Toronto supports contracting out garbage pick-up: Poll

Mayor Rob Ford’s plan to privatize garbage collection has Toronto’s support, a recent poll found.

The Ipsos-Reid survey found 61 per cent of people want to contract out trash collection west of Yonge Street.

That’s more than twice as many people that oppose it – 30 per cent said they either strongly or somewhat oppose the plan. And eight per cent of us don’t know whether we support private pick-up or not.

City Hall claims the move will save about $8 million a year, but 300 unionized jobs would be lost.

“If we give away and contract out and sell everything we have, then I think we’re abdicating our role as a city government,” councillor Janet Davis (Beaches-East York) told CityNews on Monday.

For many, including councillor Doug Holyday, the 2009 garbage strike is one reason to support privatizing trash collection.

“We can’t be putting up with labour disruptions of six and seven weeks. Every time the labour contract comes up, they hold up the whole city for ransom,” Holyday said. Holyday was mayor of Etobicoke when that city privatized garbage collection in 1994.

City council will vote on the issue on Tuesday.

Ipsos-Reid surveyed 500 people via telephone from May 13-15. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult population of Canada been polled.