Why does Metrolinx keep getting a bonus while we can’t even get a ride?
The first lie I ever believed came from a box of instant cereal.
“Easy tear here.”
“Push tab to open.”
“Lift and pour, no mess!”
I was maybe five. And I wanted to believe. I needed to believe. Because when you’re a kid, you’re trained to trust packaging. To trust instructions. To trust that the adults who make things—especially the ones in charge—know what they’re doing. But those perforations? They were crap. Flimsy half-tears that shredded under pressure and left you digging at reinforced cardboard like a raccoon with a degree in disappointment.
And yet… I came back. Again and again. Because I thought I was the problem.
That’s capitalism’s first hit: blame yourself for the system’s failures.
Flash to closer to present day and where am I? I’m standing on a Toronto platform in 2025, staring down a still-shuttered Crosstown LRT, and I’m having a full-circle moment. Only now, the box is bigger. The stakes are higher. And the perforations? They’re still a lie.
The Salary Strip That Won’t Tear
Let’s talk about Metrolinx. Specifically, its CEO. And the utterly dumbfounding fact that their salary could balloon to $800,000—yes, with a bonus—while commuters still don’t have a goddamn train to ride.
This isn’t about demonizing salaries. This isn’t anti-compensation. People should be paid fairly for the work they do. Key word: work.
But when the trains don’t run, the infrastructure is delayed by years, the public trust is eroded, and the only thing being built on schedule is executive wealth—what exactly are we rewarding here? Because where I come from, you screw up the fries at the burger shack, you get your ass booted off the fryer. No “performance bonus” for serving raw potatoes. You don’t get a yacht for wrecking lunch.
So why does the head of Metrolinx get to fail upward, padded by a compensation package that could fund multiple staffers—or, Hermes forbid, an elevator that doesn’t feel like an escape room challenge for disabled commuters in stations we don’t even have yet?
One Perforation Becomes a Pattern
This isn’t just a transit issue. This is the template. We let one accountability failure slide. We start saying “well, that’s just how it is.” Then another. Then another. And before long, the perforation runs all the way through the box—from the push tab to the very bottom—and the whole structure collapses.
The damage isn’t just infrastructure. It’s psychological. It’s behavioural. We train a whole generation to expect disappointment. To accept mediocre public services. To normalize the idea that some people get paid no matter what—while the rest of us get penalized for doing our jobs too well, or for daring to ask for more.
Bonus: A Middle Finger to Public Trust
Metrolinx is a crown agency. That means we fund it. And while we stand in the cold, contorting our lives around transit that never arrives, someone at the top is cashing in on delay, mismanagement, and vague timelines padded with project-speak like “operational testing phases.”
Let’s be brutally honest: if a bonus can be awarded while a promised system remains non-functional, then the bonus is not tied to performance. It’s tied to prestige. It’s an old boys’ club handshake, dressed in HR-approved language, funded by the same public that was told to “be patient” again this year.
Accountability Is Not a Luxury
We need to stop treating public sector executive accountability like a controversial ask. It’s not. It’s basic operations. You want half a million in base pay? Deliver on your mandate. You want a bonus? Show us the system working. Show us equity. Access. Progress.
Because here’s the truth: the public is not unreasonable. We don’t demand perfection. We demand effort. Integrity. Results.
We can read the packaging just fine.
We’re just done pretending the perforations are working.
Spoiler—The Perforation Problem Never Got Fixed
The perforation plague didn’t die in the 80s. It evolved.
Now we’ve got bags that whisper “tear here” like a passive-aggressive roommate—and when you do, they explode like you just opened a pressurized jar of regret. The resealable zipper strip? Useless. Might as well try to close your chips with two wet noodles or similarly charged magnets.
We’ve normalized ourselves into such a state of consumer apathy that we’ll let our weed tumble loose in the bottom of our backpack like it’s just another offering to the gods of poor design. And that travel-size hand sanitizer with the flip cap? The one that leaks just enough to coat your lighter in flammable gel?
Yeah. Maybe don’t spark up that electric lettuce just yet, champ.
Because the only thing still sealing properly in 2025… is executive pay.
Hermes has given up and called an Uber.
[ts_support_turnip_style]
