Department and not the political and senior management alone made this decision with that in mind. The clean up should not be on the backs of tax payers and should be the liability
of Sunrise. Only time will tell us how this plays out.

Politically this may be as important for the Mayor and Council.

Sunrise Management MIA:

I can appreciate why one would try to duck, but this isn’t going away. A 24 year old employee of Sunrise died in the blast, a firefighter lost his life trying to prevent further risk of life or damage, thousands of people were forced to leave their homes, asbestos was found sprinkled on the ground and now class action lawsuits of amazingly high sums are beginning to circulate.

They also have a clean up bill residents of Toronto like me would like to see them pay.

From what I have read about Sunrise they are far from being a responsible corporate citizen.

Tags: David Miller, Explosion, Maria Augimari, Shelley Carroll, Sunrise Propane, TSSA