In an election that has boiled down to essentially restoring order back at City Hall, a return to civility and decorum, one city united, this explosive deuce got dropped into the proceedings. “Fate of Sheppard East LRT depends on results of city election” goes the headline of Mike Adler’s article in the York Guardian. Hey Toronto. Enjoy the quiet while it lasts because Scarborough subway, Part 3 is coming soon to a public debate near you.

While other incumbent councillors have been busy seeking re-election for the past few months, it seems the outgoing Deputy Mayor, Norm Kelly, has been hard at it concocting a new way to wreak havoc on the city’s already havoc wreaked transit planning.

“The plot against the LRT line is being quietly led by Norm Kelly,” Adler writes, “Toronto’s deputy mayor, who hasn’t talked to Tory about his plans.”

“We’ve not had a tete-a-tete on this matter,” Kelly said in an interview, suggesting it may not matter if Tory, as mayor, chooses to fight for the LRT line or another planned for Finch Avenue West.

“The last chat I had with John, I tried to get across to him the nature of political life at Toronto council,” where members aren’t bound by caucus discipline, and a mayor’s position on issues “will be tested just like that of any other member,” Kelly said.

Talk about setting the agenda. I thought that was the mayor’s job? Kill the Sheppard LRT or your mandate gets it.

Now, you might chalk this up as little more than the babbling of a city councillor with too much time on his hands and too much time spent in public office doing a whole lot of nothing but it would seem Kelly’s not alone in his thinking. A couple more Scarborough incumbents spoke out in favour of stopping the LRT as well as the new M.P.P. in the area, Soo Wong.

“As your M.P.P. I have listened to the community, and heard that the vast majority of you want a subway, and that is what I will continue to work for,” Wong told a crowd during last spring’s provincial election.

The provincial Transportation Minister, Stephen Del Duca, certainly didn’t rule out the possibility in a conversation this morning with Metro Morning’s host, Matt Galloway. When asked about the government’s plan on proceeding with the LRT along Sheppard Avenue, Del Duca said:

Words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words. Words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words. Words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words. Words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words. Words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words. Words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words. Words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words. Words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words. Words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words. Words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words. Words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words. Words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words…

Pressed further by Galloway on his government’s support of the Sheppard LRT, the minister continued filling the space with words.

Well the bottom line is that we ran on an election platform, of course, throughout May and June, and we passed a budget, and there are a number of public transit projects for Toronto and elsewhere that were contained including the Scarborough subway… the Sheppard LRT is in our plan and it’s the mandate we were given by the people of Ontario, and my focus is on going forward with implementation.

Now, a whole lot of shit jumped out at me from that paragraph.

According to the minister, the Scarborough subway was included in the recent budget. If so, does that mean the Master Agreement with Metrolinx has been altered to make official the change from the planned LRT extension of the Bloor-Danforth line into Scarborough to a subway? I certainly heard no news about that.

And while the minister claims the people of Ontario gave the Liberal government a mandate to proceed with the Sheppard LRT, the M.P.P. in the area certainly doesn’t seem to see it that way. Soo Wong, as you might remember from a few paragraphs ago, is committed to building a subway along Sheppard, mandate from the people of Ontario be damned.

But don’t get yourself too tied up in knots about it. The minister’s ‘focus is on going forward with implementation.’ Implementation of what, the LRT or the subway? He conveniently didn’t say.

So once more, provincial politics and internal Liberal party machinations land smack dab in the middle of City Hall and threaten the progress of transit building in Toronto.

All this, of course, should renew questions being asked a few months back of John Tory’s decision not to include either the Sheppard or the Finch LRTs on his SmartTrack transit maps. “I want the LRTs to proceed,” Tory assured skeptics of his commitment to the LRT plan. “I will move them forward. I have no problem with them proceeding.”

Sounds… definitive, I guess, in a way that also leaves an opening for Tory having no problem if things change in a more subway-like direction. SmartTrack and the Scarborough subway will be his priorities. The Finch and Sheppard LRTs can fend for themselves.

“Things that are on track (e.g.: the Finch and Sheppard LRTs),” Team Tory spokes person, Amanda Galbraith assured us, “don’t need the full force of the mayor behind them to keep them on schedule.”

Is that right, Ms. Galbraith? Norm Kelly seems to think otherwise. ‘A mayor’s position on issues’, as we quoted earlier, “will be tested…”

As stated here countless times before, the mess our transit plans have descended into is not to be blamed solely by the noisy know-nothingness of the Ford boys. There’s been too much internal party politics at play, too many other politicians cravenly pandering for votes and not standing firm with expert advice on the matter, for this to have been nothing more than a two-man shit show. John Tory’s expressed ambivalence has helped feed the beast, and now he faces a real dilemma if he’s elected the next mayor.

He’s vowed to proceed with the Scarborough subway because re-opening up the debate will only cause further delays. Now there’s a new eastern front, demanding we re-open that debate on the Sheppard LRT. Again. How’s a self-proclaimed uniter and get along facilitator going to delicately balance those competing interests?

So if you’re hoping to see a more consensus minded city council in the next term, a kinder gentler dynamic, I’d suggest not holding your breath. Politicians of all stripes and from all levels in Scarborough are already pounding the drumbeat of discord over transit. Recent history has shown us we should expect no quiet resolution.

— sick-and-tiredly submitted by Cityslikr