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Trinity-Spadina councillor Adam Vaughan delivered a spirited defence of Toronto’s public libraries before the city budget committee on Monday. - Toronto Star

The reality in this case is the library is being asked to reduce its service because it’s done what’s been asked of it every single budget year since amalgamation. They have been one the most responsible departments in this city and now are going to be victimized because of that. If every department had met its targets the way the library board meets their targets, runs their capital budget, and programs their service, we wouldn’t be having this discussion here today about all the services in the city, we wouldn’t be having this discussion about reducing any of the services.

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You have no disagreement amongst any of us about finding more efficient ways to run the library. You have an absolute argument from the residents of the city which has been presented time and time again from virtually every single one of the people who have come to the pew saying “don’t touch the library system.” They have said “don’t thouch the library system.” And instead of taking the 5.9% cut that’s on the table and saying “thank you, we’ve heard the residents,” somebody around here who knows better thinks that the city would be better served with less library service. If you think that’s true and you’re on this committee, volunteer for your library to take more hour cuts than other peoples’ libraries. Put your money where your mouth is. Go into your communities and say “I’ll close the library in my ward for more hours because I think you’re overserving the library service.” Do that. Because short of that, you’re asking other people to close libraries in their community when they don’t want to.