Politicians be praised. Politicians be damned.

Years removed from their decisions for harm or for good, we are left staring at ourselves in the mirror with the caption: “It’s your fault. For better or worse.”

Such is the case with road tolls — or more to the point, the death of road tolls in Toronto for at least 25 years.

Premier Kathleen Wynne blocked the tolls last week with a classic double-cross of Toronto Mayor John Tory — an about-face so stunning and stinging that it will resonate for decades.

After assuring Tory she had his back on the proposition to charge motorists about $2 a ride to use the Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner Expressway, Wynne changed her mind in the face of storm clouds threatening to overwhelm her government.

Hers was a dishonest and duplicitous decision — and colleague Martin Regg Cohn disemboweled the premier with as skilful a gutting as can be splashed on the front page of last Saturday’s Star.

These are roadways under Toronto’s jurisdiction. Your property taxes are used to build, repair and maintain them — at huge costs. The province, really, should be the one financing the operation of these highways, but uses its power over municipalities to demand Toronto pay for them. Ditto for social housing and the near-billion dollars in repair backlog.

It’s a centuries-old, discredited, abominable relationship that’s more suited for Tiny and Tay Township, not global city Toronto. It’s a disrespectful and patronizing affiliation we thought was coming to an end when the province approved the City of Toronto Act in 2006 — legislation that gave Toronto the right to impose tolls on roads within its jurisdiction.

Alas, even with that Act, the province always retains the right to stop any municipal manoeuvre — and Wynne just did.

Wynne and her government did the calculation, studied the political tea leaves, listened to the grousing of citizens, heeded the self-preserving propaganda of her party faithful and ministers and concluded that the tolls would cost her party votes in the 2018 provincial election. Falling in the opinion polls and increasingly unpopular, the party figured it didn’t need another issue that annoyed voters.

In other words, Wynne listened to the vocal, selfish, short-sighted, ridiculously misguided residents who continue to stultify progress. I blame her. I don’t fault her. I blame us. I am at a loss.

And so are the men and women we pay to provide wise counsel to our governments. So are the civic workers who toil day and night to find ways to advance our economy, build infrastructure, provide needed services and create a metropolis that is the envy of the world.

The Toronto and region board of trade disagrees with this decision.

The city’s chief planner is disheartened.

Toronto’s city manager, diplomat that he must be, having just arrived at city hall after heading the provincial bureaucracy for years, says the decision will “further entrench” Toronto’s dependence on the province for handouts.

And the city managers before him — Joe Pennachetti, Shirley Hoy, Mike Garrett, Dale Richmond — all hang their heads in despair. From Richmond’s seminal report, Crumbling Financial Partnership, to Wallace’s report on revenue tools the city could use to take care of its own affairs without a handout from Queen’s Park, the push has been for self-sufficiency and a disentangling of costs and services that allows Toronto to survive and thrive.

Wynne, who comes from a progressive background that embraces all this, just got snowed under by the politics that listens to people’s fears above the public aspiration.

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We, as a people, want something for nothing. We know that is not possible but will cling to the unrealistic proposition for as long as we can.

We demand the mayor keep property taxes low and city services at a high standard. We want buses and subways, force fare hikes on the captive users of transit, and squawk at a $2 toll on our roadways.

We comfort ourselves with inflationary tax hikes of no more than 2 per cent. But that means the city is forced to recover the missing revenues from user fees. That’s OK, we think, deluding ourselves into thinking it is the neighbour, not me, who will have to pay those fees. The result is huge hikes in waste management fees, water rates, recreation fees and the like.

We pay one way or the other; today or tomorrow. We prefer the other and tomorrow.

So, instead of a careful, planned, deliberate roll out of infrastructure needed to build our city, we reward politicians who spin what amounts to the Big Lie that we will get something for nothing.

As one senior bureaucrat — a veteran — says:

“It makes me feel that much of the change that we thought were occurring, didn’t. It’s no different than 10 or 20 years ago. My fear is we are going backwards, not forwards. You think about your career and wonder, why did I work my arse off for 40 years to step back 20 years. Did I accomplish anything?”

So, hear this.

The trains and subways and transit this city desperately needs today — even the most tax-averse resident acknowledges this — will arrive decades later than they should. They will be fewer than we need, later than we need, in fewer places than we need, at higher cost than is possible now.

We get nothing for nothing, only it costs us more.

Royson James’ column appears weekly. rjames@thestar.ca

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