Barber cuts through...
Edit--Tweet from Giambrone: "I wish Minister Smitherman would start supporting Toronto and advocate for Toronto and streetcars that will run through his area."
Playing games with public transit
JOHN BARBER
E-mail John Barber | Read Bio | Latest Columns
April 30, 2009
jbarber@globeandmail.com
A few weeks ago, Premier Dalton McGuinty proudly announced $9-billion in new spending for three major light-rail lines in Toronto. Yesterday, he scolded Toronto Mayor David Miller for ordering trains to run on the new lines.
Like Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman a day earlier, the Premier pretended to be surprised that Toronto had signed a deal with Bombardier to supply new streetcars to replace the TTC's current fleet - and ultimately to run along the new light-rail lines the province has agreed to build. The deal depends on the federal and provincial governments to supply two-thirds of the more-than $2-billion cost, and both are balking.
The city keeps changing its demands, the Premier complained. Who said anything about streetcars? "We're trying to figure out where that ranks on the list of priorities."
The province's shock at the prospect of buying new light-rail cars to serve its own light-rail plan recalls the famous evening a dozen years ago when addled old Metro Council voted to build the Sheppard subway "affordably" by eliminating tracks. But that lot was just confused. The new guys are playing games.
If Mr. Smitherman really did learn of the contract for the first time last week, as he claimed this Tuesday, he should resign.
City and TTC officials attest to dozens of consultations with their provincial counterparts on this issue, going back months if not years. Council made the request for assistance in a unanimous vote months ago and the mayor repeated it in subsequent pre-budget "asks" to both the provincial and federal governments. For the minister in charge of the file not to know the TTC needs streetcars - and was actively negotiating to acquire them - is inexcusable.
And to pretend not to know when he does full well? That's politics.
"My daddy taught me if you have 100 priorities, you don't have any," Mr. Smitherman said, sanctimoniously dismissing outrageous demands for both tracks and trains. That would explain how wee Georgie, whose first and only priority always has been and always will be his own self, got so far in life.
If it was just him complaining, the case would be understandable. Mr. Smitherman has never forgiven Mr. Miller for knocking off his pick, Barbara Hall, in the 2003 mayoral election. Knowing he would be unlikely to beat Mr. Miller in the 2010 election winds him up even more. He has settled for strutting belligerently on the sidelines while the Premier negotiates directly with the mayor on all important matters of municipal-provincial relations.
But real trouble beckons when the Premier starts parroting the same rankly disingenuous complaints. Such behaviour reminds us, recent progress notwithstanding, that there is nothing more tragic than transit planning in Ontario. No matter how rational the plans, politicians always find a way to ruin them.
Denied the chance to build subways without tracks, they build subways to nowhere instead. They force responsible agencies to buy shoddy equipment from government-owned suppliers and force responsible suppliers to provide shoddy equipment. They engage in endless turf wars on the composition of useless boards. They reduce the most important, expensive decisions a city can make to childish games.
Now might seem a good time to get serious, what with billions of dollars of "stimulus funding" in the offing. But no, the politicians say: Let the games begin!
With a report from Karen Howlett
