Remember John Tory? He was the man who was going to restore civility to city hall after all the shouting and insults of the Rob Ford years. He was the man who was going to put political calculation aside and judge issues on the facts. He was the man who was going to stop pitting one part of the city against another and speak for the whole of Toronto.
That was the John Tory who ran for mayor of Toronto in 2014. But who, you have to wonder, is the man who appeared in a newspaper opinion piece on Tuesday to take a nasty little swipe at his critics?
Mr. Tory is on the defensive over his plans to build a costly one-stop subway in Scarborough. The price has gone up sharply. A closer look at the engineering now puts it at more than $3-billion. Some critics, on city council and beyond, say he should shelve the subway. They argue a light-rail line would give more bang for the buck.
Mr. Tory shot back in the Toronto Star. "Many of the subway's loudest critics do not live or work in Scarborough, where more than half the population is born outside of Canada," he wrote. "When they say this is too much to spend on a subway, the inference seems to be that it's too much to spend on this part of the city."
Social media lit up with outrage. Was Mr. Tory suggesting that critics of the subway were somehow anti-Scarborough, or even unconcerned about the welfare of immigrants? That is how some took it.
Councillor Josh Matlow told CBC Radio it was absurd and divisive to imply that subway critics were against the project because "it's too much to spend on this part of the city." He says no one is against building more transit in Scarborough. Critics are simply saying that it is wasteful to spend all that money on the subway expansion when it could buy more stops with light rail.
He has a point. The mayor was way offside to suggest that perhaps critics of the project don't want to build the subway because it means spending too much on Scarborough. He strayed even further from his commitment to civil discourse with his remark about Scarborough's immigrant mix.
This is just the sort of charge that Mr. Ford used to hurl at his critics. He often seemed to suggest that those who were against a Scarborough subway were part of some kind of downtown conspiracy to deny transit to the suburbs. It was a transparent attempt to win votes by stirring up suburban grievance. Mr. Tory said he would not stoop to that kind of polarizing talk.
There are arguments on both sides of the subway debate. A subway would give commuters a swift, transfer-free ride. Light rail would provide more stops. Reasonable people should be able to disagree without questioning each other's motives.
Everyone wants to build a better transit network. Everyone knows that transit helps struggling immigrants who can't afford to get around by car. No one wants to deny transit to Scarborough. No one is saying it would be wrong to spend money on transit to Scarborough.
The mayor's office now protests that Mr. Tory was simply pointing out that Scarborough is underserved by transit. It "has a large population of new Canadians" but "remains the only part of Toronto not connected into the subway system." The opinion piece "was not meant to be divisive but to point out an inequity in our transit system that needs to be addressed."
If that is really what he meant, or didn't mean, then he expressed himself carelessly. Mr. Tory has, for the most part, kept his promise to bring a respectful tone to debate at city hall. This strange departure was a reminder of how important it is to keep it that way.
Marcus Gee