JOHN BARBER

May 15, 2008

Shipping season has begun, just in time for the ships not to come again. A crew of stevedores awaits the non-existent ships at the Toronto Port Authority's non-functioning container facility. Undeterred by the absence of business at their port, the authoritarians keep the workers busy with drills in which they move around empty containers and "stuff" trucks with imaginary cargo.

"That will help when containers come in," TPA president Lisa Raitt declared last year at the authority's most recent annual meeting. "These containers will come into the port of Toronto."

That's right. You never know when a container ship might lose its way to Perth Amboy, N.J., and nose through the Eastern Gap.

Is it any wonder the board that supervises this lunacy is currently experiencing a nervous breakdown? There's no other, rational reason to explain the petty infighting, as chronicled by The Globe's Jennifer Lewington, that has once again erupted on the bridge of this notorious ship of fools.

Perhaps they are feverish with visions of museum-quality hovercraft flying back and forth to Rochester, finally making use of the $10-million terminal they built to accommodate their last such fantasy. More likely they are fighting over how to spin the latest losses to disguise their continued failure to accomplish anything other than lose bags of tax dollars in trivial pursuits.

That's the usual drill when non-shipping season begins: a long delay in releasing financial information that, when it does emerge, speaks only of fresh disaster.

This year's most likely source of embarrassment are numbers showing the failure of Porter Airlines to rescue the irremediably bankrupt island airport, the rebirth of which was the whole reason for flooding Porter with public money and special privileges in the first place.

Remember how it was all supposed to work? According to the notorious leaked memo that outlined how $35-million in secret federal disbursements created a new airline and a new terminal, Porter was not only supposed to repay its share of the booty but also cover a quarter of the airport's operating costs.

Last year, the port authoritarians promised "a dramatic improvement in 2007." Today, it would appear, they are choking on their own emissions.

The bizarre origin of the current impasse is the peremptory dethroning of Liberal appointee Michele McCarthy as TPA chairwoman and her replacement with a fresh Tory. That's just the way things work in this crude political chop shop, but certain squishy authoritarians apparently believe kid gloves should have been employed.

Could it be that these appointees have developed qualms about playing out their appointed role as gormless political hacks? If so, they should quit.

Conscientious observers should rarely use the word "dysfunctional" to describe any democratic body or public agency, no matter how wacky or controversial it may seem. Beloved of partisans and spinners, the word becomes a blanket smear far too easily. But sometimes it can't be denied. It's virtually predictable when a body with such strong powers, heavy political coloration and limited accountability embarks on such a trivial agenda.

With no ships in its namesake port and a money-losing airstrip fast running out of excuses, the TPA's only profitable operation is a pleasure-boat marina that should have been privatized years ago. That's how the hardheaded business types who supposedly run a tight ship on the waterfront really get by: pumping holding tanks for the Topsiders set.