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Money from the province was supposed to salve that wound, but now Wynne sits with Hunter wayyyyy in the back of the legislative chamber. Premier Doug Ford has clearly signalled his willingness to meddle in Toronto politics as violently and capriciously as he sees fit. Under his watch, there is no telling what might happen to the provincial commitments Tory is relying on, let alone those he hoped would come later.

And now, of all times, the self-styled city builder denigrates the idea of raising taxes?

Photo by Ernest Doroszuk/Postmedia

It’s true Keesmaat hasn’t offered many financial specifics. She has pledged to build 100,000 “truly affordable” housing units over the next 10 years by “unlocking city lands” — a move that foregrounds her planning expertise, but that doesn’t have a price tag on it. She has promised to “ensure efficient use of Toronto’s $1.4-billion investment in the context of a realistic GO Regional Express Rail plan, and not a SmartTrack smoke screen” — but since SmartTrack is, indeed, nothing more than a smoke screen, it’s not at all clear what that means.

She has cited “tools” at the city’s disposal to accelerate work on the Downtown Relief Line, but she hasn’t identified or costed them.

Mercifully, she has backed off on the truly bizarre idea of Toronto seceding from Ontario — where exactly do the separatists think Doug Ford is from? — but her campaign theme thus far seems mostly to boil down to “standing up for Toronto.” Indeed, she admitted it was a last-minute decision born of Ford’s sudden cleaving of 22 seats off City Council, which Tory’s detractors think he should have yelled and screamed about.