Call it Mayor Rob Ford’s “gas plant” scandal.

All the elements are there: a gross waste of taxpayers’ money; political pandering at the expense of the public purse; and a naked attempt to buy votes with a bad, but popular, decision.

Former premier Dalton McGuinty’s politically motivated cancellation of two gas-fired power plants, including a Mississauga complex axed less than two weeks before a provincial election, ultimately cost him his job. In an ideal world, Ford’s equally inexcusable erasing of a fully funded Scarborough light-rail line would do the same.

As with gas plants, the cost of killing that line keeps rising . Negotiations are underway with various companies injured by the cancellation. And Metrolinx now expects “sunk costs” to exceed $100 million, according to an inside source. Toronto taxpayers are on the hook for every dime.

Ford is quick to attack McGuinty for the gas plant scandal. Fair enough. We too have criticized the former premier, in this space, for that fiasco. But Ford is guilty of the same wasteful offence.

He flushed away $100 million of taxpayers’ money to please Scarborough residents expecting delivery on a reckless “subways, subways, subways” promise. That’s $100 million in sunk costs gone to buy — nothing.

The drain on taxpayers doesn’t end there. Far from it. The actual bill for Ford’s three-stop Scarborough subway extension amounts to more than $3 billion . The province is carrying most of that burden, with Ottawa kicking in $660 million, but it still leaves Toronto in need of almost $1 billion.

Property taxes are set to rise next year, in 2015 and again in 2016 to help cover this tab. By the time Ford’s three-stop underground route is paid for, it will have cost the average Toronto household at least $1,200. As if that weren’t bad enough, people’s actual bill will surely run higher because this doesn’t include interest rate hikes in coming years. Cost overruns remain the city’s responsibility. And current calculations are predicated on sunk costs of only (only!) $85 million.

Missing from that estimate are losses resulting from cancellation of a massive light-rail vehicle maintenance and storage facility. Three construction companies were shortlisted for the job — requiring considerable investment on their part in engineering and legal advice — only to have the project canned. They are entitled to compensation. And so is Bombardier, which was given an order to build 182 light-rail vehicles and will now produce significantly fewer. These still unresolved commitments are expected to push sunk costs over $100 million.

There’s a final irony here. There was no need for Toronto property taxpayers to shell out anything at all. We’ve said this before, but it’s worth noting again: the seven-stop, ultra-modern light-rail line Ford succeeded in killing would have cost local ratepayers nothing. Nada. Zero. It was free public transit, with Queen’s Park covering the entire bill.

Why would a mayor, supposedly dedicated to respecting the taxpayer, torpedo a no-tax option in favour of loading a fresh financial burden on Toronto families? The obvious answer is politics. Just as McGuinty’s gas plant closings were meant to curry favour with folks in Oakville and Mississauga, Ford killed light rail to win fans in Scarborough. They wanted a subway so he gave them one — literally at the expense of every other ratepayer in the city.

There are precious few heroes on this file. McGuinty took heat for his politically motivated gas plant cancellation but Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak pledged to do the same thing, and New Democrats didn’t support the plant either.

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Likewise, Ford led the charge in killing Scarborough light rail but was joined by, among others, flip-flopping mayoral rival Councillor Karen Stintz and Ontario’s ruling Liberals eager to snag votes in a Scarborough byelection. There’s enough shame here to cover almost the entire political class.

Ford will, no doubt, continue berating McGuinty for the gas plant scandal. But, as he does, the public would be wise to bear in mind that Ford, too, sold out the people’s interest in a craven bid for votes. Toronto families will be poorer for it for years to come.

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