They came with Weapons of Mass Destruction…….

Mayor John Tory and a majority of Counselors who sit on his Executive Committee, the ruling Junta at Toronto City Hall, ran for cover May 14 to save themselves the embarrassment of being reminded that they approved an expenditure of three billion, three hundred and thirty-five million dollars without due diligence!

The story in a nutshell: seven members of the public went to City Hall to speak to the Executive Committee as part of the process allowing citizens to offer opinion, advice and criticism.  The issue: the cover up of an expenditure of three and a half billion dollars and counting.  When Mayor J. Tory and other members of the committee complicit in this expenditure realized that they didn’t want anybody talking about it again, the Executive Junta approved a motion deferring the subject indefinitely, abruptly shutting down the right of the public to speak to this matter of importance to the taxpayers of Toronto.  You would have thought the Group of Seven had brought along WMD’s, weapons of mass destruction!  Of course words well chosen and properly directed can be destructive if the target is as vulnerable as this one.

The cover-up:  several years ago Mayor Tory and  a majority of Councillors approved the building of one subway stop at the cost of three billion three hundred and thirty-five million.  Some taxpayers offered disbelief, others suggested Toronto Councillors were sitting on their brains because there is substantial evidence showing the approval was made absent details worthy of  a project this costly.

But it gets worse!  Toronto was offered a Light Rail Alternative to the one-stop Subway station.  The Seven stop LRT was to be fully funded by the province and would have been  commuter ready next year.  Now we all know that if Councillors were spending their own money, the LRT option would be a shoo-in.  But how you spend taxpayers money isn’t that important to many members of Toronto Council.  Taxpayers of Toronto are on the hook for this baby.

But it’s gets worse!  A  study was undertaken comparing the  7-stop LRT plan and the one stop Scarborough subway extension.  The idea was to determine value-for-money.

The report was buried.  The draft analysis concludes the Subway “was not a worthwhile use of money” compared to the Light Rail Transit.  But details never surfaced.  You can only speculate on how ridiculous Mayor Tory and his fellow travellers would look if they did.

Incredibly, although Councillors have never seen a value-for-money report, they approved a motion which cancelled the LRT proposal at a cost to the taxpayers of some Seventy Million dollars.  Add that to the projected cost of the subway  ($3.35 billion) plus the Toronto habit of allowing a 20% overrun on City-funded projects and you can figure a one stop subway station for more than four billion.

But it gets worse.  Because City Council has allowed itself to get involved in flim-flam and subterfuge and hasn’t the jam to admit the “Subway to bankruptcy” should never have been approved, it now shuts down taxpayers who have every right to demand answers.   And the Mayor and his Executive Committee toadies need to show some respect for the democratic process even though they continue to show no regard for taxpayers money!

Of course politcians who have something to hide always fear WMD’s.

                         Words that underscore Miasma and Devious behaviour.