Rob Ford uses scare tactics in last-ditch effort to sway council on subways
Posted by Emily Burke on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 | OpenFile Toronto
With only today and tomorrow remaining before city council’s big transit meeting, the mayor could be using these final hours to show council his funding strategy for underground transit along Sheppard. Instead, he’s handing out flyers with images of light-rail crashes that have caused fatalities.
Rather than sorting out his own numbers and committing to a concrete plan, he’s trying to sway the centrist councillors by scaring them out of voting for LRT. But the undecided members of council have been asking for one thing all along—they want to see the numbers, and they’re still waiting.
The Globe got reactions from a few key councillors on this:
Even Mr. Ford’s own adviser on the Sheppard file, Gordon Chong, says it is time the mayor considered tolls and new taxes to pay for transit.
“I think it is time that he open his mind to all the possibilities for building what everybody says they want on Sheppard and everybody would love to have,” Chong told reporters. “It always boils down to money,” he later added.
“A pie graph would be nice,” said Councillor Josh Colle (Ward 15, Eglinton-Lawrence) for the same article. ”Just something that would show where the sources of funding would come from.”
Mary-Margaret McMahon (Ward 32, Beaches-East York), another swing vote on council, told The Globe she’s losing patience. “Time’s a ticking,” she said. “It’s a huge frustration for me why we have to decide everything at the 11th hour.”
Photo by HiMY SYeD via Flickr.
