NDP’s love-hate relationship with Toronto
Never mind tolls. Can we talk?
That’s the pitch from Andrea Horwath in a lofty letter delivered to John Tory this week. Rejecting the mayor’s plan for tolls on city-owned highways, the NDP leader reached out to explain why he’s wrong and she’s right. And why she has taken a right turn. “I hope to meet with you, so we can better understand each other’s position,” importuned our opportunistic opposition leader.
The mayor didn’t bite. But here’s a suggested reply:
“Thanks Andrea, but shouldn’t you have a word with your fellow New Democrats on city council first?”
Trying to keep score of how politicians are scoring political points at our expense? Here’s a quick recap of the great debate over Toronto’s toonie tolls:
Tory, a former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader, wants drivers to pay $2 per trip on the Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner Expressway to bankroll transit and transportation. But he needs formal provincial permission, normally a formality because everyone pays lip service to municipalities running their own road shows.
Premier Kathleen Wynne’s governing Liberals say they won’t stand in the way.
PC leader Patrick Brown says no way. His party, which paved the way for extortionary tolls by privatizing Highway 407, now insists that dynamic price signals and user fees — normally the domain of right-thinking right-wingers — are a lame lefty idea.
No way, say Horwath’s New Democrats. We, too, are anti-toll, despite extolling tolls when an NDP government paved over the 407.
Never mind price signals or environmental signals, it’s political signals that matter most. Tolls are unpopular with suburban commuters (voters), so count us out.
Despite her right turn, her fellow New Democrats at city hall are going in the opposite direction. Days after she explained herself to Tory — no need for tolls because a future Horwath government will turn over the cash you need from general tax revenues — NDP councillors sensibly backed the mayor’s plan.
What do these city hall New Democrats see in road tolls that their fellow travellers at Queen’s Park are blind to? Might it be fidelity to transit priorities? Fear of congestion? Environmental peril?
Perhaps they sense that, despite Horwath’s twists and turns, public opinion has turned. Polls on tolls traditionally show strong resistance, but recent surveys point to majority support in Toronto.
In a previous column, I described how the NDP-PC anti-toll tag team was “the last straw” for a lifelong New Democrat, former MPP Paul Ferreira, who has left the party in protest. Ferreira, once chief of staff to ex-leader Howard Hampton and (briefly) Horwath, told me in an interview that by opposing tolls — without thinking through the impli- cations — the party was being intellectually dishonest. And geographically duplicitous. In the last election, Horwath lost crucial Toronto seats while pursuing her populist, pocketbook appeals elsewhere.
Many New Democrats still buy into the caricature of Toronto as a bastion of wine-swilling, blood-sucking elitists who don’t feel the pain of hardworking rural folk.
Purveyors of the anti-Toronto narrative remain oblivious to the outsized poverty, homelessness, and marginalization experienced by people in Toronto — be they the jobless, the working poor, or recent immigrants. Feeding into a competition of victimization won’t make the province a better place.
If you want a taste of the simmering battle within the NDP, have a look at Ferreira’s latest Facebook posting after our interview was published. He criticizes the NDP’s abandonment of past party policies — notably a higher minimum wage, a provincial pension plan and public auto insurance — during their last (losing) campaign.
His comments, and the responses, are revealing.
“I applaud you, Paul, for your brave and principled decision. Many of us share your dismay and even horror as the ONDP gradually abandons all its principles for the sake of crass (and illusory) political gain,” wrote Michele Landsberg, a party activist in her day, and wife of ex-leader Stephen Lewis.
“It’s about time someone said what most of us are thinking,” wrote another Facebook friend.
Ferreira’s purpose in going public was to provoke a debate about the party’s future. Mind you, the last time he questioned Horwath directly, during a caucus meeting several years past, he was quietly suspended for a couple of days by the leader’s then chief of staff. And when he spoke out in favour of a debate on tolls, in 2011, the leader publicly admonished him. No one can suspend him anymore for talking out of turn because he’s no longer a member. As for Horwath’s twists and turns, she wants to talk — just not about tolls. Martin Regg Cohn’s political column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. mcohn@thestar.ca Twitter: @reggcohn