Taxpayers spent $50,000 on City Hall Europe trip: Report

Torontosun.com
Jan. 15, 2020
Sue-Ann Levy

In the same week that the city’s budget committee will review a proposed 4.24% tax hike for 2020, a report detailing a $50,000 city junket to seven European cities last fall passed through economic development committee with no debate Tuesday.

The motion to receive the report --with no discussion --was put forward by Councillor Shelley Carroll, who regularly travels on the taxpayer dime but did not attend this series of three outbound European missions.

When questioned about it on Twitter, she said she moved receipt of the report because she “vocally supported the reporting publicly on Economic development activity.”

The 12-page report indicates that seven cities were visited between Oct. 5-13 by either Mayor John Tory, economic development committee chairman Michael Thompson, Councillor Jennifer McKelvie or some combination of the three.

All three, in addition to Councillor Mike Layton, met in Copenhagen to participate in a city delegation to the C40 Global Mayor’s Summitt and to “promote Toronto’s green strategy,” said the report.

Thompson --described in the report as the city’s deputy mayor instead of one of three deputy mayors appointed by Tory --started his travels with a trip to Paris and Marseille, where he “promoted the Toronto story,” met with city of Paris officials to “better understand the night economy” and discussed the development of the Marseille waterfront, among other things.

The well-travelled city councillor also visited Stockholm after Copenhagen where, according to the report, he met with Canadian Embassy officials to be briefed on Canada-Sweden relations and four government agencies to discuss best practices.

The report noted that during his seven-day trip, he was accompanied by his legislative affairs and communications coordinator Ana Salvagna.

Tory, who was accompanied by two senior advisors in his office, Matt Buckman and Emily Hillstrom, started off in London on Oct. 5 where he met with the Canadian High Commission to be briefed on the “latest intelligence on Canada/U.K. relations” and on Brexit and related issues.

The report said he also co-hosted a business reception with the Canada-U.K. Chamber of Commerce to promote Toronto as the “gateway to the North American market.”

McKelvie, who took her own side trip to Milan and Torino on Oct. 6-7, said Tuesday she wanted to explore how the city could be working “in partnership” with the oil-and-gas sector on green energy technology instead of suing them as Layton has proposed.

She added that she met with Milan city staff to discuss similar roadblocks the two cities have experienced when it comes to retrofitting buildings.