At a Toronto City Council Zoom meeting, one unlucky official was caught on a hot mic cursing and expressing his frustration after a whopping 11 hours of deliberation.
On Wednesday evening, Speaker Frances Nunziata announced deliberations on city business would continue for another 45 minutes after hours of exhaustive back and forth. Anything not gotten to in the agenda would be deferred to April. Asked by Councillor Paula Fletcher why so much business was being deferred, an official spoke up and answered for her.
“Because you can’t get your f**king s**t done,” the frustrated staffer said to the shock of the virtual room.
After several audible gasps could be heard on the digital call, Nunziata mistakenly identified Scarborough Councillor Paul Ainslie as the culprit and demanded an apology.
Carleton Grant, the city’s executive director of Municipal Licensing and Standards, jumped in though to admit it was his “mistake,” likely thinking he had been on mute. He quickly apologized.
“So you did say it?” Nunziata asked.
Mayor John Tory, however, quickly jumped in and accepted the apology.
“It’s been said the apology’s been accepted,” Grant, who has been a city employee for nearly 30 years, said.
Someone is then heard saying, “speaker, shall we move forward, please?” though it’s not clear if this is Tory or Grant.
It was unfortunately not the only moment to exemplify the chaotic nature of the long-winded meeting. Nunziata later appeared frustrated and accused officials of “being silly” after so many hours of deliberation following a brief talk about salad between Fletcher and Ainslie.
After Nunziata suggested deferring everything to April, Fletcher offered to take over the meeting if she was “having a hard time.”
“I’m not having a hard time, it’s the members of Council that are not cooperating,” a frustrated Nunziata shot back.
The city council meeting ended after 12 hours after beginning at around 9:30am. Since moving such deliberations into the virtual realm at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, officials have regularly engaged in eyebrow-raising behavior.
Tory told the Star that he and other colleagues once saw a pornographic video flash before a Zoom meeting during a virtual townhall. The mayor urged members on Wednesday to try and refrain from jokes and petty arguments to keep things on track.
“This is an embarrassment,” he said at one point as the group fell into an argument about whether Councillor Mike Layton should apologize for referring to colleagues as “two old men” clinging to fossil fuels during a vote on moving away from gas-fired electricity generation, according to the Star.
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