When Scarborourgh city councillor Paul Ainslie stood up yesterday to announce that after much deliberation he had decided to vote for returning to the signed Master Agreement with the province and begin building the LRT extension to the Bloor-Danforth subway line, 
it kicked Mayor Ford and his councillor-brother Doug to life and up onto their haunches. Howling indignantly, both men vowed electoral retribution on their colleague for his betrayal of the transit-deprived residents of his and the other 9 wards of Scarborough. Later, on-again, off-again bestest friend of the mayor, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti attempted to revise history and say that Councillor Ainslie was trying to defy the 2010 mandate given to Mayor Ford who’d been elected almost exclusively on a platform of Subways, Subways, Subways.
He wasn’t.
But no matter.
After the council vote in favour of the Scarborough subway (presumably the council approved one running up the now-dubbed McCowan corridor), I say this time around let’s actually make the Scarborough subway an election issue in 2014. Not in the sense of trying to stop it in its underground tracks. 
No, no. It’s been voted on. We don’t change transit plans once they get approved, do we.
Instead, we start talking turkey. Just like Councillor Ainslie did when he stood his ground against a wall of nonsense and invective, insisting we make a decision based on facts and evidence. It’s all well and good to blithely promise subways with vague notions of how we don’t have to pay for them. Now we’ve got some concrete numbers, some actual costs we have to talk about. Property tax increases. Debt obligations. Shit we did not have to take on if we’d stuck with the original LRT plan.
Already Mayor Ford is trying to wiggle out from behind the obligation side of the equation, saying he’ll find a way to only bump property taxes .25% next year, half of what was recommended by the city manager. This, despite having had more than 3 years to come up with such magical math. 
Offering up some laughable solution, he will attempt to vilify anyone pushing a higher increase than that and prove to be something of an unreliable ally to the 23 councillors who helped deliver him “his” subway.
Or the mayor just might use the recommended .5% increase to argue for a lower overall property tax hike that will result in cuts to programs and services, as well as jeopardizing other capital expenditures the city also faces. Then those 23 other councillors will have to face a very unappealing election year choice of coming out in favour of higher taxes or reductions in services and expenditures. I want to see the likes of Councillor Vincent Crisanti knocking on doors in his ward way up in Rexdale, about as far away from Scarborough as you can get while remaining in the city, and explain to his constituents exactly what they’re getting in return for the subway in Scarborough. Ditto, Councillor Ana Bailao in Ward 18.
I want to see all the subway proponents now have to start selling the nuts and bolts of the Scarborough subway to their constituents. Tell them what it’s going to cost on their tax bills. In terms of the services they may have to do without. The infrastructure needs that may well have to be delayed just that much longer.
Hell’s yeah, let’s make this an election issue. Let’s start talking about fiscal prudence and responsible city building. 
The subway’s a done deal but the devil’s in the details. Let’s start spelling out those details, what we’re getting, what we’re sacrificing to get it, how much it’s going to cost us to get it.
Led by Mayor Ford this council somehow just committed to a nearly one billion dollar infrastructure investment lacking oh so many of those important details. Now we must insist all those who voted in favour of the subway start filling those details in. We should all pitch in to help them do it. The following 24 said Scarborough wanted subways. Let’s make sure they explain to their voters exactly what they’re getting.
- Ron Moeser, Ward 44 Scarborough East
- Frances Nunziata, Ward 11 York South-Weston
- Doug Ford, Ward 2 Etobicoke North
- Ana Bailão, Ward 18 Davenport
- Cesar Palacio, Ward 17 Davenport
- Michelle Berardinetti, Ward 35 Scarborough Southwest
- Mark Grimes, Ward 6 Etobicoke-Lakeshore
- Norm Kelly, Ward 40 Scarborough Agincourt
- James Pasternak, Ward 10 York Centre
- Raymond Cho, Ward 42 Scarborough-Rouge River
- Josh Colle, Ward 15 Eglinton-Lawrence
- Chin Lee, Ward 41 Scarborough-Rouge River
- Anthony Perruzza, Ward 8 York West
- Gary Crawford, Ward 36 Scarborough Southwest
- Vincent Crisanti, Ward 1 Etobicoke North
- Giorgio Mammoliti, Ward 7 York West
- David Shiner, Ward 24 Willowdale
- Karen Stintz, Ward 16 Eglinton-Lawrence
- Glenn De Baeremaeker, Ward 38 Scarborough Centre
- Michael Thompson, Ward 37 Scarborough Centre
- Mike Del Grande, Ward 39 Scarborough-Agincourt
- Frank Di Giorgio, Ward 12 York South-Weston
- Peter Milczyn, Ward 5 Etobicoke-Lakeshore
- Rob Ford, Mayor
— helpfully submitted by Cityslikr
Too bad Doug isn’t running again! Rob has to explain why property taxes are going up so much more than .25% and why his subway puts the City into debt for 30 years?
The stop at Lawrence & McCowan is a Hospital and tunneling under the 401 to Sheppard is a Canadian Tire…
Building the Scarbway will give the Suburban Elitists a quicker ride downtown but it won’t help regular Scarberians move around within Scarberia. This deal screws Scarborough and gives more benefit to Markham and Pickering.
The biggest winner is the Scarborough Town Center. A mega Shopping Mall that will take traffic off the 401 into the mega parking lot there.
Miller and Stintz have a lot to answer for. This whole waste of time and money was started by them, one way or another. Toronto Council needs an complete clear-out with a new leader from outside the ranks.
Lrt was the appropriate solution for the density. More Lrt lines would’ve connected the rest of Scarborough and taken care of those laughable projections for intensification. Instead; Scarborough gets 3 subway stations period and the entire region gets a 1.5% percent dedicated property tax increase…for 30 years…
This vote was swung by the Liberal-affiliated councillors. To hear Berardinetti citing R.C. Harris was just nauseating.
I don’t see this being a win for the Provincial Liberals. The Cons and NDP will both say they would have done at least as much for Scarborough (easy to say as the $1.8/$1.48 billion is already accounted for), and the financing on this is being closed by the Feds and the City in any case. I thought it was politics 101 that you want to be the last one in. Murray seemed to remember this for a few minutes when he was saying the Province would go it alone (so no one else could play Closer). Instead they have supported a more expensive, inferior project for which they will not get credit, whereas they could have had cover for doing the sensible thing had they let the Liberals on Council vote independently.
I don’t know off the top of my head who all the Liberals are on Council, but Berardinetti, Grimes, and Colle are 3 and I’m pretty sure Bailao is another.
Bailao is totally a Lib. She’s mario Silva’s former lapdog
Oh yes, of course.