Toronto city manager’s rejection of ridiculous report should be applauded

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Something interesting and rather encouraging just happened at Toronto City Hall. (You can’t say that every day.) A leading official pushed back just a little against the reigning orthodoxies of our time and said: Hey, wait a minute. For that, he deserves not just our thanks but our cheers. We should be carrying him through the streets on our shoulders.

The official is Paul Johnson. He is city manager, the highest unelected official in Toronto’s government. He was reacting to a report from Ombudsman Kwame Addo, who plays a watchdog role down at City Hall. The report looked at a brief period in 2022 and 2023, when the city was turning refugee claimants away from its main system of homeless shelters.

Because most of the claimants were from Africa, Mr. Addo said the decision constituted systemic discrimination and anti-Black racism. Though the bias may have been unintentional, “the decision systemically discriminated on the basis of citizenship and race, contrary to the Housing Charter, the Human Rights and Anti-Harassment/Discrimination Policy, and the Ontario Human Rights Code.”

He recommended remedial training for city staff on why housing is a human right and how racism works, using something called an Anti-Black Racism Analysis Tool.

The usual response from those who face such accusations is to say nothing and just to go along. Better to accept the lecture and show up for the training than to make a fuss and risk someone brandishing your objection as proof of your deep-seated racism.

Mr. Johnson, bless him, is refusing. In a respectful but firm letter to the Ombudsman, he essentially calls the report nonsense. At the time, he notes, the shelter system was swamped. Staff worried that if they kept taking in refugee claimants, there wouldn’t be any space for those the system was designed to protect.

Eventually, Ottawa stepped up with money to house the claimants in hotels and set up a reception centre for them near the airport, but in the meantime, Mr. Johnson told reporters this week, staff found themselves in a “terrible situation.”

He is surely right about that. They faced not just a rising tide of homelessness that was overwhelming the system but, on top of it, a sudden wave of people completely beyond their control. They moved mountains to cope with this dual crisis, only to be told now by a finger-wagging Mr. Addo that they don’t understand that everyone deserves a home and it’s wrong to mistreat people because of their skin colour.

It is ridiculous to argue that the right to adequate housing set out in city policy obliges city staff to find a place for everyone or be called on the carpet. As Mr. Johnson points out, the right is “aspirational,” a star to guide them rather than a club to beat them with.

He says he disagrees with the findings of Mr. Addo’s “accusatory” report and will not act on it unless city council orders him to. Mr. Addo is highly affronted by this. In a letter of his own, he says no one has ever rejected an ombudsman’s conclusions altogether. The nerve of it!

He wants council to bring Mr. Johnson to heel and make him comply. His demand is expected to come up for a vote next week.

It is as clear as the blue sky what council should do. It should take Mr. Johnson’s side. It should remind Mr. Addo that he needs to consider the realities of the world when he is writing his reports, not sit in judgment from a throne in the clouds. It should stick up for Toronto’s civil servants, who were only trying to help both those who were seeking refuge on our shores and those who were left without a home in their own city.

Mr. Johnson says he is proud of his staff. Good for him. Let’s see if city councillors can show some of the same backbone.