Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow is pitching a paid, civilian shovel brigade this week, as she searches for a solution to the city’s winter woes. Residents would be paid to clear sidewalks in a new program ripped straight from New York City.
New York employed its residents to help dig out from a massive storm last month.
“This emergency snow shovelling program is one that allows every single sanitation worker to be on the plows, to be on the salt spreaders, to get this city back up and running,” NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani said when announcing their program. “and then these snow shovellers are the ones who supplement the work of the department.”
Residents who CityNews spoke with seemed keen on the proposal. “I think that’s a great idea, why not?” said one resident.
“Why not? Try it, see if it works, if not onto the next idea,” added another.
Mayor Chow says the NYC program could be replicated here in Toronto, where sidewalk clearing has been a major issue.
“Cities do best when we learn from each other and adopt best practices from other cities. We now have the opportunity to engage our counterparts in New York City on their recent success with a paid relief snow shovelling program, and implement lessons learned right here in Toronto,” read the letter Chow wrote to the executive committee.
Councillor and mayoral hopeful Brad Bradford said Wednesday that paying people to shovel isn’t actually a bad idea but the issue for many is, we already pay to have the snow cleared, and it costs Toronto tens of millions of dollars a year.
“There’s a combination of both the contracts and the in-house snow removal, and snow cleaning and I think on both fronts the results speak for themselves,” said Bradford. “You still have sidewalks that were not effectively plowed, windrows that are blocking people in and making it difficult to navigate our neighbourhoods …. We’re not delivering the results, and Torontonians ought to demand better.”
The letter asked City Council to direct city staff to develop a paid surge capacity sidewalk shovelling program modelled for implementation as soon as possible and no later than the 2026-2027 winter season