Back in the autumn, as a Toronto candidate for the NDP — don’t need to tell you what happened there — the first question put to me at the occasion that was my political debut had to do with my seeking to represent a riding in which I was not a resident. The question was hostile. The not-so-implicit charge was that because I did not live in Toronto–St Paul’s, I could not understand the issues and would be a less effective MP.

I was sympathetic. Representation is key. But there is a big difference between having MPs from Toronto and MPs representing Toronto.

At the door, the candidate encounters a second suspicion, or even a reality: The candidate comes round once every four years to plead for votes by addressing local issues. And then the successful candidate disappears. The local is forgotten.

The inherent contradiction of parliamentary democracies is that the MP in Ottawa holds the party’s and not the constituency’s interests paramount.

My answer to the question of living out of riding was to say that no matter where one lived in the GTA, the issues were similar and shared. Most of all these had to do with transit and investment in infrastructure.

Then, typically, I’d talk about Tom Mulcair’s declaration that Toronto was “the most important city in Canada.” And I would point out that the GTA NDPers understood the city and part of the change we’d bring to Ottawa would be Toronto having a capable group of MPs furthering its interests.

That didn’t happen. Instead, Toronto handed itself over in its Anyone But Conservatives entirety to the Liberals. The pit in my stomach had less to do with my own candidate’s loss than it did my realization, as a Torontonian, that we’d see an abrogation of the city’s interests for another four years.

That’s what happens when you go with entirely one colour — blue, green, orange or red, it doesn’t matter. You ask to be taken for granted.

To illustrate the failure of Toronto MPs to represent Toronto, I need only say one word: Bombardier.

Bombardier, the Québec-based and family-controlled aerospace and rail equipment corporation, is, despite a recent order for its C-Series jets, in trouble. The government of Québec has already given $1 billion to help out, and though it is negotiating terms, the Liberal government is being asked to ante up the same and is likely to do so.

This is not some vague $1 billion of “Canadian taxpayers’ money.” It’s Toronto’s money. It’s $1 billion of the $1.25 billion contract for 204 TTC streetcars to be delivered by 2019, of which the company has delivered but 17 of the at least 73 that should already have been running at this time. Toronto’s money is being used to shore up a family making a mockery of corporate governance.

Toronto is once again behaving selflessly for Canada’s greater good. But I’m a Torontonian fed up with lumbering, antiquated streetcar stock we’re now paying millions to refurbish. I also don’t like paying money to contractors who don’t do the work.

Among the gang of Liberal MPs not representing Toronto in this issue are three ministers: Carolyn Bennett is Minister for Indigenous and Northern Affairs; Chrystia Freeland is Minister of International Trade, and Bill Morneau is Minister of Finance. The latter two portfolios could not be more directly tied to the Bombardier fix and able to exert pressure on Torontonians’ behalf.

But they are doing no such thing and, as voters at the door told me would happen, a duty to the local will be postponed till the next electoral go-round.

Now, if you or I were a contractor owed $100,000 by someone subsequently selling the house, or the CRA owed back taxes by Conrad Black, we’d put a lien on the sale for the money due.

Seventeen of 204 streetcars amounts to a bit more than 8 per cent of a job done, so I say take the cue, and — whether the instigator is the TTC, the City of Toronto, or a bunch of savvy class-action minded citizens — let’s be ready to place a lien on the government should it decide to hand $1 billion to Bombardier. This sum is still less than the 92 per cent of the original $1.25 billion contract it effectively owes to Toronto for services unprovided.

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Let’s use a little legal action to get the unrepresented city’s transit, if not the government, back on track.

Noah Richler ran for the NDP in Toronto-St Paul's. His account of one of the last federal election's 1,792 campaigns, “The Candidate,” will be published by Doubleday Canada on October 19.

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