Despite the fact private waste collection in Etobicoke two years ago cost more than public pickup in Scarborough, which also has a higher waste diversion rate, Mayor John Tory is not backing off his privatization push.

On Wednesday, the city’s public works committee rejected, by a 3-2 vote, staff recommendations to ask private companies how much they would charge the city to collect Scarborough’s trash. Anti-privatization Councillor Anthony Perruzza missed the meeting.

The issue is certain to be hotly debated at council when it meets at the end of the month.

Several councillors told the committee there’s no need to spend up to $500,000 on a procurement process because city data already show it’s cheaper to collect garbage in Scarborough with unionized workers than it is in Etobicoke using private sector workers.

The committee heard that based on 2014 data, in Etobicoke, (District 1), where garbage collection has been privatized since 1995, the cost to the city was $9.4 million to service 66,057 households, or $142 per household.

In Scarborough, (District 4), which has 121,440 homes, it cost the city $15.4 million for in-house collection, or $126.89 per household.

City staff say the comparison is irrelevant because contractors aren’t paid per household, but per tonne of waste collected.

They have not yet produced the per-tonnage numbers to prove their case.

Tory said the fact comparisons between Etobicoke and Scarborough are being made using 2014 data alone justifies going out to the marketplace to ask “how much would you do this job today, so that we can then see what the 2017 comparison is,” Tory told reporters Thursday.

“What is at stake here is going to the market and finding a benchmark.”

He also took exception to former Ontario premier Bob Rae, who appeared before the committee, questioning the “morality” of asking CUPE Local 416 to bid on the work after the union made substantial concessions during collective bargaining last year.

The union represents 500 city solid waste employees.

They earn a salary of about $50,000 a year, which is roughly equal to what employees working for private waste collection companies are paid, Tory said, adding “there really is no moral dimension to it.”

A source familiar with the solid waste industry says employees in the private sector don’t receive the same benefits or pensions as city garbage workers.

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Tory said there is no suggestion that private sector employees are “mistreated.” Some are represented by the Teamsters, “who I’ve never found to be pussycats when it comes to representing the interests of their workers,” he added.

Tory said if he had been at the committee, he would have asked Rae if he would have “gone out and done research” on whether savings could be found when he was the province’s NDP premier and struggling with finances and a record deficit.

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