Walking along Dufferin Street, I noticed a city garbage bin. I looked long and hard at it because I have only ever seen these bins filthy and overflowing. This one looked empty and pristine. So did the bins on Eglinton. Then I learned that the 20-year contract the City gave to Bell for these garbage bins was about to expire.
The Bell garbage bins used to take centre stage at Dufferin and St. Clair, by the TTC stops at the busy corner. They were packed full of garbage, and soft drink cups, lids, and fast-food wrappers were strewn all over the platforms. People kept complaining but nothing changed.
Bell Canada was running this garbage show.
The local councillor, Alejandra Bravo, had to craft a City motion to clean up the corner.
I thought Bell already had its hands full. They own Bell Internet, Phone, TV service and Bell Mobility. Bell also owns Virgin Plus and Lucky Mobile. They own TV news like CTV, CP24, and even sports giant, TSN. And they own CHUM 104.5, Newstalk 1010 (CFRB), and 99.9 Virgin Radio. They even used to own the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors, and Toronto FC.
Turns out Bell isn’t just in the telecoms business. It wants to own as much as possible of what our eyes see and what our ears hear in the city. But how did they make our nose smell the trash?
Garbage was the Trojan horse to get into the City’s street media business. It’s called out-of-home advertising. They already own half of what you see and hear at home. They need to own what you see outside too. The deal with the City of Toronto is worth $1 billion where Astral Media, a division of Bell, gets 68 per cent of ad revenue from control of 25,000 pieces of street furniture, including bus shelters and benches. But they had to manage our street bins too. As it turns out, they made a mint in ads, but let our garbage stink up our streets.
There are thousands of service requests each year for those bins.
The City, under Mayor Chow, wants to break up the contract when it’s due in 2027. Garbage bins brought back in-house and run by the City, and the street furniture up for grabs again.
In the meantime, those bins have to look their best, because if they don’t, Bell could lose control of the street to its only real competitor: the Jim Pattison Group.
Who would have thought that control of our streets, and their billion-dollar ad business, comes down to that garbage bin on Dufferin Street that’s as neat as it’s never been.
