Another day of transit plan bickering between the mayoral candidates in Toronto. Olivia Chow, Rob Ford and John Tory all took shots at each other’s plans. It’s a given that the jousting will continue at the mayoral debate tonight.
The Tory campaign was out front first this morning releasing a Smart Track TV ad. With ominous music over shots of a gridlocked Toronto, Tory announces the solution to Toronto’s transit woes – Smart Track. The ad closes on a map of the Tory plan.
Three hours later Olivia Chow picked up on the fact that about 12 kilometers of the Tory plan needs to be built. She stood in the right of way in the west end with housing construction all around her and demanded Tory “answer the question on how he will do it?” And she charged Tory “has not done his homework.” Chow insists that her plan builds on the plans, advice and expertise of the TTC, Metrolinx and other experts.
Two hours later Rob Ford took questions from the media and repeated that voters “don’t want trains going down the middle of the road.” Ford said, “Mr. Tory is definitely going to rip up Eglinton…I want him to be truthful.” But he didn’t let Chow off the hook either. He demanded “straight answers” from both Tory and Chow on how their plans will be paid for.
John Tory was here at CP24 this afternoon to respond to his critics. He told Stephen LeDrew, “There may have to be tunnelling” to complete the plan. Tory made sure to link Chow to the NDP -- the party she has discreetly tried to distance herself from – saying Chow and the NDP only talk about the “reasons why things can’t get done …we are going to get this (Smart Track) done.” Tory challenged Chow to explain how she would pay for her plans. He suggests time and again that the Chow funding will be achieved through higher taxes.
Cost is clearly the big elephant in the room on the transit issue. None of the campaigns have fully explained how their proposals will be paid for. Each has put forward vague funding ideas but the true costs are really ball park estimates and the funding ideas are merely notions.
In other campaign news, the already overcrowded candidate list in Ward 20 grew again today. Sarah Thomson dropped her bid to be mayor and instead will run for councillor in Ward 20. That makes 27 candidates running in the riding left open when Adam Vaughan won the federal by-election. It’s by the far the most candidates running in any Toronto Ward. Perhaps Joe Cressy, one of the leading candidates in the Ward, knew of Thomson’s intentions. His campaign released a list of prominent leaders in Toronto supporting his run for the Council seat.
