{"id":27235,"date":"2012-03-12T09:59:58","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T13:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=27235"},"modified":"2012-03-12T10:03:43","modified_gmt":"2012-03-12T14:03:43","slug":"lorinc-et-tu-doug-ford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2012\/03\/12\/lorinc-et-tu-doug-ford\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: Et tu, Doug Ford?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.staticflickr.com\/6200\/6100278423_9b94af5690_z.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/network\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2011\/12\/feature-lorinc.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"85\" \/><\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s left, its emboldened centrists and the members of the thinking right (you know who you are).<\/p>\n<p>So a shout out to the big man from Ward 2.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks, from your new friends at Spacing!<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s left on his younger brother\u2019s back. Strike that: knife wounds, since, after all, this is Ides of March week. <em>Et tu, Dougie<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, I\u2019d argue that Doug succeeded, with a handful of truly reckless comments, in blocking Rob\u2019s one major chance at creating an important built legacy. And, what\u2019s 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\u2019s victory with the Commission.<\/p>\n<p>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 <em>Globe and Mail<\/em> op-ed, which proposed a parking levy. (Norm Kelly also chimed in by suggesting a special sales tax.)<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Less than twenty-fours, and one searing Toronto Sun editorial, later, Doug \u00a0unabashedly contradicted his brother\u2019s own words and assured Torontonians that a (Doug?) Ford administration would never tolerate any new taxes, which he deemed to be \u201cevil.\u201d 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\u2026).<\/p>\n<p>Those silly remarks invited the requisite ridicule, and moments later we were all consumed by the politics of the Commission\u2019s membership and make-up.<\/p>\n<p>End of story.<\/p>\n<p>So here\u2019s a tough question for Karen Stintz: Should council continue the debate about revenue streams that Chong and the mayor started?<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, once council votes on Sheppard on March 22, I\u2019m guessing we won\u2019t hear another peep about the need to establish dedicated levies for transit construction and expansion. And that would be a real missed opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>Now consider how events might have played out if the mayor\u2019s office had managed to keep the brother on the farm.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019d be willing to respond to an RFP and take on project risk.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cinvestment strategy\u201d in June, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>In short, Ford would have pried open a door that desperately needs to be opened. Maybe I\u2019m giving the mayor more credit than he deserves, but that potential seemed to be present, at least for a day.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, I\u2019d go so far as to say that Doug\u2019s inane quotes about lotteries will go down in Toronto\u2019s history as a <em>bone fide<\/em> fork in the road. Never, ever thinking about the long game, he veered right, and then drove right over his little brother.<\/p>\n<p>by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ashtonpal\/6100278423\/in\/photostream\/\">Ashton Pal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u2019s left, its emboldened centrists and the members of the thinking right (you know who you are). So a shout out to<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2012\/03\/12\/lorinc-et-tu-doug-ford\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;LORINC: Et tu, Doug Ford?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[19486,14697,16543,313,16711,1969,426,4067,89,19,1642,4447],"class_list":["post-27235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-ashton-pal","tag-doug-ford","tag-ford-administration","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-gordon-chong","tag-karen-stintz","tag-mayor","tag-norm-kelly","tag-scarborough","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-sun","tag-transit-infrastructure"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>LORINC: Et tu, Doug Ford? - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2012\/03\/12\/lorinc-et-tu-doug-ford\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORINC: Et tu, Doug Ford? - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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\u2019s left, its emboldened centrists and the members of the thinking right (you know who you are). 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