Lessons from the Past?

Dalton McGuinty made two interesting flip-flops which cost him dearly. He started work on two gas-electric generating plants, and then cancelled them to save four plus one seats. Since then, the flak has been unending, as the cancellation costs become increasingly revealed.

Kathleen Wynne is a savvy politician, as presumably is Mitzie Hunter. Hunter ran in the Scarborough by-election held in Ontario on August 1. Hunter was part of a city council-appointed panel that previously recommended that Toronto build an LRT rather than a subway along the Sheppard Avenue corridor. However, Hunter campaigned on a subway for Scarborough, and Wynne supported her. Now we find that there isn’t going to be enough money for a subway. (There was enough for an LRT, which would be longer, with more stations, serving more people, and about half-full by 2025.)

So, did Wynne and Hunter, and the Ontario Liberals, do a flip-flop to win a by-election? This article seems to say that they did. Is the entire Scarborough transit situation now at a dead stop? This article says it is, and that all the money needed isn’t going to be there. And, that that was clear right from the beginning: if Scarbourough gets a subway, some of that money gets diverted to the Eglinton LRT.

The dumb question is this: have we just had demonstrated that, even with a new leader, the Ontario Liberals have not learned this lesson from the past? Will the damage continue, as costs come out and delays to transit improvements go on and on?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *