Port chief extends hand to city

JENNIFER LEWINGTON: CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

    The city of Toronto should fill its long-vacant seat on the Toronto Port Authority, the new chairman of the federal agency urged yesterday.
    In olive-branch comments aimed at the city, long at loggerheads with the TPA for expanding airline service at its downtown airport, chairman Mark McQueen said by e-mail "whatever happened between the city, Liberal federal cabinet ministers and the TPA prior to my arrival is just old baggage.
    "We have a business to run, and so does the city," added the president of Wellington Financial, who was appointed to the board last fall by the Harper government. "We share many of the same stakeholders, so it shouldn't be hard to get to 'yes' on most issues, other than the airport."
    Mayor David Miller, who won his first election in 2003 in part on opposition to a bridge to the TPA's island airport, was little moved. "Under the Canada Marine Act, it [the TPA] shouldn't exist, it loses money and conducts itself in extremely inappropriate ways for a public agency," the mayor said yesterday. But, he added, "if overtures are made to us by the chair, we would consider them appropriately."
    Of late, the TPA has been split internally. In March, provincial Liberal appointee Michele McCarthy was ousted as chairwoman and replaced by Mr. McQueen. One board member sought a legal opinion from the TPA's law firm that concluded the election "was unlawful" because it had occurred too hastily.
    Mr. McQueen has suggested that the TPA board cannot "consider legal work that was not duly solicited or engaged."
    He also stressed that his election followed past practices dating back to 1999, including the election of Ms. McCarthy.
    Yesterday, he elaborated on the decision, which came at the same meeting the board voted to cancel the $50,000 annual pay for the part-time post of chairman. 
    "In my mind, the motion to remove the chair was directly related to the motion to do away with the $50,000 salary," he said, adding he was recruited to bring "a business discipline" to the TPA. 
    Required by legislation to be self-sufficient, the TPA reported a loss of $6-million in 2006. Mr. McQueen hopes the TPA can turn a profit before his term is up in 2010.

 Who's on the board  The Toronto Port Authority's seven-person board is appointed by three levels of government.

Federal
Mark McQueen (chairman), financier and former aide in the Prime Minister's Office (1991-93)
Colin Watson, former president of Rogers Cablesystems, now on various boards
Craig Rix, partner with Hicks Morley and former top policy adviser to the Mike Harris provincial government
Christopher Henley, president of Henley Capital Corp.
Douglas Reid, business strategy professor at Queen's School of Business, Queen's University

Provincial
Michele McCarthy, a principal of McCarthylaw

City
One seat, vacant