OC Transpo

[Hybrid247]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

As I said fairgame but disagree. She lacks the qualification of having led or been a deputy even at a transit agency and thus didn't need to be lobbying at that level. Which some are saying is now needed. I think that would probably have failed but we will never know but agree it's not about leadership but about funding. But others say the leadership is incompetent but we aparently can't challenge the hiring process. I challenge Manconi's hiring too as an internal corrupt old boys decision.

Originally Posted by acottawa

How is she "qualified period"?

If I understand correctly, her background is primarily technical, with an engineering background and experience running bus operations in Montreal.

General Manager of OCTranspo is a significantly political job, requiring navigating Council politics, communicating effectively with the public, dealing with the media, etc. The other part of the job is making hard decisions about what to cut in an environment of diminished resources and a significant decline in ridership.

I don't know about the inside baseball in city hall. Maybe she is playing this political role quite well and making the best decisions possible about where to put resources. But certainly just based on media reports that isn't as obvious as her supporters here are making it sound.

She worked at the STM for nearly 20 years, 5+ years of which was as the director of bus maintenance and another 6+ as executive director of bus operations. She did this in a city with one of the largest bus fleets and highest ridership levels on the continent. Managing STM bus services alone, which has more than twice the amount of buses than Ottawa, is a substantially larger undertaking than managing all of OC Transpo - and she excelled at it. This is exactly the type of leader you want for the GM of a transit agency.

Considering that she inherited the position in the midst of an unprecedented paradigm shift in Ottawa's workforce from in-office to remote work, which accounted for the bulk of ridership, and then having to reorganize from a downtown and commuter focused service to a more decentralized one in a largely sprawly, car-oriented city - all on a shrinking, shoestring budget - is a losing endeavor that was never going to solve OC's ridership and revenue issues. Once again, if we want better service under these new, unprecedented conditions, give her the necessary resources to do it.

Have a read at the below contradictory quotes from Brockington, and tell me OC and its GM are the issue here and not Council.

"If Madame Amilcar says bus reliability is a priority and there aren't sufficient resources in the budget that covers off this priority, how is the city manager holding her accountable?" Brockington asked. "So that is a significant concern for us."

He explained that when he served on the public school board, there was a formal process for trustees to weigh in on detailed appraisals of senior leadership positions. In his view, informal "coffee chats" with the city manager don't have the same impact.

Asked whether Amilcar should be disciplined or fired if there's no progress on bus reliability, Brockington said he simply wants to see improvements.

"I'm not going to sit here for another year with our data month to month showing static, that we're not making improvements, because it's impacting our residents and our passengers," he said.

"Renée Amilcar has my support,' he added. "She is probably the most experienced person in Canada for a bus network."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/oc...687%20plus%20%247%2C973%20in%20benefits.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

She worked at the STM for nearly 20 years, 5+ years of which was as the director of bus maintenance and another 6+ as executive director of bus operations. She did this in a city with one of the largest bus fleets and highest ridership levels on the continent. Managing STM bus services alone, which has more than twice the amount of buses than Ottawa, is a substantially larger undertaking than managing all of OC Transpo - and she excelled at it. This is exactly the type of leader you want for the GM of a transit agency.

Considering that she inherited the position in the midst of an unprecedented paradigm shift in Ottawa's workforce from in-office to remote work, which accounted for the bulk of ridership, and then having to reorganize from a downtown and commuter focused service to a more decentralized one in a largely sprawly, car-oriented city - all on a shrinking, shoestring budget - is a losing endeavor that was never going to solve OC's ridership and revenue issues. Once again, if we want better service under these new, unprecedented conditions, give her the necessary resources to do it.

Have a read at the below contradictory quotes from Brockington, and tell me OC and its GM are the issue here and not Council.

If the job is organizing the bus schedule great, but as you are saying Ottawa's challenge is about rallying support for increased funding and that is where the experience was lacking. And totally accept they might have chosen that way on purpose and for reasons unrelated to our long tangent.

She has not done this:

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/politics/ctas-dorval-carter-says-chicago-transit-needs-funding

or this

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ttc-chair-pushes-transit-funding-as-election-issue-1.3202229

[Truenorth00]

They want to use her as their scapegoat. But at the same time they know with the 🞵🞵🞵🞵 support they've given her, they won't get somebody half as qualified if she walks. I genuinely hope she ditches this ridiculous overgrown suburb for a place that actually wants to be a real city.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ttc-chair-pushes-transit-funding-as-election-issue-1.3202229

You do understand that the TTC Chair is a politician right?

If you're point was that our 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 councillors on the transit committee should speak out, then yes we agree.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

She worked at the STM for nearly 20 years, 5+ years of which was as the director of bus maintenance and another 6+ as executive director of bus operations. She did this in a city with one of the largest bus fleets and highest ridership levels on the continent. Managing STM bus services alone, which has more than twice the amount of buses than Ottawa, is a substantially larger undertaking than managing all of OC Transpo - and she excelled at it. This is exactly the type of leader you want for the GM of a transit agency.

Yes, but these are technical jobs, these are not head of organization jobs. If you’re in charge of production at Coke, you are not necessarily going to make a good CEO at Pepsi.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

You do understand that the TTC Chair is a politician right?

If you're point was that our 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 councillors on the transit committee should speak out, then yes we agree.

Yes I thought this was the CEO speaking out which is also common.

Originally Posted by acottawa

Yes, but these are technical jobs, these are not head of organization jobs. If you’re in charge of production at Coke, you are not necessarily going to make a good CEO at Pepsi.

Sorry but they are above criticism and if you fire them you are a fake feminist so Trudeau can't fire a women even as he fires men like Dion, Morneau for the same narcistic reasons.

It's not as if these kind of hires are people with absolutely no relevant experience:

https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/us-eu/chicago-rep.aspx?lang=eng

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Sorry but they are above criticism and if you fire them you are a fake feminist so Trudeau can't fire a women even as he fires men like Dion, Morneau for the same narcistic reasons.

It's not as if these kind of hires are people with absolutely no relevant experience:

https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/us-eu/chicago-rep.aspx?lang=eng

You really seem to struggle with the idea of different levels of government being independent. You know what Trudeau doesn't run the City of Ottawa right?

This is really some Facebook Grandpa stuff.

[Hybrid247]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

If the job is organizing the bus schedule great, but as you are saying Ottawa's challenge is about rallying support for increased funding and that is where the experience was lacking. And totally accept they might have chosen that way on purpose and for reasons unrelated to our long tangent.

She has not done this:

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/politics/ctas-dorval-carter-says-chicago-transit-needs-funding

or this

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ttc-chair-pushes-transit-funding-as-election-issue-1.3202229

Are you serious? Did you even read what I posted? Brockington himself acknowledged Amilcar's claims of insufficient resources in the budget to address bus reliability in the quote I bolded.

And yes, she has done exactly what you say she hasn't. Here's a story about her lobbying the federal government for additional transit funding: https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...kes-case-for-new-federal-transit-funding

A quick search would've quickly debunked your verifiably incorrect claim if you cared about having an honest discussion about this. Please stop with your misinformed and out of touch rants.

Originally Posted by acottawa

Yes, but these are technical jobs, these are not head of organization jobs. If you’re in charge of production at Coke, you are not necessarily going to make a good CEO at Pepsi.

If you think being the director of all STM bus operations is just a "technical" job, you truly have no idea what goes into running those operations and all the employee, resource, and stakeholder management involved. She managed over 5300 employees and the operations and maintenance for thousands of municipal assets, including about 2000 buses and thousands of bus stop/stations, and was in charge of reporting all operating revenue and KPIs to city managers and elected officials, similar to what she does now.

And putting all the above aside, you act as though people moving up the ranks from "technical" jobs to CEO positions is abnormal. Isn't that exactly what the current CEO of Nike did?

The amount of reaching going on here to claim Amilcar is unqualified is seriously astounding.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

The amount of reaching going on here to claim Amilcar is unqualified is seriously astounding.

But you see, we're wrong to call out their bigotry because their delicate fee fees might get hurt.

[Hybrid247]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

But you see, we're wrong to call out their bigotry because their delicate fee fees might get hurt.

I usually steer clear of those accusations even when I suspect it, just to avoid derailing the discussion, but in this case they had already succeeded in doing that with their out of pocket claims. Something had to be said.

Strange to see the mod defending them instead of checking them for their baseless accusations and irrelevant complaints about DEI.

[rocketphish]

This mod isn't defending anybody, but is trying to uphold forum rules that prohibit anti-social behaviour, like name-calling, or the use of profanity.

Having a discussion, and offering opinions about the head of OC Transpo's qualifications is fair game in an OC Transpo thread, as is OC Transpo's hiring process, as long as it's done in a civilized manner. And if any of you were on the hiring committee that brought Amilcar to Ottawa, please share some actual facts with us.

That said, I think you're all beating a dead horse at this point. Agree to disagree and move on please.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

But you see, we're wrong to call out their bigotry because their delicate fee fees might get hurt.

I don’t know, if John Smith was a director of bus operations at another transit agency but had no experience as the head or deputy head of any organization of any type was hired to head OCTranspo and John Smith’s tenure as head of OCTranspo was plagued by constant problems, I think people would be asking questions.

She as dealt a very difficult hand and it is plausible she dealt with the difficult situation as best as was possible, but I think it is insulting to her to try to shut down any criticism or questions.

To the extent there is bigotry here it is “the quiet bigotry of lowered expectations.”

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

This mod isn't defending anybody, but is trying to uphold forum rules that prohibit anti-social behaviour, like name-calling, or the use of profanity.

Selectively....

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

To the extent there is bigotry here it is “the quiet bigotry of lowered expectations.”

Prove it.

Seriously.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Prove it.

Seriously.

Just look at how her supporters are talking. They are not listing achievements (in 4 years on the job), they are not listing achievements she had in Montreal. It is just blanket, vague statements like she is “qualified period” and then accusations of racism.

[Admiral Nelson]

Seriously folks, can we move on from this dumpster fire about Amilcar being an unqualified diversity hire? Criticisms of job performance since 2021 are clearly more good faith and relevant than drawing conclusions based off her skin colour and the existence of municipal DEI policy.

[vtecyo]

I think a lot of us just don't feel like humouring people who trot out what looks like a bigoted and unfounded assertion that Ottawa's buses would run on time - if only it weren't for DEI.

We can move on from this dumpster fire if that sort of tired, trollish and tasteless culture war nonsense talk stops. If it doesn't - I expect we'll see the current level of push back no matter how often such nonsense is presented.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Just look at how her supporters are talking. They are not listing achievements (in 4 years on the job), they are not listing achievements she had in Montreal. It is just blanket, vague statements like she is “qualified period” and then accusations of racism.

That's not proof. Prove the bar was lowered for her employment. Go for it. And do it without the evasive BS of "People are saying...."

You want to talk like you're being objective? Cool. Let's have some evidence that isn't subjective.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by vtecyo

I think a lot of us just don't feel like humouring people who trot out what looks like a bigoted and unfounded assertion that Ottawa's buses would run on time - if only it weren't for DEI.

This. Very much this.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by vtecyo

I think a lot of us just don't feel like humouring people who trot out what looks like a bigoted and unfounded assertion that Ottawa's buses would run on time - if only it weren't for DEI.

We can move on from this dumpster fire if that sort of tired, trollish and tasteless culture war nonsense talk stops. If it doesn't - I expect we'll see the current level of push back no matter how often such nonsense is presented.

1. I agree the leadership of OCTranspo is not the decisive factor in the current problems.

2. The problem is funding which is largely a political decision. And frankly a democratic choice the voters of the city made when they picked Sutcliffe.

3. Current GM was chosen despite not having leader level transit experience. We all know diversity was a factor. How much can't of course be proven. Though if proof is the new burden for this forum there will be a big drop in posts.