Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak seems so sure that subways are the key to victory in the Greater Toronto Area that he'll stump for them pretty much out of the blue. On Friday, for no particularly explicable reason, he popped up at Victoria Park station to excoriate the Liberals, who have pledged to build a subway to Scarborough, for not yet having committed to the specific Scarborough subway that City Council approved.
"If the Liberals won't … get this subway built," Mr. Hudak thundered, "we have the plan that will."
This was somewhat confusing. Do the Tories — please, God, no — have yet another plan for a Scarborough subway? Asked to explain, a Tory spokesperson pointed me to An Agenda for Growth, one of the party's white papers. It derides LRTs for "rip[ping] up road space available for cars," which the Scarborough LRT would not have done. And it contains Mr. Hudak's comically noncommittal pledge that "when finances are available, our priority for Toronto will be to build subways."
But finances are available for Scarborough, and the LRT is dead. So why the press conference?
Perhaps it was to underline his basic subways policy: Support in principle, no financial commitment. It's not one I'd want to draw attention to, but it did get Rob Ford where he is today. Mr. Hudak casually mentioned linking the Sheppard and Scarborough subways, which would be a hideous waste of resources. But he's not really committing to anything unless "finances are available," and as Premier, he'd be the guy to decide whether they are. A classic political dodge, maybe.
But then, as revealed in Monday's Globe and Mail, Mr. Hudak doubled down: So committed is he to subways, he told the paper's editorial board, that he wants to build the Downtown Relief Line and extend the Yonge line to Richmond Hill; and he proposes to save some dough by cancelling proposed light rail projects in Mississauga and Hamilton.
And if axing transit improvements in the 905 in deference to those in the 416 strikes you as a risky political play, just know it was born of principle. "I live in the real world. I know that subways are more expensive," Mr. Hudak told the Globe. "You set priorities and you make choices. But I think that every dollar we build underground is there not just for a generation, but for potentially a century."
And prithee, sir, where will the money come from?
"From the same place where the Spadina line came from, where the Bloor-Danforth line came from, where the Yonge line came from," he told the Globe. "It comes from the treasury. We did that without tax increases in the past … You do it by finding efficiencies within government."
Perhaps Mr. Hudak now inhabits the same "real world" as Mr. Ford — because that is some high-octane codswallop right there.
The idea of funding subways via efficiencies has been discredited both by the Drummond Report (to which the Tories tip their hats when it suits them) and by the observed experience of the Ford administration. Mr. Hudak demeans and discredits himself and his party when he spews such rubbish. But it's nothing new.
No, the jaw-dropper there is the idea that Toronto hasn't raised taxes in the past to build subways; that we've funded them by finding efficiencies.
I'm not aware of any tax increase that was specifically earmarked for the original Yonge Street subway. But it certainly wasn't built on the back of "efficiencies." The TTC had money in reserve because wartime riders had swollen its coffers; and those same riders would pay off the TTC's subway-building debts with their fares going forward.
But the original Spadina and Bloor-Danforth lines, approved in 1958, were absolutely funded by raising taxes. Metro Council earmarked all proceeds of a two-mill levy to subway construction for 10 years.
To put that in a modern context, Mr. Ford claimed to be horribly conflicted about a property tax hike for subways that will eventually cost the average family about $40 a year. If we were to implement the 1958 plan today, the owner of the average Toronto home, which was worth $533,800 in September, would end up paying more than $1,000 extra on his property tax bill a year, and $10,000 in total.
It sounds like a lot. I suppose it is a lot. But that's because subways cost a lot, and there's only one way for governments to get it: from us. It's very difficult to see how Mr. Hudak benefits from refusing to acknowledge this simple reality, continually drawing attention to his unfunded pledges and now actively antagonizing Ontarians in the 905.
National Post
Chris Selley: • cselley@nationalpost.com |
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