May 24, 2012

Should city council privatize the Toronto Zoo?

Against a city-owned zoo: Budget chief and Scarborough councillor, Mike Del Grande

Perhaps the above question should be answered with another question. Can a financially strapped city operate a tired and backlogged capital-intensive agency that continually operates in the red?

With the zoo slowly strangled by budget cuts the last number of years, it should be time to rethink what we are doing and how we are doing it. Our zoo is tired, expensive and requires more capital to breathe new life into it. In the last 10 years, half of the 70-plus accredited zoos in North America went private. A community-based public-private partnership should be explored. There are different models to consider. We had a zoo foundation, which never had the opportunity to “do its thing.” We were told that, as long as the city was in charge, donors were not comfortable contributing to the city but would do so with a private foundation. If the alternative meets the criteria of, first, animal care, superior customer service, the ability to grow zoo visits and improve competitiveness with other venues, the ability to raise dollars, and, lastly, to maintain conservation and research — then why not?

If we cannot secure a public-private venture, then of course we should examine a private one. This is not an issue of selling lands that will one day be a condo city. It is a way of getting the city out of a very costly endeavour and removing barriers that affect the maintenance and improvement of animal welfare. We need an exit plan for the city and a fair operating plan with safeguards from any new operator, which will allow flexibility “to do,” as opposed to “not to do.”

City council members must not let special interest groups command a failed-solution mentality of status quo, with more and higher taxes as the answer.

Against selling the zoo: Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, member of the Toronto Zoo Board of Management

Our zoo should not be sold to private retailers. Selling our zoo puts important projects and animals at risk for taxpayers.

First, we have to ask why we are suddenly trying to sell the zoo after 37 years of successful operation. Selling the zoo has nothing to do with improving care for our 5,000 animals, improving our conservation efforts, nor with improving the visiting experience for our one million annual visitors. The only goal of the privatization drive is to save money.

The imperative of private companies is to make a profit, not care for animals. The easiest way to make more profit is to conduct less conservation, less animal care and less education since none of these make money. Most of the animals might still be there, but the important work the zoo does would be lost. As a publicly owned zoo, we set reasonable admission prices of $13 per child and $23 per adult, whereas the Disney Animal Kingdom charges $85 per child and $90 per adult. Private sector means higher prices. It also means less accountability and less access to information. Today, all the zoo’s financial information and all of our meetings are accessible to everyone. A private company is not required to do any of this.

Could a private company operate the zoo for years, run it into the ground and then declare bankruptcy, leaving Toronto taxpayers with an expensive mess to clean up after private owners have fled town? Absolutely! The risks with privatization are just too great to take the chance on. Like Highway 407, privatizing the zoo is not the answer. Most of us regret the decision to privatize Highway 407: the cost has gone up, accountability has gone down and the public is shut out.

Privatizing the zoo is not the answer. Protecting and enriching the zoo is.

This article appears in the November 2011 issue of Post City Magazines

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