Em & Ems

Miller and McGinty! What a pair. One screws us around with his "Listen Toronto" con job while the other earned his party the name FIBERALS. A pox on both their houses and I hope that John Tory will add a little more meat to his campaign platform. You have to wonder if McGinty giving Miller more powers was due to them being kindred spirits.

Slow down the green machine
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN

Wait a minute. What did we miss?

How did Toronto Mayor David Miller get from "no road tolls" until we have a decent public transit system like New York or London, to "maybe road tolls" if we use them to build public transit?

This isn't the first time Miller has sent out mixed messages on tolls. He mentioned the possibility of them in the 2003 mayoral race, before quickly backing off.

Now, a city report released Thursday afternoon on lowering greenhouse gas emissions suggests Toronto investigate road tolls in co-operation with municipalities across the Greater Toronto Area.

Want to comment? Great!

Apparently, you get to do that at 4 p.m. tomorrow at the city's environment committee, before this recommendation and others like banning lawn mowers and leaf blowers goes before city executive on June 25 and council July 16.

Sure. We're with Coun. Michael Walker, who, although he supports banning leafblowers, rightly points out you don't spring stuff like this on the public late Thursday and expect them to comment Monday afternoon, when most people are working, before sending it off to a mid-summer council meeting.

That's not consulting. Heck, it's barely pretending to consult.

Plus, things are unfolding a little too quickly and conveniently here.

Consider: On Thursday, a city report recommends investigating road tolls for Toronto-area highways and using the money to build public transit.

The next day, Premier Dalton "I won't raise your taxes" McGuinty, makes an election promise to invest $17.5 billion over 12 years in public transit across the GTA.

How convenient. And when has McGuinty ever lied to us before -- other than throughout the 2003 election campaign? How can we trust him now, especially since his 12-year time frame means, even if he wins a Liberal majority government in October, the next two governments after that, whoever wins them and assuming they're both majorities, would have to finish what he started?

SURE, PREMIER.

Hey, why stop at $17.5 billion for transit over 12 years? Why not $35 billion over 24 years or $70 billion over 48?

In the real world, the only funding promise McGuinty can make that means anything -- if he intends to keep it -- is for four years, and only if he wins a majority. McGuinty also says he's against road tolls. Believe him?

So let's all slow down, and give these issues the attention they deserve.

And let's have city politicians stop using public concern over reducing greenhouse gases as a cover for hiking taxes (garbage pickup) and making people pay twice for things they've already bought through their taxes (like highways), by imposing road tolls.