I would love to work for the TTC. I grew up and lived in Toronto for 20 years but recently moved to the 905. Does that disqualify me from working for the TTC?
Ideally? Yes, it should disqualify you. Or if not disqualify you outright, it should mean you would come in second up against someone with your exact qualifications, but who lived in the city. If I were hiring, that person would get the job, not you. I want someone with a vested interest in this city, not someone who views it as just another workplace. And it works the other way around, I don't think I would want to work for Vaughan's or Mississauga's public sector (especially if it's a nonprofessional job) if I didn't live there, and they shouldn't make it easy for me to do so. The public sector isn't a bank, or an insurance company. It's much more fundamental, and the corrosive effect of having a public workforce separated - physically and emotionally - from those whom they serve is not worth the risk of deterring given individuals from applying. Give prospective employees some incentive instead, housing bonuses or something, in order to attract them here. This goes for cops and firefighters and EMS, all of whom have rates of suburban residency as high, if not higher, than the TTC. If not, then what is Toronto, really? Just a temp agency? Do we not want people who work for the city to live here? Wouldn't you feel better that your taxes paid the salary of someone who lived here, paid taxes here, shopped in local stores, sent their kids to our schools, and who used the same transit system as you and who are as frustrated as you are at the mediocre service? You always hear complaints about lazy, apathetic public workers. Well, if they lived in the city and had to deal with the results of shoddy service themselves, don't you think that, if for no other reason than self-interest, they would do a better job than someone who gets in their car everyday and drives off to places like Coburg?
Sorry, but if you want to work for the Toronto public service, you should live here, or at least, not be hired unless and until someone as qualified who demonstrates that they live in Toronto can't be hired ahead of you. I think most public employees in this city should live here. In the case of the TTC, I have heard way too many stories over the years of operators and collectors not giving a damn about this city, collecting city salaries and city pensions, and then living in Coburg somewhere, just in and out. I can almost guarantee you that if city residency were a requirement, you would see more TTC employees use the system. This, in turn, would increase their ownership over it, they would become more closely embedded in the system they work for, more likely to see where things can be improved, and more attuned to the needs of the people using it because they too use it and don't see the riders as some "other", but people like them. Someone driving in from Coburg doesn't see these things, probably never can, and so the result is what we're seeing in terms of shoddy service. Would it solve all of the TTC's customer service problems? Of course not, but I truly think that a workforce using the system they work for will be more likely to care about its health than those who don't.
