Toronto progressives owe Doug Ford a huge debt of gratitude because he and that perpetual motion machine beneath his nose did as much to save Transit City as all the byzantine negotiations between council’s left, its emboldened centrists and the members of the thinking right (you know who you are).
So a shout out to the big man from Ward 2.
Thanks, from your new friends at Spacing!
But when brother Doug grimly joked last week that he was late for council because he had to spend extra time in the shower washing off the tire marks, I found myself thinking about the tire marks he’s left on his younger brother’s back. Strike that: knife wounds, since, after all, this is Ides of March week. Et tu, Dougie?
Indeed, I’d argue that Doug succeeded, with a handful of truly reckless comments, in blocking Rob’s one major chance at creating an important built legacy. And, what’s more, he managed to short-circuit a crucial policy conversation that the mayor, to his considerable credit, initiated, but which has now been shunted back into the closet in the aftermath of the Stintz coalition’s victory with the Commission.
That conversation, of course, is whether the City should establish special earmarked levies specifically to fund transit construction. Gordon Chong raised the possibility in his much disputed subway study, and then Ford released the trial balloon with his Globe and Mail op-ed, which proposed a parking levy. (Norm Kelly also chimed in by suggesting a special sales tax.)
Less than twenty-fours, and one searing Toronto Sun editorial, later, Doug unabashedly contradicted his brother’s own words and assured Torontonians that a (Doug?) Ford administration would never tolerate any new taxes, which he deemed to be “evil.” But, he mused, we could raise the money with lotteries or casinos (or raffles or silent auctions or even 50-50 draws on the north-bound Yonge line…).
Those silly remarks invited the requisite ridicule, and moments later we were all consumed by the politics of the Commission’s membership and make-up.
End of story.
So here’s a tough question for Karen Stintz: Should council continue the debate about revenue streams that Chong and the mayor started?
Absolutely. But the ascendant right-centre-left faction that defeated Ford have every motive to ignore that conversation: after all, if the province is picking up the tab for the proposed lines, the coalition need not go there and invite all the predictable accusations and abuse from the tub-thumpers.
In fact, once council votes on Sheppard on March 22, I’m guessing we won’t hear another peep about the need to establish dedicated levies for transit construction and expansion. And that would be a real missed opportunity.
Now consider how events might have played out if the mayor’s office had managed to keep the brother on the farm.
Following the trial balloon about parking levies, city staff could have proposed a suite of potential revenues that would be sufficient to close the gap identified in the Chong report, or at least provide private investors with enough predictability that they’d be willing to respond to an RFP and take on project risk.
Indeed, I predict that if Ford had managed to get his head around the policy advice he was getting about the financial structure of a Triple-P subway deal, he would have been able to command a council majority to approve such measures as a means of delivering his subway promise to Scarborough (and elsewhere). After all, if a hard-right fiscal conservative says a special tax is necessary, it must be so.
The political potency of such a move simply cannot be overstated. He would have taken a huge step towards breaking up the financial log-jam that prevents transit expansion in Toronto. Whatever else you might think about the viability of Triple-Ps, he would have created the necessary conditions to attract serious private investment in transit infrastructure. And, most important, he would have provided the province with shatter-proof political cover as Metrolinx trudges towards that big bang moment when it releases its “investment strategy” in June, 2013.
In short, Ford would have pried open a door that desperately needs to be opened. Maybe I’m giving the mayor more credit than he deserves, but that potential seemed to be present, at least for a day.
Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that Doug’s inane quotes about lotteries will go down in Toronto’s history as a bone fide fork in the road. Never, ever thinking about the long game, he veered right, and then drove right over his little brother.
by Ashton Pal
5 comments
On the other hand, the mayor might not have raised the prospect of levies for transit if his opposition hadn’t been emboldened by his prominent defeats, starting with the Port Lands.
Why does Metrolinx need until June 2013 to come up with this report?
I’m sure the experts at Metrolinx already know what will appear in this report and could probably have it out for June 2012.
I don’t think the Fords need to be the ones leading discussions on new revenue tools, since Metrolinx will be coming out with funding strategies next year.
@Jabron. An excellent question. Indeed, the $64,000 question. There’s no big bang revelation about how to raise those revenues. There are examples all over the known universe. But the timing is highly suspect, and is a cause for alarm. If Metrolinx releases the plan on the date promised, it will be debated and fought over for months and months before the cabinet sits down to consider how best to impose all sorts of new levies to raise money for transit construction. At which point, we’re well within range of not only the next election, but, possibly, a Liberal leadership race as well. Do the Liberals or a new Liberal leader want to wear this story into the 2014 election? I suspect not. And when they lose to the Tories, that will almost certainly be that. No more transit funding strategy.
While it is helpful that the Mayor (of all people) has brought the conversation forward, the more important question is: Even if we had that money, would it be a wise investment to spend it on a single subway to STC, or, given the accumulated deficit in public transit infrastructure in the GTA, would it be better spent on a set of longer surface lines that may be a little slower but serve more sections of the city.
That’s a question that we likely wouldn’t have had asked if Ford had cobbled enough magic beans together to pay for his subway. He would have said “I’ve shown it can work,” and used it as leverage to pull the centrist and right-leaning councillors to his side. (For example, Matlow and Stintz have both stated that they would support a subway if the Mayor could show it would be financially viable.)