{"id":27909,"date":"2012-04-02T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=27909"},"modified":"2013-01-21T14:40:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T19:40:00","slug":"lorinc-federal-budget-off-the-rails-on-public-transit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2012\/04\/02\/lorinc-federal-budget-off-the-rails-on-public-transit\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: Federal budget off the rails on public transit"},"content":{"rendered":"

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How many times, since Mayor Rob Ford took office, did we hear how his patrons in Ottawa would make subway dollars appear, both as a reward to the good folk of Scarborough for seeing the conservative light, municipally-speaking, but also as a sly down-payment for future federal elections?<\/p>\n

As recently as this month, Prime Minister Harper turned up at Toronto\u2019s island airport and waxed on about how he prefers to take subways when he takes transit (which, I\u2019m guessing, is something he hasn\u2019t done in many a moon).<\/p>\n

But last week\u2019s federal budget contained no new money for transit, much less a subway. Despite positioning the 2012 budget as a kind of long-term planning document, the Tories had nothing to say about a national transit strategy. They offered no private sector pot-sweeteners (e.g., funds for Triple-P projects). The only (very) remotely transit-oriented move was additional funding for VIA repairs.<\/p>\n

In short, the Ford-Flaherty-subway love-in turned out to be nothing more than the usual political bait-and-switch operation (are you listening Scarborough voters?). And the days following the budget announcement the Fords, of course, didn\u2019t call out the Tories for abandoning them on the transit file.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the loathed Dalton McGuinty Liberals turned out to be much more trustworthy on the transit file, coming through (in the context of their budget) on the pledge not to whittle more off the $8.4 billion earmarked for rapid transit in Toronto. The brothers had nothing to say about that budget either, even though, as we all know, the LRT will create untold #StClairDisasters<\/a> in \u2018burbs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tim Hudak, the provincial Tories\u2019 comedian-in-chief, continues to carry the cross for Ford\u2019s subway, as Torontoist reported last week<\/a>; the ironies and mis-statements in their pamphlets are too ripe to repeat in a family-oriented blog.<\/p>\n

The upshot of all this fiscal bondage is that the future of transit funding in Canada is cloudy indeed. The Canadian Urban Transit Association estimates [PDF]<\/a> that Canadian cities need to spend about $53.5 billion on transit in the next five years, with 73% for expansion and the balance for state-of-good-repair. CUTA points out that three-quarters of that total is covered by existing government programs. In other words, there\u2019s a $13.5 billion black hole through 2016.<\/p>\n

Where all that extra cash will come from is anyone\u2019s guess. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities continues to hope against hope that once the Tories eliminate the federal deficit \u2013 \u201cover the medium term,\u201d as the budget documents vaguely predict \u2014 they\u2019ll get back into significant infrastructure spending again.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, but as I reported in Spacing\u2019s national edition from last fall, the problem isn\u2019t just money. The conditions on Ottawa\u2019s infrastructure funds are so loose that the gas tax \u2014 once envisioned to be a major source of transit funding \u2014 ends up paying for all sorts of other capital projects. Proof? The Tories\u2019 own assessment of how they spent the $5.4 billion infrastructure component<\/a> of their three-year economic stimulus plan indicates that no money ended up in transit.<\/p>\n

For a government that espouses economic growth as its highest priority, this is a perplexing oversight. There is broad, non-ideological consensus that gridlock is taking a $6 billion chunk out of the Greater Toronto economy each and every year. That well-known pinko sleeper cell, the Toronto Board of Trade, has said repeatedly that the lack of transit investment in the region is a hit on business. So has John Tory\u2019s CivicAction coalition, yet another hot bed of wooly-headed activists.<\/p>\n

In the name of Western economic development, the Tories are happily dismantling the regulatory mechanisms that compel resource companies to maintain environmentally sustainable business practices. But in urban regions in central Canada, you need different policy levers to boost the economy, and more efficient transportation networks are at the top of that list. Instead, the Tories are spending unspecified gazillions locking up Canadians in super jails \u2013 certainly one of the most economically counter-productive fiscal policies I can imagine.<\/p>\n

My worry is that Harper\u2019s Tories, still in the spring of a majority government, have absolutely no intention of getting back into the urban or regional transit game. We know the prime minister is a devout believer in the division of powers set out in the constitution. And his recent moves on health care funding strongly suggest that he\u2019d like to see Ottawa ease itself out of the bandage-and-bedpan business.<\/p>\n

With health care, the federal role is well-established, framed by legislation, and sustained by whatever remains of Canada\u2019s sense of social compact. The notion that modern, integrated transit infrastructure plays a role in national economic development is a relatively new concept for Canadians \u2014 although many other countries in Europe and Asia arrived at that particular conclusion a long time ago.<\/p>\n

Yet in Harper\u2019s originalist understanding of how Canada works (or was supposed to work in 1867), it seems increasingly clear that the feds believe this type of investment as properly and exclusively the purview of the provinces. (Their cost structure thus reduced, the horizon looks bright for more Conservative majorities.)<\/p>\n

And therein lies the dilemma: with health care and education swallowing provincial budgets, and with Ontario\u2019s economy hog-tied by recession-induced debt levels and a high loonie, the provincial spending squeeze only gets tighter over time.<\/p>\n

National transit strategy? I\u2019m not even sure we\u2019ll ever see the return of a provincial transit strategy.<\/p>\n

photo by Sam Javanrouh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How many times, since Mayor Rob Ford took office, did we hear how his patrons in Ottawa would make subway dollars appear, both as a reward to the good folk of Scarborough for seeing the conservative light, municipally-speaking, but also as a sly down-payment for future federal elections? As recently as this month, Prime MinisterContinue reading “LORINC: Federal budget off the rails on public transit”<\/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":[2,8],"tags":[6581,457,2147,5085,1128,4736,1273,1266,444,426,636,346,53,416,1500,16303,227,663,89,8893,19,1060,4447,9325,391],"class_list":["post-27909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-transit","tag-asia","tag-canada","tag-canadian-urban-transit-association","tag-central-canada","tag-europe","tag-federation-of-canadian-municipalities","tag-gas-tax","tag-harper","tag-john-tory","tag-mayor","tag-ontario","tag-ottawa","tag-parliament-hill","tag-pdf","tag-prime-minister","tag-prime-minister-harper","tag-rob-ford","tag-sam-javanrouh","tag-scarborough","tag-tim-hudak","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-board-of-trade","tag-transit-infrastructure","tag-transportation-networks","tag-usd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLORINC: Federal budget off the rails on public transit - 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\/04\/02\/lorinc-federal-budget-off-the-rails-on-public-transit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORINC: Federal budget off the rails on public transit - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How many times, since Mayor Rob Ford took office, did we hear how his patrons in Ottawa would make subway dollars appear, both as a reward to the good folk of Scarborough for seeing the conservative light, municipally-speaking, but also as a sly down-payment for future federal elections? 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