Doug Ford wants to upload the cost -- and the control -- of the Toronto subway system to the province. Martin Regg Cohn writes that there's a certain logic to that:
He alone shall be empowered to navigate the routes, bankroll the construction and borrow the funding. He’s not wrong about that, as past columns have argued, for there are good reasons for Queen’s Park to both pay the way and show the way.
He who pays the piper, or the tunneller, calls the tune. The problem is when the piper sounds out of tune, and displays a tin ear.
To begin with, when Ford was a city councillor, he insisted that the city call the tune. He has changed his position. He changes his positions a lot:
When he’s not picking a political fight with Toronto over the size of city council (threatening to use the notwithstanding clause to overrule the courts), he’s filing a quixotic court case against Ottawa’s perfectly legal carbon tax. Ford is consistently inconsistent, doesn’t play well with others, and doesn’t abide by boundaries, but we already knew that.
And more than that, by tearing up plans and work that has already been done, Ford -- who insists he is all about saving money -- will drive the province deeper into debt and delay subway expansion:
Ford is fighting an old fight over the Eglinton Crosstown, trying to bury more of the LRT in low density areas to the west, where the expert research shows the costs exceed the benefits. The heavy expense of tunnelling should be decided logically, not ideologically.
It is on Toronto’s eastern and western flanks — along the Eglinton Crosstown where work is underway, and the Scarborough extension that was supposed to go out to tender next month — that Ford is wearing his suburban blinkers. By tunnelling further, he will only bury us under deeper debt and delay the day of opening — for which there will be a reckoning.
New technology can make subway building cheaper than it used to be. But Ford's decisions to shut down wind farms and go to court are already costing Ontarians lots of money.
This isn't about money. This is about control. As with everything else, Doug Ford insists that he be in the driver's seat.
Image: PressFrom
8 comments:
And thus is the way of all authoritarians, Owen.
Absolutely, Lorne. In the end, it's all about ME.
It seems that the more control they get, the easier it becomes to point the finger elsewhere when it doesn't work out. It's another one of those skills acquired in the playground and consummated by the adoration of sycophants: a perfect fit in any CRAP Party. Authoritarians would be nowhere without the cowards. It's not surprising that market-libertarianism has found its future in the feeble-willed and submissive.
Evil flourishes, John, when good people lose their backbones.
When was the last time anyone heard from a CRAP backbencher, Is this an authoritarian regime or an up and coming dictatorship? I shudder to think what damage they can do in the next 3 years Owen!
With Ford in the driver's seat, Rural, they'll leave piles of debris behind them.
They sure are quite the show. Don’t hold your breath waiting for any of the boys and girls in Doug’s playground to stand up to him; they’ve obviously undergone the procedure. In any place where human beings work they’d be laughed off the job. I’m sure that if I ever encounter any of them in person, I’ll split my gut reflexively. I’m not kidding, as this has happened to me on past odd occasions when I’ve caught sight of some butt-licking acquaintance and been immediately reminded by the sight of his or her (but generally his) face of a past star performance. The potential for hazard provided by the current situation at Queen’s Park is particularly troubling because of the frequency of occurrence and overwhelming number of participants. It’s starting to happen when I see one of them on TV, and it’s more severe when the appearance is in a speaking role.
You have to wonder how they explain it to their children. Maybe they tell them they’re performance artists.
One of these days the kids will ask uncomfortable questions, John.
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