TORONTO - Culture of waste at TCHC gets targeted

Toronto's Community Housing Corporation has a difficult job - there are many people in need in our city. It is unclear, however, how lavish gifts and spa treatments for TCHC's executives help fulfill their mandate. Yesterday, Toronto's city auditor delivered a scathing report to Council about gross spending abuses at the city corporation.

Today, Mayor Rob Ford is calling for the resignation of the TCHC board. The corporation has annual spending in the neighbourhood of $300-million - and it has now been revealed that untendered contracts account for many millions of dollars toward this total. This scurrilous behaviour is on top of significant personal spending improprieties - there is so much wrong here that it is difficult to know where to begin.

With so many people in need of limited resources in the city of Toronto, many worthy cases have been turned away due to 'lack of money' - well, now we know where a lot of this money has been going. Spending included nearly $100,000 for Christmas parties, $1000 chocolates from Holt Renfrew, lavish gifts and spa days - not to mention the millions spent unscrupulously or through sole-source contracts.

Reporting rules were sidestepped to hand multi-million dollar contracts to friends of board members, and in some instances even after millions of dollars were spent no original contract could even be produced. In order to escape detection, many large spending items were broken down into smaller chunks - as all expenses over $500,000 required approval.

The current CEO and chairperson, Keiko Nakamura and David Mitchell, will likely both be forced to resign. Much of this culture of abuse, however, is likely attributable to the tenure of previous CEO Derek Ballantyne. It is clear that a culture of waste had been embraced, and when this occurs the situation needs to be significantly overhauled. Accordingly, Ford has also requested the resignation of all civilian members of the TCHC board as well.

One of North America's largest landlords, the TCHC property portfolio is valued at $6 billion and houses over 160,000 tenants - it is vital that this portfolio is managed responsibly.