Cities in the News

The city's new appointee to the Toronto Port Authority questions why the agency, long at odds with the city, is a federal government body.

"There should be a great deal more city control, oversight and ownership of these functions," says David Gurin, a former top planner in Toronto and New York City who cites a public-policy principle that the central government should have a role only when matters cannot be handled locally or provincially.

"I believe this is a municipal function," he said.

But Mr. Gurin, named by council this week to fill the city's long-vacant seat on the seven-member board, concedes his view does not square with the reality that the money-losing agency is in federal hands.

"That is the dilemma: how to represent the city on a federal body," he said yesterday.

Mr. Gurin, 68, the last commissioner of planning for the former Metro Toronto (1995-98) and a former deputy commissioner of transportation in New York (1978-1990), is currently a member of the North York committee of adjustment.

Most significantly, he is seen as the tie-breaker on a board whose members (five federal appointees and one provincial) have been split down the middle for months.

As for the merits of privately run Porter Airlines operating out of the agency's downtown airport, Mr. Gurin said he should "not pronounce" before joining the board.

But he noted "there is an issue of what is the best and highest use of the land. Is it best used as an airport or for residences or recreation?"

Councillor Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina), a member of the civic appointments committee that recommended Mr. Gurin to council, hailed him as someone "who brings an acute understanding of the planning dynamics that must be represented to that [federal] body on behalf of the City of Toronto."