So Toronto has to be run according to the best suburban planning principles of the nineteen fifties, in order to avoid the dread disease of suburban resentment? This just in - most of the suburban councillors elected by suburban voters already play the resentment card all the time. Check out the collected works of Mammo, Karygiannis, Fordbros, Holyday, Shiner, de Baermaeker, DMW and Pasternak for an introduction to the science of warping policy to reject evidence in order to pander to the hurt feelings of all those forgotten real folks in the boroughs. People living in the old City of Toronto have much to resent under this Mayor and Council. We pay far more than our share of the taxes in this city, we are under-represented on Council (which will only partially be fixed by redistricting), and our legitimate, data-supported transit needs are completely ignored in favour of ludicrously expensive infrastructure projects (SSE and Gardiner East) whose only justification is equity for folks in the suburbs. Why will we blow so much of our limited capital budget on two projects completely unsupported by facts or objective planning? Why does Tory refuse a value for money analysis of SSE? Because, to quote the suburban brain trust in charge of this clown car, “Downtown has enough subways.” Try telling that to transit riders in Liberty Village, anyone trying to get on a rush hour southbound train at Eglinton or south, or anyone changing lines at Yonge-Bloor in rush hour. The suburbs gave us Shiner’s revelatory assertion that he doesn’t incorporate facts or expert analysis in his decision making because a computer could do that. If anyone should be resentful in this city, it’s residents of the core.
